Kontakt 5 Player for drums?

[garrettendi]

Hi guys, no drum forum so I'll put this here.

Currently I'm using MT Power Drumkit 2 and love it. Sounds good enough for me, but I'd like to expand.

Haven't used Kontakt 5 Player in ages after uninstalling, but it sounds that some people recommend using Kontak 5 drum libraries (such as Studio Drummer or Abbey Road) over EzDrummer etc...

So with a view of maybe using Abbey Road drums in the distant future, I was wondering what the drum kits that come with Kontakt 5 Player are like? Looks like there are two but I can't find any YouTube videos, demo examples on SoundCloud, or even forum posts on the subject.

Was also wondering whether multi-out works with Kontakt 5 Player drums?

[garrettendi]

Actually Studio Drummer for Kontakt looks great... Might use that instead, but I'd love to see what the free stock drums are like first!

[garrettendi]

Allll BYYYYYYYY myse-e-e-e-e-e-elf

Don't wanna be-

ALLL BYYYY MYYYYYSE-E-E-E-E-ELF

[Humble Bee]

!!!
I'm stuck with EZdrummer2 myself and I'm also interested in getting in to those Abbey Road drums. They sound nice!

I don't know anything about kontakt tho and I wonder if one gets away with only the free player or if it's worth getting the full Kontakt license.

Just to write midi in logic and play it through the Kontakt player might be enough?

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

[garrettendi]

Abbey Road and Studio Drummer both seem to support Kontakt Player so that's the route I'm planning to take.

However I have to admit the Komplete bundle for $599 would be tempting if I actually had that much money to spend. Comes with all the base stuff and some additional packages like Studio Drummer, Simple Strings, etc,

But I can't justify that much, so Kontakt Player and the $125 Studio Drummer is it for me.

If I get this set up, I'll try to remember to post the results here.

[Humble Bee]

Please do get back to us with results!

[paul tha other]

ive kinda got both....i use ezdrummer at home and i have kontact at work..id say the kontact stuff sounds better straight out of the box but i find ez drummer easier to get a usable drum track quick, but thats maybe because ive used ez drummer for a couple of years now

the abby road stuff sounds great and so does session drummer

ez drummer dosnt sound great straight away but after a wee dable with eq and compression i can get them sounding like how i want and\or get them sounding like each other

tbh i find them much a muchness..although i find ez drummer midi files a bit more easier to use and navigate through

[Zukan]

I use Battery for all my drum sounds bar anything acoustic. I know I've really helped you here.......

[AlasdairEaston]

I'm using NI Studio Drummer and love it.

I bought NI Komplete 10 and Reaper as a way of getting properly started with digital music and home recording (although I'd dabbled 15 or 20 years before with very simple gear). As you know, Studio Drummer comes as part of the Komplete package. I just hooked up my Roland TD-12, selected the TD-12 mode in Studio Drummer and started playing. I was immediately really excited - as far as I'm concerned I now have some incredible drum kits in a wonderful sounding room with great mics and comprehesive recording/engineering/processing options. I'm still in awe of being able to sit in my own spare room and make noises like that!

I'm sure 99% of the general public wouldn't be able to tell that those aren't real drums on a recording.

And since it's hosted in Konakt it gives you all sorts of options for routing individual drums out to seperate tracks in your DAW for processing (that's if you don't want to just use the comprehensive processing options with the plug in itself).

It responds well to the kit, dynamic and life-like, making it totally possible to play convincing real drum parts. Obviously programming those sorts of parts using the piano roll is going to take much more work, but that's going to be true of any drum software I guess. It does come with lots if recorded MIDI loops, but I'd see them as starting points rather than convincing, compelling drum parts for a finished piece.

Incidentally I learned something interesting from using it (maybe everyone else already knew this!) -- that it's possible to get a huge range of drum sounds without having a huge range of actual drum kits (virtual or not). There's so much alteration you can do with the processing that you can turn the same kit to a number of uses.

So from me it's a thumbs up for Studio Drummer and Kontakt.

Ali.

[Martin Walker]

I use Battery for all my drum sounds bar anything acoustic. I know I've really helped you here.......

I was going to suggest Battery as well - it should have all you need for drum stuff, and is far simpler to use than Kontakt.

Martin

[Zukan]

It does have quite extensive features Martin and the drag and drop aspect of importing samples is a winner for me.

[garrettendi]

Here's an update: I installed Kontakt 5 Player last night and I'm impressed with how the free drum samples sound. Not too bad at all!

I've looked into Battery but I'm not sure it's right for me, but I appreciate the suggestion!

Next I'm going to connect my Alesis Forge drum kit to Kontakt and see if it works for the free drum samples. Depending on how that goes, I'll get Studio Drummer next time it's on sale around Boxing Day!

I've fed a drum track I had lying about into the free Funk Kit in Kontakt, and I've had feedback from a drummer friend. He was relatively happy with it, but pointed out the tom tuning is a bit poor. So I think getting the upgrade would be useful.

If anyone fancies listening to a track I have knocking about in both MT Power Drumkit and Kontakt 5 Player, I can post the links on here for feedback. But the programming of the track is pretty poor, so it's just really a basic tech demo.

[Humble Bee]

I use Battery for all my drum sounds bar anything acoustic. I know I've really helped you here.......

Making mostly rock music and aiming for natural and as realistic as possible drums, how would using Battery over say Studiodrummer in kontakt or EZdrummer2 be better for that kind of stuff?

Can battery play the Studio Drummer or abbey road samples?

Cheers!

[AlasdairEaston]

For realistic rock band drums I'd go for Studio Drummer rather than Battery. The sounds respond beautifully to note velocity changes. So for example, if you want the energy to build as you approach a chorus, and you do that by increasing the note velocities on your drum track, you'll hear the hi-hat hits get slightly longer and with more "lash", and you'll get more "crack" out of the snare like the drummer's really starting to lay into them.

I don't think Battery's got that facility (or perhaps just not on the kits I've been using).

[Humble Bee]

This is how I work in ezdrummer and it works fine. Just don't have a clue about Battery but thought that it was more for edm or hip hop...
I am leaning towards Studiodrummer now and will check that out.

Thanks!

[garrettendi]

Let me know how that goes Humble Bee! I have to wait til after Christmas sadly. Wedding is more important!

[Humble Bee]

Let me know how that goes Humble Bee! I have to wait til after Christmas sadly. Wedding is more important!

Good on you Garrettendi! Good luck with that!
It's great! I've done it several times!

Will be back..

[Richard Graham]

I have Komplete 9 which includes Studio Drummer, Abbey Road 60s Drums, and Battery.

Hooking up to an electronic kit (an oldish Yamaha DTXtreme IIs in my case), the Kontakt based instruments (i.e. not Battery) are straightforward to use once you've tweaked your kit to send the right MIDI notes and massaged the velocity curves a bit.

Battery covers a lot of sonic ground: I've not really explored it much though because I find the sounds and interface on the Kontakt instruments more to my liking. It's more liking playing with a mic'ed up kit and the mixer interface gives a straightforward way of changing the sound.

Studio Drummer has one good kit imho and two less good ones. The Studio kit is the good one. Modern-sounding, lively and versatile: you could use it for rock, pop, reggae, jazz-funk-fusion, prog: a lot of mainstream styles. The Garage kit is OK but a bit "flat" and I've yet to find a use for the Stadium kit, which I think sounds horrible. Each to their own.

For more retro styles - soul, funk, classic rock: the AR Late 60s kit is good. The AR Early 60s kit is a good "character" kit for when you want something fairly crusty.

[Richard Graham]

Duplicate post - DELETED

[job]

I don't know anything about kontakt tho and I wonder if one gets away with only the free player or if it's worth getting the full Kontakt license.

The Kontakt player can play any library, including the 3rd party ones. Libraries are the instruments that can be added to Kontakt's browser tab, as opposed to an instrument that you search for and load from the file system. The full Kontakt is for sampler duties and being able to load non-library instruments.

There's a non-exhaustive list of 3rd party libraries here: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... libraries/

[OneWorld]

I am ot sure, but I would double-check that Studio Drummer/Abbey Road can be used with Kontakt Player, but thsat being said I only have Komplete 10, which includes Kontakt.

I like Studio Drummer and Abbey Road, but I found they were rapacious with CPU use, but then I found on the internet that the kits load with full effects and dynamics turned on. I turned those off and the CPU use immediately decreased from somethign like 25% to about 5%

Like other posters I too use Battery, it is really easy to use and customise. Like yourself I too use MT Drums for it's economy of resources and quick access - if only one could import samples, Mr MT Drummer here's a shout out, I for one would buy the product if that facility was added, it's a great product you have.

I have also used BFD, Addictive Drums, Steinberg Groove Agent - all of which are great but for me a little over-sophisticated. I still get perplexed by Groove Agent, why have about half a dozen different ways to load a Kit? etc etc etc

[garrettendi]

Rest assured I have double checked through an exhaustive search on the NI forums.

Studio Drummer definitely runs on Kontakt Player!

EDIT: There are also a couple of YouTube vids showing it in Player. I can post these if anyone would like to see them!

[job]

All of NI's Kontakt instruments are libraries, therefore they all work in the Kontakt player.

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/p ... -5-player/

[John Egan]

Hi,
I don't know if anyone remembers this but some years ago there was a CD of drum samples by Joey Kramer of Aerosmith. I bought it on a recommendation (by SoS, I think) and have used it a lot since then. It's probably the most cost effective drum solution I have ever bought. Takes a bit of work looping the samples, though.
Regards, John

(edit) I think it might be still available if you search for it.
Regards, John