Axart Software released AutoBeat, a free drum sequencer plugin for Windows and macOS (paid version also available).
AI seems to be all the rage these days. We already covered free AI music generators, but the technology is now also being used to generate MIDI, edit audio, and much more.
Now, I’m familiar with the good folks at Axart Software, thanks to their excellent mKer sequencer suite for the iPad. Still, it was surprising that they had an AI-driven drum sequencer available for Windows and Mac.
AutoBeat does have a paid version, but there is plenty to explore with the free version. So, let’s dive in a little deeper and take a look.
At the core of Autobeat is a selection of genres to generate drum beats. You’ve got 8 to pick from, with electronic genres like house, techno, and DnB being accounted for.
Moreover, you’ve got 12 tracks to play with, which is enough for most MIDI-driven drum machines on Windows and Mac. I ended up using Autobeat alongside Algonaut’s Atlas.
As I figured, if I was leveraging AI, I might as well go the whole hog and go for the gold!
You can select the density, length, and intensity of each pattern. The randomization dial also introduces a little ordered chaos to the mix.
I found it worked best when set to around 25%, as I noticed things venturing toward abstraction quite quickly otherwise.
Autobeat’s paid version allows for the export of MIDI to your drum machine plugin of choice. If you don’t mind routing MIDI, you’re in for a treat.
I like that you can essentially map things how you want for your workflow. The interface is immediate and quick to grasp, and you’ve got individual mutes and solos per the 12 tracks. In addition, you can store multiple patterns, with 128 in total being stored over 8 prompts.
Autobeat is definitely worth a punt if you’ve got a bit of a creative block when it comes to percussive elements. I did have to do some fine-tuning to target the elements of my Atlas kits that I wanted to work on.
However, once it was dialed in, I was off to the races!
Autobeat is available for Windows and Mac computers. It is Apple Silicon native, which is always a delight to see.
Download: AutoBeat (FREE / Paid versions available)
More:
8 Comments
yambu
onIt doesn’t work for me and freezes my DAW (Samplitude), bad stuff uninstalled again.
whormongr
onusing it in ableton it generates the MIDI but not sound so you need to run it in a channel and route the midi into a new channel with a drum kit/vst in it.
whormongr
onhm now it completely stopped working….
jba
ontt crashes FL studio as soon as I click on any button…
Karl
onGarbage. This no ai of any kind, just a bunch of patterns
Reginald
onTried it out with Ableton Live 11 on Win10 Dell G5s Ryzen 17 with 16Gb of Ram.
Installed & loaded VST in a midi channel and also loaded a Live Impulse drum app.
Followed video tutorial and learned you have to route the Midi channel to feed the drum VST. Linked and hit play and no sound. Tried it a second time with a different app so that I could assign the midi notes to the loaded samples and nothing.
Uninstalled.
It was faster to manually load the vst3 and dll Speedrum Lite, load into Live, and manually create my own drum notes for a “random” pattern.
ElectricSick
onThe Axart website is no longer available. This is kinda suspicious…
Sulivan
onThis is garbage, doesn’t work at all and freeze my DAW.
Please BDP, take care of your community, and don’t advise bad or suspicious stuff, we don’t appreciate it.