Reply To: 🆓 FREE Just Add Drums Acoustic Drum Library (free Kontakt Player library)

[LinkedMusicians]

@pseudopop I can’t help but wonder if their logic is to lock people into sticking with their drum plugins by not complying with the standard, so if you use their plugin to create a MIDI track, you can’t easily swap it out with another drum plugin. Whatever the logic, it’s undesirable, IMO. While I think this is a good freebie, for those of us that own SD3, EZdrummer or AD2 — and maybe even BFD3  — I really don’t think it’s worth the effort due to the lack of General MIDI mapping, having only two toms, and the lack of rim shots. A lot of developers are challenged with how much to take out to make a free library version of a paid library interesting, but I think that this developer made just a few too many compromises for me to not press the delete key. If they had three toms, general midi mapping, and snare rim shot samples, it would be a keeper (even though I only liked one patch). But for those who can’t afford paid libraries, much like BDF Player — which I would never recommend if people could afford ezDrummer, AD2, or SD3 — is worthwhile ONLY for those who don’t have the budget for paid alternatives.

That said, I think that the Just Add Drums free kit sounds a lot better than BFD Player kits, which I think don’t sound very good compared to EZdrummer, AD2 or most decent Kontakt acoustic drum libraries. When I rate free sample libraries, I keep expectations realistic. It’s pretty rare that they’re sampled in great detail with the velocity layers, round robins, mixing capabilities, effects options, and other capabilities of better paid alternatives. If this kit were available year round as a freebie, it would make the LM list of best free sample libraries. But for people who can afford good paid libraries and plugins, I don’t think it’s really worth picking up.

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