When Beatstation was announced, it wasn’t clear what it was or who it was designed for. And even after spending some time with it, we’re not sure we can answer either of these questions. Stranger still, we’re not sure Toontrack could either.

They call it “a tonal and percussive open surface new generation virtual instrument”, which is accurate enough, but tellingly, the sell line for Beatstation is vague and non-committal: “It’s what you want it to be.”

Beatstation has the look of a groovebox, with the main part of the interface taken up by a bank of sample-based pads. You can add and remove pads, drag them around and select from four pad styles: one square and three circular ones of different sizes.

“Ultimately, it’s hard to say exactly what you will find it useful for – if anything – until you actually give it a go.”

The pads are designed for rhythmic sounds but there are also Bass and Lead ‘pads’ (actually mini virtual keyboards) for instrument sounds. You can change the look by loading up skins, and you can design your own with the Skin Tool. The pads can be filled up with samples from the browser sitting to the left.

Beatstation ships with content in Lowbit, Organic and Synthetix categories, and in each of these you get drum kits/instruments, MIDI grooves, REX files and individual sounds. You can load up sounds as a whole kit or on a pad-by-pad basis.

Music library

The quality of the library is generally good, with the acoustic drums being particularly impressive. There’s plenty for those who aren’t so keen on ‘real’ sounds too, though, with dance music and hip-hop fans well catered for.

Crucially, it’s possible to bring your own samples and loops in. MP3 and WAV formats are supported, and MIDI and REX files can be imported.

You can also use expansion packs in Toontrack’s EZX and SDX drum kit formats, as well as the new Beatstation-specific BTX format.

Below the browser are REX and MIDI file players, which can run independently or (in sync) together. To hear everything you’ve got loaded, just hit the play/pause button.

To the right of this are two FX busses, a master effect and a master volume control. The effects come from Overloud, which ensures better than average quality, and the range is extensive, with categories including Bitcrush, Chorus, Compressor, Delay, Distortion, EQ and Reverb, as well as instrument-specific ones for piano, bass, snare, vocals, etc. Each effect has just a single slider to play with, enabling you to dial in ‘more’ or ‘less’ of that effect.

And that, on a basic level, is it. If you want to use Beatstation very simply, run it standalone, load some sounds and/or a MIDI/REX file and click the pads or press play.

There’s not a lot you can do with your sounds, though, as parts can’t be edited and there’s no sequencer. Thankfully, Beatstation also works as a plug-in instrument, so you can use it to make songs in conjunction with a compatible sequencer/DAW program.

(2 pages; go to page: 2)

The rest is here:
Toontrack Beatstation