Versilian Studios

A free Developer Challenge treat from Karoryfer x Versilian.

Something you don't see very often -- a very well-recorded jazz drum set with 5000 samples and 60 articulations, heavily key-mapped.

Just for snare, you get a stickshot, center, off-center, rim, hand-muted, half-hand muted, cross stick, flam, buzz and roll.

The full kit includes a kick, low/high tom, hihat, ride, crash... AND....tambourine, cowbell, bongo, conga, timbale, agogo bell, cabasa, shaker, whistle, guiro, claves, woodblock, cuica, triangle, shaker, sleighbell, and belltree.

You get six microphone positions and all the crazy Karoryfer Controls like kick and snare bleed, kick dampen, snare-off (!), snare roll dynamics, stereo width, both individual and master tuning, and more that you can read about in the 16-page manual.

And it sounds great, because it was recorded by Versilian Studios (home of the eclectic Versilian Chamber Orchestra for Kontakt, and the free Versilian Community Orchestra for sfz, vst, au and Kontakt.).

I'm so impressed with this library. Every instrument (there are actually 11 rather than 10 as the marketing says) has something good in it. Nearly all have some beautiful -- occasionally quirky -- quality to them that inspires me to compose around each of them. Personally, I recommend this to anyone creating compositions ranging from cinematic to ambient.

Most of the instruments are plucky (harp, lyre, mandola, etc.) or bell/handpan (the "hopi" instruments). The user-friendliness of the interface means that you have the basic controls either under keyswitches or the modwheel. Everything else is a matter of the tastefully recorded samples.

I thought that I found a couple of bugs on my first day of playing these. Once I sent my report to Versilian, I quickly got a thorough and helpful answer back. In each case, I was simply misunderstanding where to find keyswitches I was looking for.

Well done on all counts.

I admit for free I was surprised how nice of a sound this has. I wish it had more functionality like the ability to auto-create harp "rolls" (or whatever it's called. e.g the stereotypical thing they use on TV show flashbacks), but for free, I'm not complaining. Very well made.