Akai sells them all day long for like $12 each. Ya might be better off getting plugins geared to that sort of music. Now, if you’re simply into rip offs of 20 year old romplers with some processing passing themselves off to people as ‘fresh new updates’, then I agree. Personally…if I get to the point I need something with more detail density than these kits can provide, I’m probably to the point it’d be better to just hire a real drummer with a real kit anyway! They won’t be for everyone, but clearly, there is nothing ‘outdated’ nor ‘lackluster’ about the quality and musical potential of the kits, or the optional grooves and patterns that come with them for leaching ideas and inspiration. The PSJ kit for example, comes with more velocity layers and such than some of the stuff that ships with Cubase, or even with GA5 full, which is nice if you’ll be EXPOSING a lot of more intricate percussion work.

They are very dynamic and rich kits for the money. I’m also pretty positive that comparative agent kits as to what comes with the full GA5 aren’t cheap!Īs for the extra stuff like Simon Phillips Jazz and Rock drums, etc…that’s gonna be pretty subjective. Of course there are exceptions to the rule…I’m not saying nice ‘kits’ don’t exist outside of GA, but I am pretty sure that out of stuff that ships with DAWs, the GA SE kits are certainly some of the best out there. NI has a few really nice agent-style kits, but they are also kinda of pricy! You could also find some sweet cinematic-geared acoustic and/or orchestral kits with services like an East West subscription…again, not cheap…and again, the ‘luster’ that you get with such libraries is rather ‘subjective’ in nature. If you want a consistent kit that actually sounds like the same person, in the same drum room/studio, using a realistic mic and mixer setup, with the same set of sticks, is playing it from top to bottom, etc…then GA is one of the ONLY MPC style percussion products out there that offers a few such kits (and a few of them actually ship with Cubase Artist and Pro at no extra charge). If it has much else going on at launch, you’ll have to UNDO most of it to make it actually work with a real world MIX anyway. Initialized kits should have minimal processing out of the box…perhaps with some frame-work already setup to quickly drop in your preferred processing routines. The samples themselves should be BONE DRY (adding luster is the mixer’s job).

A sample of a Yamaha drum tuned a certain way, with a certain kind of head, using a certain kind of stick, struck with a certain kind of stroke is what it is. I would also like to add that the sounds that come with groove agent are… Lackluster.

Addictive drums midi mapping xo