SPITFIRE AUDIO Hans Zimmer Percussion

The ultimate cinematic drum sample library

Spitfire Audio joins forces with the biggest name in film scoring to produce the ultimate drum sample library for cinematic percussion. Featuring the ensembles and solo instruments used by Oscar-winning Hans Zimmer in his blockbuster scores, we've drawn on his years of creativity and studio experimentation to give you all you need to create epic drum composition.

From tombeks to taikos, playing from whisperingly quiet to thunderously loud, we’ve worked with Hans' Grammy award-winning team to capture the highest quality recordings, featuring the same players in Lyndhurst Hall at AIR Studios where Hans records his biggest scores, all mixed and produced by the man himself.

Produced by the master of film scoring

Hans Zimmer is one of the most successful, influential and prolific film composers of his generation. Having won countless awards including Oscars, his scores for films including Gladiator, Inception, Interstellar, The Dark Knight and Dunkirk he is considered one of the greatest living film composers. Hans has defined not only a compositional style, but also a production approach and sonic innovation that has influenced a generation of composers.

Made in close collaboration with Hans Zimmer and his team of Grammy-winning engineers, musicians and technicians, we present Hans Zimmer's expert, authorised take on cinematic percussion production. Herein lies not an emulation or synthesis of his approach, but a recreation; the same world class studio, musicians, instruments, signal chain and engineers, overseen in every detail by Hans himself with the same attention to detail and perfection, coupled with Spitfire's pioneering technology designed to offer you ultimate creative customisation.

The blockbuster sound

As in many of Hans’ scores, this library is recorded in Lyndhurst Hall at AIR Studios via an impressive signal chain: 96 rarefied microphones into Neve Montserrat preamps, into the world's biggest Neve 88R desk (which was exhaustively regained at every dynamic layer for optimum signal quality), via a dual chain to HDX and Prism converters running at 192k. We have recorded the drums and articulations each with up to 9 round robins and 6 dynamic layers per hit, resulting in well over 30 TB of raw material from these sessions alone. The library consists of close, room and ambient perspectives mixed by Hans Zimmer himself.

London ensembles and solos

Hans Zimmer Percussion combines the output from two extraordinary recording blocks. Material from the “London Ensembles” block features four of Hans’ go-to percussionists — Frank Ricotti, Gary Kettel, Stephen Henderson, and Paul Clarvis — performing a variety of instruments and styles, in what is essentially a distillation of over a decade's worth of musical experimentation and innovation.

The remainder of the library features long-term Hans collaborator and percussion legend, Paul Clarvis (Spectre, The Dark Knight, Harry Potter, Star Wars) who plays a beautiful selection of solo instruments that offer added bite, detail, focus, clarity and nuance to this epic series. Hans loves the quiet layers more than any other so as well as the bitey thunder you'd expect, lower layers offer up the potential for engaging delicate drum programming to give your cues momentum.

Drum ensembles and key solo instruments

Low Booms, Low Boom Gallery, Taiko Ensemble, Tamtam Ensemble, Boobams Ensemble, Hi Taiko Solo, Low Taiko Solo, Large Taiko Solo, Bass Drum Gallery Solo, Gong Drum Gallery Solo, Surdu Ensemble, Dohl Ensemble, Tombek Ensemble, Bombo Ensemble, Buckets & Snares Ensemble, Buckets & Crushers Ensemble, Bucket Top & Darbuka, Paper Djun, Piatti, Anvils, Timpani Ensemble.

Instruments played by Paul Clarvis

Bucket, Snare, Crusher, Paper Djun, Tombek, Dohl, Darbuca, Surdu, Darbucket.

Kickstart engine

This interface is built especially for our percussive libraries to make it easy to map sounds to any connected MIDI interface. It also includes the microphone mixer and available feature controllers.

Kickstart 2

An additional kickstart interface for the timpani allowing you to play the full range of these instruments in a separate patch.