Super Convenient! UJAM Drum Plugins

Hello everyone! I’m Yuki Kito, a guitar instructor. Lately, I’ve been completely immersed in music programming and songwriting... but of course, I’m still practicing guitar! However, due to the need to focus heavily on composing, I’ve found myself relying on plugins to supplement my limited imagination. This has led me to the fun journey of exploring various plugins!

Today, I’d like to introduce UJAM, famous among music programmers for its Beatmaker, Virtual Guitarist, and Bassist Series. I personally own a lot of their products, and since they have so many convenient plugins, I highly recommend you read through this.

Recommended Plugin 1:

UJAM Beatmaker IDOL

First up is IDOL from the highly popular Beatmaker Series. From the colorful plugin interface and the use of Hangul text, you can immediately tell it’s designed with K-pop in mind. The Beatmaker Series allows you to play various rhythm patterns simply by holding down keys. Here’s how I usually go about it:

1. Try out different beats on the keyboard and choose a base pattern that matches your taste or song.
2. Drag and drop the MIDI information of the rhythm pattern into the DAW’s MIDI or track view.
3. Adjust the velocity and rhythm to better match the song.
4. Tweak the sound of individual parts, like the snare or kick, using the lower part of the Beatmaker plugin interface.

Following this workflow makes everything run smoothly for me.

The standout feature of IDOL is, as the name suggests, its focus on K-pop-style rhythm patterns. It also includes BPM-based patterns, which can serve as a reference point when choosing the right BPM for K-pop production. The sounds lean more toward stylish and light, rather than punchy.

Recommended Plugin 2:

UJAM Beatmaker HYPE

As you can tell from the plugin interface, HYPE offers rhythm patterns perfect for EDM or progressive house.

Since it’s part of the same Beatmaker Series, the interface doesn’t differ much, but it includes a wide variety of punchy, EDM-style sounds. As a composer with a band background, I find it particularly useful for learning how to create typical EDM sounds, which has been a great help.

Recommended Plugin 3:

UJAM Virtual Guitarist Silk

Next, let’s look at Silk from the Virtual Guitarist Series, a nylon string guitar plugin. Even for a guitarist, I imagine recording a nylon guitar can be quite a challenge.

Recording an acoustic guitar is already tricky, but with an acoustic-electric guitar, at least you can record it through the LINE input and use API or compressors to focus on the bright parts for pop backing tracks.

However, nylon string guitars are more delicate, requiring fingerpicking and more precise touch. For better sound quality, you may need to set up multiple mics—something that can be quite a headache.

On the other hand, with Virtual Guitarist Silk, you can easily incorporate realistic nylon guitar sounds into your project, and even a guitarist would say, “Yeah, that works!”

Just like other Virtual Guitarist plugins, you can control the feel by making the rhythm more pushed or laid-back, and also adjust the swing percentage. Additionally, the tone changes depending on the playing position, whether closer to the neck or bridge, which adds a realistic, live guitar feel.

While electric guitar plugins are becoming increasingly user-friendly, I believe that the recent nylon-string and classical guitar plugins have been especially impressive in terms of ease of use.

Recommended Plugin 4:

UJAM Usynth Euphoria

Lastly, let’s talk about Euphoria from the Usynth Series. One thing that stands out about UJAM is that despite the simple UI, it’s easy to find sounds that are both usable and familiar to the ear, and Euphoria is no exception.

With Euphoria, you can create EDM-style lead sounds, bells, basses, and more. The Usynth lineup includes various series, such as Usynth 2080, which is packed with popular synthwave sounds, and Usynth DELUXE, which contains smooth ‘70s and ‘60s sounds. This variety allows you to choose a series based on the genre or style you’re working on without changing the interface or functionality, which is a major advantage.

By the way, you can also purchase a bundle of these plugins from Sound House. I really want one!

UJAM / Usynth Bundle

So, this was a brief introduction to UJAM’s Beatmaker, Usynth, and Virtual Guitarist Series, which I frequently use. All of these plugins help save time, increase efficiency, and have easy-to-use UIs, making them great for anyone just getting started with music programming. Be sure to check them out!

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