SM MegaReaper Drumkit is an impressive free multi-sampled acoustic drum kit sound library, featuring up to 127 velocity layers and 4 round robin layers per articulation! The kit is completely free to download and use.
The drum kit was sampled by Scott Mclean, aka SMM, the same kind and generous REAPER user who brought us the brilliant Free 1960s Ludwig Oyster Blue Pearl Drum Kit not that long ago. Once again, the mappings were created by Suleiman, aka Burzukh, who did an outstanding job at turning this enormous drum sample library into a playable REAPER instrument.
So, what this FREE drum kit stand out from the rest?
SM MegaReaper Drumkit contains 127 velocity layers and 4 round robin variations for the kick and snare drum. That’s four samples for each note velocity. That is INSANE and incredibly awesome at the same time! Here’s the complete list of included samples:
- Kick: 127 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Snare No Ring: 127 velocity layers x 4 RR
- Snare Studio Ring: 127 velocity layers x 4 RR
- Snare Rimshots: 51 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Tom 1: 49 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Tom 2: 49 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Tom 3: 49 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Hi-hat Closed: 127 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Hi-hat Foot Closed : 46 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Hi-hat Foot Open: 46 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Hi-hat Loose: 127 velocity layers x 4 RR
- Hi-hat Open: 26 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Ride 17″: 49 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Ride 17″ Bell: 49 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Ride 20″: 49 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Ride 20″ Bell: 45 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Crash 15″: 45 velocity layers x 2 RR
- Crash 17″: 45 velocity layers x 2 RR
But things get even better! The snare drum (a 1965 Ludwig 5″x14″ Jazz Festival Snare drum) was recorded with 4 microphone channels (Top, Bottom, Stereo combining Left & Right overheads). The kick drum was recorded with a close mic and L + R overhead microphones. You’ll find more info about the included samples in the user manual (link in the download section below).
The kit is ready for use out-of-the-box in REAPER. If you don’t use REAPER, you can load the provided WAV samples in your sampler of choice. Although there are tons of samples inside, the fact that the samples are clearly labeled should make the task of creating the mappings much easier.
Since using so many velocity layers takes a lot of RAM memory, the mappings are provided in two versions. The FULL version uses all of the samples from the library, while the LITE version uses no random robin variations in order to ensure smooth performance on slower machines.
Before you download the pack, here are some additional notes which were added to the article by Suleiman, who created the mappings for this awesome drum sample kit:
The kicks , toms and snares are multi-channel WAV files and Reaper has one of the few samplers that can handle it. The hats and all cymbals are normal stereo files, so any sampler can handle them.
Tod Stillwell used the same raw files to make his version of the pack, where all the samples are stereo WAV files. He too made a REAPER instrument as well as an amazing Kontakt instrument for his samples (available via Cockos Confederated Forums).
To fully understand the contents of the sample library and to get the best use out of it, it is highly recommended to read the provided user manual. It’s really well written and also quite short (only 21 pages), so it won’t take too much of your time.
Audio Demo
Check out the SM MegaReaper Drumkit LITE audio demo:
License
These samples were recorded and created by Scott McLean. Scott McLean is offering these drum and cymbal samples to the public royalty free (free of charge) to use in any audio/video production for both commercial and private use. This is a “free use” license. No payment is required to use these samples in any production.
Download
SM MegaReaper Drumkit FULL (1.9 GB download size, needs 6 GB of RAM and 2 GB of HDD space)
SM MegaReaper Drumkit LITE (876 MB download size, needs 4 GB of RAM and 1 GB of HDD space)
SM MegaReaper Drumkit USER MANUAL (PDF file)
Last Updated on November 27, 2014 by Tomislav Zlatic.
