LAZY Drummer Operation Manual

Transcription

1 LAZY Drummer Operation Manual LAZY Drummer Operation Manual -

2 VERSION LAZY Drummer Sample Instrument Proto v..0 LAZY Drummer Operation Manual Proto v..0 CREDITS Joseph Sprint: Drum Technician Recording Engineer Performer Producer Sample Editor Instrument Designer Kontakt Scripting Manual Author Thanks to Lindon from the vi-control.net Kontakt scripting forum for helping me get started. Installation requires 2.GB free hard disk space. Official website: User base at: Audio Examples at: Video Examples at: Contact: All Contents 203, Joseph Sprint LAZY Drummer is not affiliated with Pearl Drums or Pearl Musical Instrument Company LAZY Drummer License Agreement The digitally recorded Samples contained within LAZY Drummer folders are licensed, not sold to the end user. All samples are now and remain the property of LAZY Drummer overlord Joseph Sprint and are licensed to the end user only for use as part of a live or recorded musical performance. This license expressly forbids resale or other sale or distribution of these samples, either as they exist in the folders, reformatted for use in a digital sampler or sample playback unit, or resynthesized or otherwise edited for use as sounds, samples, programs or patches in any medium, excepting musical performances, live or recorded. The end user cannot sell them or give them away. Any usage not specifically allowed by this license including but not limited to use as part of a musical performance by an entity who has not licensed a copy of the product will be plagued with guilt for as long as they live. The purchase of LAZY Drummer gives you the non-exclusive right to incorporate the sounds in any sound and/or audiovisual production, such as a phono-gram, soundtrack for a film, music production, television show, theatre show, musical, advertisement, website, video-game, or other media production. You may not distribute, sell, rent, lease, sub-license, assign, or otherwise transfer any of the sounds except as incorporated in a production. You may not distribute the sounds independently of a production, or with any directions or instructions as to how the Sounds may be extracted from a production, or with any invitation, suggestion or authorization that the sounds may be extracted from a production. LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 2

3 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER INTRODUCTION...4. PRODUCT OVERVIEW RECORDING DRUMS AND MICROPHONES...5 CHAPTER 2 SAMPLE MAP KEY MAP LAYER & SAMPLE INFORMATION... CHAPTER 3 INSTRUMENT PAGE...7 Drum Hit Pads...7 Tune...7 Envelope Release...8 Send Effects...8 Send Return Level...8 Early Reflection Size...8 Late Reflection Size...8 Pre-delay Time...8 Impulse Response Selection...8 Hi-Hat Chick Start Time...8 Crash Choke Release...9 Crash Choke Start Time...9 Multiple Attack Emulation (MAE)...9 Humanize...9 CHAPTER 4 - MIXER PAGE...0 Sample Purge...0 Bleed Volume...0 Effect Send and 2... Standard Pan and Volume... Polarity... Mute... Solo... High-Pass Filter... Output... CHAPTER 5 GETTING STARTED LOAD IN STAND ALONE KONTAKT LOAD IN VST KONTAKT SETTING MULTIPLE OUTS IN THE SEQUENCER...3 CHAPTER RELEASE NOTES WHAT IS MISSING? WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS?...4 LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 3

4 INTRODUCTION - CHAPTER Welcome to LAZY Drummer Operation Manual LAZY Drummer is a realistic full bleed drum engine for Native Instruments Kontakt 4. As far as I can tell, this is the ONLY drum engine for Kontakt that gives the user access to each individual microphone bleed sample. This was achieved through pain staking sample editing, organisation and management (I understanding why this isn't done more often). It was designed from the ground up to give the user control over the direct, unprocessed multi-track recordings, with the additional benefit of being able to determine how much of each instrument is bled into each microphone. Ideally it would be used in a multi-track sequencer using mono outputs from Kontakt into the mixer to tailor the raw drum recordings to a polished mix ready state. This was its intended purpose. There has been no equalization or compression applied to the recordings which gives you maximum flexibility in how you decide to treat them. However, this does not mean LAZY Drummer can not be used in other ways. As a stand alone kit it gives that natural live sound you would expect to hear when sat behind a drum kit. LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 4

5 Recording LAZY Drummer was recorded at Leeds Metropolitan University, Headingley Campus studios in one 8 hour session on the 2th of March, 203. The drums were recorded at 24bit / 44.kHz using a MOTU 24i/o into Cubase 5. Great care and attention was made to ensure the samples were captured free of noise, and to their fullest fidelity. Each piece of kit was meticulously recorded to ensure the full tails were captured. Each hit was captured by all microphones with the aim of creating the first Kontakt drum instrument with full bleed control. Drums and Microphones Drums Microphones Pearl Vision VSX Birch Drum Kit 2x AKG 44 Stereo Pair (Room) Kick (Evans Heads) (Plastic Beater) AKG D2 Snare (Remo Weatherking Heads) Shure SM57 Rack Tom (Evans Heads) Sennheiser e05 Rack Tom 2 (Evans Heads) Sennheiser e05 Floor Tom (Evans Heads) Sennheiser e05 Zildjian ZHT 4" Hi-Hat AKG Perception 70 Zildjian ZHT " Crash AKG 45 Zildjian ZXT 8" Crash AKG 45 Zildjian ZBT 20" Ride AKG Perception 70 LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 5

6 SAMPLE MAP - CHAPTER 2 Default Drum Mapping Layer Information Each articulation uses Eleven microphones to achieve full bleed control which totals 4.82gb of pristine 24bit audio samples. Kontakt's native lossless compression format considerably reduces LAZY Drummer's ram requirements down to only 2.3gb for a full bleed load. At its default, only 0.9gb is used. Articulation Variations Amount Articulation 7 47 Rack Tom Rack Tom 2 39 Snare Side Stick Floor Tom 39 Snare Rim Shot Crash Left 39 Hi-Hat Pedal Crash Left Choke 2 32 Hi-Hat Closed Crash Right 39 Hi-Hat Open 39 Crash Right Choke 2 32 Hi-Hat Open 2 Ride Hi-Hat Open 3 Ride Bell Hi-Hat Chick Kick Snare Centre Velocities Velocities Variations Amount TOTAL: 50 * more articulations and variations will be added in a future update ** articulations with only velocity layer will have additional layers added in time. Editing is a demanding and time consuming task. LAZY Drummer Operation Manual -

7 INSTRUMENT PAGE - CHAPTER 3 The Instrument Page is where you can control functions at the instrument level. Drum Hit Pads Use these to audition the sounds of the drum kit. Be aware that they do not replace the function of a dedicated keyboard because they are not velocity sensitive and activate on mouse button release. Tune Tune gives a octave up or down pitch change. For best results use with subtlety to tweak the kit to taste. Used at its extreme and in conjunction with the delay, it can give pretty convincing dub type sounds. Envelope Release This is the release phase of the sounds envelope. Like most of the controls in LAZY Drummer, its range has been set to allow for extreme uses. One use that shouldn't be avoided is in taming the tails of long sustaining cymbals such as the ride. The samples include very long sustains, this release function should tidy them up if desired. LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 7

8 Send Effects The convolution reverberation and delay effects feature world class impulse responses sampled directly from a popular reverberation company's classic rack unit. The impulse responses have been selected for their versatility. There should be something in here that fits your needs. Send Return Level The convolution return levels have been capped in volume at just over the sweet spot in relation to the direct sound. The sends are post fader so the level keeps relative to the channel volume. This ensures the convolution effects sound good, at any level. Early Reflection Size This controls the early reflection impulse response size. This has the effect of lengthening the sound and can be used like a time control. Centred is the default 00% size and it has a range of -50% to 50%. Late Reflection Size As above but this time affecting the late reflection portion of the impulse response. Pre-delay Time Controls the pre-delay of the impulse response from 0ms to 300ms. Impulse Response Selection In both the reverberation and delay convolution modules there is the choice of 4 different impulse responses. Hand selected to offer enough variation for most drum needs. When making a selection please be aware that the impulse response needs sufficient time to load. It is best to wait for the impulse response to load before making another selection. Multiple successive and fast changes can result in unpredictable behaviour # Reverberation Impulse # Delay Impulse Drum Room Live Delay Space 2 Room 4 Drums 2 Wide Slap Drum 3 Live Real Room 3 Volc Echo 4 Live Great Room 4 Multi Plate Delay Hi-Hat Chick Start Time One of the hi-hat articulations is the quick opening and closing of the hi-hat. This slider can shorted this so the opening portion is missing. This gives the articulation two uses., its normal state for quick opening and closing of the hi-hat and 2, as a closing sound for the hi-hat open articulations. To test this out make sure the slider is at zero (fully left position) and play the closed hi-hat by hitting F, then quickly hit the A2 key. The sound of a hi-hat being hit and then opening and closing should be heard. LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 8

9 Now set the start time slider to chop off the start (around half way) then play a G# (fully open hi-hat). Pressing the A2 key whilst the open hi-hat is playing should sound as if it is naturally closed (some experimentation is necessary to get best results). This can offer better results than using the pedal articulation to close open hi-hat sounds. Please note that because this slider changes the sample start time, it can not be changed in real time and doing so can result in glitchy audio. Multiple successive and fast changes can result in unpredictable behaviour Crash Choke Release This is a standard envelope release. It can be used to shorten the crash choke sound. In combination with the choke start time it offers another tool to shape the sound. Crash Choke Start Time The chokes were recorded with a hit at the beginning. This control allows the choice of either having a sample play that contains a crash hit and a choke or having just a choke sound that can be used to literally 'choke' the crash articulations. For best results set just above half way. This is a unique feature to LAZY drummer and one that instantly shows its benefit in creating natural and realistic crash chokes. Multiple Attack Emulation (MAE) When a drummer is creating cymbal swells the attacks of the adjacent hits are never as prominent. This is because the cymbal is already wobbling and ringing out. This creates a fluid sound. This function seeks to emulate that behaviour by changing the start time based on how soon after the previous hit the next hit comes. When active the sample start time is adjusted and a small fade in is set. The result is realistic cymbal swells. The timing of the system was set by ear to give best results. Humanize This section provides random variation of Velocity, Start Delay and Tuning. Depending on how the dials are set the results can be natural and subtle or quite obvious and unnatural. VEL dial randomises the velocity adding or subtracting between -4 and 4 MIDI velocity number. TIM dial randomises the time the sound plays after the key is hit, between 0ms and 00ms. This humanize feature is great if you are playing a quantised MIDI part and want to quickly add in the natural timing variation of a real musician. TUN dial randomises the pitch of the played sound by - semitone to + semitone. This feature is best when used on skinned drum articulations. The affect is too noticeable on cymbals for it to have any practical use. On cymbals with long sustain it creates a chorus effect which is not intended. A future update will make this feature ignore the cymbals. LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 9

10 MIXER PAGE - CHAPTER 4 The Mixer Page is where you can control functions at the microphone channel level. * This is the microphone channel strip. It acts the same way as a traditional mixing desk. ** This is the instrument bleed row. 9 in total representing the 9 pieces of the drum kit. An articulation hit will sound through each microphone channel depending on the state of its row settings. Sample Purge This removes the channel's bleed row samples from RAM. A cross on a green background means the samples are purged. A speaker indicates that the samples are loaded. A red speaker indicates the direct sound of the channels microphone. A black speaker indicates that it is microphone bleed. Purging samples can be a way to tailor LAZY Drummer to your ram allowance. Bleed Volume When the samples are loaded, this slider controls their volume. This is a very powerful feature for tailoring the sound of the drum kit. For best results it is important to experiment and learn how each microphone bleed adds to the sound of the kit as a whole. Full bleed control is a lot of fun to use. LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 0

11 Effect Send and 2 These send the signal to the convolution send effects. Send is Reverberation and send 2 is Delay. The convolution effects are controlled on the instrument page. Standard Channel Pan and Volume No mixing desk can be without volume and pan controls. The master volume for the channel keeps the relative levels of the channel's bleed volumes. The pan control only works when using a stereo output, which is to be expected. Polarity This changes the polarity of the microphone channel. This is useful for changing the sound of the kick and snare relative to the overhead and room microphones if desired. This is standard practice when recording drums but has been left to the user to make that choice. Why call it polarity and not phase? because polarity is the correct term. Phase is a change in the time difference between two waveforms. So why did I use the symbol for phase? I pondered using a [P], I actually did at one point, but then realised that this could as easily stand for Phase so I went back to the rather cool looking phase sign. I hate sticking to convention when convention has got it wrong. This is a polarity switch, don't forget that. Mute This is a standard mute switch. Stops all the sound from the channel. It is pre-send so the convolution effects don't sound for the muted channel. Fancy! Solo Standard solo functionality that only half works. Works fine if you want to solo channels, solo as many as you want and they should all work in conjunction. However, de-solo one and they will all de-solo. A future update will add this extra functionality. High-Pass Filter Each channel incorporates a variable high-pass filter. Found on most mixing desks and microphones. The drum recording process left off all high-pass filters at the microphone and desk stages to give the rawest sound that can be tailored to taste. Turn it on and use the green dial to set the cut-off frequency by ear. Output The LAZY Drummer.nkm has been configured for stereo and mono outputs. The microphone channels can be sent out of any of these outputs. In stand alone use it is best to send all microphones out of the main stereo output. When used in a sequencer it is best to use the individual mono outputs. This gives the realistic direct from tape usability. Sending the microphone channels out of the mono outputs leaves the Stereo output for the convolution effects. Currently both the delay and reverberation use this together. It may be possible in a future update to allow the output of the send returns to be selected. LAZY Drummer Operation Manual -

12 GETTING STARTED - CHAPTER 5 LAZY Drummer comes with two files, the instrument (.nki) and the multi (.nkm). The multi offers pre-configured outputs that can be used in both stand alone and VST operation. It is recommended to use the.nkm for this reason. To Load in Kontakt4 (Stand Alone). Load Kontakt4 2. Click 'View'. 3. Click 'Files' and then 'Load...'. 4. Locate 'LAZY Drummer.nkm' and double click. 5. Press 'Yes' to load LAZY Drummer.nkm with its pre-configured outputs.. Go to the 'Options' to set the correct audio card and MIDI input from their respective tabs. 7. LAZY Drummer should now be ready to use. LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 2

13 Setting Multiple Outs in the Sequencer for Kontakt4 (VST). After loading the sequencer and creating a project, add 'Kontakt 4' as a VST Instrument. (Load LAZY Drummer.nkm the same way you would for the stand alone version.) Kontakt4 creates multiple stereo outputs into the sequencer. This would be fine if we only wanted to use LAZY Drummer's stereo output, but not fine if we want to send each channel out of its own mono output. To reconfigure the sequencer's Kontakt channels to match those of LAZY Drummer, do the following.. At the output section press 'Presets/Batch Configuration' and then 'Save current output configuration as default for' and then chose 'VST Plugin'. (If you can not see Kontakt's internal mixer, press the mixer icon at the top) 2. Once this has been done, unload and reload Kontakt as a VST plug-in in the sequencer. This will reconfigure the sequencer's mixer to match those of the LAZY Drummer.nkm mixer configuration. 3. In LAZY Drummer's Mixer page select a mono output for each channel. 4. Do the same for Kontakt's master output mixer. 5. LAZY Drummer should now be ready to use. LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 3

14 RELEASE NOTES - CHAPTER This release of LAZY Drummer is part of an on going project. There are a number of features that do not work as intended and a number of features that are simply not there. What is Missing? The sample pack has a number of articulations which have been placed in as temporary filler whilst the rest of the velocity layers are edited and ready to put in. If you look in the sample folders you will notice that some of the articulations have a V00 designation in their file name. This represents articulations that have not been edited to their fullest due to time restraints. Whilst velocity layer has been placed in temporarily for that articulation, the velocity used was not always the best choice and does not always match the other finished articulations. For instance the articulation of the Snare Side Stick is noticeably quieter than the rest of the articulations, this is also true of the other V00 articulations. In hindsight, the loudest velocity should have been used for these temporary articulations. V00 articulation are; Snare Side Stick, Snare Rim Shot, Hi-Hat Pedal, Hi-Hat Open 2, Hi-Hat Open 3, Hi Hat Chick, and Ride Bell. The rest of the articulations have all their velocity layers. There are also a number of articulations completely missing from this release which were recorded but are yet to be edited. These include, Hi-Hat Closed 2, Hi-Hat Closed Tip, Ride Shank, and Snare Off. Currently it is not possible to see the values of controls. I understand this is a problem. Space has been left at the bottom of the pages for a universal readout display which will be added in the next release. Support for electronic drum kits and the implementation of MIDI CC messages has not been implemented in this release due to time restraints. What are the Problems? The humanise functions do not work when using the instrument page hit pads. This is something that will be looked at and fixed for a future update. The TUN humanize function is almost unusable because the affect is too noticeable on cymbals. A future update will make this feature ignore the cymbals. The solo function is only half working. When one solo is turned off, it turns all other currently soloed channels off as well. This is a problem that will take quite a lot of time to solve. In its current state the solo script is very inefficient and incomplete. To progress with this it will need completely changing to use dynamic arrays to save the state of buttons. This wasn't viable to do for this release due to the time restraints. Selecting the convolution impulses can cause problems and sometimes the impulse is not loaded at all. A more officiant way to do this will be found and implemented in a future update. I am sure there are many parts of the scripts that are inefficient and could be reduced greatly. The LAZY Drummer scripts will be constantly evolving and gaining in efficiency. Currently, the convolution send effects both output via the default output. The addition of an output selector for both send returns will be added in the next release, if possible. Now that is taken care of, please enjoy using your copy of LAZY Drummer. Sincerely, Joseph Sprint LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 4

15 BACK COVER LAZY Drummer Operation Manual - 5