[linux-audio-user] producing a drum sample library for hydrogen

R Parker rtp405 at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 11 17:17:06 EDT 2004


Hi,

I have been discussing the design of a drum sample
library for Hydrogen with Comix (Hydrogen author),
Bill Bailey (my studio partner and a drummer) and
Bobby Josland (drummer). I don't think any of us has
experience with designing a high quality sample
library. We've got some questions and hope to get
feedback in the form of "this is my experience" and "I
don't know but imagine...."

The objective is to create a high quality sample
library that has the potential to "sound" like a live
drummer. Hydrogen has features that will help achieve
sound and feel. From the perspective of the library
I'm only concerned with "sound."

Snare Drum
For the sake of argument, assume there are three
primary sounds; 1, 2 and 3 and that each sound has
three volume levels; low, mid and high. This means
there needs to be nine snare drum samples--the reality
is that we'll have many, many more than that. The
objective is to sequence a part that has the dynamics
of a live player--snare roll or whatever.

Are three volume/dynamic samples for every single
sound enough for a sequence to achieve or get close
enough to the dynamics of a live player? Does anyone
know how the commercial drum libraries are produced?
Maybe we need five volume/dynamic samples for every
sound.

Stereo Image
I'm interested in knowing what people think is the
best solution for achieving live sounding stereo
imaging. I've spent several days recording test sounds
and conlcuded that some instruments are probably best
treated as stereo samples. Dry (no reverb) snare drums
can potentially be mono tracks but I suspect cymbals
must be stereo.

The cymbal recording strategy will be to form a
somewhat natural semicircle and possibly use an X/Y
mic pattern. When sequencing ride cymbals they need to
bleed from the listeners Hard left side across the
stereo field and into the Hard right side. If we don't
treat cymbals as stereo images they could fail to
sound like a live player when sequenced.

Snare drums might achieve live sounding stereo imaging
from 1 in 2 out reverbs. In addition to dry mono snare
drums, we intend to produce a number of reverb
processed (wet) stereo samples.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any thoughts on these issues. I
don't expect production to begin for another two or
three weeks and that will be somewhat dictated by the
usability of Ardour. With the push for Ardour 1.0 I'm
preoccupied with testing and not using it.

Incidentally, the production will be done in our
studio which has accoustically tuned rooms and with
some high quality signal chains; Neumann -> Avalon,
and some average chains. The overheads are SM81 which
run about $600.00 U.S. a pair. They aint great but
they are good enough. Those signal paths will run
through a Soundtracs Solo consol and insert into a
Tascam Dm-24. The drums will sound great because Bill,
Bobby and I know what we're doing. If we don't know
what we're doing someone should shoot us--we've got
about 90 years of combined experienced with playing
and recording drums.

ron


	
		
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