What do you want to see in a Kontakt drumkit sample library? (acoustic and electronic)

[gmontano]

As far as Kontakt goes, Drumsonic 2 and Luxury cover a lot of ground with options. I'd use what they have done to strive for as it is quite impressive.

[Architeuthis]

It's not whether I can always get exactly the position - it's whether the library supports a natural sounding hi-hat.

Indeed, that's always the goal. Ease of use + sound quality. They go hand in hand. If it's not easy to use even though all the samples are there to promote sound quality, then the average person cannot take advantage of that sound quality.

[Architeuthis]

As far as Kontakt goes, Drumsonic 2 and Luxury cover a lot of ground with options. I'd use what they have done to strive for as it is quite impressive.

Do they have enough repetitions? Do they cover enough of the quietest articulations to your satisfaction?

[jancivil]

setting up 2 or 3 snares surrounding a kick just to make the kick it super-sizzly

the thing BFD does is amount of bleed into the kick and snare mics. the basic kick articulation is with snares. additionally the kick bleed into the snare mic, the hihat bleed into the snare and kick mics introduces a lot of liveliness into the sound.

you said tell you more about articulating the cymbals. you can read up on one of the more elaborate executions here:

apart from the probably too-ambitious double stroke roll, some extra articulation of great cymbals puts me in the market. TBH I'm pretty set for drums and percussion.

[Architeuthis]

setting up 2 or 3 snares surrounding a kick just to make the kick it super-sizzly

the thing BFD does is amount of bleed into the kick and snare mics. the basic kick articulation is with snares. additionally the kick bleed into the snare mic, the hihat bleed into the snare and kick mics introduces a lot of liveliness into the sound.

I think that's just mic mixing options, for example turning up the snare mic for the hi hat articulation. What I am proposing goes beyond this straightforward way of recording samples. Instead, I record for the end sound in mind, rather than capturing every possible situation for every possible mixing option. Also, if I want to explore one of those "situations" I simply create an entire new drum kit with an entire new approach. Many drum kits, many approaches, many sounds; pick and choose, and no instrument is married to any kit, but I will do my best to create an interface that at least allows for cohesive mixing.

So, the kit you put together with my samples may not always sound cohesive. But, then there's many options from other sample library companies if that's what you want.

[jancivil]

"basic kick articulation is with snares" means a snare was in proximity to the kick during recording. I'm just suggesting control over 'in proximity to three snares', mixing-wise.

[Josquin_VI]

Hello guys,

I am an upcoming sample library developer interested in your opinions. What is wrong with drumkit sample libraries, what is missing, what do you want? Interface-wise, sample-wise, etc.

Edit: Oh also important, price-wise.

A varied set of tempo synced cymbal swishes/swipes with sticks and brushes. Do those and you have my money.
Speaking of price, I've always felt that modular libraries are the way to go for deep-sampled, XX GB instruments. Create a great sounding V.I. that works for (and appeals to) a large segment of the market, and offer additional content as add-ons / expansions, sort of like what Toontrack does with the SDX expansions for Superior. That way you're catering to everyone's needs.

Just my $.02 of course. Good luck with your project.

[Architeuthis]

Josquin_VI, alright, got it. Hmm, you actually just re-sparked an idea I've had for non-percussion instruments. Wow, how did I not see this before? Long-sustaining percussion should have tempo-based round robin. This means instead of every sample being recorded as a full-length sustain, I simply record, maybe, 2 seconds of the instrument, and if you re-trigger the articulation within 2 seconds, it selects a "shorter than 2 seconds" round robin sample. That could even bring out some of the realism of re-hitting the instrument that Jancivil was talking about.

"basic kick articulation is with snares" means a snare was in proximity to the kick during recording. I'm just suggesting control over 'in proximity to three snares', mixing-wise.

Ok, sure. It would be a crime not to separate the mics for the end user if that's what the user wants.

I'm really thinking about how to marry "lots of mic mixing options" with a "resource-saving one-stereo-mix" option. For example, I may create that default stereo mix, but what if you don't like that default? What if the end user could actually export or somehow consolidate the samples into their preferred stereo mix? It's a great idea, but the technology available just doesn't lend to its execution. Edit: But that doesn't mean I don't have slightly crazy ideas on how to accomplish this.

[Architeuthis]

A varied set of tempo synced cymbal swishes/swipes with sticks and brushes. Do those and you have my money.

Are you suggesting this only because it has to be a pre-recorded multi-hit articulation to sound right?

[Josquin_VI]

A varied set of tempo synced cymbal swishes/swipes with sticks and brushes. Do those and you have my money.

Are you suggesting this only because it has to be a pre-recorded multi-hit articulation to sound right?

Yes, but not just that alone. 9 Volt audio covered this sort of stuff to some extent in their Stickbreakers Tempo Synced lib, now discontinued. For orchestral cymbal rolls (not what we're talking about here but I'm sure you see the analogy) Cinesamples did that with Cinecrash, now discontinued as well. I don't own CinePerc Core/Pro, but they may have included that stuff in there.
It just saves you the hassle of dragging around midi data and having to judge by ear where the note-on is supposed to be in order to have the accent of the articulation in the right place, timewise.
And as for the type of articulations, I'm not just talking about flams, rolls, press hits. Imagine something like this: you put the tip of the stick (or a brush, rod, whatever) near the bell of a ride, apply some pressure and gradually move the stick to the outer edge. There's a million ways to do that, in terms of how the pressure is applied and/or how the speed is changed during that movement. Could be a loud, short "swish" as an accent, could be a gentle scrape that lasts two or three seconds before you let the cymbal ring out. Stuff like that probably takes ages to get right and that's probably why most libs don't have it, but it's not necessarily a 'niche' product IMO - someone who produces djent may not be very interested in those types of sounds, but think of the potential for styles where the kit is more exposed, delicate / intimate sounding - singer-songwriter, pop ballads, jazz, country, and so on. It can also work in a percussion-only or ambient context. It would make great source material for sound design, as well.
And it doesn't have to be 5 dynamic layers and 10 x RR for everything - just provide some variety, presented in an easy to use format (i.e. the synching part) and I think you'd really set yourself apart from most of the other devs.

OK, I'm done rambling now.




(edit: typos)

[jancivil]

that's the typing I didn't want to get into, so thanks for that.

right, such an articulation could be sufficient at three layers and no round robin. RR as a de rigeur overestimates its use value after a point.

[jancivil]

another boutique type of item would be pressing and releasing the skin of a tom tom (with one stick, or your hand while you hit it with the other) to get pitch variation.

cf., velocity to pitch, which for some things is extreme and very wild in BFD2.

[Architeuthis]

For orchestral cymbal rolls (not what we're talking about here but I'm sure you see the analogy)

I plan on having the best roll articulation system the world has ever seen. Well, not right away, but it's in development, and will be hinted at in my first few products.

It just saves you the hassle of dragging around midi data and having to judge by ear where the note-on is supposed to be in order to have the accent of the articulation in the right place, timewise.

Got it, that can be a problem somtimes.

And it doesn't have to by 5 dynamic layers and 10 x RR for everything - just provide some variety, presented in an easy to use format (i.e. the synching part) and I think you'd really set yourself apart from most of the other devs.

Right now I'm iffy on pre-recorded multi hits, but what I described above (hitting the drum every X seconds and using that for pseodo-realistic multi hit round robins) could solve the multi-hit problem as well as the tempo-synced roll problem. ACTUALLY, you aren't describing a tempo-synced roll, you are describing a tempo-synced crescendo/decrescendo. Yes, and my uber-awesome drum roll system could take care of that.

As for scrapes and misc fx, yes round robin is needed, velocity layers are needed. It could be something like this:

Velocity Layers: controls the scrape or fx length
Round Robins: so you can perform the same/similar fx more than once consecutively
Key position: allows you to choose the performance type for the fx, so that includes crescendo, decrescendo, something in between, or just plain weird performances.

another boutique type of item would be pressing and releasing the skin of a tom tom (with one stick, or your hand while you hit it with the other) to get pitch variation.

cf., velocity to pitch, which for some things is extreme and very wild in BFD2.

For velocity to pitch, that's a GUI thing. As for boutique articulations, I'll have to hear what that sounds like. Maybe I'll do a series of strange percussion articulations and drum preparation, or just see what the customers want.

[Architeuthis]

Is that floor tom pitching up and down during the performance?

Waiiiittt...... is this part of the re-hitting realism that jancivil was referring to? Or is this simply a factor of how hard you hit?

[jancivil]

here is a good example of pitch changing in toms [starting @ 0:21], out of velocity to pitch.

also there are cymbal rolls and brush scrapes of cymbals in here.

http://soundcloud.com/notevenhardly/stranger-n-4