ProFile on John Bonham:

John Bonham aka “Bonzo” was one of the most influential drummers in music history, particularly for Rock and Heavy Metal. He was the backbone beat of the legendary rock group Led Zeppelin. His hard pounding beats, thunderous kick, slamming snare, crashing open hit hats and cymbals, jazz influenced swing fills and ghost notes on kick and snare were unique characteristics of his playing as was the sound of his trademark Ludwig kits. While he was known to play Ludwig clear Vistalite™ kits, he also used various woods like this Maple classic Ludwig set that was sampled for this product.

Sonic Notes:

Dave Kerzner about the Bonzo Beat Kit: "A lot of people think Bonham only played Ludwig Vistalite kits because that's often what he played live. But, in the studio he had used all sorts of Ludwig wood kits. This particular kit is one Ludwig sells today and it's such a nice sounding set to have for rock or jazz. The studio this was recorded in had a nice sized live room for getting both an ambient and dryer crisp rock sound out of the same kit. A big part of the equation in getting a great Bonham-esque sound is the use of a compressor or limiter particularly on the room channels. Since you have the natural unprocessed sound in these Drum Masters kits you can run the discrete room channels into various effect plug-ins to in your DAW simulate the Bonham sound accurately without losing flexibility to tailor the sound to your tracks".

Easy to Use, Intuitive and Flexible Graphic User Interface!

Whether you play from the keyboard, V-Drums™ or any electronic drum kit, Drum Masters 2 has some of the most advanced features for round robin randomization of hits, performance articulations like ghost notes, snare rolls, and hits from center to edge to rim. With new “ MIDI learn”, custom kits can be tailored for any drum pad set up. It includes GM, iMap and a new Performance mode for expressive MIDI grooves and universal compatibility all in one package. Top that off with ready to go mixes, built-in effects and infinite expandability, Drum Masters 2 is the ultimate virtual drum solution!

Example Drum Masters "Multi" Drum Kit Screen Shot

Drum Masters 2 Multitrack Drums put you in control of the mix as if you had the original multitrack master tapes in your hands! An accurate simulation of classic drum sounds allows you to create your own music with rare flavors of sound that were previously only a luxury to very few. This is ultimate production power inside your computer! Drum Masters kits can be combined with authentic played audio grooves from the same session to create the most realistic simulation of a live multi-track drum session of any drum plug-in today.

Features:

• Diverse Range of Kits: Unique custom and vintage drum kits from legendary drummers and top drum brands.
• Signature Styles and Sounds: Authentic techniques and recording equipment used in the session to recreate drum sounds from iconic Classic Rock albums to Jazz, Soul, Blues, Hip Hop, World, Pop and other styles.
• Full Multi-Channel Control! Hi quality discrete mic channel mixing so you can blend directs, overheads, ambient rooms and more to get a diverse range of sounds from dry to
• Unprocessed Natural Acoustic Sound: Recorded naturally with no additional processing for maximum flexibility to produce, process and engineer within your DAW.
• GM and iMap Drum Maps: Both General Midi and Sonic Reality’s award-winning iMap drum layouts for the ultimate in compatibility and expressive realism when creating drum tracks.
• Round Robin Randomized Hits! All Drum Masters kits articulations have been alternated for round robin and/or randomization capabilities, allowing for the most humanly realistic and expressive sound possible.
• Dynamic Velocities and Multiple Drum Positions! Drum Kits are mapped both with multiple velocities and a variety of positions of each drum from center to edge to rim.
• Ideal Material to Use with Effect Plug-ins: Process each mic channel separately or together through your favorite studio effects plug-ins and channel strip EQ in your DAW.
• Unlimited Custom Kits Can Be Made! Drum Master kits are flexible and customizable allowing the ability to swap out kit pieces between kits to create your own custom hybrid drum kits.
• Endlessly Expandable Collection! With the Infinite Player you can expand and add more Sonic Reality drum kits, grooves and other instrument sounds to your collection.

Mapping Modes: iMap, GM, V-Drum, Custom

iMap

iMap is a proprietary MIDI note mapping/drum kit layout scheme developed by Sonic Reality that facilitates improved live performance of drum kits via MIDI keyboard. iMap places drums in their most flexible and intuitive position, allowing each of the fingers on both hands independent and coordinated control over the sampled kit. With little practice, it is possible to lay down complete drum grooves in a single take that have incredible feel and groove. I-Map has left and right stick positions per drum as well as a variety of positions from center to edge to rim. It includes additional performance articulations you don’t often get from other drum products such as left and right keys for snare rolls, separate ghost notes, hat foot open, chokes, crashing rides and more.

click to enlarge  

GM (General MIDI)

GM is the classic mapping format for standard  MIDI files. Sonic Reality’s IMAP/GM remapping button works by putting selected IMAP notes remapped to GM notes instead. You can change an entire multi kit from IMAP to GM with one simple key switch. This offers the best of cutting edge expression without sacrificing universal compatibility with GM MIDI loops.

V-Drum

All Drum Masters 2 kits have been mapped for Roland's TD-20 V-Drum brain.  V-Drum mapping features include a snare drum rimshot/sidestick switch and intricate hi-hat articulation controls.   Round robin randomization and detailed articulation sampling introduce a realistic approach to e-drumming!

Custom

Assign any articulation of any instrument to any MIDI note!  By either using the MIDI Learn function or an interface knob, this mapping panel allows for ultimate flexibility for use with any electronic drum kit, multi-pad controller or any other MIDI device.

About Sonic Reality's Infinite Player

Infinite Player is a licensing mechanism that authorizes Sonic Reality sounds to be played in Native Instrumens Kontakt and the free Kontakt Player.  Kontakt is the industry's leading sampler and, combined with Sonic Reality's immaculate sampling and thorough scripting, allows for ultimate flexibility.

By registering the Infinite Player, any of Sonic Reality's sounds for Kontakt can be easily installed and expanded.  The Infinite Player library will appear in your Kontakt library in the same manner that the Kontakt Library, Akoustik Piano, or Elektrik Piano would.  After the one-time installation of the Infinite Library, all newly installed Sonic Reality sound sets for Kontakt will automatically appear!