FREE! - Sennheiser DrumMic’a - 9GB KONTAKT library

[Cheesy]

untested by me (and never will be at 9gig :P )

With the new, free sample library called DrumMic’a!, Sennheiser will allow a direct comparison of different microphone-positions on a complete drum kit.

DrumMic’a! is a virtual instrument for Kontakt 5 Player from Native Instruments, and contains more than 9 GB of data, nearly 13,000 24-bit samples. The software can be run standalone or as a plug-in.

For the production of the library, an acrylic drum set by Wahan – a drum-manufacturer located in Mainz, Germany – was selected. Signals were recorded on a SSL 4064 E mixing console. Recordings were intentionally realized without the use of external effects devices. But there’s an integrated mixer available in DrumMic’a! for post-processing purposes.

DrumMic’a should provide a more natural feeling as close as possible to a human player, depending on velocity and position with up to 25 velocity layers. I have spent a couple of hours installing and testing the Drummica plugin. The download is about 4GB…the NI Kontakt 5 player is included in the package. (The plugin needs to be registrated at Sennheiser to get the activation code – everything is in german…so your school german will be needed or use of the translation functions in your browser) Kontakt 5 has also a service center where you need to be registered with Native Instruments.

DrumMICA
After all registrations and downloads…the Kontakt Player can be used standalone and will work as the interface between your sound card, midi device and DrumMica plugin. There are even midi mappings for most known drum devices like td-20, GM Midi etc…and if you have a sound card with multiple outputs…it is also supported. For my own tests I used VSTHosts to load DrumMic’a as a VST. (Kontakt 5 is a middle layer) and I was through this able to load Addictive DRUMs simultaneously. (You are actually able to mix VST’s)

I played around with the DrumMic’a plugin for while…and i can just say it sounds damn good…the advanced mic selections, mixer, eq, compressor and the included sound presets really sounds great!!! I must say that I am really impressed and knowing that the software is for free, left me with even a bigger smile. Dawn good Sennheiser!!

For a free VST library, I don’t think you can find a much better plugin! Sounds are really good. The mixer has mic’s for snare, each of the 3 toms, HH and an overhead for cymbals (2 crashes and a china). Good presets…I like the Metal preset but there are more that sounds very good!

http://powerhell.wordpress.com/about...iser-drummica/

[theBadger]

http://de-de.sennheiser.com/drummica

[Cheesy]

did you grab it badgey ? its only available on the german site so left the link to the review page

[theBadger]

Yes cheesy; I grabbed it. I haven't installed it yet but I will.

Listening to the demo tracks.... i'm not sure about the snare... sounds a bit like a plastic tub being hit with a haddock...

But if that can be tamed then this could be the bargain drums i've been looking for. Tx matey.

@sennheiser - I love the 'trying out different mics' idea. That's inspired that is! You guys win tB's gold medal for well thought out marketing 2014.

[Cheesy]

i thought the same about the kit,he opens it up a lil with his tweakings in the vid ... am thinking of trying it,will take ages with my speeds to get it ...


interested to hear how you get on with it ... btw do you have con-tackt installed or will be using the supplied installer ?

[theBadger]

Well...

I've had a chance to play with DrumMic'a for a little bit and these are my thoughts so far...

Download and installation.

As you have seen from the above posts, this is a free drum VI from Sennheiser. Getting hold of it is easy enough. Simply go to their 'German' web site and use Google Translate if you can't read German.

It is a 5 Gig download and this brings the first slight embuggerance... It comes as One 5 Gig Zipped file. This means that it wont fit on a fat32 drive such as a zip drive.
It also means that, for technical reasons, it took nearly an hour to unzip. You will need some hard disc space to go through the whole download - unzip - install procedure.

Once unzipped the install was fairly painless; you can choose whether to install the 'K player' or not. You cannot choose however; whether or not to install the NI Service Center but you can always un-install it after if it is not to your liking.

Use

For a 'freebie' this is a great piece of software packed with some amazing features; not as slick as Addictive Drums or BFD but more fully featured than something like EZ drummer.

What does it sound like?

Ah. Yes. The sounds.

Unlike some of the 'paid for' sound libraries you only get one kit. If you like the sound of this kit then you will be a happy bunny. It has a springy, boingy sound to it with what sounds to me like a nasty resonance on the snare. It is beautifully recorded as you might expect from a mic company. You can make significant changes to the sound just by changing the microphones. Additionally, a swiss army knife of tone shaping tools such as EQ, Compression, Transient Designer and Verb are on hand to help. There are also some presets; useful as a starting point but not great.

The transient designer is excellent and a very useful in-the-box tool. I didn't get on with the EQ tho', preferring to use the tools with which I am more familiar. The sound modification tools do not give the instant gratification that you would get from something like AD.

And herein lies the problem.

While it is very generous of Sennheiser to give us this free VI; there are 'costs' other than money. Getting a good sound out of this 'kit' is probably possible but it takes a lot of post processing work and more drum processing skill than this badger possesses.

Here is an example.

The following clips represent my brief attempt to work with DrumMic'a. The first example is a Drum Loop (also a freebie download, from Ron Wikso). I choose it as an example of a lively drum track, well recorded and engineered IMHO.

The second clip is a similar sounding riff played in DrumMic'a as it sounds straight out-of-the-box.

The final clip is how the DM'a track sounded after I had inexpertly processed it a bit.

Example 1 - A drum loop by Ron Wikso


Example 2 - DrumMic'a - Out of the Box


Example 3 - DrumMic'a - with some proceesing

You can make you own minds up about how it sounds.

Conclusion

A generous gift from Sennheiser. It is interesting to play with the different microphones. Hard work getting a decent sound. I don't like the snare.

tB.

[ARTiST-MATRiX]

THX! Cheesy for the tip and The Badger for your review with the examples - even I'll not use it and don't like it much. Just not my taste of percussion / drum sounds and I have already a "real" sounding drum library, if I need it here and there. And Kontakt is not my favourite VSTi for percussions and drums. For me personally, nothing beats Battery in this domain
But I think, Its worth trying for peoples who like such a sound and such an approach of a VSTi with the Mic's, particularly its free of charge if you will give away your data to another database. And yes tB. Compared to other such marketings, I also think, this is a real nice one

[Cheesy]

wow ! nice write up badgey \o/ .. its a very clean sounding kit .. kinda .. dunno like a boss dr rhythm i used to have .. snare is pretty lame .. i do wonder how hard it would be to replace with one off another kit??? is that even possible with con-tackt ?


still,i like the cleanness off it,i will try and get it this weekend,thanks for the great review it made the decision for me

[ARTiST-MATRiX]

It is a 5 Gig download and this brings the first slight embuggerance... It comes as One 5 Gig Zipped file. This means that it wont fit on a fat32 drive such as a zip drive.

I'm wondering, why not using NTFS on the USB / flash drive?