Jet City Drums from Studio Cat

[Slap the drummer]

Here is where I'm just going to jot down stuff as I go along, in case it's of interest.

First of all I'm just going to get some negative stuff out of the way.  I'm not being critical
of the Studio Cat - the samples maybe weren't really aimed at the likes of us 2boxers -
but these are things I guess will affect us.

Samples are 96/24bit so the files are big - and once converted down to 44/16, then 17GB's
worth doesn't look so big at all.  In principle conversion from 96/24 to 44/16 is a doddle using
sound forge.....

BUT here's the real kicker with this set - there are plenty of "variation" hits to give a "natural"
sound, but there are actually, in practice, very few different velocity layers offered.
Generally three velocity levels only are given, loud, soft, and medium.  There may be as many as
8 different samples to a level, but the fact remains that there are very few velocity levels.
(Its actually a bit more complicated than that but I'll be clarifying further down the line).

The GOOD THING tho is that the sounds (on first impression) are great - very natural and
unprocessed (I'm not going to say raw, it wd be misleading), while at the same time seeming
somehow "just right" straight out of the box.  All other issues aside, the samples themselves
are very nicely judged, which is why I'm going ahead and converting to Dsnd files.....

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... it's late....  suddenly bored.....

zzzzzzzzzz
                zzz
                     
                       ZZ

zonk

[Jman]

Cool, looking forward to this one. I know you're getting pretty good at building more velocity layers and  tweaking the original samples to get something diverse enough to build a good dsnd. At some point could you go through some of the steps you are taking, especially in something like this Jet City pack where you will have to create more velocity levels out of the original waves. You are using Sound Forge Pro as I am now. I'm thinking of going ahead and building some more dsnds and obviously other sample packs aren't as ideal as NDK hence requiring more work/steps to get the desired end result.

You're blazing the trail for us here Slap .... most appreciated ... J

[Slap the drummer]

At some point could you go through some of the steps you are taking, especially in something like this Jet City pack where you will have to create more velocity levels out of the original waves.

Yes, I'll start a thread soon - but really I don't know anything more than the obvious......

I have noticed though that there is a "script" function and that you can write your own process tools - if you
know how (I don't).  What we need is a simple script to apply user-defined volume changes to build up large
sample sets from smaller ones......

anybody know anybody? 

[Slap the drummer]

JET CITY kit

Progress is going to be real slow here, mainly coz I can't work up the enthusiasm at the moment.
But there's something I should point out, more as a warning than anything else.

There is an emphasis on the drums over the cymbals in the library.  So where the cymbals are
all one hit per stereo file sets, and so not hard to turn into Dsnd files (velocity issues aside),
the drums are more complicated.

There are more different velocity layers here and PLENTY of variations, but the drums are built
up from sets of files covering different miking options.

So the snare for instance consists of separate files for:-
Room mikes
Overheads
Spot on top
Spot on shell
Spot on bottom
Bleed from kick mike

It is possible to mix files in SForge but it's a bit of a chore to say the least - to be honest I hadn't really
thought it all thru, and I'm not sure how I'm going to go about it yet.  (It's probably a piece of p!ss in
a program like Reaper, as long as you know how to do it, which I don't).

That said, I have had a trial go (in SF) and it's amazing how the sound comes together when you blend
the files - and obviously there's a lot of potential here for tuning the sound to get it just how you like/want it.

Unlike the cymbals the files contain multiple hits.  Each velocity layer gets a file, and the file contains a lot
of variation hits.  I'm thinking this might in fact come in handy.  I'm hoping that by applying a gradual fade
across a file it will be easy to turn variations into different velocities (volume levels) as well.


So that's the negative stuff.  The sounds are great though, so its worth considering.  You get a lot of
samples for your 49usd but there is a fair amount of work to be done.  If only there were more velocity layers
to work with.....  makes me appreciate just how good the NDK library is.

More in time.