Propellorhead rdk? which drum samples are the best

[n8tron]

I'd like to get my hands on some nice acoustic drum samples. What are some of the best out there? I've been looking at Propellorhead's RDK 2.0 and it seems pretty impressive. Does anyone have any other opinions?

thanks

[bubbagump]

there are hundreds of sample sets out there...

BFD from fxPansion
Storm Drum and the other 50 drum libraries from East West
Natural Studio
IK Multimedia's Sampletank stuff
Big Fish Audio's zillion drum libraries
Sonic Implants zillion drum libraries
Spectrasonic's Stylus
Toontrack's Drum Kit From Hell
Native Instrument's Battery


plus many many many many more.

[n8tron]

yeah its ridiculous how many there are, I'm trying to narrow it down a bit and weed out the ones that arn't worth it.

have you used any that you mentioned? Any opinions?

RDK seems really interesting, with how many samples they have at different velocities. It can be annoying when most drum samples sound so similar hit after hit.

BFD and Battery for that matter are a bit out of my price range right now. I'm looking for around $100 I can stretch a little bit but it seems most sample sets are 100 or less.

I picked up m-audio premium studio drums awhile ago, they are alright, probably the best acoustic samples I have, but I'm looking for something a little better. Plus there were not many different options at all.

[bubbagump]

I have played with many of them from demos. For a reasonable price, you might want to look at the SampleTank line. BFD is really quite amazing. EZ Drummer from Toontrack isn't too pricey and I think it is quite good.

[Werewolf10]

I got RDK 2.0 and I'm happy to report that it is all one needs... there are ALOT of samples on this thing,, I thought playing them on the midi-controller would be the hard part, its not... scrolling through a million "awesome" snares trying to find the best one was torture. I would go with reason, cause you have all the mastering tools right there with it.. The samples are the best I'v heard!

If I had to include a weak spot it would be cymbals, but thats only on the 16bit version, on the 24bit version everything rocks!! Unfortunatly you have to practise with the 16bit version and when you have your final song then load the 24bit version into the pattern to replace the 16bit... Unless you have a "massive" computer, there is no way to play with the 24bit samples in real time.

[n8tron]

werewolf10, what type of computer are you running it with?

I just downloaded the demo for it, probably won't get a chance to play with it till later though.

[tbone36109]

nskit free
http://www.naturalstudio.co.uk/ all you need is a sampler which you can also find some free ones decent ones for cheap which you can add more drums to later

[Werewolf10]

Originally Posted by n8tron

werewolf10, what type of computer are you running it with?

I just downloaded the demo for it, probably won't get a chance to play with it till later though.

I'm running -- 1.8ghz 64bit AMD Semperon Processor.
512megs of pc3700 ram.
80.gig Sata 3.0 harddrive
Lynx One Sound Card


Don't get me wrong I can load, and play 24bit patches but they have a latency. With reason you can add "ambient room mics" and mix them with close mics and all sorts of stuff. By the time I get everything sounding perfect, I have ran out of "RAM".. But 512 is low these days anyway, my own fault for not upgrading yet.. This program is "processor" intensive, so if you want great latency with 24bit samples you better get at least something over 2.0 ghz... If you want room to layer differant mics, then get more "RAM"

[n8tron]

Originally Posted by tbone36109

nskit free
http://www.naturalstudio.co.uk/ all you need is a sampler which you can also find some free ones decent ones for cheap which you can add more drums to later

wow, thank you so much for the link
listened to the demos, sounds great, currently downloading...


werewolf10-
Thanks for the info, I have a mac about comparable with yours so I'd probably have the same results.