Jamstiks 4 Your Thoughts and Experience

Discussions of VST and VST3 plugins for Mixcraft users.

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TheHound
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Jamstiks 4 Your Thoughts and Experience

Post by TheHound »

Has anyone used Jamstiks? If so, what do you think?
GovernmentMule
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Re: Jamstiks 4 Your Thoughts and Experience

Post by GovernmentMule »

I bought Jamstix 4 about 3 months ago when it was on sale. I got the XXL package for $99 (regular $199). But as usual I got busy at work and have been spending a lot of time out of town working.
I got to play around with it a little about a week ago. I imported a real basic midi rock loop into it and came out with a totally different song with it. I was impressed. It is not real intuitive to work with at first. I had to watch videos on Youtube just to find out how to import the midi. But when you do figure some of it out it is powerful. You have to be careful with some of the changes, for instance I changed the style drummer and I thought it was for the whole song( intro, verse chorus, etc.), but it was only for one of the sections of the song.
If you are buying it for the drums sounds itself, I would probably buy something else( Superior or EZDrummer from Toontrack for example). They sound alright, just not as good as others to my ears.The great thing is you can export the midi into Mixcraft and use what ever drum program you want. But if you are buying it for the AI, I was impressed and I am looking forward to getting to play around with it some more when time permits. I am going to read the manual and watch more videos also because there is a learning curve to it.

Here is a video of what I basically did when importing a midi file into Jamstix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrcn2d4PPe4&t=74s


Here is another guy who has a set of 4 videos that shows Jamstix 3, but most of it is good for Jamstix 4. He talks way too much but in the long run is a pretty good tutorial for Jamstix and what it is capable of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o96TLgRjAq8
TheHound
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Re: Jamstiks 4 Your Thoughts and Experience

Post by TheHound »

Thanks for your insight.

I've down loaded some classical midi files and they open in mixcraft. I've rewritten some into very different compositions.

I'm going to have to upgrade to MC 8 but I'm happy with MC 6.1 and I'm a slow learner. Mostly I need drums parts. I can write them but I want the input of someone or something besides me. I don't have a studio so I can't work with a real drummer and besides I'm very picky about drummers. I'm happy with the loops in Mixcraft but I want more variety.

Live a prefer a drummer with a small high quality kit and that is sort of what I hope to find with Jamstiks or other programs. Ideally a good human drummer with good meter feel and creativity is the way for me to go.

Again, thank you for your response. It is greatly appreciated.
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jlouvar
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Re: Jamstiks 4 Your Thoughts and Experience

Post by jlouvar »

I’ve never used Jamsticks, but I bought EZDrummer2 when it was on sale, and its easy too use and works good.
- Joe -

MX9PS, 64-bit, build 460. Windows 10, Intel i5, 64-bit, 1.8GHz, 8GB.
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Mark Bliss
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Re: Jamstiks 4 Your Thoughts and Experience

Post by Mark Bliss »

I too have never used Jamstix.
As I understand it, this is used as a MIDI input application used as a "front end" for other drum instrument programs, targeted at getting "realistic" and "human" performances. This is interesting and something I might explore in the future.
But on the other hand, it also appears to be a somewhat complex and pricy solution to me. One often overlooked option is to aquire some human played drum MIDI (generally modestly priced compared to these various programs) and use it along with the included Studio drums, etc.
It is still usable as a starting point, editable as desired, etc. Depends somewhat on just what you are looking for.
Example: take a look at groovemonkey.com
Stay in tune, Mark

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jlouvar
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Re: Jamstiks 4 Your Thoughts and Experience

Post by jlouvar »

TIP: For a more realistic human feel you may want to consider using pads to tap-in beats... The pads on my Akai MPK249 work great.
- Joe -

MX9PS, 64-bit, build 460. Windows 10, Intel i5, 64-bit, 1.8GHz, 8GB.
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GovernmentMule
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Re: Jamstiks 4 Your Thoughts and Experience

Post by GovernmentMule »

Hey Mark, how is it going
Mark Bliss wrote:
As I understand it, this is used as a MIDI input application used as a "front end" for other drum instrument programs
No, not really. That is the way I have been using it so far. You do not have to input any midi at all. You can have the program spit out the drums based on the style and the drummer you select. And then you can go in and program it to be more complex or even less complex. For example, you can instruct it to use more kicks or less kicks in the beat, and also do the same for the snare or hi hats etc. You can program how powerful you want each strike to be. Then say after you program a verse section, then you can add a chorus, intro, breakdown, outro, etc. and it will come up with a new beat for that section and then you can also go in and program it to be more or less complex. Then you can tell it if you want a fill after each section and how many times to repeat each section. It has really surprised me so far and I just started to learn the program.
As far as the drum sounds are, they are good, they are better and more diverse then what is included with the Acoustica studio drums. I just prefer Toontrack or Addictive drums from what I have heard so far. You can also use the drum program like EZdrummer if you prefer the drum sounds and have it play on a midi track.

I'm just a bedroom guitar hacker and have a hard time coming up with drum beats. Believe me I have tried the finger drumming route and programming with drum machines, the piano roll and drum editors and I have loops out the wazoo including a lot from groove monkee. I also chop up midi loops from existing midi files, guitar pro files and use them.

I'm not trying to get anybody to buy this program, I have speculated on buying it for a couple of years now. But like I said earlier, I have been impressed with it. I do not know of any other program on the market like it that I have seen.

I would say delve into researching the program to see if it fills a need for you.Watch some videos on it,
also check out the manual here,
http://www.rayzoon2.com/docs/jamstix4_manual.pdf

Also from what I have seen, they have a sale once a year around the holidays if I remember correctly. I saved a hundred bucks that way( winner, winner, chicken dinner).
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Rolling Estonian
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Re: Jamstiks 4 Your Thoughts and Experience

Post by Rolling Estonian »

As a hack guitarist/musician Ezdrummer 2 was truly eye opening for me, the ability to go from tapping a simple beat to full song in a few clicks makes my playing and tracking much more fun.

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Perdue
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Re: Jamstiks 4 Your Thoughts and Experience

Post by Perdue »

AIR Strike 2 is a pretty cool drummer vst. Regular price $150. I got it for $29.
But I like the drum kits that come with Mixcraft and if you upgrade to 8 you get
a good step sequencer. It's really worth the money!
UJAM Solid is also a good virtual drummer for the price if you catch a sale,
but the latest version is not working in Mixcraft.
I downloaded the free version of Jamstix and its interesting but I haven't quite figured it
out yet.
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