XLN Addictive Drums + Metal Pack Review

 XLN Audio has taken a fresh look at the live drum sampler concept and come up with Addictive Drums.

This awesome pluginhas verything a musician needs to work with songs: effects, patterns, processing and the mixer.

Addictive Drums has 3 editing sections: a library, effects processing and performance patterns. The library is quite compact but samples are very accurate and can absolutely be competitive with other familiar plugins of this sector, such as Superior Drummer or SSD.

The library includes three main kits and the source samples were recorded at 24-bit/96kHz. Although at first glance the library might not seem to be that extensive (add-on packs are now available, by the way), the basic kit patches are complemented by about a hundred presets. 

Some of those presets are good and some sound a bit strange, due to the strong equalization and compression they choose to put on them, but this is obviously personal and of course the user is completely free to personalize each drum component following its own taste.

Almost these presets give you an excellent palette of sounds that goes way beyond a typical live kit. What's more, they're all fully editable.

What about the onboard processing? Well, there are a number of aspects to this; The main screen has a mixer on it, and each piece of the kit can be opened in the Edit screen to reveal a full chain of processing. Here, you'll find everything from basic sample manipulation controls (envelopes, pitch and filter) to compression, distortion, EQ and saturation devices. And because the mixer is always visible, you can tweak and balance without having to switch screens.

The mixer also hosts a few other notable features, including feed levels to the overhead and room mix mics, mic balance controls for the kick and snare (each has two mics), and send levels to the two reverb busses.

The interface is very user friendly and even if you are new into the vst world you will find out how much easy is to deal with this plugin. The sound library is very compact but accurate.

Simply connect your USB or MIDI device into your computer (mac or windows) and spread out the power of this toy. We've used XLN Addictive Drums to trigger some drums into the new upcoming Vurricator's album (a song of them incoming in the site very soon) and the result is excellent.

Final Verdict:

Addictive Drums is a very reliable drum plugin, which is highlighted by ease of use and sound quality. We found Superior Drummer a bit better about drum samples, but this vst is a great one for sure, very close to his big brother. AD packs are good , expecially the metal pack one which comes with a Getsch kit, very good for metal and heavy rock. 

Addictive Drums is one of the most accomplished plug-ins in the market. This one will give the established players a real run for their money.

Pros

Very easy to use. Good, realistic sound. Onboard FXs and processing.  Small space-saving library.

Cons

Library could be more varied (only 3 default kits).

Sound Samples will be posted in the next days, so stay tuned!

New entry at studios, Ddrum DRT triggers and Alesis I/O.

Review incoming very soon!

;-) stay tuned

Dark Label Studio - Guitar Rig 5 - Amon Amarth cover ''The War Of Gods''

Guitar Rig 5 PRO

Who said only the analog equipment can give good results? For sure it has a singular warmness and definition, but we are in the digital era, where the emulations are becoming always more and more similar to the original sources. We are introducing the new guitar\bass plugin: Guitar Rig 5.

Native Instruments have been pretty quite when it comes to Guitar Rig since the release of version 4 2 years ago with only a minor update along the way but just as I thought NI had forgotten about us amp modelling loving guitarists they announce Guitar Rig 5 Pro which comes loaded with a couple of stunning new amps and cabinets and a huge update to the Control Room.

The Amps

The two amp additions to an already versatile collection are the VAN 51 (based on the Peavey 5150) and the Hot Solo+ (based on the Soldano Hot Rod 50 Plus). Both of these as you probably know are high gain amps which Guitar Rig 4 was lacking a little with the majority of amp models based on Plexi’s and classic Fender amps so this comes as a welcome addition to the Gratifier (Mesa Dual Rectifier style amp) and the Ultrasonic (Bogner Uberschall).

With amp emulation getting better and better with every release Native Instruments are helping guitarists all around the world get exactly the tones they want without having to spend thousands on amps, effects, speakers and mics and make recording a simple and speedy process.

Review

Sound: 8\10  -  Compatibility: 9\10  -  CPU usage: 8\10  -  Price: 8\10 

This is a demo song to show what we were able to took out from those two plugins; It's from Amon Amarth and it's called ''War of the Gods'', from their last album.

We tried to reach a good digital emulation of this awesome full analog release, to check the Guitar Rig 5 quality. Drums are from Addictive Drums Metal (a very close review of it in the next posts).

The gear used:

- Guitar: Musicman JP6 (baritone tuning)

- Guitar Rig: Dark Label Studio custom preset (available to download, contact us for a free copy of it)

- Addictive Drums + Metal expansion

- Bass: direct

- Voice: MXL V69 Mogami edition [recorded in a shitty room :) ]

Enjoy.

Working with LaVentunesimaFobia in studio: Mastering session

Currently we are working with some bands and this took us some time in the 24 daylight hours and sometimes at night too.

The works are now finalized and in the next posts we will upload some preview tracks from the new upcoming EP\Albums recorded.

We have also some new hardware\software reviews .. so stay tuned with our site and the spicy news won't be late to come!

Eleven Rack Presets

Due to the HUGE amount of requests here are the images of the presets used in our Eleven Rack Metal TEST available on our YouTube channel.

Please note that in this pack there are the main settings for each type of amps used in the video and the EQ, COMP and Cabinet settings are the same for all.

The Cab used is the 4x12 Classic 30 and a Ribbon 121 on axis microphone.

IMPORTANT:
It is VERY important to have the device updated with the latest firmware version (Expansion Pack, can be bought in the Avid official site).

Just ask if you need help.
Enjoy

darklabelstudio@gmail.com

Download link: http://www.mediafire.com/?b1tj24qb8qmcecu

Dark Label Studio - Avid Eleven Rack - Review

Avid’s Eleven Rack is a 24bit, 96k USB Pro Tools interface that is as comfortable on the concert stage as it is in the studio. The user-friendly interface makes accessing and modifying the healthy sampling of amp, effect, speaker and mic models refreshingly intuitive. 


Eleven Rack also functions as a mic pre-amp with phantom power for tracking vocals or re-amping. As much as we loved the lush effects, Eleven Rack really shines when you hear a model like a channel-jumped ’59 Fender Bassman completely dry o a Mesa Rectifier in Vintage or Modern mode.


There are a lot of amps and cabinets in this rack, but to reach the best quality it's better to update the unit with its latest firmware version because it comes out with a lot of news that makes the 11r more and more affordable and professional-sounding.


To update your Eleven Rack go to the Avid Official page and use the search bar.


So, at the end we can give a BIG 10\10 to this Avid\Digidesign product, because of its great features and the sound quality.
The Avid customer support is wonderful, so if a problem occurs with the 11r it can be solved easily and fast.

Eleven Rack is:

FOR: Racking up a killer guitar tone. 

NOT FOR: The modeling-phobic.


Great unit, good looking case, great tone, billion of functions, good effects, guitar and bass amps\cabs\mics, a mic in preamp for the voice recording, DSP accelerated card inside, Pro Tools compatible, the Eleven Rack is an awesome product with professional features.

Dark Label Studio - Sonic Edge Tumbleweed TEST

Renowned for his amp work for the likes of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, Sonic Edge’s Ben Fargen also makes one mean pedal. Built with the modern rocking country player in mind, Tumbleweed blew us away with the massive range of dynamics and tones. The independent compressor and boost circuits sound impressive alone and even better together. The compressor’s sensitivity and gain controls offer solid sustain without being floppy, while the boost circuit features a gain control and three-way toggle for selecting Brit, Cali or Jazz voicings. While the Tumbleweed has a sound all its own, it excels at crafting a unique range of tones with each amp.


FOR: Twang with a bang. 
NOT FOR: Death metallers, city slickers.


We made, as always, a little demo, but this time you can only hear the raw guitars in the audio file. No EQ, No Post Processing. 
Sidechain: Music Man JP6 - Sonic Edge Tumbleweed - Dark Label Studio Custom Mesa Rectifier Cab impulse  - out. 


Enjoy.



Dark Label Studio - Sonic Edge Tumbleweed TEST by Azrael's Progeny