Battery

CNET Editors' review

by: CNET Staff on February 27, 2009

Combining the ease of use of a traditional drum machine with the sound- sculpting prowess of a sampler, Native Instruments Battery 2.0 is one of the best software-percussion tools available. Built around a clean interface that has become the de facto standard for all products in Native Instruments' pro-audio line, Battery is approachable and simple to learn. Once you load sound into the matrix-style interface, the fun begins. Each sample cell has an enormous amount of sound-tweaking flexibility, boasting tools such as compressors, multimode filters, LFO, customizable envelopes, and resampling effects. Also included is a mapping editor for layering up to 128 sounds together. Other controls include tune, saturation, bit control, and hertz. We liked the free-form envelope controls, which make it a snap to custom-tailor sounds to your specs. Our only complaint with Battery is that it really can't do much without a sequencer or some other MIDI device to drive it. Thankfully, Battery interfaces with RTAS, VST, Audio Units, Core Audio, Core MIDI, Dxi, ASIO, and Direct Sound, giving you plenty of options for hooking up to other programs. With its multitude of features, we can easily recommend Battery to both newbie beatheads and old-school pros alike.

Publisher's Description

From Native Instruments:

Battery is a full-featured drum instrument that can be used both standalone and as a plug-in in any popular music sequencer. It comes with a comprehensive arsenal of over 100 electronic and acoustic drum and percussion kits, 6 of which are included in the demo version. Sample formats such as Apple Loops, REX, Akai, EXS, and many more can also be loaded, allowing you to use just about every drum sample available, as well as any samples and audio files that you create yourself. Battery 3 also offers a wide range of creative sounds, shaping features and effects, including filters, EQ, distortion, compressor. Typical articulations such as flam, humanize, and roll add a natural feel to your rhythms. The time stretching feature allows samples to be sculpted and loops to be adjusted to the tempo of any song. Combined with an electronic drum pad or external MIDI controller, Battery can also turn any computer into an extremely versatile digital drum kit that can be played lived as a solo performance or in a band context.

What's new in this version: Version 3.0.6 adds Pro Tools compatibility under Mac OS X 10.5 and step-by-step undo in the sample editor