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MixTended
Drummers - often the brunt of many unfair and cruel jokes (not that it ever got to me...). But fact is, we need them. Sure we can try and do it all ourselves but the results, more often then not, are noticeably synthetic and can let a potentially good track down.
Well, this
used to be true until the advent of low latency software samplers, some of which are dedicated specifically to drums. No sooner did the likes of DR008, Battery and LM4 come on the scene, than a huge selection of sample and patch CDs popped up, each offering a more realistic, authentic acoustic sound than the next. Recently I had a look at the popular Mixtended Drums CD from (:wizoo:). So how does it compare to the 'real' thing? And more importantly, how does it compare to other
similar products out there at the moment?
Installation
Okay - first gripe. Installation is verging on fiddly. Basically the patch files (offered in multiple formats for HALion and LM4/LM4 MKII) are on CD 1 and the samples, are on CD 2. There is also an 'economy' sample set on CD1 which would explain why they couldn't simply put the patches and samples on the same disc. But no matter - once the samples and patches are copied onto your Hard Drive, loading a patch results in a 'sample not found' error. You then have to manually locate the sample directory and then allow your drum sampler to use that path for all remaining samples. Not a problem in itself but for the fact that you have to do this every time you load in a kit. Some samplers will 'remember' the folder you are pointing to in any given session. Some, however, do not. And this little gripe soon becomes quite an annoyance when you just want to go through the kits and try them out. The solution to this would be to resave the kit, therefore saving its sample location with it.
Features
The Mixtended Drums CD set comes with 5 drum kits: Funk, Rock, Soul, Heavy and Jazz. These are available in two flavours. XXL, and ECO. The difference is in the number of samples used, and consequently the amount of memory needed to load the kits. To give you an idea of how this could be useful, the XXL Funk and Rock kits are 221MB each, while their ECO counterparts are a more RAM friendly 88MB and 89MB respectively. Handy for those strapped for HD space, or running a lower spec machine.
The kits are supplied in multiple formats for use in HALion, LM4 and LM4 MKII. And of course many samplers will read the LM4 file format (.txt) meaning this CD is compatible with a wide range of software.
Also CD1 comes with 5 demo tracks (which oddly enough refused to play in 2 out of 3 CDROMS tested) which 'show off' the various sounds of the kit using the same drum solo in each. Two standard MIDI files are included, again to show how the kits sound in practice and also to give the user an idea of how they may be implemented.
One other feature of this sample library (and perhaps the most important one) is the inclusion of 3 variations on each kit. The first is Close-mic'd and dry. The second is overheads only, and the third is room ambience. This in theory allows you to run three instances of your drum sampler, each loaded with dry, overhead and room variations on a particular kit, and then mix these three outputs together (hence the name 'Mixtended' perhaps? Who knows).
How It Sounds
Having fired up my host application, in this case Cubase SX, and called up NI Battery as a virtual instrument, I loaded the Dry Funk XXL kit and cautiously tapped out a drum pattern. Not bad sounding - the samples are all crystal clear and properly truncated. No sloppy delays or clicks as the sound decays. However it didn't sound particularly brilliant on its own. Bring in the overhead and/or room kits however and it suddenly comes alive. The overheads really capture the interaction of the drums with each other, and when solo'd you can easily acheive that 'just outside the practice room' sound! The Room ambience kits are okay but it seemed as though some clipping went on in recording them, which I thought was a bit sloppy. The obvious advantage of having these three outputs is that you can introduce more or less of the room ambience or overhead signal as and when you please. But going beyond this, if you wanted to get really creative you could apply EQ and effects to just the ambience, or just the dry signal and get some mighty wierd sounds. A slight touch of flanger on the cymbal ambience can easily make your drum tracks stand out in the mix and add a little something unique to the track.
The actual kits themselves are of a reasonably high quality. The cymbals are especially good and pack sufficient bite to suit most styles of music. The differences from Funk to Rock, Soul to Heavy etc. aren't major. The most noticeable differences are in the snares and toms, but the descriptions are pretty spot on and they do suit the style of music they were intended for. I did find that some of the snares lacked a certain 'sizzle' or crack, for want of a better word. When pounding your keyboard mercilessly at full strength you want to feel as though the skins are about to pop - but I just didn't get that feeling here.
Of course all the patches are velocity layered, with the snares in the XXL kit having around 10 - 11 hits, and the cymbals around 5. Compare this to the Native Instruments Studio kit for example, where the large kits have around 32 snare hits split between left and right hand grips, and double triggering a sample becomes an increasingly likely event. Which reminds me...
One
major feature missing from all these kits (and it really is a make-or-break kind of feature) is left and right hand grip variations on the snares and toms. As already mentioned, the Native Instruments Studio Kits have them. The well known Drumkit From Hell has them. Mixtended do not. And it really does make a world of difference. The samples can be of the best quality, the room ambience can be captured to perfection, they could even throw in the squeak of the drummers stool if they wanted to (they didn't by the way) but when you buzz roll and get the same sample repeated 2, 3 even 4 or more times...the game is up. "They're not real drums!" comes the cry. Providing you play 'safe' patterns and don't stray much farther than 8th or 16th beats you'll be okay and no-one will know. But chances are if you flam or roll or paradiddle, you'll double trigger a sample and it will sound synthetic.
The mapping is also a little strange, with the toms occupying A B C and D, as opposed to the well established tradition of F G A B, as is found in the General MIDI drum map. This means that simply copying an existing drum pattern to a MIDI channel on which a Mixtended kit resides, will not work unless you either edit the patch to bring the mapping back into line, or alter the pattern itself to fit the mapping of the kit. The same goes for the snare - there isn't one on E which is a pain to say the least when playing faster patterns or rolls. Of course this can be remedied by simply modifying the patch but remember - there are three lots of each, so that's three times you have to remap and basically it's just something they could have thought of in the first place.
The velocity layering on the hi-hats is equally strange, with seemingly identical samples being triggered until you literally pound the key with your whole hand.
Also the default levels for each drum are way out of whack. The dry tom samples are about twice as loud as the rest of the kit, whereas the ambient samples are completely the opposite. The pedal hi-hat is, again, approximately twice as loud as the closed hi-hat sample, even at full pelt. Yes this can all be fixed by routing the kick, snare, toms etc. to individual outputs and controlling them from your channel mixer. But remember, that's 5 channels to mix, times three (dry, overhead and room). Okay so alot of you might want to do that anyway but for people that simply want to load the thing up and play, it's not good news.
Summary
Wow it's really sounding like I don't like these kits! But please don't get me wrong. The samples are of a high standard, the kits are captured beautifully and once some of the mapping and level issues are resolved these kits have potential. But for the money you want more than potential. A perfectly mixed awesome sounding kit straight out of the box would be asking the impossible, sure. But the major let downs (and to be fair there were only a few) could all have been avoided.
The one thing that probably could have saved the Mixtended Kits in my view, was left/right hand samples. Had they been included I probably would have overlooked all the other stuff.
I suppose to sum it all up - if you're not looking to get
too adventurous in your drum programming, and simply need something that's better than General MIDI to make your songs sound that extra bit more realistic, then the Mixtended drums fit the bill. Alot of you will get good results with a bit of perseverance and indeed, I'm having a quick tap as I write and it sounds pretty good! But if you're after the ultimate drum experience, so indistinguishable from the real thing you'd swear there was a fully mic'd up kit right in front of you, then this sadly falls ever so short of that.
Review by
Chimpspanner
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