Buying Orchestral Drums/Percussion Samples

[Conduit]

As any of you who do orchestral know, sample libraries are ridiculously expensive, and while I feel like I can get by with Kontakt's default libraries for most things, it is extremely lacking in terms of percussion.

My question is which drum library is the best all around for a reasonable price ($100-200)?
I'm particularly looking for more "intense" samples, such as those found in much of hans zimmers work, an example would be this song or the majority of Makkon's work. (If the link at time doesn't work, the percussion starts at around 5:30)

I also am against piracy, so please don't mention it. (That's a site wide rule, but just in case some of you haven't seen it)

Thanks for your help!

[Dr_Dissonance]

Around that price range, I'd recommend either Drums of War, Drums of War II or the Apocalypse Percussion Ensemble.

I've only used the Apocalypse Percussion Ensemble out of them and that is seriously intense!


NOTE that you need the full version of Kontakt for all of these to work!

[Conduit]

Thanks!

Would you mind giving me a quick rundown of the differences between Drums of War I and II?

[Dr_Dissonance]

Well I've used neither, so I can't give a great view on it. But judging by each webpage. Drums of War is all about big drums and big space, whereas Drums of War II is more in line with modern production techniques with vsts.

But like I said, I've used neither so can't help much!

[Fimbulin]

What I use most of the time, and I'd recommend it to anybody that can afford it, would be Native Instrument's DAMAGE for ~$340. It's crazy pricey, but imo worth it. It handles epic cinematic percussion like it's nothing, and its hybrid orchestra/electronic samples are the best I've heard; it even allows for you to modify how crazy powerful the samples sound- from clean hits, to epic smashes on the same samples! Oh, and it comes with a billion dynamic loops that match your current BPM.
The only complaints I have against it would be its lack of timpani, and its lack of clean cymbal crashes and rises, both of which are decently built into Kontakt 5 anyways.
This would be less pricey than any of the Drums of War stuff if you don't already have the full version of Kontakt, as DAMAGE will run in the player.

[Lopsided]

Just did a quick browse and it looks like makkon uses drums of war 2 (winterglade and deae lunae), stormdrum (the little toy shop) and true strike 1 (winterglade and impressions of celestial origins) although I don't know which one is his favorite.

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

Yeah! No piracy brohoof! /]

As for the drums, I really have no idea. I guess if you have a few hundred dollars, the nexus2 Hollywood expansion looks amazing.

[Conduit]

What I use most of the time, and I'd recommend it to anybody that can afford it, would be Native Instrument's DAMAGE for ~$340.

I was thinking about Damage, but I already have Komplete 8, and I'm hoping that It'll be in the ultimate edition of 9. So I'm just going to wait and see if I can get it with the upgrade.

I'm thinking that I'll go with DoW II, I probably won't be getting it for at least a while (Need to work up the money), but I'll be sure to post some info on it once I get it.

EDIT:

No piracy brohoof! /]

[\

[Foxtrot89]

I own Drums of War 2 and I recommend it for that hard hitting epic orchestral type thing. I'm unfamiliar with DoW1, though. You could probably get an idea of them on their website. I'm insanely lacking in what each percussion actually is by name, so I had to google/youtube them to find out their uses. The "behind the score" demo on DoW2 is pretty good at showing you what it does.

Edit: Oh, yeah, the samples on their own are incredibly dry. In that video I think the guy uses artsacoustic (or something similar to that) reverb, which is a bit pricey, but I recommend as well. Just be sure to have a decent reverb to give the dry recordings a bit of life.

[Fimbulin]

I own Drums of War 2 and I recommend it for that hard hitting epic orchestral type thing. I'm unfamiliar with DoW1, though. You could probably get an idea of them on their website. I'm insanely lacking in what each percussion actually is by name, so I had to google/youtube them to find out their uses. The "behind the score" demo on DoW2 is pretty good at showing you what it does.

Edit: Oh, yeah, the samples on their own are incredibly dry. In that video I think the guy uses artsacoustic (or something similar to that) reverb, which is a bit pricey, but I recommend as well. Just be sure to have a decent reverb to give the dry recordings a bit of life.

Look up a sweet free reverb called Glaceverb. It's pretty awesome and very easy to use. Just get used to the sliders and you're set.