Sensory Percussion 1.4 is here! We're very excited about this release, which brings some nice optimizations and refinements to Sensory Percussion. Here's what's new:

Fast kit switching

The Sensory Percussion sampling engine was completely rebuilt from the ground up, and it shows. The new engine loads kits almost instantly in many cases. Check out the video below for a side-to-side comparison loading a really big Sol Seco kit (over 1,300 samples on 4 drums!). This is a game changer for live performance.

Kit loading indicator

We also included a handy loading meter when you're switching kits.

More kits!

Several of you felt limited by the 20 kit limit in a set. So, we increased the number of kits to 99. Happy?

New sampler waveform

We also updated the waveform in the sampler. Now, if you load a stereo sample, it shows two separate waveforms for the left and right channels.

Copy/Paste only Midi Only

This last feature is a cool one. You can now added “paste midi only” to kit right-click dropdown options. This is great if you are controlling an external synth or sending midi somewhere and want to replicate that setup across kits without affecting your samplers.

Primordial Breakbeat sounds

To go along with the 1.4 update, we're releasing a new collection of kits and samples called Primordial Breakbeat that is inspired by the sounds of funk, hip-hop and jazz drummers like Clyde Stubblefield, Questlove, and Ben Riley. These sounds are meticulously sampled from a diverse assortment of drums in our collection here at Sunhouse. The pack includes 3,664 new samples and 9 kits!

We sampled five layers of three velocities on three kick drums, three toms, three snares, one ride, and two hi-hats. There are up to thirty-three different gestures recorded per snare drum, fourteen gestures for the toms, and up to twenty-six different gestures recorded on the hi-hats and ride.

Like most other Sunhouse kits, each Primordial Breakbeat kit contains four Sensory Percussion drums that can be dragged into any kit. There are twenty-nine completely original drums within the nine kits included in Primordial Breakbeat. And of course there are endless possibilities for building your own kits with the gigantic sample folder in Sensory Percussion's software.

The Kits:

Radical Fright

This kit has two gritty snares on drum 1 and drum 2, a tight hi-hat (sampled with a shaker taped to the drumstick) mapped to drum 3, and a slamming kick drum. For extra grit, the reverb and New York Compression on this kit are both run through our tube distortion effect.

Power Consortium

This kit shows off a cool technique: The reverb and ride cymbal are side-chained to the kick drum, so the harder you pound the kick, the more it chokes the cymbal and overall reverb, which breathes a creepy kind of life into your grooves.

crisp apples

This kit is not a purely virtual-acoustic kit, as it has hi-hat and ride samples mapped to the rims drum 1 and drum 2 (which are otherwise exact snare and tom models). The satisfyingly crisp, damp snare and kick punch through the echoey atmospheric chamber effects — it's just like biting into a freshly-picked apple from your odd uncle Ernie's orchard.

Seratonin Famine

This kit may just be the vibeyest in the pack. Dry drums, a modulated hi-hat, stereo-claps, palpitating snaps, and a set of psychedelic cow-bells are all scattered throughout or layered over the heavy-set funk drums.

Eidolon Age

This disruptive kit has a phazed-out psycho-tom on drum 3. The anxiety-ridden hi-hat mapped to drum 2 activates a flanger and delay if you nail it with a rimshot. The rest of the kit breathes with the signature primordial side-chain reverb trick — the snare and kick choke the reverb.

Primordial Shell Toggle

Strike any shell in this kit to completely change the sound of the drums. Drum 1 toggles between a dry, wood, snare, and a ringing wet brass snare. Drum 2 toggles between a tight hi-hat mapping, and an in-your-face ride cymbal. Drum 3 has a deep floor tom and a set of three congas. Finally, Drum 4 toggles between a hip-hop kick and a dessicant 1960s bass drum.

Denbora

We slipped a bonus pack inside this release called Denbora, which includesthree drums and a hi-hat. This kit (also called Denbora) has the snare, hi-hat, and kick from Denbora, but includes a gritty side-snare from its parent pack, Primordial. The harder you play this kit, the more dirty and distorted it becomes.

primordial denbora

Denbora means time in the Basque language. In this kit you can control the sounds of a satisfyingly hollow snare drum, a sharp hi-hat, a resonant 16-inch floor tom, and a chesty kick drum.

Denbora Pitchy

Velocity and Timbre control the thick and pitchy sounds mapped to the drums in this kit. Play from center-to-edge and soft-to-hard to modulate the pitches of the toms, kick, and snare.