I was browsing through the timeline on my Facebook page and saw this from Producer Spot.com. I went over to the official website to investigate; watched the video and listened to a few demo songs of the plugin in action. I was impressed, so I downloaded the full version and activated it for free. Opened the x64 drum sampler in Cantabile Lite on my internet computer and played around with the supplied midi files. To my ears using headphones, its a good sounding little drumkit and could very well come in handy for someone who doesn't have any of the big name drum samplers like myself. I didn't see anything on the website that says what the audio samples' bit depth and sampling frequency are. They claim it was tested in Sonar.
 
http://www.powerdrumkit.com/

Ha, I was about to download the free version when I saw the part on routing it to your drum vst then
when I saw the part about how it has key map presets for ALL popular major drum plug ins I was amazed to see that
nowhere in their preset list was BFD Eco BFD2 or BFD3???
 
They're really up with the latest and greatest I see, they don't consider any of fxpansions vst drums to be major or even popular?
 
 
Steve

Well, the demos sure sound good. I'm confused, though. There is a "Buy" button but no price is given, just a link to a free download. I'm guessing the developer had planned to make this a commercial product but decided it wasn't viable or didn't have the time/energy to support a commercial product, and opted to give it away instead. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened.
 
I'm probably going to pass on it, though, for one reason: the C/R copy protection. If the dev later decides to abandon it (it costs something just to keep the site up), it may not be possible to re-authorize the product in the future. The license is tied to your hardware profile, which means something as trivial as disabling the network could break the instrument.
 

+ 1
 
That's 2 good reasons.
 

It could be a publicity stunt for an imminent release of a more hefty and advance commercial version. It costs $39 before it was freed up. Anyhow, it's working nicely in Sonar - no install application and hopefully I can get some good mileage out of it.

That's another plausible hypothesis, that they're waiting to add more features before they start charging for it. This could end up being a "Lite" version.
 
Assuming the original programmer is still involved in the project, they might eventually elect to release a version that does not require authorization. I'd download that. 

i picked it up last night after i saw this drum plug mentioned in Rain's thread . 
 
here are my preliminary thoughts and impressions  .
at first , the process is a little confusing , 
there are two versions of this drum plug …the free and the unrestricted version...
i accidentally made the mistake of downloading the free version at first ….. 
 
to get the unrestricted full version for free you need to hit the support  button , this is the link you will get ...
http://www.powerdrumkit.com/support.htm 
after following that link 
the top link will bring up the page where can pick up the full version for your OS ...
the bottom link will bring you to the authorization page that has an online keygen….on that one I was like what ?
anyway you do not have to be online with the computer the plug is on to authorize it so you don't have to install anything extra….
 
the plug appears not to be stand alone so i ran my plugin mgr , it showed up then i inserted it into a blank project ….at that point I was asked to authorize it ….this was actually very painless ….
the plug itself created a machine number , i then went online on different computer and put the newly created machine number into the online key gen …after hitting the submit button I was given a serial number for my machine …
after placing that number in the plugs reg dialog box on my offline computer ….everything went smooth ….it registered 
 
my initial impressions so far are …..I like this drum plug very much ….
being able to audition the various grooves and fills that match each other in the plug itself is a nice feature 
the included grooves are very good …
 i like the arranger section on the bottom where you can set up an arrangement of drum patterns and then drag them into the DAW as a midi file ….this makes for a very nice fast workflow ….
i also ran the midi grooves through my other drum plugs , the mapping was OK for a quick testing session.
 
I did do various head to head sound comparisons with some other drum plugs that i have , this little freebie did came up favorably as a keeper ….
imho….the drums sounds are very good , they may be simple , yet they seem to sit well in a song .
 
in OSX 10 .7.5  i tested this plug using Logic Pro 9 , Cubase, and Garage Band ...
in Windows 8 , i tested this plug using SONAR X 3 PE , Samplitude , Music Creator Touch, P 5 , …..
in Win  XP , i tested this plug using SONAR 6 PE, P 5, Music Creator, Samplitude X Silver , Music Creator ….
 
as far as stability went ….everything was rock solid 
 
hope this helps …I have no affiliation 
 
Kenny

Hey DeBro, always good to see you kicking around these parts.
Thanks for the heads up. I've downloaded it and I'll be checking it out.
And thanks, Kenny, for your input.

Got it! I really like the snare. The kick is a little too clicky for my taste. Toms are are good. Hats are terrible. Crashs are good but short. The Grooves are really very good!
It took a little bit for me to figure out why I had no sound but once I hit the default button in settings I was good to go. This freebie is a winner for someone who wants a dead easy to use drum rompler. Now, if they would just let you load your own samples we would have something.
The Grooves are worth the trouble to download and register. Hands down.

Great reviews, Kenny and Sidroe! These are exactly the kinds of replies that add real value to the Software forum.
 
I did really like the sound of these. Your endorsements have almost convinced me to grab it despite my reservations.