Today we are reviewing the latest drum sampler from Ugritone (former It Might Get Loud Productions), a brand that has evolved from a small Finnish software house to a larger and more prominent company, capable with this first release under the Ugritone name to hire Matias Kupiainen, guitarist and producer of the legendary Finnish power metal band Stratovarius as a producer, and the Stratovarius drummer, Rolf Pilve, as a drummer to capture these samples.
This product clearly differentiates itself from the previous ones: while the older drum samplers of It Might Get Loud were smaller and aimed to obtain a specific sound, this is a much more versatile suite, which incorporates 3 kicks, 6 snares, 2 sets of 5 toms each, 19 cymbals, and the shells have a built in sampler with 62 samples, and the possibility to load your own.
I have appreciated the flexibility of Northern Artillery for several reasons: the routing options are great, they allow us not only to send the channels to separate tracks, but also to the most common configurations (for example divided in shells, cymbals and room microphones);
the MIDI mapping is super useful (it remaps the notes according to the mapping of the most famous samplers, such as Superior Drummer), and the fact that you can blend in the one shot samples directly within each drum part, all inside the virtual instrument itself, it's just delightful.
I have found this drum sampler much more polished and refined than the previous products of the software house, and it's safe to say that Northern Artillery Drums marks a great beginning for the new Ugritone brand.
The sounds are very usable, and aimed to all kinds of heavy music, from classic metal to the fastest death metal: in the video sample I've made the drum sound comes just from N.A.D., with no additional processing other than some buss compression, and the choice of one shot samples gives extreme flexibility and the possibility to fine tune the tone to the minimum detail.
I really suggest everyone to try this product, and I am looking forward for the next Ugritone releases (rumors says that there is also an amp simulator on the way!).
Thumbs up!
- Drums Engineered by: Matias Kupiainen @ 5by5 Studio, Helsinki, Finland
- Drums Performed by: Rolf Pilve
- One Shot Samples by: Matias Kupiainen, Ron D. Rock & Toni Kauko
- Presets Created by: Matias Kupiainen, Ron D. Rock & Toni Kauko
- Classic Finnish Metal Sound
- Classic Finnish Metal Sound
- 3 kicks, 6 snares, 2 set of 5 toms, 19 cymbals, 62 oneshots.
- 7 Kit Presets - Multiple Routing and MIDI Mapping Options
- Add your own oneshot samples
- Adjust the levels of Close mics, Overhead and Room per drum
- Solo / Mute
- Drum Gain knob
- 3-band Equalizer, different fixed bands for each drum type
- 3-band Equalizer, different fixed bands for each drum type
- Oneshot sample selector on shells
- Oneshot Pan & Gain knob
- All MIDI Notes are remappable
- All MIDI Notes are remappable
- All drum mic channels are routable to 16 output channels
- 7 Pre-made presets for different genres ( 90's Death Metal, Industrial Metal, Metal Core etc.)
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