Beaotic releases LmFree, offering the legendary LinnDrum drum machine sounds in WAV and NI Kontakt (full version required) formats.
LmFree captures the sound of the LinnDrum LM-2 without the hefty price tag. Beaotic isn’t the first to offer the LM-2 sound on a budget; there are plenty of cheap/free sample packs and Kontakt kits like SinnDrum from Sonus Instruments.
See also: BPB Analog Kicks – 200 FREE Kick Samples From 6 Analog MachinesIf you’re going to download anything that claims to reproduce the sound of an LM-2, it’s not enough to just sound good; it has to sound right. Otherwise, you don’t get the LinnDrum sound, and it’s pointless. Thankfully, LmFree sounds right, and it gives you that instant hit of nostalgia.
Beaotic recorded every sample in 24-bit with a sample rate of 96kHz. I don’t know how many other LM-2 kits were recorded at 96kHz, but I know many weren’t. It’s like recording something through your interface at 192kHz because you plan to slow it down and create a nice effect with all that extra detail. It’s a nice way to maintain an accurate sound when changing pitch.
The Velocity To Start function is an interesting feature for more expressive playing. Rather than velocity controlling volume, it controls the start position of the sample. The harder you strike the key, the closer to the start of the sample you get. Sounds also have varying levels across multiple MIDI notes, so there’s more of a performance feel, which is good because there’s no built-in sequencer.
You can add slight pitch randomization with the Oscillator Drift function, which adds to the desired authentic analog feel. Continuing the organic theme, LmFree features a 5-layered Round Robin to provide subtle variation between each hit. Each layer/sample helps to create a more natural-sounding rhythm, like a machine but less machine-like.
The pitchable sounds of the LinnDrum LM-2 were multi-sampled to represent the sound of the original source better. It might seem like an obvious thing to do, but many libraries only offer sounds at a single pitch, and any pitch shifting is done after the fact, and it’s not exactly the same.
LmFree is straightforward and sounds very good. If you don’t think you’ve heard the LinnDrum sound, you probably have. From Prince to Stevie Wonder to Peter Gabriel, they all used it often.
You can add LmFree to your cart for free via the product page. It requires Kontakt 4.2.4 or higher (full version only, free Kontakt Player isn’t supported).
If you don’t own the full version of NI Kontakt, the good news is that the download also includes WAV samples. Here are some of our favorite free sampler plugins for loading WAV files.
More info: LmFree (21.3 MB download size, ZIP archive, 235 LinnDrum samples in 24-bit WAV format, NI Kontakt patch)
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