So, knowing just how damn desirable the room sounds are in Ocean Way, I was PUMPED when they asked me to review a copy. (I have more damn drum samples than a sane person would ever need. Good thing I don't meet that criteria!) I can say that, without a doubt, the are a welcome addition.

The Simple Approach

Ocean Way Drums has taken the old school sample approach. When you trigger the snare, it comes up on one fader. The kick is on another fader. If you want to turn the hihat down, you simply grab the hi-hat fader and pull it down. There is no bleed. There are no overheads. There are no room mics. There is no further complication at all. The samples are already processed. All you need to do is send MIDI to them. Quick to the point. Easy!

The good news is this is excellent for people who have 14 minutes to get busy with the noise and don't want to spend it scratching their head about snare sounds. Even I get into creative modes and the last thing I want to do is even consider the engineering side. If I have a guitar in my hand, I DO NOT want to be touching compressors. I already have my hands full. I want to make music and I want to make it now. Ocean Way Drums definitely caters to that.

Ocean Way Drums uses an included Kontakt engine. The Native Instruments guys have been good to me and they delivered an extreme reliable sample player. I never had a single technical problem with the Ocean Way Drums !

The Sounds

Because of their simple approach to drum samples, they've taken a drum kit, recorded it in 3 different rooms, and said, "Here!". As a guy that gets sick of hearing myself on my 6 string noise maker, I do like to tinker with compressors and room mics some times. Unfortunately, doesn't allow me such fun. The ambiance is what it is....for better or worse.

When I first started out, I grabbed one of the 2 drum kits they allowed me to play with. Being the kind of guy I am, I grabbed the ultra live, ultra ambient kit right away. I loved it!! It fit my style of techno rock perfectly. That part is subjective, but if you liked the sounds on their website you'll definitely like 'em on your productions.

I did run into a little snag. The default snare is pretty damn loud in these things (could have something to do with the crushing velocities I was using). It's easy to fall in love with that sound until you realize that your mix isn't loud enough in RMS jive because the snare is blasting through with peak level. Tossing on the brickwall limiter and knocking the snare peak down brought up some corny sounding ambiance. It went from being badass and modern to reminding me of a sillier time in music production.

However, the problem was solved by simply pulling the snare channel down. This reduced the crushing attack I had fallen in love with too, but it solved the ambience problem and ended up sounding great. I just didn't have the luxury of getting the snare as ridiculously in my face as it was previously. This isn't exactly a flaw in the . It's a byproduct of having already processed samples. Not a big deal. Easily solved although it did scare me for a minute.

I decided to try out the other extreme. I went with the ultra dry drums. I can't remember a single instance in my life where I've ever wanted to throw up. Just a hair lower on my list of things I have no interest in is dry drums. I know that quite a few of you out there hate my Mr. Mister drum sound. (Seriously, it gets no better the Kyrie for powerhouse drums...EVER!) So, I figured I'd play along and see what I could do with dry drums. While these were samples were top notch, pro, and had just the right amount of chunk, I personally felt that I was watching TV with the power out. (Not that a TV with electricity is any better.)

For those of you who got into the Slipknot drum sound or anything super duper dry, you will be very happy.

I did quite a bit of tinkering with the super live and super dry drums. In fact, I had forgotten that there was even a medium version. Oh buddy! I found the sound I've been looking for!

I'm a big fan of several of the drum samples I own. (The entire Superior 2.0 line is outstanding and Steven Slate drums are flat out brutal.) However, I've been looking for this one particular flavor. It's the kind of sound that has ambiance, but doesn't mush up when I crush it with a drum bus compressor. I want to hear the drums pumping yet still hear this hi-fi/pretty sounding hihat. I want this particularly for full blown dance music type of stuff with metal guitars in it. (One of my favorite poisons.)

The medium setting is outstanding! I LOVE IT! Other than the optional slammage from the drum bus compressor, it needs no processing. It's exactly perfect for what I'm up to. I don't miss room mics or bleed. I don't miss any of the fancy features found in other samplers. I just turn it on and kick butt without having to think about engineering. The medium room drums are HIGHLY recommended if this sounds like your cup of tea!

Different Drum Kits

It was very cool how they included different drum kits. I'm not the kind of guy that gets too wound up about different kits too often. I'm used to recording real drums and before we start a given project I usually don't have the option of selecting the drums I want to use. (Some day!) We just use what the drummer has and make it work. So, I don't get overly wound up about having a billion drums to choose from. I tend to tweak tones on the engineer side. That "maple shell" this and "brass shell" that is reserved for zoned out head nodding when drummers flap their jaw.

However, I did find the variety from kit to kit extremely useful. So if you are more wound up about that sort of thing than I am, make sure to take a hard look at the options.

The Room

I do want to point out that the Ocean Way room sounds are EXACTLY what you'd expect. Even when I'm not going for the Mr. Mister drum sound (even I wuss out sometimes) I LOVE that 3D, alive sound that a great room can do for drums. The simply do not disappoint! Very nice!

Different Pricing Structures

I first saw the in Musican's Friend. It was an enormous package that cost well over $1,000. For those so inclined, that's not a bad way to go. However, there are dramatically less expensive versions out there via the download. For $200 you can download 5 different kits in their full blown glory (dry, medium, and ambient). I personally think this is a great way to go. The Ocean Way sound is a nice compliment to my stock pile of drum samples and I get what I need with just a few kits.

Conclusion

I was going to say that the is a very nice, super simple sample drum sample library with rooms that stand out. Then I discovered how freakin' great the medium sounds were. When I filled that void I've been missing in my drum samples, I flipped! I couldn't be more excited. Now not everyone is going to want that exact sound. Hell, I don't want it all the time. However, when you can find your dream sound for X little niche, you have to jump on it! Excellent product!

Brandon

If you are in need of realistic drum samples (or want an amazing platform for your electronic sounds such in Electronic EZX which we used in the upcoming Toontrack Mixing Wars: Techno contest) I think Superior Drummer 2.0 is THE way to go.

The only thing is, I always thought it was a $300-400 sample set. It appears now that you can snag it for a measly $149! That's crazy!

Superior Drummer For $149

On top of that, a crossgrade from competitors gets you into Superior Drummer 2.0 for only $99!

Check out the crossgrade.

Brandon

I've had a chance to play heavily with Toontrack's Metal Foundry the past few weeks so now let me tell if you this thing is really worth a damn.

Boring Background Info
Toontrack has been making robo real drum samples for years. They started with Drum Kit From Hell and have created various revolutionary products such as DFH Superior 1.0, EZ Drummer, and Superior Drummer 2.0. The latter is their flagship model and I think it's one of the best products I've ever touched in recording land. (Hell, I guess I should review it some year!)

bla bla bla

To cut to the chase, Metal Foundry is an expansion pack thingy for Superior Drummer 2.0. You've got to have Superior Drummer 2.0 to even think about using it. (Now is a GREAT time because the thing is priced somewhere in the ridiculously low ballpark. Check it out here.)

Installation and Authorization
I tossed the Metal Foundry DVD #1 into my D: drive, told it where I wanted to put the samples, and swapped DVDs every few minutes. It's so simple my mom would complain how easy it is and she still looks awkward using a mouse.

The authorization process worked perfectly the first time, too. I'd guess it took me 45 seconds to pull this off. (Don't tell anyone, but I hooked internet to my recording computer. Yes, I know this is scarier than a coke addiction. I live on the edge. What can I say?)

When a company can actually get their shit together on the installation and authorization side, I commend them. Seamless and trouble-free install and authorization is about as rare as living out those multiple simultaneous female fantasies all you dirty guys seem to have (and possibly even more satisfying). Let's just say that if I smoked, I'd need a cigarette after experiencing a process that normally reminds me of a bloody Ed Norton scene in American History X.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Reliability
The thing I like about Superior Drummer 2.0 is it loads samples FAST. I mean REALLY FAST! It runs about as reliably as you can get on a sampler. I have other drum sample gadgets. They usually work. Superior Drummer 2.0 always works. I found The Metal Foundry to be just as reliable.

I did notice I had a few Cubase shutdowns when I loaded up a robo RAM drum kit. However, I must have screwed up my RAM settings in Windows.

Control Panels > System > Advanced > Performance Options > Advanced > Memory Usage

When I went here and changed this to “System Cache” I had no problems.

I've got 4GB of RAM on a Quad Core Intel PC. (The best $400 I've ever spent on a computter). For those of you who are using a computer from back when the Iraq police action seemed like a good idea to conservatives, the cache button is a life saver. Basically, it only loads the samples that you use in the file. The downside is it doesn't load a sample until you play it, but I didn't find this to be all that bad of deal. Just don't forget that one stupid China cymbal at the end of the bridge because if you render without loading it, it will not exist.

Rating: 10 out of 10

The Sound
This gets interesting (and longwinded) but hear me out. I was working on the mix for Toontrack Mixing Wars: Metal song, Bearing Teeth . Before the Toontrack bozos (in a good way, ) got me Metal Foundry I was using good ol' Superior Drummer 2.0. I personally feel that the stock samples in Superior Drummer 2.0 as badass for just about everything. I love the “scooped” drum sound with plenty of crack in the snare and attack in the kick. I feel this works for metal, country, and just about everything in between.

When tweaking the “pre-mix” of Bearing Teeth, I basically turned on Superior Drummer 2.0, added some beater on the kick drum and called it day. I MAY have used parallel compression on the kick and snare. Okay, I'm almost positive I did, but other than that, I didn't even think about it. I didn't have to.

I was excited when I first pulled up Metal Foundry because I was ready to leap into the next level. Being the kind of guy that I am I didn't bother saving hours by using the presets. I jumped in and started mixing the damn thing. In fact, I went ahead and rendered the wav files with full bleed and went to town. This was a mistake. The samples within Metal Foundry are unprocessed to my ears (this has been semi confirmed with hearsay). They are super smooth and most of you turn them on for the first time are going cuss in a way reminiscent of the first time your old Playboy mags turned up missing from between the mattress. (Why does EVERYONE think this is a good hiding spot? My kids will some day joke about everyone putting their naughty crap in C:/Misc/3255/ .) The unprocessed drums are NOT what you hear on your favorite metal records!

The Never-Heard-Real-Drums Crowd
Let me go ahead and pigeonhole you bastards who are going to get your panties in a wad over these samples (at first). There are many of you who've never had the joy of recording a real drummer and therefor you've never had the joy of pulling your hair out. You learn how to deal with the round thing smashers over time, but let's just say there is a WHOLE bunch of processing and mixing that needs to take place to turn a couple of room mics, overheads, kick, snare, and toms into what you hear on a Dragonforce record.

A huge part of the sound of real drums is what the drummer is giving you. For beginners, it is often difficult to tell if the “cheap” (natural) sound is caused by the drummer, the drums, the room, the gear or the lack of processing. The cool thing about Metal Foundry is it was done with world class drummers, playing world class drum kits, in a world class studio room. That pretty much narrows it down. You've got to mix these stupid things! In other words, you get to be creative. Let me rephrase that, if you skip the presets you HAVE to be creative. (Remember, this CAN be fun if you are nerdy enough!)

If a multi-stringed wooden thing is more your creative weapon of choice than a compressor or EQ this can be a bit daunting. In fact, with full bleed on (as you get with a real drum recording), I had a HARD time matching the sound I was hearing on Superior Drummer 2.0. In fact, I spent 15 hours mixing the damn song and didn't come up with one damn mix I liked. I was struggling.....and cussing.

Then it occurred to me. When it comes to the fake ass metal drums I like so much (Clayman from In Flames is a mega fun one) I gave up on getting this sound naturally a long time ago. When you crush your snare with compression and then EQ it to get robo crack and robo meat, you've effectively trashed out your hi-hat, your ride sounds like it was recorded with something Behringer wouldn't even sell, and your kick drum has more crappy boom than the garage band down the street. A gate helps, but it's not enough. You need a snare track with zero bleed if you want to get stupid with your processing (aka modern metal).

Enter the world of samples. You see, this is a bit confusing because Metal Foundry (and pretty much all Toontrack products) have designed their samples to sound real. In fact, I guess I'm bitching that if used in such a fashion, they can sound too real for my tastes. This is a hell of an achievement and it's nice to have the option of being too real, but that option can lead one to underestimate the giga powers of Metal Foundry. So if you want to rock out to killer, modern, and over the top drum sounds, turn off the bleed. It ain't gonna help you.

When I turned all (or most ) of the bleed crap off, Metal Foundry made sense. In fact, it came alive. It was like getting hit in the head with a frying pan. (In a good way!) It no longer took 15 hours to get something that sucked. In 5-10 minutes I had a pretty damn smashing drum sound that reacted well to extreme compression on both the drums and the 2bus. Impressive!

Non-Engineer Types
For you guys who just want palm mute and shred, just click on one of the presets. This is where Toontrack is WAY ahead of the game. By including a full blown mixer with all necessary plugins they've been able to include mixing presets that pretty much sound unbelievably good, mega over the top, and still natural all at the same time. This is awesome for a few reasons. First off, if you aren't more familiar with compressors than you are your girlfriend's body (for the 2% of you metal 'tards who have girlfriends ) , you would have your work cut out for you. Now you can click twice, wait 30 seconds and have drum sounds that used to cost $5k per day and required a non-idiot drummer (never met one).

The thing I LOVE about these presets is you can reverse engineer what Mr. Mix It was up to. It's pretty damn awesome. The value of this for us engineer nerd types (with 3% girlfriend's and basically infinite one-time "encounters") is out standing. This lesson alone is worth the price of admission.

The more I play with Metal Foundry, the more I see why they elected to not to process the samples right off the bat. If you take Pantera, In Flames, Slipknot, and Metallica you end up with four wildly different drum sounds. It just makes sense to let the user decide what they want and then give them preset mixing options to more or less nail these sounds instantly. I guess you could make the argument that Fleetwood Mac, Toby Keith, and Joan Osborne also require infinitely different drum sounds (when speaking of Superior Drummer 2.0) but I'm not going there.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Conclusion
The Metal Foundry is bad ass. Superior Drummer 2.0 is amazing. The two of them together makes you feel like you can do anything (not to mention the other Toontrack expansions I'll be writing reviews for). While Superior Drummer 2.0 is pretty damn versatile, it's not so easy to dial in such a broad range of metal drum sounds. With Metal Foundry they've really taken a hard ass look at metal drums and given you a pallet which few of us are ever going to outgrow. When you factor in the mixing presets and the ability to tweak those mixes or to start with mixes from scratch, the flexibility of this thing is stupid. Skip three or four dates with Rosie Palmer and buy it!

Rating: 10 out of 10. Home Run!

P.S. If you ever have to deal with the Toontrack guys, you'll see that most of them have Viking names. That's an automatic 10 point bonus right off the bat.

Then along comes Kitcore. Kitcore isn't really intended to be as comprehensive as Superior Drummer 2.0 and it's price reflects it's simplicity ($99 @ Musicians Friend ). How does Kitcore, costing a fraction of the price, stack up?

Installation
The install for Kitcore went extremely well. It was as simple as clicking on their installer, choosing a custom location for the samples, and off we were. The install went perfectly.

Ease Of Use
Like most of you, I don't consult the manual until I feel a real need to. While I'm hardcore about pushing beginners to utilize the manuals for their recording software, everything was so simple in Kitcore that I didn't ever feel the need top open the manual while using it. Since I'm reviewing Kitcore I decided to take a look and I have to admit that I really didn't learn anything new. Of course, I am very familiar with my own recording software, MIDI, and several other drum sample packages.

Using Kitcore was simple. You load up a drum kit. If you want to use a loop, you click on a loop. You hit the “Play” button to hear what that loop sounds like. If you like it, you drag it into your recording software making sure to route the output of your MIDI track to Kitcore. Done. It really was that easy! Kitcore automatically adjusted to the tempo with my recording software, so that made life easy too.

Big Name Loops
Kitcore comes with loops played by drummers that I knew the name of and I don't know too many names of drummers. I was given access to a few expansion packs and being the kind of guy I am, I installed them all at once. So I really can't say for sure what comes in the basic package and what doesn't. Regardless, it was cool knowing that I was listening to high energy tracks by rock drummers like Matt Sorum, Matt Cameron, and John Tempesta. There were other dudes in there that I've heard of as well.

Then again, any idiot can get permission to use somebody's name. Fortunately, even though I'm not a big loop guy I found these drum loops to be highly usable. Scratch that. They were FUN to use! There were zillions of loops. I don't like trying out 10,000,000,000 loops and never actually achieving anything. However, I found these loops to be a great way to stimulate creativity. The cool part is all I had to do what drag them into Cubase and I could manipulate them, if I so choose (which I didn't). I could even run the loops to other drum samples if I chose to.

While I could program loops if I so choose, it was nice already having the groove already figured out. I didn't have to worry about pushing or pulling the snare and all the boring busy work that comes with making MIDI drums sound natural.

I think they did a great job selecting the loops / performances. You had your basic kick, snare, kick, snare (which I naturally gravitate towards) and there were loops where I said “What the hell is this???”. There were plenty of loops in between.

Routing
While Kitcore does not deal with bleed in any way and it doesn't have a fancy mixer like Superior Drummer 2.0, it does allow you to route each drum to it's own output. This is great because it allows processing of individual tracks within Cubase which I'd be lost without. So for the beginner, this may be preferred. If you don't want to do deal with all sorts of crazy mixing techniques to squeeze sounds out of samples, don't. Just use Kitcore.

The Sounds

What I like about Kitcore is it sounds big in that big-without-much-ambiance kind of way. The Kitcore tracks sound like they would chew up a big spectrum in a mix which I would expect would allow them to cut through a dense mix with ease. They don't sound overly hi-fi or overly pretty, but they sound good in a mix. I've heard people complain that Superior Drummer 2.0 is hard to get right in a mix. I can't say that I've ever had that problem. I think it's more of an issue that Superior Drummer 2.0 is meant to be hi-fi mid scooped right off the bat while Kitcore is meant to be chunky. I believe that some guys will prefer the sound of Kitcore.

I found that Kitcore had a meat and potatoes kind of sound to it when I first fired it up. It was good meat and good potatoes, but it wasn't anything too flashy. The more tracks I added to Kitcore, the more I liked it. I don't think I would be happy if this was my only drum sampler simply because I like the mid-scooped big room sound way too much. However, not everyone is into that sound nearly as much as I am. I can say that since I already have Superior Drummer 2.0 and Steven Slate drums, the Kitcore sounds are a VERY welcome addition that would be get their fair share of us.

In terms of tone, the kicks and snares remind me more of what I often hear with the BFD2 stuff. The BFD2 stuff has a big-without-ambiance kind of sound in it's midrange for its kicks, snares, and toms. The BFD2 stuff is known for its outstandingly pretty sounding cymbals which I don't think that Kitcore quite matches, but the vibe I get is the overall sound of Kitcore was intended to be more in line wtih the BFD2 stuff. Not bad for 1/4 the price!

I did find that some drums did have plenty of ambiance on them. The Matt Sorum Kit had a gigantic sounding snare that would work very well in a Guns N Roses style tune. The ambiance didn't strike me as being as “rich” or natural as what I'm used to with Superior Drummer 2.0, but regardless of how it was achieved I could see it getting the job done for sure.

I get the vibe (and my experience shows this) that Kitcore was designed to work within a mix. The drums were tracked to sound great within the context of a mix and aren't quite as impressive when you hear just the drums. In the end, the sound of the drums in the mix is the only thing that matters, so I'm not complaining. Job well done!

Sound Examples
Here are few little pieces of ruckus I threw together using Kitcore.

Acrylic Drums - Basic Rock HOHH Groove
I used a bit of SPL's Transient Designer to increase sustain on the snare. I applied basic 2bus processing of compression and a bit of high shelf followed by a Waves L2 brickwall limiter
[audio:http://www.recordingreview.com/audio/kitcore/004.mp3]

John Tempesta 007 Drums - John Tempesta JT Brx Groove
I used a URS 1980 Compressor 0.1ms attack, 76ms release, 10:1 ration, 12dB or reduction max as parallel compression for the kick and snare followed by the usual 2bus processing.
[audio:http://www.recordingreview.com/audio/kitcore/007.mp3]

Matt Cameron MC Rock 01 BOR Rd 02
No drum processing, just the usual drum bus processing.
[audio:http://www.recordingreview.com/audio/kitcore/011.mp3]

Conclusion
For $99, Kitcore gives you a ton of drum sounds and a ton of loops that can get you going in no time. The program installed perfectly and was super simple to use. While the sounds are a bit drier than I generally prefer they worked extremely well in a mix. I could see myself layering the snare from Kitcore with my other sample libraries for more midrange chunk.

I highly recommend anyone in the market, for a low-cost, good sounding drum sample package with loops to check out Kitcore.

Users who aren't so experienced at MIDI Sequencing and drum programming will love the loops!