KVR Audio

Logic108 · Post by **Logic108** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:56 pm

It's a wow. The drums are so so realistic and articulations are superb - especially the cymbals and HH. Very nice and realistic and not clipped at all - down to the extensive sampling I think. The packaging is awesome and very professionally designed. The help manuals and videos are well made. The firewire 800 external drive is basically a 150GB unit (the samples take up 122GB's) and looks cool as well as working nicely.
Ummm what else? Just loading a few instruments like Kick and snare and HH I was able to get a really nice natural sounding groove and the reverbs and processing effects were very nice. I use the 'alternating samples' instruments and this gives areal human feel to the drums. The drums can be 'messed-up to sound how you want - so you could definitely get some nice 'electronic' drum sounds from mixosaurus. Each instrument can be altered so much - not just velocity but in many different ways - have a look at their website and the demo videos.
They have a 40% discount at the moment and since the drum kit is just fantastic and it comes with an external firewire drive then I think it is a bargain. I would compare the way they have samples the drumkit to a little bit like the Scarbee black bass. You know - really a lot of samples and very well programmed. Mixosaurus is kind of like getting 14 black basses - or basically 14 really well sampled and programmed instruments.
One thing to note is that you need a powerful computer to run this. I have a quad core mac pro with 2GB of RAM. First thing I thought about doing was upgrading to 4GB of RAM. I'll do that next week.
I'll keep you guys posted with my user 'experience'. So far I'm really really happy with the Mixosaurus and the price means it's really good value.

Logic108 · Post by **Logic108** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 2:35 am

I've been playing with the Mixosaurus for like the past 10 hours and more. Somethings I've noticed are that in Kontakt 2 The maximum RAM that can be addressed is something like 1.2GB. You won't be able to load up a 14 piece drum kit with full articulations without hitting the limits of 32bit memory addressing. This Mixosaurus is really pushing the limits of what Kontakt 2 can do. In the manual there are lots of ways around this and actually a fully-articulated 5 piece set is no problem at all. You can also do a purge of the samples that aren'tbeing used etc.
I've since found out that Kontakt 3 when running under Mac leopard will have 64bit memory addressing (sometime in the middle of 2008) and so there wont be a limit on the amount of RAM that can be used. Hopefully the Mixosaurus guys will update to this 64 bit version of Kontakt 3?
No anyway this is my drum kit. It's truly like having your own drumkit - the cymbals and HH are to die for and the snares aren't too punchy - so a lot of subtlety.
I've got a lot of sample libraries and respect companies like Soniccouture, Scarbee. Mixosaurus is way way up there. I've been disappointed in the past with other sample libraries but not this one.

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 3:00 am

I'm so jealous, dude.

Congratulations!!

pough · Post by **pough** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 6:03 pm

I'm not jealous! If I got something like that I'd have to justify it by not only making good music but also making money making good music. Mixosaurus (and the even more monstrous thing by Sonic Reality) is just too much responsibility for me.

BTW, a quick search found the website for the drums, but it also found this:

Mixosaurus is an extinct genus of diapsid reptile belonging to the ichthyosaur order. It was about 1 meter (3 ft 4 in) long. Fossils of Mixosaurus, which means "Mixed Lizard" have been found all over the world - China, Timor, Indonesia, Italy, Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Canada, Alaska, and Nevada. It was named in 1887 by George H. Baur.

Mixosaurus was named so because it appears to have been a transitional form between the eel-shaped ichthyosaurs such as Cymbospondylus and the later dolphin-shaped ichthyosaurs, such as Ichthyosaurus. Mixosaurus possessed a long tail with a low fin (suggesting it could have been a slow swimmer) but also possessed a dorsal fin for stability in the water. The paddle-like limbs were made up of five toes each, unlike the three toes found in later Icthyosaurs. Noteworthy however is that each toe has more individual bones than is usual (polyphalangy or hyperphalangy), and the front limbs are longer than the back limbs.

Mixosaurus was a Marine reptile that fed on small fish.

That's pretty damn cool.

Logic108 · Post by **Logic108** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:25 pm

In the end the Mixosaurus cost me about the same as BFD2. Of course it comes with an external drive and so I feel I've got a great deal.

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:52 pm

pough wrote:I'm not jealous! If I got something like that I'd have to justify it by not only making good music but also making money making good music. Mixosaurus (and the even more monstrous thing by Sonic Reality) is just too much responsibility for me.

BTW, a quick search found the website for the drums, but it also found this:

Mixosaurus is an extinct genus of diapsid reptile belonging to the ichthyosaur order. It was about 1 meter (3 ft 4 in) long. Fossils of Mixosaurus, which means "Mixed Lizard" have been found all over the world - China, Timor, Indonesia, Italy, Spitsbergen, Svalbard, Canada, Alaska, and Nevada. It was named in 1887 by George H. Baur.

Mixosaurus was named so because it appears to have been a transitional form between the eel-shaped ichthyosaurs such as Cymbospondylus and the later dolphin-shaped ichthyosaurs, such as Ichthyosaurus. Mixosaurus possessed a long tail with a low fin (suggesting it could have been a slow swimmer) but also possessed a dorsal fin for stability in the water. The paddle-like limbs were made up of five toes each, unlike the three toes found in later Icthyosaurs. Noteworthy however is that each toe has more individual bones than is usual (polyphalangy or hyperphalangy), and the front limbs are longer than the back limbs.

Mixosaurus was a Marine reptile that fed on small fish.
That's pretty damn cool.

That is pretty cool!

For the record: I don't think anything is bigger than Mixosaurus, is it?

keyman_sam · Post by **keyman_sam** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:17 pm

bduffy wrote: For the record: I don't think anything is bigger than Mixosaurus, is it?

Such a shame....If you were a girl, I'd show you.... And then you wouldn't say such atrocious things like this....

pough · Post by **pough** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:56 pm

Logic108 wrote:In the end the Mixosaurus cost me about the same as BFD2. Of course it comes with an external drive and so I feel I've got a great deal.

Yeah, but I'm too cheap to get BFD2! (Sorry, Angus!) BTW, just curious - does it require the HD? It seems like a bit of an odd delivery system to me. Maybe because I just had a hard drive lose some sectors and I'm leery of something so dependent on hardware with a short-ish shelf life.

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 10:33 pm

keyman_sam wrote:
bduffy wrote: For the record: I don't think anything is bigger than Mixosaurus, is it?
Such a shame....If you were a girl, I'd show you.... And then you wouldn't say such atrocious things like this....

I'm being atrocious!?!

Logic108 · Post by **Logic108** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 9:27 am

pough wrote:BTW, just curious - does it require the HD? It seems like a bit of an odd delivery system to me. Maybe because I just had a hard drive lose some sectors and I'm leery of something so dependent on hardware with a short-ish shelf life.

It comes on an external HD but you can transfer everything to your own internal HD if you want.

MIXOSAURUS · Post by **MIXOSAURUS** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:04 am

Logic108 wrote: It comes on an external HD...

...and after tonight, it'll also come at a different price

Uwe

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:18 pm

Logic108 · Post by **Logic108** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 3:45 pm

Just a quick update on my experience with Mixosaurus. I was wrong about teh RAM limit in Kontakt 2 and actually it is possible to load more than 1.2GB of samples. So I've loaded up to now a 2GB sample kit and no problems.
I also upgraded my Mac Pro rig to 6GB RAM and load whatever pieces I like all with 7 alternating samples.
I have to say this is what I like best about Mixosaurus and what makes it different from BFD and so on. If I have a straight drum loop - then I get 7 different samples before getting the same sample. So it really sounds life-like. It's not just a case of altering velocity etc but 7 different samples and if you have this on cymbals and HH then it's very real. Plus you can change velocities and so on for each of the different alternating samples.
So I think 4GB would be enough but the more RAM the better. The more I use the Mixosaurus the more I like it and it really is like having your own drumkit.

Just got my Mixosaurus drumkit!