It’s a limited version but it works and no noise bursts or time limit…well worth getting even if just to drive other drum software if you don’t like the sounds that come with it… 
get it here…RAYZOON
best, Kevin
god, this is so ugly that I can’t look at it, let alone work with it. Not even for free… the biting colors the completely wrong perspectives that fake 3d… brrrrr
I own Jamstix3 and don’t use that for the same reason, but this is even worse…
I liked the interface of version 1
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It’s not about what it looks like my friend, it’s about what it’s brain can do…
I have never liked the GUI for Jamstix. I know that it works for more than just NI drum modules, but Ralph would have spent his time more wisely by building this as a Kontakt instrument, not spending his time building virtual drum kit visualizations.
Agreed, the 3D drum kit is just daft…who needs it?..but, the brain is awesome!!
I gave the opinion during the development “what do you users think about this” phase the that I thought the “3-D” kit looked quite unattractive. From the looks of what I’ve seen in the final product, I should have saved my pixels!
I’m sitting out the first one or two updates of JS4 until it’s relatively bug-free, similar to my Cubase-buying strategy.
Yeah, 3.5 is full of issues both bugs and UX problems, which dwarf all of the other issues. If it weren’t for the brain aspects of it, I’d dump it completely since 99% of the time I’m using James Stix as the drummer.
The latest JS3 version was 3.6.5, which was pretty solid. I very rarely had any issues with it.
I am also curious why making it a Kontakt instrument would be a good idea. In my understanding, the real advantage of using Kontakt is that the developer doesn’t have to create the “behind the scenes” programming. They can focus on the samples and use script language and controls to affect the samples and how they are presented or played. But Jamstix is not just a sample player. It is a drummer that actually creates drum grooves and modifies them with accents and fills, etc. I admit that I don’t know much about using the script language in Kontakt but I am not sure it is even possible to use it to create fills and accents in that way.
Anyway, I have to say that I have Absolute 3 and Komplete Ultimate 11 and I use Jamstix almost exclusively on pretty much ALL my projects. With Groove Agent and Abbey Road and the other “MIDI Loop” based drum modules, you pretty much have to write the song around the choice of grooves available. You can modify them somewhat but you still don’t really have anywhere near the “control” that you have in Jamstix. In Jamstix, there are so many ways you can define how you want the groove to sound. You can customize each kit piece such as the snare, kick, and hi-hat individually. You can even take a MIDI loop and drop it into Jamstix and it will “humanize” it by slightly varying the timing and velocities, adding or skipping hits, accents, and generating fills based on the player chosen or style chosen. Where Jamstix REALLY blows others away is when you start getting into things like odd time signatures, ghost snares, tom grooves, rudiment patterns. If you want a fairly simple 4/4 groove with six or eight fills to choose from, Groove Agent or Abbey Road or Studio Drummer may be fine but if you want a complex song that sounds like an actual drummer, Jamstix is better.
It does have a learning curve, which I believe is the main reason why I think some are discouraged. And I think with this free version, which has no time limit, some may have a chance to really try the product and actually take some time to learn how to use it and see just how great it really is. I would recommend choosing plug-ins it based on what they can do and not based on how they look. Thanks to Kevin for posting this to try to let people know that they can give it a try.
Yes, I am a Jamstix fan…
+1, and yes, there is a learning curve, which in my opinion is much steeper if you’ve never played with a real drummer, and I think that’s where the misunderstanding lies. IMHO there is nothing else on the market which comes close if you’re not a drummer but understand rhythm and know what you want. Sampler scripting cannot achieve what the Jamstix brain does, and I don’t know of any other product that has the ability to dynamically adjust it’s musical activity by monitoring context, i.e. to jam along with what you play in realtime.
Of course then again you may not like the colors …
I don’t mind the appearance of the interface (using JS3 latest at the moment), but there are a lot of GUI problems that make it very frustrating to work with, IMO. We’ll see how JS4 shakes out.
Can you give a few examples of functional GUI problems?
Also, we are talking about a free version here, which is separate and coexists with JS3 (won’t affect the JS3 installation), so there is really no risk in trying it out.
One example: Typing in the parts menu area … keyboard is not recognized at random times, then maybe double/triple entries, this seems to happen more often than not for me(the part where you tell it how many bars, the name of the part, the time signature, etc.).
That one is for sure. This following one may be user error … but I have the hardest time lassoing events in the bar editor.
Others as well, can’t recall off-hand.
Maybe you guys can help me with my main pro blem using JS, though. All the drummers except Charlie (and maybe James Stix) play way too frenetic for me. It’s like they want to show their stuff, but I just want them to lay back. Certainly turning the Power button down helps a lot, but not quite enough for me. I’ve imported the “simplify” tool from Charlie into other drummer’s brains, and that helps as well.
Also … ghost notes, not in the usual sense, but notes that are hit that aren’t found in the three windows, and aren’t related to transitions or repeats either. Where do they come from? I could probably learn to ignore them if everything else was going great when I use JS3 …
If anyone has any hints or suggestions regarding those things, I’d be grateful … thanks!
Well, I do remember the “double keystroke” thing from JS3 when editing part names. I don’t remember it ever not being recognized or triple entries. I can say that this is not an issue in JS4.
The selecting of events in the bar editor was also a thing that worked rather intuitively, I will have to admit. This has also been fixed in JS4. Now, the Shift key allows you to select a rectangle (or a range) and the Control key allows addition or subtraction to the current selection (fairly standard functionality, I would say).
As far as the players being to frenetic, if I select Carmine, John, Mark, Neil, Will, Tony on the 8th Rock Style, turn off the Fills and Accents, they all pretty much just play the basic Groove with no alteration or additional events. It sounds like maybe you need to turn off Fills and Accents or at least turn the Accents down. Are you familiar with the Frequency slider on the Accents page? If you could give a specific example of a drummer and style that is doing too much, then I am happy to try it and see if I can find a setting that will calm things down.
Thank you very much for the thoughtful reply, jaslan!
My quest is actually making use of Fills and Accents … but having them be considerably more tamed than I’m able to make them currently.
I’m not familiar with the Frequency slider … I will check it out, thank you!
Thanks Kevin. I’ve not worked with this. I’ll give it a try. It looks interesting.
Steep learning curve, but once you figure it out it isn’t too bad. I’ve owned it since version 2 and use it more often than not.