unofficial 2box forum

Hello Guys,

Long story short, I got tired of the original 2box sounds.
I couldnt find any samples that fit my style and needs while playing live.
As i do not own any vst instruments i have decided to hit the studio and record samples for my own dsnds.
As nothing stands in the way of doing so, i have decided to invest a lot of time and resources to make that project "semi-big".
The reasons for that are as follows:
- I have access to a lot of great sounding instruments
- I recently got access to a beautifuly sounding studio room that gives "body and soul" to the drum sound
- As i also am a 2boxer, i feel the pain of not having an easy way of obtaining good sounding samples  (without having to buy vsti's , then buying sdse,then exporting them through sdse/dsnd tool)
- I have been a recording drummer since the last 17 years, i also have an educational background in studio production

On the 17th october, i am entering the studio to record samples of 5 different shellsets, about 10 snares and about 40 different cymbals.

As for the 2box community, my goal is to provide You with great sounding dsnd files/kits ready to load into the 2box module.

To achieve that, i would like to read your feedback, as to what kinds of samples would You be willing to buy for a reasonable price ? What i exactly have in mind is:
- What kits/instruments is there a demand for ? What instrument would You like to have in your 2box library ?
- What kind of style/tuning would You like those instruments in ? Do you want me to record/edit the drumset tuned to blues/jazz, pop or maybe metal ?

Every kind of feedback i can get from You guys is highly appreaciated.

I also have a technical question, maybe some of You can help me.
Is there a way of exporting recorded samples to a dsnd quickly ?
I know the hard way of making a dsnd from many wave files, but maybe someone here could spare me weeks/months of work.

Anyway, cheers!

I would love Danny Carey's Kit sampled which is made out of melted paiste cymbals or even the sonor kit he plays (which is custom too).

Any chance you'll be sampling his Sonor sig snare?

Would love any/all of his cymbals but especially the paiste cup chime cymbals.

http://www.uberproaudio.com/who-plays-what/189-tool-danny-carey-drum-kit-gear-and-drum-set-equipment

Quote from: PeteThePole on September 19, 2016, 07:55:12 PM
Hello Guys,

Long story short, I got tired of the original 2box sounds.
I couldnt find any samples that fit my style and needs while playing live.
As i do not own any vst instruments i have decided to hit the studio and record samples for my own dsnds.
As nothing stands in the way of doing so, i have decided to invest a lot of time and resources to make that project "semi-big".
The reasons for that are as follows:
- I have access to a lot of great sounding instruments
- I recently got access to a beautifuly sounding studio room that gives "body and soul" to the drum sound
- As i also am a 2boxer, i feel the pain of not having an easy way of obtaining good sounding samples  (without having to buy vsti's , then buying sdse,then exporting them through sdse/dsnd tool)
- I have been a recording drummer since the last 17 years, i also have an educational background in studio production

On the 17th october, i am entering the studio to record samples of 5 different shellsets, about 10 snares and about 40 different cymbals.

As for the 2box community, my goal is to provide You with great sounding dsnd files/kits ready to load into the 2box module.

To achieve that, i would like to read your feedback, as to what kinds of samples would You be willing to buy for a reasonable price ? What i exactly have in mind is:
- What kits/instruments is there a demand for ? What instrument would You like to have in your 2box library ?
- What kind of style/tuning would You like those instruments in ? Do you want me to record/edit the drumset tuned to blues/jazz, pop or maybe metal ?

Every kind of feedback i can get from You guys is highly appreaciated.

I also have a technical question, maybe some of You can help me.
Is there a way of exporting recorded samples to a dsnd quickly ?
I know the hard way of making a dsnd from many wave files, but maybe someone here could spare me weeks/months of work.

Anyway, cheers!

Wow, very interesting project. I'm really looking forward to the result. This is something I would like to do also but no facilities. I´m definately interested to help you with this

Some things that came to my mind:

Are you going to use close mics, overheads + room mics? I've made extensive testing with a PA, e-drums and drum VSTs I think there is very little need for room mics in the mix. Close mics and reverb of your liking just works so much better in rock/metal type of sound to my ears. Excessive room mic sound usually weakens the punch of the drums. Jazz etc may be completely different ball game though. My point is that besides you offer ready dsnds it may be good to offer raw wav files too for people get to make their own mixes.

Second thing is that it's good for you to know that you don't need 100 of different layers per instrument. I have noticed that already with 20 layers you can get very nice and smooth dynamic range without machine gunning. For snare and maybe for hihat closed (and nearly closed) samples it's good to have more. Of course it's good to record as many as possible but for example for cymbals that decay forever less is more approach could be beneficial. The key here is a nice distribution over whole velocity range from soft to hard hits.

To my ears its always better to have quite a lot snare wires on low velocities. Buzz rolls and such are much more smooth that way. So I recommend rather loose wires if it does not spoil overall sound of snare. Also, snare wire rattling on kick, and especially on toms gives nice impresion of complete drum kit if you know what I mean.

If you are sampling hihat, please focus on the closed part of it. For example if I was sampling 7 levels of openess I would take 4 levels before half open and only two after that. This is because the nuances in closed part are much more important IMO.

Good luck for the project and don't hesitate to contact me (e.g. with PM) if needing help.

Brilliant advice there! I was planning on sampling my 14" Meinl Soundcaster Dark hats as I love them... I'll take on board your advice and if the results are good, I'll post some links for you to hear!

Great! Looking forward to hear.

@Xenu

Thanks for the feedback mate!

I'm going to look around if i can get my hands on anything You have mentioned.
Will let You know for sure.

@espen

You're a lifesaver my friend!

Quote from: espen
Are you going to use close mics, overheads + room mics?

I was planning on making extensive use of room mics. However after reading your post i am taking into consideration the fact, that the tracks recorded with the room mics will be later on discarded.
Like youre saying, it all depends on what the overall sound of a recording needs in terms of drum sound.

Quote from: espen
My point is that besides you offer ready dsnds it may be good to offer raw wav files too for people get to make their own mixes.

The wav files will be available to anyone buying the dsnds, free of any additional charge.

Quote from: espen
Second thing is that it's good for you to know that you don't need 100 of different layers per instrument. I have noticed that already with 20 layers you can get very nice and smooth dynamic range without machine gunning. For snare and maybe for hihat closed (and nearly closed) samples it's good to have more. Of course it's good to record as many as possible but for example for cymbals that decay forever less is more approach could be beneficial. The key here is a nice distribution over whole velocity range from smooth to hard hits.

Great advice, i already knew that the 2box is quite versatile with how little samples it has to choose from.
But that goes much more in detail, thanks!

Quote from: espen
Good luck for the project and don't hesitate to contact me (e.g. with PM) if needing help.

Thank You verry much! I will surely ask some more questions until You get fed up with me :)

Quote from: PeteThePole on September 20, 2016, 08:09:48 PM
I was planning on making extensive use of room mics. However after reading your post i am taking into consideration the fact, that the tracks recorded with the room mics will be later on discarded.
Like youre saying, it all depends on what the overall sound of a recording needs in terms of drum sound.

The thing is that room mics are nice and more or less necessary to have in recordings, and they usually do sound good from headphones. But when using e-drums through PA they rarely give you what you expect.

Happy if I can help.  :D

Hey Guys,

Had to re-arange my plans and i will be hitting the studio a little earlier-  14th of october.
The less time for You to share your thoughts/expectations/advice before i record the drums.
I am counting on You  ;D

This is a very interesting project and I´m looking forward to hearing the results.

I would be especially interested in a good working live-kit for use over PA. Genre Rock/ Pop.


Good luck!
Cheers,
Lutz

Finally a project like this is really coming to life!!!! I am SOOOOOOO onboard with this. I'll be following this and providing ideas every step of the way. If no shortcuts are taken and great quality and multi sampling velocities are plenty then I am willing to gladly pay for every sample recorded!! I hope the sessions go extremely well and fun for you. Ill be there with you in spirit.    :drum1:   :rock:

Just throwing out some ideas here:

-if you can, try and record 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 size toms  (13, 15 optional)
-try and concentrate more on hihats and rides for cymbals
I would love to see Sonor, Yamaha, Mapex, Pearl Masterworks to be sampled but if you had to pick one then Sonor by a LONG shot.
-Dont record any ambient noise or any snare bleed whatsoever. Or have multiple versions, dry, roomy, big...
-concentrate more on close/direct mics we want it all- attack, punch, sustain, roundness and fullness!!
-use tubes on the kicks and toms for that warm tone- tone is key as we all know
-use some eq and compression! :)

Great News!
Just some of my inputs for live playing which have already been highlighted in the earlier posts and required when performing on a PA system:
•   Close mic recording for attack, fullness, projection.
•   Any chance of using 2 mics for the kick- 1 flatbed mic near the batter head & 1 near the resonant head.
•   Mild equalization and compression
•   General Rock/ Pop/Country standard setting scenario
•   No effect/ ambient sound.
I hope this helps  :)

All the best!   :patbat2box:

Thanks for all the enthusiasm.
I was starting to think that not a lot of people are interested in quality samples for our 2box modules.

I have some (not so positive) news about the project.

First of all i would like to apologise for, in a way false promise i made.
I contacted a major company that is renting instruments.
They have high quality sets like top tier pearl, sonor and gretsch kits.
The cost of renting them however is unfortunately to excessive to me and would shoot my budget through the roof.
I therefore i have to stick to the instruments i already have at my disposal.
I will list my favorite ones wich already proved to be great instruments in past recording sessions:

A Mapex Saturn kit 22"14"10"12"14"
A DW PDP LX kit 22"14"8"10"12"14"

Cymbals:

Sabian AAX fast hats 14"
Zildjian K 14" hi hat
Paiste dimmensions power bell ride 22"
Zildjian A custom projection crash 17"
Zildjian K dark crash  ( i dont remember the size)
Sabian HHX china 18"
Two sabian HHX splashes

And lots more besides those listed.

I am going to use multiple microphones to record every single instrument.
I will still set up and record room mics, how much of them is going into the mix (if any) will be seen after the recordings. Before i release the kits , all of them will be tested multiple times live and the sound will be tweaked to best suit the live environment.  I hope to do this also between recording sessions to possibly change something with the recording method if need be.
Thank You for the input about the "genre style" the drums should be recorded in.
Boy do i need to listen to some good country to get that one right :)

Thanks for the productive input and keep it coming!

Thats great to hear things are moving forward! Too bad about the high end kits...

But you can make most any kit sound great with good heads and consistent tuning.
Overall the best sounding heads for toms especially for recording are clear 2ply batter heads and clear or ebony 1 ply resonant heads. Clear emperors are a favorite and clear ambassador resonant head.

If you're using lower to mid level kits its even more crucial to get these heads and a great tune on them.

You can do 2 different versions for tuning. You could do a fat lower tuned bigger type of drum sound and you can do a higher tuned "let them sing" type of tuning too.

I'd be very interested in hearing what you end up with. I'm a gigging drummer so it's kits that sound good and very solid through a PA that I would be interested in.. No effects as that can be added after.  Ref costs..I've no idea.  But be usefully to be able to hear them before buying.

Pete, just a thought but where in the country are you? It may be that other drummers close to you could loan you additional kits to record.  I have a 1987 Premier Resonator Black shadow kit, 22. Kick 12 14 16 toms, fitted the original Premier Ds heads. If you were in easy distance from Sheffield I'd be happy to loan it.
  The other option worth considering is using different batter heads on the same kit.

Yes, for instance I have a Pearl MHX 12-14-14-16-22 with Giant Beats in The Netherlands.

How was this going? Did you manage to record?

Hi Guys,

I am after my second day in the studio.
3-5 days of studio work left depending on how fast i manage the rest of the instruments i got left.
The highlits from those 2 days are a 14" tama starclassic maple snare, 13" mapex black panther maple snare, 24"pdp bass drum with a felt beater and a plastic beater. I must say that i am very happy about the sound of these particular samples.
Tomorrow i will record the mapex saturn kit, it includes 10,12,14,16 toms, 14 snare, 22 kick.
I will record it in 2 drumhead options, all coated ambassadors and all clear 2ply evans heads.

Thanks guys for proposing to lend me your gear, as said my session wil last 3-5 more days and i am , as my nickname suggests, located in Poland. It would not be possible nor time/cost effective to ship the drums to me.

I will release a video with me playing every recorded kit when the dsnds will be ready so You will know what you're paying for.

Curious to see if the kits will work live, but somehow i get the feeling that, to truly capture the right sound, one would need to record the samples in a live environment. Maybe that's a thought for future projects.

Well that's it from my side.
Thanks for the interest and keep your fingers crossed.

Good Luck. Looking forward to hearing the results

DO you have any updates on the tracking? Would love to see some vids!!

Hello Guys!

@wildhorse
Thanks!

@sn47som
The recording session is over.
It took me 5 days in total to record all the instruments that were "worthy" of recording.
Some of them, in my ears were unfortunately sounding medicore at best, so i decided to concentrate more on the nice sounding instruments. Here's the final list of what i sampled:

Snares: Yamaha maple custom absolute 14”, Mapex blach panther 13” maple snare, tama starclassic maple 14”

Shellsets: Mapex Saturn 10”12”14”16”22”, DW PDP LX 8”10”12”14”22”, DW PDP 805 13”16”18”24”

Cymbals: Zildjian A custom fast crash 17”, A custom projection crash 16”,K custom Dark Crash 18”, K custom Hats 14”, Sabian HHX evolution splash 7”,HHX evolution splash 12”, HHX China 18”, Paragon china 19”, AAX fast hats 14”,Prob8 ride 22", Paiste Dimmensions power bell ride 22”

I took my camera to shoot some vids, but i was doing almost everything myself so unfortunately had no time to record any video. The only visual "evidence" that has been deemed showable by the aesthetics police (my wife) is this photo:
(https://s12.postimg.org/qu7jcvdv1/IMG_3882.jpg)
Let me tell You that it took me one hour of studio time to tidy the room up and bring it to that condition.
Unfortunately moving drums in and out, changing heads etc. is quite a messy process...

I have not touched the samples yet as i was quite sick, but soon enough i will mix some easier instruments like snares/kicks and export them to dsnds to record a sneak peak video for You guys.

Cheers!

Any progress in this project?

What happened to this project?

Well I guess this project died.  :-\

Hi!

To create a sample for 2box and make it optimal...some steps are required...which takes a lot of time!

I am doing a Zourman project with a couple of samples. Even if you have an optimal recording...like in my case...(a studio with equipment worth $500K, 25 microphone positions, a rare and expensive drum to sample).... the required post steps to "pack it" to DSDN format are very time consuming.

I was recently talking to Endre ENerd who have made a couple of kits for 2box...where he hit the drum 1200 times per drum, remixed it with a dry or wet approach, controlled the overall level, then chop each sample into a separate wave file...checking the peak/rms of each hit and make a index of all the files before packaging them in tools like Drumit Editor/DsoundTool to create the DSDN file format. You need both time, skills and tools to make it happen. Endre did develop a couple of tools to streamline his process.

I know also from my interview in digitalDrummer with the guy behind the 2box sounds that they were  using a nice internal tool to speed up the process and the possibility to choose from 5 different mic positions in a late stage of the process when creating the DSDN file.

Best Regards

Anders / http://www.zourman.com