Access to a variety of different drum samples depending on desired style such as: using jazz brushes, a metal kit with a double pedal, or an electronic drum kit.

Using a VST Plugin VS a Real Drum Kit? Advantages

In order to connect the two computers, you will need Vienna Ensemble Pro which acts as a sampler to host your samples from your ‘slave’ computer to your main computer. The more samples you have, the less efficient and longer it will take to work within your DAW, so a lot of industry composers use a slave PC to save on CPU usage. SSDs can be pretty expensive relative to HDDs so if you can only afford one it’s worth weighing up whether you’d rather the sample libraries load faster (external SSD) or if you want the computer, DAW and everything else running quicker (replace internal HDD with SSDįor advanced users: you may also wish to have a ‘ slave’ computer, usually a higher-end desktop PC or Mac where you can run sample libraries from without using your main computer’s CPU.

Optional: an internal SSD to replace your computer’s hard drive (which results in more CPU power and less crashes) and an external SSD to store your samples on.

Samples are quite large files so you will need spare storage space to keep them on your computer, while superior RAM will improve performance of VSTis within your DAW

A computer or laptop (recommended with more than 10% storage space remaining and at least 16GB RAM).

A DAW such as Logic Pro X or Pro Tools 12 (for more information, check out our What is a DAW? and Best DAWs articles).

Please refer to our Connectivity Guide for connecting your keyboard into a computer.

A MIDI keyboard, drum machine or a piano keyboard that have access to either a USB Type B port or traditional 5-pin MIDI ports that are seen in older keyboards and gear.

In order to use VSTs, you will need to have access to:

Piano with drum pad