Native Instruments: Abbey Road 60′s Drums Samples

Native Instruments has recently released their newest sample libraries for Kontakt 4, the Abbey Road 60′s Drum Sample Library!

Now this isn’t a emulation or acoustical modelling in anyway, but straight samples of two authentic 60′s era drum kits in Abbey Road’s Studio 2.

Now, the Abbey Road 60′s Drum Collection is a sample library for Kontakt 4… So unless you have this software, the library is fairly useless… But I can see many people getting Kontakt 4 simply to use this sample library.

All of the samples were recorded in the renown Abbey Road Studio 2, renown for The Beatle’s work in the room… but which has also been home to such artists as Fiona Apple, Nick Cave, Dido, Green Day, Muse, Oasis, Coldplay, U2, Radiohead, Kanye West… the list goes on and on.

Now the Abbey Road 60′s Drum Samples weren’t only recorded in the same room, but with the same equipment AND drum kits from the same era. All of this in conjunction with Abbey Road studio, as Abbey Road’s first work with Native Instruments.

The Recording Equipment

These samples were recorded with ERA specific microphones, including Sony C38A’s, Neuman U47 and KM 56 and AKG D20 and D19s. All of this was inputed into a REDD.17 Mixing Desk, and Tracked down to a Studer J37 4 Track 1 inch tape machine.

Of course, digital had to come into the picture at some point, and from the tape machine all of the recordings were brought to the digital realm with Prism ADA-8 A/D Converters.

The Drum Kits

Two different drum kits were recorded, and are available in the samples. An Early 60′s Gretch Round Badge w/ Jasper Shells and a Late 60′s Ludwig Hollywood Kit.

The Gretch is a 4 piece and has a 24″ kick, 13″ and 16″ toms. This was combined with a Ludwig Jazz Festival snare and a Ludwig Mohogany Snare to round it out.

The Ludwig kit is a 5 piece w/ a 22″ kick, 12″ 13″ and 16″ Toms and Ludwig Supra-Phonic 400 Snare and Radio King Snare to compliment the kit.

The Samples and Control

Within the interface, you can do just about anything imaginable with the samples…

You can adjust the tuning, volume envelope as well as overhead and room microphone mixes for each element, as well as the balance between top and bottom snare mics. You can also change the articulation for each drum, letting you add rim shots, different types of snare hits, and or flams rolls ect.

There’s also a mixer for the whole kit, letting you mix different elements of the kit as one would in an analog world… Mixing together the direct mic’d elements of the kit as well as room and overhead microphones to get the tone you’re looking for.

The End

All of the samples recorded were brought to the digital realm in 24 bit 44.1 khz, and there are over 30,000 samples! Including, but not limited to 30 velocity layers per drum, 6 variations of each hit, and different right/left hand samples for snare and high hat.

This 14 GB monster of a sample library works with the paid, or the FREE version of kontakt 4… and is available for $119.99 in the states.

For more info see Native Instrument’s Abbey Road Site