Thanks for the link! I just got Miroslav, but hadn't run across that link yet. I've bookmarked it for later reading...areemts1130 wrote:By the way, for those of you who picked up Miroslav, there is a five page sticky in the Sonic Reality/esoundz forum here full of tips and tricks to use. I've only just started reading through them, but it looks really helpful! The link is here:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=103808
IK/SR VI HOT BUY - GROUP BUY on eSoundz!!! SampleTank Instruments for $99 + more!
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- KVRer
- 19 posts since 1 Apr, 2011
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- KVRian
- 505 posts since 30 Jan, 2007
The other walkthrough on using range limits to split/layer while building a custom drum kit got pretty long, so I decided to do the "grooves" thing as Part 3 in a separate post. Here it is...
(I'm assuming you've followed along with the previous two parts, where we built an electronic drum kit by making our own Combi preset. If you're not up to speed on the RANGE button and related knobs, flip back a few pages and go through those walkthroughs.)
Quick tutorial - using range limits to map some loops
When you load up a sound from one of the ReTank loop/groove libraries, the full loop is set to play on B1 while the audio slice map starts at C2.
The slice map is a repeat of the loop, broken out one sound at a time on consecutive notes. If you like, you can play the loop manually, one hit at a time, by simply running up the keyboard starting at C2.
Also, if there's a certain sound in the groove that you really like - such as a crash cymbal or tom hit - you can add it to one of your own custom Combi drum kits by picking out the note with that specific sound and adding it as its own Part. We'll touch on that later.
But for now, let's stick to overcoming a small problem... since all the loops are set to play at B1, they get in each other's way if you load up more than one at the same time on the same MIDI channel. So if you want to play drum parts or other loops on the fly, you need to spread them out and put them exactly where you want them.
I'm using the Blues Grooves library here, but any of the ReTank loops packages will do - World Grooves, Latin Caribbean, Vintage Rock Grooves, whatever.
So if you don't have Blues Grooves but do have some other loops set, just pick some loops and play along...
Let's say I've decided I want to put together a slow, bluesy tune using some of the Blues Grooves. I've browsed the library and decided that five of the loops in the "90 Blues Loops 2" folder will probably work.
Load "90_Shffl" in Part 1. Play the B1 note and give it a listen. It's a plain Jane basic backbeat that will likely be the main drum loop for my song. I want to move it down to C1 and get rid of the slice map.
Click the RANGE button to bring up the knobs for limiting a Part's range settings. Click on the PART TRNSP knob and turn it up to 11. (Yes, the Spinal Tap reference is intentional...)
Now, instead of playing at B1, the loop will play at C1 on your MIDI keyboard. It may seem odd that we moved the Part down by turning the knob up, but that's how it works - setting it to +11 means that the sound we hear will be 11 semi-tones higher than the key we hit, or that we need to hit a key 11 semi-tones lower than the sound we want to hear.
The keys above C1 will still play the individual drum hits in the audio slice map. We want to get rid of that. Set both the "Range L" and "Range R" knobs to C1. (Reminder: C-1 is "C negative 1", which is not the same. You want C1, without the hyphen in the middle.)
Now the loop will play when you hit the C1 key, and no other keys will make sounds.
Next, load "90_Shffl_Build" into Part 2. Set the MIDI channel to the same channel as the first loop (probably Channel 1). This time, set the PART TRNSP to +9, and set both range knobs to D1.
Repeat the process by loading "90_Shffl_TmFil" into Part 3, setting the Part transpose to +7 and limiting the range to E1.
Load "90_Shffl_Ride2" into Part 4, with transpose at +6 and the range limited to F1. Finally, load "90_Shffl_Ride_End" into Part 5, and set the transpose to +4 and the range knobs to G1.
You now have five similar drum loops set to play on five consecutive white keys on the keyboard. If you like, you can play the drum parts for an entire song on the fly - hit C1 and hold it down, occasionally switching to F1, and throw in D1 or E1 every now and then before hitting G1 to wrap things up.
Next tip... if you're using the same Blues Grooves loops that I used above, you'll notice that those fills on D1 and E1 take some practice with the timing! If I really had to play them on the fly, I might swap them out for some other loops in the set.
If you're programming/sequencing, there's another alternative: if you have one or two "problem" loops - you really like them, but maybe one or two hits or beats just don't work - you can work around it using the audio slice maps.
Stick the easy-to-use loops in one area of the keyboard, like we did with C1 through G1 above. Then put the problem loop somewhere else on the keyboard entirely, and include the entire slice map in its range settings.
Instead of having the sequencer play and hold one note to play the original loop, have it play the slice map, note by note. Leave out any hits that don't work, change the timing, etc.
Tip #3: Suppose you're fooling around with the "Vintage Rock" grooves and hear some loop that has an amazing tom sound. You want to be able to play just that one tom without having to play the entire loop.
You can add that one hit to a drum kit or other Combi preset. Play through the individual notes of the audio slice map to find which key has the sound you want.
Add the loop to your drum kit, transpose it so that the tom sound gets moved to whatever note you want, and then limit the range to just that one note. You could probably build an interesting 16-piece drum kit just by picking out sounds you really like from various loops.
-torgo (esoundz = bhall1968)
(I'm assuming you've followed along with the previous two parts, where we built an electronic drum kit by making our own Combi preset. If you're not up to speed on the RANGE button and related knobs, flip back a few pages and go through those walkthroughs.)
Quick tutorial - using range limits to map some loops
When you load up a sound from one of the ReTank loop/groove libraries, the full loop is set to play on B1 while the audio slice map starts at C2.
The slice map is a repeat of the loop, broken out one sound at a time on consecutive notes. If you like, you can play the loop manually, one hit at a time, by simply running up the keyboard starting at C2.
Also, if there's a certain sound in the groove that you really like - such as a crash cymbal or tom hit - you can add it to one of your own custom Combi drum kits by picking out the note with that specific sound and adding it as its own Part. We'll touch on that later.
But for now, let's stick to overcoming a small problem... since all the loops are set to play at B1, they get in each other's way if you load up more than one at the same time on the same MIDI channel. So if you want to play drum parts or other loops on the fly, you need to spread them out and put them exactly where you want them.
I'm using the Blues Grooves library here, but any of the ReTank loops packages will do - World Grooves, Latin Caribbean, Vintage Rock Grooves, whatever.
So if you don't have Blues Grooves but do have some other loops set, just pick some loops and play along...
Let's say I've decided I want to put together a slow, bluesy tune using some of the Blues Grooves. I've browsed the library and decided that five of the loops in the "90 Blues Loops 2" folder will probably work.
Load "90_Shffl" in Part 1. Play the B1 note and give it a listen. It's a plain Jane basic backbeat that will likely be the main drum loop for my song. I want to move it down to C1 and get rid of the slice map.
Click the RANGE button to bring up the knobs for limiting a Part's range settings. Click on the PART TRNSP knob and turn it up to 11. (Yes, the Spinal Tap reference is intentional...)
Now, instead of playing at B1, the loop will play at C1 on your MIDI keyboard. It may seem odd that we moved the Part down by turning the knob up, but that's how it works - setting it to +11 means that the sound we hear will be 11 semi-tones higher than the key we hit, or that we need to hit a key 11 semi-tones lower than the sound we want to hear.
The keys above C1 will still play the individual drum hits in the audio slice map. We want to get rid of that. Set both the "Range L" and "Range R" knobs to C1. (Reminder: C-1 is "C negative 1", which is not the same. You want C1, without the hyphen in the middle.)
Now the loop will play when you hit the C1 key, and no other keys will make sounds.
Next, load "90_Shffl_Build" into Part 2. Set the MIDI channel to the same channel as the first loop (probably Channel 1). This time, set the PART TRNSP to +9, and set both range knobs to D1.
Repeat the process by loading "90_Shffl_TmFil" into Part 3, setting the Part transpose to +7 and limiting the range to E1.
Load "90_Shffl_Ride2" into Part 4, with transpose at +6 and the range limited to F1. Finally, load "90_Shffl_Ride_End" into Part 5, and set the transpose to +4 and the range knobs to G1.
You now have five similar drum loops set to play on five consecutive white keys on the keyboard. If you like, you can play the drum parts for an entire song on the fly - hit C1 and hold it down, occasionally switching to F1, and throw in D1 or E1 every now and then before hitting G1 to wrap things up.
Next tip... if you're using the same Blues Grooves loops that I used above, you'll notice that those fills on D1 and E1 take some practice with the timing! If I really had to play them on the fly, I might swap them out for some other loops in the set.
If you're programming/sequencing, there's another alternative: if you have one or two "problem" loops - you really like them, but maybe one or two hits or beats just don't work - you can work around it using the audio slice maps.
Stick the easy-to-use loops in one area of the keyboard, like we did with C1 through G1 above. Then put the problem loop somewhere else on the keyboard entirely, and include the entire slice map in its range settings.
Instead of having the sequencer play and hold one note to play the original loop, have it play the slice map, note by note. Leave out any hits that don't work, change the timing, etc.
Tip #3: Suppose you're fooling around with the "Vintage Rock" grooves and hear some loop that has an amazing tom sound. You want to be able to play just that one tom without having to play the entire loop.
You can add that one hit to a drum kit or other Combi preset. Play through the individual notes of the audio slice map to find which key has the sound you want.
Add the loop to your drum kit, transpose it so that the tom sound gets moved to whatever note you want, and then limit the range to just that one note. You could probably build an interesting 16-piece drum kit just by picking out sounds you really like from various loops.
-torgo (esoundz = bhall1968)
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- KVRist
- 55 posts since 29 Jun, 2004 from Killeen, TX
torgo, these tutorials are awesome! IK needs to put you on their payroll! 
areemts1130 (here and @ esoundz)
"I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer." — Richard Strauss
"I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer." — Richard Strauss
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- KVRist
- 41 posts since 28 Jan, 2006
For those, who are new to Miroslav I recommon the video tutorials from squids. I also recommon them for all you others, who have bought one of the other VI's, cause the engine is the same and you can get some very useful hints (á la the power of 'stretch').dmorrill wrote:Thanks for the link! I just got Miroslav, but hadn't run across that link yet. I've bookmarked it for later reading...areemts1130 wrote:By the way, for those of you who picked up Miroslav, there is a five page sticky in the Sonic Reality/esoundz forum here full of tips and tricks to use. I've only just started reading through them, but it looks really helpful! The link is here:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=103808
have a look:
Best, Gunnar
--
esoundz:krabat
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- KVRist
- 286 posts since 18 May, 2010 from In-Limbo
Thanks Torgo for these awesome tips!! What would be really fantastic is having them organized in a file for any user to download. Any volunteers? 
Make music 
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- Sonic Reality Head Chef
- Topic Starter
- 8566 posts since 11 Mar, 2002 from Florida
Torgo is a legend.areemts1130 wrote:torgo, these tutorials are awesome! IK needs to put you on their payroll!
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Reverend Rhythm Reverend Rhythm https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=6041
- KVRAF
- 2859 posts since 21 Feb, 2003 from Woodstock, GA USA
True. If he will just do some musical ledgend name dopping, I'll be convinced that he is the second coming of Squids!Squids wrote:Torgo is a legend.areemts1130 wrote:torgo, these tutorials are awesome! IK needs to put you on their payroll!
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- Sonic Reality Head Chef
- Topic Starter
- 8566 posts since 11 Mar, 2002 from Florida
I'll cover the musical name dropping part but Torgo is taking over the infamous "mega post" I used to be known for... how did I do that for so many years? 10 years on KVR. Whew!
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- KVRer
- 19 posts since 1 Apr, 2011
Well, the invaluable shared wisdom and knowledge in this thread is too good to lose, so I finally decided to do something about it. After a few hours of working on this, I now have:StickyWicket wrote:Thanks Torgo for these awesome tips!! What would be really fantastic is having them organized in a file for any user to download. Any volunteers?
- A single mammoth web page containing all forum posts in this thread.
- A (fairly nicely) formatted 218 page PDF file with the same content.
Now, what I really have is an automated procedure for creating these two documents, the main reason being that there may be more great information to come. So I'll probably want to regenerate these documents again later in the month.
So the good news is:
- The documents contain only the forum posts (no banner ads, no sidebars, ...).
- All post data has been preserved (poster name, time, date, ...)
- All external links contained in posts still work (even in the PDF).
- The document colors are more "paper-like" (i.e. black text on a white background).
- Both documents are easily searchable (via web browser or PDF viewer).
The bad news is:
- It contains all of the forum posts, the pearls of wisdom as well as the general thread chatter.
I'm not sure of the best way to make these documents available yet (or if there are any legal or ethical issues in doing so), but I though I would at least make the news of their existence known...
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- KVRer
- 19 posts since 1 Apr, 2011
BTW, since the process is fully automated, I decided to also run it on the Miroslav Philharmonic Tips and Tricks thread that that was mentioned earlier. So I now have a single web page and 29 page PDF for that thread as well, just in case anyone is interested in that topic also.
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- KVRian
- 505 posts since 30 Jan, 2007
The "construction kit" loop sets don't seem to be the most popular choices, but if anyone out there happens to be considering them, you can hear demos on the esoundz web site even for the ones that don't have audio demos on the product pages.
The trick is that these (and more) sets are also available in R.A.W. format - and the pages for those versions DO have the audio.
For example, here's the page for the R.A.W. version of the Drum & Bass set:
http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=1855
The trick is that these (and more) sets are also available in R.A.W. format - and the pages for those versions DO have the audio.
For example, here's the page for the R.A.W. version of the Drum & Bass set:
http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=1855
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- KVRian
- 505 posts since 30 Jan, 2007
Well, the earlier walkthrough on building your own Combi kit was useful, as that's the way to mix and match pieces and do splits and layers. Definitely good stuff to know.
BUT... I finally found the *easy* way to edit the individual sounds within a single drum kit. So here's that tip:
VERY quick walkthrough - how to edit specific zones
In the bottom right corner of the SampleTank interface, there's an "on" button below the word "ZONE". When that is turned on, you can do separate editing on each Zone of an instrument sound.
Use the mouse to click on a note on the keyboard map at the bottom of the SampleTank interface to select the zone, and edit away. LFO2 and RANGE functions act across all zones, so they can't be edited separately. But the envelopes, LFO1, and the synth and filter controls are yours to tweak.
And that's it. Pretty simple and stupid, huh? (Something like that really should have been in the user manual.)
In some cases, like with the Cinematik Collection strings sounds that have too short a release time, you don't want it on - you'd have to change the release settings for each zone separately. That's a lot of unnecessary work.
But if you want to tweak one type of drum within a kit (boosting volume, panning it left or right, etc), it comes in handy. Many of the drums are single-note zones, so you'll be able to give a lot of them unique settings if desired.
Another very specific example where I'm going to put it to use is the electric piano in the "larger bonus instrument" folder in Omnisynth 2. It's a beautiful electric grand, really sweet. But the lower notes are horribly out of tune, making it almost useless.
The FINE control (one of the knobs in the "SYNTH" area) can fix that. It will take some work to fine tune each zone in the lower end of the keyboard, but the end result will be a huge improvement.
-torgo (esoundz = bhall1968)
BUT... I finally found the *easy* way to edit the individual sounds within a single drum kit. So here's that tip:
VERY quick walkthrough - how to edit specific zones
In the bottom right corner of the SampleTank interface, there's an "on" button below the word "ZONE". When that is turned on, you can do separate editing on each Zone of an instrument sound.
Use the mouse to click on a note on the keyboard map at the bottom of the SampleTank interface to select the zone, and edit away. LFO2 and RANGE functions act across all zones, so they can't be edited separately. But the envelopes, LFO1, and the synth and filter controls are yours to tweak.
And that's it. Pretty simple and stupid, huh? (Something like that really should have been in the user manual.)
In some cases, like with the Cinematik Collection strings sounds that have too short a release time, you don't want it on - you'd have to change the release settings for each zone separately. That's a lot of unnecessary work.
But if you want to tweak one type of drum within a kit (boosting volume, panning it left or right, etc), it comes in handy. Many of the drums are single-note zones, so you'll be able to give a lot of them unique settings if desired.
Another very specific example where I'm going to put it to use is the electric piano in the "larger bonus instrument" folder in Omnisynth 2. It's a beautiful electric grand, really sweet. But the lower notes are horribly out of tune, making it almost useless.
The FINE control (one of the knobs in the "SYNTH" area) can fix that. It will take some work to fine tune each zone in the lower end of the keyboard, but the end result will be a huge improvement.
-torgo (esoundz = bhall1968)
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- KVRist
- 104 posts since 14 Mar, 2007
Great going esoundz ! Whenever I go to esoundz web site, I know I am going to be tempted because many irresistible offers are always going on there !
This offer is super fantastic ! Just got my Miro last week ! Loving it just by playing presets !
One particular thing which nobody has yet touched in terms of Free sounds is Guitars ! Both Acoustic and electric......
I am a keyboardist.....so I am always after realistic Guitar samples...So has anybody tried SR's Guitar samplTank Expansions ? both Acoustic and electric ? Are they worth spending the 2 'Bonus' product coupons ?
Torgo, what do you have to say about Guitar Expansions ?
Thanks !
This offer is super fantastic ! Just got my Miro last week ! Loving it just by playing presets !
One particular thing which nobody has yet touched in terms of Free sounds is Guitars ! Both Acoustic and electric......
I am a keyboardist.....so I am always after realistic Guitar samples...So has anybody tried SR's Guitar samplTank Expansions ? both Acoustic and electric ? Are they worth spending the 2 'Bonus' product coupons ?
Torgo, what do you have to say about Guitar Expansions ?
Thanks !