Something new in Drumland

[MIXOSAURUS]

7 alternating samples per drum? BFD has as many as 128 layers per instrument in many of their collections.
You get a choice of different fixed mic/reverb setups - BFD's is completely flexible and user-configurable.

Hi everybody, thanks for discussing this.

David,

no offense meant, but it seems that you're confusing things - the BFD layers you're referring to are velocity layers, aren't they? The 7 alternating samples in MIXOSAURUS DAW Drums are alternating samples for EACH velocity layer. MIXOSAURUS DAW Drums use 20 velocity layers with 7 automatically alternating samples each (you might say that's 140 variations). The advantage of the alternating samples is that you can take the exact same MIDI groove, copy a bar several times, and it will always sound slightly different. No need to tweak MIDI velocities to sound human.

MIXOSAURUS uses 3 hit articulations and 7 levels of Hi Hat foot pressure for the "closed" Hi Hats alone (that's 21 articulations), plus 8 articulations of open and "foot" ones. The foot pressure is controlled by the Modulation MIDI CC - copy the same groove, then record the movement of your ModWheel to give it variations. No need to transpose the HiHat notes to get to other foot pressure levels.

It allows you to PLAY any roll, crescendo, cymbal swell, whatever by all single MIDI notes, and it will sound realistic when you do so.

It's full 24 bit, has no bit reduction or other compression in any of its audio and offers the aforementioned sample variations for each and every drum/cymbal/articulation/velocity layer throughout the entire library, not just for "the important" ones.

In the first days of July, the MIXOSAURUS DAW Drums manual will be available for download. This will give some more insight.

Best regards,

MIXOSAURUS

[David Polich]

Thanks for posting the information.

I do wish you the best of success with your product. It sounds good.

[zed]

The advantage of the alternating samples is that you can take the exact same MIDI groove, copy a bar several times, and it will always sound slightly different. No need to tweak MIDI velocities to sound human.

That sounds like an interesting approach.

The only thing that would concern me, is that there might be an unappealing sample in the group which would pop up randomly... or a snare drum roll would sound slightly different every time you played back your sequence... which may or may not matter depending on the how closely the samples in that velocity group resemble eachother.

An exciting concept, nevertheless.

[wheever]

250G drives are available for a little over $100

Dude, like, totally, where have you been? 250 GB drives are so '06!

500gb drives are now a little over $100.

All kidding aside, in the last few weeks I've seen a whole slew of them in various configurations over on dealmac. I nearly grabbed a Samsung SATA 500 for $110...but then realized that a TB of storage really should be able to get me through the summer.

[stephentayler]

That sounds like an interesting approach.

The only thing that would concern me, is that there might be an unappealing sample in the group which would pop up randomly... or a snare drum roll would sound slightly different every time you played back your sequence... which may or may not matter depending on the how closely the samples in that velocity group resemble eachother.

I say, treat it like a drummer...... do a take and record it!! Anything you don't like, go back and drop it in!!!!

Kind regards,

Stephen

[MIXOSAURUS]

The only thing that would concern me, is that there might be an unappealing sample in the group which would pop up randomly... or a snare drum roll would sound slightly different every time you played back your sequence... which may or may not matter depending on the how closely the samples in that velocity group resemble eachother.

Hi Zed,

true, there might be a hit every now and then that sounds slightly louder or softer...just like the real drummer would. The deviations in the alternating samples aren't so great that you'd actually call it a different performance - but they make it sound a lot more natural.

Here's a simple 1-bar groove. It's 1 bar, looped, thus uses identical MIDI data every bar. No change whatsoever to the MIDI data,
and no effects or eq on it except PSP's VintageWarmer on the master channel. Quantized btw - whatever "human" it sounds, it does so only due to the sample management.

http://www.MIXOSAURUS.com/audio/demob1.mp3

You can hear the differences in the hits best in the open Hi Hat and the Snare's ringing. A few of the Snare hits are indeed audibly softer. Does this ruin the groove? Don't think so (remember, no individual compression on the snare yet ). But if you think it does, you can simply decide to use a "1 static sample" Snare Drum patch but keep the alternating samples in the other drums, cymbals, hihat... you choose.

Best regards,

MIXOSAURUS

[zed]

A few of the Snare hits are indeed audibly softer. Does this ruin the groove?

Absolutely not! Thanks for posting the sample... I appreciate it. As I am currently a little peeved with another (shall-remain-nameless-but-you-know-who-you-are) company who refuses to post audio demos, it is a delight to have discussion with a company rep who is actually willing to demonstrate. ':D'

Definitely with that example it is clear that my concern that each playback might sound too different is certainly layed to rest. In this case, anyway, the various samples in a velocity layer are close enough to each other that the variations are very subtle indeed.

And, as Stephen pointed out, above, in the case where there is a more notable variation (e.g. a drum roll that sounds great sometimes and then EVEN BETTER at other times) you can always re-bounce the audio of a particular section over again. Only necessary for the more finicky among us.

[toodamnhip]

The only thing that would concern me, is that there might be an unappealing sample in the group which would pop up randomly... or a snare drum roll would sound slightly different every time you played back your sequence... which may or may not matter depending on the how closely the samples in that velocity group resemble eachother.

Hi Zed,

true, there might be a hit every now and then that sounds slightly louder or softer...just like the real drummer would. The deviations in the alternating samples aren't so great that you'd actually call it a different performance - but they make it sound a lot more natural.

Here's a simple 1-bar groove. It's 1 bar, looped, thus uses identical MIDI data every bar. No change whatsoever to the MIDI data,
and no effects or eq on it except PSP's VintageWarmer on the master channel. Quantized btw - whatever "human" it sounds, it does so only due to the sample management.

http://www.MIXOSAURUS.com/audio/demob1.mp3

You can hear the differences in the hits best in the open Hi Hat and the Snare's ringing. A few of the Snare hits are indeed audibly softer. Does this ruin the groove? Don't think so (remember, no individual compression on the snare yet ). But if you think it does, you can simply decide to use a "1 static sample" Snare Drum patch but keep the alternating samples in the other drums, cymbals, hihat... you choose.

Best regards,

MIXOSAURUS

I have a question Mixosaur...
The variations you program puts in..are they consisten pass to pass in the way they are varied..
i.e.

Lets say I play a one bar loop at bar one of my song, if there IS a soft snare first time you play the loop, let's say on beat 4, will it always be softer on beat 4 or will the alternating soft sample vary each time so that the next time I play bar one, the soft snare might be on beat 2?

This is important to know for when I make instrumental stems, I need to know iif they will be different each record pass...or, will the variations be consistent?
If the variations are different each time, I would not like that. If the variations are stable, I would. Of course, if they are NOT stable, I can just record the drums to audio and be done with the real time aspect of your program, but that also might entail various passes until I think the variations feel like they are in the best spots...please ellaborate..

David

[SixStringGeek]

250G drives are available for a little over $100

Dude, like, totally, where have you been? 250 GB drives are so '06!

500gb drives are now a little over $100.

I know, I just bought 5 of them to round out my mac pro - 4x 500 striping for audio + 1 read only for sample libs + one that came with for OS/apps.

[Frodo]

Okay

So, it seems that stellar, first rate drum VIs are showing up every other week.

Which one is the most stable?

[zed]

So, it seems that stellar, first rate drum VIs are showing up every other week.

Yeah that's what I was thinking. A few weeks ago I was satisfied that I had already purchased the best VI drums out there in the form of BFD... but now I'm wondering if something else would do the trick and gobble up less CPU in the process.

Of course I'm hoping that the Fab drums are going to completely suit my tastes and eliminate my desire to find another alternative... but we'll see.

[Kawentzmann]

I would like to hear a ride cymbal demo. Preferably pre-1970 rides.
Because it••™s what always hardest to do with a VI. A second ride hit is not like the first - it••™s half new and half refreshing the first one.

KK

[Frodo]

So, it seems that stellar, first rate drum VIs are showing up every other week.

Yeah that's what I was thinking. A few weeks ago I was satisfied that I had already purchased the best VI drums out there in the form of BFD... but now I'm wondering if something else would do the trick and gobble up less CPU in the process.

Of course I'm hoping that the Fab drums are going to completely suit my tastes and eliminate my desire to find another alternative... but we'll see.

I was totally sold on BFD and almost picked up a starter kit with a couple of add-on packs yesterday-- just based upon the huge wave of BFD user raves posted here over the past couple of weeks.

I liked what I saw and heard with mixosaurus a lot-- but it's so young-- not even on the market for another 2-3 weeks. There is surprisingly little info offered up front, although the mixosaurs people appear to be quite willing to give when pressed for info. But terms like "unprecedented", "expert", "high end", and "hundreds of" might have been more effective 30 years ago. It's personal, but I wish they'd avoided this sort of non-descript descriptive terminology. It would also have been nice to have much more OSX-specific info as well up front-- and user reports which have proven to be so vital are yet to arrive-- but the mixosaurus people do appear to be eager enough to respond when contacted.

But this could very well turn out to be the best drum VI of 2007, so I don't want to knock it. There are just so many good drum VIs out there already which have a head start cutting their teeth under UB. Special Kontakt 2 Player? Another two-week registration headache with NI? I'm just not sure.

It DOES sound nice, and the company should be commended for that.

[MIXOSAURUS]

I would like to hear a ride cymbal demo. Preferably pre-1970 rides.

Hi Kawentzmann,

sorry for the delay (I guess you can imagine that these are busy days and nights for me, close to the release...).

Here are a few files:

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/democ1_ohc.mp3
this is the "Light Ride", "Vintage Tube" overhead mics, M/S (sorry Frodo, I understand you don't like to hear such unprecise descriptions, but for the time being I will not give details on what drums, cymbals or mics were used).

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/democ1_ohb.mp3
like above, but with the "small diaphragm condenser" overhead setup

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/democ1_ohb_rideonly.mp3
like above, Ride Cymbal only

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/democ1.mid
a MIDI file containing the MIDI data of this demo

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/demob3.mp3
this is the "Heavy Ride", "small diaphragm condenser" overhead setup

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/demob3_rideonly.mp3
like above, Ride Cymbal only

Hope you like it!

Best regards,

MIXOSAURUS

[toodamnhip]

I would like to hear a ride cymbal demo. Preferably pre-1970 rides.

Hi Kawentzmann,

sorry for the delay (I guess you can imagine that these are busy days and nights for me, close to the release...).

Here are a few files:

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/democ1_ohc.mp3
this is the "Light Ride", "Vintage Tube" overhead mics, M/S (sorry Frodo, I understand you don't like to hear such unprecise descriptions, but for the time being I will not give details on what drums, cymbals or mics were used).

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/democ1_ohb.mp3
like above, but with the "small diaphragm condenser" overhead setup

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/democ1_ohb_rideonly.mp3
like above, Ride Cymbal only

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/democ1.mid
a MIDI file containing the MIDI data of this demo

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/demob3.mp3
this is the "Heavy Ride", "small diaphragm condenser" overhead setup

www.mixosaurus.com/audio/demob3_rideonly.mp3
like above, Ride Cymbal only

Hope you like it!

Best regards,

MIXOSAURUS

I love how this stuff sounds...it's like eged and ready to go..really live..I dont think my BFD, which I have stopped using 6 months ago sound anything like this..its always dull and takes too much work to make sound well. anyone else impressed by this product? Hey Mixosaur, how about offering a group buy for all of us here at the nation? This was a great strategy for Blue Tubes where the price went lower and lower the more peopl came aboard..you might get a lot of buyers here.