Submersible Music recently updated their MIDI drum plug-in KitCore to v2.0, including new drumkits and grooves from metal master John Tempesta and Seattle drum legend Matt Cameron.

KitCore is DrumCore’s little brother, featuring the same sound but a few less options:

Great drums. Huge variety. No Fuss.

The Deluxe version adds tons of additional drumkits and MIDI beats to KitCore, a total of more than 100 kits, and 3000+ MIDI beats.

KitCore Deluxe

Previewing one of Matt Cameron’s beats with Terry Bozzio’s 7-8 Kit in KitCore Deluxe

KitCore Deluxe features

  • Legendary Drummers’ MIDI Kits and Beats — over 100 kits covering a multitude of styles plus over 3,000 MIDI beats. Music styles include rock (Matt Sorum/Guns ‘N Roses, Velvet Revolver), metal (John Tempesta/Helmet, Rob Zombie), prog (Alan White, Terry Bozzio), jazz (John Bishop), country (Lonnie Wilson/Brooks & Dunn), Latin percussion (Luis Conte/Sergio Mendes), reggae (Sly Dunbar/Bob Marley), urban (over 20 subwoof-slammin’ kits) and more.
  • Recorded “In The Style” For Maximum Authenticity and Delivered at 48kHz/24 bit Kits for Great Fidelity — Using the best of digital and analog, the kit’s tone is burned-in at the sample level for great sound with minimal CPU load. From priceless Pultecs to vintage Neumann mics get the sound of a multi-million dollar studio on your laptop.
  • A 48 Pads of Fun = An Expandable Palette of Sounds — Unlike programs that only offer a five piece acoustic drumkit, KitCore gives you 48 pads you can mix-and-match with acoustic, electronic and Latin sounds to make your own “hybrid” kits—all with that award-winning DrumCore™ sound. Why should you need to own two plug-ins and/or buy expansion packs just to add a tambourine or conga part?
  • Groove Browser — easily see all the Submersible grooves included with KitCore plus your KitCore expansion packs. Just audition a groove in sync with your main recording application and then drag and drop the MIDI beat or fill onto a track. Content is arranged in songwriter-friendly “GrooveSets” which group beats, fills and variations together to allow faster and easier song construction based on the sensibilities of these great pro drummers. Search for grooves by Feel (Shuffle, 1/8ths, etc.) and use Queue Mode for seeing how beats and fills work together before exporting them, just like in DrumCore.
  • RealDrummer — that gives you the ability to add drummerly accents to your MIDI and does-away with the evils of machinegun-like MIDI playback. Give your snare roll new life and make your hi-hats groove with this cool new control.

KitCore is available as a plug-in instrument for Windows and Mac (AU/VST/RTAS) and costs $99 USD.

So what do I think?

KitCore is a great piece of software for people who want a no-nonsense drum plug-in. You get some great sounding kits with volume, panning and tune controls for each drum pad and that’s about it. Pretty no fuss eh?

I really like the variety of kits included with KitCore Deluxe (I’d say it’s a bit of a no brainer to get the Deluxe version for an additional $50 USD, since it includes 100+ kits compared to the 8 included with the standard KitCore pack) and the samples are of good quality. You also get tons of categorized MIDI patterns, which you can preview in the Groove Browser and drag & drop onto MIDI tracks in your sequencer.

So if you’re looking for some “ready to go” drum sounds and don’t want to spend a lot of time setting things up you should definitely consider KitCore Deluxe. For those who want more (like audio loops and loading your own samples) there’s always DrumCore.

More information: Submersible Music