1st Impressions Ocean Way Drums

[Squids]

Originally Posted by pigcat

I received my OWD 2 days ago, and tried last night.

Simply incredible. The depth is top notch, I have BFD and have no way for it to catch up the quality. I can't find the right words to describe its beauty, I can't believe how much space it can take in a mix, sounds huge!

Definitely worth every cent I paid, and you get 19 kits (which I only manage to play around 5 kits last night but I was already impressed). Yeah they're samples, but I doubt even you have the budget to record real drummer you hardly get the same depth.

Another thing worth mention that a full kit generally never take more than 400MB, I set DFD value in half so no more than 200MB needed (without HDD streaming problem)!

Highly recommended!

PS: I seems to have problem with the hats, I'm supposed there's no grouping of the hat hits? When there's open hihat hits it supposed to close when I hit a close hit, but it doesn't close it, the open hihat remain sustained so there's 2 hit at the same time which is impossible for a real deal to happen. It's just me?

I'm glad you like OWD. Regarding the hats for the I-Map they are done in a special way that is different than the usual GM standard. In GM standard you have just a closed, a foot in the center and one open. The closed hat stops the open. I personally can't stand that when I am finger drumming as too often I hear that cut off sound even by accident. So, for the I-map I made it deliberately close when you hit the FOOT sample (on F) which makes sense anyway. You'd technically have to hit a foot sound to end an open hi hat anyway (even if you also hit the closed had at the same time in a real hi hat performance).

Now, in I-Map there are several open hats. The one on A# is the one that is supposed to be closed by the F below it. The one on B stays open with a Bonham-esque kind of performance sound. Then there are multiple positions of closed inside, edge, a choke and also on the F below the foot hi hat there is a foot open hi hat (which you rarely see in libraries) and that also closes with the foot on the F above it. Playing around with these in real time (check out the included video demo I did) or even just using these performance nuances in meticulous overdubbing/sequencing can yield very realistic results.

[Squids]

Originally Posted by oceantracks

You know, I wonder if it's a defect or not. Think about it. Most drum samples mute the open hi hat when you hit ANY other closed hat. OWD does not. BUT...it DOES mute them if you hit the FOOTCLOSED HAT, which is how you close a hi hat in real life, right? So maybe it's intentional....in real life you could hit a closed hat sample until it had been closed by your foot....so I hit the footclosed hat first, then continue the pattern on with the normal closed hat samples..

TH

Haha. I read your post after. Cool you figured out what we were thinking there. Plus, I really think it's the key to whipping around on the keys like that without it sounding weird. Also the separate ghost note. This is something almost none of the other drum products do. They probably just figure you'll play one of the other snare notes quietly if you want to do ghosting... but that's not easy for everyone to do on the keyboard. The separate ghost note on its own key has a LIMIT of how loud it can possibly get. So you can smack it and it will still ghost... that's called cheating! ;) But it works when you alternate that and the hats for example and then hit the regular kick and snare as you would normally. It just adds feel to your performance and those little nuances that are often missing in a midi drum performance.

Now, I really DO need to do a demo for OWD. Apart from the video demo I did at Ocean Way and some sloppy YouTube thing I did on a bad camera mic I haven't REALLY shown fully what this can do on the I-Map side. I'm planning on giving away a bunch of I-Map midi files to OWD users soon though and when I do that I'll also make some new demos, run it by the Ocean Way guys to make sure they like it. They sometimes look at me with rolled eyes when I get all fusion-flashy on the keys. "Play a straight beat will ya?" Well, I'm more of a wannabe funk drummer meats classic rock/prog rock kind of guy. I sure do LOVE finger drumming though. It's so much fun! I've been finger drumming with that I-Map setting for... hmmm maybe about 17 years now? It was the FIRST thing I did when I got an S1000 (for $6k! 2 megs of ram expanded to 8! Yikes).

[Squids]

Originally Posted by grandaddy

This doesn't sound correct to me....If I play an open hihat and then half close it while the sample is playing it should not continue to ring out the same as if I did nothing....but equally the hihat should not be muted either.

It would be a real shame if corners had been cut with regard to emulating a real hihat...especially considering the price of the library.

It looks like Toontrack are the only company that have really looked into this, incredibly important, area of reproducing a hihat performance properly. The hihat is probably one of the most expressive parts of a drumkit and personally I would have thought it would have become more of a focus for other companies to try and crack.

I don't want to bad mouth other companies but fxpansion have taken a rather 'flat earth' attitude to hihat performance by initially saying 'we're trying to think of ways of achieving realistic hihat performance but our technology at the moment won't allow hihat transmuting' to now saying 'the transmuting of hihats isn't necessary and don't listen to others who tell you it is'. (I own BFD2 by the way and there are some lovely sounding kits in there)

I am an out and out Toontrack fan (and betatester) so I'm not completely unbiased, but I am also someone that wants the bar to continue to be raised and want to be excited by other new products and technology...but unfortunately in this area it seems that I'm going to be left wanting.

So unless this is area is addressed I won't be buying ocean drums

The I-Map goes by its own logic, not anything standard like GM (apart from it being similar to GM in some key areas like main kick, snare and hat positions just one octave up... which was also intentional because it is a more balanced part of the keyboard than all the way to the left ;) ). There are certain philosophies I had about finger drumming to make a better live performance (because if you can do it live you can control dynamics and get a more realistic feel... but it takes practice). One philosophy was that most toms go from hi to low from left to right (unless you're a lefty drummer). So while other drum products that follow GM go the other way I thought it made more sense to go in the directions most real drums go. Then there are three positions of each tom to hit in a row which is nice for rolls or getting variations, more edge on the black keys... useful and expressive. The only downside is that the toms are an octave up as opposed to right there next to the hats in a GM set. But, I'd rather have more hi hat variations all next to each other instead personally... so that's what is there.

Regarding the open hi hat to closed hi hat technique there are different open hi hats. 4 different onces that act differently. The foot closes them all as it would in real life. But the A# open hi hat (which is similar to the GM open hat - the generic one people expect) closes naturally when you release the key and it's little envelope tapers smoothly (MUCH more smooth than a mute group) so that it does stop on its own and crossfades into your closed hat if you hit it right after your release. Some programs have the release up on that open hi hat. But if we did that then this system wouldn't work right. But that's sometimes desirable too so some other keys have open hi hats with open release that go until they fade out naturally or you mute it with the foot hi hat.

We thought this out thoroughly. Hi hats are tough to emulate fully. There are so many possibilities with a hi hat. But we at least offer more expression than you usually get in drum products and there's a scheme to learn that is consistent within itself (and other SR-programmed products that use I-Map).

Now the V-Drum maps work differently. I'm not 100% thrilled with the end result being controlled by the TD20's hat controller. But it is one of the best I've heard. It at sounds much better than the internal TD20's hats but there's still something about the internal ones that respond more exactly to it... well they designed it to match from both software and hardware angles so it would. It all depends on what sort of midi the Roland TD20 sends out vs. what it does communicating with its brain for its internal sounds. We make use of most of the things like positional sensors to switch samples and things like that.

[Squids]

Originally Posted by pigcat

Some issues that I found out, maybe related to PT or Kontakt - since the cymbals are soft that I have to crank up the OH output, and I save the session file without saving the kontakt multi. But it doesn't recall when I open the session so I have to manually save the multi instead.

Then the snare 18 (which the ringing snare Dave mentioned earlier), it only has the middle/edge/rim shot hits. There's no sidestick and no ghost note/drag/rolling. Maybe it's intended as it's only for effect/experimental purpose.

I have to say, OWD's hihat is one of the most expressive I've ever played (apart from having to hit the close pedal thing), it sounds very natural and programmed with ease.

We'll have to check on any routing issues that need to be fixed if you've found something there. It's easily fixable by the user too. But we can post a patch update on that.

Snare 18 is a special effect snare that Steven and Allen did as an experiment. A ring of snares rattling around the main snare. It's its own animal.

Regarding the cymbals... well most kits have only one ride. In this case you have two hits per edge and two per bell (nice to have imo) and then you can crash the ride. The crash also has several different key performance positions as well so in a live performance you could have the sound of double crashes and things you might want the effect of two crashes. If you want two different sounding crashes then yes you can either pull one up on a separate midi channel or you can pull it up and transpose it to an area you like on the keyboard. Not really hard to do.
The I-Map does have a place for splashes and chinas and many SR kits in other products do have them. Ocean Way Drums doesn't currently have them.

If you have Kontakt (which you should anyway, it's a great tool to have) then you can easily pull up some other cymbals to add into your kit anyway. That's what I'd do. I certainly wouldn't deprive myself of the great sound of OWD just for that and I don't believe too many people who are genuinely interested would either. It's fun to say "Oooh! That's it! Not getting now." on the forum but in my experience I don't know too many people who throw away a great tasting cake because there isn't a flower made of icing on it.

[Squids]

Originally Posted by Football

Yup, not acceptable for a product in this price range if you only have two cymbals total. Hopefully they will have some type of update in the future if that is the case.

The cymbal sound in general also seems pretty weak in the demos unfortunately. Hopefully more demos to come. Also, what happened to Dave responding to these inquiries here?

Sorry I haven't been around. I just answered a bunch (at 4 am on a Saturday? I was actually just looking something up on gearslutz about vintage mic pres and then thought maybe I'd check to see what was the latest discussion on OWD. Curious if anyone saw the review etc.).

I didn't do those demos. I also didn't do the sample sessions either. Usually I do but this is really a join product with Ocean Way as opposed to our other products with drummers where I am there in the studio co-producing the session. So, I can only tell you guys why we program it this way or that way. Like I said, we have slots for more cymbals in the I-Map. Some kits use them and some don't. OWD is more standard but you CAN load up as many crashes and rides as you want. It's completely modular. You just don't have splashes and chinas as options. It's funny because I have every kind of splash and china you could imagine (even a china splash with rivets!!!) in my studio right now... Danny Gottlieb's collection... hundreds of them. So the last thing I'm personally worried about it having enough cymbal samples to offer. We'll be putting those for sale even as ala carte downloads soon on esoundz.com: sound libraries, plugins, VST instruments and more I might even make a few splashes and chinas as free downloads. Kontakt Player can't read outside samples though, you'd have to have Kontakt itself.

Oh also, regarding BFD2 and Superior... all of those tools are great too. One product doesn't make another product bad. If its good its good! I'm doing 5 famous drummer's kits in Kontakt and BFD2 in one product called Drum Masters coming out in July. So you can compare the two formats yourself if you have BFD2 and Kontakt. There are advantages to each platform.

[Squids]

Originally Posted by relayer

I for one really appreciate the time and effort you guys have put in to give details on these products. Spending $900 on something you can't demo is risky business, especially if the dev is cryptic concerning certain features, or lack thereof. Squids started a thread at another forum concerning OWD pretty much from its inception, and never once was it mentioned that you get just two friggin cymbals with each kit. At one point, OWD wouldn't tell you what particular drums were used in which kit - dunno if that's changed or not. Basically, I spent months salivating over a product that turns out to be of no use to me whatsoever. Thanks to you guys sharing your experiences, I can judge what will work for me and what won't. So, thank you.

Cheers.

Steve

You know what? I'd bet you'd like it though. You're in Atlanta. If you make it down here you can come by our studio and we'll give you a chance to really see if its for you or not. Or it may be installed at the Atlanta GC Pro.

Again, a crash and ride with multiple keys is mapped per kit in a multi... but you can load in as many as you want. We kept it consistent and that takes less power of your computer (loading more WILL take more DFD power, more ram etc.). Ocean Way with more mic channels than most other products and discrete control takes up some computer power to run as it is.

As for not naming the drums... well, it's a different philosophy. The drums are CHOICE drums used on albums at Ocean Way though so I still want them... they're not some drums just bought at the store. Some of them were borrowed from famous bands but the engineers want the samples to be thought of by their sound and not by whose kit it was or what brand. I can respect that philosophy even if my own philosophy is to be a gear head who wants to know all the details. They go into details about the recording equipment instead. There's a whole DVD video included in the package that talks about the miking, the board, how to play it and everything.

Anyway, with a name like Relayer I know I get find something you'll like... assuming its from the Yes album and not a video game in which case maybe I'm wrong! You could get some really good Tales from Topographic Oceans drums with OWD btw. The 3 room options are a big thing for me. You can do a lot with that. Plus its huge! Studio B has such a nice live room.

[relayer]

Relayer = algodon. I've got a post hanging over there, if you're of a mind to answer.

My disappointment is that the product isn't a good fit for me - nothing to do with the sound of it. I can judge from the demos that these are most likely the best drum samples out there. As reviewers have stated, there's a magic to the way they sit in a mix that trumps anything I've heard. And of course, drums of this quality raise the bar for everbody else as well. The way I play drums dictates more features - plain and simple. If these were in BFD2 format, I myself could sell dozens of them. Kontakt has never been good for hihats and you'll note that some people here have had trouble. That goes triple for edrummers. Kudos to you guys for pulling it off, but since I have the $400 Roland VH-11 instead of the $500 (but more troublesome) VH-12 - I can't be sure the hats would work at all on my kit.

Up until OWD and Mixosaurus came out, the most recent eyebrow-raising drum sampleset would be the Steven Slate drums - not bad, but certainly not OWD quality, IMHO. Started out in Kontakt format, adding BFD2 format in the near future and people are goin' nuts waiting for this release. OWD seems very static in a period that has seen 4 versions of BFD2, 2 versions of Addictive Drums, and numerous tweaks to Mixosaurus. It could well be that you guys got it right from the get-go, and I'm an idiot.

Cheers.

Steve

[Squids]

Interesting. Well, the best thing to do is to try it somehow to be sure. I've not seen hi hats work better in anything else but I'd have to try it out and experiment which I plan to do soon... when I get a breather! As for BFD2 support, we're finishing up our first BFD2 kits with Jerry Marotta, Danny Gottlieb, John Blackwell, Ed Greene and Nick D'Virgilio in a product called Drum Masters. So that library will be both Kontakt (maybe adding in Structure at the last minute or as an update) and BFD2. One could compare back to back the difference in the format I suppose. No plans yet for OWD in BFD2 but you never know. Currently it would require more discrete channels than BFD2 uses but Skot is making it so it can use custom mic channels and then it will be possible... just not sure if it is necessary as it is a MOUNTAIN of work and we've still got Neil Peart's kit and the entire Ken Scott Collection to do this year (Billy Cobham, Rod Morgenstein, Woody Woodmansey, Bob Siebenberg and Terry Bozzio). Also, Ocean Way Drums is really a join product with Ocean Way Recording and we decide everything together whereas the other products are Sonic Reality only so I decide everything on those... therefore my love for BFD2 and other sampler formats (even potentially Superior or EZDrummer at some point if it isn't too prohibitive in any way technically or otherwise) is such that we try to spread the love and reach the people that love drums whatever format they like to see them in. Kontakt really did suit Ocean Way Drums well though and it was customized quite heavily. Cool features in the scripts like each mic's level turning off the voice so it doesn't take up polyphony if the volume is all the way down.

Anyway, the hi hat is the trickiest thing. Even if you have OWD which I think is one of the best hi hats in the programming there is STILL a fair amount of tweaking on the TD20 you need to do so it is just right to each drummer. Then that VH hat controller sometimes doesn't send the midi note!!!!! Can be a threshold thing but after tweaking it a bunch of times I've noticed if you play fast sometimes it just doesn't send the note out. So it's not a perfect system no matter what you use. Ironically seems to work better within itself than it does with external midi. Could be the nature of the beast I guess. I have a V-Drum set that I love but I tend to program on the keys and there is tremendous possibilities to get hats to sound just right from the keys... just have to learn the way we do it with the I-Map (as discussed above). I might do a focused finger drumming lesson on just hi hats at some point so people really get what can be done this way. It's all deliberate and make sense... at least to me! ;)

By the way, you mean you have a lingering post on KVR? I'll have to check. I was right about "Relayer" being from YES though right? You know we have stereo samples from Bruford and soon Alan White coming but those are smaller downloadable kits... still fun though. Plus their grooves.

[Animus]

Still haven't been able to find any user demos/songs anywhere, which is kind of weird being almost 6 months in. Anyone that has this please post up some tracks!

[relayer]

Originally Posted by Squids

...the best thing to do is to try it somehow to be sure. I've not seen hi hats work better in anything else but I'd have to try it out and experiment which I plan to do soon...

None of the 4 GC's here have OWD set up with V-drums.

Originally Posted by Squids

...as for BFD2 support, we're finishing up our first BFD2 kits with Jerry Marotta, Danny Gottlieb, John Blackwell, Ed Greene and Nick D'Virgilio in a product called Drum Masters...

Sign me up. I'm an esoundz Platinum member, so I'd get a great deal, right?

Originally Posted by Squids

...No plans yet for OWD in BFD2 but you never know.

I could go straight to heaven, and you'd make a mint.

Originally Posted by Squids

...Anyway, the hi hat is the trickiest thing. Even if you have OWD which I think is one of the best hi hats in the programming there is STILL a fair amount of tweaking on the TD20 you need to do so it is just right to each drummer. Then that VH hat controller sometimes doesn't send the midi note...

That's why I have the VH-11 instead.

Originally Posted by Squids

...By the way, you mean you have a lingering post on KVR? I'll have to check. I was right about "Relayer" being from YES though right? You know we have stereo samples from Bruford and soon Alan White coming...

Yes, but you answered my question here...and yes from YES. BTW, is this Bruford collection the same as that "packet of 3" thing from a few years ago, or are these all new samples?

Cheers.

Steve

[pigcat]

Originally Posted by Squids

We'll have to check on any routing issues that need to be fixed if you've found something there. It's easily fixable by the user too. But we can post a patch update on that.

Yes please, it's a nice hat sound to use but the OH/Room mic channels are all routed to the dry mic out.

Originally Posted by Squids

Snare 18 is a special effect snare that Steven and Allen did as an experiment. A ring of snares rattling around the main snare. It's its own animal.

Yeah, I now treat it as an effect or special use than the standard ones. Pretty nice sounding!

Originally Posted by Squids

Regarding the cymbals... well most kits have only one ride. In this case you have two hits per edge and two per bell (nice to have imo) and then you can crash the ride. The crash also has several different key performance positions as well so in a live performance you could have the sound of double crashes and things you might want the effect of two crashes. If you want two different sounding crashes then yes you can either pull one up on a separate midi channel or you can pull it up and transpose it to an area you like on the keyboard. Not really hard to do.
The I-Map does have a place for splashes and chinas and many SR kits in other products do have them. Ocean Way Drums doesn't currently have them.

Actually after using OWD for some time now, I can safely say that I can live the current setting. I can load up another one and transpose the channel one octave higher if I want to, making it 2 cymbals and 1 ride. But the default setting is OK.

PS: Please tell us what happened to the OWD website email inquiries service, I think many people don't get email responses at all, including me.

[Squids]

We switched sites recently so try again. It should go through or you can just email support (at) sonicreality (dot) com.

I'll have to try the VH11 to compare. Curious now. I actually love the way the VH12 works with its internal sounds... just not crazy about the internal sounds though. Some are fun to mess around with though at least. Clever things in there like the position sensors.

Not sure where the user demos are but there are a fair amount of users so far around the world. It's only been out less than 4 months though not 6. Anyway, I am in the midst of setting up a new studio (psyched too because it has access to other rooms). I am going to be doing some overdubbing over those drummer's tracks I mentioned (talk about pure fun... doing a Bowie cover over Bowie's drummer from the 70s? Yes please!). So, I'll get around to doing a variety of Ocean Way Drums demos. I'm really late in putting my touch on it from the demo side of things but this is a joint product and there are a ton of other projects we also have to do as well. All in due time. To be honest, I've been looking for someone, a versatile composer, to do demos in-house since there really is so much need to do mass amounts of demos and I always think I'll get around to doing them because I like to think I'm more musician than company guy but... reality sets in. ;)

[relayer]

Hmm. Past experience says that if it were totally up to you, OWD would be more accessible to more edrummers. Consider this - the TD-20 module has dropped $1K at the same time that the kit itself has gone up by the same amount. Something's afoot. Roland is well aware that their internal sounds absolutely suck when compared to even the most basic of drum VST's - EZ Drummer for instance. OWD are in another universe. From an edrum point of view, you may be hanging your hat on a product - even a product type - that's on its way out. TMI's like the Alesis I/O ($159) will do everything a TD-20 can do MIDI-wise - minus those useless samples of course.

As far as a BFD2 version of OWD, is it not plausible to make a simplified version? Not as many features as the Kontakt version, but then again you don't have to deal with scripting either.

...or...what about a converter program? Angus and co. have showed themselves quite willing to facilitate usage of other high-end drum products in BFD, hence the Scarbee and Toontrack conversion programs.

Sorry to blather, but I really would like to find a way to use OWD.

Steve

[Squids]

I'm into BFD2 and pretty much any cool drum sample program. So I am open to supporting it... only a matter of time and resources. In the case of Ocean Way Drums it is a little more difficult to do than normal because of the script mixes. What we did there was an extremely expensive part of the project. I had half my team out there programming the scripts sitting beside Steven Miller and Allen Sides for weeks on end doing mixes for EACH individual drum in every kit! There are 6 mixes from dry to ambient done for hundreds of kit elements and all done by those engineers in really great studio monitoring conditions (not just headphones). That is one of the things I thought would be even more valuable to most people than just offering the discrete mics for people to mix. It's also another thing that differentiates it from other drum products Sonic Reality manufactures. Ocean Way Drums is the only one with the Ocean Way sound from the acoustic space to the gear to the engineer's ears recording and mixing it for you... even if you are an engineer yourself (not all of our customers are) then using these mixes as starting points is efficient and useful.

So, the conversion programs deal with the main programming data like mapping, envelopes etc. A custom conversion would have to be made matching up what the scripts do (and it would have to be accurate so the mix stayed the same) and then we'd have to have Miller and Sides there to approve each one to make sure it matched up with the current version and all of this at Ocean Way again... and that's not even taking into the account that BFD2 probably sounds different than Kontakt so they'd want to tweak it more... it'd be expensive and take a long time! That time might be better spent on the next Ocean Way virtual instrument or on a stereo lite version or something else. Know what I mean?

Anyway, I think it really comes down to people's budgets and if they want this Ocean Way sounding drum material done the way it is being offered. If so then here it is! A plug-in for every popular DAW or stand alone.

By the way, the V-Drum mapping is just a starting point. Obviously it WILL work with various e-drum kits out there. In fact, we've been working on midi re-mapping scripts as updates that can have it do GM standard or any other e-drum kit. Again, just a matter of time and resources who is going to support what e-kit but it can be done. A lot of e-kits (most if not all) can also re-assign their pads to trigger the same notes as our V-Drum maps so it can be done from both sides. We chose the TD-20 kit as a starting point because it seemed to be the most popular and advanced. Roland claims to be the most popular drum manufacturer even over Pearl. But, it will work with pretty much all of the e-kits out there but just requires a little tweaking on the kit side or on the software side or both to get it just right.

[relayer]

Originally Posted by Squids

... it'd be expensive and take a long time! That time might be better spent on the next Ocean Way virtual instrument or on a stereo lite version or something else. Know what I mean?

Certainly. Thanks for taking the time to explain. That does sound nightmarish.

Originally Posted by Squids

...the V-Drum mapping is just a starting point. Obviously it WILL work with various e-drum kits out there. In fact, we've been working on midi re-mapping scripts as updates that can have it do GM standard or any other e-drum kit. Again, just a matter of time and resources who is going to support what e-kit but it can be done.

GM will work fine. As we've discussed before, there are drum remapping programs that will work with any kit or config. It's just that the I-Map (alternating hits, hihats) and the TD-20 map (positional sensing) don't really work with them.

One final question and then I'll shut up. Does OWD have its own dedicated player or is it just the Kontakt 2 player? In other words, if I wanted to add extra cymbals (chinas, splashes) could I just throw an .nki file into the mix?

Thanks.

Steve

[Studio Addict]

I haven't read all of the posts, so I don't know if my opinions were covered by others or not. I bought Ocean Way Drums the first week it came out. I'm very impressed with the flexibility and sound. But the lack of ride and crash cymbal choices is REALLY an oversight, in my opinion. I was bragging about them to a metal band that was beginning an album (this was right before I bought them) -- about how "pro" the drums would undoubtably sound. Well, the drummer came in and we started to re-create his drum tracks with OWD and when we got to the cymbals, he just looked at me with this "you've got to be kidding" look on his face. I was totally embarassed.

I understand the guy who said the focus was on the drums and room sounds, but shouldn't this be pretty much an all-in-one product? I mean, if you bother to have the number of kits and micing arrangements they have, wouldn't you have a choice of cymbals? And at least a china and a splash that sounded like the real thing? And for $995 retail???

And the fact that there is no listing of drums or intended styles is just stupid. Do you know how long it takes to load all the kits to find the one you want??? At least with names -- of any kind -- there would be a starting reference point.

All in all, I like them, but actually find myself using the Steven Slate drums more, because of the limitations mentioned above.

[Football]

Originally Posted by Studio Addict

I bought Ocean Way Drums the first week it came out. But the lack of ride and crash cymbal choices is REALLY an oversight, in my opinion. I mean, if you bother to have the number of kits and micing arrangements they have, wouldn't you have a choice of cymbals? And at least a china and a splash that sounded like the real thing? And for $995 retail???
.

Yup, as a potential customer that still seems awfully goofy to me as well.

[oceantracks]

Originally Posted by Football

Yup, as a potential customer that still seems awfully goofy to me as well.

It is a limitation. The drums and room just sound so good I haven't missed it. When necessary I do a kludge and load EZY or something else for a china. I personally hate china cymbals so for me it isn't big. ;)

I took an hour and loaded each kit and saved it under a name that makes sense to me, and also took notes which I have as a PDF. So if I want a kit with a "ringy" snare I have a saved preset called "RING SN KIT" and I can look at the PDF and see that this kit also has a tight kick and a boomy toms, etc. It's what I have to do with any kit really, since you don't get a description of everything in the kit in any product out there. I also mix and match kit elements and save them under generic names like "Pop Kit" or "Alternative" or whatever. It's really just the same housekeeping you have to do with synth patches or anything else in this plug in world...reverbs, etc.

TH

[relayer]

There should be a law that all samplesets that mimic real instruments and are sold as such, must be spearheaded by someone who actually plays the instrument. Final decision goes to the drummer, guitarist, bassoonist, whatever.

Engineers have a love/hate relationship with drummers (mostly hate), and these kinds of issues are often the result of the engineer having the final say. I know that's the case with BFD2, where snare resonance (or buzz, if you will) was removed from all the toms, because engineers didn't like it. Find me a drummer that doesn't. It's the natural sound of the drumkit. Back to bassoons - would you artificially remove the keyclicks when recording a solo bassoon part? Obviously not.

In all honesty, Toontrack (Superior 1-2) is the only company that has features to suit everybody. If you don't like it, you can take it away, and if you need it, it's there with plenty of room to expand. Trouble is, I think their drums are more geared for Metal and everybody I know that uses them does an awful lot of tweaking to get them to sit well in a mix.

Uwe, the Mixosaurus guy didn't even consider edrummers using his product when it first came out, and now he's hanging out at all the edrum forums getting input and making seemingly weekly updates as a result. Addictive Drums have been very receptive to edrum needs as well, and I expect the trend to continue. As Squids pointed out earlier, V-drums outsell every acoustic drummaker on a per kit basis, and everybody soon figures out the superiority of drum VST's to the wretched COSM samples used by Roland

Have to say though, I think in the battle of $1000 drum plugs, OWD wins out - at least from the demos. More versatility in the sounds of the kits I think.

Sorry to prattle.

Steve

[Squids]

I hear what you're saying and each sample product is different (even within products sold from my own company SR). Sometimes we list the brand of the instrument and sometimes we don't. It depends on the approach. Ocean Way Drums does have a nice Black Beauty snare in there, Premier, Slingerland, DW, Gretsch and more... a lot of great drum kits and some of them owned by famous drummers who record at Ocean Way. But the approach of the product is by the sound the engineers create and not trying to capture some characteristic of a branded instrument as its focus. It's also not style driven but is obviously more Pop/Rock oriented as opposed to Metal, ProgRock or Fusion (even though the drums may in some cases be very well suited for that and OWD was recently used on a big hard rock album for drum replacement on the kick, snare and toms with DrumAgog I believe).

Ultimately you can compare product to product feature-wise and there's nothing wrong with that. But, for me it is all about the character sound and performance of the product because that's what people are going to be hearing in your music. The listener doesn't know or care what the GUI looked like or what sort of features the product had. They just hear the end results! So, to get end results that sound characteristically like what you can get our of Ocean Way Drums there is only one product to get that will do that! Ocean Way Drums. The same thing can be applied to any other drum product you may like! But they're all different. It isn't that I'm saying Ocean Way was recorded at a big studio with big names and nothing else isn't. I'm saying that nothing else was specifically recorded at Ocean Way with its sound and gear (especially that one of a kind console built by Bill Putman! that's one of the main reasons Studio B is booked so much... that and the sound of that ROOM!) and recorded with these particular choice mics with Allen Sides and his ideas of miking which are quite unique (I've not seen a pair of C12s a foot above the snare or Sony 55Ps as stereo under snare mics in a sample collection before... sounds cool though! Totally in proper phase too thanks to Allen's advanced knowledge of psychoacoustics... in other words I wouldn't personally dare to try some of the things he did but he knows better than I would or most people I know would on being that adventurous and outside of the box).

So, preferences about features, the way it works and is laid out, bells and whistles on the graphics -ALL OF WHICH I PERSONALLY LIKE TOO - are cool but in my opinion should not overshadow the most important aspect of the product. The sound you can make out of it! What excites me the most out of Ocean Way Drums is after all of that hard work we have a very distinct Ocean Way character drum collection making use of hand picked mics and the brain of two respected engineer/producers both in the recording and mixing process. I can (and continue to) create TONS of OTHER sample sessions with all kinds of different drums, drummers, studios... but nothing else I am doing will sound exactly like Ocean Way Drums. Same thing for anyone else's sample projects. I'm not saying anything is better or worse as that is subjective. It's not a mutually exclusive thing! Just because Ocean Way Drums may be great doesn't mean something else is then bad. Truth be told there are a lot of great sounding drum products out there. No shortage! But, this affords us the opportunity to pick and choose exactly what it is we're looking for.

For me, having done some sessions at Ocean Way over the years I've always wanted to record drums there myself. I couldn't afford it without a record deal or big budget from somewhere and plus it is booked up month after month by signed artists and producers that do have nice recording budgets so good luck getting in! But to get in and also have Allen Sides and Steven Miller on hand to help you get a great drum sound with Allen's best matched pair vintage mics, the best tube C12s and Neumanns selected out of 50+ different ones... well, to me that's priceless. Out of reach for 99.X% of most musicians... apart from it being through something like this.

Look, I'm a musician myself. I at least know what appeals to me and to be honest with you that is the basis of a lot of the products Sonic Reality sells. I think to myself "Would I want this?" and if the answer is yes or even better if it is even a DREAM for it to exist then... there's gotta be other people who feel the same way. Anyway... bla blabla bla... haha. I think I made my point. It's unique. That's the two word short version. ;)

Here's a direct link to a review in Keyboard mag. There's a bunch of others coming too. Seems to be getting some nice critical acclaim which is hard to get in a saturated market. Ocean Way Drums Gold From Sonic Reality.

Oh by the way if there was a forum where people can understand the differences in the character of sound I'd think it'd be here... the place where I read all about different mic pres and outboard gear. Imagine if people only bought mic pres and eqs because of the features! How would a Pultec rate on features? Haha. But its sound.... a whole other thing.

[relayer]

Congratulations - that's a stellar review. Yet the sad fact remains that I require splashes and chinas to achieve my drum sound. You never answered my question about using extra .nki files in the Kontakt player as a kludge.

And you never really answered my question over at KVR about the forthcoming BFD2 format SR samplesets. I'm very interested in those. I'll bet you've muted me during one of our spats about Genesis. Hey, I know you were going round sampling great 70's drummers and kits, think about adding two more to your list - Lenny White and Narada Michael Walden. Both were (are) outstanding players with a very unique sound.

Cheers.

Steve

[Squids]

You can't read other Kontakt sounds in the Kontakt Player that comes with products like OWD. But you can of course if you have Kontakt which is recommended... and then of course you can add splashes, chinas, gongs and anything else you need to customize your kit.

I did reply (made a new thread) about SR kits for BFD2. Also, I didn't mute you and don't recall any spats about Genesis. So all good... sometimes I do miss some questions though.