Mapex Heavy Rock Kit - Multi-Velocity Pack

The Mapex Heavy Rock Kit is a monstrous sounding rock kit. The kit sampled belongs to UK rock drummer Jason Bowld and is the kit he has used on all his recordings for the last five years for producers such as Andy Sneap, Romesh Dodangoda, Machine, Ulrich Wilde and Colin Richardson. This kit was also used to record the drum tracks album Heavy Rock Drops. What makes this kit special is it comes with three different Mapex snares and four different crash cymbals all carefully sampled in an incredible sounding live room.

The kit comprises a Mapex Saturn 22" Kick drum. Three snares – a Mapex Black Panther hammered phosphor Bronze 14" x 6.5", a Mapex Black Panther 14"x 5" and a Mapex Machete 14" x 6.5". There are two Mapex rack toms – a 10" x 8" and 12" x 9" and a 16" x 16" floor tom. The hi-hats are Paiste sound edge 14" hats. The cymbals consist of a Paiste Dry Heavy 21" Ride, a Paiste Twenty Metal 18" Crash, a Paiste Metal China 18" Crash, a Paiste Twenty Custom 19" Crash and a Paiste Twenty Custom 20" Crash. All in all this is an epic sounding rock kit.

The kit was recorded and mixed by UK producer, musician and engineer Martyn ' Ginge' Ford. The drummer was rock specialist Jason Bowld. Jason has drummed for Bullet For My Valentine, Pop Will Eat Itself, Killing Joke, Axewound and Pitchshifter.

The recording took place in the now closed Garden Studios in London. The studio had a legendary reputation being owned by John Foxx from Ultravox and Matt Johnson from The The. The live room was capable of providing a huge live sound and it is evident on these samples. At the centre of the Control Room was a Neve 8026 vintage console owned by Producer Craig Silvey and the microphones used ranged from vintage AKG C12's to B&K 4011's alongside the more traditional Sennheiser MD421's, AKG D12 and Shure SM57. With the vintage Neve and classic microphones we were soon able to get a great drum sound. All the microphones were recorded through either Neve 1084 or Neve 1076 mic pre's which were built into the console. With an external GML 8200 EQ on the kick microphones. The kit was them mixed in one of London's leading mix studios, The Engine Room on an SSL-G Series console.

The "Multi-Velocity pack" is our sample pack which is suited for customers who want multiple velocity levels. The pack includes up to sixteen velocities of each articulation. In total it contains 481 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. Included are 10 patches for some of the most commonly used software packages including:

• Kontakt v5.2.0.
• Battery v3.2.3.
• EXS24 vLogic 9. / vLogic X.
• Ableton Drum Rack v9.0.5.
• Reason v7.0.1 Combinator Refill containing NN-XT sampler & FX.
• Renoise v3.0.0. (Courtesy of Jon Halford).
• Maschine v1.8.0.
• Geist v1.0.0.7.
• Studio One's Impact v2.5.1 Soundset.
• iDrum v1.73.625.
• Reason v7.0.1 Redrum Refill.
• TX16Wx v2.4.0. free sampler (Courtesy of Suleiman Ali).

The multi-velocity pack now also contains over 500 MIDI loops covering a variety of genres mapped to the default MIDI map.

The Multi-Velocity Pack of the Mapex Heavy Rock Kit is available exclusively from the Drumdrops store costing £ 15.00. Head over here to find out more.