Hydrogen

I am a drummer for a band that tours quite a bit, and I am so glad I checked out Hydrogen. One day while we were traveling to our next venue, I decided to download this program, and I'm amazed at how versatile it is. It's got nearly everything that a drummer would want in his arsenal. There's everything from a simple kick or snare to a cowbell! It's really cool to be able to mess with realistic drum tracks all from my laptop. I don't have to run into the studio or my garage to test out a beat that I've been having in my head. It's made writing our records so much easier than it's ever been. Another feature I love is being able to import and export tracks into Hydrogen. I can literally get a taste of how everything would sound with the drumbeat I've created in it over our tracks. My band really loves the application. They've been able to give great input since I can actually be right next to them when creating a drumbeat for our songs. 

The user interface is really easy to navigate and use; it looks like anything you'd find in a GarageBand style application. Hydrogen lets you make it as simple or complex as you need. You can tool around with small little settings, or you can just run it stock. Either way, it will sound great. On a recent tour we had, I had blown the inside of my drum on our last song. The entire tour we actually decided to use Hydrogen to fill the drum tracks on stage. It worked out quite well. I just used my laptop and ran it through our speakers. That tour, I only used tambourine and shakers as physical, real instruments. We were all surprised at how well the entire thing worked out. It saved us thousands of dollars for that tour at having to buy a whole new drum kit. Hydrogen helped us out in a tight pinch.

If you are a drummer or someone who needs intelligent drum tracks, I'd highly suggest you check out this program. I see our band using this for most of our demos and writing. It's really changed the way we approach the drums in nearly all of our sound. 

Helps create drum tracks for music

• Pattern-Based Sequencer 
• Timeline with Tempo tool
• Import/export feature 
• Advanced tempo tab
• Multi-layer editor