Dynamic Drum Sounds
BATTERY breathes life into your drum samples. It boasts separate sound parameters for 54 possible Instruments/key ranges, powerful modulation capabilities and an unbeatable ease of use. BATTERY is fast, effective, intelligent and convenient. It has sample-accurate timing, internal 32-bit resolution, up to 128 velocity layers per instrument and can play samples at any pitch - BATTERY fulfills even the highest demands regarding precision, sound quality and flexibility. BATTERY has access to all the biggest sound libraries because it is compatible with the formats AKAI, SF2, LM4, AIFF, WAV and MAP. Also, more than 30 high quality soundsets (590 MB) are already included on a second CD.

BATTERY runs either stand-alone or as a VST plug-in on Macintosh and under Windows. It can be played and modulated via MIDI, offers full VST™ automation and supports all other common interfaces as well. Up to 32 outputs are available which can be flexibly configured flexibly as mono or stereo outs.

Battery 2 has now been released by Native Instruments - it adds many new features.

Instruments and Samples
BATTERY can play 54 instruments at a time. The matrix and it's intuitive drag & drop functionality are a big time saver when arranging samples. Sounds from different soundsets can be easily compared and combined into new soundsets without the hassle of readjusting any parameters.

Each instrument offers a complete set of sound parameters and can use up to 128 velocity-switchable sample layers. Samples may be loaded into the matrix by drag&drop from the desktop or using a dialog box with automatic sample preview function. BATTERY accepts samples of any resolution from 8 to 32 bits, and reads the formats AKAI, SF2, AIFF, WAV and MAP. Up to three banks in LM4 format can be imported and used at a time, AKAI sounds can be read directly from CD.

Sound Shaping
Each of the 54 instruments offers a volume envelope (AHDSR), a pitch envelope (DBD), a bit reduction effect and a shaper for controlling the dynamics (like a compressor/expander combination). All parameter adjustments are calculated and visualized in the wave display in realtime. Each instrument receives MIDI data on a selected MIDI channel and the pitch can be transposed according to the MIDI notes if desired - useful for basses, for example.

Every instrument boasts six modulation inputs for which many useful and drum-oriented settings have already been configured as presets.

FX Loop
Each instrument has an FX Loop that can be activated to repeat a chosen area of the sample a given number of times. This is very useful for creating modern and innovative rhythmic sound effects, akin to extreme time stretching or granular synthesis.

Sample Referencing
Battery uses WAV or AIFF files (or SD2 or SFIL on the Mac) to store it's samples. However, it is a little unusual in how it references them.

If you create a Battery kit on Battery itself, and save it, Battery will automatically write the samples in a folder with the same name as the kit - plus the text " samples" - and put that folder in the same folder as the kit. You have no choice in the matter. This can cause sample duplication, as if ,say, 23 kits reference the same samples, those samples will be duplicated 23 times over. Not good.

However, strangely enough, the .kit file, which is just a XML text file, can be written to use full paths or relative paths, so you can actually put your samples anywhere you want. The only problem is that while you can do this, Battery doesn't!

Translator givse you the choice of doing it the "Battery way" or doing it the better "referenced path" way. Howeverm if you do it the latter way, just remember that if you resave the kit within Battery, Battery will do it the "Battery way" and copy/move the samples.

Each instrument has an FX Loop that can be activated to repeat a chosen area of the sample a given number of times. This is very useful for creating modern and innovative rhythmic sound effects, akin to extreme time stretching or granular synthesis.