Funk Drummer

What it does

A session drummer for funk, improvising in real time rather than looping fixed patterns, with banks covering funk, disco funk, fusion, latin funk and odd time. Version 5.00 adds AUv3, a Mac version and a MIDI-only plugin for driving external kits, plus sound module mode so the kit plays as a MIDI sampler. Intensity, jam, swing and fill rules shape the playing, live pads trigger fills and switches, song mode chains parts, and grooves pass both ways with the other Lumbeat apps.

In the demo

Jade hosts it in AUM beside Afro Latin Percussion, Pop Drummer, Soft Drummer and iBassist, all now AUv3, trading grooves between them so the bass follows the drums and back. She sends its notes into Helium and records them, then drives the kit from Octacron through the sound module.

Worth knowing

The extra drummers, Nettie and Clyde, are in-app purchases, and the free download runs a seven day trial before the $22.99 unlock. An earlier double header with Soft Drummer, from December 2020, walks the same app in its pre-AUv3 Inter-App Audio era.