On Tuesday, October 21, 2003, at 07:42 AM, Carl Edlund Anderson wrote:
At 22:48 20-10-03, Mike Carlyle wrote:
Edit the sounds for length and volume. After a quick test-run with a new kit using some of the ns_kit sounds, I discovered that the volume on playback was very weak as compared to a similar instrument from Ben's Kit. I decided to pump it up a bit. I used Peak to open each sound I wanted to amplify, and I determined a volume increase through trial and error. After I figured out the volume I wanted to use, I simply applied it to each successive sound file without even listening to it as a time saving measure. It worked out OK, although there remains a slight imbalance with certain instruments, to my ear.
OK, I think I've noticed this, too (I'm trying to remember where ... perhaps on some of the toms? and maybe one of the cymbals?). This is one of the things that led me to wonder about what you had done to assemble the kit version.
Yes, some of the splash cymbals are a little hot. The toms are OK, but I'l like them louder overall.
However, on my machine at least, I have to drop Doggiebox's output volume quite a bit to get WAV/AIFF files that don't have nasty peaking on them, so perhaps I should start messing around with a ns_kit version with less "volume enhanced" versions of the samples. Perhaps this sort of thing varies by machine? Though I can't think of a sensible reason why it should.
Actually, I think that in my case, the drums are still soft compared to Ben's kit even though I also have to reduce the output on export.
I started to realize that some sounds had a very long decay that caused the file size of the saved kit to grow rapidly. I realized that I was reaching a point of diminishing returns. Would the very long, natural decay of a ride or a crash or a snare spring rattle really add to my sound's realism? I decided that much of this would be masked in a final mix, so I began to shorten and fade to zero on a lot of the longer sounds. I was able to radically reduce the file size of the final kit in the long run. To this day, it remains annoying that I have to wait for a ride cymbal to finish ringing on a pattern in order to get on with programming.
Though it sounds good on the final, ringing cymbal crash at the end of a track :) Leaving file-size aside, couldn't one simply hit "stop" to get on with programming? :)
You would think so, but it doesn't respond as quickly as that. I have made a habit of using the spacebar, the de facto default key for most recording applications stop/start. Frustratingly, the spacebar doesn't usually stop the ns_kit sounds from playing, although mouse clicking the "stop" button would.
Put it all together. I'm sure you know the mechanics of building a kit. It's pretty simple. I guess the key was my decision to create one instrument per collection of velocities, rather than a whole bunch of different instruments. It seemed a no-brainer to me. I chose the loudest one for the default, and named the others in such a way that their variance coincided with the velocity level of the ns_kit original sample (numbers ranging from 1 to whatever).
I had been thinking about making the second-loudest the default so that, in case I wanted a special accent, I could reach for something that was (a la Spinal Tap ;) "one louder".
This is not a bad idea. I don't know why I didn't go that way. It's easily adjusted, I suppose.