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.
Want to try out the sound of our vintage drum library Groove Bias? Now you can!
The Tape Kit Mini contains all the components found in the full Tape Kit patch – kicks, snares, hats, toms, overheads/room mics, and cymbals – with just one velocity and round robin per part. The full version has anywhere from 40 to 150 samples per kit part, but the Mini is still fun to play with. You’ll get a good idea of the tone of this particular kit, and you’re free to use it in any of your productions. We’ve also included the FULL version of the Tape Kit ride patch, including its room mic.
While these particular patches are Kontakt 2 format, since there are only a small amount of actual WAVs, you can easily program them for use in any sampler.
Download GB Tape Kit Mini (150mb)
*** Remember, this is just a SMALL fraction of the sounds contained within the full version of Groove Bias! ***
The library contains nearly 4,000 samples (4 gigabytes) across three custom drum kits and a set of percussion. The audio content includes five snares, four kicks, nine toms, three hats (closed, loose, open, pedal), two rides, two crashes, two splashes, two rims, handclaps, tambourine, shaker, agogo, bongos, woodblocks, cowbell and triangle. Unlike the various enormous drum libraries out there, Groove Bias simplifies mixing, combining mics into single patches (though you often have access to separate overhead/room mixing, for example, to control natural reverb.)
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. Every single patch has a minimum of five round robins and five velocities, all the way up to sixteen velocities and ten round robins for some patches, such as some of the snares.
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.
"If you’ve been frustrated trying to find these types of vintage drum sounds, you probably didn’t even bother reading this far and have already placed your order. But for those who need further convincing, just take a listen to the demos on Impact Soundworks’ website. These kits are certainly a worthy addition to the library of anyone seeking that sound, but clearly this is a library that drummers will get the most enjoyment out of given the range of expression that is possible with disciplined playing technique. Regardless of your level of ability, however, this is a great sounding collection of the types of drums that aren’t exactly abundant on the sample library market these days."
Tom, Waveformless
If you are having problems with this library, please contact:
support@impactsoundworks.com