Handy Drums- JOHN BONHAM STYLE

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$35.00

Behold the magnificent Handy Drums JOHN BONHAM STYLE – where the sound of the drums is not just remarkable but an experience in itself.

 

The large open kick sound, contrasted by the higher-pitched crack of the snare drum, with plenty of room ambiance, can best be described as that “John Bonham-style” drum sound.

 

We sampled a large vintage ’71 Ludwig kit with a natural ambiance and used modern production techniques to capture the essence of the “Bonzo” sound. No artificial reverb was added, giving you an authentic experience.

 

The large kick drum produces a massive sound that can shake the whole room. We recorded this using a series of room mics to provide a fully immersive listening experience, resulting in a wide stereo image from the kick while maintaining a well-centered bottom end. Snare has a woody sound with a musical “crack” as part of its natural attack.

 

This drum set is an excellent alternative to the Rock Standard virtual drumset and is perfect for any acoustic or singer-songwriter-style track. It is also an excellent option for modern R&B (think Umbrella, One Thing, etc.) or Hip Hop due to its hefty, all-enveloping roomy kick. Add some saturation in the post, and it opens up a whole new range of styles for which it can provide a solid foundation.

 

Disclosure: While the sound of this virtual drumset was inspired by the sound of the legendary drummer of Led Zeppelin, it is not an exact replica, nor does it attempt to be. “John Bonham” is used solely as a stylistic reference. The producer of this product reserves the creative freedom and decision-making for the final sound of this virtual instrument.

 

This product is included in the Producer Collection plugin bundle.

Type: Virtual Instruments

Size: 662MB

Producer:

 Goran Rista

Format: VST/AU/AAX/Standalone

Genre: ROCK

Platform:

(Win 7+)  (MacOS 10.11+, dual binary)

When the budget is tight, but you need realistic-sounding, professional-quality drum tracks for your project, Handy Drums are here for you.

With stunning drum sound, mix-ready right out of the box, Handy Drums are the most practical, professional virtual drum instruments for your recording project.

PRE-MIXED, READY-TO-USE BONZO-STYLE DRUMS

What if you could hire highly professional and experienced recording and mixing engineers to focus only on replicating a legendary classic drum sound for your track at no extra cost giving you the freedom and time to focus purely on your music? With Handy Drums John Bonham Style plugin, you get just that in a box!

 

We invested hours upon hours carefully replicating, editing, and mixing these classic drums from multitrack recordings, so you don’t have to.

 

Achieving a fantastic drum sound takes significant effort, even when you are highly skilled for the task and have the best quality drum recording to begin with.

 

With just the right blend of close mics, overheads, and room mics, expertly sculpted for a robust, punchy, natural-sounding drum set, it will sit right into your mix!

 

Every kit and percussion setup has a very balanced sound–not too hyped and not too dry.
RECORDING MAGAZINE

 

Brilliantly recorded, mix-ready kits.
COMPUTER MUSIC

 

Without exception, the kits sound really good; this is mix‑ready stuff with a minimum of fuss.
SOUND ON SOUND

EASY TO USE AND MANIPULATE

Laptop computer screen in the background with Handy Drums plugin on display, with a steaming cup of coffee in the foreground.

EASY TO USE AND MANIPULATE

Load the drum plugin, drop in your favorite midi drum groove, and you’re off!- ready to rock! We did the heavy lifting for you—a finished drum sound right out of the box. You are free to focus on the musical aspects of the drum track.

 

Make the tweaks using the intuitive interface.

 

Handy Drums reminds a bit of the Drummer VST baked into Apple Logic Pro. Namely, there is a similar simplicity and immediacy to the results.
RECORDING MAGAZINE

 

I could easily imagine a Handy Drums instrument making a no‑fuss sound module, whether in the studio or live.
SOUND ON SOUND

AWARD-WINNING PEDIGREE

award icon with blurry beat buddy pedal in the background

Drum sounds behind the hit drum machine are here for your DAW!

 

Goran Rista, the producer of Handy Drums, used the same meticulous recording and production techniques he did for BeatBuddy’s original drumsets, an award-winning, best-selling drum machine.

 

The revered drum sounds that have made the BeatBuddy such a hit with live performers are now available in their expanded versions for your recording needs.

award icon with blurry beat buddy pedal in the background
Computer Music Innovation Award to Handy Drums plugins by GoranGrooves

Also impressive was the John Bonham Style kit. No, it’s not quite ‘When The Levee Breaks’,
but it has a more ambient sound and makes a great rock choice.

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SOUND ON SOUND

Brilliantly recorded, mix-ready kits. Handy Drums might just rock your world…

        

COMPUTER MUSIC

The John Bonham kit sounds appropriately huge and authentic to the legendary Bonzo style.
This plugin delivered the iconic sound and brought a smile to my face.

        

RECORDING MAGAZINE

Handy Drums – Perhaps The Simplest Drum VI Around

PRODUCTION EXPERT

VERIFIED CUSTOMER REVIEWS

UNBEATABLE VALUE

UNBEATABLE VALUE

We believe that your budget should not influence and stifle your creativity. Everyone should have the best tools possible available to them and allow their creativity to make the difference and be the only limiting factor in making music.

 

That is why we priced the Handy Drums range to be affordable to anyone. These virtual drum instruments are the best value you’ll find anywhere.

 

…they are an absolute steal given just how good they sound.
SOUND ON SOUND

3RD PARTY SAMPLERS NOT REQUIRED

No more pain trying to work out if your sample bank is compatible with your sampler, or finding out that you need a costly full version of sampler, or dealing with inconsistent updates that may make one or the other outdated, or any other numerous complex and expensive issues that could arise when needing an additional sampler when all you want to do is get working on music.

 

Like all our Handy Drums plug-ins, the JOHN BONHAM STYLE drumset is self-contained and comes with multiple powerful samplers built-in. Load it like any standard VST/AU plugin or a stand-alone app.


This saves you a lot of money and time as you can be up and running in minutes.

Kontakt sampler crossed out not used
EXS24 sampler crossed out not used
HALion sampler crossed out not used
MACHFIVE Sampler crossed out

No more pain trying to work out if your sample bank is compatible with your sampler, or finding out that you need a costly full version of sampler, or dealing with inconsistent updates that may make one or the other outdated, or any other numerous complex and expensive issues that could arise when needing an additional sampler when all you want to do is get working on music.

 

Like all our Handy Drums plug-ins, the JOHN BONHAM STYLE drumset is self-contained and comes with multiple powerful samplers built-in. Load it like any standard VST/AU plugin or a stand-alone app.


This saves you a lot of money and time as you can be up and running in minutes.

PERFECT COMPANIONS- HANDY GROOVES

Rock Music hand gesture, holding a pair of sticks with wings and electric guitars in the background- 3d box product artwork

Use them as they are or as a starting point for your own grooves.

 

Pair Handy Drums with one of our Handy Grooves, MIDI drum loop packages for an instant WOW. All of our midi drum loops have been produced by world-class drummer-producers and tailored to work specifically with Handy Drums plugins.

 

Pairing the Rock Drums MIDI pack with the John Bonham kit sounds great and gets you right where you need to be in building a rock tune.
RECORDING MAGAZINE

 

Unless you are a dab hand at programming your own drum parts, these are a great complement to the instruments themselves.
SOUND ON SOUND

Rock Music hand gesture, holding a pair of sticks with wings and electric guitars in the background- 3d box product artwork

FEATURES

PRACTICAL, INTUITIVE, EASY-TO-USE INTERFACE

PRACTICAL, INTUITIVE, EASY-TO-USE INTERFACE

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 

Handy Drums do not require a complicated manual to use. An elaborate design of over 50 samplers and smart algorithms power your seamless experience behind the simple user interface.

 

Access all of the essential functions intuitively.

 

Simple and immediate UI saves time.
COMPUTER MUSIC

MULTIPLE DYNAMIC LEVELS

Each drum and cymbal was sampled at multiple dynamic levels to ensure the instrument’s fullest dynamic range when played back. Handy Drums JOHN BONHAM STYLE contains up to 11 dynamic levels.

 

The samples respond accordingly with a very realistic sound and response.
RECORDING MAGAZINE

 

Throughout our tests, we never noticed any clipping or struggling to keep pace with our shifting tempo, even when aggressively swinging between extreme bpm and more leisurely paced plods.
COMPUTER MUSIC

ROUND ROBIN

ROUND ROBIN

Up to 10 samples per dynamic level

 

When a drummer strikes a drum, each subsequential stroke is ever so slightly different from the one preceding, no matter how consistently they are played. That’s why our ear can instantly tell the difference between a roll played by a real drummer and a single sample being looped.

 

Each drum and cymbal has been sampled numerous times at every dynamic level. During a playback, no sample is repeated sequentially, but a different sample is triggered.

 

This culminates in the impression of a drummer hitting each drum with minor variations each time. Something many other ‘realistic’ VIs never quite nail.
COMPUTER MUSIC

24BIT SAMPLES

icon showing 24 bit audio recording graph

All Handy Drums samples come in 24bit format for the ultimate resolution and sound quality.

icon showing 24 bit audio recording graph

IMMACULATELY-SAMPLED ACOUSTIC DRUMS

Earthworks microphone recording overhead O/H drums

IMMACULATELY-SAMPLED ACOUSTIC DRUMS

To achieve larger-than-life yet completely natural-sounding drums, every step of the sampling process is critical. Starting with the drum tuning, drums were carefully treated before even a single note was played. 

 

They are captured using the highest-quality mics, preamps, and converters to preserve every minute detail.

UNPARALLELED REALISM FROM VIRTUAL DRUMS

Drum set with kick drum sticking out from computer screen

Sound so natural; you can almost touch them!

 

Handy Drums sound like an actual drumset being played right in front of you in a room instead of a bunch of individual drums sounding in their own isolated spaces. 

 

We achieved realism by recording the full breadth of acoustic drums and their natural ambiance, then meticulously edited and mixed them in the post-production.

 

The sound is very much like you are listening to the drums within a beautifully treated, compact studio room.
SOUND ON SOUND

Drum set with kick drum sticking out from computer screen

VARIETY OF FORMATS

windows icon
Virtual Sampled Drums Compatible with MAC OS icon
icon-M1
icon-M2
VST3 icon: Virtual Sampled Drums available in VST format icon
Audio Units icon: Virtual Sampled Drums available in Audio Units format icon
AAX format for Pro Tools, icon
64 bit DAW plugin icon
Icon for standalone apps for PC and Mac

Handy Drums are compatible with all DAWs that support virtual instrument plugins in either VST2, VST3, AU, AAX.

They are available in 64bit for both Windows and MacOS. They come in dual binary for MacOS and can be run natively on systems equipped with either Intel or Apple silicon chips.

INCLUDED DRUM ELEMENTS

kick icon

kick

snare icon

snare

hats icon

hats

tom 1 icon

tom 1

tom 2 icon

tom 2

tom 3 icon

tom 3

tom 4

tom 4

ride icon

ride

crashes icon

crashes

splashes cymbal icon

splashes

handclaps icon

claps

tambourine icon

tamb.

cowbell square icon

cowbell

shaker icon

shaker

triangle icon

triangle

Finger snaps icon

snaps

Metronome / click icon

click

For the detailed drum mapping see GoranGrooves Standard Drum Map.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONALITIES

MIXER

MIXER

While the Handy Drums come pre-leveled between components, you still have an option to tweak and automate individual drum components to suit your mix. More kick or snare? No problem.

Adjustable Drum Mapping

Drum mapping for Handy Drums showing notes assigned to each component in sampler

Handy Drums conform to GM drum mapping wherever possible. Drop-in any standard midi drum loop onto your DAW timeline to hear instant results. Easily match the mapping of Handy Drums to any custom midi drum loop.

Drum mapping for Handy Drums showing notes assigned to each component in sampler

MULTIPLE OUTPUTS

MULTIPLE OUTPUTS

Use your favorite compression, reverb, EQ, distortion, or other FX plugins to further manipulate Handy Drums’ individual components. Output each drum component to any of the available eight stereo subgroups and independently process them.

Variable Hi-hats

Variable Hi Hats- What Are They And How To Utilize Them Within Handy Drums?

An acoustic hi-hat is a complex instrument in its own right. Handy Drums’s variable hi-hats utilize the full range of sampled hats from tightly closed to closed, 25% open, 50% open, 75% open, and 100% open, for both tip and edge sounds. 

 

Despite these 12 types of articulations, multiple dynamic ranges, and round robins, you can seamlessly switch from one to another using only TWO notes and a CC4 controller.

 

This approach streamlines something that was previously more of a time sink of assigning notes to each articulation.
COMPUTER MUSIC

 

…the hi‑hat mapping is nicely done, providing plenty of control over the degree of closed/open status of the cymbals.
SOUND ON SOUND

 

The variable Hi-hats alone contain over 700 samples!

 

In addition to variable hats, standard open/close/foot hats are also included for better compatibility with GM drum loops. As a bonus, included is foot splash hi-hat articulation on B1.

Variable Hi Hats- What Are They And How To Utilize Them Within Handy Drums?

Adjustable CC4 curve (variable hats foot controller)

Adjustable CC4 curve (variable hats foot controller)

For e-drummers who want to use Handy Drums, you can adjust your hi-hat foot controller curve. The curve is particularly beneficial for drum modules that do not output the full value range from 1-127.

Bonus Percussion

The JOHN BONHAM STYLE drumset comes with several bonus percussion elements, for additional colors and better compatibility with the rest of the Handy Drums range.

 

The following percussion instruments are included with their dedicated mixer tab:

Handclaps, fingersnaps, tambourine, cowbell, shaker, triangle, and metronome sounds.

Audition Buttons

Audition Buttons

Quickly preview the sounds of the drumset by clicking on the icons. They will play at random velocities.

Resizable GUI

John Bonham drums VST AU plugin can be scaled to fit different computer screens

Make the high-definition interface as large or as small as you need to suit your computer monitor best.

John Bonham drums VST AU plugin can be scaled to fit different computer screens

PERFECT FOR DRUM REPLACEMENT

Graphic of extracting hitpoints from wav file into midi loop and connecting to John Bonham sampled drums instrument

PERFECT FOR DRUM REPLACEMENT

In a perfect world, there would be no need for drum replacements. Unfortunately, as producers or sound mixers, we are sometimes handed drum recordings of substandard quality, so to rescue the mix, drum replacement becomes essential.

 

This sampled drum instrument makes for an ideal drum replacement contender. If your DAW can extract transients from an audio recording, it is a simple task to create a MIDI track from it and route it to the Handy Drums instrument. Instant punch and presence!

MEET THE DRUMMER PRODUCER- GORAN RISTA

Meet the drummer producer Goran Rista

Goran Rista is a professional session drummer and producer based out of Miami, FL, and founder of GoranGrooves.com.

 

He has produced over 25 virtual drum instruments, and over 13,000 midi drum beats and drum fills, making him one of the world’s most prolific drum loop producers.

 

Goran’s drum set libraries and drum loops are used by over 85,000 musicians and producers in both live and recording settings.

 

Read more here.

Meet the drummer producer Goran Rista

Ready to get grooving?

$35.00