Flex Music LabsLearn
DrumFlex vs Battery 4
Battery 4 and DrumFlex are different kinds of tool. Battery 4 is Native Instruments' drum sampler: you load samples, your own or others', into a grid of cells, with seven sample modes, including classic sampler and groovebox emulations, and effects on every cell. DrumFlex is a drum kit that's modeled rather than sampled: it plays no samples, yours or anyone's, and gives you kits with every piece open to tuning. One is a place to build drums from sounds you bring. The other is a kit that's already there.
What they have in common
- A mix and effects on the drums. Battery 4 has on-board effects and busses. DrumFlex has a level for each part of the kit, a room and an EQ.
- A demo to try. Both have one you can download before you buy.
- Drums you shape. Battery 4 shapes sample sounds with its sample modes and effects. DrumFlex shapes the kit itself: stick hardness, tuning, ring, pitch glide and snare wires.
Where Battery 4 stands out
- Your own samples. It accepts all current sample formats and loads your own files, so any sound you have can be a drum sound.
- Seven sample modes, including classic sampler and groovebox emulations.
- Effects built in. SOLID EQ, SOLID BUS COMP, TRANSIENT MASTER, tape saturation, LoFi and a convolution reverb, applied to a cell, a group or the master.
- A mixer with busses. Four busses and a master channel. DrumFlex has one stereo output.
Where DrumFlex stands out
- Small. A 14.2 MB download with nothing else to load or find. The kit is there when you open it.
- The pieces of the kit. Tuning, ring and muffle for the kick, snare and toms, the kick's beater, the sizes of the kick and toms, ring for the hi-hat and cymbals.
- A drummer's kit. Cross-stick, rimshot, buzz stroke and brush sweep on the snare, brushes on controller 85, hi-hat closed, pedal and open, a ride with bow, bell and edge, two crashes, a china and a splash.
- No two hits alike. Hit variation changes each hit a little; set it to 0 and every hit is struck the same.
- Plays a song. It opens a MIDI file, records what you play, and renders a MIDI file to FLAC, or to WAV with the included command-line renderer.
- No account and no online activation. A license key and your email address, entered once for each Windows user on each computer, and one license for one person, to use on all of their own computers.
- Built to play ComposerFlex's songs, our songwriting program, on the same PC with no setup.
- $79, where Battery 4's page shows $199.
Which to pick
- To load your own samples: Battery 4. DrumFlex doesn't play samples.
- For sampler and groovebox modes, or effects on each cell: Battery 4.
- For a mixer with busses: Battery 4.
- For a drum kit that's ready to play, which you tune piece by piece: DrumFlex.
- If you'd rather have no account and no online activation, at $79: DrumFlex.
Owning both
Because they do different jobs, a player could keep both: a kit for a drummer's parts, and a sampler for sounds they've collected. Both have a demo: Native Instruments' is on native-instruments.com, and DrumFlex's is here. This page doesn't compare how they sound. That's for your ears.
The facts side by side
Every fact about Battery 4 is from Native Instruments' own pages, checked on 7 November 2026. Prices are list prices in US dollars; sales come and go.
| DrumFlex | Battery 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| How it makes its sound | Modeled. It computes every hit as it is played, from the drumheads, the stick, the snare wires and the cymbals. It plays no recordings. | A drum sampler: it plays samples, including your own (the maker's words: "the cutting-edge drum sampler"). |
| Price | $79, one-time | $199 |
| Download and disk space | 14.2 MB download, 31.4 MB installed | Not stated on the maker's pages |
| Memory the maker asks for | 4 GB, with 4 cores or more and 100 MB of disk (the minimum we state for every Flex program) | Not stated on the maker's pages |
| Runs on | Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit | Windows 10 and 11; macOS 13 to 15 |
| Forms | Standalone and VST3 | Standalone, VST, VST3, AAX on Windows; AU as well on Mac |
| Needs another program | Nothing else | Nothing else |
| Copy protection | A license key and your email address, entered once for each Windows user on each computer. No account and no online activation. | An internet connection to download and activate; works offline afterwards |
| Computers per license | One license for one person, to use on all of their own computers | Not stated on the maker's pages |
| Demo | A demo to download and try before you buy | A demo version to download (its limits are not stated) |
| Kits and sounds included | Kits for metal, rock, pop, funk, jazz, smooth jazz, ballad and Latin, and a starting Session Kit; four slots to layer kits | A factory library of kits and samples; accepts all current sample formats; expansions sold separately |
More: virtual drums compared: modeled, sampled and drum machines, a table of 27 products, and all about DrumFlex.
If something here is out of date, write to [email protected] and we'll correct it.