Giant, flower-power drums inspired by the sounds of 1970s Americana Roots Rock drummers!
These 2,206 raw, hyper-detailed samples were recorded specifically for Sensory Percussion at Sunhouse HQ in Queens, NYC.
The seventeen sets include straight forward acoustic drum mappings, far-out pitchy virtual drums, and “single drum mapped” variations for those who want to play them on a smaller Sensory setup.
This pack is a free download for all Sensory Percussion 2 users. Head to the downloads page to grab the pack.
Here’s a little sample of some the wide range of sets included in Orbivestus Drums:
Read on for all the details on the recording process and the sets.
The Samples
The samples were recorded in three separate recording sessions: two at Sunhouse HQ in Long Island City, Queens and one in Norfolk, Virginia.
That's why there are three samples subfolders in the pack: Orbivestus and Falcon Drums were recorded at Sunhouse HQ, and Orf Drums were recorded at a home studio in Norfolk – ORF is the airport code for Norfolk, Virginia.
All drums were meticulously sampled using a process we've refined over the years that allows us to make detailed virtual recreations of acoustic drums struck in different places, with different velocities, and with different stick techniques.
Orbivestus
Orbivestus contains the sounds of a 22-inch Ludwig Kick, a 14-inch Ludwig Snare, a 14-inch Gretsch floor tom, 14-inch Bosphorus Hi-Hats, an 18-inch ride, and a Frying Pan. The floor and snare were heavily muffled, and all sounds were run through compression for a giant sound before the samples were chopped and exported.
Falcon Drums
While we were recording these super-dry drum sounds, we were visited by a pair of falcons who landed right by the window of our studio and stayed there, unperturbed by the sounds of a detailed drum recording - which involves hitting the drum in many different ways at many different volume levels…The majestic birds simply did not care.
Falcon Drums contains 18-inch crash hats, a thuddy 20-inch Reverie Kick, a dampened 14-inch Slingerland snare drum, and a dampened 14-inch C&C floor tom.
Orf Drums
Orf has Pacific toms and kick (12-inch, 16-inch, and 22-inch), a 14-inch RBH snare, 14-inch Zildjian (ZK customs recorded with the heavier dyno-beat Z on top), and detailed, vibey congas (quinto and hembra)!
Like the other drums in this pack, the toms and snare were heavily muffled and then compressed before they were chopped.
The Sets
The “straight up” one-to-one acoustic mappings are the sets: Falcon Drums, orbivestus kit, Orf, Lilium, and Orfonestus, . These kits have logical mappings, for example: if you play a loud rimshot in the center of the tom, then you will activate a “velocity level 3” rimshot sample from a cycle of five tom rimshot center round-robin samples; or, if you play a ghost note on the edge of the snare drum, then you will activate a “velocity level 1” edge sample from a cycle of five snare edge round-robin samples.
These “straight-up” sets have some fun toggle options, though. You can toggle to “muted” for a very dampened sound, or to open for a less muffled (but still very dry) drum tone. You can also toggle the cymbal and tom location. Over the years we’ve found that some Sensory Percussionists like to map hi-hats and cymbals to a mesh drum head, and sometimes they like to map them to the rims. There are toggles on the Play Page that allow you to swap your mappings around. You can see this muted/open toggle control in action at the end of this video.
And there are a few wilder sets in this pack. For one, there are the Single Drum Mappings (Single Drum Falcon Mapping, Single Drum Orbivestus Mapping, and Single Drum Orf Mapping). These have a hi-hat or conga pattern mapped to all low-velocity hits, and a kick mapped to hard center hits, a snare mapped to solid rim hits, and a combination of tom rimshots, snare rimshots, and kick accents, mapped to the rimshot zone.
There are the “pitchy” versions of the “straight up” sets, in which pitch is modulated by your playing with gestures such as velocity (how hard you hit) or timbre (center-to-edge, rimshot center-to-rimshot edge, rim shoulder-to-rim tip).
Falcorfivestus Sequence and orbivestal pattern phase are sets that sequence entire drum patterns. orbivestal pattern phase is sequenced by an LFO moving you through a procession of drum maps.
Finally there is Velocivestal which is a set that* velocity blends* each of the three main sets. That means that hitting anywhere on the drum from loud to soft will essentially cross fade between Falcon, Orbivestus, and Orf.
