Digidesign Advanced Instrument Research Group Ships Strike: Virtual Drummer for Pro Tools

Aug 06, 2006

Click image for closeup

The Digidesign Advanced Instrument Research (AIR) group is now shipping Strike™, the third in its new line of highly-optimized RTAS virtual instrument plug-ins for Pro Tools|HD®, Pro Tools LE™ and Pro Tools M-Powered™ customers. Strike is a deep and powerful plug-in for easy creation and control of professional-sounding, realistic virtual drum performances from within Pro Tools 7 (or higher) software.

Getting a desired groove with Strike is as simple as choosing one of the high-definition kits and telling the "virtual" drummer how to play. For example, Strike users can simply adjust the playing intensity, complexity, timing, groove, dynamics, and much more—all in real time. Strike also allows them to use the automation features in Pro Tools, connect a MIDI controller to tweak a performance on the fly, or gain ultimate control with a Digidesign Command|8®, Control|24™, or ICON integrated console.

Strike's proprietary realtime performance engine eliminates the mechanized artifacts of typical sample-playback devices to deliver human results with unparalleled realism. This incredible range of sonic detail is brought out in each of Strike's five high-resolution drum kits, which contain 12 drum sounds with up to 300 samples per instrument. Users can quickly drum up professional-sounding performances in a variety of musical styles using 1,500 preset patterns, which can be further customized with the onboard Style Editor. By triggering Strike directly from Pro Tools software, this versatile instrument can even be used as a high-resolution drum module.

To give users greater control over the drum kit, Strike includes a built-in multi-channel mixing console. Users can tweak everything from microphone leakage to room ambience while taking advantage of 3-band EQ and two Insert effects processors per channel. Strike's onboard effects cover everything from reverb and dynamics to specialized tools like bit crusher and filter. The onboard mixer makes it easy to adjust the overall level and panning for each drum and route individual sounds to separate mixer channels in Pro Tools software.

Strike is available now via authorized Digidesign dealer and through the online DigiStore for $299 US MSRP.

For more information, visit their web site at www.digidesign.com.