SESSION PERCUSSIONIST BY NATIVE INSTRUMENTS
KK-ACCESS REVIEW
The popular Session Series has continued to grow over recent years, and has now expanded to include Guitars, Bass, Ukulele, and now in this latest iteration Percussion.
This library has once again been developed for Native Instruments by drumasonic, who are also responsible for the Session Guitarist series, and features many of the familiar controls and NKS mappings from that collection, along with some new ones that are more pertinent to the world of percussion.
With up to five percussion instruments playing in unison, 58 sampled percussion instruments, and an apparent 2000 patterns, Session Percussion could be the answer to all of your percussive needs, read on as we lift the lid, tap the tempo, and hit the beat on Session Percussionist!
TECH SPECS
Session Percussionist requires either the full version of Kontakt 7.7 or higher, or the free Kontakt Player edition to run, and is compatible with Komplete Kontrol.
The library needs 5.8Gb of free space for installation, using the NCW compressed lossless sample file format.
There is one Kontakt NKI master file, with a further 117 Kontakt NKSN snapshot files that supply the presets which are used within the Komplete Kontrol browser.
DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION
No surprises here, it’s a Native Instruments product so the whole ka boodle is entirely handled by Native Access, with the serial number having already been registered to your account following purchase, so after locating Session Percussionist within Native Access, all that you need to do is hit install.
As mentioned this being hot off the press so to speak, it does necessitate the need to have Kontakt 7.7 on your system in either the full or player version, so if you were hoping to avoid using that for the time being, then Session Percussionist will force the decision upon you.
Komplete Kontrol will re scan your database upon loading of an instance, and the library will be available for you in your browser soon afterward.
KOMPLETE KONTROL PLUG-IN EDIT NKS PARAMETER MAPPINGS
Page One – Humanise, Swing, Timing, Room, Articulation Filter
Knob 1 – Humanise Amount
Knob 2 – Swing Amount
Knob 3 – Swing Timebase: 8th, 16th
Knob 4 – Timing Shift: Reported in tick values
Knob 5 – Room Size
Knob 6 – Room Comp
Knob 7 – Articulation Filter: Lowest
Knob 8 – Articulation Filter: Highest
Page Two – Player 1, Tuning, Stereo, Doubling, Close & Far Microphone Mix, Room Amount, Panning, Volume
Knob 1 – Timing
Knob 2 – Tuning Offset: Plus or Minus 1 Octave
Knob 3 – Stereo Width
Knob 4 – Doubling On/Off
Knob 5 – Close & Far Microphone Volume Mix
Knob 6 – Room Amount
Knob 7 – Panning: plus or minus 100% left or right
Knob 8 – Player Volume: expressed in dB
Page Three – Compressor, Eq, Reverb, Delay
Knob 1 – Compressor Selection: Slow Leveller, Fast Leveller, Slow Punch, Fast Punch,
MS DriveA, MS Drive B,Dual Mono A, Dual Mono B, Smash It, Annihilation
Knob 2 – Compressor Amount
Knob 3 – EQ Type: Empty, Tilt up, Tilt down, Warm, Mid Boost, Sparkle, Smile A, Clean up, High pass, Low pass, Band pass
Knob 4 – EQ Amount
Knob 5 – Reverb Type: Empty, Small Room A, Small Room B, Main Room A, Main Room B, Large Room, Large Hall, Bright Hall, Long Pre Delay, Slapback, Mono Tunnel,
Knob 6 – Reverb Amount
Knob 7 – Delay Type: Empty, ~Dotted 8th A, Dotted 8th B, 8th Delay A, 8th Delay B, Garden Hose, Triplets, Quarter, 16th Slap A, 16th Slap B, Flutter Echo
Knob 8 – Delay Amount
*Note: Pages Two & Three are duplicated for each of the additional four players, providing a total of eleven pages.
ACCESSIBILITY
The NKS mapping offers a generally good level of control for each individual player, and particular focus is given to the shifting of time and swing, which is great for fine tuning the feel of your groove.
It is possible on an individual instrument basis to control the EQ, Reverb & Delay with access to a variety of related preset selections.
In common with the session Guitarist series, keyswitches situated and starting at C0will allow you to trigger the preloaded pattern presets, whilst further keyswitch assignments provide convenient ways to end a song, throw in a fill, or manually play the instrument sounds.
Absent from the mapping is the latch control and start of beat control, which we may be familiar with in the Session Guitar libraries.
There is however a further missing control mapping in the NKS template that makes it impossible to change the tempo rate factor of the presets from the saved default timing.
This means that unlike the Session Guitarist series, if you wish to either double, or halve the rate time of the pattern that is synced to your DAW, you can’t, as this control is squirreled away in Kontakt’s inaccessible user interface pattern browser.
This is a strange decision, or more likely omission, as it has always been a mainstay included in the Session Guitar series, but in Session Percussion where rhythm and tempo is arguably an important factor, it seems to have gone AWOL!
<pre class="wp-block-syntaxhighlighter-code"><br /><br /><strong> INSTRUMENTATION</strong></pre>
The specs state that There are 58 sampled instruments, which is not untrue, however these are actually variations upon a specific instrument type, so in reality there are actually 16 separate instruments, as listed below (*text replicated from product page).
2 agogo bells, 2 bar chimes, 2 bongos, 2 cabasas, 2 cajons, 7 claves, 2 congas, 8 cowbells, 2 djembes, 5 finger snaps, 2 hand claps, 6 shakers, 6 tambourines, 4 triangles, 2 vibraslaps, 4 woodblocks
The included factory presets reflect Session Percussionist’s ability to play up to five instruments at once, with examples of single instruments and then 2, 3, & 4, up to the full ensemble maximum of 5 players.
Each instrument is assigned it’s own octave on the keyboard, and there are 5 preloaded patterns for each, assigned as keyswitches on keys C to E.
For example , In a full five player ensemble preset, the low octave keyswitches will play all five of the instruments at once, or alternatively you can choose to use the higher octave keyswitches to only trigger certain individual instrument sounds.
It is also possible to mix and match these preloaded keyswitch patterns, perhaps playing a Bongos pattern on key D, whilst simultaneously triggering a loop from the Shakers key range using an E note pattern.
As we mentioned in the Tech Specs, there are 116 snapshots each having five preloaded patterns for each preset, so even with my somewhat under whelming math skills, we are clearly unable to gain access to the stated possible 2000 plus available from the user interface pattern browser, which is unfortunate, but not an uncommon trait of the Session series in general.
SESSION SOUNDS
The sound quality of the samples found within Session Percussionist is excellent, all of the included instruments have been faithfully captured, and with the extensive sound options available it is possible to sculpt the sound further to your liking.
Particularly useful is the ability to tweak individual instruments with their own tuning, panning, Compression, EQ, Microphone placement, reverb & delay settings.
The Delay can be used to create interesting polyrhythms, and the option to offset the instrument timing position against other instruments adds further to the flexibility.
The preset naming conventions do not in general seem to include mention of time signatures, which would have been a helpful tag to include for an improved user browsing experience.
IN USE
Just like any of the Session Series libraries, there is a learning curve to integrating them into our workflow.
The patterns are triggered from a single keyswitch, which in most cases we usually place on the first beat of a bar, they will then loop continuously for as long as the key is held.
Sometimes of course, we need to break this loop mid bar, at a point where the song demands us to do so
Here we can perhaps make use of the various rolls and other percussive articulations to add a suitable additional element that is consistent in keeping with the music style.
What is revealed in your midi editor will not of course accurately reflect all of those notes you are hearing, instead the note count will appear much more sparse, instead mirroring the keyswitch presses that trigger the loop patterns.
Helpfully, Session Percussionist has also included playable instrument hits, starting at the F key of each instruments allotted key range.
I guess you could compare this to the melodic presets found in the Session Guitar libraries, as they will allow you to overdub extra beats that are not included in the original prerecorded pattern.
You might opt to use a shaker pattern while manually playing in and recording your own conga rhythm, although you may still need to load further instances of Komplete Kontrol to arrive at the exact combination of patterns and instruments that you need.
This kind of workflow is by no means set in tablets of stone, but is probably going to be our best workaround for the lack of ability to accessibly record and edit patterns within the dedicated user interface pattern browser, which sighted users would probably be doing.
SHARE & COMPARE, is THAT FAIR?
Inevitably when looking at Session Percussionist, we are likely to have one eye on similar products on the market.
Whilst as a rule, I try to avoid making any direct comparisons to other products within my reviews, libraries such as InSession Audio’s Shimmer, Shake, Strike tend to pop up on occasions such as this.
Session Percussionist features what could be described as a more global percussion palette, where SSS is mostly focused on shakers, tambourines and the lighter brighter upper registers.
In this respect the question might ultimately be what you a looking to get from a percussion library?
The Bongo & Conga patterns in Session Percussionist naturally lend themselves to a lower tonal range, which can potentially have an influence on the melodic instruments within a track, and without the ability to edit or create our own rhythms, some may feel it’s a case of the tail wagging the dog when it comes to your creative input, if you find that you need to modify your rhythmic melody to accommodate those prerecorded conga patterns in your own work.
Conversely, others will find that these oven ready patterns are a legitimate source of inspiration, and will write their music accordingly to include them.
If you only need shakers, tambourines, maracas, pill bottles, claves, woodblocks and the like with similar levels of accessibility, but notably the additional option to switch to triplet time, or half the time factor, then SSS may instead be a viable alternative for you.
I reviewed Shimmer, Shake, Strike a while back, so bear in mind that the samples although still perfectly respectable, do originate from an older Kontakt library that even predates that review, and might not directly compare to those used in Session Percussionist in terms of the current sample library recording and scripting techniques.
The sample pool for SSS, is a mere 400mb, compared to SP’s nearly 6GB.
Here is a link to the Shimmer, Shake, strike review should you wish to take a look at the NKS template:
https://kk-access.com/2020/01/15/shimmer-shake-strike-expanded-version-by-insession-audio/
Do make a point of checking out the walkthrough videos, and take into account that the mention of the appealing advanced features such as pattern loading, instrument swapping, dragging and dropping, and sequencing are not accessible through the NKS mapping template.
CONCLUSION
Session Percussionist represents a new chapter in the Session series, and continues the tried & tested legacy of including well recorded mix ready patterns that can instantly lift a track, with some really useful and realistic rhythmic embellishments.
The available presets do cover most bases, but perhaps have their limitations in terms of quantity and pattern combinations, and the ability to change the timing factor between normal, half & double tempo may for some reduce this flexibility a little further than it perhaps needed to be.
Session Percussionist is available directly from the Native Instruments website at a cost of £89.00 inc vat (price may vary according to region).
Session Percussionist Product Page:
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/drums/session-percussionist/
Session Percussionist Official Walkthrough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-DC3LWcPLo
Session Percussionist – Pulse Music Review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7eIexBJAx0
Session Percussionist – Inspired By Sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrOBefyaHjs
Session Percussionist User Manual Download:
https://www.native-instruments.com/fileadmin/ni_media/downloads/manuals/Session_Percussionist/Session_Percussionist_Manual_English_08_11_2023.pdf
(c) Chris Ankin
KK-Access.com
28TH November 2023
REVIEW Transparency Statement
KK-Access believes in integrity, and through respect for our readers,that our product reviews should strive to be be honest and unbiased, and that any of our opinions should not be influenced by financial reward or other incentives from a plug-in or sample library provider for which a review of their wares may be a subject matter.
Therefore, we do not accept,, and will continue to decline any offers of affiliation links, for all products under review for publication on this website.
Disclaimer
The author can not accept any responsibility for subsequent purchase decisions made as a result of this review,or Any inaccuracies found therein. All opinions and product functions stated are based solely on information perceived as a blind user whilst using the product and/or gathered from official factual sources such as the developer, web or supplied product manual.
About the Author
Based in Buckinghamshire, England, Chris Ankin has worked as a freelance review writer and contributor with articles published in Sound On Sound, Home & Studio Recording and ST Format Magazines.
He has also successfully worked extensively in and around the music, recording, film Soundtrack scoring, Game & media composition, the creative arts, Charitable trusts,publishing, music streaming and property investments since 1982 whilst continuously and deliberately managing to evade any mainstream recognition under his own name by the use of various pseudonyms.
E&OE
KK-ACCESS 