High quality samples-Can we hear some?

[Snills]

How about some MP3's of these hardware\Giga sampler kits that some of you are using?

I'm really interested in creating some high quality sampled kits and using for home recording, probably in soundfont or software synth format. I just want to know how good the kits are that are out there before I begin.

Can someone demonstrate by posting a few MP3's? I really want here something with some dynamics.

Thanks
Snills

PS:
I've already heard Sonic Implants and Bob Clear Mountain stuff..

http://www.sonicimplants.com/freesoundfonts.htm

http://www.soundsonline.com/sophtml/simple_search.phtml?KEYWORDS=Clearmountain

[molson]

I really like the Drumkit from Hell CD. You can listen to mp3's at their site:

http://drumkit.toontrack.com/

The mp3's are geared to hard rock/metal, but the actual kit is very versatile. To my taste, some of the mp3's are way too ambient, but the beauty of the cd is that you can mix close miked samples with ambient samples to get the sound you're looking for. The demos are programmed on a drum machine, so some are a little sterile, but you can still get a pretty good feel for the sample set.

Mike

[snared]

Hey Mike, what equipment are you using?

[molson]

Originally posted by snared
Hey Mike, what equipment are you using?

Very meager setup: ddrum4 system one(with mesh heads), Battery, Gigasampler, Sonic Implants and Drumkit From Hell.
That's it!

Mike

[ufotofu]

Don't trust the mp3 format to high-quality samples. The mp3 format is based on lossy compression, thus you are losing quality no matter what bitrate you encode with. Try to find your samples in a lossless format like wav (uncompressed), shorten (compressed), or flac (compressed). Lossy formats like mp3 and ogg vorbis might give you a rough idea of what to expect, but again you are introducing another variable to the equation (lossy compression), which is probably unnecessary.

[snared]

Originally posted by ufotofu
Don't trust the mp3 format to high-quality samples. The mp3 format is based on lossy compression, thus you are losing quality no matter what bitrate you encode with. Try to find your samples in a lossless format like wav (uncompressed), shorten (compressed), or flac (compressed). Lossy formats like mp3 and ogg vorbis might give you a rough idea of what to expect, but again you are introducing another variable to the equation (lossy compression), which is probably unnecessary.

Well, I listened to the "Drumkit from Hell" demos, and they sounded pretty ****ing good on MP3. If they are even better than that in "real" life, I'm totally sold. Although, I think I might be leaning towards a hardware sampler. I guess it will still work, though.

[sepdrums]

I bought an Akai S2000 sampler from eBay... I know nothing about sampling..... I basically want to use it for beeps and boops and other sounds with my acoustic kit... I will have some pads triggering the ddrum4, but also will have some pads running through midi into the sampler... I will be using that and some means of a sequencer (laptop or hardware) for looping different sounds, etc... I haven't gotten the sampler delivered yet - I think it is an old model...but it seems like it will do what I need...and it was relatively cheap.

Erik

[Snills]

Thanks guys,
I've already heard drumset from hell - forgot to mention it. But I did listen to it again after your post...great stuff, wish I had it - molsen what sampler do you use for "drumset from hell", battery?

Has anyone got anything different they want to share? I'm suprised no one has MP3's of their sampler kits...

Seems to me that one could create some VERY superior kits with a sampler. After creating that Dennis Chambers SoundFont http://home.attbi.com/~wblack03/ (Seven stereo samples per drum) from the ddrum samples, I was very impressed with sampling - even though the Kit is a bit "70's fusion" sounding, it is amazing to play on your Vdrum's. Hope somone has tried it. You can convert it to many other sampler formats by the way.

Regarding the use of MP3's, I think a good MP3 is more than fine for giving a quick example over the net. But I must admit the MP3 on my site, above is missing alot of High's on the cymbals when compared to the origional Wav file. I need to re-convert one of these days.

Still wait for MP3 links to sampler demos....

Bill

[snared]

Hey Chris, that sounds pretty good. What was it?

[molson]

Thanks for that link Chris! $25 for a 225MB kit is quite the bargain!

Mike

[Snills]

I bought that kit and love it.

I don't recommend getting it unless you have a fast PC and plenty of RAM. I have an AthlonXP 1700+ with 256MB Ram and Halion chokes for around 10 minutes after loading the full Kit. I went out and bought another 512MB and it solved it. I'm hoping I can mix all 3 kits together - dry\OverHead\Room. FWIW, I noticed that you can delete kits then save just one kit to free up some memory.

Anyway, it totally feels like your sitting in front of a real kit...exactly the kind of stuff i was looking for.

The only irritating thing with all samplers I've played with is the Damn HiHat response. They cut the open hiHat Off whenever any other HH sound takes place, including the open HH sound itself. I just can't get a good "sock" sound out of it.

For now I just mix a little TD10 HH in with it and it's OK

* Any Ideas?
* Is there a software sampler that is taylored to drum kits?

Bill

[molson]

I also purchased the Funk Kit - very nice. Bill, I had the same problem as you, XP1800 but only 256mb of ram. I was able to delete the samples that I didn't need and get it to work, but I think I'll have to break down and get some more ram. I'm using Battery, and it works like a charm - very simple and effective.

I still think Drumkit from Hell is a little better, albeit a lot more expensive. However, for $139 you get the kit in every popular format (Battery, Halion, Giga, LM4...). That's a really nice feature if your not sure what sampler you're going to end up using.

Overall, though, the Mixtended kit is really good - I may have to break down and get the rock version as well...

Mike

[@oM]

Originally posted by Snills
I don't recommend getting it unless you have a fast PC and plenty of RAM. I have an AthlonXP 1700+ with 256MB Ram and Halion chokes for around 10 minutes after loading the full Kit. I went out and bought another 512MB and it solved it. I'm hoping I can mix all 3 kits together - dry\OverHead\Room. FWIW, I noticed that you can delete kits then save just one kit to free up some memory.

Use gigastudio!

[snared]

So, what about hardware samplers?

From what I understand you can use these samples in software and hardware samplers. Is that correct? I don't know if I want to get a new computer just for drums or just get a hardware sampler. I am assuming samples would work on either.

[Snills]

Hi C. Jude,
I just emailed Danial to see when we can expect to see the PerfX module. Sounds like the "wave" of the future.

In the mean time I'll see If I can round up Battery - and give it a shot.

Thanks for your info..
Bill