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. 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. Might be possible to twiddle such minor volume details using Doggiebox's kit editor volume thingy .....
(This is why I've repeatedly chimed in about the ability to export multi-instrument files so I can mix them later).
This would certainly be a useful feature, though I think I'll need a lot more mixing experience before I reach the stage where I want to mess about with this. Since I'm mixing on a external device, here's where my hoped-for MIDI support would come in handy, since then I could sync Doggiebox directly to my recording module and record different pieces of the percussion track with everything starting and stopping at the same place (instead of outputing to a WAV file and then playing that in iTunes while my recording device hums away in its corner ;) Hmmm, I have a friend with an Apple Developer Connection -- I wonder if he has some Developer literature on how Apple's MIDI support API-stuff works ....
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? :)
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.
Works quite well, I think. I copied and edited your icons in PhotoShop myself when messing around with adding new voices.
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". It's really fabulous having access to a whole bunch of different velocities. You can hear the difference immediately on things like little "kick drum shuffles" with a lower velocity "grace note" precedes a full-on hit. It starts to sound noticeably more realistic than with a mono-velocity sample. I have been thinking I would increase the range of velocities available for things like the high-hat and ride, though. I haven't tried yet, but I think that perhaps even very small velocity variations would reduce the machine-feel of those kinds of sounds (more so than for the regular drums).
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.
I noticed something like this the other day where I had a 4/4 pattern with a crash on beat 1 followed by an eighth-note ride pattern through the rest of the measure. I wanted to ad a splash on beat 2, but it sounded really wrong until I realized I still had a ride hit there too (beat 1 had the crash alone, without the ride). I suppose non-Def-Leppard, 2-handed drummer could hit the splash and ride simultaneously, but in this case everything sounded fine when I took away the ride hit on beat 2, leaving only the splash.
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.
Yes, I downloaded the ns_kit snare WAVs, and couldn't quite figure out whether they really were what they said they were. Given the apparently limited bandwidth the ns_kit dude has, it's a shame he hasn't sanctioned a GPLish approach to using the kit. I can see a real boon to music-makers in making one or more dbkits of ns_kit available -- much as pre-compiled soundfonts are available on the ns_kit site. The ns_kit wants a GPLish license to ensure his creation remains credited and its commercial use in controlled, but so that users have a bit more flexibility. Until then, I'm thinking more about how to put together dbkit "recipes" so that Doggiebox users can assemble their own versions to work with shared dbsong files. Cheers, Carl ps - As an aside, though I'm completely broke at the moment :) I've been eyeing Sampleheads' "Mark Walker: Latin Drums" <http://www.sampleheads.com/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/products/rota/rota.html?L+scstore+vczm7502ff2b6b2b+1066756251>, particularly the subsection "Latin Kit A: a full Latin Kit with lots of samples and velocity switches", which can be downloaded as WAV files for only 25 bucks -- which ain't so much, really. Obviously, I couldn't legally redistribute it, but I could certainly write up a dbrecipe which others who bought the samples could then follow to put together a multi-velocity Latin dbkit on their own. -- Carl Edlund Anderson mailto:cea@carlaz.com http://www.carlaz.com/