The Black Keys’ Patrick Carney teams up with Steven Slate Drums for SSD Expansion Pack

There’s no shortage of huge-sounding drum sample packs for us to play from our electronic drum sets geared towards heavier styles. However, there's less choice when it comes to more ‘organic’, vintage-type drum sounds. That’s set to change, though, as Steven Slate Drums has announced its new Patrick Carney Expansion Pack for SSD and Trigger in collaboration with the Black Keys drummer.

The samples are based around two of Patrick’s favourite kits - a ‘60s Gretsch Round Badge and ‘70s Ludwig Vistalite, and a range of vintage snares and cymbals. The sounds were all captured in Carney’s private studio using vintage microphones, outboard gear and techniques to create what Steven Slate Drums is claiming to be the dirtiest, fattest, most vibey vintage drums on the planet.

If the audio examples are anything to go by, we don’t think they’re exaggerating, aping the characteristic sonics of Carney’s drum sound on Black Keys recordings with some tasteful vintage drum sounds.

Included in the pack are 12 kit presets and 18 Trigger presets, both recorded by Patrick Carney. These are made up of 4 kicks, 4 snares, 16 toms, 4 hi-hats, 20 crash cymbals and 4 ride cymbals, and includes samples captured off Patrick’s ’60s EMT 140 reverb plate. All samples are offered in processed and raw formats for SSD drums, with the drums-only offered in both formats for Trigger.

Of course, this is an add-on so you’ll need to own Steven Slate Drums or SSD Trigger in order to use the samples, but with Slate’s rent-to-buy scheme, you can essentially get the host SSD 5 software on tick for just $9.99 a month, then once the 12 months are up you’ll own it outright.

The Steven Slate Drums Patrick Carney Expansion Pack is available now, with SSD and Trigger versions included for $79.