Setting out to capture the authentic sound of different styles of music as well as the sound of specific drummers, in many cases Sonic Reality even collaborated with the original legendary studio drummers. To get classic drum sounds in the style of Peter Gabriel they recorded Jerry Marotta who played on 5 Peter Gabriel albums. To get an authentic jazz drum sound with a massive variety of cymbals they recorded Danny Gottlieb from the original Pat Metheny Group. For modern pop/R&B John Blackwell laid down phat beats that he’s played with Prince, Diddy and Justin Timberlake. For progressive rock drums Nick D’Virgilio from Spock’s Beard, Genesis, and Tears for Fears played a variety of kits from his signature Mapex kit to classic Gretsch and Premier kits in the style of Phil Collins with the help of Ross Garfield, the Drum Doctor. For drum sounds in the style of Steely Dan both Steve Gadd and Ed Greene are in the Studio ProFiles series and to get the signature sound in the style of Ringo or Bonham engineer Mark Hornsby recorded at Java Jive studios in Nashville with the real deal vintage Ludwig drum kits and mics to the spec of what was used at that time.

For the Motown and Vintage Soul sound they used a vintage Gretsch kit with the same miking techniques used on classic R&B, Soul, and Funk records on Motown, Staxx, and Atlantic records. They also captured extra modern alternative mic options for the best of both worlds.

Dave Kerzner on Vintage vs. Modern Recording Techniques: “Each drum kit is miked up to have a direct mics on every drum, a variety of ambient mics as well as a bottom “snare rattle” mic and often a Yamaha sub kick as an extra discrete option to play with in the final product. Even though something like a sub kick wasn’t used on say a classic James Brown record, a drum groove done in his style has the option in this series of being processed to sound just like the original recording or alternatively with the addition of a sub kick channel and stereo ambient mics it can be made to sound “larger than life”. Perhaps, for a hip hop production that extra deep bass might suit the funky groove with that vintage flavor and character that makes a track sound distinct and impressive.”

OFF THE RECORD – To Sample or Not To Sample

There are so many cases where artists, especially those working in various pop/urban/electronic styles of modern music, are trying to sample beats right off the record! But, we all know now that you can’t do that without obtaining the rights from the record label or the owner of that recording. So, that’s why these replica kits and grooves from classic rock and soul recordings are so liberating to have because once you simply buy the sound collections you obtain the legal right to use that groove in your music royalty free! You have piece of mind because you can use it freely in your music which you wouldn’t get if you had lifted the sound from someone’s record. You can also take Studio ProFiles’ raw multi-track material and produce your music as if you had access to the original master tapes of your favorite songs. That’s why the Studio ProFiles slogan is “Access To The Masters”. It’s really a double entendre because it also refers to the access you get to the master players as well.

The way Studio ProFiles are meant to be used.

The focus is on the main authentic signature grooves because the additional playable drum kit samples can be used to add an infinite amount of customization of lead ins, fills and breaks. This way the collections could offer more variety of grooves as opposed to only predetermined song part grooves where everyone could risk sounding the same. With this you are still very much a part of the creative process. It’s almost like having a drummer in the studio who starts off playing a groove and then you as the producer say to him “I like that beat but if you’d play a tom fill here and then the crash there that would be great”. You can just add in those specific parts you want yourself and without any argument from the drummer!

Mark Hornsby on Studio ProFiles Tempo Choices: “Sometimes the grooves were recorded at different tempos but generally they were recorded just in the main comfortable tempo that the drummer was playing. This way, the ideal feel of the groove is captured and since Sonic Reality developed a proprietary technique for creating the first ever time-aligned multi-track Rex 2 files, the grooves can later be played in different tempos by the end user of the product.”

The “Infinite Player” can read Sonic Reality’s proprietary multi-track Rex 2 files and has them conveniently mapped across the keyboard and layered with the same individual output assignments as the associated drum kit from that session so you can bounce them both to audio tracks in your song. In the end it can look like you were doing a multi-track drum session in the first place but without the need of a studio, the gear, the musicians, the engineer or the lengthy time and high cost to record a great sounding drum track. What a wonderful virtual world! You can make seamless transitions between the kit and grooves customizing your drum parts to suit your song in every way you’d want.

The Vertical Velocity vs. Horizontal Positional Method

As opposed to taking up space doing hundreds of velocities of one position of the drum where the sound’s only changes are from vertical velocities, Sonic Reality thought it was more important to cover different areas of each drum spread out horizontally across the keyboard such as a center hit, off center second stick hit, edge hit in two spots and various rim with a reasonable amount of velocity layers to achieve the same timbral variation of the original drum while the velocity to amp takes care of the dynamic changes in volume. With different positions of the kit spread across the keyboard it is more of the range of tones a drummer would have available when playing a real set.

The Secrets Behind Sonic Reality’s Multi-Track Rex Grooves

The task of editing the Studio ProFiles collections was even more daunting than the sample sessions. To do the editing and programming it can take many months or even years as it has with the Studio ProFiles series. This is because not only does each individual hit have to be marked, trimmed, separated, named and organized out of thousands but also each transient of every groove has to be meticulously “sliced” using three different programs, one of which is an application Sonic Reality had created specifically to be able to author time-aligned multi-track Rex files which was previously not possible. “Time-aligned” means that the time relationship between the direct mic sound and the ambient mics are kept intact even if the tempo is changed. There s actually a natural delay between the sound coming from each of the mics depending on how far away it is from the drum. Typically, for every foot away the mic is from the drum there is 1ms of latency. So, a room mic that is 10 feet away from the snare would potentially have a 10ms delay compared to the sound of the snare direct mic that is only a few inches from the snare head. When you record a live drummer these mics all work together to give you the depth perception of a drum kit played in a nice sounding room. It is crucial that when you make a Rex file, Apple Loop or Acidized Wave file that has slice points on the transients that compress or expand in time to sync to your host tempo that the time between the directs, your overheads and room does not change! They have to move together in sync. If they didn’t the depth perception could be all out of wack among other issues.

The way Sonic Reality solves this is by always having the transient slice point on the closest mic to the drum which is usually the directs, although for cymbals it would be the overheads. Even on the loop for the room mic the slice point is on the same place in time as the separate loop for the direct mic. In fact, like a grid, the slice points for a groove all MATCH between every discrete mic s loop so that when it is layered in your DAW on multiple tracks or inside the included Infinite Kontakt Player plug-in it doesn t matter if you speed it up or slow it down, the time relationship between the direct mics, the overheads and the room will always remain the same. This offers the elastic tempo capability of Rex format but with discrete mic channels to process through compressors, eqs, gates, reverbs and everything else you d use if you were recording/mixing a live multi-track drum session. That’s something new in this series that we’ve not seen before.

The Playable Kit vs. the Audio Grooves

So, one may ask if you have expressive playable kits then why do you even need the audio grooves? While you can do amazing things with a more expressive mapped kit like the I-Map there is still and always will be something about a great drummer’s playing that can only be heard from a recording of them actually playing it. There are so many places the drummer can hit on every kit piece with any part of the stick, with their own particular timing and feel not to mention each time they hit something a different part of the kit resonates and the room responds differently.
The goal of the Studio ProFiles series is to offer the authentic sound and feel of a real drummer playing but the flexibility to be able to play the parts that suit your song as opposed to having to be a slave to whatever the loop material offers. By using both the loops AND the drum kit both with the same discrete mic mixing you can finally be able to make a drum track that fools the ear into thinking you had a real live drummer playing on your songs… and not just any drummer but a world famous musician Jerry Marotta, Danny Gottlieb or Steve Gadd.

How the Infinite Player and Studio ProFiles differ from other plug-ins.

The Studio ProFiles “Infinite Player” plug-in differs in its approach to creating a drum track than every other popular drum plug-in currently on the market. Most other drum plug-ins are either just playable drum kits accompanied by midi files such as BFD and EZ Drummer which have dedicated interfaces for discrete mic mixing but do not deal with audio loops at all. Then you have popular products like Stylus RMX which use Rex-style audio grooves but it offers no way to play the full velocity mapped drum kit used in the groove. The closest drum software that incorporates the concept of offering both the playable kits, midi grooves and the original audio grooves is Submersible’s DrumCore software but it is stereo only and does not offer the discrete multi-mic mixing capability. While Sonic Reality as a sound company supports BFD2, Stylus RMX and DrumCore with sound packs that will be sold on the new download site http://www.downloadablesoundz.com to get the only flexible tempo multi-track audio loops combined with playable multi-track drum kits and midi grooves, the Studio ProFiles series and Infinite Player is currently the only way to get those features in a plug-in.

* If you already have the Infinite Player you can alternatively choose a 6th sound pack instead.

*Stereo Kits : Multi velocity stereo drum kits sampled at the same session as the loops.  These kits have been mixed in stereo for use with the matching grooves and have been mapped in both GM and IMAP formats.

*Multitrack Kits : These multi velocity multi-track drum kits have entirely discrete mix control.  They were recorded along side the grooves for seamless integration and can be played in both GM and IMAP formats.

*Stereo Grooves : Artist grooves menu mapped in Kontakt for easy use.  These grooves are Rex2 format and adjust to your host tempo.  Use these grooves with the matching drum kit for the ultimate drum sequencing experience.

*Multitrack Grooves : Multi-track drum grooves in Rex2 format.  These grooves are menu mapped for easy use with your midi controller.  They are the same grooves as the Stereo version but with fully discrete mix control between microphones. (HH, BD, SD,Toms, Percussion, etc…)

The Silver Edition of Drum Masters features stereo Rex™ grooves mapped in Kontakt’s “Beat Mode” which allows you to play multiple loops mapped across the keyboard at once while each slice of the Rex groove follows in sync with your host’s tempo. Over 1,200 unique rhythms created by legendary studio drummers Steve Gadd (Paul Simon, Steely Dan), Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson), Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel), Danny Gottlieb (Pat Metheny Group), Ed Greene (Donald Fagen, Barry White), Nick D’Virgilio (Tears for Fears, Genesis) . In addition to the grooves you also get playable stereo drum kits mapped in a variety of ways such as GM and Sonic Reality’s awardwinning I-Map™. Individual kit pieces such as kick, snare, toms etc. Can be swapped between kits to create your own custom drum kit combinations.

For the first time, multi-track drum kits and multi-track Rex 2 grooves are playable from one virtual instrument plug-in for creating the most realistic drum tracks ever. Bundled with Sonic Reality’s new Infinite Player powered by Native Instruments Kontakt, the Drum Masters range of products offers the authentic sound of legendary session drummers recorded in some of the best studios in the world.

Featuring legendary drummer’s drum kits and grooves in 24 bit Stereo Rex 2 format mapped in beat mode across the keyboard and as playable kits in the supplied “Infinite Player” plug-in. It includes sample material from Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson), Steve Gadd (Paul Simon, Steely Dan), Danny Gottlieb (Pat Metheny Group), Jerry Marotta (Peter Gabriel), John Blackwell (Prince, Diddy), Nick D’Virgilio (Genesis, TFF, Spock’s Beard) and Ed Greene (Barry White, Steely Dan). Users will be able to continually expand their bundled Infinite Player with additional stereo and multi-track drum kits, and grooves.

Virtual Drum & Groove Instrument Drum

Masters is a virtual instrument powered by Kontakt and the Infinite Player that features 8 legendary drummer’s grooves and drum kits.

It’s part of Sonic Reality’s Studio ProFiles series. Drum Masters comes in 4 different editions: Silver, Gold, Platinum and a DL “Flex Pak” download version with a la carte drum kits and groove paks.

The Drum Masters Platinum Edition includes everything from the Silver and Gold Editions plus additional multi-track grooves and more stellar sounding studio drum kits with discrete control of the mics. Special additions include samples of a 6-tom Gretsch® kit in a large room modeled after the famous Town House studio in London as well as a vintage Premier kit with the addition of Roto Toms and Timbales as toms similar to those played by drummers Bill Bruford, Phil Collins, Nick Mason, Neil Peart and other great drummers. Includes extra drum sampling sessions done with the help of the “Drum Doctor” Ross Garfield and recorded at the esoteric Lawnmower Studio in Pasadena where Nick D Virgiilio and Dave Kerzner of Sonic Reality used to record with Kevin Gilbert.

The Platinum Edition includes over 2,000 multi-track drum grooves plus additional midi grooves will be made available for all three versions at http://www.downloadablesoundz.com

The Drum Masters Gold Editon includes everything from the Silver Edition plus a variety of multi-track drum kits and grooves. From the powerful 3 snare Yamaha kit of Jerry Marotta with world pop rhythms in the style of Peter Gabriel to the R&B pop sound of John Blackwell to the classic funk rock sound of Ed Greene to progressive rock drumming with Nick D’Virgilio and modern jazz with master cymbalist Danny Gottlieb, the Gold Edition offers a wide variety of killer drum sounds for every need. With 150 multi-track grooves from each drummer and the associated drum kit from the session you can build a drum track with seamless transitions between the midi playable kit and the original audio grooves all while having full discrete mix control of the mic channels in both. Stick, brush, blastick/hot rods and mallet played kits are also included.

Demo	Product	Name	Size	Price
		Drum Masters 2 Jerry Marotta Multitrack Taos Kit Infinite Player library for Kontakt.		$49.00
		Drum Masters 2 Signature Kits (download).		$149.00
		Drum Masters 2 Big Band Signature Drum Kit Infinite Player library for Kontakt.		$29.00
		Drum Masters 2 Ring Beat Signature Drum Kit Infinite Player library for Kontakt.		$29.00
		Drum Masters 2 Steve Gadd Signature Drum Kit Infinite Player library for Kontakt.		$29.00

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Nov 14, 2008, Sunrise, Florida –Sonic Reality, the sound development company that co-created the award winning Ocean Way Drums, Miroslav Philharmonik, SampleMoog and other popular virtual instruments is pleased to announce a new expandable studio instrument plug-in called the “Infinite Player”.

This new powerhouse plug-in and stand alone music software is made to be infinitely expandable with fresh new sample content from Sonic Reality including the highly anticipated Studio ProFiles series multi-track drum kit and groove collections. Special bundles of libraries with the Infinite Player will be made available through Sonic Reality dealers world-wide as well as ala carte instant downloads on the new http://www.downloadablesoundz.com and http://www.sonicreality.com

Sonic Reality’s Infinite Player is able to read a wide range of sounds whether it’s the sounds of famous drummers’s kits and grooves from the Studio ProFiles Drum Masters series or a new range of Infinite Instruments coming soon to downloadablesoundz.com.It will also read the sounds of Sonic Reality’s “Sonik Capsule” series with special Kontakt-only versions now called “Kapsules”. New Kapsule collections, Studio ProFiles libraries and other sample products are being developed to further expand the Infinite Player from Sonic Reality and its development partners. For the initial launch there will be over 50 gigabytes of material available to customize your own studio instrument sound station.

“Since we’ve been capturing so many different studio instrument sounds it made sense to give them a home in a plug-in that could handle both streaming from disc and the synchronization of multi-channel grooves that could be mapped across the keyboard” says Dave Kerzner, CEO and found of Sonic Reality. “While we still love to make sounds for every popular sampler and will continue to do so, this expandable virtual instrument offers a nice outlet for high end material that takes advantage of this popular engine’s technology.”

Powered by Native Instruments Kontakt Player, the Infinite Player features high resolution 24 bit fidelity, virtually unlimited polyphony, up to 64-part multi-timbrality, advanced surround capabilities and integrated effects including convolution and master effects. The Infinite Player also has the unique ability to read Sonic Reality’s proprietary multi-channel Rex 2 files which are mapped across the keyboard in Kontakt’s Beat Mode which offers for the first time real audio drum grooves with both the ability to lock to your host’s tempo and also the ability to mix the discrete mics of the recorded drums. Users of Kontakt software can also read Infinite Player libraries inside full Kontakt and the individual rex grooves can also be read by any software that supports Rex 2 files such as ProTools, Cubase, Logic, Stylus RMX, Reason, Project 5 and more.

The Infinite Player will be available world-wide as a download November 18th, 2008 from http://www.downloadablesoundz.com and http://www.sonicreality.com and it can be purchased in combination with Sonic Reality sound collections such as the Studio ProFiles Drum Masters Silver, Gold and Platinum packages and others at a variety of prices ranging from $199 to $995.

ABOUT SONIC REALITY:

Sonic Reality was started in 1996 by Dave Kerzner to meet the demands of sampler owners looking for every type of sound from drums to orchestral instruments to vintage keyboards, world instruments and more. In 1997 Sonic Reality created the first ultra-expressive drum library called “Interactive Drum Kits” which won the prestigious Key Buy award. It featured the “I-Map” drum mapping system that is also found in products such as the award-winning Ocean Way Drums, Studiophonik and the new Studio ProFiles Drum Masters series.

Sonic Reality was also responsible for many of the vintage keyboard sounds found in expansion cards in various keyboard modules from companies like Alesis and Roland. Over the years, they have followed their motto “Sample Everything” by covering orchestral instruments with the revamping of the famous Miroslav Symphonic Collection, vintage keyboards in products like SampleMoog, SampleTron and Sonik Synth 2 as well as third party sounds for the factory sets of SampleTank 2.5XL, Reason 4, Kontakt 2, Dimension, Tracktion,3, EXS24, Nord Wave, Yamaha Motif, Cubase/HALion One and more. Sonic Reality has played a major part in a new download site providing virtually unlimited sound inventory for international music retailers called downloadablesoundz.com

Contact: marketing@sonicreality.com

Web Site Press Section with images found on: http://www.sonicreality.com

Product availability from http://www.downloadablesoundz.com and participating Sonic Reality dealers world-wide.