Pure funky grooves influenced by some timeless standards. Showcases the wide variety of drum tones Groove Bias is capable of.
Smooth secret agent funk with the drum part 'performed' live! Peter Gunn + James Bond live!
Synth-based jazz fusion inspired by the work of Weather Report with Jaco Pastorius. An arrangement of the theme "Image of Hero" from Phantasy Star Online.
An excerpt from a MIDI written in one (!) hour. Very reminiscent of Michael Jackson or Stevie Wonder productions. All the synths are from the Zircon Studios Dance & Electronic Trilogy for Zebra 2.
With four kicks and five snares to choose from, plus a generally dry recording sound, GB can work very well for drum and bass grooves! Just add a little bit of compression.
GB isn't just for acoustic tracks. With some crunchy saturation and distortion, it can provide the basis for some downright phat electronic grooves.
For those needing to add a little texture to their tracks, Groove Bias Light offers a broad sample of percussion samples.
The percussion-only version of Groove Bias contains two snare rims (close and OH tracks), agogos, bongos, claps, woodblocks, tambourine, triangle, cowbell and shaker. All samples are still 24/96 and unchanged from the full version. If you purchase the percussion-only library, you can upgrade to the full version of Groove Bias at a discount – just email admin@impactsoundworks.com.
Despite the lo-fidelity recording method and old-school gear used, all the audio for this project was dumped and edited from Pro Tools at 24-bit, 96 kHz. The samples (WAV format) are a mix of mono and stereo, where appropriate.
All formats of the library are basically divided into two primary patch types: component patches, which contain single parts of each kit, such as a single snare, and full kit patches, which contain an entire drumkit. The component patches allow the user to create a custom kit easily and swap parts in and out to their taste, while the full kit/multi patches provide a ready-mixed, quick start option.
The three custom kits of Groove Bias were recorded and performed in three studio locations across the United States, then chopped, tweaked and edited by Andrew Aversa of Impact Soundworks.
"Superfreak" (Milkboy Studios, Ardmore, PA)
As the name suggests, most of this 60s Ludwig ‘Silver Comet’ kit is rumored to have originally belonged to a certain funk music icon. The drums were recorded using high-end ribbon mics into an all-analog signal path, most notably a 70s Neve console with a few busted channels and lots of character. Outboard processors in the chain included gear by Empirical Labs, Tube-Tech, and Anthony DeMaria Labs. The saturation present on the higher velocities of some of the sounds, like the kick and snare, came solely from high gain running through all the tubes; no overdrive, distortion, or compressor saturation was applied!
"Tape" (The Audio Lab, Milville, NJ)
This one was a real hybrid, the centerpiece being a 30s Ludwig Pioneer Black Beauty snare. The kicks and toms were Tamburo original series, along with an extra 22” Tama kick. Our hats, cymbals and rides were a mishmash of faded, junked up old metal… just what we wanted. Everything in the kit was recorded through an analog signal path then finally to an authentic, 24-track Otari tape machine before being dumped into Pro Tools. Mics used for this kit ranged in age and manufacturer. Various workhorse mics from EV, Sennheiser, Shure and Audix were used throughout, and to get the trashy, crunchy room sound, we used a trashy 70s General Electric cassette recorder mic along with an RCA SK-30.
"Herodotus" (Real Music Media, Minneapolis, MN)
John Gump (a.k.a. KVRAudio member Herodotus) recorded this drum set, which is the same make and model as Cream drummer Ginger Baker’s drums! Mics used were a pair of Neumann KM-184s and Sennheiser 441s plus a Royer R-121. All of this went into some serious outboard gear like a classic UA 1176, Manley Labs VOXBOX, UA 2-610S and Manley Vari-Mu before finally going to a TASCAM reel-to-reel tape machine to seal the deal.
For a full patch list and detailed information about the library, you can download the product manual for Groove Bias on our Support page.
"This set of three virtual drum kits and one percussion kit is designed to recreate the vintage sound heard on countless classic breakbeats, and is based around a 4GB [collection] of drum samples recorded with dozens of velocity and round-robin variations. The result is kits that are essentially simple – you don’t get a huge variety of sounds, despite the size of the library – but sound authentic and phat when programmed via MIDI… Overall, this is a good library that makes a decent alternative to virtual drum software. 8/10."
Computer Music Magazine (Issue 141)
If you are having problems with this library, please contact:
support@impactsoundworks.com