drum samples for your perusal, my esteemed colleagues

[frog_jr]

Hi, I'm looking forward to finishing this large pack of samples within a week. But I don't really know what I'm doing. Pls. Check these out (I'll be adding more later if there's any pos fback), use them if you like. Pls. provide input.

http://homeofthegnome.net/junkdrawer/ia ... amples.zip

My questions are:

1 Should I trim them all to zero crossings?

2 How much of a leading silence and a tail should I give them? I've been doing approx 1 ms at the beginning, and just tapering the vol. on the end to wherever, uh, a little less precise on the end. Is that 1 ms too much?

Should I make them stereo or mono?

I don't like normalizing in my experience so far. I was going to use Audition's sweet little vol adjustment. How's that for quality? Or else not normalize at all. Any normalization advice out there?

Oh yeah, they are all 32-bit floating point, which I don't know about you but Windows won't play them with its native codecs, and I have to use a higher quality app like most people reading this will have. Should I go 16-bit instead?

Thanks in advance for the input.

I'll be releasing the sample collection as donationware, so if you really like them than you should send some dollars to the drummer who created them. But this is not the complete drum pack. I'll be adding dozens to it. This is just for your critique.

[frog_jr]

Bump! What, do I sound like some kinda email scam? Maybe pretty scary, come to think of it. Tell you what, I'll edit out the latter part, as I don't want the drummer to have any misgivings. Cheers, frog

[koolkeys]

I wouldn't be worried. There are slow times on KVR. I'll download your sounds now and have a look though. I'll post back sometime today with my thoughts once I load them up.

Thanks for the samples!

Brent

[koolkeys]

Ok, at first glance it seems that you're fine on the place you cut them. It's such a small gap at the beginning that you can't hear it. As for the ends, I usually cut it off just after the waveform disappears in my audio editor. I also listen at high volume to make sure I'm not cutting it off early.

Are all the cymbal hits meant to cut off? Or did you want to sustain them? If so, you didn't give them long enough.

I don't know that anyone records drum kit pieces individually in stereo, so mono is fine. In reality, a kick drum sound only takes up a very small space in the stereo field. So usually, drum kit pieces are panned individually.

People like higher than 16 bit samples. There are other audio players that will play them. But for sample libraries, people seem to prefer the higher qualities. And samples will almost always read them, so the higher quality, the better. I'm not sure if you're using the right terms though with 32 bit floating point. Did you record them in 32 bit, or is that what your audio card was set to? Sorry, just trying to clear it up a bit.

Brent

[frog_jr]

Ok, at first glance it seems that you're fine on the place you cut them. It's such a small gap at the beginning that you can't hear it. As for the ends, I usually cut it off just after the waveform disappears in my audio editor. I also listen at high volume to make sure I'm not cutting it off early.

Cool. Thanks for your inputs. Yeah, I can shave off nearly all that one millisecond at the beginning, but I'm just cautious I guess. Your advice regarding the end is pretty much what I did too.

Are all the cymbal hits meant to cut off? Or did you want to sustain them? If so, you didn't give them long enough.

The cymbals were all recorded as he just jammed out, so we don't get much long sustained fades with the cymbals. Basically I started a sample with him hitting the drum, cymbal, or cowbell, and then ended the slice where he hit the next one, and then put a tiny yet steep fade curve on the beginning and end. i.e.: he's not actually hitting the drums for me one at a time for the purposes of doing this; he's just jamming out and I'm slicing from about a 2-hr. practice session. (I actually tried briefly to get him to play discrete notes for me but that didn't last very long. )

I don't know that anyone records drum kit pieces individually in stereo, so mono is fine. In reality, a kick drum sound only takes up a very small space in the stereo field. So usually, drum kit pieces are panned individually.

Too bad, since I've done so many already. Wonder if I could convert them to mono in batch, or would that deteriorate the quality and so maybe I should start again (ugh)? I guess I'll do some in mono and include the stereo ones as well.

People like higher than 16 bit samples. There are other audio players that will play them. But for sample libraries, people seem to prefer the higher qualities. And samples will almost always read them, so the higher quality, the better. I'm not sure if you're using the right terms though with 32 bit floating point. Did you record them in 32 bit, or is that what your audio card was set to? Sorry, just trying to clear it up a bit.

I think I recorded them in 24 bit, and then processed them in Reaper as 32 bit files and saved them as such I think. (Some of my softwares seem to react funny to 24 bit maybe?) then I trimmed them in Audition. I also have a lot (not included in zip file) that were automatically sliced by Oneshotrecorder.vst, and I may be including some of those too. All 32-bit. I'd rather do everything at 32 bit myself, but I just wanted others' input on this.

I'm also slicing out a bunch of little phrases, rolls, and "licks" for you all's sequencing pleasure. Played by a real drummer in a real Jazz musician's apartment.

[Vonbrucken]

hello frog_jr , thanks for the samples !!
Can you provide a picture of the drums you have sampled ?
Thanks !

[frog_jr]

hello frog_jr , thanks for the samples !!
Can you provide a picture of the drums you have sampled ?
Thanks !

I'm sorry, I cannot. He's 300 miles away right now. But I can get him to tell me what they are if that's any help. I think they are a good set.

[Vonbrucken]

yes please !
Wanted to do a little article about it , but no pics no glory !

[frog_jr]

yes please !
Wanted to do a little article about it , but no pics no glory !

You can get a pic of the drummer himself at http://www.myspace.com/iandylantrio and he has 2 tunes up that you can listen to.

Cheers, frog

[dover666]

nice. threw together an iti for modplug and i'm rocking out on your cymbals./ thanks alot.

[frog_jr]

nice. threw together an iti for modplug and i'm rocking out on your cymbals./ thanks alot.

Sure, you bet. I'll be releasing a big collection of them in a short few days.

Modplug, eh? My first tracker.

[dover666]

have you used it lately?

[frog_jr]

have you used it lately?

No, sorry. I went over to Psycle a few years ago, and then started using several different things. I've now purchased Sonar 6, Reaper, and Audition 1 and 3. Reaper is my favorite, but Audition 3 is the best wave editor I've ever had.

[frog_jr]

Bump. My questions are: should I bother with zero crossings, is the short (< 1 ms) silence at the beginning of each sample OK, and are my fades at beginning and end OK? And should I make them 32-bit, stereo, mono, what? Any input wouid be appreciated. Cheers, frog

[deastman]

I think the silence at the beginning is no big deal. Personally, if it bothered me, I'd just fix it on the fly in Battery. I'm generally happy with 16 bit, but I know some people are sticklers for that sort of thing. Considering that you originally captured them in 24 bit, I don't see the advantage in going higher than that. Mono is typical for drums, but stereo is fine too. As far as zero crossings go, do you mean starting or ending the sample at zero? If so, the fades should address that.