Cymbal swells?

[NathanE]

Hi Folks.  I'm a relatively new drummer, been playing for a year now and ready to upgrade from my td11 to something with better sounds and more output channels for live playing. 

The D3 was my preferred option and I was about to purchase but I just saw in a thread on vdrums that it's not possible to play cymbal swells on the D3.  No one really seems to respond to d3 questions on the vdrum forum, I think it's mainly mimic and Roland players over there so I wanted to see if anyone here knew if this is correct. 

I've searched and not found anything conclusive already over here so wanted to ask knowledgabe users.  This is a really important feature for me and will be a deal breaker so I'm obviously really keen to hear from you all!

Many thanks in advance

Nathan

[welshsteve]

I can answer your question. Yes it does cymbal swells, very well! I find them sounding REALLY natural. A lot of the stock sounds have bell on the crashes too, if that's your thing. Of course, they choke too!

[NathanE]

Super, thanks Steve for coming back.  Given the uncertainty elsewhere is there anything specific in set up, either hardware or trigger parameters that might effect this.  I'm thinking whether to swap cymbals from my existing Rolands to L80s with DIY (probably jman) triggers.  If you have any thoughts or guidance I'm all ears!

All the best and thanks again

Nathan

[welshsteve]

If you go with Jman's, you'll have no issues. He can recommend settings for optimum realism. Of course you'll probably have to tailor it a little to suit your playing dynamics, (gain most probably) but he'll be able to suggest a good starting point.
Good luck!!

[NathanE]

Thanks Steve, much appreciated.

[paulf707]

This is something I have thought about in the past - some of the old Roland devices used to have a separate sample for cymbal swells (essentially a crash sample without the initial attack).
I was wondering if the edit functions on the D5 that controls attach could emulate this - or maybe even layer up a new sound with a swell type sample on the bow and still have a crash on the edge.

Steve - I'd be interested to know which crash cymbal samples you are using that you feel have a good swell function - I've just tried a few on mine, and I can hear multiple crashes (which is not what you get on an acoustic cymbal). And are you playing edge or bow hits on those?

(it could of course be my playing / technique that's at fault - not the samples  )

[welshsteve]

When I swell, I use the bow sample and play very quick double strokes (not that it matters) starting from a tap. It sounds pretty natural to me anyway. Maybe you'd still hear the hits.

[NathanE]

This is something I have thought about in the past - some of the old Roland devices used to have a separate sample for cymbal swells (essentially a crash sample without the initial attack).
I was wondering if the edit functions on the D5 that controls attach could emulate this - or maybe even layer up a new sound with a swell type sample on the bow and still have a crash on the edge.

Steve - I'd be interested to know which crash cymbal samples you are using that you feel have a good swell function - I've just tried a few on mine, and I can hear multiple crashes (which is not what you get on an acoustic cymbal). And are you playing edge or bow hits on those?

(it could of course be my playing / technique that's at fault - not the samples  )

Paul, it sounds like you are also struggling a little with swells.  It will be a month or so until I'm getting an upgrade, I'll keep an eye on any progress you (and others?) make on this!

[Jman]

I've been using the Di3 for my extra stuff, like Octobans, Gong, chimes, second/side snare and extra cymbals, etc. So I haven't really checked out the cymbal swells on the Di3. But I can definitely say that with the Di5 it depended very much on the cymbal/instrument choice, a couple I found worked pretty well, so I would always keep one of the Crashes assigned to a cymbal that worked for the swell .... I would suggest going through all the crashes in the Di3 and test them. And be aware that every cymbal instrument whether in the Di3, the Di5 .... or any that are on the 2Box website, those can all be used in either module.

[ANGR77]

Hello!

Here is an example to create a certain cymbal swell in AD2...which in the next step could be exported to dsnd using SDSE. They works pretty well in my di3/di5.

https://youtu.be/TsxvylW4c5o

Best regards

Anders / www.zourman.com

[paulf707]

OK - so here's a really 'rough' test (I literally spent about 5 minutes on these samples on my PC this morning, and only just tested them on the kit now!) - I know it could be better, and I think I need to find an more suitable sample to test with.
I used HHX17 (which I'm pretty sure is a standard 2box sample, so OK to share here).

I used Lustark's tool to extract all the WAVs
I then edited all the 'bow' WAVs with a fade in to remove the initial stick impact sound.
I then reimported all the samples back into a new DSND file using the 2Box tool.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AvEC4KT8mxCMqMk7KtdJ0eQXxDqEUQ

This WAV file starts with the original sound, edge, edge roll, bow, bow roll, bell
You can hear on the rolls that the multiple impact samples sound different (in my opinion) to how an acoustic cymbal would sound.....
The second set of sounds are from the edited sample.
The edge hits and rolls are identical (i left these samples 'as normal' to allow for proper 'crashing' on the edge). However the bow sample give a slightly better swell effect - in my opinion. (And the bell is still the same)

What I didn't notice until now is that the bow samples are layered from 'ping' stick hits up to 'crash' type sounds - and that to me doesn't really sound correct on the swell. I may need to find a sample with just 'crash sounds'

I'm also thinking that (from memory - it's been a while since i hit a real cymbal!!) I think the swell rolls are typically played on the edge - so maybe that is the one to do the swell edits on.....


Anyway - as i said - a real 'quick and dirty' test to prove a concept, and I think there is something there that could be improved on.
I've put my edited DSND file up with the WAV file in case anyone else want to try it out.....

[paulf707]

Hello!

Here is an example to create a certain cymbal swell in AD2...which in the next step could be exported to dsnd using SDSE. They works pretty well in my di3/di5.

https://youtu.be/TsxvylW4c5o

Best regards

Anders / www.zourman.com

Useful article Anders - thanks.....
I might look at an edge sample and apply the fade ins to the exported WAV files in this way (more on the lower velocities) and see how that plays.....

[edcito]

cymbal swells dont work as in roland, dont bother

[NathanE]

Um

I'm confused now.  I have someone saying they work really well, someone saying they don't so don't bother and a couple of folks working super hard to find the right sample set and trigger parameters. 

I'm not at all experienced using daws and vsts and it seems like I'm going to have to do quite a lot of fiddling to get swells working.  I'll have a think.

[paulf707]

https://1drv.ms/f/s!AvEC4KT8mxCMqMk7KtdJ0eQXxDqEUQ

I've tried another test this morning.... Using the ideas from the YouTube clip I've adjusted the 'swell' time based on velocity. And I've also moved the swell samples to the edge.
In the link are a V2 DSND and WAV file.
The recording starts with the normal bow and bell sounds. I then tied a couple of single crashes on the edge - and it's still noticable that the attack has been 'sloped off' - so the crash doesn't sound great.
I then tried some swells - I'm getting some issues at low volume where the bow sound is triggering incorrectly, but where the swell samples are playing I think they are getting closer....

I will experiment next with leaving the highest velocity sample with full attack (so the cymbal can be 'crashed' as normal) - but I'm not sure if that may trigger at the end of the swell and spoil the effect.
I may also experiment with the same samples on bow and edge (to remove the problem of the wrong sample triggering) - unless I can adjust the trigger settings to avoid this problem.

Now I know the edge samples sound better for 'swelling' - it might be worth going back to may original idea and put the swell on the bow, and leave the edge for crashing...... It's not exactly how you would play a 'real' cymbal, but it might be easier to control in an e-drum environment....



Granted, none of these ideas / solutions are 'perfect' - but in my opinion, if you want a perfect acoustic cymbal response then you'll probably need to buy an acoustic cymbal. I play e-drums because I need to play on headphones - but the 'open drum system' on the drumit gives us so many opportunities to experiment with things like this, the possibilities are almost endless!