What is the best sounding standalone device for finger drumming with acoustic drum sounds?
Checked AKAI but didn’t found much. Maschine+ seems the better option? Anything else I should consider? (I like the pad size on Maschine)
The video’s I saw didn’t have any convincing sounding acoustic drum kits but maybe I missed one?
Look up David “Fingers” Haynes…
He has done remarkable and realistic finger drumming on everything from an old Alesis HR-16 to Maschine, MPC, and just about every MIDI pad controller you can think of.
It comes down to skill, first and foremost, followed by a decent sample set.
Good pads, it would seem, are a distant third.
Cheers!
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How dare you and your technique-not-gear-based solutions! 
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I know, right?
Frickin’ musicians…
Cheers!
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If it needs to be standalone and budget is not a problem, then a Maschine+ can’t go wrong.
for me – Roland HPD.
current model is HPD-20 that supports loading user samples.
but i prefer venerable HPD-15 which technicaly is a ROMpler – but has great sounds (so i just don’t want to load something else there) and more controls (D-Beam & two ribbons) that’s very nice to have when playing live.
HPDs can handle either hand and finger drumming, there’s a setting about that.
You may know this already, but The Quest for Groove is a good resource to learn about finger drumming for acoustic / pop-rock drums. The guy also reviews and compares gear.
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He’s good no doubt about that but none of what i heard sound convincing as real drums to me.
It sounds too static compared to him behind real drums. So I do wonder if that’s just the best MPC can do or the issue being the sampled drumkits he using?
Looking into Maschine+ again I think I read none of the great drums plugins on the computer are compatible, can’t install abbey road etc. Bummer.
I’ve seen a couple videos of his, he does everything with the computer and drumpad controllers. I don’t think he ever bought a standalone unit.
Ok, I wasn’t aware that the +1000EUR Maschine+ couldn’t play multisampled acoustic drum kits. Looking quickly at the product page, you might be right. Maybe others can confirm. Sorry for my misleading advice. I had a Maschine MK3 and I had assumed that the Maschine+ could take everything on board.
Then, you may want to consider an MPC (One, Live) with Multisampled Acoustic Drum Kit Expansion Built For All Modern MPCs & The Akai Force. I have used these expansions with an MPC One and sounded good to me.
Thanks. I checked that one out as well but it only offers 4 layered samples per drum sound unfortunately which isn’t enough for a real convincing acoustic drumkit imo.
To my ears, the aforementioned performance sounds at the very least convincing enough in a mix. Imo he sounds even better than many mediocre drummers.
However, if real drums are your sonic benchmark, then maybe you should consider the fact that mediocre finger drumming of acoustic drum samples on an electronic device, multi-sampled or not, will never sound as convincing as a real drummer. Consequently, the cost of opportunity will be to learn playing real acoustic drums.
Another aspect that you will need to consider for a “convincing” acoustic drum experience, actually drummed or just finger drummed, is multitracking and production processing. This won’t be just plug and play.
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This.
Cheers!
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The best you can get is Superior Drummer 3 on a computer. No standalone solution is that deep and sophisticated, soundwise. MPC Live with this expansion is excellent however:
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" with over 45 different articulations recorded with up to 12 velocity layers for the most realistic sounding acoustic kit ever built for the MPC."
I thought MPC only did a max of 8?
AFAIK you can let one pad trigger up to 4 different pads simultaneously and each pad with its own velocity layers. That’s what I did with a drum kit, I sampled different velocities for each hit from a drum kit and layered it across pads and then randomized it. I was satisfied with the result but haven’t used it in a long time so I can just report from memory and can’t guarantee 100% accuracy.
I did this simply because I found the session kit posted above too expensive and wanted something as close as possible.
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@Elek4 seeing your requirements got me curious: what do you want to achieve?
Play and sequence acoustic drums that sounds like someone is playing on a real drumkit.
And this capable on a standalone device by using my fingers on pads. (and maybe pedals)
This means it gotta have pretty massive libraries with lots of velocity layers.
On the computer this seems all doable but I haven’t found a standalone device capable of that.