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Old 06-18-2017, 06:44 PM   #16
dub tree
Human being with feelings
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 308
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tod View Post
In the real world there is only one ride, but with samples, they need to be played on top of each other, so you end up with several rides, all playing at the same time.

I can reduce this problem using "Voice Groups" in Kontakt, but I know of no way to eliminate it all together.
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Last edited by dub tree; 06-18-2017 at 06:55 PM.
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