The EM Poll

DISCRETE DRUMS Series Two

Oct 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Marty Cutler

           

Many groove-based sample CD-ROMs use a “construction kit” approach in which different instrument parts from a song or groove are provided as separate elements. Users can then choose to use all or some of these parts, depending on the needs of their song. Discrete Drums Series Two ($549) takes the construction-kit concept and applies it to drums and percussion.

The Discrete Drums Series Two collection gives you a large assortment of song-length, multitrack drum performances covering a range of styles.

The main feature of the Series Two collection is its high-quality, song-length drum performances, recorded in a professional studio with the kit elements separated on individual tracks (kick, snare, toms, overheads, and percussion). Having multiple tracks gives you much more flexibility for processing and mixing drum elements than you'd get from ordinary stereo drum loops. The set includes room tracks for each song section, which provide nice-sounding sampled ambience.

Series Two comes with 18 discs. Of those, 11 are CD-ROMs containing multitrack performances, and 1 is a CD-ROM of individual drum hits, all in 24-bit, 44.1 kHz WAV format. There are four CD-ROMs containing 16-bit stereo versions of the multitrack performances in Acidized WAV format. (These four stereo discs are also available separately as the Series Two 16-Bit Stereo Loop WAV Volumes for $229.) Finally, you get two audio CDs containing demo versions of the grooves, which are useful for auditioning the samples.

Because the CD-ROMs provide files in WAV format, they're easy to import into your digital audio sequencer, sampler, or even a personal digital studio. (Most personal digital studios support 24-bit, 44.1 kHz files). I used MOTU's Digital Performer 4.01 during my testing of Series Two.

The Stylistics

Discrete Drum's previous collection, Series One (reviewed in the March 2002 issue of EM), focused on rock and alternative rock. Series Two offers a wider range of styles, including rock, pop, funk, hip-hop, and modern country. Of course, it's difficult to cover all of the bases to everyone's satisfaction — even with a collection this size — but the additional percussion loops help create more supple and varied grooves. Furthermore, the ability to add or remove individual drum tracks within a performance expands your opportunities for dynamic and textural variation.

The recording quality and instrument sounds are uniformly excellent. There were a few instances in which a particular drum sound wasn't perfectly matched to the style at hand, but overall, I was quite impressed.

The performances range from tight, in-the-pocket, up-tempo funk grooves to lazy, loose, half-time rock offerings. Among my favorites are the laid-back 6/8 of “Brick in the Waltz,” with its brushed toms and hand-drum percussion; the swampy, percolating feel of “Bubble;” and the equally swampy half-time grooves of “Lava” and “Slam It.” The very tasty “I Love Loosely” captures that quirky Akai MPC60 swing favored in some hip-hop styles, albeit with real drums. Oddly enough, the percussion loop on “Swing Theory” seems to swing harder than some of the snare tracks, and yet they meld beautifully; it's all very human, and I like it.

Manual Override

The manual gives you general setup instructions, tips, and file-naming conventions, as well as song descriptions. Although they contain accurate tempo information, these descriptions are often sketchy. For example, the description for “Light It Up” simply says, “The coolest vibe ever. Could be jazz, pop, R&B.” Listening to the demo versions on the audio CDs is often the best way to find out what you need to know about a particular performance.

The demo songs are broken down into example tracks with percussion (when it's present) followed by soloed percussion loops and each song's individual drum patterns. The cymbals on the demo tracks are mixed too high, but once I imported the actual tracks from the multitrack discs into my sequence, I was easily able to adjust the level of the overheads to my satisfaction.

Putting songs together with multiple tracks requires more forethought than compiling stereo loops, and Series Two requires a bit more work than Series One due to the presence of multitrack percussion. Nonetheless, the percussion sounds and feels great.

Overall, the grooves and sounds in Discrete Drums Series Two are inspiring and filled with attitude. The combination of the multitrack format and the individual drum samples allows for plenty of creative flexibility. If you're serious about putting together drum tracks that maintain the human element, I highly recommend this collection.

Overall EM Rating (1 through 5): 4

Discrete Drums; tel. (800) 387-5720;
e-mail contact@discretedrums.com;
Web www.discretedrums.com