KVR Audio

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 1:40 am

original post wrote:My plan is to buy a musical box (minus the box part) hopefully two octaves large with a hand crank and have it play every note ten times over. That would be 24 x 10 samples, 10 alternates per note. I plan on recording with a binarual mic and a Korg MR-1. I'll have to use noise reduction software so I'm planning on buying iZotope RX.

Yeah, there's a few free musical box sample libraries out there, but I've tried them all. None of them have alternative samples and the samples themselves sometimes have note anomalies (buzzing resonance, uneven plucking, etc.)

Any thoughts? I'm looking to sell it as a $15 download. I plan on creating the sample lib for Kontakt2 and Shortcircuit... wait, should I do shortcircuit 1 or 2?

Come to think of it, I have no idea how to sell downloads. Any help would be appreciated. Lastly, if this sampling goes well, I plan on doing a kalimba sample library, probably 2.5 octaves and 25 alts per note.

Mics in ear, instrument at arms legnth distance
Mics in ear, instrument almost touching my nose

Mics pointed at instrument, almost touching it, 90 degree angles (from the sides)
Mics pointed at instrument, less than arm's length away, 90 degree angles (from the sides)
Mics pointed at instrument, less than arm's length away, 70 degree angles (from the sides)

So listen to these, tell me what you think, I can also do more recordings for example, if you liked the sides_close.mp3 I can try more close positions to fine-tune the recording position.

KKeene · Post by **KKeene** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:19 pm

I would leave some of the buzzing samples in as they provide realism, or provide a choice for a bank with and without buzzings.

Buy a website, upload files and secure them in an area of the site, open a merchant account with Paypal and connect it to your product for sale.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:47 pm

KKeene, lol, I seriously doubt I'll be able to make the musical box buzz on command.

Thanks for the help, ill check out ebay.

kara · Post by **kara** » Mon Mar 10, 2008 12:55 pm

PM send ....

stk · Post by **stk** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 12:26 pm

I take it you've checked http://www.boldersounds.com/free.aspx?FID=13 ?

And yeah, if you do it, leave the anomalies in, otherwise what's the point of alternate samples?

/sk

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 12:46 pm

stk, even if there are no anomalies in the samples, I can tell if the same sample is played twice, especially if it's played consecutively. Before we get into an "anomalies" discussion, I gotta get the music box, I have no clue how it's going to "sound".

Edit: But since it seems anomalies are in high demand I'll have to do something about that. If there are anomalies, I'll want to have two programs, one with and one without anomalies. If you hear the same anomaly twice, that's not going to sound good.... 20 samples per note? 20x24=480 samples WOOT! Maybe 5 non-anomaly alternatives and 10 anomaly alternatives. 15x24=360

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:02 pm

Double posting here, but uhh.... what if there are no anomalies? I don't know if trying to *create* them will come out too well.

tommy_d · Post by **tommy_d** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:10 pm

Architeuthis wrote:My plan is to buy a musical box (minus the box part) hopefully two octaves large with a hand crank and have it play every note ten times over. That would be 24 x 10 samples, 10 alternates per note. I plan on recording with a binarual mic and a Korg MR-1. I'll have to use noise reduction software so I'm planning on buying iZotope RX.

Yeah, there's a few free musical box sample libraries out there, but I've tried them all. None of them have alternative samples and the samples themselves sometimes have note anomalies (buzzing resonance, uneven plucking, etc.)

Any thoughts? I'm looking to sell it as a $15 download. I plan on creating the sample lib for Kontakt2 and Shortcircuit... wait, should I do shortcircuit 1 or 2?

Come to think of it, I have no idea how to sell downloads. Any help would be appreciated. Lastly, if this sampling goes well, I plan on doing a kalimba sample library, probably 2.5 octaves and 25 alts per note.

Sounds pretty cool, it could be a really interesting sampleset.

As regards formats - I vote shortcircuit1 not 2. Have you considered sfz as well?

rosllow · Post by **rosllow** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:10 pm

if there's no anomalies then there's no anomalies (although i imagine you get at least a few clicks and buzzes in there)

i like the idea and would probably pick this up in kontakt form as i currently use three or four sample sets of music boxes in order to get my desired result.

it would make a lot of difference how its implemented though (to me at any rate) are the multi notes going to be chosen by velocity, key switching, mod wheel or just cycled through? if they are cycled are they going to be chosen at random or are they going to go in sequence ? are buzzes and clicks going to be key switched (or even better scripted) etc.

can you elaborate a bit ?

cheers,

rosllow.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:22 pm

rosllow, definitely some good ideas I haven't considered. I won't have the music box in my hand for a few more days and I haven't listened to a musical box in a while to know what kind of anomalies might exist.

-modwheel at 2-127 induces an anomaly (or just 127) If there are multiple types of anomalies I might consider velocity-controlled anomalies?
-programs for random alternatives or velocity-controlled alternatives

should I even bother to allow velocity to control volume? some of these things might have to be programmed into kontakt. shortcircuit might not be able to do it all.

rosllow · Post by **rosllow** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:34 pm

Architeuthis wrote:rosllow, definitely some good ideas I haven't considered. possible anomalies are buzzing and clicking. I won't have the music box in my hand for a few more days.

-modwheel at 2-127 induces an anomaly (or just 127)
-programs for random alternatives or velocity-controlled alternatives

should I even bother to allow velocity to control volume?

volume is pretty much unimportant (to me) when you have multiple notes, obviously there is no velocity control on a music box and the natural variation you have in 10/15 whatever number of notes is sufficient for it not to sound unnatural.

my preferred option with regards to the control of the multi hits would be using the scripting engine in kontakt to control the sample triggering, most probably in a random (or random seeming) manner. depending on the samples you end up with you could also offer an element of control by offering scales of variation so you could select the range how flat/sharp the notes might be, quiet/loud, clean/buzzy etc via couple of knobs in kontakts interface.

obviously it comes down to a) the samples (you might really need a number of different mechanisms to get any sort of range) and b) the amount of time you are willing put into it and c) your knowledege of some of the more advanced features of kontakt (or any other format you decide to use of course but its kontakt that interests me)

i already have a bunch of samples (and they are almost all free) so for me it would be all about the way you could interact with it and not necessarily the sample set itself (although a comprehensive sample set behind the interaction would of course be important)

i'll keep an eye on what you come up with for sure though and if its better than my cobbled together version i'll definitely be a customer.

cheers,

rosllow.

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 2:03 pm

rosllow, some more good points! Actually, I don't know any kind of kontakt scripting. However, I'm willing to research it if it's easy to learn to implement some features (possibly download some scripts?). If I do find myself devoid of programming ability, and especially since shortcircuit can't be scripted, I do have some alternative ideas:

CC1 to CC3: normal samples (alternates controlled with roundrobin, randomly, or by velocity in the worst case scenario)
CC4 to CC6 anomaly samples (anomalies controlled by velocity)

This way, if you want to switch to an anomaly, all you have to do is + or - three octaves (that can be assigned to a hotkey in your sequencer).

Another way of doing it is splitting the anomalies and normal samples into two programs in which you'd have to switch the channel of the midi signal to switch from normal to anomaly.

Mighty Pea · Post by **Mighty Pea** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:20 am

just because someone mentioned making it for sc1: just make it sf2, sfz, or anything usable in multiple samplers, please.

I'm quite excited about this sample-set, actually

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:42 am

Hey Mighty Pea, don't get hopes up, there's still a good chance that anomalies aren't practical to implement (due to the music box being free of those things) I think the music box is coming this thursday though.

Other than that, I'm not sure how exciting a "vanilla" musical box sample library will be. I'd buy it!

Architeuthis · Post by **Architeuthis** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 6:50 pm

ARRITE, WE HAVE A PROBLEM! What are your opinions?

The music box has no sharps. I could record each note two times as much as I was originally intending, take half of the C notes make them C, the other have make them C#.

What do you think? Edit: I'm calling people around the web right now, see if anyone has any advice on alternative musical boxes.

Planning on creating a musical box sample lib.