Scarbee has released Scarbee Imperial Drums (S.I.D.), conceived and produced by Simone Coen and featuring Elio Rivagli on drums, in native Kontakt 1.5.3 + Halion 2 format.
In the tradition of other Scarbee products such as J-Slap n’ Fingered, R.S.P’73 and W.E.P., Scarbee Imperial Drums sets several new benchmarks in the arena of drum sampling. Recorded in 24bit/88 khz high definition resolution (down-sampled to 44.1 khz for release), S.I.D. captures the true full dynamic range of every drum, providing nearly 30,000 individual drum samples on 3 DVDs. These DVDs represent the distillation of over 1 terabyte of recordings.
As with all other Scarbee offerings to date, rather than offering a ‘grab bag’ of many instruments which have been sampled to an ‘acceptable’ level, S.I.D. focuses the combined energies of the entire production team on a single DW® drum set and Paiste® cymbals, with additional snares and an alternate DW® bass drum. The result is a sampled drum kit which is rendered to a level of detail previously unavailable to sample users.
S.I.D. also utilises the latest advances in sample playback technology to provide performance and mixing features never before offered on any sampled drum library.
The aim of the S.I.D. project was to truly put sample users in the ‘engineer’s seat’. To do this, we had to provide them with a way of miking up and mixing a kit which had already been recorded! The S.I.D. solution was to record each drum from multiple microphone positions, including close, overhead and ambient perspectives, with some drums recorded from multiple close perspectives. S.I.D even provides ‘bleed’ samples which capture the resonance of the rest of the kit as a drum is hit. These different mic perspectives are presented in a ‘virtual multitrack’ format within the sampler, allowing the user to pick and choose which mics he wants to use on a particular drum, how much ambience he needs, how much bleed will be useful etc. Then…it’s mix time!
As with all Scarbee products, each sound in S.I.D. has been sampled and mapped to an exceptionally high standard. A single key might feature over 420 bass drum samples in 75 velocity layers; one of the snare drums gives the user access to over 2200 snare hits in over 130 velocity layers through an intuitive combination of one key and the modulation wheel; and there are over 3,000 samples – totalling almost 2 gigabytes of data – dedicated to the 14” Hi Hat alone! This means more articulations to choose from and virtually seamless transitions through all degrees of playing force from the lightest to the most aggressive pounding. This abundance of velocity layers also means that sample users can finally say ‘good riddance’ to that bane of all drum programing – ‘the machine gun effect’ – the artefact which makes repeated hits of the same drum sound like a sampler rather than a live drummer playing. Ultimately, these features lead to one important breakthrough: S.I.D. has feel. These drums respond like a real, wildly dynamic acoustic drum kit. Add this real feel to the fact that you have wide ranging control over your drum mix, and you arrive at the ultimate sampled drumming experience: S.I.D.
S.I.D. caters for a wide range of playing styles, offering hits using standard wooden drum sticks, reversed sticks, several types of brush sticks, mallet drum sticks and even hands and fingers.
There are a total of 59 ‘Emperor’ Kit banks, 85 Emperor Single Drum programs, 1 GM mapped kit and 174 additional banks and programs. The Emperor kit is the ‘grand daddy’ of all S.I.D. kits, packing thousands of samples and bristling with detail.
SCARBEE hasn’t forgotten those with modest computer resources: S.I.D. also includes streamlined versions of the Emperor Kits which, while retaining much of the character and detail of the Emperor, place less demand on memory and cpu.
Users are encouraged to register their purchase at http://www.scarbee.com in order to take advantage of free updates, programs and samples, and to be informed of further related releases in the Scarbee drum series.
System Requirements:
Kontakt 1.5.2 (+DFD Extension) & Halion 2, 12 GB free Hard Disc Space, DVD Rom Drive. MIDI keyboard with sustain pedal.
PC: Windows 2000/XP, Pentium 3/Athlon 1.0 Ghz, 1 GB RAM.
Recommended: Pentium 4/Athlon 1.6 Ghz, 1.5 GB RAM.
Mac: OS9 or higher, G4 800 Mhz, 1 GB RAM.
Recommended: G4 1.25 Ghz, 1.5 GB RAM.
