Behind the curtains of the engine allows us to:

feature up to 11 round robins - hitting a drum many consecutive times will hardly trigger the same sample
give you the chance to easily build the kit in both the 3D (DrumKit) and Mixer pages
manage RAM very efficiently with purge - no need to load separate .nki just to load another kit
feature a full-fledged mixer with mute, solo, 4 insert effects: EQ, comp, transient and tape
insert a built-in global and channel-specific preset management
be a MIDI mapping agnostic - we already built in support for a large number of articulations (input from you for future productions is very welcome!)
color-coding for easy recognition of drums on Kontakt keyboard
feature up to 4 Room mic channels
give you up to 4 mixable Close mics on Kicks and Snare, 2 for hi-hats, rides and toms
grant drum-specific control on tuning, velocity curve and attack, hold and release times - instant damping, gating or creative effects
feature an exclusive ADH envelope on Room channels for creative effects
intelligently switch pan-pot and width controls in case of mono or stereo channels (and stereo Rooms get both width and pan for maximum flexibility)
insert channel-specific controls in the settings page, like hi-hat control, snare bleed, or cymbals/percussions management
... and much more

Reverb, with class

The IR Reverb module in our engine currently features 36 unique proprietary impulse responses. These are originated from vintage plates, hardware and coveted real rooms, which, when used with drums, push the limits of what can be done with a single drum kit.

Ready-to-go

20 global mix-ready factory presets ease your way into using these drum kits, to which we add presets for each channel, including the reverb.

The drum kits

Gretsch Kit

Gretsch 14x5 Snare
Gretsch Concert Rock Close Kick Felt
Gretsch Concert Rock Close Kick Plastic
Gretsch Concert Rock Close Loose Kick Felt
Gretsch Concert Rock Close Loose Kick Plastic
Gretsch Concert Rock Floor Tom
Gretsch Concert Rock High Tom 1
Gretsch Concert Rock High Tom 2
Gretsch Concert Rock Mid Tom 1
Gretsch Concert Rock Mid Tom 2
Gretsch Concert Rock Open Kick Felt
Gretsch Concert Rock Open Kick Plastic
Ludwig 14x6.5 Maple Snare
Pearl 14x8 Maple Snare
Ufip China 18
Ufip Crash 16
Ufip Crash 19
Ufip HiHat 14
Ufip Ride 22
Ufip Ride Riveted 22
Ufip Splash 10

Ludwig Kit

Ludwig Black Beauty 14x6.5 Ring Snare Stick
Ludwig Black Beauty 14x6.5 Snare Brush
Ludwig Black Beauty 14x6.5 Snare Stick
Ludwig Chrome-plated Brass 14x5 Snare Brush
Ludwig Chrome-plated Brass 14x5 Snare Stick
Ludwig Close Kick Felt
Ludwig Close Kick Plastic
Ludwig Floor Tom 1 Brush
Ludwig Floor Tom 1 Stick
Ludwig Floor Tom 2 Brush
Ludwig Floor Tom 2 Stick
Ludwig Hole Damp Kick Felt
Ludwig Hole Damp Kick Plastic
Ludwig Hole Kick Felt
Ludwig Hole Kick Plastic
Ludwig Mid Tom Brush
Ludwig Mid Tom Stick
Ludwig Open Damp Kick Felt
Ludwig Open Damp Kick Plastic
Ludwig Supraphonic 14x5 Snare Brush
Ludwig Supraphonic 14x5 Snare Stick
Tama Copeland Sign. 14x5 Snare Brush
Tama Copeland Sign. 14x5 Snare Stick
Turkish Ride 22 Brush
Turkish Ride 22 Stick
Zildjan Trash China 14 Brush
Zildjan Trash China 14 Stick
Zildjian K Costantinopole Ride 21 Brush
Zildjian K Costantinopole Ride 21 Stick
Zildjian K Crash-Ride 18 Brush
Zildjian K Crash-Ride 18 Stick
Zildjian K Dark Crash 16 Brush
Zildjian K Dark Crash 16 Stick
Zildjian K Dark Crash 17 Brush
Zildjian K Dark Crash 17 Stick
Zildjian K Splash 10 Brush
Zildjian K Splash 10 Stick
Zildjian Vintage HiHat 14 Brush
Zildjian Vintage HiHat 14 Stick

Articulations

Kick: Hit - up to 245 unique hits and up to 11 round robin
Snare: Hit, Rim and Sidestick - up to 200 unique hits and up to 8 round robin
Toms: Hit, Hoop - up to 70 unique hits and 4 round robin
HiHat: Tip, Shank, Foot, Splash, Pedal - 6 openings each Tip and Shank position, 4 round robin for each dynamic
Ride: Hit, Bell, Edge - up to 36 unique hits
Cymbals: Hit - up to 24 unique hits

Each articulation features no less than 16 velocity levels and up to 40.

Microphones

Kick: AKG D112, Shure B52A, Audix D6, Sennheiser e902
Snare Top: Shure SM57
Snare Bottom: Beyerdynamic M420
HiHat: Shure SM81
Ride: Shure SM81
Cymbals: Shure SM81
Rack Toms: Beyerdynamic M201TG
Floor Toms: Audix D4
Overhead Stereo (Gretsch): 2 x AKG C414B condenser
Overhead Glyn Johns: 2 x AT3060 condenser
Overhead Mono: Beyerdynamic M260 ribbon
Room Stereo: 2 x Neumann U87 condenser
Room PZM: 2 x Crown PZM30D condenser

Preamps and processing

Neve 1081
API 312
SSL 4000 series
Millennia, tube and solid-state
Brunetti PAR400
recorded through a Studer A800 MKII 2" - 24 tracks tape recorder with Ampex 456 tape (pass through tape - no NR)
EQs and compressors (on mono overheads) were used lightly to leave room for further processing on your side
converters: Apogee with Big Ben master-clock

Now includes Drum Singles - Modern Retro Edition - FREE!

A no frills User Interface with just two simple pages:

Load a full kit Multi NKM or a single kit piece NKI
Select the controlling MIDI Channel
Load the preferred sound

Eventually:

Balance the microphones and optionally feed them into separate channels in your DAW
Set to taste macro and micro tuning, round robin, envelope and velocity-based interactions
Change the controlling MIDI keys in the Mapping Page
Done!

Some applications

Simplify workflow and reduce memory and CPU footprint when you do not need a full drum kit in the production you are doing

Drum triggering:

Easily assign more than one drum or sample to the same MIDI Key allowing for real time drum replacement or layering using any of the available drum triggering plugins
Use the embedded audio to Midi functions present on many platforms (Logic, Sonar...)
Stack as many drums as you want on a single Midi key
Create hybrid kits using our sounds or integrate other developers’ kits with our drums
Open up endless sound design possibilities having the chance to layer, re-direct, retune, change envelope on each drums separately
Finely tune the velocity response of each drum allowing you to better complement a live e-drumming or finger-drumming or to create velocity split stacks of different sounds
(Your own creative ideas here)

Quality you can tell

We released the first multi-mic drum library in 2003, with Scarbee.

We know drums. We know drum-sampling.

We know how to turn a drum recording session into a set of coherent, greatly playable sampled instruments. Not just a collection of sounds. This effort needs a lot of love for drums, time, ear, knowledge, dedication and experience.

Our drum samples have been used on countless tracks in the last 13 years, counting on an ongoing success still sprawling from our first library, Imperial Drums, re-released in BFD format through FXpansion at the end of 2013, our ever-growing product line and the large large number of companies we worked with along the years: Native Instruments, Ableton, Steinberg, Arobas, Cakewalk and Presonus to name just a few.