Hans Zimmer Percussion

Produced By The Legend Hans Zimmer

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.

Spitfire Audio are delighted and honoured to present this library in conjunction with him and his team of GRAMMY-winning engineers, musicians and technicians. Where Hans Zimmer’s style and approach to sonic creation is often copied or emulated, we're proud to release his authorised take on cinematic percussion production. Herein lies not an emulation or synthesis of his approach, but a recreation; the same studio, musicians, instruments, signal chain and talented engineers, sitting alongside a decade of experience, innovation and refinement, overseen in every detail by Hans himself; the same excruciating attention to detail and perfection but, most importantly, the endless choice for customisation you'd expect from Spitfire.

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. This includes his classic selection of 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.

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.

Instruments played by Paul Clarvis include: Bucket, Snare, Crusher, Paper Djun, Tombek, Dohl, Darbuca, Surdu, Darbucket.

The Blockbuster Sound

As in many of Hans’ scores, this library is recorded 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.