Kingston Drums released

[Spe3D]

All files like instrument definitions would be ok for sure plus any info you would like to pop with it.

I will pm you with an email address

Maybe if I get permission from NS we can just include the part of the kit that’s affected, until then if you can tell me which kit version it was I might be able to find that kit at the ns site and provide a link to it.

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[Spe3D]

Thanks for the reply NS

I won't be able to do bits of NS kit in any form and include them at my site.

Instrument defs ok but samples from NS_Kit no.

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[Douglas Whates]

Hi guys and girls,

Douglas from naturalstudio here - Spe3D put me onto this post.

First, let me give my deepest sympathies to Michael @ Kingston - I hope you know what you've let yourself in for! I started doing all this sampled drums stuff quite a while ago now and what started off as a small project has ended up being much more involved than I ever could have imagined. Also – I had a little chuckle when I read your copyright – seemed a bit familiar

A couple of things I’d like to pick up on…

There have been some comments on the “air” preceding the kick drum samples - this is something I had a bit of a hard time with in earlier versions of ns_kit. *Looking* at the samples in a .wav editor, I used to crop from where the signal rises from background noise. *Listening* to the sample, I started cropping a little later. This allowed me to still hear the full sound of the kick drum - it has a real-sounding quality to it. That was all very well until I mapped it and started trying to play/sequence it; the kick drum sounded a little sloppy. This is because you are triggering some pedal noise, then the real attack of the sound.

Like you, I remain convinced that there *is* important sound in that pre-attack, but in a mix this is negligible and a balance must be struck between purist realism and usability/groove. You mention that a real drummer compensates for the pedal action – while this is true, it is simply not possible to play like that on a keyboard or an e-drum kit as your initial note-on triggers the pedal sound! ns_kit6 had real problems with regards to timing, but this has been solved for v7 – it’s a long learning curve!

Some people have also mentioned the velocity curve. Again, this is a real difficulty in sampling drums, but I’m pleased to see you haven’t gone the “normalising” route. However, not normalising makes life a lot harder for the sample bank programmer as a smooth velocity is a lot harder to map – especially when you have limited velocity switching. Having not heard your samples, I can’t comment on their accuracy, but getting the right balance takes a lot of listening and tweaking.

Anyway – just though I’d stick my oar in!

Good luck with it all and hopefully it won’t be too stressful.

Cheers,

Douglas.

[Douglas Whates]

Thanks for the reply NS

I won't be able to do bits of NS kit in any form and include them at my site.

Instrument defs ok but samples from NS_Kit no.

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

Just to explain - a copy of the e-mail I sent to Spe3D...

-----------

Thanks for your e-mail.

I would have to ask that naturalstudio samples not be distributed from your
site, modified or otherwise. With naturalstudio, my intention is to provide
a singular website where people can download all samples and respective
presets. Having one portal like this keeps me safe in the knowledge that
everyone downloading naturalstudio samples have all the information about
those samples, who created them, where users can go for support, etc.

Obviously I'd have nothing against you providing a GM (or otherwise) mapping
and then directing your users naturalstudio where they can download the
samples.

Sorry to be a stickler on this, but third party distribution has caused me a
bit of pain in the past.

Again, thanks for getting in touch and good luck!

-----------

[Kriminal]

Hi guys and girls,


There have been some comments on the “air” preceding the kick drum samples - this is something I had a bit of a hard time with in earlier versions of ns_kit. *Looking* at the samples in a .wav editor, I used to crop from where the signal rises from background noise. *Listening* to the sample, I started cropping a little later. This allowed me to still hear the full sound of the kick drum - it has a real-sounding quality to it. That was all very well until I mapped it and started trying to play/sequence it; the kick drum sounded a little sloppy. This is because you are triggering some pedal noise, then the real attack of the sound.

Like you, I remain convinced that there *is* important sound in that pre-attack, but in a mix this is negligible and a balance must be struck between purist realism and usability/groove. You mention that a real drummer compensates for the pedal action – while this is true, it is simply not possible to play like that on a keyboard or an e-drum kit as your initial note-on triggers the pedal sound! ns_kit6 had real problems with regards to timing, but this has been solved for v7 – it’s a long learning curve!

At last, the voice of reason

[Kingston]

Hi Douglas,

nice to see you here.

sorry about the copyright thing, but I simply couldn't think of any better way of putting it. Honestly I tried. So it's the one from ns_kit7 with minor mods. I was gonna write you a big mail about all this when the official site would go online, but it's out of my control unfortunately.

I'll rant about the air again. These were certainly NOT designed for any edrum trigger stuff. I would advice everyone to steer clear of that unless you do some major modifications. I'm sure there's a also a kind of "golden section" for the amount of air, but I simply kept it all and it has served me well throughout the years. I have to disagree about not being able to compensate for it with keyboard play. I never even thought about it untill somebody pointed it out. Quantizing it has never been a problem either, even if banging it straight to grid! It's been all good groove this far.

About the normalization vs. velocity switching, I'm well aware there's not enough switching for the way I've done it. You might get repeated hits at the same volume etc, hence the three key snare technique. I opted for this as anything else during the mapping design sounded even worse or was considerably less expressive. Same for kicks and hihats.

Then again, I only had to think of my own preferences while making these which was a bliss.

I've tried to sticker it everywhere in these posts: Your Mileage May Vary!

[Markleford]

I'm sure there's a also a kind of "golden section" for the amount of air, but I simply kept it all and it has served me well throughout the years.

And I'll point out that nobody said "that kick drum sounds sloppy" when listening to the demos.

I've tried to sticker it everywhere in these posts: Your Mileage May Vary!

Amen! Even if I decide to clip the air myself when I finally download them, I'll back you on your decision since it's *your* tool. Just because you decide to offer it to the public (for *free* even) doesn't mean you have to apologize for your methods, especially when you warned everyone about the peculiar mapping since the beginning.

- m

[Sascha Franck]

I'm just in the middle of doing some repatching. FWIW, I'm most likely gonna come up with some "double GM" kit, using standard GM note assignments, but twice, only divided by two (or maybe three) octaves. I allways found this to be rather comfortable.

Well, anyways, I was just wondering why there was no pedal hihat - any chance we might get some pedal hat samples one day sooner or later?
For me those were allways pretty much important - most drummers actually seem to "define" their timing through their left foot stepping on the hihat pedal, and whenever I'm programming a cymbal groove I try to have some 8th note pedal hat pattern running parallely.
For now I may try to get away using one of the low-medium loud stick hats, but I'd really welcome a pedal hat sound.

Anyways, now that I've been fooling around with those samples for a bit I must say they are in excellent quality, especially the hats I love (that's why I really wouldn't like to use a pedal one of any other set).
So, whatever my first criticism might've looked like, these samples can easily compare to highly professional libraries! Thanks again!

[Kingston]

About the hihat pedals.

Well, whooops.

You see, when I recorded these, I had no idea that drummers do this. Now that I'm older (and wiser in this respect) I would do it. I was devastated few years a go when I found out about this and realized my kits didn't have this option. Oh well. Can't have everything I suppose.

As a compensation, there are two more snares from the easyrider sessions that I never thought would be needed and thus never got edited.

One is possibly the worst snare ever from yamaha, and it's horribly out of tune. Heck, it might even be usable as such.

The another is an extremely high quality piccolo with possibly the longest ring ever heard. Unfortunately the ring didn't translate awfully well through the 57. There's another problem with it. At the session, it was dropped on a drumstand by accident "just right" and the sharp end protruded the unfortunate lower drum skin. There's always the "second assistant tape-op" at any session who will do a total wipe like this.

The sound was altered, of course, but it might be still usable.

[pljones]

Okay, initial sfz format now up

http://www.drealm.org.uk/sfz/KingstonEasyrider.zip

I've actually not played this yet, so it should be taken as draft. Comments welcome.

It's closer to GM than Kingston's mapping - by some nasty use of lorand/hirand and velocity mapping. If you have an external controller pedal, you might want to change the lorand/hirand to loccN/hiccN and use that.

Also, there's a couple of keyswitched bits - shout if you can spot it from the map file. Again, you might want to use a controller instead.

(I, er, used offset= in a few places where I could see silence at the start of the samples...)

[Spe3D]

Thanks Pljones,

sfz mapping - this is the first alternative to be posted for playing these kits.

Do you want this added to the download section at Harmony counterpoint too?

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[Spe3D]

Double post

[pljones]

Spe3d - not yet: let's give it a while to "beta"... (Like, I'll get my keyboard out after dinner and try the thing out myself..!)

I'll also bung a readme in and zip it for you.

[pljones]

Okay, dunnit! Spe3d, you can take a copy if you like.

The link's above to the zipfile containing the updated mapping plus a handy readme file.

I'd recommend anyone using the kit to audition the samples directly. Use the mappings as a handy guide rather than the be-all-and-end-all of the kit. I've made certain decisions on how to map the kit based on how I'm likely to use it (e.g. the muted crashes and the snare edge hits require two keys pressed each; I'm used to the GM drum map so I squeezed the kit to fit). The joy of sfz format is how easy it is to adjust the mapping.

(Darn, I forgot to put a licence clause in my mapping. If you need it, let me know. Basically, anyone's free to use it for any purpose without fee. Derived works are okay so long as you remove any reference to me.)

Oh, and belatedly "thank you!" to Kingston for posting! The snares are both very nice indeed.

Now for something a bit rougher, I suppose... mMMmmmm.

[Spe3D]

Hi! Pljones,

Looks great to me,

many thanks for making these mappings , and I will get that zip uploaded to Harmony Counterpoint today.

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)