DrumPads

Musical instruments are the main ingredients used to create audio works of art. Be it guitar, bass, violin or drums, they all have a software equivalent. Specialized applications give you the possibility to create music from the comfort of your desktop without owning an instrument. DrumPads is one of them and keeps you hitting the keyboard as you would a real set of drums.

Running the application lets you unleash creativity and start experimenting the feeling of being a drummer. The interface is pretty simple, with no other available features other than several pads.

Each section is attributed a high quality sound file you can set by scrolling through them. Unfortunately, there is no list that displays all available sounds and it can be a pain to scroll through files for all pads in order to set the desired one to each.

Activating a sound can either be done by clicking on a pad or making use of integrated hotkeys. However, there is no option to add your custom combination of keys and neither are they displayed, so you must experiment until discovering them.

Moreover, you are not able to add custom sounds to be used. Recording is an important part of creating music, but this is only possible with the help of an external application.

Design flaws keep sound from blending in or most of the times not triggering at all. In case you're a passionate drummer, prepare to take your time.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that DrumPads is packed with potential, but the poor design keep it from delivering the desired result. Sound quality is a plus and integrated hotkey support make it easy to use. However, it's not the best solution to start a rock band.