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.  
  
 

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.

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.

get yourself dub siren vst also..  but it's partly fx processing to get the sound. d16 do some nice plugins for such things.

bit, where in London where you ? I grew up in an area well known for the music.. I guess there is maybe another 3-4 area's well know for it.

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.