Recording - January 2016 - 39

of HZ Percussion, wherein you'll find
three sets of the same instruments, each
with different mic and mix choices made
by an artist, either Hans Zimmer or one
of his award-winning colleagues. I'm usually skeptical of arrangements like this,
so I wanted to compare specific instruments from each.
A while later, having only compared
one instrument ("HZ01 Buckets"), I had to
peruse the manual to better understand
what I was hearing, where I learned that
over 90 mics were employed in this particular session. This is where it started to
click just what Spitfire means by 'deeply
sampled'-listening to the different artist
mixes is an eye-opening lesson on the
role of perspective in recording. And
that's just where things start, where each
artist patch has multiple mic positions to
choose from and blend. Even futher, if
you pull up the individual patch for an
instrument from Additional Mics, even
more mic positions and perspectives are
at your diposal.
There's nowhere near enough space in
this review to cover just how tweakable
everything is, but it's worth taking a look
at the online documentation to get the
picture. No less than 6 dynamic layers,
9x round robin (with tweakable behavior
on many patches), Easy Tweaks control
(HP/LP filters), response curves,

keyswitch mapping, note remapping,
and so much more-there's even an
extra gain stage for mic trim so you can
setup a relative mix of mic positions and
then automate the trims to explore shifting perspective (something Hans clearly
loves) without losing the relative mix.
If you take the time to dig into HZ
Percussion, the way you think about percussion in your scores is likely to change,
and there are very few libraries I can say
that about.

Inspiration

list' percussion libraries, I knew I had to
check it out. I must say, though, that this
collection goes much farther than I
imagined, into the realm of inspiration.
This should not be surprising, given
Spitfire's pedigree and lofty stated goal
with this collection ("to try and do something historical").
HZ Percussion is not without its drawbacks, chief of which is the amount of time
you'll need to spend exploring and learning to be truly creative with it. However,
the fact that you can be truly creative with
it is itself quite an achievement.

I'll be honest and say that Spitfire's
HZ Percussion had been on my list for a
while before the opportunity came to
review it. After asking several colleagues about their 'go to' and 'wish

Jon Hillman (hillman@recordingmag.com)
is a game audio composer and sound
designer living and working in northern
Colorado. Learn more at jonhillman.com.

Delivery: Download or Physical Hard Drive (add £69), HZ01 ~136 GB,
HZ02 ~26 GB, HZ03 ~29 GB (compressed sizes)
Format: Windows 7+ and Mac OS X 10.8+, loads in Native Instruments
Kontakt 5 (latest version recommended) or in free Kontakt Player
Copy Protection: Requires Kontakt, uses NI Service Center serial number
Licensing: Sounds can be used royalty-free in original music recordings; no
resale or repackaging in products for resale permitted
Documentation: inline contextual help, online user manual
Price: HZ01 London Ensemble £399 GBP (~$615 USD), HZ02 Jason Bonham &
HZ03 London Soloists £199 GBP (~$305 USD) each
More from: Spitfire Audio, www.spitfireaudio.com
http://www.jonhillman.com http://www.spitfireaudio.com http://www.CRAS.EDU http://www.audiorecordingschool.com/consumer.html
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - January 2016
