DW Soundworks plug-in: Quick audio review using Alternate Mode HybriKIT
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- Опубліковано 19 лис 2023
- As you might have heard, DW (recently acquired by Roland) launched new hybrid, convertible electronic drum kits with real acoustic shells and built-in triggers....and a cool wireless system. This new series is called DWe. To provide sounds for these kits, they also built a plug-in: DW Soundworks. The good news is that you can buy the plug-in without buying a whole kit, which are incredibly expensive.
So, I bought the plug-in. Here a few quick samples of only lightly tweaked preset patches.
0:07 Pure Maple Standard (My favorite of the natural/standard kits)
1:22 Maple Mahogany Studio
2:10 Gretsch USA Natural
3:21 Slingerland Warmer
4:27 Chops Wound Up (My favorite)
5:35 Crushed Air (Kind of fun)
6:27 Pure Almond Natural (Least favorite)
7:16 Gretsch USA Warmer
My first impressions? Well, it's v1.0 of this plug-in, and it's a little light and buggy in a few ways. But it's nice to have multiple, well-recorded DW kits, not to mention a Slingerland and Gretsch kit.
Pros:
-Multiple DW kits plus Slingerland and Gretsch kits, all expertly sampled
-Lots (!) of flexibility for tweaking each drum sound and the mix
-Many articulations for each instrument (for example, you have center, edge, rimshot, rim, cross stick, snares off, and many other options for each snare drum)
-Excellent dynamics and playability, very natural sounding (i.e., not electronic) to my ears
-Great info on how each drum was sampled
-Decent effects available within the plug-in
Cons:
-Cymbal selection is a little sparse (so far), but the basics are covered from Zildjian, Meinl, Instanbul, Sabian, and Paiste. But of course, you could load a different sampler for cymbal sounds.
-Some of the samples...uh, don't sound great straight out of the box. I've omitted a few that sound particularly bad. For example, the 50th Anniversary DW kit seems really smashed/distorted to me. I'm guessing this was on purpose, but for me, it doesn't sound good. Other kits are just kind of not great. BUT I'm guessing they were provided much rawer than kits in other libraries. This plug-in is built for tweaking, adding effects, and dialing in the right mix of ambiance. It's less a plug-it-in-and-go kind of thing. That's fine, though I'll probably just dial in one or two kits and that's it.
I would assume that this plug-in is going to have some more sounds added soon and hopefully some stability improvements. In the meantime, it's not expensive and some things sound pretty good.
Equipment
-DW Soundworks
-Logic Pro
-Alternate Mode HybriKIT
-Alternate Mode MIDI DITI
-Alternate Mode eKIC and eHAT triggers with DW pedals
-Element 88 and Duet 3 interfaces
-Fujifilm X100V camera
-Final Cut Pro
The kits sound so good! I enjoyed your Tom Sawyer-ish rhythm with the Crushed kit and the Alex Van Halen fill. (One Foot Out the Door) 👍
Best demo so far. It actually sounds really good . Thanks
Great playing and really nice sounding kits. I have a DWe kit on order. I can't wait to get my hands on it!!
Oo, cool!
Not sure why DWs many videos don’t capture these kits as nicely as you do. Thanks for posting!
That’s nice, thanks!
I like Force sensing resistors drumkat has always been great. Any latency is coming from the ad da round trip stage processing. I can see miniscule latency but less than any other systems.getting better. Speed is everything in digital. Save the world next level tech dev. Thank you scientists and engineers artists yay.
Nice drumming! I was wondering what the difference is between the new neopren drumming surface of the drumkat (hybrikit), vs the old rubber pads? wwhich do you prefer?
I had been using the drumKAT, with the older surface, for like 25 years, and it was fine. But I’m really enjoying the new surface of the HybriKIT. It’s basically a little softer. Kind of like playing on a thick computer mouse pad. Highly recommended.
I have a put-together Roland set in my house. I was wondering if this software would work on it and HOW the mapping would work. I am assuming it would work on mine if it worked on your square pad? Great demo thank you sir. Any advice for me ? I have a Roland TD-11.
Yes, you should be able to get it to work. There’s a MIDI out port on the TD-11, so you’d need a MIDI cable to connect to your computer. The DW software runs either as a plugin within digital audio software (like Logic Pro, Pro Tools, GarageBand, etc.) or as standalone software. You can change the MIDI note mapping within the DW software. If you want to make sure everything will work before you buy it, you could just hook the TD-11 up to your computer and see if you can trigger some other sounds in whatever digital audio software you have.
@@schmargle thanks man I would like to test my td-11 before ? But I don’t have a digital software yet. Should I take a chance ?
@@KevinZ2269 That’s totally up to you. You could find some free software to at least test that the MIDI signal comes into your computer successfully. Or find some demo virtual instruments to try before buying anything.
@@schmargle
Thank you sir ! 👍
dw should pay you for this video
Ha! They’re actually churning out a lot of cool videos for this product.
Do you know how to play cymbal chokes? I use it in DAW btw@@schmargle
@@DycayBeatsThere are probably a few ways to do that. I don't see any choke samples or articulations in this plug-in. So one option would be to set up a different MIDI note to stop the sound of a cymbal within your DAW, kind of like how you want an open hi hat sound to stop when you hit a closed hi hat sound. Though honestly, I'm not sure how you'd set that up in the DAW. I do that with other samplers by setting up note groups (like within the Sampler in Logic and Native Instruments Battery), but I'm not sure how to do that outside of a plug-in.
The other option is to use a MIDI controller to do that choking. The Alternate Mode controllers, like the HybriKIT/MIDI DITI I'm using here or a MalletKAT, have a dampening mode. With that mode engaged, you hit a pad but then touch it again to dampen the note. It was introduced in the MalletKAT to simulate note dampening on a vibraphone, but it seems to be part of the MIDI DITI functionality too.
Sorry I don't know more-I rarely do any cymbal choking in my playing.
Ok thanks for taking your time to explain couple of ways to choke cymbals! Maybe we can only do that by automation or what ever@@schmargle
Where can you buy the plugin? Thanks
It’s available through the Roland Cloud Manager app, which you have to download: www.roland.com/global/products/rc_roland_cloud_manager/