Team DECiBEL | 18 Feb 2020 | 3.82GB

Adam Monroe's Beats Drum VST, AU, and AAX sample library was created by sampling 3 drum kits + 14 different snares using different combinations of drum heads and tunings, in an acoustically dead environment. The end result is a large drum sample library with interchangeable parts that sounds great no matter the combination. The various kits and drums were sampled via the Glyn Johns method. Drum overheads were a pair of Shure SM81's, bass drums were recorded through an Audix D6, and snare drums were captured with a Shure SM 57, with various spot mics used to beef up the sound of the toms when needed.

A wide selection of snare drums were sampled: A Ludwig Acrolite, Black Beauty, and Supraphonic. Vintage drums like a Rogers Powertone (wood), Rogers Dynasonic (brass), and Slingerland Radio King. Modern snares include a Mapex Black Panther, Pork Pie Little Squealer, Pearl Sensitone Classic II, Pearl Chad Smith Signature, Yamaha Tour Custom, Ludwig Accent, as well as some cheaper snares like a Yamaha YD and PDP Double Drive

The drum kits were a Yamaha Tour Custom, Ludwig Accent, and CB drum kit. The various toms where tuned and sampled with different heads as well as different levels of muffling. Cymbals where Zildjian A Customs (Crashes, Ride, Hi-Hats, Splash, China), New Beat Hi-Hats and a Paiste Ride Cymbal.

All samples where eq'd and processed to bring out the natural character of the drums and to be mix-ready, but were not OVER PROCESSED or OVER COMPRESSED. Further EQ and processing can be easily be achieved (in the VST AU and AAX versions) as each part of the drum kit can be set to route to individual channels in your DAW. Brushes were used to create a brush kit. Ride was sampled at the bell and outside, everything in this library was captured at 10 velocity levels with at least 3 notes of round-robin.

There are a few drum kit selections with reverb pre-added. The drums were intentionally recorded dry in order to better fit into mixes, and to be better manipulated in post-production. Most of the midi drum beats were recorded live via a Simmons electronic drum kit and quantized where appropriate.

ENGINEERING

The Kontakt version of Adam Monroe's Beats is now depreciated (12.26.2019). The programming for the VST, AU, and AAX versions falls on Adam Monroe Music. The goal of any sample library that is also a VSTi (virtual instrument), AU (Audio Unit), or AAX plugin is to attempt to match the performance of the Kontakt Player. With this library, we feel like we have done just that.

The VST, AU, and AAX versions include the ability to mix and match kits, save user kits, adjust note assignments, adjust what part of the cymbals get triggered, as well as toggle automatic left/right hits. Effects include reverb, lofi, chorus, stereo-flip, delay, and eq switches. Individual parts of the drum kit can be panned and volume adjusted within the plugin, or can be routed to individual outputs in your DAW. There is an extensive Midi Library browser where drum loops can be previewed and drag-dropped into your DAW.

Hi-Hat voices will naturally cut-off if another Hi-Hat voice is triggered. Hi-Hat voices were recorded at 6-levels of intensity (between fully closed and opened) and pre-recorded 'pea soups' are at your disposal. Voices are held and iterated over in a pure, C-Style array. Memory use is comparable to the Kontakt version, and varies with each kit. Notes can be loaded at 16 or 24-bit sample depths. Because of the solid VST code base - and compilation of the code to not need external .dll's/objects/libs - you can feel confident that the VST, AU, and AAX versions will work just as well as the Kontakt version. The VST, AU, and AAX versions now also support higher sample rates natively and automatically (44.1, 48, 88.2, and 96 kHz).

Why develop VST, AU, or AAX versions at all, when the Kontakt sample player has become so ubiquitous? In the case of a drum sample library, there is simply more going on than Kontakt can handle, thus many features of the VST, AU, and AAX versions are absent in the (depreciated) Kontakt version: the ability to mix and match kits, routing support, preset saving, and note assignments are exclusive to the VST, AU, and AAX versions. However, the (depreciated) Kontakt version still contains all the kit presets, the ability to adjust panning and volume, and all the effects.

The VST version is based on VST 2.4, and should work in nearly any modern versions of 32 or 64-bit version of Windows. The AU version requires OS X 10.9 or later. The AAX version requires the full version of Protools. The download size of the library is 3.82 GB, and unzipped the library takes up about 5 GB. We use Amazon S3 for file serving. The current version of the plugin is is 2.6 released 12/26/2019.

* 30 Drum Presets Including 36 Snares, 27 Bass Drums, and 22 Toms

* 3X Round-Robin, 10 Velocity Layers, Right and Left Drum Samples

* Customize Every Kit, Build User Kits, Routing and Processing Control

* Over 5 GB Of Sampled Drums and Over 500 Drag-And-Drop Midi Beats

* Supports 44.1, 48, 88.2, and 96 kHz