IK/SR VI HOT BUY - GROUP BUY on eSoundz!!! SampleTank Instruments for $99 + more!

[Xenobt]

Now, can we talk about drums? I already have the SampleTank instruments and most of the sound libraries from previous group buys, but I am curious what drum presets folks have found most useful, as well as which ones you feel sound best. Also, what effects are useful for "beefing up" the sound? I am thinking mostly in terms of 60's/70's type rock. I have the Acoustic Drums library but not Electronic Drums. Any tips or pointers will be appreciated.

Love these eSoundz group buys!

Novice Newbie

Me TOO!

Since no one has taken a whack at it yet, here's my 2 cents!
From the Acoustic Drums, I've liked the HJ Bon em Kit, and Studio Drums A and B
In Sampletank XT, the Studio Natural Kit is a big favorite.
These three kits should cover most of your classic rock needs. They're clean, big sounding and well balanced, and a great jumping off point for your own processing...

Also, don't forget the iMap versions of the drum kits, they have TONS more articulations and playing techniques!
Flams, ruffs, rolls and grace notes are just the start here... Even if you do your main sequencing with the GM set out of familiarity, add another channel in ST and do your "specials" there. BIG realism added...

In terms of processing, compression/limiting usually gives the biggest impact on drums, and the ones in the effects menu work GREAT. Compressor/limiters will squash down peaks and let you raise the overall level of the kit, so that'll add some beef.
Also, scooping out some mids @ 300-400 Hz in the eq section will make the the kit a bit clearer on the high and low end after it's compressed.
Crusher, distortion, overdrive and preamp are in order of most-to-least distortion on the drums. They add BIG voodoo to kicks, toms and snares when mixed with the dry sound, but usually the cymbals get too trashy.
HOWEVER...
There's a way to process single drums in ST without affecting the rest of the kit, I remember reading about it on KVR.
Maybe if torgo would be so kind, could you give us a brief run-down? I'm already run-down...

And subtlearts, I go back to the 70's myself, so just having great raw samples to start with is a BIG thrill!

eSoundz: Xenobt

[bobbackwards]

Quick query, if we get to 300 (I am assuming/hoping we will) would I be better off with Hip Hop collection, symphony strings, or somehting else. I have Miroslav CE and now Sampletank. I do mostly alt-country, experimental rock type stuff and don't really need any drums. Just looking for your informed opinion since I am indecisive...

Gut instinct is "something else". As others have noted, Symphony Strings is quite a nice set. The catch is that if you already have Miroslav CE, you'll probably get more mileage out of something else besides yet another set of string instruments and ensembles.




Hip Hop Collection is an interesting one, and the sounds are nice. But note that 392 meg of it is "orchestral elements", with piano, organ, brass and strings. They're good sounds, but between Miroslav CE, Piano Collection and Vintage Keys, you've already got that territory pretty well covered. Another 96 meg is electronic drum kits, which you say you don't need.

So that leaves about 350 meg of synth sounds (in two sections, named "analog elements" and "hip hop synth sounds" and 82 meg of guitar sounds.



They're all good sounds, and either of those sets might work if you can't find anything else of interest. But I think I'd look elsewhere first.

Thanks...It may not be an issue but I hope it is!

[areemts1130]

Don't think the epointz are useless- if you keep up with the threads and earn enough- you will be able to get some smokin deals. I was able to pickup a $60 release for $5! (sale plus epointz credit)...

esoundz name = JavaJ

I'll second this, and don't think that you don't have anything to offer to the discussion either. I'm more of a listener (reader...whatever) than a poster here, but I mentioned in the Cinco de Mayo thread something about getting a library for $5, and someone else asked me what I thought of it. I posted a quick review in the thread and it led to five referrals from others! If you have insights about the libraries or instruments, don't be shy, go ahead and post them. You never know what it might lead to!

[torgo]

HOWEVER...
There's a way to process single drums in ST without affecting the rest of the kit, I remember reading about it on KVR.
Maybe if torgo would be so kind, could you give us a brief run-down? I'm already run-down...

Hmmmmm.... the only trick that comes to mind is to create your own Combi. A full walkthrough will have to wait until tomorrow, but here's the short version for those who are already familiar with SampleTank:

Load the same drum kit into multiple parts - once for each drum sound that you want to process separately. Assign all of them the same MIDI channel and other basic settings, but limit the range of each one to a specific drum sound. From there you can apply effects to each part individually or to the "kit" as a whole.

For that matter, you can use that trick to mix and match drum kits. If you like the kick from one kit, the toms from a second, and the snares from a third, load them all into different parts and limit the ranges to get just the drums you want.

I'm about to head out for a while, but I'll see if I can do a more detailed version with specific examples tomorrow...

-torgo (esoundz = bhall1968)

[Xenobt]

Good one! Thanks AGAIN, torgo, I'll look forward to it.

Yeah, kit blending is GOOD!

I've used a variation on that trick, using different midi channels for different kits, but not restricting the key range. If you have the spare midi channels, it's less work and faster to set up, depending on how hard it is to split out your midi drum performances to separate midi tracks.

The benefit is layering or swapping drums from both kits to get a nice hybrid. The downside, lots more midi tracks!

I've found the more I do this, the more right for the song the kits get, instead of "averaging" what was needed.

NoviceNewbie, one more thought... If you have a library choice left, I'd make it the MIGHTY Electronic Drums.

I mentioned layering acoustic kits just now, but layering electronic drums under real ones can be VERY powerful too, and help put those ultra subby modern bass tones in your rock/pop kicks. I know Butch Vig does it with Garbage...

Try short 808 or 909 kicks under your real one, tune it til it feels good, and the bottom end gets SOLID. Same for BIG ballad toms and snares, blend in reverbed Simmons toms and snare to taste, and the 80's are BACK!

Ev'ry rose has it's thorn...

eSoundz: Xenobt

[dmorrill]

"Pre -analysis" is the action that the software carries out when the Instrument Synth mode is set to "Stretch" ("SampleTank Time Resynthesis Technology"). Some of the Combis will have those type of instrument in them. it is only carried out once per Instrument but can take some time. Which one(s) are not ending? The result of the analysis is stored in a .stv file alongside the Instrument.

Thanks for the explanation. It certainly explains why it only happens on some of the combi's. Based on your description of what is happening, I suspect they all would have completed eventually. But since I was mostly just trying to make sure the combi's were working correctly after my ad-hoc grafting of files from one package into another, I was probably just too impatient and hit the cancel button prematurely.

I just did a scan and found 454 .stv files in the collection (all in Miroslav), but none with recent file dates. I guess I'll have to try loading a few more combi's and waiting for the pre-analysis to complete to make sure everything is working OK.

[torgo]

Let's start layering our own small electronic drum kit!


Quick tutorial - part one - the SampleTank interface

(Note for the SampleTank veterans: this first part is really basic. Just skim through it or skip it completely and go on to part two, which I'll post in a later message, as soon as I get done typing it up.)


We're going to use three drum kits here - the acoustic "Studio Natural" kit and the electronic "Hip Hop 2" and "800 Series 1". All three of them are available in the SampleTank Free sound library, so anyone who wants to can play along with this one.

(They're also in the XT library from last year's big 8x1 group buy as well as SampleTank 2.5 XL's library.)



First, let's look over the instrument window... if you haven't changed the colors of the SampleTank interface, the upper part of SampleTank is a hideous red. The left half of the red section displays all the instruments that you currently have loaded up to play.

The columns are:

Part (numbered 1 through 16)
CH (telling you which MIDI channel the part is set to receive)
Solo and Mute buttons for each channel
Instrument (the name of the instrument you have loaded in that Part)
"ME" (the amount of memory the Part is using, in megabytes)
Empty (a button to unload whatever instrument is in that Part)
Poly (the number of simultaneous voices for that Part)
Pan (left-right panning)
Vol (Volume)
OUT (which outputs the Part will send its sound to)
LEVEL (a simple level meter that displays bars when the Part is playing)

Many of these items can be set or changed by clicking on them and dragging the mouse up and down. For example, to change the MIDI channel for a Part, click on the current channel number and drag up or down to select the channel you want.

To select a Part, click on the instrument name or blank space under "INSTRUMENT" for that Part.

Let's start by loading the Studio Natural kit into Part 1. Click on the space under "Instrument" for Part 1. In the Browser section (in the middle of the red area), scroll through your available sounds to find the Studio Natural kit.

(In the Browser section, white triangles represent folders. Click on them to expand them and see the instrument names. Black triangles are Parent instrument sounds. Click on the triangle to expand the list and display any child sounds that are available for that parent sound. Child sounds use the same samples as the parents but have different effects or other settings.)

When you find "Studio Natural", double click on it to load it into Part 1. Play some notes on the keyboard. You'll find that for drum kits, the upper area of an 88-key keyboard won't play anything. GM drum sets are generally in the area between B0 and B2.

In the bottom right of the SampleTank interface, you'll see the word "ZONE" with a box below it that says "ON". That's actually an On/Off button. Click on the box. When it's turned On, the box is lit up in red. When it's off, it's just a plain black box. The trick is to know that just because you see the word "ON", it doesn't mean the thing is actually turned on. It always says "ON". What matters is whether the box is lit up or not.

So once the Zone box is turned on, you'll see shaded areas in the keyboard mapping across the bottom of the SampleTank interface. This shows you which notes will actually play sounds, and they're grouped into ranges, or Zones.

The zones indicate different parent samples. For many instruments, that can help you get an idea of how detailed an instrument sound is - the zones will alternate between shades of pink, changing with each change in parent sample.

The color changes can be misleading with drum kits, as each individual key frequently has its own parent sample. Every zone consists of just one note. For example, look at D2 and E2 on the keyboard map. They're the same shade of light pink, so you'd normally think they're the same parent sample. Play them - they're very different.

Now look at D#2 in between them. It's a darker shade. So D2 is one zone (light pink), D#2 is the next zone (dark pink), and E2 is the next zone after that (back to light pink).



Next, click on the instrument name (blank space under "Instrument") for Part 2. Load the "Hip Hop 2" drum kit. The "Studio Natural" is still loaded in Part 1, and "Hip Hop 2" will be loaded next to it in Part 2.

Play some notes.

If your MIDI controller is set to Channel 1, you're probably still hearing the Studio Natural kit. Note that the MIDI channel is listed under "CH", right next to the Part number. By default, Part 1 is set to Channel 1, Part 2 is set to Channel 2, etc.

To change the MIDI channel for Part 2, click on the channel number (the "2" in the row for Part 2), hold and drag the mouse up and down. Drag it down to set the MIDI channel to 1, just like the Studio Natural kit.

Now play some notes. You should be hearing both drum kits at the same time.

Each Part has a pair of boxes with S (for Solo) and M (for Mute). If you click on the Mute box, it will mute that Part and let everything else play. If you click Solo, everything else will be muted and only that Part will play.

So if you want to compare two or more similar sounds (two pianos, two varieties of Mellotron strings, two drum kits, etc), this is a good way to do it. Load them all up together and then use the Solo or Mute buttons (whichever you prefer) to try them out one at a time.

That wraps up the introduction... as soon as I can type it up, the second part will get into splitting the keyboard into ranges and building our own custom kit from these pieces.



-torgo (esoundz = bhall1968)

[torgo]

Quick tutorial - part 2 - Splits and Layers

If you don't have them loaded already (from the previous intro), load up the Studio Natural drum kit in Part 1 and the Hip Hop 2 kit in Part 2. Both drum kits are available in SampleTank Free.

Set both to the same MIDI channel - whatever channel your keyboard controller is set to use (probably channel 1). Make sure that neither Part has the Solo or Mute buttons selected. You want to hear them both.

Play some notes in the B0 to B2 range. You should be hearing both drum kits playing at the same time. Some drums will sound okay. Others won't be so good. That doesn't matter for now.

Click on the Studio Natural name in Part 1 to highlight that row. Part 1 is now selected, so that we can now make changes to it.

In the group of nine buttons (Macro, Synth, etc) in the middle of the SampleTank interface (below the red area), click the button that says Range. This will bring up a group of knobs on the left that will let you transpose a Part, limit its range, or change its velocity settings. We'll hit the other stuff some other time. For now, it's the "Range L" and "Range R" knobs that we need.

Click the "Range L" knob and drag the mouse up until it reads B0. Click the "Range R" knob and drag the mouse up until it reads C1 (note - NOT C-1; that's C negative 1).

Now do the same thing to the Hip Hop 2 kit in Part 2. Select the Part by clicking on the name Hip Hop 2. Select the Range button, and move the knobs to set the range from B0 to C1.

We have just limited both instruments to just a two note range - B0 and C1, which are consecutive notes on the keyboard. Play them, then play other notes.

If you're playing them on a MIDI keyboard or other controller, the kick/bass drums on B0 and C1 should be the only ones that play. (Note that you can still play all the drums by clicking on the keyboard map on the SampleTank interface. That's sort of a "master" mapping, and it's immune to range changes, transposition, etc.)

So we have just given ourselves two kick drums, created by layering the acoustic Studio Natural and the electronic Hip Hop 2 drum kits.



Next, load the Studio Natural kit into Part 3 and the "800 Series 1" kit (also included in SampleTank Free) into Part 4. Set their MIDI channels to channel 1 just like Parts 1 and 2. Set "Range L" (the left end of the range) to F#1 and "Range R" to B1 for both parts.

Play some notes on the keyboard. You now have some toms (plus some hats on the black keys).

Now load the Hip Hop 2 kit into Part 5 and the 800 Series 1 kit into Part 6. Set them to the same MIDI channel as the other parts. Set their ranges to C#1 through F1. That will give you some snares plus some miscellaneous other sounds.

You now have the basics of a layered electronic drum kit. (If you want cymbals or more details, you can add them in more Parts.)

Note that you can apply effects or make other changes to each section of drums individually. For example, let's punch up the acoustic parts of the toms. In the row for Part 3 (the Studio Natural kit that we set to the F#1-B1 range), click on the volume (currently 100) and drag the mouse upward until it reads 120.

(You might notice that the Volume knob on the right side of the interface also moves when you drag the mouse. You could also change the volume by clicking and dragging on that Volume knob.)



It's already a fun little kit, and I kinda like it exactly as it is. But we haven't added any effects yet...

You'll see the word "Part" written next to the "RANGE" button in the SampleTank interface. That entire section (the nine buttons and the knobs across from them) is for editing individual Parts.

Below those nine buttons, there are four more buttons - PART, SEND, MASTER, and BYPASS. You'll see the word "Effects" on the interface to the left of the BYPASS button. This area (including the knobs to the left and displays and on/off buttons to the right) is your built-in effects rack. And it's a good one.

Click on the PART button. It's usually selected by default, but click on it just to make sure. Selecting PART allows you to apply effects separately to each of the six Parts in our drum kit.

Select Part 2 (by clicking on the "Hip Hop 2" name in that row). Now look at the five display windows just to the right of the MASTER, SEND etc buttons in the Effects section. The first one says "Comp/EQ". The other four each say "No Eff". Those are your five effects slots. Compression/equalization is automatically loaded as your first effect. You can't change that one. But you have the other four slots available to load whatever effects you like.

The last character in each of the four display windows (after "No Eff") is a down arrow. Click the down arrow in the second effects slot (the first one that says No Eff) to see the list of available effects. Impressive list, huh?

Choose Preamp. (I think it's #25 on the list.) You'll now see three knobs to the left, giving you the settings for the Preamp effect. Set the Model to "Crunch", set the Gain to 5.8, and set the Volume to 8.1.

Make sure the ON box next to Preamp is lit up (if it's not lit, it's turned off) and that the Comp/EQ is turned off.

And now play the drum kit again. The toms and snares are exactly as before, but the kick/bass are very different. The preamp effect has only been applied to the Hip Hop 2 component of those drums.

You can tinker with other effects and add effects to other Parts if you like, but for now, let's move on.

Click on the MASTER button in the effects section. This lets you add effects that apply to the entire drum kit. You have five slots available. Click on the down arrow on the first slot and select Ambience.

Again, knobs will appear on the left side to give you control over the Ambience effect settings. Set the Time to 0.2s, set the Size to about 25, and set the Dry/Wet to about 65%.

The drum kit sounds different once again - this time with a big room reverb.

Have fun trying out different combinations of effects, on individual parts or on the kit as a whole.


Finally, note that the drum kit you have created is a Combi patch - a combination of instrument parts, split or layered as desired, with effects and other settings.

You can save your kit if you like. There are "SAVE" and "SAVE AS" buttons at the top of the SampleTank interface, just above the names of the instruments loaded in each Part. Click on the SAVE AS button, give your kit a name (I called mine "Trash Kit 1"), and save it.

In the future, you can load it up from the list of available Combi presets. Click on the display window next to the SAVE AS button to see the full list of Combis that you have available. (It might be a really big list, but your drum kit will be in there... somewhere...)


So - you can layer drum kits or other sounds by loading them into separate parts assigned to the same Channel. You can limit the range of each Part, splitting the keyboard. And with drum kits, you can use those tricks to mix and match drum pieces or apply separate effects to different parts of the drum kit.

It's powerful stuff. The SampleTank engine may be old, but it sure can hunt.


-torgo (esoundz = bhall1968)

[dmorrill]

Great stuff, as always, torgo! Eagerly awaiting the next installment. BTW, I found you can also change parameters (like midi channel) using the mouse wheel, which I personally find more convenient than click-dragging.

Unfortunately, I find that when you play around with the color knobs to make the display less garish, it always seems to make the Zone keyboard colors too washed out to distinguish between them. The only combination with good contrast seems to be the default, horrible red color

[dmorrill]

Torgo, extrapolating from your tutorial, I assume the Range "VEL LO" and "VEL HI" knobs allow you to control what note on velocities will trigger the sample, allowing you to layer different samples and trigger one or the other (or both) based on how hard you strike a key.

Now, what if you want to layer/split two kits horizontally on the keyboard, so that they don't necessarily use their original zone map. I don't see how to do that, since I assume the "PART TRNSP" knob just tells the sample engine to transpose the pitch of the sample assigned to the key, not use a different sample further up or down the zone map. Am I right in assuming that the mapping of sample to key can only be done "at the factory" so to speak? Just curious...

[torgo]

That hits the next walkthrough, which I'll do later today with some of those percussion loops.



But for now, try out that PART TRNSP knob.

Load up the HQ Free Piano mkII sound (from SampleTank Free - and oddly enough, NOT in the main SampleTank XL library, or at least not my copy).

Play C1 on your MIDI keyboard. Then play G1. Play them a few times to get familiar with the specific sound.

Next click the Range button and turn the Part Transpose knob up to 7. Play C1 again. You'll hear the G1 rather than C1. It's transposing the zone map rather than bending the pitch.

Now click on the C1 note on the keyboard map at the bottom of the SampleTank interface. You'll still hear C1 as if you hadn't transposed anything. That keyboard map is sort of a "master" mapping and is immune to transposition.


The story on that HQ Free Piano is that way, way back in the days of SampleTank v1, IK came up with a demo version they called SampleTank Free. That one was very different from the SampleTank Free that is available now.

It could only play a very few specific sounds. The original HQ Free Piano was one of them. I tried it out and loved it - it sounded better than most of the piano sounds I had in my E-mu Proformance 1 hardware piano module. That prompted me to buy the Piano Collection, which was what first got me using SampleTank.

I suppose the "mk II" version is an updated version for the SampleTank v2 engine. Not sure why it got left out of the main SampleTank XL library (or if my copy is somehow an incomplete version of that library). But at least the old piano is available.

Sonic Reality also made about six extra sounds for the original SampleTank Free. The updated ST2 versions of those are available on the Free Soundz section of the esoundz web site.

[NoviceNewbie]

Wow! Thank you Xenobt and torgo! Very useful information for this n00b. I appreciate the help very much.

Novice Newbie

[dmorrill]

But for now, try out that PART TRNSP knob.

Load up the HQ Free Piano mkII sound (from SampleTank Free - and oddly enough, NOT in the main SampleTank XL library, or at least not my copy).

Play C1 on your MIDI keyboard. Then play G1. Play them a few times to get familiar with the specific sound.

Next click the Range button and turn the Part Transpose knob up to 7. Play C1 again. You'll hear the G1 rather than C1. It's transposing the zone map rather than bending the pitch.

Now click on the C1 note on the keyboard map at the bottom of the SampleTank interface. You'll still hear C1 as if you hadn't transposed anything. That keyboard map is sort of a "master" mapping and is immune to transposition.

Holy smokes, I didn't see that one coming.

That's very cool! I guess I should have tried it myself first, rather than just assuming it would do a pitch bend.

[Krabat]

Did anyone had a look at the readme-file from the free Miro-Combis?!?
This might be a good start, if you still don't know, whether to buy it or not...

Gunnar
--
esoundz: krabat

[Squids]

Torgo may be the new king of the mega post! Haha. Good stuff guys.