Attack Drums 4+

First and foremost, Attack is one of the best sounding synthesizers I have ever used, hardware or software, iPad or otherwise. Not sure what kind of DSP magic Waldorf managed to stuff into their modeling algorithms here, but I can say with absolute certainty that I never could have imagined an iPad to be capable of generating sounds with this degree of organicity. The oscillators, modeled filters and drive circuits all share this same quality - if it weren't for the giant screen in front of my face, I could easily forget that I'm playing something digital. I have honestly had more pure fun just messing around with and getting lost in this synth than I have with almost any other, and some of the things it spits out are genuinely unbelievable. It is capable of generating a much broader range of sounds than just percussion.

Unfortunately, it is for this precise reason that it pains me to concede that I am unable to give Attack the 5 star rating it otherwise completely deserves, due to its barely functional implementation of MIDI support. It can't follow an incoming clock without losing time almost immediately, and any externally triggered notes experience intolerable lag, regardless of the internal buffer size settings. I have tried many times and with several different controllers and devices, but have thus far been unable to find any way around it. This is a huge bummer for me, since it functionally limits my musical usage of this otherwise wonderful synth to sampling only.

Waldorf, if one of your developers manages to find some spare time one of these days, please do have them try to fix this application. Condemning it to semifunctional bug-laden limbo for the rest of all eternity is /not/ the way I want to see this beautiful synthesizer go out.

I LOVE this app, but really wish it would sync better with other apps. The MIDI clock isn’t cutting it and even with an app like MIDILinkSync i still notice lag that can’t be fixed in any way. This is such a wonderful drum app, but it would be so much better if it would sync better with the rest of my apps. Ableton Link would most definitely be the key and it would make this app so much more useful for the majority of iOS musicians.

Still 5 stars to let the developer/support know there are still fans out there of this app. Don’t be demotivated by the few haters in this review section. Keep ATTACK alive please with some long awaited updates. This app has such incredible potential still and with a few tweaks could become just as much of a must-have as Nave is! 😁👍👍

On iPad pro this thing rocks out!

I want each pattern to be up to 64 steps...

Is there a way to assign separate outputs in iOS? If so I wish this thing allowed for it in apps like AUM or Cubasis.

This is what iOS needed. My go to for drum sounds and grooves. I think this thing is very accessible. The workflow is quite straightforward and all parameters are laid out well.

I'm a Waldorf fanboy I'll admit. Everything can be improved upon is my mantra, however. This one is no different. Only 16 steps per pattern is quite a limitation in my opinion. If it must remain this way, I would like to set the loop and then have independent navigation between patterns that are within the loop. It's too hard to write in the current pattern before it shifts to the next one which is the only way to write multi-pattern loops. This is a shame because the sound engine is so nice!

Still gets high rating! Perfect for analog style drums or sample slices or one shot samples... The sky is the limit. Like I said iOS needed this.

But hey Waldorf, where is the Dropbox integration? I want to email my buddy everything in a project file, etc. we need accessibility please! iTunes won't cut it.