Native Instruments is giving away their Analog Dreams retro synth until March 31st.
Requires Kontact Player and Native Access to use (also free) as well as a free account.
"Please note that due to high demand, it can take up to 24 hours for ANALOG DREAMS to appear in Native Access. We’re sorry for the delay, and hope you have fun once it arrives!"
This is usually because you're not using the right sort of drivers.
Grab this: www.asio4all.com
Set it up with your sound card, and select the ASIO driver from your synth / drum machine / DAW software etc.
@[Deactivated]: That hasn't been the case in well over a decade (if it ever really was).
Both platforms have their pros and cons. Nearly every DAW is available on both platforms. Holy wars are stupid.
If you think installing an ASIO driver is difficult? Wait until you see the way Apple break all of your audio software with every system update!
Source: full time audio guy for over 25 years.
@encoderboy: Im lucky, i have an imac, macbook, surface, i7 win pc, and an i5 notebook. The only reason i use the macbook and imac is because off logic pro, however for everything else, i prefer Windows. Its more logical and user friendly. I've downloaded this, and will see how it goes.
@BewareOfThe Dog: The only reason I and others I know use macs for music production (apart from the Logic Pro reason) is that in Windows the ASIO spec only allows for one ASIO device driver to be used in any instance. Despite this ASIO4ALL can sometimes work with more than one device at times - it's random though, a setup that works with more than one ASIO device on one system may not work on another seemingly identical system. Running Reaper in macOS for example it is trivially simple to create an aggregate device that just works, with each device running its own native driver, can't do this in Windows with more than one ASIO driver unfortunately unless you strike it randomly lucky with ASIO4ALL setup, and if it does work you will likely have crappy latency and no way to sync the clocks on each device so they will have different latency and so the device clocks will get out of sync more as your tracks run for longer, and also your DAW will most likely get horribly confused and not work properly any more in Windows, or become ridiculously unstable and unpredictable.
In practical terms what this all means for Windows is that if your audio interface runs out of inputs you will have to probably sell it or stick it on the shelf and buy a new interface with enough inputs available, as only one device will work properly with ASIO. In macOS you can just add another interface and create the aggregate device and you're off and running. Another option for windows is to buy expensive interfaces like for example a MOTU interface with firewire or AVB-TSN / ADAT networking so you can link the interfaces up and just plug the master interface into the computer, but these interfaces cost squillions and is it worth it?
The beauty of the macOS aggregate device way of doing things is easy flexibility - for example if you get the new Spark amp from Positive Grid which has USB output you can just add this to your aggregate device and it will just work, and unfortunately you can't do this with Windows.
What serious Windows users into music production live in hope for is that one day Microsoft will do something with their sound driver technology that allows multiple drivers to work together properly, but don't hold your breath for that.
Works much better with proper hardware dac/soundcard for realtime use.
What does Native Instruments do? Can it play back the scores from Sibelius?
Added.
BTW, anyone find a bit delay playback with this kind of software drum on PC?