Is there a drum library on the market that you can't tell is a library?

[mete0r]

*Provided that the midi programming is flawless*, is there any one drum sample library that is capable of a render that an human isn't realistically going to be able to tell if it's a real recording or not, in a variety of genres and unprocessed?

[ivansc]

Drummers will always claim they can tell no matter who does the playing/programming.
Me? I am not a drummer but have bashed a lot of stuff in with my E-kit & most punters cant tell the difference if I do a competent job.

Andf in most cases all the front runner drum rompler libraries are equally good in terms of the quality of sounds as any recorderd kit.

Dont waste time worrying over which library, worry about how good you are at getting the groove you want down as MIDI.

[mete0r]

I'm actually researching how to make a drum sample library I will probably release as a freebie. I have a friend with a professional recording studio and I might be able to record one. I'd like to buy the gold standard and check out the best midi programming you can listen to to have something to compare to.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by mete0r

*Provided that the midi programming is flawless*, is there any one drum sample library that is capable of a render that an human isn't realistically going to be able to tell if it's a real recording or not, in a variety of genres and unprocessed?

It's far more related to what is being played and the near unreachable goal of flawless based on what can actually be done. It isn't just a case of the sample sounding good. Some songs, sure, not even a drummer would know, others, based on what the performance actually is, would be given away every time in some form. AD drums for example can be 'dried up' and virtually unprocessed but again, that isn't really the issue in my experience. It's an issue if you can't get them dry but you can mostly.

[mete0r]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

others, based on what the performance is, would be given away every time in some form.

I see, that makes sense! Do you have any example of the kind of stuff that's hard to "fake"?

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by mete0r

I see, that makes sense! Do you have any example of the kind of stuff that's hard to "fake"?

Usually articulation based stuff, where you can strike it (drum or cymbal) in near infinite ways, but the samples could never cover that much ground. That's really the trick to me, you could water down the performance to trick someone but it is at the expense of what it could have been.

Not knocking drum samples at all, I use them all the time as a guitarist and completely happy with whatever I created. The same issue would exist for say bass samples. You can do quite well within certain limits but you can't reach IMHO that near infinite amount of articulation you'd get with it in your hands. Things like piano are easier because the pallet of articulations is smaller, I'm sure a great key player could still find flaws, just stating the myriad of articulations is smaller I'm guessing.

There are some here who do very good at this so I shouldn't blab too much because I don't want to sound negative being someone who does use some samples without worry. Maybe Tod will chime in, he is excellent at the articulation thing.

[James HE]

It's mostly just the programming. And depending on the style and context of the music, live performances may be enhanced and quantized to sound more "perfect" than they really are anyway. So what exactly is "real" to you. That's the question.

I use AD, but I use my own cymbal samples half the time. Cymbals are the hardest thing to get sounding real.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by James HE

I use AD, but I use my own cymbal samples half the time. Cymbals are the hardest thing to get sounding real.

Hi James, would you mind explaining a little bit about what you're doing with the cymbals?

I agree, they can be difficult, especially the Ride, not because it can't be recorded to sound good, but it's the actual physical aspects of the way a ride reacts when it's played in real time.

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.

So, would you mind?

EDIT: Heh heh, sorry dub tree, you popped in while I was typing and you're saying much of what I'm saying.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

Usually articulation based stuff, where you can strike it (drum or cymbal) in near infinite ways, but the samples could never cover that much ground. That's really the trick to me, you could water down the performance to trick someone but it is at the expense of what it could have been.

Yeah, well said, it's impossible to cover all the bases and as Karbo hints, midi will never replace a real player, whether it's durms, bass, piano, guitar, whatever.

However, I will say I use midi all the time, for basically everything. Piano, electric piano, B3 organ, bass, strings, drums, horns, acoustic guitar rythm, etc..

So far I don't think they've come up with any good synthesized drums that sound nearly as good as acoustic drum samples, not like they have other instruments. There are a lot of synthesized drums sounds but they are just that, and might sound good in their own way, but don't sound like real drums at all.

Heh heh, maybe you'll get a kick out of a couple of little videos I reprogrammed, I took the videos off of the net and reprogrammed them with SMDrums.

https://youtu.be/7vhneROTFmo

https://youtu.be/CELVct47OT0

[karbomusic]

However, I will say I use midi all the time, for basically everything. Piano, electric piano, B3 organ, bass, strings, drums, horns, acoustic guitar rythm, etc..

I use it a bit too. If the thing that would have been played and fit the song doesn't go to far out of the norm it should be believable enough. Then again of the instruments I can play decently, I'm likely just going to play them for the simple reason an hour of articulation = 1 minute of playing the part. I like the videos, I wish I had an electronic kit but I don't have the room. I have the room but now that I have a fairly sizeable home than I used to (4200 sq ft), I don't want to fill it to the walls and ceilings like I tend to do.

[Tod]

I think if the programmer knows what they are doing and knows their drum library inside out, it can be made pretty believable. All to often that is not the case.

There are some pretty good sounding libraries out there today and a lot of detail has gone into trying to make them sound more real.

I think being a real good midi drum programmer would require a person who is a good drummer in the first place and knows many styles.

If I've got a real played set of drums to copy, I can usually do okay, but other then that I keep things pretty simple.

Also I think midi drums have become so prevalent, they're actually accepted on their own turf for what they are. Heh heh, and if they sound good I don't think it matters.

EDIT: Heh heh, I was slow in typing and I see some of my favorite guys beat me to it.

[dub tree]

BFD3 has a "Cymbal Swell" function which attempts to simulate realism with cymbal repetitions. The idea is that if you hit a cymbal while it's still vibrating from the previous hit, it will give you a different tone. It's stuff like this that is important in getting realism, because you can have the absolute best drum samples ever, through the best outboard gear possible, in the best room ever (etc) but that won't matter if your sampler is just layering hit upon hit. Even round-robin isn't enough to mitigate this effect, and can actually lead to other undesirable effects (machine-gun-in-disguise). You could have a hundred round robins at a hundred velocity layers, but things would still get mechanical-sounding just due to the nature of how drums behave physically.

So, in essence, it's not about the quality of the samples, so much as how they are handled by the playback engine. And then, of course, programming the actual MIDI is very important, as pointed out by others.

The thing is, a lot of drummers' "groove" comes from the subtleties like ghost notes and hitting the "pocket," which doesn't always fall exactly on the beats. And then, of course, there is the variation of the actual location struck on the drum head. Drum heads will often have a sweet spot where you're going to want to hit it 95% of the time, but sometimes a certain beat or fill will call for deviating from that, just for the slight variation in timbre. A lot of the time, this happens in the spur of the moment, but it is still so very controlled that no amount of randomization or humanization will convincingly simulate it.

The "feel" is the most important thing, though. Beats flow a certain way, and it can be very dependent on the way the stick bounces off the drum head, or the motion of the drummer's wrists, or the very musical context of the beat itself. It's almost like how guitar purists say that amp sims just can't compete with how real amps move air. Drummers are so very physical, constantly in motion, and with so many moving parts, there are so many openings for imperfection and "humanity." Feel depends so much on nearly-imperceptible variations of timing and velocity, which can be a nightmare to attempt to program (or even perform on an e-kit).

Honestly, I think BFD3 can get you most of the way there, in the same way that a good piano library can get you most of the way toward a convincing grand piano sound. I've been a drummer for nearly twenty years, and have tried a bunch of the drum packages out there (Superior, EZ, Slate, NI Abbey Road, Addictive) and I think BFD3 is the clear winner, but that could just be personal taste and musical style. I don't think the quality of the samples, or even of the programming, is the limitation. I think it's a combination of the limits of the actual interface (whether that's an e-kit, a midi keyboard, or a piano roll), and how the humanity of the performance gets altered in the translation.

But that could just be personal bias. I'd be willing to bet most TV viewers and moviegoers couldn't tell the difference between Symphobia and a real orchestra, for example. So it all depends on who you are trying to convince...

For my recordings, I just bang out the drums in BFD on a midi keyboard, and it's good enough for me. It beats lugging my kit to the studio and mic'ing it all up, for 99% of the music I make anyway.