So here's the deal. Audio Technica and MusicTech magazine partnered up to see who could come up with an 'unusual' way to use one of their microphones. I came up with a plan to sample a Timpani skin I had lying around. The idea was liked by MusicTech so before I knew it I had an Audio Technica ATM510 sat on my doorstep from them. Now all I had to do was record the skin and turn it into a Kontakt library...
The aim of this blog is to give a quick insight into each part of the process while looking at how the ATM510 sounded and behaved in a strange new environment.
Let's start with the mic in question. The Audio Technica ATM510.
The ATM510 is a cardioid dynamic handheld microphone. It's equipped with internal shock mounting for reduced handling and stage noise, a rare-earth magnet for high output, and a multi-stage grille for protection against plosives. It sits in direct competition with the SM58.
So with all this in mind, why is a dynamic handheld mic being used to record a sample library?
That's the genius of it. This experiment is all about seeing what this microphone can do outside of its standard working environment by subjecting it to a quite different scenario.
My task was to see how well the ATM510 would cope when it was removed from the singer's hands on the live stage, and instead used to record a sampled instrument.
This instrument uses an old Evans 36" Strata 1000 timpani skin.
Scouring Google came up with no results on timpani skin instruments so I can (quite!) confidently say this is a world first sample library!
Recording Day
Recording a sample library with only one microphone is, luckily, quite a straight forward task. Set up on a boom stand, my new ATM510 was hooked up to my Duet 2 and the mic came alive. Initial checks were fine so I went straight into a test recording. Placing the centre of the timpani skin a couple of inches from the mic, I started shaking, tapping and hitting the skin. Luckily I was alone otherwise this act would have looked pretty dodgy should anyone happen to look up at the window. After playing back my results I found I had to raise the gain but I expected this as the engineers at Audio Technica probably didn't think shaking a timp skin in front of their mic was ever going to happen. I ploughed on through discovering new ways of doing things to a timp skin no-one could imagine. I even invented a new word describing one of the actions! I found shaking the skin made a 'shimmy' sort of sound but if I shimmied harder it gave me another noise which, for the purposes of this instrument, I have named a 'sham'. I recorded hits, booms, percussion noises (taps on the rim etc.), rumbles, shimmies, 'shams', slaps, thunder noise and general fx sounds.
The ATM510 did a great job at picking up all of the nuances, ambience and detail, though I'd come to expect that from Audio Technica. Playback of the sounds gave me the results I was looking for so I proceeded to turn it into a functioning instrument.
Editing
As anyone who dabbles in sample library development will tell you, editing is the most monotonous task of any library creation. Whether you record a drum with 4 samples or a clarinet with 30,000, every single one needs to be edited, tidied and sorted. Mastering keyboard shortcuts in your DAW makes life a hell of a lot easier when it comes to this. All recording and post production of Timp Skins is done in Digital Performer 8 which is my DAW of choice. After appropriately EQing and compressing all the samples, recorded solely from the ATM510, they were loaded into Kontakt 4 (I chose version 4 as opposed to 5 as it will be more compatible to a wider audience). Instead of loading the samples into one key and creating velocity layers (the library would have had up to 9 velocity layers) I decided to simplify it and spread out all the samples across the keyboard as this is more of an FX instrument than an expressive one. Two patches were put together; one of the original recordings and one with a selection with reverbs & effects. I also deliberately left room, in the background wallpaper of the instrument, for any potential improvement to the library or user interface in the future.
The ATM510 from Audio Technica really did work flawlessly throughout the whole recording process and I'm thankful my idea worked! This mic was never designed for anything I put it through but was a joy to work with and so easy to use. It did what it was meant to do straight out of the box and I can't stress that enough; completely plug and play.
I won't say what I think about how it sounds as I hope you will download the instrument and hear for yourself. Please do try it out and let me know what you think.
Recorded solely with an Audio Technica ATM510, Timp Skins is the world's first Timpani Skin FX instrument. Using a dynamic microphone, this experimental instrument pushes the boundaries of what one Audio Technica mic can do out of its comfort zone.
With 93 samples I'm sure this will find a place in your orchestral palette!
Adding different reverbs really does make this stand out so experimentation is key.
Sample Resolution - 24 bit / 48Khz
93 samples
Recorded with an Audio Technica ATM510
Two .NKI files - original unaltered patch and an FX patch
Deep sampled with hit, boom, rumble, percussion, shimmy, sham, slap, thunder, and wobble performed techniques/articulations.
Size - 38.1MB
Low profile RAM footprint...!
Any computer will run this
Designed for an 88-note keyboard
Requires Full Retail version of Kontakt 4.2 or later
Please do download the instrument here and let me know what you think! https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/395 ... 0Skins.zip
Original blog post and quick demo here http://www.jamesdunlopmusic.com/2/post/ ... efore.html
