Drumdrops releases "Gretsch 1960s Round Badge Soul Kit" Sample Packs with a pre-order offer on the Kontakt 5 Pack

Drumdrops has released four Gretsch 1960s Round Badge Soul Kit Sample Packs:

1. Multi-Velocity Pack
2. Single Hits Pack
3. Drum Replacement Pack
4. All Samples Pack

The Kontakt 5 pack with the the Drumdrops Kontakt instrument is scheduled for release early November. For a limited period customers can pre-order the Kontakt 5 pack with a 40% discount and also receive a voucher code to receive a 50% discount on any of the other packs for this kit.

In addition to these five packs Drumdrops are currently working on a new BFD pack which will be scheduled for release shortly.

Here's what they say:

The Gretsch 1960s Round Badge Kits are legendary kits. Currently they are one of the most sought after kits from that era. Drumdrops recorded this kit to capture a certain sound, the sound of the late 60s and early 70s that came out of the Royal Studios in Memphis. Home to legendary producer and founder of Hi Records, Willie Mitchell. This studio was responsible for recording hit after hit from famous Soul Artists such as Al Green and Ann Peebles. Drumdrops studied and recreated the drum sound.

Unlike the one microphone, large open room drum sounds coming out of Motown and Stax in the 60's/early 70's, Willie Mitchell preferred a small dry room, often using three or four microphones on the drum kit. To capture the same sound Drumdrops used the suited dry live room at Miloco's The Square. The concept behind the mic positioning is unique to this release. They used four mic's, each placed in carefully selected positions around the kit, so each mic captures the drum kit as a whole, meaning you can use any one mic as your drum sound, or you can blend any or all of the mic's to create your ideal sound (depending on the pack you purchase).

The drum kit was produced, mixed and recorded by South London drummer Timmy Rickard who has studied the grooves and sound of this great era. The kit is a classic sounding late 60s kit with wallets placed on the tuned down snares, a tea towel was used on the floor tom and they have recorded the ride with and without a chain.

The kit comprises a 20" x 14" Kick drum, 13" x 9" Rack Tom and a 16" x 16" Floor Tom. The snares used were a combination of a Gretsch Renown Maple 14" x 6" snare with a Red Sparkle finish (c.2010) a Gretsch Renown maple 14" x 5" snare with a Black Oyster Swirl finish, a Ludwig Acrolite 14" x 5" (c.1970) and a Ludwig 400" 14" x 5" snare (c.1960). Cymbals were dark sounding Bosphorous New Orleans Hi Hats (2 x 16" Crashes), a 20" Ride and an 18" Crash. Drumdrops have also included shakers, tambourines or congas.

The recording took place in Miloco's The Square Studios in London. As only five microphones were used Drumdrops utilized the vintage external mic pre's (Telefunken V76's, Neve 1066, Calrec PQ1061) recording straight to Pro Tools. All of the kit microphones used were ribbon microphones. They used 3 x Coles 4038 ribbons around the kit and for the overhead an STC 4021 ball & biscuit. Drumdrops also setup a room microphone which was a U47 FET running through a Calrec PQ1061 Mic Pre. In the Kontakt 5 pack all five microphones can be accessed on every drum in the mixblend feature.

The "Kontakt Pack" has been designed exclusively for the latest full version of Native Instruments Kontakt 5. The pack includes up to sixteen velocities of each articulation and up to 5 round robins. In total it contains 17275 samples. Included in the Kontakt pack is the latest version of the Drumdrops Kontakt 5 instrument. The key features are:

• Groove Player - There are a large number MIDI Grooves that are included in the MIDI Groove Player that are played by a variety of drummers.
• Step Sequencer - The sequencer has eight channels allowing any eight of the articulations of the Ludwig Kit to be selected and played. The sequencer contains 32 steps for each channel.
• Groove Slicer – The Groove Slicer cuts each MIDI groove into thirty-two sections. These sections can then be played back in a different order to the original depending on what which of the three modes are selected.
• Mic Blend - Here you can control the mix on the microphones used for each channel. You can vary the balance of the three kit microphones with the overhead and room microphone. This is a great feature on this kit as it lets your really get the right sound out of every drum by controlling the mic set up around the kit.
• An 8 channel mixer. Each channel comes with a Mute, Solo, Phase Reverse and 2 Aux sends.
• Multiple Convolution Reverbs included, 4 studio Impulse responses and many classic reverbs and effects.
• The ability to change the velocity curve and tuning of each drum.
• Randomise the tuning, velocity, EQ and timing for added realism.
• Multiple Round Robins included for extra authenticity.
• 4 band EQ and Transient Master included on each channel.
• A buss compressor and Tape saturator on the mix buss.
• Ability to route each channel to your DAW.
• Multiple Mix presets included mixed by a variety of engineers, musicians and producers.
• A full version and lite version for use on laptops.
• Multiple MIDI maps included with full compatibility with the Roland TD-12, TD-20 and TD-30 V-drums and the Yamaha DTX-900.

The Kontakt 5 Pack of the Gretsch 1960s Round Badge Soul Kit is available to pre-order now from the Drumdrops store for £25.00. People who pre-order now will get about 40% off the full RRP (£45.00). Drumdrops will also create a voucher so that the person can buy any of the other packs from this kit with a 50% discount. This offer is a limited pre-order offer until the kit is released. Drumdrops expect to be able to deliver the Kontakt pack in early November.

The "Multi-Velocity pack" is suited for customers who want multiple velocity levels of each articulation. You can either use the built in patches or build your own using the samples included. The pack includes up to sixteen velocities of each articulation totalling 735 drum samples. All of the samples are mixed from a combination of the five microphones recorded as 24-bit 44.1 kHz WAV files, meaning they can be loaded into almost any sampler or drum machine. To make things easier they have included patches for some of the most commonly used software packages. The Multi-Velocity Pack of the Gretsch 1960s Round Badge Soul Kit is available exclusively from the Drumdrops store for £15.00.

The "Single Hits Pack" is suited for customers who only need a few velocities of each articulation. It is the same as the Multi-Velocity Pack except it includes only three velocities of each articulation. In total it contains 180 stereo drum samples. All of the samples are mixed from a combination of the five microphones recorded as 24-bit 44.1 kHz WAV files, meaning they can be loaded into almost any sampler or drum machine. Drumdrops also provide the samples in this pack as 16-bit WAV files for the legacy drum machines such as the Akai MPC60. The same patches as the multi-velocity pack are included. The Single Hits Pack of the Gretsch 1960s Round Badge Soul Kit is available exclusively from the Drumdrops store for £7.50.

The Drums Replacement Pack comes with patches for Slate Trigger V2, Drumagog 5 and DrumXchanger:

• The Slate Trigger patch has been created using the four kit mics and the overhead mic samples from the kit. There are samples for the kick drum, four snares and toms. You can choose to trigger any of the microphones. The samples in this template have up to 16 velocity levels and five round robins totalling 2880 samples. The samples come in the tci format.
• The Drumagog patch includes samples for the Kick, four Snares, toms and hi-hat. This template uses up to 8 velocity levels with four round robins totalling 2560 samples. If your version of Drumagog contains the Auto hi-hat tracking feature then the samples will follow the opening and closing of the hi-hat. The samples come in the gog format.
• The DrumXchanger patch contains stereo mixed samples (a combination of the four kit mic samples and the overhead). This template contains eight velocity levels with no round robins totalling 116 samples. The snares also contain a rimshot sample that have their own adjustable trigger threshold. The samples come in the splx format.

The Drum Replacement Pack of the Gretsch 1960s Round Badge Soul Kit is available exclusively from the Drumdrops store for £12.50. Head over here to find out more.

The All Samples Pack contains the Multi-Velocity Pack, Single Hits Pack, Drum Replacement pack and most of the samples from the Kontakt pack (but not the Drumdrops instrument). The All Samples pack is available exclusively from the Drumdrops store for £28.00.

Listen to some sound demos of this kit here.

Watch producer drummer Timmy Rickard discussing the recording of the Gretsch kit here and the mixing of the kit here