Native Instruments AbbeyRoad 60s User manual

USER’S MANUAL

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a
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“Native Instruments”, “NI” and associated logos are (registered) trade marks of Native Instruments
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tion with or endorsement by them.
Manual written by Mirek Stiles and Paul Maurer
Edited by Patryk Korman
Document Version: 1.0 (12/2009)
Product Version: 1.0 (12/2009)
Special thanks to the Beta Test Team, who were invaluable not just in tracking down bugs, but in
making this a better product.

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© Native Instruments GmbH, 2009. All rights reserved.

Abbey Road 60s Drums - User’s Manual – IV
Table Of Content
1 Introduction......................................................................................................................5
2 AboutAbbeyRoad60sDrums............................................................................................6
2.1 TheStudio..............................................................................................................6
2.2 TheTeam................................................................................................................7
2.3 TheKits..................................................................................................................8
2.4 TheRecordingEquipment:MixingDesksandRecorders.......................................... 10
2.5 Microphones......................................................................................................... 11
2.5.1 Recording the Gretsch ......................................................................11
2.5.2 Recording the Ludwig .......................................................................12
3 TheUserInterface.......................................................................................................... 13
3.1 DrumPage............................................................................................................ 13
3.2 MixerPage........................................................................................................... 15
3.3 OptionsPage........................................................................................................ 17
4 DrumArticulations.......................................................................................................... 19
4.1 Early60sKit......................................................................................................... 19
4.2 Late60sKit..........................................................................................................21
4.3 DefaultDrumMapping:Early60sKit......................................................................24
4.4 DefaultDrumMapping:Late60sKit.......................................................................25
5 Credits...........................................................................................................................26

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 5
1 Introduction
Abbey Road Studios, the world’s rst dedicated recording studios, were opened on November
12 1931. The building is an iconic symbol of the international music industry. The studios
have been at the heart of the UK music industry for more than 75 years and have been the
location of countless landmark recordings and have pioneered new recording techniques and
technology. Today, Abbey Road Studios is one of the most technically advanced recording,
mixing and post-production complexes in the world.
For many years, Abbey Road beneted from the talents of EMI’s research and development
division, which custom-built mixing consoles and outboard gear to meet the demands and
ambitions of the studio engineers and the artists they worked with. Most of this equipment
was only available to EMI studios and was never sold commercially. This equipment, combined
with the expertise of our engineers and the unique acoustic properties of the studios, enabled
what has come to be known as the “Abbey Road Sound”. This sound can be heard on some
of the most popular recordings of all time.
Abbey Road and Native Instruments joined forces in 2009 to create outstanding musical
instruments based on Abbey Road’s legendary equipment, engineering expertise, and studio
acoustics. Combined with the development and design expertise of Native Instruments, musi-
cians can experience a new level of versatility and musicality.
About this manual
In this manual, distinctive formatting has been applied in order to let you recognize certain
elements in the text at a glance:
• Text appearing on the screen (labels of buttons, controls, menus etc.) is printed in grey .
• Important names and concepts are printed in bold.
SPRACHE IN Paragraph-Style “05 - STANDARD Fließtext” passend einstellen

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 6
2 About Abbey Road 60s Drums
In this chapter, you will nd out about Studio Two, the team involved, the drum kits used,
and the equipment employed to record Abbey Road 60s Drums.
2.1 The Studio
Studio Two, arguably the most famous
studio in the world, has a unique de-
sign, acoustic and an unparalleled
history of recording. The thick solid
wood oor, irregularly laid painted
bricks, hanging quilts, bass traps and
false dropped ceiling make Studio
Two sound like no other. The studio
is so good at handling any style of
music, from rock and roll sessions
through to mid sized orchestras, that
the room has remained unchanged
since the early sixties.
Artists who have recorded in Studio Two include:
Fiona Apple, Kate Bush, The Beatles, Nick Cave and
the Bad Seeds, Cliff Richard and The Shadows, David
Gilmour, Dido, Green Day, Groove Armada, Idlewild,
Muse, Oasis, Underworld, U2, Radiohead, Kanye
West, and a wealth of lm scores.

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 7
2.2 The Team
Abbey Road 60s Drums was recorded by Mirek Stiles and executively produced by Director
of Engineering, Peter Cobbin.
Mirek has been at Abbey Road since 1997 and has worked as an engineer on a multitude of
pop/rock sessions as well as many different lm scores. Projects include: Fiona Apple, Jon Brion,
The Beatles: Yellow Submarine Song Track, The Beatles Anthology 5.1 Remix, The Beatles
Love, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Mick Jagger, John Lennon back catalogue remix albums
(x5), Muse, Paul McCartney, Dave Stewart, Kanye West and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Studio Statistics
Height 24ft / 7.31m
Width 38ft 3in / 11.65m
Length 60ft 2in / 18.35m
Floor Area 2131sq ft / 198sq m
Reverberation Time 1.2 sec

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 8
Peter is Abbey Road’s Director of Engineering and is one of the worlds top recording engi-
neers. He has been responsible for the remixing of the Beatles Yellow Submarine, Anthology
and the John Lennon back catalogue. Other artists Peter has recorded/mixed for include Air,
Keane, U2, Panic at the Disco, Amy Winehouse and Kanye West. Peter also works with many
of the lm industries celebrated directors and composers and has produced lm scores such
as Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Shrek the Third, Harry Potter (Order of Phoenix and Half-blood
Prince) American Gangster, Hell Boy 2 and Terminator Salvation.
A keen user of vintage equipment, Peter is responsible for introducing some of Abbey Road’s
best loved equipment to the audio products community in the form of Abbey Road Plug-ins.
Drumming duties were performed by Ralph Salmins, one of London’s top musicians. Ralph
has worked for the likes of Tori Amos, Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Macy
Gray, Elton John, Tom Jones, Madonna, George Martin, Alanis Morissette, Mike Oldeld and
Kelly Rowlands.
2.3 The Kits
Two vintage kits were chosen for the Abbey Road 60s drum project:
The rst kit is a Gretsch Round badge White
Marine Pearl (Jasper Shell) from the early
1960s. The size of the drums recorded were
24", 13" and 16". Gretsch has been making
drums since 1883 with the round badge se-
ries being made up until 1971, whereupon
the octagon-shaped badge was introduced.

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 9
Snare drums used on this project include:
• Ludwig chrome Supra-Phonic 400 (1966) – probably the most recorded snare drum in
the history of music. These snare drums have been in production since 1959 and the
Supra-phonic is still being manufactured today.
• Ludwig wooden Jazz Festival (1966) – this 5" drum was originally designed with jazz
musicians in mind but soon found it’s way on many pop and rock recordings thanks to
it’s snappy, crisp sound.
• Ludwig Mahogany (1959) – This “Auditorium” model was designed as a high quality
concert snare drum. Its 6 ½" depth provides a big, warm sound.
• Singerland Radio King (1964) – dubbed as the “long term favorite of our nations top
dance drummers” in a vintage Singerland catalogue. This 5 ½" deep snare drum is made
of a solid 1-ply maple shell.
A selection of vintage Zildjian cymbals were used from the early and late 1960s, including a
rivet cymbal dating from 1963.
The second kit is a Ludwig Hollywood from 1967.
The size of the drums recorded were 22", 12", 13"
and 16". Ludwig has been making drum products
since 1909. The Hollywood kit was dubbed the “lat-
est in twin tom tom design” and was rst introduced
in 1962. It incorporated top quality features such
as triple anged hoops, self aligning tension casting
and sure-action snare strainer. A popular recording
technique at this time was to cover the snare and
toms with tea towels, so samples of this technique
are included with this kit.

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 10
2.4 The Recording Equipment: Mixing Desks and Recorders
The Gretsch kit from the early 1960s was recorded through a REDD.17 mixing desk built in
1958. The REDD stands for Record Engineering Development Department. It was this depart-
ment based at EMI Hayes that catered to the technical demands of the recording engineers at
Abbey Road Studios. The whole desk is powered by a series of Siemens v72 valve ampliers.
The Gretsch mono Overhead and Kick Out channels were recorded through a valve Studer
J37 4 track 1" tape machine from 1964. The J37 was in use at Abbey Road from 1965 and
was responsible for pushing the concept of multitrack recording to its limits. Many pioneer-
ing techniques at Abbey Road, such as ADT, involved the use of the J37. Abbey Road had 4
J37’s throughout the sixties; the machine used on this project has J37 no.1 stamped on the
front of it.
The Ludwig kit was recorded through an EMI TG mkII mixing desk. The TG was the very rst
transistor desk, developed by EMI, to replace the valve REDD desks. The rst TG consol was
in use at Abbey Road from 1967. Eight channels of the Ludwig kit were also recorded through
a Studer A80 8 track 1" tape machine.
All analogue to digital conversion was completed via Prism ADA-8 interfaces.

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 11
2.5 Microphones
Abbey Road has arguably the largest working microphone collection in the world. A variety
of classic vintage microphones from the extensive collection were used to capture the two
drum kits. Find a list of which microphones were used for recording the individual drums in
chapters 2.5.1 and 2.5.2.
2.5.1 Recording the Gretsch
Microphones used for recording the Gretsch kit:
• MonoOverhead: STC 4038 – A classic microphone that has been in the Abbey Road
Studios collection since the mid 1950s. This is a gure of eight ribbon microphone and
is still in use on an almost daily basis at Abbey Road.
• KickOut: STC 4033 – This ribbon model has been in the Abbey Road Studios collection
since the 1950s. It was a rm favorite in the early 1960s for low end applications such
as kick drum. The microphone has both omni and gure of eight capsules designed to
be used simultaneously to create a cardioid response (due to phase cancellation).
• StereoOverhead: STC 4038
• Hi-hat: Neumann KM 56 – This microphone was introduced to the world in 1956 and is
still a popular choice at Abbey Road. A selection of three polar patterns makes it an ex-
tremely versatile valve condenser microphone.

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 12
• KickIn: AKG D 20 – A dynamic cardioid microphone that has been in use at Abbey Road
since the early 1960s. This was a very popular bass drum microphone.
• SnareTop: AKG D 19 – this dynamic cardioid microphone was rst brought into the Abbey
Road Studios collection in 1963.The microphones are still in use today. At the time they
were very cheap and considered a bit of a work horse, being used on many applications
from drums to piano and almost everything between.
• SnareBottom: Neumann KM 56
• Toms: AKG D 19
• StereoRoom: Neumann U 47 – The legendary Abbey Road U 47 has been in use at the
studios since 1951. The U 47 is probably the most sought after and recognisable micro-
phone in the world. This valve condenser microphone has both omni and cardioid polar
patterns.
2.5.2 Recording the Ludwig
Microphones used for recording the Ludwig kit:
• MonoOverhead: AKG D 19
• KickOut: Sony C-38A – popular at Abbey Road for low frequency application in the late
1960s. It’s a condenser microphone both capable of cardioid and omni polar patterns.
• StereoOverhead: Neumann KM 56
• Hi-hat: Neumann KM 56
• KickIn: AKG D 20
• SnareTop: AKG D 19
• SnareBottom: Neumann KM 56
• Toms: AKG D 19
• StereoRoom: Neumann U 47

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 13
3 The User Interface
This chapter describes the Abbey Road 60s Drums user interface. Learn about its three control
pages, the knobs, buttons, and sliders, and how to use them.
3.1 Drum Page
The Drum Page has a view of the drum kit where you can select each drum and adjust:
• tuning
• volume envelope
• overhead and room microphone mixes for each drum
You can also assign each articulation of each drum to your own custom MIDI mapping.

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 14
Each drum can be selected by clicking on it with the mouse. This will also play the sound
of that drum, giving you a quick preview of the sound. After selecting a drum, the name and
controls for that drum will appear in the panels on the right. The uppercontrolpanel (with
the MIC BALANCE slider) holds the controls for all of the sounds of a selected drum. The lower
controlpanel holds controls for separate articulations of a selected drum.
%
If the SELECT BY MIDI function (top right of the instrument graphic) is activated, the drums
will be selected depending on the notes played with your MIDI input device.
The uppercontrolpanel shows the name of the selected drum. If the snare drum is selected,
you can choose between two different snares using the 1 and 2 buttons next to the name,
which will also change the graphic for the snare drum. These buttons light up red when se-
lected.
!
When a new snare is selected, the snare samples have to load before being able to play
the kit.
Each drum has a TUNE knob, which can shift the pitch of that drum and all associated mi-
crophones for that drum up or down. There are also OVERHEAD and ROOM knobs to control the
volume level in the overhead mix and the room mix, allowing you to adjust the relative volume
of each drum in those microphones.
The kick drum, snare drum, and percussion have additional controls in the top panel:
• When the kick drum is selected, a fader appears that allows you to adjust the balance
between the microphones inside and outside of the kick drum.
• When the snare drum is selected, you can adjust the balance between the snare top and
snare bottom microphones.
• When the percussion is selected (represented by a tambourine in the drum kit view), three
icons appear allowing you to choose the tambourine, clap, and stick hit sounds.
The lowercontrolpanel allows you to select each articulation for the selected drum. For ex-
ample, selecting the snare drum will give an articulation menu showing the different types
of snare hits such as center, halfway, rimshot, am, roll, etc. (see chapter 4 for a list of all
drums and articulations). Each articulation has its own volume envelope, with knobs for ATTACK ,
HOLD , and DECAY .

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 15
You can also assign each articulation to any MIDI note, allowing you to customize your kit
mapping. This is very useful for adjusting the mapping to the way that feels best when playing
the drums with a MIDI keyboard, or for adjusting the mapping to a custom electronic drum
setup. You can assign the MIDI notes manually by entering the notes in the NOTE eld and
clicking on the APPLY button next to it. You can also assign the notes by selecting the LEARN
button and then playing the MIDI note for which you want to assign that articulation.
3.2 Mixer Page
The Mixer Page is where you can control the levels of the microphones, with the same level
controls that you would use if using a real mixing board. You can also set the panning or stereo
eld of the mics, solo/mute the tracks, and change the output routing for each channel. The
lightercolouredchannels on the left side of the mixer represent the direct microphones, and
the darkercolouredchannels on the right side represent the overhead and room microphones.

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 16
Each of the faders controls the volume level of the various microphones. The levels of each
drum within the overhead and room mixes can be adjusted separately, but this is done on the
DrumPage(see chapter 3.1). The faders on the Mixer Page are the standard “real life” level
controls that you would have on an actual mixer.
The direct and the mono overhead microphone channels ( OH Mono ) have their own PAN control.
The stereo overhead ( OH Stereo ) and room microphone ( Room ) channels have width controls,
which determine the spread of the stereo eld for those microphone pairs. STEREO is the
standard setting where the right and left channels are independent on the left and right side.
MONO combines the two stereo channels into a single central sound source, and WIDE uses
the KONTAKT stereo modeling to perceptually go beyond the stereo eld.
Each track can be soloed with the little black button to the right of the S (solo) and multiple
tracks can be soloed together. Tracks can also be muted with the little black button to the
left to the M (mute).
Each track can also be routed to several outputs using the drop-down menu below each fader,
depending on your soundcard and your output settings in KONTAKT. This is useful for apply-
ing your own separate effects on each track, such as compression or equalization. There is
also an option in this drop-down menu to disable the track. This will purge the samples used
for that track from you computer’s memory, which is very useful if you are not going to use
certain microphones in your production. If you decide to add the samples back later, simply
reroute the track to an output (keep in mind that you will have to wait for the samples for
that track to load again).
The buttons DRUMS and PERCUSSION at the top-right of the Mixer Page switch the direct mic
controls from the regular drums (kick, snare, hihat and toms) to the additional percussion
instruments (tambourine, claps and stick hits). The overhead and room controls remain on
the right side in each view.
%
If you only want to use the genuine vintage setup for the Early 60s Kit, use only the
Overhead Mono and Kick Direct Out microphones. This was the typical setup for an early
60s drum recording, and using these microphones recreates this sound. The typical setup for the
late 60s included additional direct mics, so for a vintage setup of the Late 60s Kit, use only the
Overhead Mono, Kick Direct Out, Snare Direct Bottom, and Tom Direct mics.

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 17
3.3 Options Page
The Options Page includes various parameters, which apply to the entire drum kit. On this
page, you can randomize several parameters of the drum output and adjust the volume of
the bleed from the snare bottom microphone. You can also make adjustments to the MIDI
velocity curves and playing ranges.
The KEY RANGE area dictates the range of MIDI notes in which the Kontakt instrument will al-
low input. The default range is the full range from C-2 to G8. With the LEARN button selected,
you can select the range of the MIDI input by playing the lowest and highest values. In the
TRANSPOSE area, you can transpose all incoming MIDI notes up or down by both semitones
( SEMI ) and octaves ( OCTAVE ).
In the VELOCITY control area, you can select the general velocity curve of the incoming MIDI
notes with the buttons above the relevant label. The default is a linear curve, but many MIDI
input devices have different levels of sensitivity, making a convex or concave curve more ap-
propriate. There is also an option to select a constant velocity (represented by a horizontal

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 18
line). You can customize the relationship between velocity and volume with the VEL -> VOL knob.
The higher the knob value, the more that velocity will relate to the volume of the played sound.
Finally, you can change the lowest and highest velocity values with elds above RANGE . This
is useful for preventing the quietest and/or the loudest sounds from playing, and instead be
limited to the specied minimum and maximum.
The SNARE MIC BLEED knob controls the overall level of the bleed from the snare bottom mi-
crophone. Snare mic bleed is a common sound in acoustic drum recordings, but sometimes
it can add additional unwanted sound. With this control, you can adjust the volume of this
bleed, as well as turn these snare bleed samples off if not desired (thus purging the samples
from your computer’s memory).
The controls in the RANDOMIZE area add custom levels of humanization and variation in the
sound output. The higher the values of the knobs, the higher the range of randomization for
each control. The randomized parameters are:
• VOLUME : The volume level of the played drum increases or decreases by a random amount
with each hit.
• VELOCITY : The velocity of the played drum will increase or decrease slightly, which can
trigger different samples above or below the one at the original velocity.
• TIME : This will add a slight random amount of delay to each hit.
• PITCH : The pitch of the played drum will be higher or lower by a slight amount with each
hit.
• EQ : This will slightly change the frequency curve of each hit. Different drums have differ-
ent frequency ranges, specic to the sound of each drum.
The EXCLUDE DIRECT MICS option allows the samples of the direct mics to be excluded/included
with the Volume, Pitch and EQ randomization parameters. Randomizing the sound of direct
mics is often more obvious than randomizing the sound of overhead or room mics, so it can
be desirable to exclude them while still applying randomization to other mics.

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 19
4 Drum Articulations
Here is a comprehensive list of all drums and articulations included with each kit.
4.1 Early 60s Kit
Drum Articulation
Kick Drum Felt Beater
Rubber Beater
Snare Drum 1 & 2 Center Left Hand
Center Right Hand
Center Right/Left Alternating *
Halfway Left Hand
Halfway Right Hand
Halfway Right/Left Alternating *
Rimshot
Sidestick
Flam
Roll
Wires Off
Rim Only
Hihat Closed Tight Tip Right Hand
Closed Tight Tip Left Hand
Closed Tight Tip Right/Left
Alternating *
Closed Tip Right Hand
Closed Tip Left Hand
Closed Tip Right/Left Alternating *
Closed Shank Right Hand
Closed Shank Left Hand

Abbey Road 60s Drums – User’s Manual – 20
Hihat Closed Shank Right/Left
Alternating *
Closed Pedal
Open Pedal
Open Quarter
Open Half
Open Three-Quarters
Open Loose
Open Full
Open Controller **
Rack Tom Center Right Hand
Center Left Hand
Center Right/Left Alternating *
Rimshot
Rim Only
Floor Tom Center Right Hand
Center Left Hand
Center Right/Left Alternating *
Rimshot
Rim Only
High Crash Edge
Tip
Bell
Choke
Low Crash Edge
Tip
Bell
Choke
Ride Tip
Bell
Edge
Choke