Our sumptuous selection of real drum sounds mastered using the famous Shadow Hills mastering compressor.
Feel the weight and character of the input transformer and the optical compression stage.
Then get the bite of the Nickel, Iron and Steel transformers of the limiter stage – all with the legendary class-A all analogue mastering grade quality.
The drums used were a custom Ludwig kit for a big vintage sound. These were originally recorded relatively dry direct to digital tape just using just the console preamps, which were SSL 9000 J if I remember, at Ridge Farm studio back in the late 1990s for a sample CD project. I don’t remember exactly which mics were used, but there was definitely an AKG possibly D112 and some SM57s. The original multitrack recordings were at 24-bit 48kHz using a Sony PCM 3348HR which had legendary convertors, then later transferred digitally to a RADAR system, then as stems into Pyramix for editing and playback through Burl B2 DA convertor. They are then remastered using just the Shadow Hills mastering compressor for flavour and SPL DMC for control and routing (plus just a tiny bit of Maselec EQ), but this time recorded at 24-bit 48kHz using modern Burl B2 AD convertors into Sequoia. The 16-bit 44.1kHz version ideal for vintage samplers was also recorded using the same setup, but with a slightly less hot signal captured out of a Burl B2 DA into a Pacific Microsonics Model Two. So there’s no software conversion, just ‘vintage digital’ 16-bit CD quality. The only software processing is some slight editing of any over-zeros in the 16-bit audio, which even the best convertors sometimes produce.
Formats:
- MPC 2+ Expansion 24-bit 48kHz stereo
- MPC 1000, 2500 & 5000 programs 16-bit 44.1kHz stereo plus a mono version with no velocity layers to save space
- Ableton Live Drum Rack 24-bit 48kHz stereo
- 24-bit 48kHz WAV stereo
- 16-bit 44.1kHz WAV stereo & mono
- if you need any other formats please reach out and I’ll see what we can do
Contains 4 kits of 16 sounds with 4 velocity layers:
- Kit A – just using the Burl B2, then the others mastered through the Shadow Hills:
- Kit B – Nickel transformers
- Kit C – Iron transformers
- Kit D – Steel transformers
Volume 2 coming soon will be another set of real drum recordings, but using Crane Song and volume 3 will use Lavry to cover all the flavours of convertors. These will be available to download in your downloads section if you bought volume 1, starting AW2026.
