Drumdrops releases "1965 Ludwig Super Classic" Sample Packs with a special offer on the Kontakt 5 pack

Drumdrops has released four 1965 Ludwig Super Classic Kit Sample Packs: the Multi-Velocity Pack, Single Hits Pack, Drum Replacement Pack and All Samples Pack.

The Kontakt 5 pack with the the Drumdrops Kontakt instrument will be released on the 28th of August 2014 between 4 and 4.30 pm GMT. The first 20 customers can get the Kontakt pack free. The next 50 can purchase it for £ 15.00, the next 50 for £ 25.00, the next 50 for £ 30.00 and then it will return to £ 40.00.

Here's what they say:

Most people will know of the reputation of Ludwig drums, famously used by Ringo Starr, and later by John Bonham of Led Zeppelin. They sound warm and responsive with a lovely dark tone. Made before music became really amplified and loud, these drums were designed to sound good rather than generate loads of volume and as such they are full and tonal, especially when recorded and miked up. Although obviously a 1960s kit, drummers continued to use this model though the 70s, and do so to this very day.

This kit comprises a 20" x 14" kick drum, a 13" x 9" rack tom and a 16" x 16" floor tom. The snares used are a wooden 1960s 14" x 5" Rogers Dynasonic and a 1970s 14" x 6.5" Ludwig 402. The cymbals used were an early 70s 20" Zildjian K medium Heavy 20" Ride and the hats some Zildjian K 14" Hi-Hats from the same era, and a Zildjian K Dark Medium Thin 18" Crash. This kit belongs to the drummer Tim Weller.

The kit was recorded by resident Drumdrops engineer Ben Thackeray and mixed by Grammy award winning ex-Abbey Road engineer Guy Massey. The drummer was Tim Weller, a busy UK session drummer whose recent clients include Death in Vegas, Chris Difford, Future Sound of London, Marc Almond, Beverley Craven, Natalie Imbruglia, Duke Special, Ellie Goulding and Noel Gallagher.

The recording took place in Miloco's The Square Studios in London. Quite a controlled and tight sounding live room so you can really hear the sound of this kit and treat it later. For mic pre's they used a combination of the SSL G-Series and a number of external pre's including Calrec 1061s, Valve Telefunken V76, a Neve 1066 and Neve Prisms.

The kit was mixed on the SSL G-Series console at The Square by Guy Massey. In the past few years Guy has worked with many artists including Bill Fay, Ed Sheeran, Ultrasound, Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh and Paul McCartney as well as many up and coming acts. In 2010 he won two UK Music Producer Guild awards for engineer of the year and best album. He won engineer of the year again this year.

The Kontakt Pack has been designed exclusively for the latest full version of Native Instruments Kontakt 5. The pack includes up to sixteen velocities of each articulation and up to 5 round robins. In total it contains 8240 separate mic samples. Included in the Kontakt pack is the latest version of the Drumdrops Kontakt 5 instrument.

Key features include:

• Groove Player - There are 864 MIDI Grooves that are included in the MIDI Groove Player that are played by a variety of drummers.
• Step Sequencer - The sequencer has eight channels allowing any eight of the articulations of the Ludwig Kit to be selected and played. The sequencer contains 32 steps for each channel.
• Groove Slicer – The Groove Slicer cuts each MIDI groove into thirty-two sections. These sections can then be played back in a different order to the original depending on what which of the three modes are selected.
• Mic Blend - Here you can control the mix on the microphones used for each channel. You can vary the balance of the close microphone with the overheads and room microphones or the top and bottom snare microphones.
• An 8 channel mixer. Each channel comes with a Mute, Solo, Phase Reverse and 2 Aux sends.
• Multiple Convolution Reverbs included, 4 studio Impulse responses and many classic reverbs and effects.
• The ability to change the velocity curve and tuning of each drum.
• Randomise the tuning, velocity, EQ and timing for added realism.
• Multiple Round Robins included for extra authenticity.
• 4 band EQ and Transient Master included on each channel.
• A buss compressor and Tape saturator on the mix buss.
• Ability to route each channel to your DAW.
• Multiple Mix presets included mixed by a variety of engineers, musicians and producers.
• A full version and lite version for use on laptops.
• Multiple MIDI maps included with full compatibility with the Roland TD-12, TD-20 and TD-30 V-drums and the Yamaha DTX-900.

Full details on this pack here.

The Multi-Velocity pack includes up to sixteen velocities of each articulation totalling 464 drum samples. All of the samples are mixed from a combination of the overhead, room and close mics recorded as 24-bit 44.1 kHz WAV files, meaning they can be loaded into almost any sampler or drum machine. To make things easier patches are included for some of the most commonly used software packages.

The Single Hits Pack includes up to three velocities of each articulation. In total it contains 109 stereo drum samples. All of the samples are mixed from a combination of the overhead, room and close mics recorded as 24-bit 44.1 kHz WAV files, meaning they can be loaded into almost any sampler or drum machine. We also provide the samples in this pack as 16-bit WAV files for the legacy drum machines such as the Akai MPC60. The same patches as the Multi-Velocity Pack are included.

The Drums Replacement Pack comes with patches for Slate Trigger V2, Drumagog 5 and DrumXchanger.

The Multiple-Velocity pack retails for £ 15.00, The Single Hits Pack for £ 7.50, The Drum Replacement Pack for £ 12.50 and the All Samples Pack is £ 28.00. The Kontakt 5 pack will be released on the 28th of August at special limited number price points from free up to £ 40.00.

Listen to some sound demos of this kit here.

Watch drummer Tim Weller discussing the Ludwig Kit here