Multi Layer Round Robin Sampler setup question

Hello,

I’m trying to set up a kit using a personal sample set of a multi sampled drum kit and having trouble with some seemingly random hits not triggering a sound. For example say one out of ten (or so) hits isn’t triggering a sound even though the pad lights up and registers a hit… It’s mostly working, just a missed hit here and there but enough to be super annoying.

My sample set has 5 velocity layers each with 3 round robin hits each. I’m using 5 samplers on the center pad of the snare drum. Each sampler has 3 round robin snare hits inside, samplers are all set to ‘cycle’ and Ive adjusted the velocity i/o of each sampler divided by 5 so the first sampler has the velocity i/o at in:0/out:0 to in:20/out:20, second sampler 21 to 40 third sampler 41 to 60 and so on.

Ive tried turning the blends off, read the user guide obsessively, tried using velocity controllers mapped to ctrl in the samplers because I tried to see what people are doing in the sound packs. Also when the samplers are set to random its the same thing. Wondering if I’m doing something wrong that’s obvious…

Thank you :slight_smile:

Hey there!

I think you just need to hold down shift and set sampler one from 0 to 20, sampler two from 20 to 40, sampler 3 from 40 to 60 and so on. Leaving the gap is what’s causing the missed hits. Holding down shift while dragging the velocity i/o causes the velocity i/o to snap to the nearest 10.

I don’t think it causes audible overlap to have the two adjacent samplers sharing the same high/low number.

You’ll see that the acoustic presets like the C&C Kit in the base pack, and all of the kits in the Acoustic Drums Collection, are made with three samplers:

  1. The first sampler set to rand with all of the lowest velocity samples, and velocity i/o set from 0-20 (mostly buzz and ghost note territory).

  2. The middle sampler set to ctrl with all of samples, and velocity i/o set from 20-90.

  3. The highest velocity sampler set to rand with the highest velocity samples, and velocity i/o set from 90-100.

You might try that method, as well: with randomization only set for the softest and loudest hits, and a velocity controller controlling the range in the middle. But as long as you don’t leave gaps between the velocity i/o of your samplers I think it should sound good.

Thank you @stevenz. I was worried about 2 samples from different velocities/samplers sounding at the same time but I’ll give that a try and report back. Thanks for the quick reply!

Did it work? :slight_smile:

Hello,

Yes, pretty much. It may be that my low samples were too quiet if not normalized and I also noticed it was reading a damped hit occasionally which was assigned to nothing so assigned it to center. I got it working pretty good with no overlapping midi i/o values as well. May need to retrain my drums.

Question regarding this if anyone can help:

When using a velocity controller to select samples (like suggested above and in so many presets) how exactly does it work? Just pick a random sample from the stack?

Thanks everybody

Hi again!

Yes, normalizing is crucial for this kind of thing. All the samples have to be able to be scaled to the same level, or else it won’t feel natural: samples recorded at different levels will feel like they respond differently to the velocity of your playing, when really some of them were just recorded louder/quieter than others. Luckily you can normalize all of the samples right in the samplers by holding down “command” and pressing the “N” next to one of the samples in the list.

For your question:

Assigning a velocity controller to the number box of the “cntrl” parameter will select a sample based directly on the velocity of the received hit.

So the softest hits will select the first sample in the stack, and the hardest hits will select the last sample in the stack.

That’s why the presets for this kind of kit randomize just the lowest and highest velocity hits: so that the hardest hits don’t always select the same sample, and the same for the quietest hits.

The velocity controller on the middle sampler will select the samples linearly based on how hard/soft you play.

If there are enough samples in that middle sampler (I’ve found that around 15 or more is sufficient, but the more the better), then I don’t see a need to randomize/cycle because the likelihood of someone hitting the same sample in a row repeatedly at those middle velocities is very low.

Thank you @stevenz