Building Hi-Hat dsnds from Superior Drummer

[ddrummer68]

Thanks to all of you for the great information on this forum.  With your help, I've been slowly exporting my Superior Drummer kits to dsnd format.  For drums and crashes, it's pretty straightforward.  For hi-hats, not so much. 

For example, I can't figure out how to get the foot pedal "chick" into the dsnd.  The foot splash works fine.

Also, Superior doesn't seem to have separate edge/bow articulations for the partially-open sounds; there's only "open 1", "open 2", & "open 3".  Are you just putting those same articulations on both the edge and bow zones?

Do you have any other best practices, or suggestions for improving the quality of my hi-hat dsnd files?  I'm considering the Zildjian Gen16 samples, but I'd like to get everything possible out of the various Superior libraries I've already purchased.

Thanks again for any input or suggestions.

Bobby

[Jman]

Thanks to all of you for the great information on this forum.  With your help, I've been slowly exporting my Superior Drummer kits to dsnd format.  For drums and crashes, it's pretty straightforward.  For hi-hats, not so much. 

For example, I can't figure out how to get the foot pedal "chick" into the dsnd.  The foot splash works fine.

Also, Superior doesn't seem to have separate edge/bow articulations for the partially-open sounds; there's only "open 1", "open 2", & "open 3".  Are you just putting those same articulations on both the edge and bow zones?

Do you have any other best practices, or suggestions for improving the quality of my hi-hat dsnd files?  I'm considering the Zildjian Gen16 samples, but I'd like to get everything possible out of the various Superior libraries I've already purchased.

Thanks again for any input or suggestions.

Bobby

With Superior different expansions have different amounts of Hi Hat articulations. NY Allaire and NY Hit Factory as well as Roots Sticks have 5 Open articulations for both Tip and Edge. Some have Foot Splash some don't. Since I have a pretty large library if a HH I build does not have a Ft Splash I use a Foot Splash from one of the other libraries that has a similar sound to the Hat I am building even if I need to do a little retuning. BFD2 HHs including Gen 16 have Open 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and full Open for Tip and Edge, but no Foot Splash samples.
Really though you don't necessarily need the huge amount of articulations. Some really nice HH dsnds can be built with 3 or 4 open transitions.

And yes, if there is only Open and not Open for tip and edge I use the same for both.
Foot Chick is not needed in the dsnd, the 2Box module will produce a foot chick from the closed hat sounds.

One thing I try to limit is the number of hits I use for the HH MIDIs ... normally I would now use no more than 28 hits .... or even fewer per articulation. If you use a larger no. of hits like 50 or above say ....  your dsnds will end up GIGANTIC and normally don't really sound better than dsnds made using fewer hits.

[ddrummer68]

Thanks for all that info, Jman.  I have NY Studios, but didn't realize they'd offer different articulations than the C&V I'm currently exporting.

I will take your advice about limiting the hits on my hi-hat dsnds.  I've been using 49, and will try a few at ~25 to see how they work out for me.  I appreciate that you took the time to share your experiences with me. 

Bobby

[Jman]

Thanks for all that info, Jman.  I have NY Studios, but didn't realize they'd offer different articulations than the C&V I'm currently exporting.

I will take your advice about limiting the hits on my hi-hat dsnds.  I've been using 49, and will try a few at ~25 to see how they work out for me.  I appreciate that you took the time to share your experiences with me. 

Bobby

I started out doing my Hi Hats with 49 or more hits on everything... but after experimenting to cut down on HH dsnd size I've done a lot with fewer hits and really can't tell a big dif in performance. Also, on foot splash you don't need a lot of hits, I usually use 16 or under as I don't see needing a huge amount of volume and articulation variation for foot splash. On BFD2 you can look at the original sample files and know exactly how many distinct hits that made it into the sample pool for everything. I don't necessarily use the same no. of hits in my MIDIs as the original files, but it gives you a good idea of the amount of samples that were used in each instrument articulation. 

[Jman]

Now that you mentioned C&V ... I've got C&V also, and I didn't end up using any Hi Hats from that pack, not that they don't sound good, but there is a very limited amount of articulations on the Hi Hats in that pack to build from .... anyway, glad if any of my suggestions do ya any good .... later, J