need soft percussion while playing ambient keys at home

[MrVegas]

My wife and I have worship type meetings at our home and I play ambient, atmospheric music using my Kronos and MOXF8.  Both boards have some onboard drum/percussion patterns but I have never really gotten into them.  Most of my playing is slow, melodic and improvisational stuff.  MANY MANY times I have wished that I had some way to press a few buttons and call up some soft percussion patterns to accompany my keys.  It's hard for me to explain it, but maybe some shakers, soft congas, a few rim shots, I don't know.  Like the kind of percussion you might hear on a movie soundtrack.   I have looked into DAWs (Ableton, etc) and I just don't have the time to learn all that.  I researched iPad drumming software and found a few things but could not find what I'm looking for.  Ideally you could string some patterns together and loop them over and over, but I definitely need PRE-PROGRAMMED patterns, not a drum machine with 16 pads where I have to tap out my own rhythms.  Who can help?

[Mighty Motif Max]

You should be able to do this with your MOXF's performances (probably with the Kronos as well via Karma or something, but I have no experience with that). But those patterns will stop if you change performances, and need to be programmed per-performance. Just assign a percussion/drum kit voice to one of your 4 parts, select an arpeggio that's close to what you want (and you have 5 different sections you can program arps for, so you can have 5 patterns), make sure it isn't key triggered (there are settings for that), and have fun.

[Redknife]

“Soft Drummer” on iOS may be an option. Press play or dive deeper.

[Stokely]

I often use Drummer in Logic to play patterns like that.  It's very flexible, has lots of percussion and you can customize everything.  Obviously you'd need a Mac and Logic  

[brenner13]

DrumJam is my go to iOS drummer. Randomizer might be a bit too ethnic for what OP is looking for, however specific instruments and patterns for each can be selected and stored as user presets.

I tend to really like the randomizations for my own ambient stuff. Sometimes there’s one cymbal thingie that overwhelms the groove, but so easy to touch and drag the offender to a lower level or off the stage altogether. When just the right instruments, levels and stereo placements are gathered, there’s a randomizer for just the patterns with those same instruments. A brilliant bit of kit.

[drawback]

13 hours ago, Redknife said:

“Soft Drummer” on iOS may be an option. Press play or dive deeper.

I have that one and love it. The whole thing can be season to taste, where you can go as deep an edit as you want, or take the beats as they are, changing only the type of drum set. 
 

I have looked at BeatBuddy — anyone here have one?

[KuruPrionz]

Just now, drawback said:

I have that one and love it. The whole thing can be season to taste, where you can go as deep an edit as you want, or take the beats as they are, changing only the type of drum set. 
 

I have looked at BeatBuddy — anyone here have one?

I've worked with a friend's BeatBuddy, I think it's the smaller one. It's pretty OK but not a "must have" for me. 

[brenner13]

Yeah, I had the baby Beat Buddy…sold it after a few weeks. The bigger one still intrigues me, but looks like a lot of work to set up. 
 

I’ve used iOS Rock Drummer for a while, but it has a harshness that I cannot seem to dial out. Got Future Drummer recently and really like it so far. Slowed it down and removed the swing, and the randomizer gets what I like 70% of the time. Soft Drummer might be right what OP is looking for. 

[Lou_NC]

Have you tried You Tube?  There are a zillion free drum tracks on there.  Get creative with your search arguments (soft, swing, slow, smooth, etc.) and I'm sure you'll come up with something.  Depending on the length of the recording you're looking for, you may not even have to download it, but if you do, you can use a You Tube to MP3 download tool and create a standalone MP3 using Audacity in just a few minutes.

 

Lou

[GovernorSilver]

17 hours ago, Mighty Motif Max said:

Kronos as well via Karma 

 

I was thinking the same thing when I saw that the OP has a Kronos.   He could have Karma generate the percussion part.

 

The Korg M3 Karma section has several parameters for drum parts like minimal to busy,  completely regular drum pattern (no improvisation) to almost completely improvised drumming, etc.  Kronos should have similar flexibility if not more.

 

That said, Karma has a learning curve.  I wouldn't blame the OP for being reluctant to dive into that.

[MrVegas]

Wow, so many good suggestions, thanks all!   I did buy a Beat Buddy and did'nt like it