Here are 4 examples of the drum library that Neil Dorfsman, Nir Z and myself are developing for DFH Superior 2.0 and EZ Drummer. EZ Drummer is the LE version of Superior 2.0 and will be available in early 2008. Superior 2.0 will be released later this year.
I used the same midi file to trigger the top two examples. The software triggers 10 to 15 different consecutive samples for every velocity. That’s why it sounds so natural. You never get the “machine gun” effect like with most drum samplers. The detail and dynamics are amazing. It comes up in Pro Tools (or whatever DAW you use) just like a multitrack acoustic drum kit does. Below is a screen shot of the mixer window for the drum kits you are hearing. There is no reverb on the drums..just the room mics.
If your in Mac OSX you can drag the Pro Tools mixer image below to your desktop and get a better look in the “Preview” program
EZ Drummer Examples recorded at Avatar NYC
Avatar-15”Rogers Snr
Kick w/front head on
Avatar-15”GMS
Piccolo Snr
- the examples may take a minute to load -
As some of you know, I had a production room on the 4th floor at Avatar. I did a lot of work in Studio A and loved to cut drums in that room. Hundreds of classic records were recorded in that studio.
--Programming with EZ Drummer--
The 1st two examples above were played by my brother, Preston on his Roland TD-10 drum kit. We only used it as a midi controller. I believe that using an electronic drum kit is the best way to program the most realistic drum performance quickly. Having said that, the beauty of DFH is that they have other templates for GM maps, Drumkat, etc so you can program real sounding drums from any midi device as well. It will just take a bit longer (as all drum programming does).
--Replacing drums with EZ Drummer--
The last two examples show how you can take the worst sounding drum kit and make it sound like you tracked the drums at Avatar Studios. The only tracks I kept from the original drums were the overhead mics. The rest of the drums are replaced with EZ Drummer. Scary stuff. The times they are a changin’ folks.
--Why I created this library--
When I bought DFH Superior to do drum replacement on a project I was mixing, my only issue with it was that the rooms were small. That's fine for some projects but I was doing a rock album that required “BIG” drums. I contacted the guys at Toontracks (the company that created DFH Superior) and told them my idea. The idea was let’s get one of the greatest engineers on the planet (Neil Dorfsman) and a disciplined pro drummer (Nir Z) to do a library in one of the best studios in NYC. The obvious choice was Avatar Studios, Studio A. We hunkered down for 4 days until we were almost blind. The results were amazing. Tracking drums through that 80 series Neve console is always great but doing it with Neil Dorfsman who has been recording in that room since the early days of when it was the Power Station was incredible. Nir Z has great drums , knows how to tune them and has excellent technique. His patience and execution were perfect for this type of detailed sampling.
--Compare it to other multitrack samplers --
I want you to compare our examples to the other multitrack drum samplers out there
Here is one of BFD’s drum kits from their example page:
Here’s the link to the EZ Drummer website:
Let me know what you think
Happy drum programming ya’ll
Pat Thrall
This is a drum kit that I was given for a track that I mixed.
Here is how the same drum performance sounds with our library. I only used the overhead tracks from the original recording. There is no reverb on the drums- just the room mics from the program.
