I have created a drumset in MachFive 2. I am posting to offer the instrument as a tutorial for creating your own instruments in MachFive. If you like my drumset, you are welcome to use it or modify it. I don't claim to be a great maker of sampled instruments, so if you find things about the instrument that could have been done better, post your opinion, and we'll all learn together.
You can download the instrument here:
http://files-upload.com/files/436198/BobsDrums.zip
It's a 65mb .zip file that will extract to 145mb. I've never used this download service before so if you have problems, let me know and maybe we can find a better way to post the file.
My goal was to digitize a Yamaha drumset that lives in my studio. I want to be able to take a live multi-track recording of a drum performance, turn that into MIDI, and use the MIDI to trigger samples of the same drum kit. At that point the sampled playback should sound just like the original multitrack recording. Of course at that point I can then manipulate the MIDI part to edit the drum performance.
I'll describe how to set this up in DP. The same theory of setup should work in other applications.
In DP, create four busses in the Bundles window. Set them up like this:
Bus 1 mono named KikBus
Bus 2 mono named SnBus
Bus 3-4 stereo named TomBus
Bus 5-6 stereo named CymBus
Create four aux tracks. Name them
Kick
Snare
Toms
Cymbals
Assign the appropriate bus inputs to each aux track.
Create a MachFive 2 instrument track. I name this track DrumAmbience
Call up the BobsDrums instrument preset into the first Part of MachFive 2.
Set up a MIDI track and assign it to MachFive - A-1
Record-enable the MIDI track and generate some MIDI Notes. C1 will trigger kick. D1 will trigger snare, etc.
In the DP mixer, you now have control over direct mic levels for each instrument, and a stereo return of the overheads and tom mics for ambience of the entire kit.
I run a reverb on the direct snare return and take all five tracks, run them through another bus pair and aux track, and put a stereo compressor on the final drum mix.
Continued...
How to build a drumset in MachFive 2
Moderator: James Steele
How to build a drumset in MachFive 2
Last edited by magicd on Wed Aug 15, 2007 5:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
How the samples were made:
I have a total of six microphones on the kit:
Kick
Snare
Rack Tom
Floor Tom
Left/Right overheads
The first step was to record the drums into DP. For each piece of the kit, I recorded multiple hits, typically hitting from softer to harder. The snare was disengaged for all instruments except when recording to capture the snare instrument itself.
I didn't do any DSP processing in DP.
I duplicated the tom tracks. The duplicated tracks were used only for the "direct mono" tom samples.
I used the same technique for cymbals.
(original) Tom tracks were panned to 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock, then bounced to a stereo track.
The overheads were hard panned and bounced to stereo.
I did use the Beat Detection Engine in DP to help me slice up the audio. Here's where it gets interesting.
Viewed at sample level, a snare hit is earlier on the snare track than on the overheads. That's because the overhead mic is further away. So when I cut up the samples, I used the direct mic track as the guide for editing across all tracks. The start of the edit was immediate for the direct mic track, but the natural delay was preserved for the overheads and tom mics.
I left the edits fairly long to preserve the decay of the hits. For the kick, snare and toms, I trimmed the length of the direct mic hits, but left the overheads long.
So now in DP I have mono tracks for the "direct" recording of each instrument. I also have a stereo pair for overheads and a stereo pair for the tom mics for each instrument.
And I have a series of hits for each instrument.
My goal was to have a mono sample and two stereo samples for each recorded hit. For example, I want to be able to blend the direct kick mic with the overhead recording of the kick, as well as the tom ring that happens when the kick hits.
I also wanted to set up sample randomizing so that every time an instrument is triggered, I hear a different sample of that instrument.
I took my time and named everything. I used a standard naming convention so I would recognize the samples later.
In the Soundbites window of DP, all the named samples showed up at the end of the list (view by date created). I selected all those soundbites and exported them as AIFF. I actually did this in batches and exported each set of samples to it's own folder. So all my snares were in one folder, etc.
Now I was ready to start building the instrument in MachFive 2.
Continued...
I have a total of six microphones on the kit:
Kick
Snare
Rack Tom
Floor Tom
Left/Right overheads
The first step was to record the drums into DP. For each piece of the kit, I recorded multiple hits, typically hitting from softer to harder. The snare was disengaged for all instruments except when recording to capture the snare instrument itself.
I didn't do any DSP processing in DP.
I duplicated the tom tracks. The duplicated tracks were used only for the "direct mono" tom samples.
I used the same technique for cymbals.
(original) Tom tracks were panned to 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock, then bounced to a stereo track.
The overheads were hard panned and bounced to stereo.
I did use the Beat Detection Engine in DP to help me slice up the audio. Here's where it gets interesting.
Viewed at sample level, a snare hit is earlier on the snare track than on the overheads. That's because the overhead mic is further away. So when I cut up the samples, I used the direct mic track as the guide for editing across all tracks. The start of the edit was immediate for the direct mic track, but the natural delay was preserved for the overheads and tom mics.
I left the edits fairly long to preserve the decay of the hits. For the kick, snare and toms, I trimmed the length of the direct mic hits, but left the overheads long.
So now in DP I have mono tracks for the "direct" recording of each instrument. I also have a stereo pair for overheads and a stereo pair for the tom mics for each instrument.
And I have a series of hits for each instrument.
My goal was to have a mono sample and two stereo samples for each recorded hit. For example, I want to be able to blend the direct kick mic with the overhead recording of the kick, as well as the tom ring that happens when the kick hits.
I also wanted to set up sample randomizing so that every time an instrument is triggered, I hear a different sample of that instrument.
I took my time and named everything. I used a standard naming convention so I would recognize the samples later.
In the Soundbites window of DP, all the named samples showed up at the end of the list (view by date created). I selected all those soundbites and exported them as AIFF. I actually did this in batches and exported each set of samples to it's own folder. So all my snares were in one folder, etc.
Now I was ready to start building the instrument in MachFive 2.
Continued...
How the instrument was created in MachFive 2
I opened MachFive 2 as a plug-in in DP.
For some drum instruments I wanted multi-velocity samples. I also wanted a different sample every time I triggered.
The snare drum is not a multi-velocity instrument (in my preset). However, I did record 19 different snare hits. The goal is that every time a MIDI note is sent, a different snare sample is triggered.
So I dragged all the snare samples to a key in the MachFive 2 keymap editor. When you drag multiple samples, MachFive 2 asks how you want to assign those samples. I chose to stack them all on the same key with no velocity splits.
For the kick I did two velocity zones. So I dragged all the samples over with a single operation, and in a secondary operations, made the velocity split assignments.
To keep things as organized as possible, I built each drum one at a time. I didn't mess with the kick until the snare was set up, etc.
In the MachFive 2 editor, you can display a list of samples. If you select multiple samples and change a parameter for one of those samples, all selected samples follow that change. Therefore it was easy enough to select all the samples I wanted for a velocity range and make the velocity assignements with one operation. You can do this graphically but I did these edits numerically in the sample list editor. It just seemed to make more sense to me that way.
I spent quite a bit of time experimenting with assignments. In the end I settled on this:
All tom and overhead stereo samples were assigned to the Preset Main Output
Direct snares were assigned to bus 1-2 and hard panned left
Direct kicks were assigned to bus 1-2 and hard panned right
Direct Toms were assigned to bus 3-4 and panning was set as in the DP mix
Direct Cymbals were assigned to bus 5-6 and panned according to their position in the actual kit.
All samples were selected and Normalized.
Because I had very long ambience samples, the normalizing brought up noise on many of the overhead samples, so I went through and did fades for any samples that were obviously noisy.
The next step was to create Layers. I created a layer for each set of samples for each drum hit. This was done by selecting the appropriate samples in the list editor, control (or right) clicking and choose Move Samples to New Layer.
Each layer contained the direct mic sample and the two stereo ambience samples. In the case of velocity splits, each layer includes a set of samples for each velocity layer.
Each Layer was named.
So for example, I have a layer named k1. The k is for Kick and the 1 means this is the first later for the kick. In the case of the kick, I used five layers.
The samples assigned to layer "k1" are:
k1.aif
ko1.aif
kt1.aif
k15.aif
ko15.aif
kt15.aif
k1 and k15 are different velocity splits of the mono direct mic
ko1 and ko15 are different velocity splits of the stereo overhead mics
kt1 and kt15 are different velocity splits of the tom mics
Now we go to the rules section in MachFive 2
In the Rules window, I added a new "dimension"
I selected that dimension and added 19 child dimensions. The reason for 19 children is that the maximum number of layers I had for any drum was 19 layers for the snare.
I set the rule for the dimension to Random.
For each child dimension I assigned a different layer. In the case of the snare, each of the 19 child dimensions was assigned to one of the 19 snare layers.
For other instruments with less layers, I repeated the assignment until each child dimension had one layer from that drum assigned.
What the Random rule does is each time MIDI note comes in to MachFive, it triggered a different child dimension, and whatever layer is assigned to that child.
So if I trigger any drum, I'll get a different layer each time I trigger. This makes a huge difference to the real-ness of the instrument. Snare drum rolls sound real. Ride cymbal patterns sound real.
There are many, more things I could do with the instrument. For example, I haven't done any sample linking so that open hi hats are canceled by closed hit hi triggers.
I've built this kit for a specific purpose and it's now getting that job done for me. I continue to refine the instrument and at some point I may do the sample linkage for the hi hats.
What do you think?
Magic Dave
I opened MachFive 2 as a plug-in in DP.
For some drum instruments I wanted multi-velocity samples. I also wanted a different sample every time I triggered.
The snare drum is not a multi-velocity instrument (in my preset). However, I did record 19 different snare hits. The goal is that every time a MIDI note is sent, a different snare sample is triggered.
So I dragged all the snare samples to a key in the MachFive 2 keymap editor. When you drag multiple samples, MachFive 2 asks how you want to assign those samples. I chose to stack them all on the same key with no velocity splits.
For the kick I did two velocity zones. So I dragged all the samples over with a single operation, and in a secondary operations, made the velocity split assignments.
To keep things as organized as possible, I built each drum one at a time. I didn't mess with the kick until the snare was set up, etc.
In the MachFive 2 editor, you can display a list of samples. If you select multiple samples and change a parameter for one of those samples, all selected samples follow that change. Therefore it was easy enough to select all the samples I wanted for a velocity range and make the velocity assignements with one operation. You can do this graphically but I did these edits numerically in the sample list editor. It just seemed to make more sense to me that way.
I spent quite a bit of time experimenting with assignments. In the end I settled on this:
All tom and overhead stereo samples were assigned to the Preset Main Output
Direct snares were assigned to bus 1-2 and hard panned left
Direct kicks were assigned to bus 1-2 and hard panned right
Direct Toms were assigned to bus 3-4 and panning was set as in the DP mix
Direct Cymbals were assigned to bus 5-6 and panned according to their position in the actual kit.
All samples were selected and Normalized.
Because I had very long ambience samples, the normalizing brought up noise on many of the overhead samples, so I went through and did fades for any samples that were obviously noisy.
The next step was to create Layers. I created a layer for each set of samples for each drum hit. This was done by selecting the appropriate samples in the list editor, control (or right) clicking and choose Move Samples to New Layer.
Each layer contained the direct mic sample and the two stereo ambience samples. In the case of velocity splits, each layer includes a set of samples for each velocity layer.
Each Layer was named.
So for example, I have a layer named k1. The k is for Kick and the 1 means this is the first later for the kick. In the case of the kick, I used five layers.
The samples assigned to layer "k1" are:
k1.aif
ko1.aif
kt1.aif
k15.aif
ko15.aif
kt15.aif
k1 and k15 are different velocity splits of the mono direct mic
ko1 and ko15 are different velocity splits of the stereo overhead mics
kt1 and kt15 are different velocity splits of the tom mics
Now we go to the rules section in MachFive 2
In the Rules window, I added a new "dimension"
I selected that dimension and added 19 child dimensions. The reason for 19 children is that the maximum number of layers I had for any drum was 19 layers for the snare.
I set the rule for the dimension to Random.
For each child dimension I assigned a different layer. In the case of the snare, each of the 19 child dimensions was assigned to one of the 19 snare layers.
For other instruments with less layers, I repeated the assignment until each child dimension had one layer from that drum assigned.
What the Random rule does is each time MIDI note comes in to MachFive, it triggered a different child dimension, and whatever layer is assigned to that child.
So if I trigger any drum, I'll get a different layer each time I trigger. This makes a huge difference to the real-ness of the instrument. Snare drum rolls sound real. Ride cymbal patterns sound real.
There are many, more things I could do with the instrument. For example, I haven't done any sample linking so that open hi hats are canceled by closed hit hi triggers.
I've built this kit for a specific purpose and it's now getting that job done for me. I continue to refine the instrument and at some point I may do the sample linkage for the hi hats.
What do you think?
Magic Dave
-
Spikey Horse
- Posts: 1841
- Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2005 1:50 pm
- Primary DAW OS: Unspecified
Cool.... a kind of 'BFDave' (sorry!)
Will try it out when I get my M52 up and running.
I had a go at converting my own drum kit to a virtual kit once .... just for a laugh really but it was an interesting experiment.
I was kind of inspired by:
1) BFD - actually part of the reason I wanted to do it was so I could integrate my ride cymbal into a BFD kit. (especially with longer more agressive 'wash hit' samples).
2) This little VST plug called OSR which I had hoped would make this kind of DIY VI creation a breeze...
http://www.devine-machine.com/documents/25.html
... unfortunately though the plug was never stable enough to use in DP without crashing ... I exchanged emails with (nice) people at devine machine but it seems they never sold enough to make it worth their while fixing it..
Maybe some other people could buy it and insist it gets fixed!
(However I haven't tried it in 10.4 and DP5 yet so maybe it'll magically work now ...?!)
Anyway thanks Dave.
Will try it out when I get my M52 up and running.
I had a go at converting my own drum kit to a virtual kit once .... just for a laugh really but it was an interesting experiment.
I was kind of inspired by:
1) BFD - actually part of the reason I wanted to do it was so I could integrate my ride cymbal into a BFD kit. (especially with longer more agressive 'wash hit' samples).
2) This little VST plug called OSR which I had hoped would make this kind of DIY VI creation a breeze...
http://www.devine-machine.com/documents/25.html
... unfortunately though the plug was never stable enough to use in DP without crashing ... I exchanged emails with (nice) people at devine machine but it seems they never sold enough to make it worth their while fixing it..
Maybe some other people could buy it and insist it gets fixed!
(However I haven't tried it in 10.4 and DP5 yet so maybe it'll magically work now ...?!)
Anyway thanks Dave.
-
sdfalk
- Posts: 2514
- Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:01 pm
- Primary DAW OS: MacOS
- Location: Vancouver BC
- Contact:
Spikey Horse wrote:Cool.... a kind of 'BFDave' (sorry!)
Will try it out when I get my M52 up and running.
I had a go at converting my own drum kit to a virtual kit once .... just for a laugh really but it was an interesting experiment.
I was kind of inspired by:
1) BFD - actually part of the reason I wanted to do it was so I could integrate my ride cymbal into a BFD kit. (especially with longer more agressive 'wash hit' samples).
2) This little VST plug called OSR which I had hoped would make this kind of DIY VI creation a breeze...
http://www.devine-machine.com/documents/25.html
... unfortunately though the plug was never stable enough to use in DP without crashing ... I exchanged emails with (nice) people at devine machine but it seems they never sold enough to make it worth their while fixing it..
Well when my MachFive arrives (all the wayyyy up in Canada) I will
give it a go.
Thanks for posting this.
Maybe some other people could buy it and insist it gets fixed!
(However I haven't tried it in 10.4 and DP5 yet so maybe it'll magically work now ...?!)
Anyway thanks Dave.
-
Spikey Horse
- Posts: 1841
- Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2005 1:50 pm
- Primary DAW OS: Unspecified
