Beatmaker VOID

Name: Beatmaker VOID
Price: 19 USD
Author: UJAM

by UJAM · Drum Instrument · Drum and bass instrument

Not rated yet

A drum and bass instrument covering liquid, neurofunk, jungle and breakbeat, with no break slicing needed.

It has 10 kits and 460 patterns in 20 styles, plus a Vortex control; it lists at $49 and was $19.11 on sale.

Best for: Drums. Genres: Electronic & EDM.

Keywords: classic, acoustic drums, loose, resizable UI, surgical.

What it does

VOID is a drum instrument in UJAM's Beatmaker series for drum and bass. UJAM's idea is to get breakbeats "without the need for samplers, endless beat slicing" or rearranging: you pick a style and play keys.

Kits: 10 drum kits with 16 samples each, covering liquid, neurofunk, jungle, breakbeat and classic drum and bass.
Patterns: 20 styles with 23 patterns each, 460 in all, covering intros, verses, choruses, fills and endings.
Vortex: VOID's special control, an LFO-modulated notch filter sweep combined with compression for moving, rolling breaks.
Timing: half-time, normal and double-time speeds, and a Quantize control from loose to fully on the grid.
Playing: the keys from C3 to B4 trigger song parts in sync with your DAW. White keys play looping verses and choruses; black keys play intros, fills and breakdowns; B4 stops. Latch keeps a part running after you let go.
Per-drum controls: click a drum key to set its Volume, Decay, Pitch (plus or minus 6 semitones) and a lowpass/highpass Filter, with Solo, Mute and an individual output for mixing in your DAW.
Mix and Master: 12 mix presets with an Amount knob, then Sweep (filter), Saturate, Maximize and Ambience on the stereo output.
Performance: the mod wheel lowers beat intensity and the pitch bend wheel fades the kick or snare out.
MIDI drag and drop: drag any phrase from the on-screen keyboard to a DAW track to edit or combine it; the UI is resizable.

A free trial download is available. All included sounds and MIDI phrases are royalty-free. Current Beatmaker version: 3.19.

Source: UJAM product page

When to use it

Beatmaker VOID is the faster route to a working drum and bass groove when you don't want to chop breaks yourself. Compared with Nerve or Battery 4, it gives you no slicing or deep sample editing, but you get ready-made liquid, jungle and neurofunk patterns with fills in a few clicks. Against XO it is far narrower, yet the beats arrive already mixed for the genre. Its MIDI export also lets you start a groove here and move it into one of those tools later.

Best for: drum and bass, jungle and breakbeat grooves, sketches and quick arrangements.
Genres: liquid, neurofunk, jungle, breakbeat and classic drum and bass.
Look elsewhere if: you want to chop and rearrange your own breaks; Nerve or a slicer in your DAW gives you that control.
Tip: drag a groove to a DAW track as MIDI to edit single notes without needing a sampler or sequencer (Production Expert).

What producers say

Coverage is limited to launch-time first looks, which found it easy and quick to use.

Production Expert (first look, 2020) praised a layout with "no hidden menus or obscure controls", the 460 patterns split into song parts, and the MIDI drag and drop. It gave no rating.
Criticisms: none in the first look; it did not test it in depth.

Production Expert first look

Where to buy

AudioDeluxe: $19 (regular $49)
UJAM: $49

Tutorials and reviews

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