Native Instruments Battery Sampling Software (Macintosh and Windows)
Over 12 GB's worth of (23,000) professional drum samples.
Overall User Ratings (based on 50 ratings)
Submitted January 29, 2011 by a customer from yahoo.com
"There's a reason why this is in every pro studio..."
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zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
Sound
This is a fully customizable VST and standalone. There are some samples that are just so so, but this is the best you are going to find for drums (outside of playing real drums, but even then, you won't have THIS MUCH sound).
Features
Although there are many great features, the greatest one is the way that ALL of them are complimented by being able to add your own samples. This is EXACTLY what you would expect from NI if they were to go out and create a drum sampler... I've downloaded about 50 different VSTi for drums in the past few years, but none have been THIS useful. Great presets, adjust the sounds you don't like, if you can't fix the pre-loaded samples to your liking, replace them with your own, and it can work on 127 keys? THAT'S A BIG EF'in DRUMSET!!!
Ease of Use
It's kind of split here. On one end, you can learn enough to put this to use on a track in about an hour (including the actual writing of the piece). So it can be useful almost immediately. But when dealing with a software that is this powerful, it's bound to have complexities, as this is what makes it powerful. And understanding and mastering these complexities takes time, but is well worth it. But out of the box, this thing is useful, and just gets better and better the longer you own it, as you learn more and make it more powerful thru knowledge... Knowledge IS power...
Quality
Of the 50 something I have used, and literally hundreds that I've demo'd over the years, this is BY FAR the best... Seriously, don't waste your money elsewhere. If you stick with making music and keep upgrading, eventually you will end up with Battery... So you might as well pay the 200 now, rather than 80 for some crap program, then 100 for a decent one, 140 later on for another, and THEN the 200 for battery. This is professional grade. Native Instruments, as a company, pride themselves on being the best at what they do, and this is no exception. This is honestly a steal for $200. I would have easily paid $400 for this, it's a no brainer.
Value
like i said, easily worth 400, while at 500 it would still be a great purchase. I think I'd have to stop believing it's worth the price at around 650... so like I said, it's a STEAL at 200.
Manufacturer Support
Haven't dealt with them on Battery. But I did have an issue with FM8 a couple months ago, as my serial was not working. The problem was solved in about 2 hours, via email.
Also had an issue with the XPress Keys that they included with acid pro 5 years and years ago. After fighting with sony for 3 weeks about it, I finally contacted NI, and the issue was resolved in a day. It's actually this very customer support experience that prompted my to first purchase Reaktor, then Absynth. After falling in love with the integrity this company has and the passion they have for making high quality instruments, I went on to add FM8, Kore 2, and Battery. There is no going wrong with NI, they are the real deal...
Musical Background:
active musician, mixing engineer
Musical Style:
all genres. my clients who need mixes produced span literally every type of music
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Submitted July 10, 2009 by a customer from yahoo.com
"Amazing Flexibility and Features"
Verified Customer
zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
There is always room for improvement in the samples and some of of the 'ease of use' areas. However, this program is very flexible, very usable, and an especially good tool to own if you are an experienced drummer or a discriminating producer.
Sound
The sound is a bit mechanical at first. HOWEVER, you can greatly improve the "real" feel of the kits with the Humanizing feature and by adjusting the velocity of the notes in the pattern on your midi track. A big minus for me was the "squeaky clean", perfectly produced, samples. I like my drums to be a little gritty. However, I'm going to solve this by buying other samples and recording my own. That's the MAJOR ADVANTAGE of this program over Addictive Drums, you can add in your own samples.
Features
A wonderfully diverse array of processing effects and settings. If you are a drummer or like to customize your own sounds (i.e., it doesn't need to be perfect out of the box), this is the sampler for you. It is extremely FLEXIBLE. However, if you are inexperienced, need prearranged patterns, or want perfection out of the box, I would go for Addictive Drums or even EZdrummer.
Ease of Use
It is very easy for me to use, but I have been using Battery for several years. If you are a novice, it takes some time to really learn how you can take advantage of the features it offers. If you are determined, it's not impossible to learn and you will be glad that you put the effort in.
Quality
Excellent quality. The interface is very organized and efficient. The only glitch so far is that some of the different mallets on the Multi-stick Kit aren't working. I'm working on resolving this, but it's not a major issue.
Value
This thing is an amazing bit of software for around 100 bucks!!!
Manufacturer Support
Haven't had to deal with them yet. But, setup was easy. You just have to follow the directions and install the software in the prescribed order.
The Wow Factor
I have it and I would buy it again and again (at the current price).
Musical Background:
Active Musician,
Musical Style:
Country, Folk, Rock
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Submitted January 25, 2008 by a customer from hotmail.com
"One of the best of my purchases for my studio."
This review has been selected by our experts as particularly helpful.
I have to say that there are some things that I purchase that after purchasing it I realize that it isn't as great as I thought(MPC2000), but this program is right up there with my worth while purchases that include my Ensoniq EPS and ASR-10, Mac Mini 1.42 G4, Palm TX, Digidesign 002r, M-audio Trigger Finger(Came with Battery 3), ua 6176,,, WELL YOU GET THE POINT. This is what you need if your system is computer based. If you want a box that has your sampler, playback ,pads, and samples stored in one place that you can pick up run with then get an MPC or something like that.
Sound
This product sounds great! I use my MPC2000 or the Digi002r to sample and I use battery 3 to playback the samples.
Features
What can you not do with this other than use it as a stand alone sampler.
Ease of Use
I played with drums the came with this thing within minutes after the product activation which is a no brainer . It may be difficult for those who don't read well.
Quality
No crashes in Windows or on my Mac mini 1.42 GHZ with 1GB of ram.
Value
I have an MPC2000 and I hate it. I had a better setup with an Ensoniq EPS and a Roland R-8 in 1989 that i liked far more. Everyone says the MPC is so great and I bought into it and I bought one. That was a wrong move because they aren't the best. It depends on the user . Now that I have used Battery 3 , I prefer it along with either Pro Tools,Logic, or my Roland R-8 as the Sequencer.
Manufacturer Support
Never used the support so I don't really know so i will give them a 9 because I don't need to call them yet. I am about to format my hard drive and reinstall, hopefully the activation for the Windows XP pc will be active , if not , I might have to call.
The Wow Factor
As far as a drum sample playback system , I can't find another that is better because of the level of manipulation you can perform on a sample.
Musical Background:
Recording Engineer
Musical Style:
R&B,Hip-Hop(before the downgrade to crunk), Alternative
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Submitted November 22, 2008 by a customer from earthlink.net
"Very cumbersome to activate the product. Not worth the hassle."
This product requires online activation. However, the process is very annoying. It will give you an error during the process and you will be forced to contact customer support. Customer support is also a little strange. They will send you a strange response saying that you have to prove to them where you bought the product. For $200, this product is only average and not worth all the hassles. Native Instruments has this huge phobia on software piracy. It's easier to activate a Windows operating system than this software. Imagine you pay several hundreds of dollars on something only to be disappointed with a locked and useless piece of software. I was able to activate the software but it took several days dealing with customer support. I probably will not support Native Instruments products in the future.
Sound
Average
Features
Average
Ease of Use
Average
Quality
Average
Value
Not worth the $200 and all the hassles attached.
Manufacturer Support
Very weird customer support. 2 Words: Piracy phobia.
The Wow Factor
Average
Musical Background:
hobbyist
Musical Style:
techno, dance
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Submitted November 27, 2007 by a customer from fredrickville.com
"This product is a great example of DRM and ANTI-PIRACY gone wrong."
Verified Customer
zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
I just plainly can't get this product to work. It needs a NI registration to use it, and after trying a thousand ways on this stupid "SERVICE CENTER" (which should be named "DISSERVICE CENTER") I finally find a way to register manually on their website-- to get a 500 error (INTERNAL SERVER ERROR). Great, that'd explain why my software isn't working... it's too bad that I cannot have something reliant on a sketchy low-quality company in my studio. When I have deadlines, I have deadlines. I must eliminate this software from the batch. Oh, and to make matters worse, without a return policy on software, I think I might just have to sue somebody to get somewhere here.
Sound
I gave it a 8 because the online demos sound pretty good. HAven't heard the actual product yet, however...
Features
It features a "Service Center" which is the hub for the Anti-Piracy scheme. Catch is, however, that the entire system relies heavily on NI's servers, and there is no grace period. This product WILL NOT WORK without activation, and sadly, an activation is something that I have been unable to achieve.
Ease of Use
Not speaking for the interface of the actual product- the ACTIVATION SOFTWARE is slow, invasive and clunky. Not to mention it doesn't even work.
Quality
Looks like they spent like 3 minutes on this product. As far as I'm concerned, there is no product.
Value
There'd be value if I could at least use the samples, but they're in a proprietary format, so that means that even in my own sequencer, I can't use the gigs of drums I purchased. Yuppie!
Manufacturer Support
I have not heard back from this company yet, and it's been over 24 hours. I'm not sure about anybody else here, but waiting over 24 hours to get a product you purchased working? That's unheard of. Support gets a zero. (or a one, since that's the lowest it goes).
The Wow Factor
The only thing I want is my money back. It pains me to say that this ANTI-PIRACY effort has done nothing but hurt honest customers, and I'm sure the WAREZ community had no trouble cracking it.. so.. hmpf
Musical Background:
Hobbyist Recording Engineer, and band director
Musical Style:
Alternative, Indie
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Submitted June 16, 2008
"It could be better but for $200...get it if you use a drum sequencer"
I'm gonna install the update and see what happens but so far I'm just upset it's not working 100%
Sound
Well in my opinion the idea behind this plugin is nice but the design is terrible. First it constantly crashes protools on my G5 using the version that comes on the install disk with no updates. The 12gb sample library is just ok but it stinks because it's in some silly NI format so you can't use them anywhere else. However, I already had a 250gb sound library and bought battery3 to manage those files and use them more easily with my mpc2000xl. Also, when I assign the drum pads on either my mpc or my axiom I doesn't appear that you can save the assignments. It also seems that the only midi learn capabilities are in the cells so you can only activate cells via midi. Like I said before it doesn't seem to save the assignments either.
Features
It's got some pretty cool effects but I haven't been able to enjoy it because it would do what I what it to do. And native instruments customer service is terrible...You have to email your problem and they take like a week to answer. Plus the answer was kinda useless telling me to save settings,automation, and the kit (as if I hadn't tried to save everything the program will allow).
Value
Ehhh...for $200 you'd think ok well at least i get 12gb of sound but if you don't like the software the sounds are useless
Manufacturer Support
Located in Germany and they only take emails and they take forever to respond
The Wow Factor
It seemed cool because I thought it would integrate well into my setup but I'm having some problems with it. If these issues get solved it would be like twice as good
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