Preview - SD3 Steven Slate Old Zep Dry Kit

bladetragic


Wow, kinda makes Cakewalk look pretty bad.

chuckebaby


stoons,heres a test i did myself using the same kit (steven slate old zep dry)
i used a basic midi loop in the track and exported it as is.
my hi hats dont seem to have the same issue,i did no tweaking to this.

http://soundcloud.com/charlie-roy/session-drummer-test

im not doing this to be a problem,as you can see i gave a rather decent comment #2.
im just trying to understand why the hi hats are dropping out and maybe learn something myself and help both of us.

SToons

Grem


I did a listening test myself. And I can hear the hi hats being erratic. I can also hear the snare cutting off abruptly. But on the sample you posted chukie I didn't hear anything on that trk.

I used the SS Old Zep Dry Kit and listen to some of the midi files loaded with that Program. 

There are very specific problems that can fe found and Chuck's choice of MIDI files doesn't "shine" on these problems as it's a very straight forward riff with few velocity changes and simple snare and hat patterns. This is absolutely not intended as a cut down either, Chuck.
 
One of the noticeable problems is snare "cutoff". As the polyphony for the snare is set to 1, a snare hit immediately followed by another of a lower velocity will show the problem. If a snare hit with a velocity of 125 translates to -6dB and a snare hit of 37 translates to -50dB or so then you will not hear the second snare and the first will cut off abruptly. A drum kit with a velocity range of over 60dB is not particularly useful either, in my opinion.
 
Program a few hits with a velocity of 125 followed by a few at 17 and see what you hear.
 
Again, when I explain how it is programmed and how I edited it, it will be pretty clear what the issues are.

soens


Sorry, but I never could understand why so many VI drum sets have faint, dead and phony sounding cymbals.
I'm not knocking SD per se, just a general observation.
Cymbals are a critical part of any percussion set but so often fall way short of sounding believable.
 
Steve
 

stevec

Digital vaults Gen 16 packs are probably the best I've heard buy some distance which is why it weighs in at a colossal 18GB which is bigger than any kit that I know of

 
I've had these for a few weeks now, and so far I'd agree.  These are very nice cymbal samples, and at the current sale price even better!  The only technical disadvantage is that they're tied into a 32bit version of BFD Eco - that's the only version that provides the "all cymbals" mode for BFD. At the same time, Bit Bridge seems to be OK with it.  So far.
 

stevec

Unless of course you own BFD2 in which case you can load a 32 piece kit and have oodles of cymbals in whatever slot you wish

 
Ahh... I had no idea!  That's a lot of kit pieces.    Which makes the current $49 Eco sale look even better, as a long-term upgrade path to the full BFD.   Thanks.
 

my main beef is really with sample libraries as a whole

SToons

Hi Rail. Good to hear from you again regarding the discussion at hand.
 
Broad statement maybe, and perhaps taken out of it's original context, but if we assume that the library (well, snare) in your video is flawless then we have one for two in terms of those being discussed. I think consumers can expect better than 50/50.

For one, I have completely re-edited my original work. Instead of adjusting the volume of layers I have now adjusted every sample individually with a volume=x.y command in the SFZ as was necessary, a reasonable investment in time as it required measuring the peak of all the samples in the kit. One discovery in doing so is that any reliable test would also require cycling a single hit enough times that every hit, not just one, from a single velocity layer is recorded. What if one "random" hit in a layer is 8dB louder than another in the same layer? 

No offence intended but your video offers me little useful information and it's hard not to wonder what interest you would have in some sort of direct comparison

how you prepare the samples in terms of normalization before dithering in regards to the S/N ratio on the quietest sample layer.

Platinum Samples


  

SToons

Hi Rail. Good to hear from you again regarding the discussion at hand.

Broad statement maybe, and perhaps taken out of it's original context, but if we assume that the library (well, snare) in your video is flawless then we have one for two in terms of those being discussed. I think consumers can expect better than 50/50.

No, that statement makes a conclusion that all libraries other than what you've experienced are faulty -- all our libraries have been beta tested by actual Session Drummer 3 users... 

For one, I have completely re-edited my original work. Instead of adjusting the volume of layers I have now adjusted every sample individually with a volume=x.y command in the SFZ as was necessary, a reasonable investment in time as it required measuring the peak of all the samples in the kit. One discovery in doing so is that any reliable test would also require cycling a single hit enough times that every hit, not just one, from a single velocity layer is recorded. What if one "random" hit in a layer is 8dB louder than another in the same layer? 

There should be no random hits in a layer -- if there are, the producer should have caught it during beta testing and replaced it (I know we did with at least one 'drag' articulation.   

No offence intended but your video offers me little useful information and it's hard not to wonder what interest you would have in some sort of direct comparison

The video was done by our tester to show that playing notes from 0 through 127:


a) play smoothly without any major gain jumps


and


b) have enough round robin samples not to sound repetitive (machine gun) when you trigger the same velocity range consecutively 


I can't imagine you can get similar results simply by changing the SFZ file... but I'd be curious to see what you did manage to achieve.

The only reason I responded was you made a blanket statement which implied that all content providers didn't know what they were doing... I quote: "my main beef is really with sample libraries as a whole"...  If you'd written something like "my main beef is really with some (or a lot of) sample libraries" I wouldn't have taken offense.   You can't come on here and tell everyone that my baby's ugly - especially if you've never seen my baby :)

how you prepare the samples in terms of normalization before dithering in regards to the S/N ratio on the quietest sample layer.

We never normalize -- that's just a terrible idea.. when you play an instrument in a room the room will talk differently depending on the volume of the instrument... so taking a loud snare hit and just gain changing it will not sound the same as hitting the snare softer.


Creating a sample library is as much art as it is science...  you can't just look at the numbers.. you have to use your ears and do extensive testing with folks who use these tools every day.


Cheers,


Rail