Samples From Mars Drumtrax Tape Samples Library

Crunchy & Funky 8bit 80s Drums
Drumtrax is a collection of high end, tape saturated 24bit drum sounds inspired by the funky 8 bit drum machines of the 1980s. The sounds are reminiscent of Prince / Human League / mid 80s boogie, but with more bite.

Though reminiscent of a Linn, the clap and hi-hats are dirtier (I prefer them) and the rimshot is closer to a TR-707. Classic cabasa, meaty snare, proto-house cowbell, and a warm kick created with the help of an SP-1200 sampler.

Punchy & Loud Tape Samples
•Recorded with beautiful gear: Api, Neve & Otari
•Sounds like: Prince, classic hip hop, DIY Techno
•Tape Saturated & Unprocessed Digital WAVs
•Tape drums are punchy & processed
•Digital sounds are clean, with massive headroom

What's Included

•384 Royalty Free 24bit WAV Files
•Kick, Snare, Rim, Clap, Toms, HH
•Cabasa, Ride, Cowbell, Tambourine, Crash
•16 pitches of each sound

The Recording Process
My basic philosophy when creating this library was to take each drum sound individually and asses what it needed and didn’t need (some sounds definitely required more processing than others). First the drums were recorded through a radial JDI direct box feeding into the mic preamp of an API 512C (a classic, awesome sounding mic preamp). Slight EQ curves were applied when necessary with an equally amazing sounding API 560 equalizer.

All of the sounds were then recorded onto fresh 1/4" tape on our Otari MTR-12 Mastering Reel to Reel. Many of the sounds were only slightly saturated, but for the snare, which was not loud enough on its own, I heavily saturated the tape. This allowed us to create a smashing snare that is very loud but without the use of compression. The kick was recorded into an SP-1200 sampler to give it more weight and analog-ness. Then, it went through my Neve Tape Emulator (this thing offers an amazing low end boost and saturation that is quite nice). This allowed us to achieve some of the Neve beauty while still using an API preamp. As we were recording to tape and listening back, we were also recording digitally, into Pro Tools.

Once the tape samples were in Pro Tools, we chopped them up, raised the volume and bounced the results with 0 plugins applied. For the digital, unprocessed drums, we recorded into the API preamp, directly to the computer at a low level. The regions were then bounced.