- Best known for soundtrack-focused ROMplers like Evolve and Damage, Heavyocity enjoy a good reputation among composers but wouldn't necessarily be an obvious first choice for dance music producers. DM-307, a Kontakt instrument based on a library of more than 3,600 drum loops and samples, is a more straightforward percussive offering for producers of all kinds of electronic music. The subtitle of the instrument, Modern Groove Designer, also hints at its more advanced options: built-in step sequencers for notes and effects, plus a range of integrated sound processing tools.
Installation is via the Continuata Connect Downloader app, which you need to install before you can download the product itself. The full library weighs in at a little under 5 GB in compressed form—the equivalent of around 8 GB uncompressed—in which you'll find a huge range of individual drum hits and loops (some of which are sliced), impacts and effects.
There's an incredible variety to the sounds on offer in the DM-307 library, understandable given Heavyocity's core market of soundtrack composers. Each of the various content types is grouped by genre. The Kit Grooves category, for instance, lists Electronic, Drum N Bass and Dubstep sub-categories alongside Latin Organic, Industrial Edge and Rock. Within those sub-categories, it's not quite so easy to guess what the characteristics of the sounds are going to be without auditioning them. In Electronic, for example, you'll find a preset named Digital Toes alongside one called Loose Ankles.
The library ranges from standard acoustic sounds through electronic hits and into heavily processed cinematic soundtrack fare. Whatever you're looking for there's a lot to choose from. In the DM-307 Style Kits folder alone there are 30 presets covering every stylistic base from minimal to deep house, ambient to latin dance. Each one of those kits contains 12 kicks, 12 snares, 12 hats, 12 percussion sounds and 12 cymbals/FX. In addition to the Style Kits you'll find Kit Grooves (organised by genre and preloaded with patterns), Element Kits (focusing on an individual type of sound, such as subby kicks or synth percussion), Impact & FX Kits and Standard MIDI Kits (mapped for use with drum pad controllers).
Once you've selected a kit, the Grid step sequencer comes into play, a simple but effective tool for creating grooves or picking from presets. (You can, of course, also play and sequence your own patterns using MIDI in your DAW.) There are quite a lot of onboard presets, including a number of tweakable multis designed by electronic producers and sound designers, that can serve as starting points within the DM-307. I found these basic but acceptable—if you were doing soundtrack work they'd allow you to bluff your way in a genre you don't know too well. Serious producers will probably wish to create their own patterns. On that front the Grid sequencer is sufficiently versatile: you can program up to eight patterns and chain them together or jump between them using keyswitches assigned to MIDI notes.
Switch away from Grid mode and you'll find three further panes of controls that will be familiar if you've used other Heavyocity instruments. On the Main pane, four master effects (delay, modulation, reverb and distortion) are joined by the large central Twist and Punish knobs. The former is an LFO-animated tone modulation effect, while the latter is a combined one-knob saturator/compressor. Volume envelopes can also be adjusted, either individually by sample or for a bank as a whole.
On the T-FX pane, there's a series of five trigger effects (distortion, bitcrusher, filter, panner and delay), each with its own step sequencer for automated effects. Finally, on the EQ/Filter pane, a four-band EQ and LFO- or envelope-controlled filter with low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, vowel and formant modes provide final shaping options.
If you load a loop-based patch rather than a drum kit, the main sequencer section works slightly differently: the Grid note sequencer switches into Mutator sequencer mode, allowing loops to be chopped, sliced and twisted into new patterns. Kontakt's keyswitches come into play again here, allowing you to trigger pre-defined Mutator patterns. The same effects, EQ and filters still apply with a loop loaded.
There's a lot of content to explore, but DM-307's sample library alone may not be enough to justify the $299 asking price. The quality of the sounds on offer is generally good, but you could buy a lot of drum sample packs with that cash, picking and choosing the particular styles and sounds that suit your music. This means DM-307 only really makes sense if you're keen to explore the sequencers, the effects and the performance options built into the Kontakt scripting. The benefits of the Kontakt player format also go some way to justifying the price: you've got all the controls neatly collected into one plug-in, not to mention the existing capabilities of the player's routing options.
For many dance producers, DM-307 may be a step too far in the direction of a software groovebox. You can spot a hint of Korg Electribe lineage in terms of its quick and easy approach to step sequencing rhythms and its banks of preset drum kits and patterns. That's not an approach that appeals to or works for every producer, and if you're happy with your existing approach to drum sequencing and processing, DM-307 is unlikely to change that. But if you're open to the creative potential of an all-in-one drum sequencer with built-in effects and samples, there's a lot of inspiration to be had from this powerful plug-in, just as long as you're willing to play on its terms.
Ratings:
Cost: 3/5
Versatility: 3.5/5
Sound: 3.5/5
Ease of use: 4/5