[Tod]

Originally Posted by James HE

Not much to explain articulation wise. I just really prefer the sound of my old drummers cymbals to anything in a library that I've heard. I do have a few recordings of him doing washes that do try to incorporate when I can. I'll be working with him again soon and hope to expand my library. I will share

Okay James, I understand and it sounds good.

Originally Posted by dub tree

The problem with voice groups is that it could potentially lead to unnatural muting of the cymbal, particularly during a busier section. I have no idea how BFD does it, but my guess would be some sort of clever scripting to enforce some kind of envelope or crossfade, so that the tail of the hit blends into the following hit without any kind of instant muting. Perhaps this is possible with voice groups in Kontakt; I don't really know too much about the inner workings, as I've only recently acquired the full, non-Player version.

Hey dub tree, you've definitely hit on one of the draw backs of using "Voice Groups", however, with a little experimenting you can certainly make it a lot better and improve it considerably. It also helps to have RRs, as many as possible, within reason. I don't have Kontakt in front of me right now, but there are quite a few parameters you can adjust or setup.

The suggestion of recording cymbals separately is definitely a good solution to this. My problem with that is, I like to do my beats all in the same take, for the sake of continuity within the rhythm, rather than going the multi-track, multi-take route. But I have a couple friends who swear by this technique, particularly for ride and hi-hat overdubs, while handling the rest with something like Addictive Drums.

So you're basically talking about audio loops when you say "for the sake of continuity within the rhythm", or am I not understanding correctly. I've been using samples and drum machines since the early 80s and I just never got into the loop thing and have never really used them.

Yeah, if you have the luxury of being able to record real drums it's a no brainer, even if it's just the cymbals, and acutally especially if it's the cymbals.

As a drummer, it pains me to say this, but... honestly, as long as your kick and snare are in the pocket, the rest is really just extra noise anyway. So I'd worry way more about those two things than about some cymbals. Those are just white noise.

Heh heh, well I can agree with you about the kik and the snare and there are times when the rest don't seem to matter, and I know of times it was just as good without anything but the kik and the snare. But I think most of the time it does matter, if for no other reason than it's expected.

I do agree though, that with many recordings it's not nearly as important as when you're playing live.

My solution, aside from spending way too many years developing my keyboard-drumming, has been to try to write to the weakness of the samples. If the beat doesn't sound good with samples, then rather than bemoaning the shortcomings of the technology, I just change the beat in order to suit those limitations.

Here's where I have to disagree, I don't consider my samples as being weak. If I've got good samples, then any weakness is going to be me. On the other hand, I don't have to program a lot of R&R, and absolutely no metal. My clientele are mostly song writers who are in the country and pop fields which is much easier.

It's the same approach I take to doing orchestral stuff. The samples are more like a caricature of the actual instrument, so I just try to think, "What would a caricature of this instrument do?" After all, most of us aren't writing demo tracks for sample library developers, so we needn't focus too much on hyper-realism and pushing the library to its fullest. It's a compromise, for sure, because I'm not directly translating the music in my head. But we must do the best with the tools we have. So, as a result, while I love to just go nuts on a drum kit (which, thankfully, I get to do in the prog rock band I play in), I try to keep my MIDI beats on the simple side, so as to conceal the flaws inherent in the sampling technology (and in my finger drumming). Yeah, it's less than ideal (and isn't that the way life is), but it gets the music made.

Well I think you've got the right idea, but I do think differently. I started composing orchestration back in the early 90s for wild life films, when all I had were my K2000 sampler, M1 synth, and a few other outboard sound modules. Although it was limiting, I simply refused to think of it that way and put it together the best I could, without feeling limited. If you click on the "Elk Opening Vid" in my signature you will see and hear one of those videos.