We were at the recent launch of Toontrack’s new sampling plug-in and stand-alone application Beatstation, which was held at renowned London venue, 93 Feet East. The event included a Beatstation demonstration and Q&A session with some of Toontrack’s developers, and was the first time that the plug-in had received a public outing.
Aimed primarily at urban and electronic music producers, Beatstation is basically a sampler, drum machine, bass synth and lead synth rolled into one, and though it emphasises ease of use, it doesn’t compromise on features, and so should prove popular with both novices and in-depth tweakers alike. One of its biggest strengths is file-format compatibility: MP3, WAV and REX files can all be dragged and dropped to relevant areas of the interface (including the customisable percussion pad section), and then triggered using imported MIDI files, or MIDI data from your sequencer.
Unusually for a software sampler (Propellerhead’s Reason is the only other recent example we can think of), Beatstation actually allows you to record your own samples from within the programme, should you want to venture from the included set of sounds. Speaking of which, Toontrack have bundled over 1.5GB of files (or ‘Core Content’) with Beatstation to help you get started straight away, and these include audio sample (basses, pads, lead lines, loops, percussion samples, and so on), MIDI files and REX loops, which you can either use ‘as is’, or chop up and rearrange. What’s more, Toontrack have made Beatstation compatible with all of the SDX and EZX expansion packs for their own EZ Drummer and Superior Drummer instruments, so you can incorporate the sounds from such libraries as Metal Foundry and Funkmasters into your Beatstation creations.
Beatstation’s main strength is that it can be as complicated or as simple as the user wishes, so you can either drag and drop the included loops, samples and MIDI files from the file browser to create a track in minutes, or you can get your hands dirty with some in-depth sound editing and design. For people who prefer the latter approach, each of the pads in the sampler section has its own ADSR envelope, pitching, layering and trimming controls, while performance articulations and variations, such as flam and swing, can be applied to individual sounds. The fact that it can be used in stand-alone mode, or as a VST, AU or RTAS plug-in, also means that those unfamiliar with DAWs can get creative quickly, while people who use the more advanced features of their sequencer of choice can combine these with the ‘one-stop shop’ sampling and sound-mangling features of Beatstation.
As you’d expect, Beatstation has a host of effects built in, and these have been supplied by Italian processing experts Overloud (the company behind the well-known Breverb and TH1 plug-ins). The effects can be used on pretty much anything, from individual drum sounds to entire kits, plus basses, synth lines and samples. And just to make sure you don’t grow out of it, Toontrack say that they’ll be releasing a series of Beatstation expansion packs (BTXs), which cover a variety of styles and musical bases in much the same way as the expansions for their drum instruments do.
Several videos detailing the different features of Beatstation can be found at www.beatstation.com, where you can also buy the application either as a box set or as a download, for just £79 including VAT.
