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The library is a download-only product and will work quite happily with the free version of Kontakt Player or, as I used for the review, the full version of Kontakt 5. Installation and authentication follows standard practice for Kontakt and I had no problems with any of these steps.
At the top level, the presets are organised into instruments and multis, with seven instrument and two multi types. Many of the individual samples will appear in a number of presets, but the way they are presented, and what you can do with them, will be different in each case.
For example, the DM307 Style Kits instrument presets are each built on five groups of sounds: kicks, snares, hats, percussion and cymbals/FX. Within each kit, you get 12 different sounds in each group (12 different kicks, 12 different snares, etc.) mapped across five consecutive octaves of the keyboard. While you can trigger any of these sounds via the appropriate MIDI note, as we will see in a minute, the interface includes a five-lane grid editor for creating step-based patterns using these five groups of sounds. The Kit Groove instruments are based around the Style Kits but also include a series of patterns (for that five-lane grid editor). There are plenty of these presets and they are organised into genre-based themes covering Drum & Bass, Dubstep, Electronic, Hybrid Scoring, Industrial Edge, Latin Organic and Rock.
In both these instrument types, the sounds themselves offer a huge variety, from fairly conventional acoustic drums through to electronic and analogue synth drum sounds with and without processing. I could easily imagine the basic sounds working in contemporary film score, almost any style of modern electronic dance music and through into cutting-edge electronica.
The Loop Menus group is also genre-themed, covering Electronic, Ethnic Mashup, Hybrid Scoring, Industrial Mashup, Urban Mashup and utility Elements. Each preset contains multiple octaves of mapped loops, some focused on one instrument type (snares, kicks, etc.) while in others you get a mixture of different single-instrument loops. The latter are great fun to experiment with; just hit a combination of keys and see what rhythmically interesting drum and percussion performances just pop out. The ease with which you can instantly create some really interesting and fresh electronic beats is just a touch embarrassing.
We Have Kontakt
Perhaps the feature worth a few additional words is the Grid. This provides a five-lane pattern editor for the Style Kits and Kit Grooves. Each lane relates to one of the five sound groups within the Style Kit or Kit Groove presets and you can trigger individual lanes or all lanes for playback. Within a preset, you can create up to eight different patterns and sequence these within the Chainer.
However, the fun really starts when you get into the Amp Sequencer (where you can create and apply a 16-step amplifier pattern to create some classic stutter effects) and when you switch the Grid view to show the other programmable properties for a specific lane. Here you can apply step-based values for both velocity and sample on a per-lane basis. This means that you can programme (for example) which of your 12 snare samples in the preset plays on a particular step. This is a lot of fun and the potential for creating twisted, dynamic patterns is huge.
Time To Groove
The bottom line here is that DM307 contains a staggering amount of rhythmic potential. The sounds are fabulous and the Kontakt interface, while it takes a little while to fully explore, is an absolute joy to use and gives you masses of additional sound-shaping options. Put these things together and DM307 is an impressive package. As a source for modern electronic beats, there is a pretty endless set of possibilities here and, almost without exception, they sound brilliant.
Conclusion
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