Are commercial drum libraries worth it?

[Bonteburg]

Because I'm thinking of getting one ...(dance/drum machine/electronic mostly)

Here's the thing, I've been into computer music for nearly 5 years and have been collecting literally thousands of drum samples from the internet. But the mere existence of commercial libs kind of proves there must be a point to them (if you get my drift)?

I'm curious, what will your average dance drum CD give me that 5 years of scavengeing for free samples and programming my own hits haven't? (I guess I'm kind of craving a new shiny wrapped purchase too)

What about accoustic drums? Maybe there's a difference there, what with quality recordings and all that ...

Marco

[kovacs]

If you're happy with what you got, then you don't need anything. If you want to spend money, there's plenty to be had. It really boils down to what you need. I use Jamstix with Battery 2 as well as FXPansion GURU and never had a need for drum sample collections, really.

[Lagrange]

Newer the drum packs have more modern sounding drum kits/sets.. I buy packs as I need em rather than keep older outdate sounding ones..

[grillo]

Uhm, the 'average' dance drum cd will give you pretty much the same sounds you have in your collection, the usual roland tr, maybe bastardized in some way, and other hits along the same lines. Some discs are incredibly bad really, with hits badly chopped from famous and recognizable tunes!

But some companies actually offer really nice quality, original samples and kits, i personally love E-lab (is it equipped music now?) stuff and the NI synthetik drums 2 for battery, although this one is a bit more on the experimental side.

The problem with the more 'original' and 'specific' libraries is that maybe you won't find useful sounds for your style and those trendy styles offered on the cd become old and tired pretty quickly.

Maybe listening to demos will help, although pretty anything sounds awesome in a product demo!

[pljones]

For acoustic drums, I used to use ns_kit7 free -- until the full kit came out and I bought Kontakt2, that is. It's wonderful

[Kaneda]

It depends on whether you want a collection of WAV hits / loops or sampler specific kits that will load straight into your sampler with mapping, modulation and velocity layers in place ready to go.
For loops I like 'junebugs'. For hits I like some of the 'big fish' stuff.
You could create kits from what you have collected from the net but I still prefer top quality collections that eliminate the 'hit and miss' nature of using free sounds.
However the ns-kit7 free is a great acoustic set.

[markoos]

From my own personal experiences I would avoid sample cds and go for a drum instrument. Seems to me like a lot of the material on some cds are totally inappropriate for the type of music they're marketed at... I mean, you'll get some use out of a sample cd but far more out of something like Guru - this has a huge library with it, as does Stylus Rmx.

I got drum fundamentals (samplelab) and I found only maybe 20 percent of the material was useable - it seemed like lots of the kits were duplicated with the added 'bonus' of distortion... just my opinion, anyway.

[P.T.]

People buy these large drum sets with 100 velocity levels and I wonder why.

When I listen to the average commercial songs, including the ones with real drums, I rarely hear a lot of variation in the drums.

And then people usually smash the drums with compressiom, doing away with much of the value of the velocity layers.

I guess if you are going to do an album of solo drums it might make a difference.

The same for pianos.

[zircon]

I regularly use samples bounced from Stylus RMX and e-lab's Foundation/Obsession, as well as a few REALLY good sample CDs like Gota Yashiki Groove Activator. However, I also have a bunch of collections I don't use because the sounds are redundant, or just no good. It's hit or miss when it comes to this sort of thing, I think.

[BITWORD]

Because I'm thinking of getting one ...(dance/drum machine/electronic mostly)

Here's the thing, I've been into computer music for nearly 5 years and have been collecting literally thousands of drum samples from the internet. But the mere existence of commercial libs kind of proves there must be a point to them (if you get my drift)?

I'm curious, what will your average dance drum CD give me that 5 years of scavengeing for free samples and programming my own hits haven't? (I guess I'm kind of craving a new shiny wrapped purchase too)

What about accoustic drums? Maybe there's a difference there, what with quality recordings and all that ...

Marco

You might want to check out µTonic from http://www.soniccharge.com/ which is a plugin drum synth that will let you make a lot of sounds, and might help you fill in the cracks of the bases you already have covered. If you want electronic, this is worth looking at.

Marc

[AKJ]

for acustic drums I'd say yes. try eg the mixtended drums from wizoo. for electronic drums: I go with softsynths. there are very good free ones: drumatic, rhythms, ersdrums and also dr-fusion (which is, however, sample-based), etc.

[pettinhouse]

I'm going to release in 10 days a drumkit sample library with lots of vinyl kits acoustics and electronics.

Andrea

[dixichickiller]

It depends on whether you want a collection of WAV hits / loops or sampler specific kits that will load straight into your sampler with mapping, modulation and velocity layers in place ready to go.
For loops I like 'junebugs'. For hits I like some of the 'big fish' stuff.
You could create kits from what you have collected from the net but I still prefer top quality collections that eliminate the 'hit and miss' nature of using free sounds.
However the ns-kit7 free is a great acoustic set.

WHERE CAN I GET THIS NS-KIT7 FREE? IVE NEVER HEARD OF IT

[M'Snah]

http://naturalstudio.co.uk/ns_kit7.html

[PeterL]

Jamstix with all the additional packs currently fits all my needs for drums.
Absolutely worth the price.