Black Pearl Drumkits Expanded

[GMaq]

Hi,

I recently did a fresh round of drum sampling and have added to and expanded the original Black Pearl 4pc. drumkit. The changes are essentially an alternate 4pc. kit with different kick, snare and a new Sabian AAX Xplosion 20" Ride. The snare in the original kit had an Evans double-ply batter head which had a warm sound with short sustain, the alternate snare has a fresh single-ply Remo Ambassador batter head which is known for bright sound and longer sustain so it really comes down to personal taste... In addition I have created a 5pc. drumkit with the second tom that originally came with the kit for those who may want more toms.



As before the kits are provided in H2, SFZ and Soundfont2 formats with 5 separately sampled velocity layers per piece... before the summer is over I hope to create a Drumgizmo version as well but that requires completely re-recording everything with multiple mics...

These kits are all my own samples and released GPL so there are no license worries..

Get 'em here:

http://bandshed.net/avldrumkits/index.html

[antiesen]

Thanks for it, sounds nice. There is a typing error in sfz in 4pc alt and 5pc: 38-Snare22-2.wav.

[GMaq]

Duh!

Uploaded the wrong zip... fixed and uploaded. Sorry about that

[lazyklimm]

awesome work, thanks, I can't remember any free drum sample bank with rotos

Will there be a round-robin version (yes, hydrogen doesn't support RRs, but sfz does)?

[GMaq]

Hi lazyklimm

I think with the sample 'stepping' in these kits that round-robin would sound kinda goofy, I am primarily a Hydrogen user so I think in those terms. I know Salamander does the r-r thing very well but it also has far more similar sounding samples per-piece and therefore is a much larger library.

If I get time and ambition to do a Drumgizmo version then I will have a much greater bank of samples to work from which will lend themselves better to a r-r type of scenario.

[funkmuscle]

possible dumb question but I can't let pride get in the way of knowledge. What is 'round-robin'?

[GMaq]

possible dumb question but I can't let pride get in the way of knowledge. What is 'round-robin'?

Asking a question when you don't know is never dumb...quite the opposite

Suppose I hit a MIDI note at a velocity of 100 and I have a certain specific sample that will be played within a velocity range of 90-110, that specific sample will always sound whenever I hit that note as long as the velocity is between 90-110. If you have a round-robin setup then it's possible to have more than one sample get played at that velocity so in effect I hit the key once and 'sample a' plays, I hit the key again at the same velocity and 'sample b' plays instead..

The 'advantage' is that you don't get the exact same sample playing every time you hit a key (or drum pad) at the same velocity so there is a bit of variability in the sounds played which can potentially sound more natural. In a drumkit the round-robin samples will always have to be of the same kit piece and at a similar amplitude so although there are subtle differences the differences can't be too large or it will sound weird.

In my opinion 90% of the battle is having good realistic samples at different velocity layers and taking care when programming, round-robin can certainly make some difference but is subtle at best...

[funkmuscle]

thanx Glen. So I made a huge kit with Salamandar for Hydrogen. How would I get that effect of the round-robin?

[lazyklimm]

Asking a question when you don't know is never dumb...quite the opposite

sometimes it's faster to ask google :]

or it will sound weird.

it will sound like a not very good drummer

In my opinion 90% of the battle is having good realistic samples at different velocity layers and taking care when programming, round-robin can certainly make some difference but is subtle at best...

I do not agree, fast drum rolls without round robins sounds plastic, drum-machine like, or you have to make much more velocity layers.

[lazyklimm]

thanx Glen. So I made a huge kit with Salamandar for Hydrogen. How would I get that effect of the round-robin?

as i said before, hydrogen doesn't support roundrobin samples, but you can use it like sequencer driving linuxsampler with SFZ banks downloaded

[GMaq]

I do not agree, fast drum rolls without round robins sounds plastic, drum-machine like, or you have to make much more velocity layers.

Yes possibly, however I also compensate for this by having multiple samples of the same kit piece (ie snare, snare-edge tom, tom edge) so for example tom1 has 5 center hit samples at various hit velocities and 5 edge hit samples at various hit velocities. Even in Hydrogen without round-robin that allows for a lot of timbral possibilities in the programming...

Here is the demo of the original 4pc kit, I did it in less than 10 minutes in Hydrogen and mastered it in Ardour. I don't think the drum rolls sound plastic and I don't think having round-robin samples would make it sound any better in the time spent: http://bandshed.net/music/BlackPearl4pcDEMO.mp3

I don't disagree that round-robin can be a benefit, obviously it can however how the kit is laid out and sampled can also be used create a similar effect and be equally effective depending on your workflow and knowledge of how drummers actually play..

[funkmuscle]

I get pretty real sounding drums with Hydrogen using the humanizer, velocity and the Lead and Lag when using a layered kit..
I will try the sfz Salamandar kit in Linuxsampler...

[GMaq]

Hi,

Added a convenience ZIP of single samples for use in drum samplers and programs like LMMS, EnergyXT and Renoise, link in first post...

[GMaq]

Hi,

Modded and improved the snare samples in the original 4 piece kit which now has 'R1' appended to it in all formats, I also added the fixed snare samples to the single samples pack.

Links are updated in first post...

[bazsound]

it can be quite difficult to get convincing sounding drums when using samples especially with faster patterns and fills . good samples with layers make a huge difference however the faster fills are usually the give away.

Ive even noticed it on electronic drumkits with people playing them especially on toms. As soon as you do fast 16th not or 32nd not files it becomes obvioulsy electronic. Even with the more expensive brains like the td12 or 20.

Im guessing trying to recreate the sound of 1 note being played then muted by the next hit would be quite difficult .

1 thing ive thought of, is it possible to have 2 samples play at same time? As in have an overhead sound for every drum? or would that cause too many problems.

ive downloaded the samples, looking forward to trying them having decent samples makes a huge difference, i have a couple of sfz drumkits there simple but the samples are good and make for actually a pretty convincing acoustic drumset.