Looking for a set of sounds for a few kits for [ ($) ]

[cuba1956]

Hi guys,

We've recently started playing and recording with my friend â€" just for fun, pretty basic stuff: Nirvana, Black Keys, nothing sophisticated. I'm recording with 4 outputs + using phones as kinda stereo overhead mic (even though, it doesn't really work that way). I don't have any experience with playing through MIDI, I would like to have a set of sounds in the module. I don't want to play through MIDI, if I'm honest.

Now, for some of the songs I need some pretty specific snare sounds: with head and rim being cross-stick at low velocity and rim-shot at high velocity. I've tried doing it myself, but I wasn't particularly successful. Managed to get the file done with dSoundTool, but wasn't happy with the result. Also, my cymbal recordings sound pretty terrible, but the sounds in my drum-kit are terrible as well. Like the mics went to overdrive while recording cymbals or something. With cymbal heavy tracks (ie. Grohl stuff) it sounds like a mess. I'm bad at this guys, I know. I should've known better, but at at this point I'm overwhelmed with new information â€" recording and mixing. (I have two kids, so no judgement, please! Have some sympathy! :-) )

This will probably sound lame, but I'm happy to pay reasonable amount for a few nice sets of sounds for a few kits that will sound balanced and nice. Here're my requirements to each kit:
1. Complete set consistent (W or W/O) room/reverb etc.
2. Snare with cross-stick on low velocity and rim-shot on high-velocity.
3. Good sounding cymbals without being a mess (unless I'm doing something wrong)
4. No hiss/noise when low-dB.

I'm happy to pay for several kits even if you use some sounds from apps. I know my way around the 2box module and I can get the kits in place as soon as I have sounds.

Appreciate your time and hope someone will be kind enough to help.

Thanks guys.

[Coda]

What you are asking is not feasible because a) recording real kits is hugely time expensive and that would translate into $$$ for you and b) exporting sounds from drum VSTs to share would not be legal in most jurisdictions.
What you could do, is get yourself something like Superior Drummer 2, and Lustar's SDSE, and export the Avatar kit from that. I found it one of the easiest VSTs to work with to get decent results, and it can be found quite cheap if it's on offer. Otherwise look at Addictive Drums. I bought BFD3 in the end, and while I'm happier with the natural sounding drums I get from the exports, it's taken me many hours of time to learn it, and I have in no way mastered it. Superior and Addictive is way easier in my opinion to get good sounds you can use immediately.

[cuba1956]

What you are asking is not feasible because a) recording real kits is hugely time expensive and that would translate into $$$ for you and b) exporting sounds from drum VSTs to share would not be legal in most jurisdictions.
What you could do, is get yourself something like Superior Drummer 2, and Lustar's SDSE, and export the Avatar kit from that. I found it one of the easiest VSTs to work with to get decent results, and it can be found quite cheap if it's on offer. Otherwise look at Addictive Drums. I bought BFD3 in the end, and while I'm happier with the natural sounding drums I get from the exports, it's taken me many hours of time to learn it, and I have in no way mastered it. Superior and Addictive is way easier in my opinion to get good sounds you can use immediately.

Dear Coda,

Thanks for sharing this, although unfortunately this is neither helpful nor on topic. I appreciate your advice, but I don't want to use MIDI and since I'm running on a mac, I can't export any sounds from apps. I know there are options, but since I explicitly said, I struggle finding any time, I would be happy to find someone who had done that and paid for the trouble.

Please, feel free to PM me if you're willing to consider helping me out.

[InTheBox]

Thanks for sharing this, although unfortunately this is neither helpful nor on topic.

I beg to differ. I find Coda's reply both helpful and on topic. The reason we are not very lenient about sharing/selling VST sounds in here is that we are barely tolerated by the VST companies as it is. We're already well in the gray zone when it comes to "intended use" for the VST software.

Not many people record their own stuff and make dsdns since this is a massive and costly undertaking. The only quality thing I know of is the eNerd libraries:

http://endre-enerd.com/tech-info/sounds

No cymbals yet, though.

[Coda]

Dear Coda,

Thanks for sharing this, although unfortunately this is neither helpful nor on topic. I appreciate your advice, but I don't want to use MIDI... <snip>

I never said anything about MIDI.

[cuba1956]

Sorry if I wasn't clear previously, probably my bad. Apologies, if this is the impression you got.
I don't actually encourage to sell any paid sounds. Nor I ask people to use sounds they paid for. My problem is â€" I don't really know how drums should sound and I don't want really to edit the drum sounds for the module. I did it twice, it didn't work. Just to be clear, I'm not asking people to steal anything for me.
Since the wavs need to have specific requirements to them before they make into the module, I would like to pay someone for the expertise to choose the right sources for me, assemble them into dsdns or whatever the format is.

Here're a few scenarios I thought could go down. Please, feel free to let me know if this works:
1. Take the free sounds from 2box, change the snare to have cross-stick and rim-shot, add proper crashes and suggest a kits I can use. I saw people do that, but I couldn't get the result I wanted.
2. Point me to a paid library of wavs with sounds recorded at different velocities â€" buy them and mix and match them to form a good kit for me.
3. Sell your own kits and make some money.

The fact is, it's a lot of things to take into consideration and I would love to use someones expertise.

Hope this is clear now.

Thanks.

[cuba1956]

I never said anything about MIDI.

Sorry, I thought you're suggesting playing through EZ drummer and apps like that. How do you play without MIDI?

[digitalDrummer]

It appears like all of your options are illegal because they involve members editing someone else's samples and selling them to you.

[cuba1956]

Thanks for letting me know.

Is there free/paid dsds/wav libraries I could use for snares and cymbals? Preferably with cross-sticks/rim-shots at different velocities?

[Coda]

Is there free/paid dsds/wav libraries I could use for snares and cymbals? Preferably with cross-sticks/rim-shots at different velocities?

This is what I was talking about. From my original response to your post:

What you could do, is get yourself something like Superior Drummer 2, and Lustar's SDSE, and export the Avatar kit from that.

I'm trying to make it easy for you to get some decent sounds without a lot of trouble. This is your #1 option.

[Jman]

Just a FYI. There is one 2Box Cross stick/Rimshot combo already in the 2Box module. It is in the Snare, Cross Stick folder. The name of that is Cross Shot 1. In the 2Box module Kit no. 67 that Cross Shot is assigned to the snare rim. You can assign that to the rim of any snare. Personally I never really liked using the Cross stick Rimshot combination that is velocity switching. That is the way Roland does it. And it is a bit aggravating when you accidentally trigger the rimshot when meaning to hit a Cross stick, and vice versa. I prefer to simply leave the snare rim for Rimshot only and assign a Cross Stick sound to the rim of Tom 1 or to a separate pad.

[cuba1956]

Hey guys, thank you very much for all your answers. Apparently, I will have to deal with that myself and thank you for all your suggestions.

Just a FYI. There is one 2Box Cross stick/Rimshot combo already in the 2Box module. It is in the Snare, Cross Stick folder. The name of that is Cross Shot 1. In the 2Box module Kit no. 67 that Cross Shot is assigned to the snare rim. You can assign that to the rim of any snare. Personally I never really liked using the Cross stick Rimshot combination that is velocity switching. That is the way Roland does it. And it is a bit aggravating when you accidentally trigger the rimshot when meaning to hit a Cross stick, and vice versa. I prefer to simply leave the snare rim for Rimshot only and assign a Cross Stick sound to the rim of Tom 1 or to a separate pad.

I wanted to keep the experience real (bought converted kit from Jobeky for that reason), so that is a great suggestion. Thanks!

I'm trying to make it easy for you to get some decent sounds without a lot of trouble. This is your #1 option.

Thanks for the suggestion. This is what I'm going to try.

Is there a place I can just buy good cymbal samples? Unbelievable there's no service that does that.

[Coda]

Yes and no. There's some fantastic sounding cymbals in the Zildjian pack, but alas it needs you to already own BFD ECO, or BFD2, or BFD3. There are some kits by Analog Drums (some have the great UKIP cymbals which aren't available anywhere else) but it uses the Kontakt engine. SDSE can export these, but I think you need the full Kontakt engine, not just the free player. The hihats had limited articulations IIRC.
Maybe you could go for BFD ECO (note that it has limited velocity layers support otherwise its almost identical to the full BFD), and if you need more cymbals, you could get the Ziljian pack (which can be had for about $50 when it's on offer), or the more recent Sabian pack.

[espen]

Actually, you don't need the BFD software itself for having the sounds of it's expansion packs. Every velocity layer can be found as a multi channel wav file. Those are not directly suitable for making dsnds but I found a relatively easy way to convert them inside Reaper. By doing this you obviously cannot adjust the different mics of drums or cymbals. They just are what they are but IMO they tend to be in a pretty good balance to my ears. I can write instructions how to do this if someone is interested. I have those already mentioned Zildjian packs + Sabian pack and Stanton Moore pack.

This is maybe also worth of checking: http://www.voxengo.com/group/drum-samples/

Those are ready for 2Box wavs. I really like especiallly the hihats and crash/china cymbals. There are plenty of individual samples played with sticks and rutes.

[cuba1956]

Actually, you don't need the BFD software itself for having the sounds of it's expansion packs. Every velocity layer can be found as a multi channel wav file. Those are not directly suitable for making dsnds but I found a relatively easy way to convert them inside Reaper. By doing this you obviously cannot adjust the different mics of drums or cymbals. They just are what they are but IMO they tend to be in a pretty good balance to my ears. I can write instructions how to do this if someone is interested. I have those already mentioned Zildjian packs + Sabian pack and Stanton Moore pack.

This is maybe also worth of checking: http://www.voxengo.com/group/drum-samples/

Those are ready for 2Box wavs. I really like especiallly the hihats and crash/china cymbals. There are plenty of individual samples played with sticks and rutes.

Oh, wow, Voxengo sounds really awesome and very reasonably priced. I'm going to snatch those for sure. Thanks a lot!