Toontrack MIDI

[BlackMagik]

I purchased a Toontrack MIDI 6 pack and have download three titles already: Library of the Extreme Blasts and Fills, Library of the Extreme Death and Thrash and Metal Beats. They all kick ass. I have three choices left and would like input on the following MIDI titles: Metal Heads, Metal!, Metal Machinery, Made of Metal, Metal Foundry, Drum Riffs and the new one coming out tomorrow. \m/

 

[Jormyn]

What kind of beats are you looking for? Metal Heads is Meshuggah stuff, Metal Machine is straightforward White Zombie/Rob Zombie sort of stuff, Drum Riffs is (I believe) for complicated, syncopatey stuff.

 

[LeSedna]

I have bought some midi packs for the first time in my life because I want to study and tweak "real" playing.

My favorite is Monster Midi Pack 2 : Odd meters, because it has a special range of 6/8 , 7/8, 9/8, 11/8 patterns that sound very cool and gave me new ideas even if I'm not a djenty guy at heart.

 

[bryan_kilco]

^^ Just the other day I used one of the "Jam" grooves from MM just to try to come up with some random guitar riffs.

The drums instantly sounded way better to my ears than anything I would have programmed. I studied the velocities a bit and they were alllll over the place. Looks like I need more work to do rather than "Select All", "Humanize".

 

[LeSedna]

Aha i know ! I was doing more or less thé same, tweaking only things I could hear would sound better with specific fill velocity adjustments but then when I dived into the midi libraries I discovered it was actually worth using !

 

[BlackMagik]

What kind of beats are you looking for? Metal Heads is Meshuggah stuff, Metal Machine is straightforward White Zombie/Rob Zombie sort of stuff, Drum Riffs is (I believe) for complicated, syncopatey stuff.

I'm looking for straight metal beats, thrash beats, blasts and fills, mainly 4/4, not too much odd signature stuff. I have Metal Machine Midi already because it came with the EZ Drummer pack for Metal Machine, but Metal Machinery is different MIDI. I might get that....

 

[BlackMagik]

I have bought some midi packs for the first time in my life because I want to study and tweak "real" playing.

My favorite is Monster Midi Pack 2 : Odd meters, because it has a special range of 6/8 , 7/8, 9/8, 11/8 patterns that sound very cool and gave me new ideas even if I'm not a djenty guy at heart.

Cool. Sounds like a good midi pack. I don't use odd time signatures too often.

 

[LeSedna]

I sometimes do but usually more to transition from a 4/4 to another 4/4 by introducing a surprise fill or so, which makes some of the measures go 9/8 or 13/8, but never as a main time measure. Thing is, some of them actually sound cool without being annoyingly difficult for a listener to enjoy. I found this pack refreshing. In a similar manner, there is one called "heavy groove" or "high energy groove" (can't remember) which is suited for metal but in a more traditional rock playing way, I found it nice as well. Some of these variations made me wanna write a groovy and rhythmic guitar riff on top of them because of their nature.

I always thought these midi were for lazy or uninspired songwriters, or incapable, and in fact I realize with a bit of knowledge in how to write drums by hands from scratch, these are good tools for your own songwriting. You can even just select a shell from a groove and drag/drop that midi part alone without the rest. Nice if you like a hi hat roll for example and want to explore it or incorporate it in your own writing. Pretty cool if time permits !

 

[Jormyn]

I'm looking for straight metal beats, thrash beats, blasts and fills, mainly 4/4, not too much odd signature stuff. I have Metal Machine Midi already because it came with the EZ Drummer pack for Metal Machine, but Metal Machinery is different MIDI. I might get that....

For blasts and thrashier stuff, it's hard to go wrong with the Library Of The Extreme packs. One of Toontrack's 6-pack bundles has them and a few of the other metal sets, definitely worth looking at.

One thing I've noticed is that, if you want any gallops at all (power metal, or the thrashier Iced Earth/Slayer kind), Metal Beats! seems to be the only option. Same goes for stuff like the beginning of Painkiller.

 

[Platinum Samples]

More metal grooves...

http://www.platinumsamples.com/ps/BobbyJarzombekGrooves.php

Rail

 

[Jormyn]

The Jarzombek ones are decent, can't decide if they were actually worth the money or not though. It's all fairly straightforward, so I imagine you could find most of the same beats within the Toontrack packs, and the folder organization is... not the best, which gets painful because (currently) only the official Toontrack packs show up in EZD2's search tab.

 

[BlackMagik]

Thank you all who posted. I got the following six pack: Library of the Extreme Blasts and Fills, Library of the Extreme Death and Thrash, Metal Beats, Drum Riffs, Metal Machinery and High Energy Grooves. I am most impressed with the Library of the Extreme, Metal Beats and Metal Machinery. Dirk and Nick Barker are beasts!!! I wasn't disappointed in the MIDI for any one of the packs. At $99 for 6 Midi packs ($16.50 each), it was an awesome purchase. Also, not too many odd time signatures in any of the packs, which is perfect for me. There is some cool halftime stuff in the Nick Barker Midi and cool swing stuff in a lot of the other packs. \m/