Drum Experiments
From punchy drum machines and characterful acoustic drum kits to creative found sound and world percussion, Beat Lab combines every desirable drum sound for modern music in a single unified pack.
Blurring the lines between electronic and acoustic, Beat Lab is unlike any other drum pack ever made. Not only did we create 7,000 unique, beautifully designed drum samples, but we recorded and processed them in creative ways – through lush acoustic studio rooms, vintage tape machines, guitar amps and tube compressors – resulting in a staggering variety of highly unique, never heard before drum sounds.
Covering any base from Pop and House to Techno and Rap, these creatively processed drums let you effortlessly find the perfect tone, ranging from overdriven amps and compressors to polished and lo-fi acoustic spaces. Compatible with all major DAWs and samplers, Beat Lab delivers over 30,000 conveniently organized sounds in a true desert island drum vault.
Whether you are a beat maker working on pop and rap tracks or a mixing engineer looking to augment live drums, this mix ready collection of drums is guaranteed to provide inspiration for years to come…
Drum Machines
Over 30 of the most interesting, iconic and rare drum machines were sourced and sampled in exquisite detail.
Analog machines include the seminal 808, 909, minipops and SDSV to modern classics like the Miami, Tanzbar and Xbase 09. Digital machines range from the lofi RZ-1, 712, Studio 440 and DDM-110 to the unquestionably iconic DX, Drumtraks, LM-1 and 707.
Hear these unmistakable machines recorded to authentic Studer and Ampex tape or reimagined through tube amps and real live spaces.
Acoustic Drums
Not your typical polished and overly polite kits, but a collection of creatively performed drums, percussion and cymbals for modern electronic music.
Each of these hits was designed to be full of character from the way they were performed and mic’d to way they were processed. Recorded in famous studios through the most sought after vintage chains, whether you are looking for a hard hitting resonant snare or the filthiest boom bap kick you’ll find it here.
Modern Drums
From modern drum machines and modular synths to layered foley and creative processing.
These drum sounds were carefully designed to hit like the biggest records in modern electronic music. From warped gongs and cymbals to hard knocking kicks and snares; processed with some of the best analog EQs and compressors for a clean and characterful mix ready sound.
Percussion & Foley
This section covers conventional and creative percussion including shakers, hand drums, congas, bongos, blocks, bells, found sounds and more.
From shakers and tambourines for building expressive top loops to epic timpani for cinematic drum fills. If you’re feeling adventurous you can move past contemporary percussion and dive into foley and found sounds for atypical kicks, snares and percussion made from a wide variety of unique sources.
Electro-Acoustic
Beat Lab blurs the lines between electronic and acoustic. After tireless sonic experimentation we’ve captured drums like you’ve never heard before – through beautiful sounding acoustic rooms, guitar amps, analogue tape machines and vintage tube processors.
Listen to iconic drum machines recorded through real acoustic rooms with characterful vintage mics. Take layered modern drums processed through analogue tape and the incredibly rare Fairchild 660 tube compressor. Combine this with Latin percussion re-amped through rare vintage tube amps and you’re still just scratching the surface.
The Rooms
We went to two totally different world-class studios for two very distinct room sounds. The first was a massive 2,200 square foot room with a classic sounding decay that is both powerful and controlled. The second was a modern 1,200 square foot room with a tight sound that allowed for distant mics with minimal reflections.
Both studios had an unending collection of microphones ranging from the most precise modern omnidirectional to mid twentieth century military issued tube microphones.
Tight Room
This option gives you the sound of live drums in a clear and modern studio space. The Tight Room allowed us to capture distant microphones for a sound that was punchy, but with a focused stereo image that never gets overwhelming or noticeably reverberant.
Big Room
The Big Room is known by drummers around the world for its huge sounding drum room sound. With a nearly 3 second decay and powerful low end it can transform punchy electronic beats into a cinematic hybrid of epic sounding live drums.
Lo-fi Room
This is the Big Room recorded in mono with the pairing of a classic microphone and compressor from the early sixties. It takes the thunderous boom of the big room and gives you an analog lofi character which is both unique and instantly recognizable.
Sonic Experimentation
Both of these studios featured an eye-watering array of analogue character boxes. Everything from classic tape machines to tube compressors and high gain bass and guitar amps.
Generally these tools are used in electronic music today as recreated modern plugins and model the “right” way they should be used. So we asked the question of what would happen if we pushed them to their extreme and ran drum samples through them?
Analogue Character
Dripping with bucket-loads of analogue character and punch, every sound in Beat Lab has been carefully processed several ways; using multiple vintage tape machines, guitar / bass amps, and an iconic, incredibly rare 1960’s tube compressor.
Tape
We had access to two legendary tape machines, the Ampex ATR-102 and Studer A800, each loaded with a fresh reel of 1/2” tape. Hitting the tape at both sensible and insane levels we curated the end result and selected the best versions of each sound for a wide palette of tape saturated drum sounds.
Amps
We used three vintage guitar and bass amps for a wide variety of lofi amp sounds. The Ampeg B-15, Fender Bassman and Marshall JCM-800. We ran all of these in three separate recording booths, tracking them with multiple microphones going to API and Neve preamps which were summed and mixed through an SSL 4K recording console.
Tubes
The Fairchild 660 is undeniably one of the rarest and valuable compressors in existence. Only 800 of these tube based monsters were ever made and we were lucky enough to run drums through two of them. With over 20 tubes in each compressor, it is as much a character / tone box as it is a dynamics processor.
Audio Demos
Listen to Beat Lab in a wide variety of styles. All demos are programmed in Logic Pro with no external effects. All variations, sounds and processing are from the included samples.
Modern Drums – Big Room
Modern Drums – Tight Room
Modern Drums – Amp
Modern Drums – Tape
Drum Machines – Big Room
Drum Machines – Amp
Drum Machines – Tape
Acoustic Drums – Amp
Acoustic Drums – Big Room
Acoustic Drums – Lofi Room
Acoustic Drums – Tight Room
Drum Machines – Tube Comp
What’s Included?
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30,000 24-bit royalty-free drum samples
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8,000 acoustic drum samples and percussion, processed and recorded through unique acoustic rooms, analogue tape machines, tube compressors and vintage overdriven amps
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17,000 drum machine samples from vintage iconic and modern drum machines, processed and recorded through unique acoustic rooms, analogue tape machines, tube compressors and vintage overdriven amps
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6,000 heavily designed modern drum samples, percussion and found sound, processed and recorded through unique acoustic rooms, analogue tape machines, tube compressors and vintage overdriven amps
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Multiple analogue processing styles available at your fingertips for each sound, including Room Big, Room Lofi, Room Tight, Analogue Tape, Tube Comp and Amp
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Beat Lab covers a vast amount of drum types – kicks, snares, toms, hi-hats, claps, rimshot, cymbals, acoustic / electronic percussion, hand drums, found sound and much more…
- 5GB Download
- 30,000 drum samples, provided in 24-bit WAV format
- 100% royalty-free