Drumdrops releases "Folk Rock Dual Kit Kontakt Player Pack"

Drumdrops has released The Folk Rock Dual Kit Kontakt Player Pack, their first Kontakt Player compatible pack. It contains both the Vintage Folk Rock Kit and the Modern Folk Rock Kit. This pack makes the kits completely compatible with the free Kontakt Player sampler. The instruments included are fully NKS compliant.

The two kits included in this pack offer both a modern folk rock sound and a 60s / 70s vintage folk rock sound. Both were recorded and mixed at Livingston studios by Phill Brown (John Martyn, Bob Marley, Rolling Stones, Talk Talk, Led Zeppelin) who learned his trade under producers such as Glyn Johns and whose in-depth knowledge of recording bands in these years helped mould the sound of the kit. The drums were sampled by Martyn Barker (Rufus Wainwright, Richard Hawley, Katherine Williams) and the kits contain a lot of MIDI grooves played by Martyn. Both kits have been sampled using sticks, brushes and hotrods.

The Vintage Folk Rock Kit is a good choice for vintage, folk or indie rock tracks with a 60s / early 70s drum sound. The kit used was a vintage 1966 Ludwig Hollywood kit.

For the sound Phill Brown used his years of accumulated knowledge and went back to the time of the 60s when he was based at Olympic Studios. Phill's idea was to create a 1960s drum sound with a modern twist. Instead of positioning the microphones close to the kit he wanted to capture a natural drum sound and record the 'dead' room. He used only five microphones on the kit: one on the kick, the snare, two kit microphones placed around the kit which provide a surprisingly good stereo picture, and a mono overhead. All of the mics were recorded through API mic pre's.

This vintage 1966 Ludwig Hollywood kit consists of a 22" x 14" kick drum, 13" x 9" and 12" x 8" rack toms and a 16" x 16" floor tom. The snare used was a 1967 Ludwig14" x 5" snare. Cymbals used were Zildjian Constantinople 14" hi-hats, a 20" flat top ride, a 17" medium thin crash and an 18" K Custom Dark crash. The kit also includes a shaker and tambourine.

The Modern Folk Rock Kit was recorded on a Gretsch kit is a 1980s Maple 4416. Phill close mic'd this kit as a contrast to the 5 mic process used on the Vintage kit. Mics used were classic drum mics such as Shure SM57s, AKG D112's, Sennheiser MD421's and Coles 4038's as overheads. This kit was set up in the bright live room at Livingston Studio 1. All mirrors and tiles, it is said to be one of the best drum rooms left in London. Phill close mic'd the Kit in a pretty standard way and had two room mic's to give size, energy and openness.

This Gretsch kit consists of a 22" x 16" Kick drum, 10" x 7", 12" x 9" and 13" x 10" Rack Toms and a 16" x 16" Floor Tom. The snares used were a combination of two Ludwig Snares. A Ludwig 400 14" x 5" and Martyn's Ludwig Brass Shell 14" x 6.5". Cymbals used were Zildjian Top Rock 14" Hi-hats, a 20" Rock Ride, an 18" Zildjian Paper Thin Crash and an 18" Plain Paiste Crash. The kit also includes a shaker and tambourine.

The Dual Kit Kontakt Player Pack contains the brand new Drumdrops Kontakt Instrument in both kits. The new instrument comes with a completely new GUI and has many new features. Special focus has gone on the compatibility with E-Kits so e-kit owners can completely customise their kit to work with the instrument using the new MIDI CC data page. The new instrument includes many features such as:

• New mixer design with routing to DAW, 4 Aux Sends (2 reverbs and 2 delays).
• New Channel Effects - EQ, Compressor, Shape, Tape Control.
• Mic Mix section allowing you to mix all 5 mics of the vintage kit and close mics, overheads & rooms on the modern Kit.
• Drum Voice - edit the attack, hold, decay and tuning on each drum.
• Humanize - Randomly change the volume, velocity, tuning & timing of hits.
• New Master Effects Compressor, Limiter, EQ and Crush section.
• Stereo width control and L/R swap.
• Improved MIDI groove player now with 2111 loops (318 Folk loops).
• New MIDI Map section for easily building and saving your own Maps.
• MIDI CC Editing Page - Edit the parameters controlling the snare, hi-hat and cymbals.
• The best E-Drumkit compatibility.
• Many Snapshot presets included mixed by different engineers in both kits.
• Over 16000 samples recorded in 24 velocity step and 5 round robins.
• Switch between Sticks, Hotrods and brushes.

For more details on the Modern Folk Rock Kit head here. For more information on the Vintage Folk Rock kit head here.

You can see a walkthrough guide of the Kontakt Instrument here

To watch a video showing the features of the NKS compatibility found in the Kontakt Player pack head over here

The Folk Rock Dual Kit Kontakt Player pack can be purchased direct from the Drumdrops website for £90.00 here. For a limited period customers can get a 20% discount. Use the voucher code folkplayer20 at checkout. For customers who have previously purchased the Vintage Folk Rock Kit Kontakt 5 Pack they can upgrade to this pack for £45.00. Use the voucher code folkplayerupdate at checkout.

Also released today is the Modern Folk Rock Kit Kontakt 5 pack which is compatible with the full latest version of Kontakt 5. This pack contains all the features of the instrument found in the Kontakt Player pack except for the NKS compatibility.

This pack is available to purchase from the Drumdrops store for £45.00. 10 Drumdrops customers who have previously purchased our Kontakt packs (on the Drumdrops site) have had this pack automatically added to their Drumdrops account.

Could it be you? If you were not one of the lucky 10 and wish to purchase the Modern folk Rock Kit Kontakt 5 pack you can get a 20% discount using the voucher code modernfolk20 at checkout.