Sean Pandy Drums

Drums built for Rock and Metal!

Sean Pandy Drums is a VST/AU drum rompler plugin with Kick, Snare, 4 Toms - and a Sub Blower that will do exactly as its name suggests.

Every drum consists of 6 velocity layers and up to 10 random-robin samples, that means you should get no machine gun effect even with fast repetitions.

Sean Pandy Drums comes in 2 flavours: stereo or multi-channel. The stereo plugin will output all drums over channels 1+2, the multi-channel plugin will output all drums on separate channels. See the labels on the plugin for routing details. Please note that Reverb and Master panning are not available in the multi-channel version.

The drums are mapped after the General MIDI standard, the Sub Blower takes the place of a 2nd Floor Tom.

Kick: 35/B1 and 36/C1
Snare: 38/D1 to 40/1
Tom 1: 48/C2
Tom 2: 47/B1
Tom 3: 45/A1
Tom 4: 43/G1
Sub Blower: 41/F1

I would advise to use the reverb with caution... don't push it far, it's metallic and not that nice. Also, the samples themselves already have quite a lot of reverb on them at higher velocities, so too much additional reverb will probably not do any good. You've been warned. :)

In my demo project (with Reaper), I had Superior Drummer loaded on the same track as Sean Pandy Drums, in the insert slot before it. So yes, it definitely is possible to use the two on one track without hassle. Just remember to mute the drums in Superior Drummer, and make sure there's no kick/snare/tom bleed on the Overhead and Ambience/Room channels - or you'll very likely get bad phasing issues.

All plugin formats share the same unique plugin ID, that means you should have no issues when transitioning from e.g. a Win/32-Bit system to a Mac/64-bit setup and so on.

To help with 32/64-bit troubles on Windows, the 32-bit VSTis are available in two versions.
By default, the 32-Bit VSTis have the SAME unique IDs as their 64-bit VSTi counterparts. This is great when you work with a 32-bit host on one machine and a 64-bit host on the other, because the plugin will be found wherever you upen it. If you want this, download the spd***vst32.zips.
There is also a 32-Bit VSTi with a DIFFERENT unique ID, this enables you to keep the 32-Bit and 64-Bit versions side by side on one system, which is great if you're working with a host that bridges 32-/64-bit plugins and would become confused by two plugins with the same unique ID. On the other hand, it means the plugin will be reported missing when you open a project from a 64-Bit host in a 32-Bit host and vice versa. If you want this, download the spd***vst32-altid.zips.

So now, this Sean Pandy chap... who the heck is he?!

The story behind that: a well respected metal producer made some drum samples available for download from his website many years back, for free and no strings attached. Unfortunately, they came just as WAV files and without any written license information, and they're meanwhile no longer available for download from his website.

However, people on the forum where he himself had posted the originals are to this day re-uploading and re-sharing these samples every once in a while, so I assume they're still free to use.

As I constantly see people screaming for community-made .NKI (Kontakt) and .GOG (Drumagog) instruments using these samples, I quite simply turned them into this plugin.
I don't charge anything for it, so no harm done, right?

But this is still not an "official cooperation", I made the plugin of my own accord, so I can't and don't want to rest its success on his name and "brand". All the credit for recording the samples goes to him tho, so I don't want to make the source of the samples a secret.

Ok, and why would you use this over the .WAV samples directly? Easy: I've made 6 velocity layers out of the samples, and each velocity layer has unique dynamics.

If you play a note at low velocity, the samples are not just played back at lower volume but their attack/decay/sustain envelope also changes. That means a sample triggered with lower velocity will sound softer and will have less reverb, and a sample triggered at higher velocity will sound sharper and will have more reverb and "smack" to it. Just like in real life.

And you can hear it!