Teach me about drum samples...Please

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Teach me about drum samples...Please

Post by drumsound » Mon Aug 21, 2006 6:20 pm

So a friend and I have decided to try tp put a drum sample/loop library together for fun and profit. Here's the rub, we're both drummers and have little to no experience with them. I need to know things like what file format, and are there special formats for different samplers and looping programs? What sample rates are people looking for. What types of tones, and grooves seem to be missing from the current crop of thigs out ther?

Thanks for the help!

your humble moderator,

TS

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Post by RoyMatthews » Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:01 pm

I sure there are people who'll give you better/more specific answers than I could as far as sample rate and formats, but I would hazard a guess drum loops are typically wavs recorded at 44.1k (24bit?). I think there are a bunch of formats for loops.

What I personally would love would be simple drum beats. Everything I've heard as far as loops are too funky. There are plenty of Hip Hop and Electronic loops. Give me some indie loops. Or something a songwriter can play to and use as a demo and have it sound real without it being distracting.

I think drummers on loop CDs are looking to impress but its hard for me to make any music with it.

I just had an annoying session so I might not be making any sense.

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Post by mus1k_freak » Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:21 pm

yea defintly keep it simple, like mentioned before most loop libraries are to over the top, some nice fill ins and simple beats in 3/4 and 4/4 and such would be great, also single hits for using with samplers would be cool to, can enver hurt to have more samples
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Post by drumsound » Mon Aug 21, 2006 7:24 pm

Great info guys. We're also thinking that there isn't a real rock/indie type thing out there. I think we might also track to tape and then transfer.

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Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:28 pm

personally I'd go for a 16/44.1 and a 24/48Khz of each sample if you can. I think that makes it more valuable as it might cover more ground. but I guess you can always shoot higher and let the end-user convert them.

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Post by effector » Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:34 pm

if i was buying a sample / loop library, i would want apple loops that i could drop into logic, and a few folders of individual hits. i would also consider it a BIG BONUS to have midi files of every loop. that way i could use them with battery.

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Post by jmoose » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:47 pm

I helped a friend make samples of his kits YEARS ago...like mid-90's and Akai's were all the range...probably still are. There were a few different formats, I remember Akai, Emu & Yomama being the big ones.

I'm guessing that Drumagog has it's own format...you'll have to have that one covered...whuddabout that 'drum replacer' thing for Toolz? What format is that? But yeah...there's LOTS of different fomats out there.

Fun stuff. :?

I'd record them at high-res and either let people downsample as needed, or make 'yer own CD/DVD's as needed at whatever sample rates people request for that set.
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Post by apropos of nothing » Tue Aug 22, 2006 8:34 am

For individual samples I would get as high resolution as possible and then use somehting like this to downsample/convert into various formats:
http://www.chickensys.com/products/sw_i ... slator+Pro

For loops, you probably want to have them cleanly edited and "acidized". (header information gives measure-length and hit information. Another possible header type would be REX (Recycle, although I think that's gone now).

Would be cool to have each loop have six iterations -- kick mono, snare mono, toms stereo, OH stereo, room mic stereo, and some decent fills for each type.

Reason refills are going to be a hot item.

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Post by Raijer » Tue Aug 22, 2006 9:09 am

drumsound wrote:Great info guys. We're also thinking that there isn't a real rock/indie type thing out there. I think we might also track to tape and then transfer.
I think this'd be great. I agree there's plenty of funky stuff out there, and I'd love to hear more basic rock and/or indie beats. Still, for me, the biggest void in most current drum libraries seems to be anything beyond 4/4. I'd really kill for a decent selection of 3/4 stuff!

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loop editing

Post by stevedood » Tue Aug 22, 2006 1:22 pm

Hi Tony,

I've spent hundreds of hours editing sample libraries for drums and will offer some input based on experience, and what I would pay for. I just finished a large session with an exceptional jazz drummer and built a formidable library of material. Here are some comments:

1) Clean, unprocessed notes with natural reverb tales; try various tunings, spaces, sticks/mallets, envelopes/mufflings. Pure sounds first as they can always be processed with effects and dirtied up by the artist.

2) If the destination is for a hardware sampler, a 16 bit 44.1 kHz WAV (mono/stereo) is the only format I use for my Akai/Yamaha samplers. Anything higher in quality is useless unless I'm going to run it tthrough some software processing (compression/eq/effects) before going to 16 bit. I don't use software samplers (ala Ableton Live) so I don't care about those other loop formats (except Recycle REX files, which are very handy becuase they give you the MIDI data for loops)

3) LOOPS: 1,2, and 4 bar stereo/mono loops, cleanly edited start and end points, with fades to zero points, quantized at 90/100/110/120/130 bpm. Mixdown/process/eq as you would want the final sound to be, but be vigilant with the editing.

4) Quantized fills/rolls/flams ;)

5) Logical Filenames - give the notes and loops (i..e finished product) a filename and folder structure that contains as much info about the sounds as possible; remembering that the artist will copy the file to another destination, among other similar files, so it's helpful to know tempos, type of drums/mics, etc.
Ex: L001_KICK24_D112.WAV = 24" Kick Loop #1 recorded with AKG D112, further abbreviations to shorten the filenames are always helpful provided they aren't confusing.

Hope this helps,

Steve

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Post by Professor » Tue Aug 22, 2006 9:43 pm

Boy, I haven't made samples in ages, though lately I've been thinkin' hard about getting into it.
What I have done recently is purchased several software-based sample libraries from East West / Quantum Leap (www.soundsonline.com) I bought their symphonic orchestra, symphonic choirs, and 'Colossus' libraries and these things are tremendous. They are all built within the Native Instruments Kontakt Player environment, and the total data space for those three libraries is 138-gigs or hard drive space.
I would probably start by contacting someone like Native Instruments and inquiring about the developer software for someone who wants to build their own libraries.
Next I'd consider the other stuff out there.
Certainly lots of guys still use hardware boxes, and lots of folks use Reason or Acid to import loops in audio formats. But it seems like I've been seeing more libraries that record grooves as MIDI templates which makes an awful lot of sense.
If you could record grooves to MIDI, then the tempo is infinitely adjustable - unlike an audio loop, whether CDA, WAV, AIFF or anything else.
Also, the grooves can easily be assigned to any drum kit, like for example if the swingin' jazz groove sounds cool on the heavy metal kit.
And since the MIDI groove would come up as separate tracks for all the instruments, you could remix the multitrack audio anyway you like.
FXPansion makes a program called BFD that does exactly that kind of MIDI-Groove + Sample-Playback arrangement in a very cool way.
I'm pretty sure that is how things are implemented on other titles like Artist Complete and EZ Drummer from the soundsonline.com.

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Post by Silverlode » Wed Aug 23, 2006 7:12 am

After seeing Reason Drum Kits 2.0 in action, I can't imagine why anyone would bother making their own. You can control the bleed from the kick drum in the bottom snare mic. It's got alt samples so you don't hear the exact same snare hit every time, etc. It's too good.
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Post by mus1k_freak » Wed Aug 23, 2006 7:39 am

there are alot of good sample programs out there, never really liked reason but theres DKFH and the packages that go with the that, and BFD but its also nice ot have some more just in case though dont fit in a project your working on 8)
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Post by JWL » Wed Aug 23, 2006 7:40 am

I agree that finding a niche will be your best bet.

On the other hand, since you aren't familiar with what's out there, I'd recommend checking out some of the best sample packs out there (BFD, Seyer, DKFH, etc) and seeing if you can improve on them....

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Post by bickle » Wed Aug 23, 2006 11:00 am

jwl wrote:I agree that finding a niche will be your best bet.

On the other hand, since you aren't familiar with what's out there, I'd recommend checking out some of the best sample packs out there (BFD, Seyer, DKFH, etc) and seeing if you can improve on them....
Agreed here, too - there's a lot of great stuff already out there. BUT, I think there's definitely room for something else - more rock-oriented, as you've suggested, and maybe also a bit more mid-range in quality and price. BFD and things like that are really expensive, and many folks probably don't need its full range of capabilities. Something great sounding, functional, and versatile, but still relatively affordable, would be great.

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