Native Instruments has announced Studio Drummer, a new instrument for the efficient creation of studio-quality acoustic drum tracks. By combining premium sampled drum kits and a comprehensive studio-grade mixing environment with a wide assortment of professional grooves, the Kontakt-based instrument provides a highly versatile and easy-to-use "virtual drummer" that gives authentic and fast results for pop, rock, metal, jazz and related music styles.
For use with the full Kontakt version and the free Kontakt Player, Studio Drummer makes extensive use of the advanced features of the Kontakt 5 generation to provide all necessary components for a first-class studio drums production. At the heart of the instrument are three premium drum kits from Pearl, Sonor and Yamaha that have been sampled with painstaking precision in the renowned Teldex Studios in Berlin, using selected outboard gear and an especially sophisticated array of up to 18 microphones. The resulting 17 GB of sample material incorporate up to 25 velocity layers with up to 6 variation samples for individual instruments, and contain over a dozen distinct articulations for snare and hi-hats as well as an alternative snare option for each kit.
The array of individual drum sounds in Studio Drummer is complemented by its extensive groove library, which includes over 3,500 rhythm patterns organized by 11 specific music styles. All patterns including fills and variations were recorded directly from a professional session drummer, and converted into MIDI files for flexible usage in the Kontakt engine. All grooves can be adjusted for swing and tightness, and can be transferred into a host sequencer via Drag&Drop for detailed editing and arrangement. In order to play the individual instruments in Studio Drummer directly, the software also offers a practical assortment of MIDI templates for various electronic drum sets and third-party drum software, combined with flexible custom mapping functions.
The comprehensive mixer section of Studio Drummer gives full control over all relevant aspects of the sound, allowing users to specifically tailor each drum kit to the individual musical context. Detailed microphone settings with adjustable snare bleed, auxiliary mics and specific room and overhead controls can be either set by hand, or through the several carefully designed mix presets per drum kit that each represent a distinctive sound aesthetic. By utilizing the classic EQ and compressor models derived from the new Solid Mix Series as well as the integrated Transient Master and Tape Saturator algorithms, Studio Drummer enables studio-grade sound processing with genuinely professional sound quality and flexibility.
Studio Drummer will be available in September 2011 for $169 / €149, and will also be included in the new Komplete 8 and Komplete 8 Ultimate bundles.
Additional information on Studio Drummer is available at www.native-instruments.com/studiodrummer
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