Viscount From Mars - About

Overview

The Viscount R64 is 12bit PCM-based drum machine from the 1980s, often called “The Italian Lindrum” because of its punch and old school vibe. In reality, the Viscount is more Lo Fi, has 808-like cymbals, and 64 groovy factory patterns, making this rare drum machine a blast to play with. 

The R64 was released by Italian family-run musical instrument company Viscount in 1980 and seems to have truly disappeared into the ether of history. There’s almost nothing about the machine online, and by some accounts there may be less than 10 functional units left in existence. What we do know is that it is a 12bit PCM sample based rhythm box and that it is a lot of fun!

This pack is an extensive multi-sampling of the Viscount’s one-hits, factory loops, and additional tops and stripped patterns, making the Viscount From Mars suitable for your next Italo Disco adventure, or really anything that requires a funky, lo-fi drum machine groove! 

Notes:

Viscount Tuning:  There is an internal tune pot that we used to tune 5 variations for almost all of the drums (the toms and congas don’t tune for whatever reason). Standard tuning for these samples is 03. There is also a cymbal tone pot that we used to create 6 different variations of both the long cymbal and short cymbal (functionally hi hat).

Color Samples: For the Individual Hits the color samples were processed through Overstayer Saturator, API 2500, and API 560 EQ. We also included some versions of samples through the Viscount’s Phones output as it has a certain dirtiness and RMS boost that we liked.

Loops: We recorded all 64 loops with multiple variations, including full patterns, tops, and stripped options so you can layer to your heart’s content. We also included some pitch variations where we liked them. All loops were recorded at 120 BPM for usability and groove. Some of the stripped loops have “ghost” drums in them because the volume pots have old capacitors and resistors that don’t completely close the signal. We left these in because that is part of the fun quirk of a vintage machine like this.

Repaired Loops and Toms: One of the percussion pots on our machine has a particularly noticeable buzz, so we’ve included versions of the Toms, and Loops - where we’ve done some digital filtering work to lessen the buzz - which are labeled as Repaired.

Round Robins: We sampled 3 versions at each of the 6 tones, for the Short Cymbal - which functions as the hi hat on the Viscount.  These 3 samples work as “round robins” if you cycle randomly between them, emulating the subtle changes heard naturally on the machine itself.

	•	Full Patterns have both kick and snare / clap
	•	Tops are any variation of elements with no kick.
	•	Stripped is any variation of elements with no snare or clap.

WAV:

	•	(560) Unique Samples at 24 bit 44.1 kHz 
	•	(240) Individual Hits and (320) Loops
	•	(150) Repaired Loops
	•	(5) 16x Hit Kits
	•	Normalization and gain changes have been been applied to balance the volumes between drum hits - to balance the Hi Hats to the Kick Drum, for instance. Loudest samples are peaking at -0.5dB.

Naming Conventions:

Handclap Viscount Color 03

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Handclap - Drum Voice

Color - Processed version of sample

Viscount = Product Name

03 - Version within a group of related samples - in this case the 3rd tuning (we sampled 5 tunings for the Viscount - 03 is “Standard Tuning”)

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Ableton:

This was built with Ableton 9.77, so that it works for Ableton 9 and Ableton 10 users. If you are an Ableton 10 user, you may need to click the small “upgrade” for certain devices if you wish to edit them further. 

	•	(1) Individual Hits Rack ADG, (5) Drum Rack ADGs, all 320 Loops on 11 Tracks (Full, Tops, and Stripped) and an additional group of 150 Repaired Loops on 6 tracks

	•	Macros are as follows:

	Individual Hits:

	⁃	Pitch: Cycles through each of the 5 tuned samples for this voice
	⁃	Tone (Conga and Cymbal Only): Cycles through 5 (conga) or 6 (cymbal) tone variant samples for this voice
	⁃	Round Robin (Cymbal Short Only): Select number of samples the pad will randomly cycle through, from 1 (off) to 3 samples
	⁃	Type: Cycles between various different options for each voice, ranging from color options, headphone output, combo voices, and hi/lo versions of drum voices.
	⁃	Tune: Ableton’s pitch transpose, with max values of -48 to +48
	⁃	Comp (Cowbell, Tom and Clave): Dry/wet on a compressor with a 10:1 ratio and 20 ms attack and 25 ms release
	⁃	Decay: A combination of Amp Decay and Amp Release
	⁃	Cutoff: Ableton’s filter - set to Low Pass for all hits
	⁃	Reverb: Ableton’s reverb effect amount, with a saturator before the reverb device
	⁃	Reverb Decay: Ableton’s reverb time
	⁃	Volume: Mapped to Ableton’s Simpler/Sampler volume

	Kits:

	⁃	Tune: Ableton’s pitch transpose, with max values of -48 to +48
	⁃	Decay: A combination of Amp Decay and Amp Release
	⁃	Drive: Controls Drive amount and wet/dry mix of a Saturator device, with a Utility gain reduction
	⁃	Cutoff: Ableton’s filter - set to Low Pass for all hits
	⁃	Comp: Ableton’s Compressor - set to a 10:1 ratio, with the macro controlling the wet/dry mix for parallel compression
	⁃	Reverb: Ableton’s reverb effect amount, with a saturator before the reverb device
	⁃	Reverb Decay: Ableton’s reverb time
	⁃	Volume: Mapped to Ableton’s Simpler/Sampler volume

	Loop Tracks:

	⁃	Saturate: Controls Drive amount and wet/dry mix of a Saturator device, with a Utility gain reduction
	⁃	Drive: Controls the Drive amount on Ableton’s Auto Filter, set to LP 24 Type MS2
	⁃	Comp: Ableton’s Compressor - set to a 10:1 ratio, with the macro controlling the wet/dry mix for parallel compression
	⁃	Width: Controls stereo width on Ableton’s Utility device
	⁃	Isolate: Ableton’s Isolator, from Off to Low, Mid, and High
	⁃	Delay: Turns up the level of Ableton’s Filter Delay, in parallel	
	⁃	Delay Time: Controls the Delay time, set to Tempo Sync
	⁃	Volume: Mapped to Utility gain

	•	If you have Sampler, you can right click, convert the simpler to sampler to further edit these presets.

Logic EXS, Kontakt, Reason NN-XT, and SFZ:

	•	Contain (14) Individual Hits presets and (5) 16x hit Kits presets 

Reason Kong, Maschine, Battery:

	•	Contain (5) 16x hit Kits as presets

FL Studio:

	•	Contain (14) Individual Hits as DWP instruments

	•	Contain all (5) 16x hit Kits as FPC drum presets 

MPC 1000 & 2500:

	•	Contains 16 bit .WAV versions of all (5) 16x hit kits - separated into 2 .PGM drum programs.

MPC Live & MPC X:

   •	Contains 24 bit .WAV versions of all (5) 16x hit kits - separated into 2 .XPM drum programs.

MPC Expansion:

   •	Contains 24 bit .WAV versions of all (5) 16x hit kits - separated into 2 .XPM drum programs. Install with Akai MPC Software. 

Support
Contact info@samplesfrommars.com for support