Studio Drummer

Behind the glass, STUDIO DRUMMER provides a dedicated mixing environment. All drums close mic’d, plus adjustable snare bleed, stereo overheads, room mics for ambience and an additional mono mic on the entire kit. Mixer presets, with precision mic levels, room sound and effects, provide fast-track settings for a wide range of sounds.

A high-quality studio effects section gives you warm tape saturation, convolution reverb and three big-league effects: the SOLID G-EQ, the SOLID BUS COMP compressor and the awe-inspiring TRANSIENT MASTER.

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A Pearl Masters Premium Maple kit with a big monster sound for rock and metal.

• Kick: 22" x 18" Pearl Masters Premium Maple Bass Drum
• Snare 1: 14" x 7" Sonor Hilite Maple Snare
• Snare 2: 14" x 8" Masshoff Drums Big Chief Steel Cast Snare
• Hi-hat: 15" Masterwork Jazz Master Hi-hat
• Toms: Pearl Masters Premium Maple Toms
• Crash 1: 18" Masterwork Custom Crash
• Crash 2: 20" Masterwork Custom Crash
• Ride: 22" Masterwork Jazz Master Ride
• China: 18" Sabian HHX Chinese
• Splash: 10" Zildjian K Splash
• Percussion: Tambourine, sticks, cowbell and handclaps

A Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute kit with a versatile, neutral, studio sound — ideal for pop, country or anything else.

• Kick: 22" x 16" Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute Bass Drum
• Snare 1: 14" x 6.5" Masshoff Drums Avalon Steel Cast Snare
• Snare 2: 13" x 5" Mapex Black Panther Maple Snare
• Hi-hat: 15" Masterwork Iris Hi-hat
• Toms: Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute Toms
• Crash 1: 17" Masterwork Iris Crash
• Crash 2: 18" Masterwork Iris Crash
• Ride: 20" Masterwork Custom Pointer Ride
• China: 20" Masterwork Iris China
• Splash: 10" Masterwork Iris Splash
• Percussion: Tambourine, sticks, cowbell and handclaps

A Sonor SQ2 Drum System with a surly, aggressive edge for blues, alternative rock and much more.

• Kick: 22" x 20" Sonor SQ2 Drum System Bass Drum
• Snare 1: 14" x 5.5" Masshoff Drums Poinciana Steel Cast Snare
• Snare 2: 14" x 6.5" Ludwig Classic Maple Snare
• Hi-hat: 16" Paiste Twenty Medium Light Hi-hat
• Toms: Sonor SQ2 Drum System Toms
• Crash 1: 16" Paiste Dark Energy Crash
• Crash 2: 18" Paiste Dark Energy Crash
• Ride: 22" Masterwork Natural Ride
• China: 18" Masterwork Resonant China
• Splash: 9" Masterwork Resonant Splash
• Percussion: Tambourine, sticks, cowbell and handclaps

The mixer section in STUDIO DRUMMER provides ultra-precise control over the mic levels on each drum, plus overheads, stereo room mics and a mono mic on the entire kit to pull things together. The mix presets put pro sound just a click away, and provide a perfect starting point for detailed tweaking.

Each snare provides faders for top and bottom mic, plus adjustable bleed level. Here, ‘bleed’ refers to how the rest of the kit rattles the snare wires — raise the bleed level for more realism. On the kick, adjust the level of the inside and outside mics, plus an additional ‘sub’ fader, to get the perfect amount of click vs. boom.

Each drum has its own effect chain with a selection of routing options. STUDIO DRUMMER uses top-grade effects from the SOLID MIX SERIES, including the SOLID G-EQ — a uniquely musical 4-band EQ with switchable fixed-bell curves on the low and high bands, plus adjustable Q settings on the midrange.

Also available as a fully-fledged product in its own right, this powerful compressor adds presence and drive to your drums without blurring the detail. And it’s not just for bus compression — the SOLID BUS COMP is available on each of the mixer tracks in STUDIO DRUMMER.

Another premium-grade effect, also available separately — the TRANSIENT MASTER is an incredibly musical and versatile tool for re-shaping sounds. Emphasize attack to make a drum hit harder, or shorten the resonance tail of a drum that rings too long. Bring drums to the front of the mix or smooth out spiky drums without touching the levels.

Like all the others, this effect is provided on each individual mixer track. By simulating the natural, harmonic compression of analog tape, the Tape Saturator adds a pleasing warmth to your sound. And pushed a little harder, it delivers a smooth, organic overdrive.

The drums were recorded in perfect acoustic conditions, and the overhead and room mic options on the mixer provide tight control over the room sound. But STUDIO DRUMMER goes one step further, with an integrated Convolution Reverb — 30 high-end impulse responses ranging from small rooms to big halls, for extra space and depth on your drums.

STUDIO DRUMMER gives you a personal session drummer in the form of the groove library. It contains over 3,300 grooves for pop, rock, funk, jazz, indie, metal, ballads, blues or country, with a choice of fills and variations for each groove. Especially if you’re not a drummer, using grooves is a quick and efficient way to produce authentic-sounding drum tracks.

All patterns were played live by pro drummers for organic, physical authenticity. This is important because if you’re after a natural sound, you have to be aware of the real-life physical constraints of real drummers. Hit the crash, snare and floor tom all at the same time? No way.

Played grooves also possess an inherent feel and character, which is difficult to recreate with a mouse or the little drum pads on your keyboard.

When you’re working on a song, browse through the grooves to find the right beat for your track. When you’ve got the groove you need, just drag-and-drop it into your sequencer to create a new MIDI pattern - which you can now fine-tune in any way you want.

STUDIO DRUMMER gives you two ways to customize grooves: As mentioned above you can tweak the MIDI pattern in your sequencer, or you can use the on-board customizing features: The Tightness control lets you adjust the feel of each groove in real time, from gridded precision to enigmatic slack. The Swing control adds swing, changing a straight rock beat into a loping shuffle at the twist of a dial.

STUDIO DRUMMER includes mapping templates for instant use with E-DRUMS and other Drum Modules / software:

• General MIDI
• V-Drums TD-12/20/9 V/10 V / V-Drums TD-3/6/8*
• DrumIt Five
• Superior Drummer
• BFD
• iMap
• Addictive Drums

If you’ve made grooves in your sequencer with these plug-ins, you can play them back in STUDIO DRUMMER - Just select the mapping preset from the Drum Page.

* STUDIO DRUMMER provides these two mapping presets for optimized mapping to the two different V-Drum ‘families’.