May 16, 2016 - Heavyocity Media have released Master Sessions: Ensemble. By Heavyocity's user interface featuring the Stage (Kits & Collection. And now, Heavyocity is offering the entire Master Sessions Suite, featuring Ensemble Drums, Ethnic. And sound shaping functionality through Kontakt & Kontakt Player 5.
So they are at it again with the next in line for the. I’m of course talking about the second release in series,. I won’t go as deep in this review as I did in the last one covering, because much of what is said there applies to this release as well. Installation Installation was a breeze with a download of about 1.9 GB and no problems installing. Since this is a review of the whole collection of, it can also be mentioned that the ”Kits” part is approx 860 MB and the ”Loops” are just over 1 GB on disk.
Does not show up in the library tab in Kontakt since it is not a Kontakt Player library. It shows up in the regular file browser like any other non-player library. This also means that it needs the full version of Kontakt to function without limitations. Overview The previous was sampled from more ”traditional” drums such as toms, roto toms, bass drums, floor toms, snares and such. Focuses on non-western percussion in the form of conga, bodhran, djembe, dumber, frame drums, surdos, taikos and more. The beauty of it is that they (just as ) aren’t recorded in solo, they’re recorded in ensembles which makes for a huge sound. And I mean HUGE!
Ethnic Drum Ensembles – Kits As before, we are spoiled with a bunch of good presets covering every aspect you may like. There are in total 28 different instrument presets (with as many in a high RAM version) plus 4 multis (whereas 2 have hi RAM versions). Going through the FX patches made me realise how versatile the distortion tab is. Load up the patch Ethnic Frame Ensemble FX Tight n Burnt and turn the Punish knob to just about 1 a clock and un-mute channel 3 and raise the level to just about -28 dB. There, a very ”in-your-face” type of sound with a good deal of character. Turn off the distortion and you have a perfect pillow-in-the-back-of-your-head type of sound that almost sucks the eardrums backwards/outwards. Yeah I know, sounds crazy, but it’s kind of hard to describe another way.
Another nice thing is the the way you can use the Attack knob for the different channels. Take the patch Ethnic Low Ensemble FX SUB for example. If you turn up the attack a bit on channel 2 and 3 you can almost create an underground explosion kind of sound.
By the way, this patch made me appreciate my monitors and room even more than I already do, that patch made me smile. The patch Ethnic Drum Ens Menu (Organic) Stretch will for sure end up in my scoring template. There is a Hi-RAM version that takes up about 426 MB of RAM. Not ”that” much but the ”regular” patch takes up merely 75 MB! That is a lot of heavy drums for a very small memory footprint and in a somewhat busy mix I don’t think anyone could hear a difference. The amount of patches in my Kontakt template this one single patch replaces is worth the price of the whole library alone. Ethnic Drum Ensembles – Loops This is where we find the biggest difference when comparing the the.
There are three patches named Straight 8th STEM 1 (Low) Loops, Straight 8th STEM 2 (Mid) Loops and Straight 8th STEM 3 (High) Loops. This is exactly what you think it is. The loops are divided in low, mid, and high registers, and when you play them all together, it sounds just like the full loops.
Divided like this, your options open up. First, you can trigger them independently, creating ”new” loops on the fly. This of course means you need three separate MIDI tracks to control it but it is a very small price for an almost limitless amount of loop combinations. Second, you can have each stem on a separate output and treat them differently in regards of EQ, compression, reverb and what not (and for some this is even more important). More snap in the mids? A bit duller in the lows? A touch of backwards delay on the highs?
And of course you can combine the two for even more control. I hope that there will be an update to the former installment in the, that splits up all the loops in a similar way, because it gives you a lot of freedom and control at once. Both in the creativity department and sonically: you can twist/mangle or polish to your heart’s content. It is, in one word, awesome. I have done this ”manually” by using duplicate versions of the ‘ ”breakout” patches.
The breakout patches gives you a smaller set of loops but divided in four zones on the keyboard. The lowest playable octave gives you the full loops, next three are the low, mid and high parts of the loops. While this is still totally doable with the the stem patches makes it all so much easier to setup.
Plus, you get ALL the loops in one go. Looking in the ”Loop Menus” folder listing, we see there are in total 10 straight 8th loop patches, and just as many in a triplet version. If that wasn’t enough, there are another 20 patches using what calls (a concept carried over from the, where loops can be even more creatively sequenced and re-arranged).
All of these loops are also available in a ”single” version counting in total 200+ patches. The singles patches even come with a low, mid and a high stem patch! First impressions (don’t always last!) I’ve got to be honest. I had so high expectations on this library that when I first loaded it up I felt disappointed. ”Is this all?!?” I thought to myself, ”Where is the usual wizardry?!?”.
I also need to explain that we had just moved. I had some stress finishing this review before we would need to start packing but that plan fell through, sick kids and what not. Well, the move went OK and after a couple of weeks living in utter chaos (read: without a functioning and unpacked studio) I sat down again to finish the review. But what the I simply had to rewrite it since my first impression was just totally, well, off. Sometimes the mind plays tricks on you for no particular reason and sometimes you’re just plain stupid.
I was the latter. My feel of ”lost wizardry” in this library has no grounds whatsoever. It’s just that constantly release libraries that are so good, that what was once ”wizardry” is now more of a ”standard”. I hope you understand what I mean with this, and let’s end it with the fact that I’m glad we moved, for more reasons than one. Conclusion If you think you need anything more in the lower department after you have loaded and used Ethnic Heavy Bottom Ensemble, I suggest you check out your monitoring, because you don’t really need any. And if you still think you do, then just load up Ethnic Low Ensemble FX SUB that would be all you ever need, like, ever.
The new divided stem patches are great! The sound is great! The Punish knob is great!
Put simply: is another must-have from! Requirements: Full version of Kontakt v5.3.1.37 or later Mac: OS X 10.7, Intel Core Duo, 2GB RAM.
PC: Windows 7 (latest service pack), 32/64 Bit, Intel Core Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2GB RAM. Specifications: 3.5 GB uncompressed (1.9GB on disk with NI lossless compression) Direct download only. Price: Collection: $149 MS Kits only: $89 MS Loops only: $89 More information.
So they are at it again with the next in line for the Master Sessions. I’m of course talking about the second release in Heavyocity’s Drum Ensemble series, Ethnic Drum Ensembles Collection. I won’t go as deep in this review as I did in the last one covering Master Sessions Ensemble Drums Collection, because much of what is said there applies to this release as well. Installation Installation was a breeze with a download of about 1.9 GB and no problems installing. Since this is a review of the whole collection of Ethnic Drums, it can also be mentioned that the ”Kits” part is approx 860 MB and the ”Loops” are just over 1 GB on disk. Ethnic Drum Ensembles does not show up in the library tab in Kontakt since it is not a Kontakt Player library.
It shows up in the regular file browser like any other non-player library. This also means that it needs the full version of Kontakt to function without limitations. Overview The previous Ensemble Drums Collection was sampled from more ”traditional” drums such as toms, roto toms, bass drums, floor toms, snares and such.
Ethnic Ensembles focuses on non-western percussion in the form of conga, bodhran, djembe, dumber, frame drums, surdos, taikos and more. The beauty of it is that they (just as Ensemble Drums) aren’t recorded in solo, they’re recorded in ensembles which makes for a huge sound. And I mean HUGE! Ethnic Drum Ensembles – Kits As before, we are spoiled with a bunch of good presets covering every aspect you may like. There are in total 28 different instrument presets (with as many in a high RAM version) plus 4 multis (whereas 2 have hi RAM versions).
Going through the FX patches made me realise how versatile the distortion tab is. Load up the patch Ethnic Frame Ensemble FX Tight n Burnt and turn the Punish knob to just about 1 a clock and un-mute channel 3 and raise the level to just about -28 dB. There, a very ”in-your-face” type of sound with a good deal of character. Turn off the distortion and you have a perfect pillow-in-the-back-of-your-head type of sound that almost sucks the eardrums backwards/outwards. Yeah I know, sounds crazy, but it’s kind of hard to describe another way.
Another nice thing is the the way you can use the Attack knob for the different channels. Take the patch Ethnic Low Ensemble FX SUB for example. If you turn up the attack a bit on channel 2 and 3 you can almost create an underground explosion kind of sound. By the way, this patch made me appreciate my monitors and room even more than I already do, that patch made me smile. The patch Ethnic Drum Ens Menu (Organic) Stretch will for sure end up in my scoring template. There is a Hi-RAM version that takes up about 426 MB of RAM.
Not ”that” much but the ”regular” patch takes up. I wish Heayocity would do a Cymbals Collection – everything from drum kit rides, crashes, chinas and splashes, to orchestral cymbals (tam tams!), the whole works.
IMO, nobody yet has made a definitive cymbal library with an interface that can take advantage of cymbals as a section (which cymbals are). If there’s a product on the level of Heavyocity’s out there then I’d like to know about it. Drums of War and Cymbology were good for their day but I’m talking fully a dedicated and purposeful cymbal library.
Are you like me, you know when you’re hearing something made by? They have that distinctive thunder-like impact as if Zeus himself were playing the drums with his lightning bolt. Because of this, I couldn’t wait to find out if would deliver to the same high standard as usual. Spoiler: It delivers.
First impressions: I actually started my experience negatively when I realised I had to go through the fiddly process of using the Files view of Kontakt for this instrument. I have a few instruments like this already and you have to be super organised to make this system work for you (I’m not). That aside, the download and installation was smooth and I was able to quickly jump into the fun part of trying it out. I quickly realized I had no choice but to turn it up LOUD and just experience it for a while. After a little of that I got serious again and went back to trying out a good portion of the loops and kit patches (there are 470+ total, I believe) and they were incredibly diverse and all ready to go. I don’t often feel like writing epic music but gave me that urge. Quality, diversity, usability: This product lives up to the standards Heavyocity set themselves over and over again, you can be reassured of that, the samples are clear, powerful and easy to manipulate. Remember that I’m reviewing the here which includes both “Kits” and “Loops”.
There are 470+ patches which offer a very diverse set of sounds be it individual hits from the Kits, such as a snare or some low toms, or from the large number of loops conveniently laid out in the “menus” and then broken down individually later on. You can quite easily use more than one loop at a time; perhaps one fills in the high frequencies with high impact hits and the other is more of an atmospheric one, low and grumbling. Throw in your own hits from the kits (sorry, unavoidable rime there) and you have endless options.
Diverse indeed. In terms of usability, my only complaint is that it doesn’t sit comfortably in my Library view in Kontakt 5 which is a shame considering the rest of the package excels. It comes with its own mixing tools and effects which are quite nice – the distortion especially sounds great here. The reverb is ok too but I can imagine wanting to use my own tried and tested reverb for this since it would offer more options. On the up side, this percussion sounds great out of the box. You will need to do the usual mixing etc, but the processing you would normally need to make a great sound is done for you.
It sounds exceedingly professional. My favourite features: “Punish”: You probably saw this one coming, it’s kind of Heavyocity’s trademark and it really does take this virtual instrument to the next level. It’s that shiny yellow button in the middle of the screen you can twist that turns the already high-impact percussion into a Godzilla-like roaring, earth-shattering overkill of a drum sound. When used sparingly (or to hell with it, turn it up to 11!) it not only gives you a whole new way to experience this plugin but also gives you so many options – this really cuts through a mix.
“Staging”: When using the “kits” (as opposed to the loops) you can place them wherever you like on the virtual stage, panning different drums individually, placing some further back or closer, all kinds of things to edit the depth, timbre and placement of the percussion. This is a really powerful tool for creating a detailed soundscape with your drums. “Hi-gain” VS “Organic”: Each of the kits is available as-is with its original sound preserved, or tweaked to make it sound grittier and punchier. This is great for two reasons, firstly because it gives you more options, but also because it means you can mix and match on the go. “Mutator”: You can really mess around with the loops using this built in arpeggiator/randomiser/insanity train. If you feel like the loops aren’t quite cutting it in terms of diversity and sound, you can throw it all out the window when you engage this baby.
Price/Value and Comparisons: costs £82 as of this moment, writing this review, but it’s set to go up to its normal soon, which stands at £129 or €149 (Europeans get it a little cheaper!). I can say without a doubt in my mind that for £82 it’s a bargain. Seriously, if you want epic percussion but don’t know what to get you can’t really go wrong with this at that price. Once it goes up to its normal price we need to start comparing it with other products out there. I own Evolve Mutations 1&2 and, although it’s dated, it has a lot more varied content compared to.
On the other hand it lacks many of the features including all four I mentioned earlier. Of course there’s also Evolve. So if what you want is purely percussion and percussive kits, Ensemble Drums is what you need and it delivers in spades. If on the other hand you just want a few loops and also some pretty inspirational sounds (especially of the darker, more twisted kind) then you may be better off with Evolve.
Conclusion: Having said all that, is it worth the price? Well I can genuinely say that I think it is if this is what you’re looking for.
It fills the niche quite comfortably. Check out our interview with Heavyocity. Don`t forget to rate the product yourself if you bought it in the “Reader rating” tab below!
Hi, I’m Sam aka MetalRenard (“Renard” is “fox” in French), a musician, composer and producer in my mid 20's. Completely self-trained, everything I've learnt has been through trial and error, research and dedication to my goal of doing the best I can in making meaningful music that tells a story or has a strong emotional message.My inspiration comes from many sources, often just my need to create music is enough to fuel it. In these cases I don't even think about what I'm doing, composing is a very organic process for me. Other times I get inspired by a book I've read (I'm an avid reader) or a film I've watched and I try to capture a feeling it gave me. Popular articles. A fully working, expandable version of SampleTank.
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