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ON TEST EastWest ProDrummer Virtual Drum Instrument Need a professional drummer in your studio? How about auditioning EastWest’s ProDrummer for the job? JOH N W A L DEN astWest have a substantial catalogue of high-end sample E libraries, which are used by an equally high-end roster of composers and musicians. All these products now use EastWest’s own Play 4 engine, albeit often with a customised front-end interface. The latest additions to the EastWest roster are actually two related products, called ProDrummer Vol 1 and ProDrummer Vol 2. The core function of these libraries is not unlike BFD3 or Superior Drummer, in that each library provides you with some mega-detailed, sample-based acoustic drum kits, full mixing facilities, eects options and a huge collection of MIDI drum patterns. The interesting twist is that each ProDrummer volume has been created through collaboration with a top-notch, high-prole producer. For volume 1, that’s none other than Mark ‘Spike’ Stent, with Steven Sidelnyk, whose credits include on drums. Volume 2, meanwhile, was the subscription level you opt for, you Madonna, Seal and Massive Attack, created by Joe Chiccarelli with drummer can access the entire catalogue (with Matt Chamberlain, whose credits include a combined value of over $11,000) for as Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen and Peter long as your subscription lasts. EastWest ProDrummer Gabriel. EastWest’s own Doug Rogers So, if you are in the market for $249 per volume provided the glue to bring it all together. a sophisticated virtual drum instrument, If you happen to be an aspiring how does ProDrummer fare? And, if it P R O S Hollywood composer, you could do a lot nds its way to the top of your wish-list, • Makes it almost ridiculously easy to create worse than equip yourself with a RAID should you go for a one-o payment or a highly produced acoustic drum track. array stued with EastWest’s entire back subscribe to Composer Cloud? • Both volumes stand up well on their own catalogue. Unfortunately, given that and contain plenty of variety. Set Up The Kit • Room-specic mic channels and that catalogue is (a) extensive and (b) eects options make the sounds expensive (undoubtedly value for money, Volume 1 of ProDrummer is a 60GB highly customisable. but this is top-end stu), you would need download, while Volume 2 comes in at • MIDI groove library is substantial. a loan from someone who actually is just 40GB, with all the samples presented • Composer Cloud subscription would be great for working professional composers. a successful Hollywood composer in order in 24-bit/44.1kHz format. Authorisation to ll said RAID array. can be either machine-specic or to a USB CON S Well, you would until now... because iLok key but, as with most modern music • Perhaps a little resource-hungry. the other interesting thing about software, this proved pretty painless on SUMMA R Y ProDrummer is that it is EastWest’s rst my test system. You get a stand-alone Either volume of ProDrummer makes it release since they launched their new version of Play 4 plus plug-in versions easy to create a great acoustic drum track. Composer Cloud service. While you in VST, AU and AAX formats. Play itself EastWest’s latest release deserves serious can still buy individual library licences, requires a 64-bit OS but, even though attention alongside the best of the rest in the EastWest now provide a monthly a 64-bit host is also recommended, I was virtual drummer instrument market. subscription option and, depending upon able to run Play with ProDrummer using 32 September 2015 / w w w. sou n donsound. c o m ProDrummer is supplied At first glance, the with an impressive library Mixer screen looks fairly of MIDI patterns that can modest, but it gives be easily searched via the you access to all the Groove Browser page. individual mic channels used when recording the 32-bit version of the kits, as well as Cubase Pro 8. some comprehensive When using either effects options (more of the ProDrummer on these later). The volumes, the main options for controlling Play 4 ‘Player’ your drum mix are, window gives you therefore, considerable. a drummer’s-perspective Beneath the kit 3D graphic of the virtual graphic on the Player drum kit, and you can screen is the Song audition the loaded Builder. This allows you sounds by simply clicking to assemble a series of on the appropriate kit MIDI grooves from the piece. The four large impressive included buttons arranged along collection into a full the top edge provide performance. The access to other elements of the interface. needs a little help. The Browser screen Grooves button opens a further browser, The Settings pane is where you configure allows you to switch between your so you can find, audition and then drag various settings for the instrument, various Play libraries or browse within the and drop the patterns that you want. including useful features for streamlining contents of the two ProDrummer volumes While you can’t edit the MIDI patterns the engine’s workload if your host system to find the preset kit you wish to load. within the Song Builder, you do get all the www.soundonsound.com / September 2015 33 ON TEST EASTWEST PRODRUMMER usual tools for changing the The right end of the virtual mixer lengths of patterns, copying, includes all the additional room deleting and reordering, mic channels that can be used to as well as export options provide some natural ambience to for patterns or a full song. your kit. However, if you’re using ProDrummer as a plug-in, think there is a duff sound grooves can also be to be had, but I particularly dragged and dropped onto liked the ‘Kit 2 — MixSuite a MIDI track in your DAW, LA Kitchen’ presets, which where you can use all your seemed to have a very usual MIDI editing tools on well-balanced sound the patterns. and a really nice ‘room’ Other controls in the character; I could imagine bottom strip include these working in almost any transport and tempo modern rock or pop context. options, plus the Sync To In contrast, the ‘master’ Host button. The Drums preset for Kit 5, recorded in button overlays labels on EastWest’s own Studio 3B, the drum graphics in the has a somewhat ‘bigger’ Player display to show you which specific the kit pieces have been recorded in sound, if you want something that will drum was used for the currently loaded different rooms) but you can, of course, attract a bit more attention. The Mixer samples. For some kits, a small drop-down always add your own reverb/ambience does, of course, allow you to dial in more menu within these labels allows you to either through the Mixer or via your host’s or less ‘room’ for any of the presets. load alternative drum samples. processing options. As described more fully below, one The final option within this strip is Turn Up The Volume, Part 2 aspect of both ProDrummer volumes is the Vel Proc section where you can In Vol 2, you get a good crop of presets that they have been recorded in multiple use the Thresh, Ratio and Makeup built around four different kits and spread studio rooms. This gives you some very controls to fine-tune the MIDI velocity across 40GB of samples. These were all distinctive and characterful drum sounds response of the drums (rather like recorded in EastWest’s own studio spaces, but, as the aim of the instrument is to a ‘MIDI compressor’). This is very but the Joe Chiccarelli/Matt Chamberlain provide you with a ‘real’ drum kit, and effective and can change the dynamics of combination still manages to generate the presets offer a series of examples of a performance in some useful ways. a diverse set of production-ready drum those kits pre-mixed by Spike Stent and presets. Kit pieces are derived from Joe Chiccarelli, the bulk of the presets Turn Up The Volume, Part 1 Craviotto, Ludwig, Tama, Slingerland, limit you to using a set of drums that What about the sample content itself? Gretsch, Istanbul and Zildjian. This volume were recorded within the same physical Well, Spike Stent’s Vol 1 is built around also includes ‘J37 Tape’ mic options space. However, if you pick the ‘hybrid’ drum pieces from Drum Workshop, within the mixer; these are alternate mics presets, then you can mix and match Slingerland, Gretsch, Ludwig, Yamaha, that were run through a Studer J37 tape from these different rooms. The down Orange County and Zildjian, and was machine for a subtle bit of extra vintage side is that you don’t then have access to recorded in five different studios. The analogue sound. the various room mic channels (because 60GB of sample content is organised into Comparing the ‘master’ preset for seven main kits, although you actually get all four kits, Kit 1 would make a great a good number of presets built around modern rock kit, while Kit 2 is perhaps Test Spec each kit with different mixer/effects combinations. The PDF manual provides Alternatives Minimum System Requirements a comprehensive list of which kit was There are a number of high-end virtual • Mac: Intel Core 2 Duo processor 2.1GHz or drum instruments that might be considered faster, 8GB RAM, OS 10.5 or later, 7200rpm or recorded where, and the MIDI mapping competitors with ProDrummer, and faster hard drive for sample streaming, 60GB used.

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