FREE KONTAKT Excellent Quality Acoustic Drum Kit - DS Drum RCS Essentials

[TheSteven]

1 hour ago, daveiv said:

I bought Kontakt 6 two years ago after avoiding it for years. I have yet to find any use for it.

Dude, seriously?
With all the free libraries that get promoted on this forum that happen to require the full version of Kontakt?
You sound like a carpenter saying he can't find a use for a hammer...

Edited September 26, 2022 by TheSteven

[daveiv]

12 minutes ago, antler said:

If you don't mind me asking, what type of music do you write?

Rock with real guitars & bass, plus MIDI drums, keyboards, strings, everything else.

 

[PavlovsCat]

11 minutes ago, Doug Rintoul said:

So why did you buy it if you did not have any use for it?

On a related note, if you have no use for KONTAKT, why would you click on threads for free KONTAKT instruments? The plot thickens. 

[daveiv]

4 minutes ago, TheSteven said:

Dude, seriously?
With all the free libraries that get promoted on this forum that happen to require the full version of Kontakt?
You sound like a carpenter saying he can't find a use for a hammer...

I've collected non-Kontakt libs here and there, I can't seem to find anything useful anymore. Maybe more percussion, I should look for.

[daveiv]

2 minutes ago, Peter Woods said:

On a related note, if you have no use for KONTAKT, why would you click on threads for free KONTAKT instruments? The plot thickens. 

Wherever I see the word FREE, I click!

[PavlovsCat]

17 minutes ago, daveiv said:

Wherever I see the word FREE, I click!

Still Dave, KONTAKT, at least in my opinion is awesome. I use it more than any other plugin. For pianos, electric pianos,  organs, bass guitars, drums, synths, glockenspiels, percussion, tuned percussion... I am from the world of physical instruments. But with some physical limitations I have and convenience for my family's sake, I use MIDI controllers and sample libraries for everything these days although I own a bunch of physical instruments too.  You wrote MIDI percussion and I believe you meant that for keyboards, strings, everything else your also using MIDI, right? 

If so, there are a ton of great percussion, keyboard, string and other libraries for KONTAKT. Most of the music I make in my home studio uses sampled acoustic physical (and amplified like electric guitar and electric piano) instruments (piano, guitars, basses, drums, percussion) as opposed to synth and EDM drum machines. If you're ever looking for any starting points on great percussion and other libraries for KONTAKT worth exploring, just PM me.  Also, what genre(s) do you play? 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Peter Woods

[PavlovsCat]

6 minutes ago, daveiv said:

Wherever I see the word FREE, I click!

Same!

[Doug Rintoul]

10 minutes ago, daveiv said:

Rock with real guitars & bass, plus MIDI drums, keyboards, strings, everything else.

 

And you can find no use for any of the libraries that came with Kontakt 6? You should also check out pianobook if you haven't already.

[daveiv]

33 minutes ago, Peter Woods said:

Still Dave, KONTAKT, at least in my opinion is awesome. I use it more than any other plugin. For pianos, electric pianos,  organs, bass guitars, drums, synths, glockenspiels, percussion, tuned percussion... I am from the world of physical instruments. But with some physical limitations I have and convenience for my family's sake, I use MIDI controllers and sample libraries for everything these days although I own a bunch of physical instruments too.  You wrote MIDI percussion and I believe you meant that for keyboards, strings, everything else your also using MIDI, right? 

If so, there are a ton of great percussion, keyboard, string and other libraries for KONTAKT. Most of the music I make in my home studio uses sampled acoustic physical (and amplified like electric guitar and electric piano) instruments (piano, guitars, basses, drums, percussion) as opposed to synth and EDM drum machines. If you're ever looking for any starting points on great percussion and other libraries for KONTAKT worth exploring, just PM me.  Also, what genre(s) do you play? 

I hear ya. I should have started with Kontakt in the beginning. That would save me time and money.

For drums & percussion: DrumForge (big lib for rock/metal) + AIR [Strike 2 (virtual drummer), Transfuser (groovebox), Boom (simple drum machine), Structure (has a good library of percussion and drums), Xpand (quick n dirty drums/perc.)] + Sonivox [Tony Coleman (inexpensive yet detailed sampling), Big Bang Universal Drums (same), Silk Road, Atsia], Ugritone (raw samples as if you have a real drum recorded, my current favorite).

Strings & brass: Miroslav 2 fits the bill.

Piano & Keyboard: Sonivox [Essential Keyboard Collection (good enough piano and e-piano sounds in the mix), Eighty Eight (kinda deeply sampled)] + AIR Mini Grand (works), Velvet (I like it for Wurli & Rhodes), DB-33 (nice Hammond emulation), Structure (has nice Mellotron)] + SoundPaint [Rhodes (pretty good so far)]

Guitar & Bass: AcousticSamples Guitar Collection and JBass (great for writing/demoing, but I might switch to Guitar Pro for that purpose in the near future, SoundPaint 1975 Soulful Guitar (sounds just great)

It's difficult for me to justify buying any Kontakt library with all these in my arsenal.

Edited September 26, 2022 by daveiv

[PavlovsCat]

23 minutes ago, daveiv said:

I hear ya. I should have started with Kontakt in the beginning. That would save me time and money.

For drums & percussion: DrumForge (big lib for rock/metal) + AIR [Strike 2 (virtual drummer), Transfuser (groovebox), Boom (simple drum machine), Structure (has a good library of percussion and drums), Xpand (quick n dirty drums/perc.)] + Sonivox [Tony Coleman (inexpensive yet detailed sampling), Big Bang Universal Drums (same), Silk Road, Atsia], Ugritone (raw samples as if you have a real drum recorded, my current favorite).

Strings & brass: Miroslav 2 fits

I see a ton of ads for Urgitone with deep discounts selling for $10 and $5. While I used to be a rock drummer,  I wasn't a metal drummer (but had friends who were) and listen to some metal here and there. But the kits I like best are from Toontrack for Superior Drummer, there's probably some great ones for ezDrummer, but Ive spent more time looking at SD stuff. I actually own a couple of their early metal kits. The downside with Toontrack's Superior Drummer is that they're really expensive; but, IMO, they're the best acoustic drum plugin and drum libraries. BFD has some bargains,  but their interface is very dated and there a ton of support issues. Steven Slate Drums are also worth looking into. I know last Black Friday there was a great deal on Steven Slate Drums. I find they sound cool, but I prefer a less processed,  more organic drum sound. 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Peter Woods

[daveiv]

19 minutes ago, Peter Woods said:

I see a ton of ads for Urgitone with deep discounts selling for $10 and $5. While I used to be a rock drummer,  I wasn't a metal drummer (but had friends who were) and listen to some metal here and there. But the kits I like best are from Toontrack for Superior Drummer, there's probably some great ones for ezDrummer, but Ive spent more time looking at SD stuff. I actually own a couple of their early metal kits. The downside with Toontrack's Superior Drummer is that they're really expensive; but, IMO, they're the best acoustic drum plugin and drum libraries. BFD has some bargains,  but their interface is very dated and there a ton of support issues. Steven Slate Drums are also worth looking into. I know last Black Friday there was a great deal on Steven Slate Drums. I find they sound cool, but I prefer a less processed,  more organic drum sound. 

FYI, I added the second half of my post while you're typing this.

Ugritone drums are my current favorite because they're small, they work on Linux (if I ever switch), and they doesn't require online activation. Default presets are mostly metal/punk oriented, but newer libraries (Assault Drums, and the new Tight Studio Drums) are suitable for soft rock and pop out of the box. However, their samples are raw, that gives you great flexibility to mix them to fit any genre IMHO.

Edited September 26, 2022 by daveiv

[PavlovsCat]

I actually just bought and then returned SoundPaint's 1975 Soulful Guitar -- it's the first time EVER that I've returned a sample library. I didn't find any patches that got the cool sounding leads in the demo and the patches were not scripted, just super simple recordings like I would expect in the era of Soundfonts, but not in 2022. But I've been spoiled by Orange Tree Samples' libraries and probably the only dev of guitar libraries I'd consider if OTS didn't have a certain guitar (in this case, they don't have the same Gibson model as the SoundPaint library yet) would be Ample Sounds. But you probably don't care as much about guitar or bass samples as me, because I'm using them in the final mix and you're replacing them. I own a bunch of 8Dio string libraries, but their unforgiveable shortcoming is that they're not well scripted like some of their better KONTAKT library competitors libraries. I like to play everything in real time and not have to go back and fiddle with MIDI editing, so scripting is super important.  Consequently, I look to 8Dio and now SoundPaint for libraries that don't rely heavily on scripting of complex articulations, like pianos. 

[PavlovsCat]

21 minutes ago, daveiv said:

FYI, I added the second half of my post while you're typing this.

Ugritone drums are my current favorite because they're small, they work on Linux (if I ever switch), and they doesn't require online activation. Default presets are mostly metal/punk oriented, but newer libraries (Assault Drums, and the new Tight Studio Drums) are suitable for soft rock and pop out of the box. However, their samples are raw, that gives you great flexibility to mix them to fit any genre IMHO.

I just did my first ever demo (I stopped playing music professionally 23 years ago after a repetitive stress injury resulted in really bad tendonitis' I started playing again early last year and can only play for short periods at a time -- literally, sometimes only like a few minutes if there is, say an 8th note  cymbal pattern a fast tempo; so my playing is pretty much never going to be good again. But I'm trying to play again and can handle very simple stuff. This uses all Orange Tree Samples guitars and their bass (they're all KONTAKT libraries), NI's Abbey Road 60s Drums, Spitfire's Jangle Box Piano, Sound Dust's 1900 Dulcitone and GForce's Mtron Pro. All of the instruments are virtual and were played in real time (as opposed to writing in MIDI or step sequencing, etc.).  I was once a very good drummer -- Jimmy Chamberlin of the Smashing Pumpkins once said I was one of his favorite drummers (back in the 90s definitely not today! And he did say "out of Chicago" which is less impressive. Oh well, it's still my favorite brag! Today I can't even play as well as I could at 8, literally, I'm just focused on trying to play beats decently).   

https://www.orangetreesamples.com/audio/PeterDeLegge-DearPaul.mp3

Edited September 26, 2022 by Peter Woods

[daveiv]

14 minutes ago, Peter Woods said:

I actually just bought and then returned SoundPaint's 1975 Soulful Guitar -- it's the first time EVER that I've returned a sample library. I didn't find any patches that got the cool sounding leads in the demo and the patches were not scripted, just super simple recordings like I would expect in the era of Soundfonts, but not in 2022. But I've been spoiled by Orange Tree Samples' libraries and probably the only dev of guitar libraries I'd consider if OTS didn't have a certain guitar (in this case, they don't have the same Gibson model as the SoundPaint library yet) would be Ample Sounds. But you probably don't care as much about guitar or bass samples as me, because I'm using them in the final mix and you're replacing them. I own a bunch of 8Dio string libraries, but their unforgiveable shortcoming is that they're not well scripted like some of their better KONTAKT library competitors libraries. I like to play everything in real time and not have to go back and fiddle with MIDI editing, so scripting is super important.  Consequently, I look to 8Dio and now SoundPaint for libraries that don't rely heavily on scripting of complex articulations, like pianos. 

That was actually my workflow up until recently. I'm familiar with keyboard more than any other instrument. I made acoustic-sounding tracks by recording MIDI live from left to right, usually in one take, once I have a rough idea about a song. I bought AcousticSamples guitars and bass for that purpose. I managed to play them on keyboard realistic enough to make real guitarists believe they're genuine.

I hit the wall once I wanted to have something like a stoner/grunge rock sound with Drop D tuned guitar. AS guitars are all E Standard. Now I could buy another guitar VI library made for that purpose.  But ultimately, a real guitar with humbuckers and fixed bridge for drop tuning cost me more or less the same.

Playing power chords on Drop D is not rocket science, but I can tell you it's really inconvenient for me to play and record a guitar front of a DAW compared to just hitting keys. However, it's one less set of VI plugins to worry about, and holding a guitar will look cooler than a keytar on the stage, if I ever do a gig in the future.

Writing songs by typing notes into Guitar Pro instead of recording MIDI feels weird as well. I haven't decided on that part yet. I like the way how Guitar Pro holds all the song data, including the lyrics and guitar articulations, in one small file. That's a net productivity gain compared to dealing with DAW project folders, having correct VIs and effects installed properly. With guitar tabs written on a page, I started thinking in riffs, instead of MIDI. Plus, guitarists understand guitar tabs, if I ever hire one to record my tracks. On the other hand, it's a slow process compared to just keyboarding the virtual guitars, bass, drums. I don't know what to do to write songs right now, to be honest. I feel I should insist on Guitar Pro for a while to see where it goes. Me very confuse.

SoundPaint 1975, I kinda agree with you. I really enjoy it as a responsive instrument, maybe the way I'd enjoy an electric piano. Yet, it obviously lacks guitar articulations and all the other realism tricks that other guitar VIs employ. I wasn't aware when I bought 1975 guitar that SoundPaint was oriented towards film soundtrack scoring.

[daveiv]

1 hour ago, Peter Woods said:

I just did my first ever demo (I stopped playing music professionally 23 years ago after a repetitive stress injury resulted in really bad tendonitis' I started playing again early last year and can only play for short periods at a time -- literally, sometimes only like a few minutes if there is, say an 8th note  cymbal pattern a fast tempo; so my playing is pretty much never going to be good again. But I'm trying to play again and can handle very simple stuff. This uses all Orange Tree Samples guitars and their bass (they're all KONTAKT libraries), NI's Abbey Road 60s Drums, Spitfire's Jangle Box Piano, Sound Dust's 1900 Dulcitone and GForce's Mtron Pro. All of the instruments are virtual and were played in real time (as opposed to writing in MIDI or step sequencing, etc.).  I was once a very good drummer -- Jimmy Chamberlin of the Smashing Pumpkins once said I was one of his favorite drummers (back in the 90s definitely not today! And he did say "out of Chicago" which is less impressive. Oh well, it's still my favorite brag! Today I can't even play as well as I could at 8, literally, I'm just focused on trying to play beats decently).   

https://www.orangetreesamples.com/audio/PeterDeLegge-DearPaul.mp3

Welcome back to drumming again! It must feel great.

Man, that track Orange Tree demo sounds just beautiful. I've also sneaked into your SoundCloud and listened to a few tracks; very solid production right there! We have kind of a similar taste in music and vocal style. Couldn't believe you played the drums on keyboard as well! They're very well arranged and performed, revealing your experience with the drums, but also shows your keyboard competency.

Are you happy with Cakewalk for such heavy MIDI workflow?

[PavlovsCat]

28 minutes ago, daveiv said:

Welcome back to drumming again! It must feel great.

Man, that track Orange Tree demo sounds just beautiful. I've also sneaked into your SoundCloud and listened to a few tracks; very solid production right there! We have kind of a similar taste in music and vocal style. Couldn't believe you played the drums on keyboard as well! They're very well arranged and performed, revealing your experience with the drums, but also shows your keyboard competency.

Are you happy with Cakewalk for such heavy MIDI workflow?

Wow, thanks. Disclosure. You might have realized that I get a kick out of your posts because you're so non conformist! When everyone is praising something you'll come in and say you hate it -- which I love in terms of your independence. I don't know much about production. While I've made demos of original music since I was a kid, I played other people's music professionally and always relied on sound engineers and never learned their tricks.  I didn't mix the Orange Tree Samples demo, that was my only track that was mixed by someone competent. 

I am pretty happy with Cakewalk.  I've been trying to play again since early last year and also bought Studio One. It was nice, but Cakewalk works for me. Until recently I've never even used comping or midi editing. When I played a part really poorly, I would just delete it and re record. This year, I mostly still do that, but I've started comping vocals and guitar leads and I will go in and delete bad notes I bump into or ones I held too long or two short. 

The first song I played in over 10 years was "I Am the Walrus " and it's sloppy as heck with all first takes but I think it may be the best thing I've done in these past couple years. I do own V-Drums, but I've only been playing a midi usb keyboard in my office and using a podcast mic for vocals. So not a very impressive setup. My acoustic drums, synths, percussion,  guitars, a glockenspiel-- they're in my basement collecting dust.

PM  some of your music. Encouragement should go both ways. Thanks for the kind words. 

Edited September 27, 2022 by Peter Woods

[Last Call]

4 hours ago, Peter Woods said:

I just did my first ever demo (I stopped playing music professionally 23 years ago after a repetitive stress injury resulted in really bad tendonitis' I started playing again early last year and can only play for short periods at a time -- literally, sometimes only like a few minutes if there is, say an 8th note  cymbal pattern a fast tempo; so my playing is pretty much never going to be good again. But I'm trying to play again and can handle very simple stuff. This uses all Orange Tree Samples guitars and their bass (they're all KONTAKT libraries), NI's Abbey Road 60s Drums, Spitfire's Jangle Box Piano, Sound Dust's 1900 Dulcitone and GForce's Mtron Pro. All of the instruments are virtual and were played in real time (as opposed to writing in MIDI or step sequencing, etc.).  I was once a very good drummer -- Jimmy Chamberlin of the Smashing Pumpkins once said I was one of his favorite drummers (back in the 90s definitely not today! And he did say "out of Chicago" which is less impressive. Oh well, it's still my favorite brag! Today I can't even play as well as I could at 8, literally, I'm just focused on trying to play beats decently).   

https://www.orangetreesamples.com/audio/PeterDeLegge-DearPaul.mp3

This is YOUR song?
My fave part is 1:28 (guitar melody/solo) and my fave part of it is the staccato part.

[PavlovsCat]

1 hour ago, Last Call said:

This is YOUR song?
My fave part is 1:28 (guitar melody/solo) and my fave part of it is the staccato part.

It is a medley. The first 16 bars are me vamping over a 4 chord progression from Paul McCartney's "Dear Boy" with my melody. I then go into a song I wrote when I was 13 that had a very strong McCartney vibe, called "Brighter Days,"  for the remainder of the medley. My concept was that together it would serve as my tribute to the music and bass playing of Paul McCartney and how much it influenced and inspired me.  I had written 4 new compositions for the demo and received the green light on one, but I recorded this one impromptu, as a little jam, and it just felt more enthusiastic to me.  The part you like, I think, is the part with the drums drop out and the Mellotron strings (with a cello in the background) come in? I actually pulled the drums out of that section to draw more attention to the sound of the bass, which, of course, is the point of the demo. 

This is my cover of "Dear Boy" that I took the 16 bar intro from (this was before Orange Tree Samples released the Evolution Vintage Violin Bass library; I used MODO's modeled Hofner. During exposed parts I actually doubled the parts with a guitar, as the modeled bass, when exposed, lacked depth in the tone and it becomes transparent when it's exposed in a mix. BTW, that demo is the first music ever really shared publicly, beyond my SoundCloud account that I don't promote, but mainly share with my friends and get feedback from the Cakewalk Song Forum on. While I played drums semi-professionally in bands from 18 until sustaining a repetitive stress injury in 1999, none of the bands I played with (beyond an  instrumental band I put together when I was 18 that had like 3 gigs) performed any of my music. So after all of these years, a song I wrote when I was 13 is now being shared publicly. I never really would have been comfortable with my playing being shared publicly, but Greg Schlaepfer, the CEO of Orange Tree Samples is a friend and has been encouraging me to play music again -- so anyone that hears my demo and thinks it's terrible, blame him and his encouraging me! Hahaha.  But I seriously also rationalized it as something to put out there that shows even a guy like me, who is no longer a competent musician, can still pull off something semi-decent with the right tools and a little musical imagination. 

This was the cover I did of McCartney's "Dear Boy" that I pulled the first 16 bar progression and arrangement from: 
 

 

Edited September 27, 2022 by Peter Woods

[Last Call]

17 hours ago, Peter Woods said:

It is a medley. The first 16 bars are me vamping over a 4 chord progression from Paul McCartney's "Dear Boy" with my melody. I then go into a song I wrote when I was 13 that had a very strong McCartney vibe, called "Brighter Days,"  for the remainder of the medley. My concept was that together it would serve as my tribute to the music and bass playing of Paul McCartney and how much it influenced and inspired me.  I had written 4 new compositions for the demo and received the green light on one, but I recorded this one impromptu, as a little jam, and it just felt more enthusiastic to me.  The part you like, I think, is the part with the drums drop out and the Mellotron strings (with a cello in the background) come in? I actually pulled the drums out of that section to draw more attention to the sound of the bass, which, of course, is the point of the demo. 

This is my cover of "Dear Boy" that I took the 16 bar intro from (this was before Orange Tree Samples released the Evolution Vintage Violin Bass library; I used MODO's modeled Hofner. During exposed parts I actually doubled the parts with a guitar, as the modeled bass, when exposed, lacked depth in the tone and it becomes transparent when it's exposed in a mix. BTW, that demo is the first music ever really shared publicly, beyond my SoundCloud account that I don't promote, but mainly share with my friends and get feedback from the Cakewalk Song Forum on. While I played drums semi-professionally in bands from 18 until sustaining a repetitive stress injury in 1999, none of the bands I played with (beyond an  instrumental band I put together when I was 18 that had like 3 gigs) performed any of my music. So after all of these years, a song I wrote when I was 13 is now being shared publicly. I never really would have been comfortable with my playing being shared publicly, but Greg Schlaepfer, the CEO of Orange Tree Samples is a friend and has been encouraging me to play music again -- so anyone that hears my demo and thinks it's terrible, blame him and his encouraging me! Hahaha.  But I seriously also rationalized it as something to put out there that shows even a guy like me, who is no longer a competent musician, can still pull off something semi-decent with the right tools and a little musical imagination. 

 

Well, to me, a song is lyrics and melody, so if it's your melody (no matter the chord progression, which we know are used on zillions of songs), then it's your song (medley in this case).
At 1:28 a guitar melody starts, I love it. And the whole solo is very nice (did you play it? Or just composed it?
I love guitar btw.



I hate the Beatles, lol ( to me they sound like very very very old music and ... EDITED).
I am not saying I hate their songs, some of which I like because there are other artists that cover them. Nevertheless I am not fond of any Beatles songs at all either.
I love 80's hair metal, ?that's my thing (very melodic, great vocalists) and Kiss.
I love old Dream Theater, but I don't like progressive metal as a genre.
 

Yes, I am weird if you think that, lol.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Last Call
One guy felt bad about a thing I said X)

[Last Call]

16 hours ago, Last Call said:

Well, to me, a song is lyrics and melody, so if it's your melody (no matter the chord progression, which we know are used on zillions of songs), then it's your song (medley in this case).
At 1:28 a guitar melody starts, I love it. And the whole solo is very nice (did you play it? Or just composed it?
I love guitar btw.



I hate the Beatles, lol ( to me they sound like very very very old music and it gives me aids).
I am not saying I hate their songs, some of which I like because there are other artists that cover them. Nevertheless I am not fond of any Beatles songs at all either.
I love 80's hair metal, ?that's my thing (very melodic, great vocalists) and Kiss.
I love old Dream Theater, but I don't like progressive metal as a genre.
 

Yes, I am weird if you think that, lol.

Hugs Simon

Edited September 27, 2022 by Last Call
To keep the peace with said guy