Creative Sauce recently did an in-depth review of IK's MODO DRUM. Creative Sauce is a popular YouTube channel, produced in Australia and hosted by Mike Enjo, who specializes in helping home studio artists get professional results.

MODO DRUM uses an advanced form of physical modeling to create drum sounds that not only sound realistic, but give the user full control over a wide range of settings. Mike lifts the hood and explains the mechanics of MODO's powerful sound engine, and shows us how to make the most of the available tools.

Talking first about how MODO drum is a new design that occupies much less space on your computer, Mike begins by saying: "I'm super impressed. It uses technology that other drum plug-ins don't use and that gives it some special capabilities.

Other drum plug-ins use up to hundreds of gigabytes of resources, which you need to download and then keep on your system. In contrast, MODO DRUM's download size is 6.4GB. As I switch from one kit to another, it loads very quickly indeed."

MODO DRUM explained

Discussing the included drums sounds and how MODO lets you customize nearly every aspect, Mike continues: "So these are really just starting points, these 10 different kits. It's really when you get into customizing them that you start to feel some of the flexibility of this plug-in.

MODO DRUM doesn't use samples for the drums, instead, we have modeled drums. So as you hit each drum the sound is being created in the software itself. And it can take into account all kinds of variations about the drum."

Comparing to other drum plug-ins, Mike emphasizes that "MODO DRUM really is able to do things that other drum libraries on the market cannot do at this moment. Not only are you able to change the sound of the drum itself, but also the way it interacts with other drums in the kit. We can also change the sound of those drums further by adjusting the play style.

Just an incredible amount of things you can do with each drum there. And I have to stress again, if this was a sample library, we're into many and many different samples for each drum here to give these kinds of options."

Moving to the ambient rooms available in MODO DRUM and its mixer section, Mike continues: "We can further affect the sound of our overall kit by choosing which room we place it in.

We also have a really nice mixer with MODO DRUM with all of the features you'd expect with a regular mixer, as well as all of the different channels for the drums. You can also add busses on the fly. You can also output each drum to a separate channel on your DAW.

We also get some really nice effects for each drum. And I think this is one of the handy features of the fact that MODO DRUM is made by IK Multimedia."

Mike wraps it up by demonstrating some of the rhythms included with MODO DRUM and commenting that: "You also get a really nice selection of grooves to get you started. I appreciate the way that they've organized these into different genres."

If you're considering stepping up to MODO DRUM, you really should watch the full review. Thank you, Creative Sauce for your commitment to making in-depth and informative reviews.

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