The Modern Session Kit

The Modern Session Kit is the latest release in our popular ' MPC Drummer ' series of acoustic drum kit expansions, featuring a professionally multisampled studio-quality drum kit, ready-to-play ‘snapshot’ kits covering a wide range of musical styles and an extensive multi-genre MIDI groove library.

The expansion is built around a rare 2010 Gatton ‘Corian’ drum kit , famed for its deep, warm sound, with a crisp attack and highly expressive dynamics. We recorded a total of 48 unique drum articulations, each presented with up to 12 velocity layers to allow for creation of incredibly detailed and realistic sounding acoustic drum performances in the MPC and Akai Force.

The kit itself comprises of the following instruments:

• 24” Kick Drum – huge and heavy kick, recorded both ‘damped’ and ‘open’, with and without snare bleed
• Four Toms– Two tightly tuned rack toms (12” and 13”) and two deep and booming floor toms (16” and 18”)
• Two Snares– a meaty 14” Gatton snare and tight 10” (‘piccolo’) Gatton snare, each recorded with eight different articulations (centre, halfway, rimshot, cross stick, flam, drag, rim only, wires off)
• Two crash cymbals– 20” and 18” Meinl Soundcaster crashes recorded with edge, centre, bell and choke articulations
• 22” Ride- Meinl Soundcaster Fusion ride, recorded with edge, centre, bell and choke articulations
• 14” Hi Hat- Meinl Soundcaster Fusion Hi Hat recorded with10 different articulations
• 18” China Crash- Meinl Byzance China recorded with edge and choke
• 8” Splash- Meinl Byzance Splash with edge and choke articulations

The kit was played by legendary drummer Bobby Arechiga at Mu Studios in England using 12 mics recorded directly through an Amek ‘Big By Langley’ desk, the same recording set up used in our 1977 Session Kit and Downbeat Kit expansions.

The 48 articulations were then edited and organised into two different kits, each with its own unique character utilising velocity switching and ‘round robin’ techniques, along with an additional 15 pre-built FX ‘snapshots’ tailored to many different musical genres such as Vintage Soul, Rock , Hip Hop, Neo Soul, Alt Rock , Funk, Drum & Bass, Chill Hop , Pop, Indie, Blues and Metal.

We’ve also matched all the snapshots with an extensive collection of original MIDI grooves all recorded by real drummer and converted into MPC MIDI data, perfectly capturing the original feel and vibe of a live drum performance.

Each MIDI groove comes with its own browser preview for quick and easy auditioning - just load a pattern to a track in your project and match it with any of the provided kits to instantly create authentic sounding acoustic drum tracks for any of your beats.

Each kit utilises the same core layout as used in all our multisampled drum kit collections such as MPC Drummer and Dirty Drummer , with colour coding for all pads and all kits highly optimised for super fast loading utilising ‘sample chains’ to achieve up to 5 times faster loading times.

The Modern Session Kit is fully compatible with any modern standalone MPC running MPC 2.11 or greater, including the MPC One / One+ , MPC Live (I & II), MPC X, MPC X SE, and MPC Key. It also fully supports the Akai Force (3.1+), MPC Software and MPC Beats. We’ve also included legacy versions of the two primary kits for the MPC1000 , MPC2500, MPC500 and MPC5000 .

You can find out more technical details about the articulations, kits and recording chain in the extensive User Guide .

Key Features:

• Fully multisampled 2010 Gatton ‘Corian’ drum kit
• Kit is built around a kick, drum two snares, four toms, hi hat, ride, two crashes, china, splash cymbal.
• 48 unique drum articulations arranged into two core kits
• Up to 12 velocity layers per articulation
• ‘Velocity Switching’ and ‘Round Robin’ versions included
• 15 additional ‘snapshots’ featuring FX and program parameters to tailor kits to specific music genres
• 234 MIDI grooves and fills
• ‘ Sample chains’ for fast browser loading and simplified sample management.
• Compatible with any modern standalone MPC running firmware 2.11 or greater (standalone installer provided)
• Compatible with MPC Software and MPC Beats 2.11+ (XPN installer provided)
• Fully compatible with Akai Force (3.1+)
• Legacy version of the two core kits provided for MPC1000 , 2500, 5000, 500
• MIDI patterns and kits use same core layout as used in MPC Drummer & Dirty Drummer. Fully compatible with our MIDI pattern expansions .