Getting cymbal samples sounding real.

[Jahang]

Hey guys,

I apologize in advance if this has already been discussed. I was hoping you guys would discuss how you go about manually adding cymbal samples to your session (eg wav files not Slate or Superior) and not having it sound like a machine. For example, I have some of Joey's cymbal samples that I want to use in my productions but I can't get them to sound like a real performance. (If that makes sense)

How do you guys go about this?

 

[MattTUU]

Hey man, what you can do is add some compression to the track they are on. Experiment with the ratio of compression to find what fits for you. But what this does is makes them blend together a bit so it will like build cymbal swell almost. Also don't use the same sample twice in a row, as you will have multiple hits of that cymbal at soft, medium and hard hits. It would help you for programming if you was to use a sampler like kontakt or battery as them you can use midi and have different velocities. Like instead of have just 3 hits soft medium and hard you can have 127. Hope that helps man

 

[koalamo]

Use a transient designer to soften the attack of the hits and increase the sustain slightly

 

[OneDaySky]

I use Dominion, controls the attack of cymbals and smooths em out with the sustain fader

 

[Jahang]

Thanks guys! Very helpful. I will try all those things

 

[oroinvictus]

For me, 50% of the magic is in the comp, the other 50% is hand-edited MIDI.

 

[Vinny]

To the OP- Are you saying that you are simply dropping the wav files into the tracks?

 

[Jahang]

To the OP- Are you saying that you are simply dropping the wav files into the tracks?

Exactly

 

[Vinny]

Erm, if you want "realistic sounding cymbal samples" then that is not ideal. You will need some kind of sampler so you can edit velocities. Most DAWs have their own samplers. Granted you can get a somewhat similar sound dropping in the different sample layers and a hell of alot of automation, but using a sampler will make your life easier.
Like I said, most DAWs have their own. Or you can get a really high quality one such as Kontakt or Battery (Joey included Kontakt Instruments with his cymbal samples anyway)

 

[Jahang]

Erm, if you want "realistic sounding cymbal samples" then that is not ideal. You will need some kind of sampler so you can edit velocities. Most DAWs have their own samplers. Granted you can get a somewhat similar sound dropping in the different sample layers and a hell of alot of automation, but using a sampler will make your life easier.
Like I said, most DAWs have their own. Or you can get a really high quality one such as Kontakt or Battery (Joey included Kontakt Instruments with his cymbal samples anyway)

Yeah, I got the demo for kontakt 5. I'm assuming I need to buy the full version to be able to load joey's kontakt instrument files in it?

 

[ahjteam]

Well, I would start with a comparison to how a real drummer would play them. Here is a clip of closed 16th note hihats that was played by a real drummer (95 / 190 bpm):

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/hihat.mp3

When I put it thru Slate Trigger, the exported midi looked like this:

But when played with Steven Slate Drums as a midi, it sounded a bit too unreal because the dynamic changes were so big, so what I did was that I compressed the midi (yes, Cubase has a MIDI compression function too if you didn't know )

Normal midi: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/hihat_ssd.mp3
Compressed midi: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/hihat_ssd_compressedmidi.mp3

Also notice that none (yes, none) of the hits are in grid. They are all slightly off.

 

[Vinny]

If it's the demo of the full version then it should work. But if it's the demo for Kontakt Player, then no it will not work (nor will it work with the full version of Kontakt Player)

 

[Jahang]

If it's the demo of the full version then it should work. But if it's the demo for Kontakt Player, then no it will not work (nor will it work with the full version of Kontakt Player)

So there's a demo of the full version that lets you load samples?

 

[Jahang]

Well, I would start with a comparison to how a real drummer would play them. Here is a clip of closed 16th note hihats that was played by a real drummer (95 / 190 bpm):

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/hihat.mp3

When I put it thru Slate Trigger, the exported midi looked like this:

But when played with Steven Slate Drums as a midi, it sounded a bit too unreal because the dynamic changes were so big, so what I did was that I compressed the midi (yes, Cubase has a MIDI compression function too if you didn't know )

Normal midi: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/hihat_ssd.mp3
Compressed midi: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/hihat_ssd_compressedmidi.mp3

Also notice that none (yes, none) of the hits are in grid. They are all slightly off.

This is very interesting. You can compress midi in pro tools, right?

 

[bassguy]

This is very interesting. You can compress midi in pro tools, right?

If what everyone means by compressing MIDI is moving all the velocities to fit within a chosen range, you sure can in Pro Tools.

What you do is go to the "event" menu > event operations > change velocity.

So then a little window pops up. You then select the midi you want to alter. Say it's all your hi-hat hits, so you go to the instrument track, double click the midi region the bring up the midi editor, and click the keyboard note that all your hi-hat hits are on. This just selects all of them for the whole region.

Now in that change velocity menu, things work a little strangely. You want to use the "Limit To" function, but it's greyed out by default (when you're on "set all to"). So instead click the "add" button and the limit to will un-grey itself. Then it's just a matter of setting your minimum and maximum values. For a hi-hat you might want something like minimum of 80 and maximum of 127. You can also use the randomize below it, which will make the hits all on random velocities inside this range. Usually I only use a little bit of randomisation and do most of the velocity editing by hand.


Hope all that made sense