FAC Drumkit

FAC DrumKits is very much an app for fiddlers. No, not those who pluck strings, but rather rhythm makers who want to endlessly alter the parameters of sound samples. Tweaking to the last degree. In that task the app succeeds fabulously. So why 4 stars? Because FAC Drumkit does nothing without a third party app such as Polybeat to send it instructions/ drum sequences. Also, the presets included could be a lot better and more varied. PatschStorage currently offers a few more, most of which are experimental noises. The best of which is DJ Puzzles Gretsch Kit. Others are available elsewhere, but really at this point for an app that is not cheap by IOS standards, a few dozen kits should come baked in, offering an array of different setups without needing to hunt around.

This has become a go-to drum app for me. Although it doesn’t have a sequencer built in, it plays well with all the ones I have (Octachron, Rozeta XOX, Polybeat etc) with little or no setup. I was also pleased to see all 16 pads on the Arturia Beatstep Pro mapping by default. Not being particularly competent when it comes to mapping midi from one app to another, I was happy to see this working ‘straight out of the box’. And that’s worth mentioning. 16 channels! Pretty sure I’ll never be lacking in options here. There are a good amount of built in presets, with a variety of styles, and all with excellent quality sounds. But the option to create your own is where FACdrumkit comes into its own. Each sound is created from 2 oscillators, and a sample player. Of course you don’t need to use all 3, any combination that takes your fancy (and this is where you can get lost for hours, if that’s your thing). You can also import your own samples, to a certain length, to makes some crazy sounds. Both oscillators, and the sample player have hugely tweakable envelopes for both pitch, and amplitude. And these work beautifully. There is a mixer for balance (inc mute/solo & pan), which is where you can also output each channel separately, in apps that support multi-bus out. AUM/Cubasis etc. There have been at least 2 major free updates since release, both with significant additions, improving on an already excellent app. Cannot recommend enough.

The following review was written before the update to the 4 sec. sample limit. It’s even better now but I can’t give it any more stars, - shame I held back, only for a short while, thinking that a 1 second limit on sample length was too reminiscent of my early days of sampling. But having given it some thought, decided to give it a go. Absolutely the right decision. This is a “drum sample player” and as such is suited to the task. Lacking for me only one minor function, the ability to edit the MIDI note allocations, which the developer has said will be available in a future update. A more comprehensive manual would make things a little clearer but that doesn’t really detract from the function and usability of DrumKit and it has to be said that Fred is both approachable and responsive to requests. Gotta be worth the 5*s.

Detailed, feature rich and great fun - highly recommended!

Great app. Exactly what I needed. Can make drum kits quite easy. Always thought ios drums were lacking ( even compared to a volca drum ) Kind of like the volca for shaping but obviously better sound.

No words. Incredible.

iOS is in a really good place these days. It’s standout apps like this - plus the devs other apps - that enable me to use the iPad for professional work and lay down fully formed ideas.

Blown away already, after just a little play. No fluff, just superb functionality in a beautifully formed interface. Mind you, a full-sized interface would be even better. Still easily 5 stars, though, which is par for the course with all this developer's music software.

The fact that you can create your own drums and use it with a electronic drum kit to play around is amazing. Great app yall

As with every FAC app, the attention to detail is impressive and perfectly executed. The interface is brilliant. File browsing entire folders makes auditioning samples so much easier than having to use the Apple file browser. The tools for manipulating and creating drums are laid out in such a useful way. Fred really has his UI design down in all his apps.