Let's talk about Drum Masters, iMap and the Infinite Player. First here is the info on Drum Masters and here are some links:
www.sonicreality.com/drummasters
Silver Edition: http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=2458
Gold Edition (the main one we recommend): http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=2409
Platinum Edition (all of it): http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=2411
Here's some info from the first page to read right here:
Drum Masters
Virtual Drum & Groove Instrument
Drum Masters is a virtual instrument powered by Kontakt and the Infinite Player that features 8 legendary drummer's grooves and drum kits.
It's part of Sonic Reality's Studio ProFiles series. Drum Masters comes in 4 different editions: Silver, Gold, Platinum and a DL "Flex Pak" download version with a la carte drum kits and groove paks.
Drum Masters Silver Edition
The Silver Edition of Drum Masters features stereo Rex™ grooves mapped in Kontakt's "Beat Mode" which allows you to play multiple loops mapped across the keyboard at once while each slice of the Rex groove follows in sync with your host's tempo. Over 1,200 unique rhythms created by legendary studio drummers Steve Gadd (Paul Simon, Steely Dan), Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson), Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel), Danny Gottlieb (Pat Metheny Group), Ed Greene (Donald Fagen, Barry White), Nick D'Virgilio (Tears for Fears, Genesis) and Bun E. Carlos (Cheap Trick). In addition to the grooves you also get playable stereo drum kits mapped in a variety of ways such as GM and Sonic Reality's awardwinning I-Map™. Individual kit pieces such as kick, snare, toms etc. Can be swapped between kits to create your own custom drum kit combinations.
Gold & Platinum Editions
Drum Masters Gold Edition has everything from Silver plus 10 multi-track drum kits and over 750 multi-track Rex grooves mapped across the keyboard. Both kits and grooves having individual mic channels routed to a standard array of 16 individual outputs for the ultimate mixing flexibility inside your DAW. Seamlessly transition between midi played kits and real audio grooves played by the masters to create the most realistic and professional drum tracks. Sonic Reality's unique multitrack Rex grooves are the most powerful audio drum loops to date offering the best of both worlds in discrete mic mixing and flexible tempo control. Additional built-in effects processing and sound shaping parameters are easily accessible from the interface of each instrument and individual kit pieces such as kick, snare, toms etc. can be swapped between kits to create your own custom drum kit combinations. The Platinum Edition has 2,500 additional stereo Rex grooves and over 1,500 additional multi-track Rex grooves. Also included are additional stick variations such as brushes, blasticks and mallets.
Drum Masters, iMap & Infinite Player
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- Sonic Reality Head Chef
- 8566 posts since 11 Mar, 2002 from Florida
Last edited by Squids on Thu Mar 12, 2009 7:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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- Sonic Reality Head Chef
- Topic Starter
- 8566 posts since 11 Mar, 2002 from Florida
Regarding using the multitrack drum kits and the multitrack grooves, there are various techniques to do this but we've come up with an enhancement that will be released this week as a free update. The enhancement has new additional patches that allow the grooves to be played along side the kits on the same midi channel. We're also going to have the kits pre-assigned to midi channel 1 as opposed to omni. This will allow you to quickly set the grooves to a separate midi channel really quick if you want to have a larger variety of them available in the same instance of Kontakt and going out of the same outputs. More info and eventual tutorials (the video tutorials have to happen after we've finalized this because that's what will be the subject of some of them) coming soon! If you have any questions about it let us know here. We've had several threads about the Infinite Player talking about the drums but remember that the Infinite Player is Sonic Reality's general all purpose high end sample player. It works with Drum Masters and other Studio ProFiles drum products but also other instruments too. So, perhaps a better focus on drums should be on the Drum Masters and Studio ProFiles Multitrack Kit/Groove products themeslves and that's why I've created this thread.
(Darkstar or anyone else who might like to copy and paste any Questions/Answers relating to multitrack IP format kits and grooves in here feel free to do so, this way the knowledge will be consolidated. Eventually we'll also put together a nice FAQ on the site.... we're revamping the entire SR site this year and it will have major improvements on info per product).
(Darkstar or anyone else who might like to copy and paste any Questions/Answers relating to multitrack IP format kits and grooves in here feel free to do so, this way the knowledge will be consolidated. Eventually we'll also put together a nice FAQ on the site.... we're revamping the entire SR site this year and it will have major improvements on info per product).
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- Sonic Reality Head Chef
- Topic Starter
- 8566 posts since 11 Mar, 2002 from Florida
Regarding iMap Horizontal approach vs. Vertical GM/Other Alting hi velocity approach.
Sometimes I hear people talk about the machine gun effect when using samples that don't automatically alternate on their own. While we also like and intend to make V-Drum and GM alting versions of drum kits in Drum Masters as a bonus future update, there are some good things to know about the iMap and how it is intended to be used.
As far as machine gun effect, nothing in iMap machine guns if you're using it the way it was intended which is to vary up the hits as needed. You have three alts per tom to avoid machine gun effects, you have left and right stick per position of the snare to avoid machine gun not to mention center, edge and rim to change up as well if you want more drastic variation. It's all there, it's just a horizontal approach for deliberate control vs. a vertical one where the only controls are velocity switching and randomization.
Anyway, this is just how I like to work with the deliberate control and to me it is more advanced (random alting happens out of your control for example whereas this you can choose a specific velocity and timbe to hit -like the finesse of a great drummer could with a real kit). The trade off could though that there are less velocities per key in favor of more keys assigned to samples across the keyboard. But considering that each key has the possibility of full 128 dynamic levels the other concern is timbral differences and that CAN be achieved with the keys spread across the keyboard. Now, the IDEAL of course would be the best of BOTH and the new kits we're doing, such as Ken Scott Collection and the Hugh Padgham Collins-style kit, DO have both massive vertical AND horizontal sample mapping but at a small price... they are then HUGE and require a bit more computer power, take up more space and take longer to load (not to mention even LONGER to make and these kits and grooves took us such a long time to do in the first place). But regardless of that it is important to know that everything the iMap drums have currently is adequate, if used the way I described, for creating a VERY realistic drum track.
Now, we're not intending to force people to only use our iMap method. It just takes that much more time to do it in other ways such as V-Drum specific or GM map and with this random alting or stacked velocities approach. Certainly for e-Drummers this is a better way as you can't have horizontal pads across like you can keys (can you imagine 88 pads?). So, we're working on those maps too as a free update.
Sometimes I hear people talk about the machine gun effect when using samples that don't automatically alternate on their own. While we also like and intend to make V-Drum and GM alting versions of drum kits in Drum Masters as a bonus future update, there are some good things to know about the iMap and how it is intended to be used.
As far as machine gun effect, nothing in iMap machine guns if you're using it the way it was intended which is to vary up the hits as needed. You have three alts per tom to avoid machine gun effects, you have left and right stick per position of the snare to avoid machine gun not to mention center, edge and rim to change up as well if you want more drastic variation. It's all there, it's just a horizontal approach for deliberate control vs. a vertical one where the only controls are velocity switching and randomization.
Anyway, this is just how I like to work with the deliberate control and to me it is more advanced (random alting happens out of your control for example whereas this you can choose a specific velocity and timbe to hit -like the finesse of a great drummer could with a real kit). The trade off could though that there are less velocities per key in favor of more keys assigned to samples across the keyboard. But considering that each key has the possibility of full 128 dynamic levels the other concern is timbral differences and that CAN be achieved with the keys spread across the keyboard. Now, the IDEAL of course would be the best of BOTH and the new kits we're doing, such as Ken Scott Collection and the Hugh Padgham Collins-style kit, DO have both massive vertical AND horizontal sample mapping but at a small price... they are then HUGE and require a bit more computer power, take up more space and take longer to load (not to mention even LONGER to make and these kits and grooves took us such a long time to do in the first place). But regardless of that it is important to know that everything the iMap drums have currently is adequate, if used the way I described, for creating a VERY realistic drum track.
Now, we're not intending to force people to only use our iMap method. It just takes that much more time to do it in other ways such as V-Drum specific or GM map and with this random alting or stacked velocities approach. Certainly for e-Drummers this is a better way as you can't have horizontal pads across like you can keys (can you imagine 88 pads?). So, we're working on those maps too as a free update.