Drum and Percussion LIbraries

[Steve@ZooWest]

Typically I hire a drummer/percussionist when I need one, but I'm finding more and more situations where I could really use a good library, primarily for loop based production - in pop, soft rock, ballad, and some latin styles.

What are your favorite plug-in libraries in these genres?

[smlworld]

spectrasonics STYLUS

best i have found for loop based work. drag and drop midi files. (for PT you have to drag to the finder and then import) the rex import function is awesome. the qt instructional is great. i cannot speak highly enough for stylus rmx.

[Steve@ZooWest]

Thanks, I had read a couple reviews on Stylus and one of them stated that it was pretty agressive, and not the right library if you wanted clean drum sounds... would you say that is accurate?

[minister]

I had read a couple reviews on Stylus and one of them stated that it was pretty agressive

well...i would say it's vinyl, dirty..and occasionally agressive. but if you want that, it's great. i was just using it, and i love it.

one CLEAN, and EXCELLENT drum sounding library i have is for the ROLAND XV-5050. the card installs inside the unit. and it is the best feeling and sounding kit i have outside of my house drummer (david king of the bad plus & happy apple). you could probably pick up a roland unit and card cheap.

i don't have too many other "inside the box" drum samples..so other will have to speak up.

[smlworld]

check out Backbeat - i have the sage expander version.

have a listen to the backbeat demo

http://spectrasonics.net/libraries/backbeat.php

[Seeee]

Hands dopwn this is the best 30 bucks you could EVER spend onm a loop CD. 5 cd's....

recorded by our own kenny (en)Gioia ...

http://homepage.mac.com/produceher/E...ing/index.html

[MAXIMUSIC]

Hands dopwn this is the best 30 bucks you could EVER spend onm a loop CD. 5 cd's....

recorded by our own kenny (en)Gioia ...

http://homepage.mac.com/produceher/E...ing/index.html

I loved it, very good sounding.
But, if you still need something with more control, buy the DFH Superior, it's absolutely amazing.

My 2cents

[Steve@ZooWest]

Thanks, all, for the thoughts and ideas. I've been checking them out. Minister, I have a 5080 and the card with the drum stuff and I agree, it's sonically very nice, better than you might expect. As of now, however, I'm looking more for the looped drums with fills etc.

I also own a couple of The Spectrasonics CD's - Burning Grooves and Liquid Grooves, and they have some great stuff as well. I use them with an E-synth, however, and it's not the fastest way to work, loading in the sounds - hence the search for the basic kit with grooves/loops on a plug.

Any other opinions?

[minister]

steve,

glad you agree about the roland drum card. you must have good ears.

you know, stylus RMX has what they call S.A.G.E. expanders, there are some nice ones there : xpanders website those would be some ready-loaded loops for you. stylus & these other things....hard to beat.

i am curious about DFH superior. does it have loops?

[Bentley Ferrari]

I loved it, very good sounding.
But, if you still need something with more control, buy the DFH Superior, it's absolutely amazing.

My 2cents

Well, while we're throwing pennies, here's my 2 cents. CENT 1: Buy DRUMCORE.
CENT 2: Buy the EnGioia CDs.


If you're going to drop a couple hundred bucks or so, then buy Drumcore and the EnGioia CDs (an incredible value at this price--take advantage of what boils down to a start-up venture marketing markdown).

HERE's WHY:

(1) Drumcore is a good, functional, versatile, EASY TO USE, high quality program. What's more, I have found it to be quite stable in our nervous little pal ProTools. Great piece of software, and I use BFD, Battery, Kontakt, Reaktor, outboard processing, and have a pretty good loop CD library. I own the Eric Persing (Spectrasonics)loop Cds mentioned above, and while I find them okay for ideas, I've never been able to really use them--too much going on in there for me.

Finally, the really BIG ADVANTAGE is...

(2) You can import anything into Drumcore, and it becomes part of the program. That means as soon as you load Drumcore, you have it swallow up the EnGioia CDs. Voila! You've doubled your sample base. That goes for all your other samples, too.

That's just my two cents. Keep the change. Really you probably can't go wrong with much of anything out there. You might even be better served by re-phrasing your post to ask if there is anything you should stay away from! I wish you the best.