On Monday, October 20, 2003, at 11:55 AM, Carl Edlund Anderson wrote:
At 13:07 10-10-03, Michael Carlyle wrote:
ps - speaking of custom kits, Mike C: do you have any notes on how you put together your ns_kit version? I figure the next best thing to a legally downloadable dbkit version of ns_kit would be a "recipe" DB users could follow so that everyone could get themselves more or less on the same page when swapping dbsong files that use such kits.
This is a good idea, although the details should really be no secret. I'll work on this later on when I get home and try to post something to the list.
I'm just going to ask about this again :) Mostly because I've messing around with kit-building and varying your version in different ways, but am interested in knowing how you went about getting there in the first place :)
Thanks for the reminder, Carl Here's a synopsis: After downloading and inspecting the zipped files from ns_kit, I realized that the makings of a very nice Doggiebox project were there, although the files seem directed more towards midi instrument users. As I recall, I was immediately reminded about the true nature of velocity variances. As you know, the volume an instrument produces is only one of several complex variables that change with the velocity of the strike. The ns_kit sounds contain many recorded samples for each instrument, each one actually struck at a gradually reduced (or increased, depending on your point of view) impact strength. The ride cymbal, toms, and kick drums, in particular, sound almost completely different than each's loudest velocity strike. Since I was aiming to create lifelike fills and add subtle, human characteristics to my patterns, it seemed like the perfect set of sounds. Step by step, here's what I did: Unpack and inspect the sounds. I used mostly Amadeus (an unregistered shareware product I sometimes play with) and Bias Peak. to do my overview and editing of the sounds. This was quite time consuming, but I wanted to listen to everything. Select the sounds I wanted to use. Rather than create a kit that contained each and every sample provided by ns_kit, I thought I'd take a representative selection that covered the entire velocity spectrum. So, instead of having say, a ride bell that ranged from 1 through 8, I chose, perhaps, 2,4,5, and 7 or whatever struck my ear as being the most useful sounds. This took time. I didn't want to leave anything important out, tonally, but I also did not want to overwhelm myself with choices when using the kit. Also, as you may already have seen, a DB kit becomes larger in direct proportion to the number and length of the sampled sounds you feed it. 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. (This is why I've repeatedly chimed in about the ability to export multi-instrument files so I can mix them later). 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. Create kit graphics. Since my employment background includes the almost daily use of applications such as Adobe's Illustrator and Photoshop, this wasn't too difficult for me. I think I decided to stick with PDF as the kit format. Organizing and deciding upon a naming convention for the files is essential in order to locate these as you're ready to apply one to a kit instrument. I used color to help me quickly identify a sound in the pattern window. I also used some bits of text to help me understand which velocity was used. 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). The only tricky part was the hi-hat due to the inherent "muting" practice one must follow to get sounds to shut off when others kick in. I do have a situation where the ride cymbal gets muted by one of the hi-hats. I work around this for now. All in all, I'm fairly satisfied. I do adjust volumes and re-import individual sounds back into the kit now and then. I also want to play with the non-muted versions of the snare drum. He calls these rim-shot, but I think this might be a misnomer.