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Confession: I am a drum sample hoarder

JamieLang

Active Member
This occurred to me as I was looking to just put a single kit on my old MBAir that I can map for the Logic Drummer to play for writing demos....my current "templated" kit is one that takes about 7gb of RAM just to buffer....and this old laptop only has 4. So, hunting back through old libraries and expansions and such....

....and I'm thinking "WTF is wrong with me?"

Because, I'm a simple artist. I'm a funky folky kind of singer songwriter....who basically uses drums that just sound like an old vintage kit mic'd up well in a good sized room. I'm not Mr Slamming Heavy Rawk Kit guy....or....a guy who has his "metal projects" folder and his "40s swing band projects" folder.....basically, old resonant Gretsch or Ludwig or Premiere kit with nice sounding room mics? Done. So, why do I have so many?

Granted....these have been collected over a lot of years of doing this, but....why do I STILL have them?

A: because I'm a drum sample hoarder. Obviously.

Can I get an "amen"?
 
If you can't work quickly, then it's a good reason to move on. But otherwise I'm finding that different songs call for different drums, even within the same genre. Sometimes that bright hi-hat works better, or a beefier kick. Not huge changes, but with samples it means having options. Since my music keeps evolving, so do my drum choices.

But if I were to start from scratch I would buy Addictive Drums 2 and the packs I like best (I think I have 12 add on kit packs which cover many genres and extras plus 3rd party grooves). Between the Midi transformation of the bests and the mixing capabilities, AD2 does everything I would want out of drums. Finding third party real drummer midi grooves that sound great is key (Groove Monkey is better than most). The kits are killer. It beats the heck out of all my many Kontakt drum kits (NI collections, Spitfire, 8Dio, etc). I also use a midi kit to roll my own grooves.
 
Do you have any suggestions for good 80's drum libraries? You know, where the snare sound like a cannon a d the kick has that gated beefy in your face. In the air tonight toms and lots of 'em?

Def Leopard kits, Rock and Hyde kits (YouTube Dirty Water), Michael Jackson kits, and more. Processed snares, stacked time and kicks.

Any hints to these type of sounds would be greatly appreciated.
 
Do you have any suggestions for good 80's drum libraries? You know, where the snare sound like a cannon a d the kick has that gated beefy in your face. In the air tonight toms and lots of 'em?

Def Leopard kits, Rock and Hyde kits (YouTube Dirty Water), Michael Jackson kits, and more. Processed snares, stacked time and kicks.

Any hints to these type of sounds would be greatly appreciated.


fwiw: If I was going for sounds like that I would more likely add effects(compression, gated reverb etc...)to drum samples & make it sound the way I want it.
From my perspective you would have way more control and it would sound less like repetitive samples w/baked-in effects that don't quite match the project.
OTOH do you have Evil Drums by Joe Barresi? It's not exactly what you're looking for but it is a great punchy library! It's readily available for BFD which I don't use,briefly it was also available for Superior Drums(which I have and use it with).It's discontinued in the SD format but sometimes you can find someone selling it @ KVR or GS.
 
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I pretty much have them all...and intend to get MODO Drum before the intro sale is over. :/ Yeah...I could have had Neil Peart and Dave Weckl on call for what I have spent on drum machines and libraries over the years.
 
Do you have any suggestions for good 80's drum libraries? You know, where the snare sound like a cannon a d the kick has that gated beefy in your face. In the air tonight toms and lots of 'em?

Def Leopard kits, Rock and Hyde kits (YouTube Dirty Water), Michael Jackson kits, and more. Processed snares, stacked time and kicks.

Any hints to these type of sounds would be greatly appreciated.

The obvious one is NI Abbey Road 80s Drummer
 
Drums, pianos and strings are kind of like that, where having a choice of similar-sounding ones will often make it easier to get a track sounding "right".
 
Yeah, I grew up with drum samples that sought to sound like records. Nearly always like records I wouldn't buy....BFD and actually RealGigaDrums before it were a revolution--because for the first time, one could reasonably expect it to sound like an actual drum kit being whacked at by a non drummer (me)....

I would say the majority of the processed sampled sets sound like the 80s. Whether they intend to or not. Reel Machines from XLN will take care of the drum samples/machines--like Def Leppard.
 
Well, I only have AD2, EZ Drummer 2 and Superior Drummer 2 & 3. And all those drummers that come with Komplete. I've been trying to use Superior Drummer more, but really, I don't have a lot of the SD packs. I actually like my AD2 better just based on the drums I have. I have a lot of the rock drum sets and midi packs.

But no, I'm not a drum hoarder. I hoard pretty much all instruments.....
 
BFD and Superior are drum samplers. The others are virtual drum machines. People get offended, but look--I've used drum samples since the 80s in some form...I'm not saying one is "lesser"--I'm saying they're different functions. ONE....attempts to recreate the sound and feel of DRUMS....and one seeks to recreate the sound of "drums on RECORDS".

Actually, you mention the "drummers" that come with Komplete. They messed those up so badly that the ONE of those I own, is still arguably my fave kit....but, I had to restore the directory from a backup after I "upgraded" to the "drummer" version. I'd also point out a misnomer about that series since the "obvious" choice was pointed out above being to get the "80s drummer"....now--I only have the 60s, but what I KNOW about the series is that it's not an era of a recorded music. It's an era of DRUM MANUFACTURE....my 60s are early and late 60s Gretsch RoundBadge and Ludwig maple (?) kits...it sounds NOTHING like recordings of drums in the 60s. Actually--I'd venture if you add the 70s stopping Gretches, 95% of everything I listen to is played on that era of drums. So, I don't know what the AR 80s would be--Pearl, probably? Tama? But, it's not going to inherently sound like records of the 1980s. The same way most of those heavy guitar tones are 1960s and early 70 (plexiglass and JMP) Marshalls in the STUDIO...the "1980s Marshall" is going to be a JCM800. People will be hard pressed to get a great George Lynch tone from a JCM800 despite him recording in the 80s and Dokken being "very 80s" through and through.

As a side note: if there's a secret handshake way to get the Drummer to sound like the Drums....do let me know--because the Drummer has a Superior map for the highhats--which is what I scripted the LPX Drummer for....but, I can't take the sound of the Drummer. Because to cycle back to my original post--in terms of footprint to sonics--I think the AR 60s Drums is what I want to put on the laptop. But, I don't really want to make another ARTID to note mapping for the high hat in Logic....I've tried just turning ALL the "SSL" mixer stuff off....but it seems to be just really different at the core. Like they're mp3s of the original recordings or something.
 
I always thought it was just me that didn't care for the drummer things in Komplete.

Superior can be used as a drum machine. Although it comes with midi, you can switch out the drums in the kit and play your own beat if you want. It is just easier to use the premade ones.

Another fun one is Reason's Redrum. It is a drum machine that uses samples. I used to have a lot of fun coming up with beats using it. But then I got AD and it was much easier and sounded better.
 
You can use any of the above for either purpose. But, a lot of the "babel" about best has less to do with the quality of the instrument samples....and everything to do with how you're using them. I consider like BFD and EZdrummer as the extremes--with everything else trying to figure out what balance between the two they can "sell" as unique.

The distinction, for me, is not about included beats....directly, at least....indirectly--the way you make a sound set respond to dynamics IS how it can be easily mapped to "whatever" library of MIDI beats. The more response you give it--along with the more actual mic positions you trigger samples from, the better it gets as a drum sampler and the harder it gets to use it as a drum machine. FWIW.
 
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Do you have any suggestions for good 80's drum libraries? You know, where the snare sound like a cannon a d the kick has that gated beefy in your face. In the air tonight toms and lots of 'em?

I'll probably get this at some stage, but this sample library might have 'some' of the type of sounds you're after.
 
Have you tried Atlas yet?

https://www.algonaut.tech/

I remember hearing about that....the chuckle worthy part, is....if it were accurate, it would show me that all my drums are Gretsch or Ludwig from the 60s/70s with a few boutique snares. Recorded "naturally" and "roomy" differing largely on mic config and size/quality of room. I DO remember that coming out and thinking "at least I don't need THAT!!" ;)

Like I said originally--one of the funniest parts about my hoarding these sounds, is I can basically use any of them to mostly the same ends. It's not like I collect esoteric electronic percussion sounds....I had the privilege to play briefly in a band with Steve Bowman (drummer on Counting Crows August and Everything After) when he moved to town--I basically just want THAT....ish....on everything. I literally COULD make a decision I'm going to use nothing but Abbey Road 60s Drums (not drummer) and spend a little time sculpting externally and saving some DAW presets....and what is that 6gb? The more I think about it--the more I like that idea. I don't like trying to remember my hack Javascript skills to rework my LogicDrummer high hat JS....
 
Addictive Drums 2 is my go to. In addition, I have what came with Komplete Ultimate, Logic's Drummer and I recently added Superior Drummer 3. The SD3 purchase was mainly for the Orchestral Percusion SDX; perfect interface & feature set for me. (I have BFD, but it's version 1.5 and probably not compatible with the current Mac OS.)

AD2 does JUST ABOUT everything I need. I didn't know I was missing one thing until I got SD3. That song creator and the ability to grab grooves of individual kit pieces and add to or replace my versions is sweet. I wish AD2 would add that feature.

Other than that, AD2 is perfect. I'm well invested, having set up custom kits, MIDI maps, purchased quite a few ADpaks & Kitpiece Paks. And it sounds great!

SD3 is feature packed though. I'd probably go all in if not for ONE issue I have with it. The MIDI mapping. Separate maps for in & out kills the workflow for me. Custom MIDI In maps work great. But the included grooves are controlled by the internal map. Changing that kills the mapping for the included grooves.

Doing everything within SD3 works great. Any existing groove I want to amend has to be brought into SD3 1st. SD3 grooves are not compatible with existing grooves in my DAW as they are custom mapped. PITA, but I'm trying to adjust. Until then, AD2 remains my go to.
 
It's heartwarming to know that my "hoard" potentially don't even register here at VI Control.

Drums are so universal in the "need"...that I know people who literally have no other virtual instruments, no keyboard but some mini little thing on the desktop to tap on occasionally....and own Slate, Superior, BFD, etc, etc....

since this has turned to a discussion of just drum samples....how we use what we like, etc...I haven't released music in probably 15 years (other than quickie funs stuff) with sequenced drums--which I just say for context--not judgement. I can do it well, but it takes WAY too long if you want it to sound like a drummer playing. WAY....too long. So--I just hire a drummer. So, I use whatever drum samples when I make a writing demo of a new song/idea.

Its' always been a kind of....hard fence to walk between raw and ready samples. I have never been able to use much of any "grooves". I DID use the original Steinberg Groove Agent to "play" BFD1&2 for a while....it would let me work in a way that was cool that the later versions didn't....and NOW....Logic's AI having Robot Drummer is playing on all my demos. I'm even releasing some of them as is, I think....just as a "one man band for the first time in decades" release.

I adapted some JavaScript to map the ArtID articulations of the high hat to SD, XLN, and BFD. If you guys think you can convert those to MIDI....solo the high hat before and after. You lose more than that....but, you can't ever get it back, because Apple changes the NOTES to GM standard, but leaves the ARTIDs on there--but, since you need the ORIGINAL note+ArtID to define the articulation....it's lost forever. So, you have to tap the stream in the Environment. FWIW.

That's getting super geeky, though. I am quite sure I will never again tap or search through beats looking for something "that might work". The former takes to long and the latter never works well. I really think Apple should send me an iMacPro for me to do proper demos for them on how to use the AI Drummer. #intoUniverse :P
 
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