Questions for drum patch builders.

[Jidis]

Hi,

I'm in the process of stocking up a pair of Peavey DPM SP samplers with drum patches. My main interest for now is in more "synthetic" sounds and the usual classic drum machines. As it may take some doing, I'd like to build patches which are logically laid out, realistic sounding, and easy to work with for myself and the five other people who own SPs in this world.

Questions:

1. The map layouts-

I'm guessing that god awful General MIDI drum map is considered a standard? I'm OK with the first octave (starting at note 36) but it gets messy & spread out after that and there are some other issues. I'm running into too many things that aren't exactly in the GM map (like when you have high/low cowbells and five different snare sounds or a clave that sits way up in the 5th octave all by itself). Do you say "f* the map" and just put all your stuff down low or what (and what do most commercial instruments do)? Also, would it be better to have multiple "patches" utilizing the additional kicks,snares,etc., or land them on random unused zones in the same map (which would conflict with the GM assignments)? Most of these machines don't really have but a handful of sounds, but there's still usually something that doesn't fit GM.

2. Velocity sensitivity/accents-

As most of these vintage machines were relatively low-tech in that regard, what would make the most sense as far as velocity layers? Right now, it's off (full scale output always), but I'm wondering about adding a "loud layer" for the top range or something. - I'll have to look into the Peavey procedure, but it may be possible to provide a v.sensitive map along with a regular, without much hassle.

3. Voice allocation/polyphony-

I'm guessing most older machines didn't actually allow a whole stream of notes to overlap simultaneously (due to voice limitations), but the stuff I've used didn't appear to "steal" voices between the different drum instruments either, so my guess is that each drum was usually allowed a single voice, with all hi-hat sounds also occupying just one. Is that the way to go? It doesn't look like the Peavey provides an infinite number of "voice group" assignments, but I can probably at least get the hi-hat and a couple others into their own voices. I've had machines with fake 808 style kicks, where the decays overlapped and they sounded like crap.

There are some other minor ones, but if anybody here can offer any tips on the above stuff, it would be much appreciated. I figure there are many here who have dealt with a variety of soft/hardware drum maps and may have observed some good common solutions.

Thanks!

George

[ouroboros]

I'd like to hear this, too

[MrM]

1. The map layouts-

I'm guessing that god awful General MIDI drum map is considered a standard?
...

George

My limited experience with some drum VSTi's tell me that usually the kick, snare and hihat are at the same place, but the rest?
They all seem to have their own standard

If you click my sig, you can see some mappings. The conclusion is, that if all mappings were the same, I would only have one (translating) map for my MIDI input device (in my case the DD-55) but it also be just a piano style keyboard or some other MIDI device that can be played by hand and/or foot.