Reggae - Recommended soft synths (which came with Sonar X2)

I've been listening to a lot of reggae recently and would love to try making some reggae songs. I'm having trouble finding drums kits, bass, and other sounds that match the 70s-era reggae sound.

Do you have any recommendations on which Sonar X2 instruments/patches to use for:

1) drum kits (particularly those classic reggae fills)
2) bass
3) guitar

In other words, the rhythm section. Those have been the hardest for me to match.

Thanks!

What bands, songs in particular have you been listening to ? Maybe post some youtube vids

It's not so much about the kits them selves as the way they were played and produced that creates the reggae sound, use more side sticks and rim shots than snare, also lots of percussion, cow bell, cabasa, snare timbale.
Then it's about use of effects if you're wanting a more dub style, flanger on toms and hats and lots of delay on snares and hats, get creative and jiggy with it 


I just had a look through some of the session drummer kits and most of those things are there in most of those kits apart from a very disappointing lack of snare articulations in the kits I've
checked so far, not one rim shot, all I've been able to find are side stick and snare hit but I can't believe it's that limited?


Steve


Something like this maybe ? Jamaican Drum Sounds

The second kit has some lovely snare half edge hits  and rim shots but sadly I don't think you'll find them in session drummer though I hope for your sake I'm wrong, you might have to edit the sfz file or whatever they do.
I use BFD2 and most of the snares have at least 5 articulations so I guess I'm spoilt.

ALSO! Don't forget the clavinet with the mandatory wah-wah pedal!

It seems the standard bass guitar for reggae has been, as in so many other genres, the ubiquitous Fender Precision. There are plenty of Precision sample libraries around, but the one in Studio Instruments is pretty decent and you already have it, so I'd start there for bass.

I don't use Session Drummer myself, but I've messed with it enough to think that it would do just fine for reggae. Just make the bass drum really big and compress the whole kit heavily. If you're specifically going for the classic 70's reggae sound, and you have full Kontakt, consider Tea Towel Drums or Classic Rock Drums from Wavesfactory.

Don't know about guitar, though. I have OTS EEG, and I'm confident that it could do the job, but I think I'd prefer to find a Strat library for reggae. RealStrat, perhaps?

You may have to combine several vsts. For timbale and other percussion TTS general midi drum set may have many of those sounds.

Sidroe


Marley used a lot of Hammond organ !

Yep - some great and unmistakable Hammond, "No Woman no Cry" for example. However the days when I was into Reggae pre-date Marley's international fame and transistor organs like the Farifisa were more common.
 
 

Perhaps the best Farfisa emulation around, and it's  FREE: 
http://www.martinic.com/combof/downloads/

Reggae was very big in England (with a certain crowd) when I lived there 1969-1972. Vox Continentals were what I saw most. But the fellow who wrote the Farfisa referenced above also made us a killer Continental too.
http://www.martinic.com/combov/

Glyn,

I didn't know about the Orange Tree productions. Had a listen at the demos and they sound really good. Thinking of getting at the least the guitars....
thank you
joni

Glyn Barnes

Hi, yes I know.

I have had Kontakt 5 for sometime and tomorrow the new Komplete Ultimate 9 arrives at my door.

I am getting the Orange Tree stuff tonight.

Thanks,

joni

djoni


Glyn,

I didn't know about the Orange Tree productions. Had a listen at the demos and they sound really good. Thinking of getting at the least the guitars....
thank you
joni

Yes - they are excellent, but remember, the full version of Kontakt is required.

The reverb is a huge part of that Bob Marley sound. It's beautiful. 

Tripecac


For drums, I tried the Abbey Road 60s kits (with Komplete). The early 60s kit doesn't seem to have a heavy enough kick drum. The late 60s kit has a nicer kick.

However, the kit as a whole seems to have too much reverb or something; it sounds too much like a real drum set rather than a drum set on a record or CD. I know that sounds like a strange complaint (similar to people's complaint about 48 fps in the Hobbit movie), but the "realism" of the Abbey Road late 60s kit makes it sound different from traditional reggae.

I tried compression, but it didn't make it sound closer to the record.

So then I tried sending the kit through Guitar Rig (Komplete's amp simulator). I went through dozens of effect templates, mostly at random, but didn't find anything that sounded right.

So I'm a bit at a loss...

Is the Abbey Road 60s kit not a good starting place? I tried Studio Drummer (another Komplete kit), but that didn't sound right either.

Any tips on how to at least get the drums sounding consistent with that 70s Marley sound?

Not specifically but have you tried the playing with the various settings in 60's drummer. I am nowhere near my DAW for a couple of weeks so I can try it out myself and I only have a copy of the 60's Drums (not drummer) manual but they are pretty similar.
 
Too much reverb seems to indicate the levels of the room and/or overhead mikes are too high. This is on the drum page and can be adjusted for each drum, page 13 of the 60's Drum manual shows this for the snare. You can also tweak the balance between the top and bottom microphones which will change the sound quite a bit. There is also a transient shaper with attack, hold and decay controls, I suggest you play around with these.
 
On the mixer page you get to control the levels of the room ambiance as well as the levels of each drum. Lowering the level will or course reduce the apparent reverb. Between here and the drum page you should be able to get the sound bone dry, very roomy or anything in between.
 
There is already a lot of control here, but if you want to take things further you will have to set up sperate outputs for each drum. This is explained on page 16 of the 60's drums manual. Note you will have needed to have inserted Kontakt into Sonar with "all synth outputs" checked first.
 
Once you have done this you have the ability to use either Kontakt's effects in the Kontakt mixer or VST or Prochannel effects in the Cakewalk mixer on each individual drum rather than the whole kit. EQ and compression can help make the kick "heavier" Also try Cakewalks percussion strip, there are a lot of presets there you may find one that gets you within tweaking distance of the sound you want. 
 
Finally send all the drum outputs to a bus and add some final light compression or limiting to glue it all together.  
  
 

The drums are hard to hear in the "Satisfy My Soul" example. "Stir it Up" might be easier to analyze. Lots of hand percussion and timbales going on, but not much conventional kick. Hats and sidestick are about all I hear.The bass guitar overwhelms the bass drum, but what kick I can hear sounds pretty generic, not unlike the ones in Session Drummer.

Seems like getting that popping McCartney-esque attack on the bass would be the more important aspect. I've gotten something close to that using a Hofner sample doubled with a muted Gretsch, both out of SampleTank.

Tripecac


I don't think I'm up for tweaking the effects on every drum in a kit, or setting up outputs for each. I was just hoping for something that sounded "pretty close" to that old 70s reggae drum sound. Right now I'm nowhere close.

Do you think there are reggae presets for Abbey Road (or Studio Drummer) kits? That would definitely save some time.

I don't recall seeing Reggae presets for either of them. I dont have them in front of me but its just a case of auditioning each one, there are not that many.
 
The Abbey Road Drummer series each have a handful of presets but are capable of a tremendous range of sounds from each kit if you are prepaired to get your hands dirty, maybe not in the Superior Drummer of BFD league but still very powerful, you do however have to work at it one drum at a time.
 
If you are looking for a preset, stereo out, solution and you have Komplete have you tried Battery? This comes with a huge number of acoustic and electronic kits. (130 in battery 4) Maybe you can find something close there. I have not spent much time with Battery and as I said I am a long way from my DAW now, but I would not be surprised if there is not a Reggae preset of two in there.
 
The only other out of the box solution I can think of is BFD Eco, which I am sure has some Reggae presets, however they still may not be the flavour of reggae sound you are looking for.