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Abbey Road Modern Drummer

$119 / €99
Abbey Road Modern Drums
Abbey Road Modern Drums
Abbey Road Modern Drummer by Native Instruments / Abbey Road is a Virtual Instrument Audio Plugin and a Software Application for macOS and Windows. It includes, and is therefore "powered by", Kontakt Player, which functions as a VST Plugin, an Audio Units Plugin, a VST 3 Plugin, an AAX Plugin and a Standalone Application.
The OS and Format icons below are for the latest version of Kontakt Player. The version numbers are for Abbey Road Modern Drummer.
Product
Version
1.3
Product
Version
1.3
Instrument
Formats
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Providing two high-end drum kits for use in the free Kontakt Player and the Kontakt 4 sampler, Abbey Road Modern Drums gives musicians and producers access to expertly engineered drum sounds for contemporary music production of any genre, with the highest possible level of fidelity and authenticity.

Abbey Road Modern Drums complements the previous 60s, 70s and 80s installments, and is based on two renowned drum kits that are a staple of modern studio productions – a Drum Workshop Collector's Series "White Kit" and a Pearl Reference "Sparkle Kit". Further expanded with various distinctive cymbals from Sabian and Zildjian as well as three snare drum options each, both kits were recorded with painstaking precision in Abbey Road's Studio Two and Studio Three, taking full advantage of the acoustic properties of these famous recording rooms.

Abbey Road Modern Drums utilizes both contemporary and vintage high-end recording equipment to achieve ultimate sound quality across all individual instruments of the kits. This includes selected Brauner and Neumann microphones from the studios' famed mic collection as well as exclusive SSL, REDD and EMI TG preamps. Classic and modern compression techniques were used on the basis of the legendary Fairchild 660 compressor and the acclaimed Empirical Labs Distressor. Additional specialities include a range of "splash on snare" sounds as well as bass drum samples recorded through a rewired monitor speaker for additional punch, further increasing the sonic versatility of the kits.

Up to 27 velocity layers per instrument with over 40,000 overall samples guarantee ultimate authenticity both for rhythm programming and for real-time MIDI-controlled playing, with a selection of different MIDI mappings accommodating the established layouts of various popular electronic drum kits and third-party drum libraries. The highly functional user interface offers convenient control over all articulation, sound shaping, mixing and routing functions. Advanced randomization can even add subtle nuances to the tone and timing to make it virtually indistinguishable from a studio-recorded drum performance.

Latest User Reviews

Average user rating of 4.00 from 1 review
Abbey Road Modern Drummer

Reviewed By delaiah [all]
July 30th, 2013
Version reviewed: 7 on Windows

I owned this instrument for quite a while some time ago, but ended up selling for reasons described below. I'm a songwriter guy, so that will reflect on my review.

I'll start with the PROs:

  • The dynamics and round-robins are great, this might be my all time favorite kit in terms of feeling "alive" when you play it. At times I had some issues with keeping the dynamics in a certain range, but that can be solved by setting the response curve.
  • The sample quality is outstanding, NI and Abbey Road are sure 2 good companies.
  • The room mics sound lovely, definitely add to the "alive" feeling, I liked the control over mono and stereo room mics for various applications.

The CONs (for my specific situation):

  • Being a song writer, I want my instruments to load within a certain time range, so they are ready when inspiration strikes. Due to the long loading times, I found my self often waiting for the VST to load, so I wouldn't recommend this as a songwriter tool.
  • I couldn't manage to make the drums "sit" in the track. I suspect this might be due to the specific sound of the gear and room used @ Abbey Road. Whatever I did with the drums, I never was happy with the result as they wouldn't blend well with the rest of my recording. I never experienced this issue with another drum library, I tried my best, in the end I just became frustrated and sold it.
  • Again, this one might be my personal taste, but I couldn't find a basic, generic, bread and butter snare drum that would fit my music. They all sounded kinda fancy, but I couldn't find a basic, ol' pop-rock snare drum, or at least not the kind I was looking for. Again, I never experienced this issue with another drum instrument.
  • At the time I owned this product, the cymbals and snare drums couldn't be used between the 2 provided kits. Meaning, if I liked the cymbals in kit 1 and snare in kit 2, there just wasn't a way to use them together. I found this incredibly annoying, knowing the ride I like is there, but couldn't be matched with the kick I liked.
  • Routing and working within Kontakt was cumbersome and left me frustrated from time to time.

I don't really think MD is a bad product, the quality is definitely there but I think a potential buyer should take the above mentioned CONs into consideration before buying. Maybe watch a youtube review or at least listen to the samples on NI's page.

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Comments & Discussion for Native Instruments Abbey Road Modern Drummer

Discussion
Discussion: Active
xcentric
xcentric
30 July 2013 at 10:44pm

@delaiah You can use parts from different kits together in the same instance. Load up two AR Modern Drummer nki's and mute the parts from each kit you don't want. But that'll obviously compound your other gripe, loading time. You could how ever save it as a multi (.nkm) to avoid having to load up two full instances. It would just load up with the parts you wanted.

delaiah
delaiah
31 July 2013 at 12:23pm

good idea, but sounds like a huge pain in the rear to accomplish something that can be done with other instruments easily. also, you'd need to make many of the adjustments twice and last but not least, the room mics likely had different settings for the kits, so they might not match.

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