For now I've used Drumdrops - Vintage Funk Kit and Mad Handheld and while I'm satisfied I'd still like something more realistic, especially the hi hats and a bigger variety of snares.

Does anyone have any experience with other tight drum libraries out there?

 

are you looking to get those "flat" & tight sounding drums like from a number of funk records of the 1970's, right?

asking that because, most of info about that "1970s" drums sound you find online is about LedZep & J.Bonham; but there is that OTHER drums sound from the 1970s out there, a different one that is coming from the funk..

One of the best examples of that sound is probably stuff from Betty Davis:

Despite of it sounding very simple "flat & tight" that sound still spits out some meaty presence of the drums body-core and resonating harmonics. One thing i can tell, i've been looking to achieve this for more than a decade, i have no possibility to record and fuck around with a real drumkit neither pay a studio for that. One thing i can tell, It is very difficult, almost hopeless and impossible to obtain that type of drums sound on a pc/daw. no matter what drumkit / sample library you are using. There is almost nothing on the internet about this matter, except a few old threads on gearslutz mostly talking about recording technique of micking a real drumkit etc.. and now this new thread here. lol

i have been obtaining somehow "similar sounding" results mostly out of the Custom & Vintage SDX kit in Superior Drummer 2 & and more recently with the default library kit that comes with Superior Drummer 3, i got the best results using some compression and cutting sustain with a transient filter, also the type of velocity used to play the type of snare and also the groove does matter a LOT. Still, what i got did not really sound the same to what you hear from the old funk records of the 70's

i haven't heard anyone recording the drums like that nowhere nowdays, except VulfPeck (but their drums sound is more modern) That old type of recording technique (i've read they used to cover drums with towels etc), that technique is probably lost forever as nobody does it anymore and the sound engineers and drummers from that time are allmost all dead.

this is new from Toontrack, i don't have this yet, but i'm tempted ! check it out: maybe this new DECADES drumkit is the ultimate solution to our problem?

 

Last edited: Oct 6, 2019

Hi Moleman, this seems like exactly what I need. I'll definitely check it out. Thanks! I was looking this morning for some other kits and came accross addictive drums and I was able to get that kind of sound with their soul and rnb kit, so if you're also looking check that out!

 

i tried that with Addictive Drums already, definitely not. I gave up and uninstalled & deleted it. The problem with Addictive Drums it is not "advanced enough", their sound sample libraries were recorded with a lot of less of details than anything by Toontrack. (you can tell that by comparing the folder size of the drumkit libraries by addictive drums vs ones for SD3).

Addictive Drums sorta sounds good "straight out of the box" , that may satisfy the needs for a lot of people. But when it comes to refining and editing the groove play to try to make it sound somehow "live drummer" like, those nuances and variations, the possibilities becomes very limited, unlike it is possible to do in Superior Drummer 3.

I forgot to mention about the midi editing part, that requires A LOT of manual/midi editing work to get close to that type of flat & tight sound of the 70's funk (especially at sample drum layers and velocity). At this moment, there is nothing better than what offers Superior Drummer 3 in terms of features. And because of that, i went legit with SD3, now i'm saving up to get that DECADES SDX new drumkit. ;)

aand also, another veeery important thing i forgot to talk about: there is a good number of drumkits like the ones you have mentioned for Kontakt that do sound good, but there we face to another problem: the midi grooves, breaks and construction when you work on a song, Kontakt has no groove midi libraries (or very little) and workflow-wise it is an absolute pain in the ass to do anything there. I have totally gave up on doing any "drums" using Kontakt (and i just can't stand its outdated/retarded GUI that was never updated since 2005?.. )

also, one more thing there is BFD3 /// i tried it several times, it kept on crashing, very little intuitive and i couldn't obtain quickly what i can get easily out of SD3, so i gave up on BFD too.

 

Last edited: Oct 6, 2019

Oh yeah, I definitely agree with you. Out of the box AD2 sounds really good, especially since I had just downloaded it and got to play with that many presets, but you're right, when I tried to play it for a bit longer I couldn't get those realistic sound of a live drummer. MIDI groove wise, I play the drums with the keyboard so midi grooves aren't a problem for me with Kontakt. It could use a bit of a real update, not only in the GUI but also KSP since you need to program things that could be easily done with your mouse, like resizing the background or adding knob. Native Instruments could definitely benefit from making Kontakt more accesible to creators and not only people who can program KSP.

I guess I'll wait for the decades sdx. The making of video got me REAL excited.

Thanks for the info. I'm glad someone here also enjoys that 70's dry sound on a drumkit.

 

I know I'm defo interested in smthn like this, would like to see / hear SD3 decades exp. I do kinda disagree w/ the hihats comment after listening to the Betty Davis track, kinda the one thing (soundwise) I'd change prolly. I have used Stix and also BFD3 to create a fairly tight sounding, 70s (?) kit, but it's more about (for me anyway) getting a quite gated sound (I literally use bundled gate insert) and using / emphasising the groove throughout. Does take a lot of work w/ eq & compression, esp w/ BFD; snare and kick is more important but always ends up too bright =( which needs fixing (I used their JNF kits if memory serves). I defo didn't want swishy sounding hihats, but that might just be my take. I use ride bell / triangle for emphasis? Kontakt is prty dire, admittedly. But I know Mixosaurus has some lovely, variable (between open / closed) hihat options, hence the massive size? Might work...

 

best rhythm section in the business imo..Greg Errico and Larry Graham...i think what mad eit work is the simplicity of the drums and the interplay of bass and drums....although it takes real skill to know what to leave out...it was never overplayed.