yep. Someone should make a rain and thunderstorm plug...

i don't care if its sample based or synthesis or both.

there should be:
- a how much rain parameter
- near rain (individual drips)
- ambient rain
- thunder
- density
- near/far (this could be routed out to another output for further reverbation etc)


this whole idea could be taken even further with all elements.

wind storm water even sand and hailstorm. oceans etc.... rainforests...

i would be happy to be involved in the development as a GUI designer..

In this case I'd simply use a sampler.

Quite right, i can tell that, by my own personnal experimentation with samples of natural ambiances of any kind, there is a incredibly huge world to explore in there ¨

I can just highly recommand you to try a quite easy experimentation like this one :

-1) Using a DAT or a MD, just try to make a good take of a noisy wind (trought some trees for example,if you don't have the appropriate equipement, you can make a sample by CD extraction of some commercial CD's of natural soundscape )

-2) Then sample an single portion of 3 to 10 seconds in stereo (you don't really need so much to use a digital interface, just do your work properly, notice also that you don't absolutely need a stereo sample in a way that you can easily recreate convincing pseudo-stereo soundscapes ) .

-3) Within the sampler make a long, crossfaded loop on sample edit (or by default you can choose a loop point on a short silence..., you will notice that a long sample is needed by playing the highest key of your master keyboard : the artifact created by the loop getting shorter and shorter would be sounding too intensively on a short loop

-4) At least choose on program edit a very simple enveloppe: long attack, no decay, highest sustain and long release that you can reproduce wathever is the choosen sample (the only exception would be for staccato-like or explosive sounds like thunder or a single raindrop but right now i would be getting a bit off-topic !) You may also if you want hadd some velocity sensitivity on volume and/or filter cutoff (some low-pass with no resonnance or modulations , just keep in mind that before anything else the resulting sound must be a main contribution of the original sample itself !)

Now you just lay a hand from one side of the keyboard to another and listen carefully, you may have noticed that, just by using polyphonic transpositions of a lonely sample on all the keyboard, how all the timbral (and other psycho-acoustic) aspects may change deeply !

By experience i noticed many similarity listening to transposed soundscapes of, apparently, different nature (Examples you may easily experience by creating samples out on some commercial CD : Compare a children's diving into water played 2 octaves down with a thunder's sample...or a thunder's sample played 2 or 3 octaves up with the sound of a heavy footstep on a wet ground ,etc ,etc...)

In our particular case, i think that an experienced sound designer could do a very approaching job for a sampler if needed, what i can say by my side after a quick analyse is :

- as a "how much rain parameter" you may use an untransposed sample of some light and discreet rain (or a few raindrops but...) routed on a narrow part of your master keyboard (one octave for instance !) its then an easy job to "increase rain intensity" by playing as much keys as you want...eventally make velocity croosfade between two or more samples at different intensity of raining, coming from the same original take,

to me it looks very sensible because it is an appropriate use of the velocity parameter.

Obviously a mixing of both technique would be the best, question of flexibility and versatility, i'm thinking of some slight difference between collections of samples from different original takes like rain on leaves, on water,on some resonnant or reverberant place, like a garage , a tube, etc..., (or in the suggested way i underlined before : the same, but transposed, original collection of samples )

Supposing you've got on your sample some overall, echoïng or reverberating sounds (it would be the case with any takes of distant sound's sources like ambient rain or thunder, in there you'll obviously hear some early reflections) you will have the feeling of different "room size" by transposing the original sample up (smaller size ) or down (bigger size) means in practive that it is a too easy way to do impressive and very variated stuff but much more difficult to optimise their use in a program flexible and versatile enough for a use in situation

Let see, except for a use as "new-age additionnal arrangement" that seems to me the most obvious, you would need some sound that can perhaps be quantised (single raindrops or a thunder's impacts or any sounds that can be edited in one-shot mode ) or maybe tuned (some types of wind, i have in mind some takes of snowstorm in the ice barrier, can be described as having a well defined and quite stable fondamental frequency, also some natural reverbaration as described, like water trought a tube that has some raisonnant frequencies and therefore you can expect a tuned use in polyphony)

My experience in arrangement make me trust of a use of tuned samples of natural soundscape by looking for some common timbral aspects with instrumental samples or synth's patches in one hand and natural or synthetic sounscapes with no harmonical correlation in the other hand (notice for example the similitude between the sound of a motor car, especially at constant speed that means with a stable, and therefore tunable fundamental frenquency and a "heavy metal" distorted guitar, their both easily blends together in a way that it would many times impossible to distinguish them in an good orchestration and at the meantime without loosing their own timbral characteristics !)

What i can say about experiences of quantised samples of natural sounscapes:

...that most of the time it is highly uncompatible with common actual musical beats .

For example i would appreciate a lot to work on reason with REX files because it is a very easy job to make some "techno-electro-trance-etc" types of beat but except if you expect tu use an industrial sample-based rex files like some automatic functioning machines or civil engieneering sounscapes, that can blend with those squary types of rythm,... i guess that you would be dissapointed with the result

You would need some swinging or groovy thing (can't tell...) that can would make an easier bridge between "rythmical" and "arythmiqual" music or soundscape,

I am sometimes working with African traditionnal musician and music..., and to my ears, those type of groovy rythms seems more adapted, but comparing to both african scales and rythms am a perfect stanger to their own musical ears
(I may define them as ternary types of rythms that have temporary tentancy to reach binary rythms, by opposition of a swing that, in an opposite way, are binary rythms that try to reach ternary rythm, as easy example 4/4 in pure binary 6/8 or 9/8 sounds more ternary)

I think that maybe those new types of rom-players ( like yellow tools ) would have the sophisticated sample's articulation that could be a good ground for an technical adaption of what you are expecting as VSTi plug

I just think that maybe the vision you have of some parameters aren't totally realistic ( what about "density" in the context ?, as a reverberation's parameter it woud mean a well-defined signal process behind, in our case it isn't clearly differenced of some other parameters like "how much rain" )

Wathever it is maybe just stay tuned, because i have some project to suggest to some developpers ( bram for instance but he answered me very gently that he cannot answer me yet because of some personnal reasons ) that is somehow similar

The fact is that i made myself during many years a huge collection of samples and dunno yet if i'll create a cd-rom (low price for sure !) or a dedicated rompler if i can find someone for collaboration...

It was long post, hope allof these helps

cheers

"the sleeping volcano"

Holy Post, Krakman!

Allright, feel honoured

...What else ?

To the Administrator .

Shouldn't this thread be moved to the INSTRUMENT's forum ?

Wow! Great post Krakatau, I actually learnt something.

Now where’s my mic?!

Spe3d

I'm glad that a few people appriciate...hoping that i should finally finished a first release of my website (i'm an awfully lazy guy, you know ?) and behind the main subject (my activities in Burkina Faso and a few african's artist , musicians and painters, that i've been working with ) i expect to upload a collection of sampler's patches (exs24 and Akai format) exclusively composed,( i'm afraid !), with copyright-protected stuff...

To give you an overall description : samples of pop song's ending hits (on one-shot mode or with a pianistic enveloppe, that is intended to be played with a damper pedal ) or loops of sustained harmonies, intervall or unisson; using organs or, generally, "string-pad" like looong enveloppes.

Many of them are samples "as they are" many others with a few treatment in order to make them more usuable or more esthetic : i've tried successfully to use the "3D audio engine" of Prosoniq SonicWork's Artist ,can't explain why but, despite of it's dedicated use, this type of process seems to be is a simple trick that smooth the sample's sound a lot, especially when you play a lowest speed on left part of the keyboard, it would usually sound with the highest harmonics content distorted (you know, a bit like a bitcruncher or lower sample's rate to give a rough description), trust me when i say that your sample will sound quite better(and without too much static phasing artifacts ) if you do so...
I've tried also to add some reverberation (on destructive mode !) when the sample's end ad to be cutted-off.
A very precise example, to the ones who know the Eniya's song called "Carribean blue* there is a short syhthesised introduction with a few delay effect in background before the entrance of the main orchestration, i can even hear some harpsichord on that main orch. Right before the main theme at the very end of the introduction, there is a discreet pianistic hit of a synthetic voice's harmony the had to be truncated because the next measure begins way before it release vanish.
To add a reverb on sample is a simple trick to re-create an acceptable simulation of the original release...and using a pianistic enveloppe (short attack, long decay, no sustain, short but smooth release, + damper pedal effects ) will mask a bit the psycho-acoustic effect of decreasing/increasing "room size" feeling or sample's decay speed variation because of transposition (changing speed of sample's playback)

I may tell the truth in the way that i feel so much possibilities just by working mainly on the audiofile's itself that i usually use only two or three types of programs,and always using a lonely sample...

i regret that, except maybe a softsampler like the exs24 on logic that has an instantaneous access on logic's sample edit window with premiere or audiosuite's plug-in, all samplers have in general a restricted choise of audio tratment on sample edition. seems to me a bit unsensible because THIS is the typical acoustic aspect that STRICTLY belongs to samplers !

I'll be glad to have some serious feedback on those posts because they would be some more things to say.., by going deeper into psycho-acoustical aspects especially, if anyone interessed, ( ( developpers or others ) he can even send a PM to me

cheers

"the sleeping volcano"

P.S. to Ben : Again, don't you think this thread should be moved to instrument's forum ?

I have some Nord Modular patches that make superb rain + thunder and lightening sounds

It should be easy enough for someone with prog skills to replicate the patch in software. Probably

Come to Britain and leave a tape recorder lying around...
alt. sample The Doors (oops)!
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