USER MANUAL
Disclaimer & contact The content of this document may be changed without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Scholz & Dalferth GbR. The described software called drumasonic 2, drumasonic LUXURY, or simply drumasonic, is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to any media. Without prior written permission of Scholz & Dalferth GbR, no part of this publication may be copied, transferred or reproduced, for any purpose, in any form whatsoever. All product names and company names are trademarks of their respective owners. KONTAKT and KONTAKT PLAYER are registered trademarks of Native Instruments GmbH. Authors of this document: Daniel Scholz, Samuel Dalferth Document version: 2.2 (September 2013) Describes the product version: 2.2 (September 2013) Scholz & Dalferth GbR Heßstr. 43 RG 80798 München Germany info@drumasonic.com www.drumasonic.com Concept & Development: Daniel Scholz, Samuel Dalferth 2013 Scholz & Dalferth GbR. All rights reserved. i
Acknowledgments Special thanks to: Additional preset design Tim Tautorat, Jonas Roßner, Max Trieder, Florian Bitzer, Martin Müller, Linus Werth, Philemon Werth Website and graphics MATLAB assistance E-drum performances Artjom Galliardt, Martin Fischer Peter Scholz Daniel Schild, Jakob Ehrlich Endorsement partners Thomas Panthel (2BOX), Peter Lagemann (S.E.A./Universal Audio), Urs Heckmann (u-he), The teams from Softube, antares and Native Instruments Additional support Linus Werth, Philemon Werth, Ludger Bonato, Kevin Dalferth, Corinna Barth, Martha Urban, Florian Körber, Patrick Zech, Benjamin Rademann, Elias Bumbaris, Sebastian Vogt, Theresa Stark, Lorenz Betz, Christian Vaida, Marian Vaida, Wolfgang Manns, Olaf Schräder, Leonie Tief. ii
Contents 1 drumasonic at a Glance 1 2 Preparation 2 2.1 Running standalone or as a plugin...................... 2 2.2 Configuring audio outputs........................... 4 2.3 Launching drumasonic............................. 5 2.4 Useful KONTAKT settings............................ 5 3 Overview and General Functions 7 3.1 Workspaces A and B............................... 7 3.2 Presets...................................... 8 3.3 Auto-selecting instruments (follow MIDI)................... 8 3.4 Fine-adjusting or resetting sliders/knobs................... 9 4 Instruments Page 10 4.1 Hierarchy of categories, slots, models, articulations............. 10 4.2 Channel strips.................................. 12 4.3 Slot inspector.................................. 14 4.4 Powerful link modes.............................. 15 iii
Contents drumasonic User Manual 5 Articulations Page 16 5.1 Articulations the concept........................... 16 5.2 Load, save, learn, delete mappings or keys.................. 18 5.3 Multiple sounds per key (layering)...................... 19 5.4 Articulation inspector.............................. 20 5.5 Beater, round robin, and snare wires..................... 20 5.6 Disabling articulations and the Remapping sub page........... 22 5.7 Control sub page............................... 23 6 Effects Page 24 6.1 Buses vs. bus inspector............................. 24 6.2 Bus parameters................................. 26 6.3 Link and split link modes............................ 27 6.4 Send effects................................... 28 6.5 Copy, paste, reset, and bypass functions................... 28 7 Grooves Page 30 7.1 Groove browser: internal or external grooves................ 30 7.2 Transport controls................................ 32 7.3 Time base controls............................... 33 7.4 Mapping..................................... 34 7.5 Shuffle, quantize, delay, velocity, stretch................... 35 8 Practical Hints 37 8.1 Speed up your workflow............................ 37 8.2 Performance optimization guide....................... 38 iv
1 drumasonic at a Glance Welcome! As the name suggests, drumasonic represents a high-end approach: A comprehensive virtual drum sound library with top of the line recording quality, flexibility and sonic versatility, developed with minute attention to detail, meeting the high standards required by professional drummers and mixing engineers. All signals were converted with high-end equipment directly after the preamps. The goal was to provide the discerning musician, sound technician or producer in the sense of authentic drum miking a variety of phase-coherent, freely combinable and routable signals out of a selection of distinct recording rooms. With its integrated high-end effects, powerful groove modifying, playing and recording features, a modular preset system, and many more sophisticated features, drumasonic will quickly reveal itself to you as a comprehensive drum software solution. The importance of maximum phase correlation especially for multi-channel recorded drums should not be underestimated: if the phases of such transient-rich signals cancel each other out, even the finest recordings will sound poor and thin. The meticulously optimized phase correlation of every signal combination among with the most responsive microphone preamps is one of the great secrets of drumasonic s outstanding sound with its extraordinary impact and clarity. 1
2 Preparation Before you can use drumasonic, you need to set it up on your system: The setup includes both the extraction of the library and the installation of the KONTAKT PLAYER as well as the activation of your copy. More detailed information can be found in the Installation Guide (English).pdf document. 2.1 Running standalone or as a plugin The KONTAKT PLAYER 1 represents the environment of drumasonic. You can use it as an independent (standalone) application or as a module (plugin) within another application, typically a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). In the former case, the general audio and MIDI settings have to be addressed during the first start of KONTAKT or at a later stage in the Options menu. If, however, KONTAKT is used as a plugin, the audio and MIDI settings are based on the configuration of the host software. 1 Hereafter referred to as KONTAKT only. 2
2 Preparation drumasonic User Manual Figure 2.1: drumasonic s preset load menu and KONTAKT s output configuration 3
2 Preparation drumasonic User Manual 2.2 Configuring audio outputs Although drumasonic comes with a powerful integrated mixing engine utilizing highend effects, you can also send any signal pre or post effects to any direct out. At this point, it will be explained how such outputs can be created and be configured: Basics In KONTAKT s upper area, click the Output button and you will be presented with an overview of all the available audio outputs as channel strips (see Figure 2.1). Now you can add additional outputs ( Add Channels ), configure existing ones (by clicking the bottom button of a channel) or delete an output ( Delete Channel ). Saving settings Finally, you can save the current configuration as a preset or as default: click the menu Presets / Batch Configuration and select one of the Save... entries. DAW channels In order to get all KONTAKT outputs as separate mixer channels in your DAW, the outputs have to be activated or turned on in the DAW. In some DAWs, this is done by adding so-called Aux channels. Please consult the documentation of your DAW software to get more specific information on how this is accomplished. Please note that with every change of KONTAKT s output configuration, your project has to be saved and reloaded, if necessary. Important: After each change of the KONTAKT outputs you should close and reload drumasonic within KONTAKT in order to make the new outputs appear in the drumasonic interface. If you are using KONTAKT/drumasonic within a DAW, please save and re-load your session instead. 4
2 Preparation drumasonic User Manual 2.3 Launching drumasonic In order to load drumasonic, double-click one of the included KONTAKT instruments: drumasonic 2 contains a Damped Room and Large Room instrument; LUXURY contains a single instrument called drumasonic LUXURY. On the top left of the browser 2 click on Libraries, so that all registered sample libraries are displayed. Find the drumasonic library, select Instruments and double-click one of the instrument files shown below. There is also a small information icon i that will lead you directly to all relevant documents and web pages. 2.4 Useful KONTAKT settings There are some KONTAKT-specific settings that can simplify your workflow or optimize the audio quality. Displaying a keyboard If you activate the upper Keyb switch, a keyboard will be displayed with a color coding of drumasonic s current keyboard mapping: the keys of the currently selected instrument will be marked blue. Optimizing mixdown quality The pitch that you can adjust for each instrument (see page 15) provides for the benefit of an optimal real-time performance not the highest re-sampling quality possible. However, if you want your mix downs to be rendered at the very best quality, go to Options, Engine and set the parameter Offline Interpolation Quality (for mixdown) to perfect. 2 If you cannot see the library browser, activate the Browse button in KONTAKT s top navigation bar. 5
2 Preparation drumasonic User Manual Adjusting memory allocation To determine how much data from each sample is being held in the memory, navigate to KONTAKT s Options and then Memory. Activate the switch Override Instrument s preload size and adjust the slider according to your needs. Recommended values are in the middle range. Today s computers provide, however, generally sufficient power reserves to allow for lower values and thus lower memory consumption at the cost of increasing hard drive stress. 6
3 Overview and General Functions drumasonic provides four separate pages that you can navigate on the top of the instrument. These are labeled Instruments, Articulations (with three sub pages), Effects, and Grooves. 3.1 Workspaces A and B With the upper A and B buttons, you can switch between two independent workspaces, in which every parameter of drumasonic (expect for the mapping, see chapter 5) is being stored temporarily. By clicking the arrows between A and B, you can copy the settings of the current workspace to the other workspace. This is useful for comparing two different settings or two differently progressing versions of one initial setting. You can also load different presets into different workspaces and then compare them. 7
3 Overview and General Functions drumasonic User Manual 3.2 Presets To save the current workspace permanently, click the floppy disk symbol on the upper right, and save either to file or to one of 30 user preset slots. If you want to save to a user slot, you might first want to change the current preset name by dragging and holding from right to left over the current name, then type a new name and press enter. Finally, click the little floppy disk icon next to the preset name. To load a preset into the current workspace, click on the folder icon and select any preset from the categorized list, or load a preset from file (see Figure 2.1). Since the loading of presets is completely modular, you can leave out certain elements on loading, for example the instrument models or the effects. Thus, new sounds can be easily created by combining different elements from different presets. To change these settings, click the last entry of the load menu: Show settings... 3.3 Auto-selecting instruments (follow MIDI) When the circular MIDI symbol in the top right corner is enabled, the selecting of instruments and/or articulations will follow the incoming MIDI notes. If the incoming note is assigned to several articulations or instruments (see section 5.2), drumasonic will toggle between those articulations or instruments. There are two functions that are available, only if this function is enabled: 1) the playback of a sound preview when clicking on an articulation, and 2) the blinking of all remapped articulations (see section 5.6) when doing so. To gain performance, however, it is generally recommended to disable the graphics-heavy 8
3 Overview and General Functions drumasonic User Manual follow MIDI function, especially before you close the KONTAKT window within your DAW. drumasonic cannot know whether or not the KONTAKT window is open or closed. 3.4 Fine-adjusting or resetting sliders/knobs In drumasonic, there are some extra, or alternative, functions when dragging sliders or knobs: Fine-adjustment Reset to default value Hold down the SHIFT key while dragging. CMD+click (CTRL+click on Windows). Absolute value change in link modes When any of the link modes is active (see section 4.4), the linked values can be changed in an absolute manner (as opposed to the standard relative manner) by ALT-dragging. Also, the combination of ALT+CMD+click (ALT+CTRL+click) can be applied to reset all linked sliders or knobs at once. Un-learn learned values The learned values of all Learn buttons can be un-learned via ALT+clicking it. 9
4 Instruments Page On the instrument page (see Figure 4.1), you can build up your drum set by loading kit pieces into different slots ; choose the microphone signals you want to use for each kit piece, and set their volumes, envelopes, pannings, stereo widths and output routings. Also, there are various inspector parameters available for each slot, such as velocity, pitch, or delay. 4.1 Hierarchy of categories, slots, models, articulations It s important to grasp drumasonic s powerful, but quite simple concept of structuring its contents in an hierarchy: Categories On the bottom of the instruments page and the articulations page, you are presented with the instrument navigator and its seven instrument categories: 1. Kicks, 2. Snares, 3. Toms, 4. HiHats, 5. Rides, 6. Crashes, 7. Percussion. You can also select all categories at once by activating the lower right All button or by ALT+clicking any category twice. This mode is called big all mode (see section 4.4). 10
4 Instruments Page drumasonic User Manual Figure 4.1: The instruments page: slot-specific channel strips, slot inspector, instrument navigator (from top to bottom). 11
4 Instruments Page drumasonic User Manual Slots Each category, in turn, provides up to eight independent slots. You can toggle between these slots by repeatedly clicking the category name or by directly clicking on one of the available slot numbers. To adjust parameters for all slots of the current category simultaneously (see section 4.4), you can select all slots of one category at once with the All button right next to the slot numbers or by ALT+clicking that category. This mode is called little all mode. Models Each slot can hold one specific instrument model that you can select with the drop-down menu or the little arrow button next to it. If model - none - is selected, no memory will be occupied for that slot in terms of samples. Please note that it is not possible to load one particular model into multiple slots simultaneously. Articulations Each model, in turn, provides a unique subset of a global articulation list (see chapter 5). 4.2 Channel strips The channel strips section reflect the actual slot and instrument model you have selected in the instrument navigator at the bottom. Please note that some models provide more channels, and some provide less. By switching from the current instrument model to another one, the settings of the current slot s channel strips will not be altered, but applied to the new model. Thus, you can compare different instrument models (within the same slot) with similar mixer settings. These parameters, from top to bottom, are available for each channel: 12
4 Instruments Page drumasonic User Manual Microphone buttons At the top of each channel strip, its microphone type is displayed on a big button. Activate all signals you want to use with the current category/slot/model. To save memory, deactivate the microphones you don t need. Envelopes (attack, hold, decay) You can shape each channel s volume envelope in terms of attack, hold, and decay. The units are always milliseconds, where k stands for times thousand. With the blue square button, the envelope can be switched on or off. Touching any of the three knobs will immediately switch the envelope on. Stereo width If a channel is stereo, it provides a width knob for controlling its stereo width from mono (-100) and normal stereo (0) up to exaggerated stereo (100). To flip the stereo channels from left/right to right/left, activate the square RL button. 1 Panning/balance Each mono channel can be panned from fully left to fully right. The two signals of each stereo channel can be balanced from left channel only up to right channel only. To flip, or inverse, the panning/balance, click the little square button displaying two circular arrows. Mute, solo Each channel can be soloed or muted separately by clicking its grey m or s button. To solo several channels, solo the first channel, then un-mute the other channels to add them to the set of soloed channels. To switch mute or solo on/off on an instrument level (i. e. for all channels of the current category/slot/model), use the Mute/Solo buttons at the very left of the instruments page. 1 The Large Room instrument of drumasonic 2, and a selection of models of the Damped Room instruments of drumasonic 2 provide M and S signals on two discrete channels, which can be combined to an M/S stereo pair. In LUXURY, an M/S pair ist also available, however, the M and S signals are provided as a downmixed stereo pair on a single stereo channel. By adjusting the stereo width control of this channel, you can tune the balance between the M and S signal to your liking. 13
4 Instruments Page drumasonic User Manual Volume Drag the big vertical sliders to set the channel volumes up to 0 dbfs. The current values are displayed below the sliders. Routing You can route each channel to an individual audio output via the drop-down menu at the bottom of each channel. Besides all the ten buses and the master bus of the effects page (see section 6.1), you also have the option to route the signals to any of the available direct outs (configuring outputs: see section 2.2) 4.3 Slot inspector Underneath the channel strips there is the slot inspector. Here, you ll find various, slotspecific parameters, such as velocity, volume and pitch modulation, constant and random pitch as well as delay and shape. As described above, when switching to another instrument model, the current settings of the slot inspector will be applied to the new model. Please note that these slot-specific parameters can also be offset per articulation (see section 5.4). Velocity With the Maximum and the Minimum parameters, you can define the upper and lower limit of the outputted velocity, ranging from 0 to 127. Bend the velocity curve with the Curve knob towards the harder or the softer samples. Use the Random knob to randomly add or subtract values up to the specified value. Modulation With the Vel->Vol knob, you can (optionally inversely) affect each note s playback volume by its incoming velocity. Use Vel->Pitch to (optionally inversely) affect each note s pitch by its incoming velocity. 14
4 Instruments Page drumasonic User Manual Pitch Misc Change the current category/slot/model s constant or random pitch in halftones. To optimize the resampling quality during mixdown, please refer to page 5. With the delay parameter, all notes of the current category/slot/model can be delayed by the specified value in milliseconds. With the unique shape parameter, you can subtly alter the character of the transients in terms of sharpness / softness. 4.4 Powerful link modes This one is really powerful: Each parameter of the slot channel strips and the slot inspector can be linked horizontally and/or vertically. The horizontal link modes are activated by clicking the upper left Link button once (= Link ) or twice (= Split link ) 2, whereas the vertical link modes are represented by the so-called little all / big all modes (how to access these: see section 4.1). Remember: Little all mode = all slots of the current instrument category are selected; big all mode = all instrument categories and all their slots are selected. Also, all horizontal and vertical link modes can be combined. The effect: Any dragging of sliders or knobs performed in the channel strips or the slot inspector affects all linked parameters simultaneously in a relative manner (absolute manner: hold the ALT key while dragging or clicking). In contrast to the sliders and knobs, all switchable on/off buttons will always be synchronized in an absolute manner. 2 Split Link: all close signals are linked, and all room signals are linked. 15
5 Articulations Page On the articulations page, you can do several things: 1) set the midi note mapping for each articulation of each instrument slot, 2) set parameter offsets per articulation in the articulation inspector, 3) select a beater (sticks, rods, brushes), and 4) switch the snare wires on or off. Also, there are two sub pages called Remapping and Control that provide some expert features. 5.1 Articulations the concept As described earlier, articulations are the last element in drumasonic s hierarchy (see section 4.1); they represent various playing techniques of any given instrument model. Each articulation has a set of attached parameters, such as assigned keys, or inspector parameter offsets. To select a specific articulation for editing, first select an instrument category and slot (the model is irrelevant) from the instrument navigator. Then, you will be presented with a specific articulation list of that particular category/slot (see Figure 5.1). Depending on the selected instrument model, some articulations will be available (blue color) and some others will not (grey color). Furthermore, there are some so-called virtual articulations that are self-explanatory when they are selected. It s important to note that even if an articulation is not available or if it s deactivated via its checkbox (in order 16
5 Articulations Page drumasonic User Manual Figure 5.1: The articulations page 17
5 Articulations Page drumasonic User Manual to save memory), it can still be played. In these cases, drumasonic will redirect ( remap ) the incoming note to another articulation according to the remapping settings (see section 5.6). If this is happening and if follow MIDI is enabled, the remapped articulation(s) will blink shortly. Also, with follow MIDI enabled, drumasonic will give a sound preview of that articulation when you click on it. 5.2 Load, save, learn, delete mappings or keys Once you have selected any of the displayed articulations, there are several options on the right: Learn new key When this button is activated, drumasonic waits for an incoming note which will be assigned to the selected articulation. If this key is already assigned to another articulation, you have the option to add or to replace this key. Please note: you can assign up to four keys per articulation! On the contrary, one key can trigger up to four articulations, which results in layering of different sounds (see section 5.3). Delete [note name] the selected key will be detached from the selected articulation. If you want to delete all keys from the current instrument/slot, please select Link / All below the articulation list and then select Delete all keys. If KONTAKT s internal keyboard (see page 5) is activated, you will see a color coding: all keys used in the current category/slot are marked blue; all keys of the selected articulation are marked light blue. 18
5 Articulations Page drumasonic User Manual Save mapping, Load mapping Once you ve created your own mapping this way, you can save it to a file by clicking on the Save mapping button. Also, you can load mappings that you have saved with version 2, or even import mappings created with version 1.5 of drumasonic. Additionally, you can select factory mappings from the preset list. Please note: the mapping settings are saved along with the mapping presets. They are not contained in the workspaces or the sound presets. 5.3 Multiple sounds per key (layering) By default, the drumasonic mapping preset has some bass drum keys and some snare drum keys also assigned to percussion slots no. 4 and no. 5. We have set it up like that, because this way, the included sound presets can make use of drumasonic s great layering feature: with one key, you can trigger up to four different instruments/articulations. Typically, we load synthetic bass drums, or sine sub bass tones into percussion slot 4, and synthetic snare drums, or snare impacts, claps etc. into percussion slot 5. Just try presets like In da club (Snare + Claps), boomasonic, Sounds like a tone (Kick + Synth Kick), etc. Thanks to this fixed multi mapping setup, the sound presets can decide, whether or not they want to have a sound loaded into these predefined layering slots. If you want to turn off the default layering, simply delete the key from the unwanted articulation or load another mapping preset. Or, if you do not want drumasonic to toggle the view each time you hit the snare, simply deactivate follow MIDI. 19
5 Articulations Page drumasonic User Manual 5.4 Articulation inspector Similar to the slot inspector (see section 4.3), there is an articulation inspector. With its knobs, you can offset for each articulation the parameters set in the slot inspector. For example, you could pitch a snare drum 1 halftone up with the slot inspector, then offset the pitch for the Center LH and Center RH articulations by 0.2 and +0.2 in order to achieve some tonal variation. Besides pitch, you can also offset velocity, modulation, as well as panning and volume for each articulation. There is even a link mode for the articulations (other link modes: see section 4.4)! Select Link / All below the articulation list and then either switch them all on or off with their checkboxes, or adjust the inspector parameters in a relative manner (absolute manner: hold down the ALT key while dragging or clicking). Please note: the articulation inspector settings are saved with the sound presets and/or with the workspaces. They are not contained in the mapping presets. 5.5 Beater, round robin, and snare wires Beater In the beater section, you can choose from a selection of different beaters: Sticks, rods, or brushes. While only some instrument models of drumasonic 2 (SN: Maple Master and Lina Cat, and some of the percussion instruments) contain articulations with alternative beaters, all drumasonic LUXURY instrument models can be 20
5 Articulations Page drumasonic User Manual played with sticks, rods and brushes. 1 It is possible to remotely control the beater selection via keyswitch (see section 5.7). Round Robin You can check the Round Robin switch to activate the circular triggering of alternative sample sets for each velocity layer. In drumasonic 2, these are only available for the Fat Kick and Lina Cat bass drums, the Maple Master and Lina Cat snare drums, as well as for all percussion instruments. On the contrary, drumasonic LUXURY provides round robin sets for all included instruments. Sn. Wires All included drums (BD, SN, TO) provide sample sets with released snare wires. 2 This distinct and dry sound can be accessed by selecting the Wires off button. There are three possible ways to remotely control this feature: on/off keyswitches, toggle keyswitch, and MIDI CC (see section 5.7). To make possible the arbitrary combination of sticks, rods, and brushes along with snare wires on and off, we needed to sample and implement a total of six (!) unique sample sets, each containing many microphones, velocity layers and even round robin samples... Over 30,000 samples for the benefit of incredibly realistic sounds and variations. And with the keyswitch feature, all these variations are accessible in an instant no need to trigger alternative articulations etc. 1 In order to save memory, each beater can be loaded or unloaded globally via its corresponding checkbox. Therefore, if you cannot hear a selected beater, make sure that its entire sample content is loaded by disabling and then enabling its checkbox in the beater section. 2 In drumasonic 2, this feature is not available for the snare drums nos. 2, 3 and 4. 21
5 Articulations Page drumasonic User Manual 5.6 Disabling articulations and the Remapping sub page Each articulation can be switched on or off with the checkbox next to it. By deactivating unused articulations, memory consumption will be reduced. To globally load or unload all articulations of a specific beater, use the checkboxes next to the global beater selector on the right side of the articulations page. But even if an articulation is switched off or if it is not available with the current instrument model, it can still be played: drumasonic will then redirect ( remap ) the incoming note to another, ideally similar sounding articulation. 3 To set up or change the remapping, please select the Remapping tab on the left. Here, you are presented with four columns: The first column is the overall, category-specific articulation list, the other columns are represented by drop-down menus. You can read and adjust the settings line by line, each from left to right. And it works like this: if an incoming articulation is not available or switched off (first column), it will be remapped to the articulation selected in the second column. If the current beater mode is rods or brushes, the incoming articulation will be remapped to the articulation selected in the third or fourth column, instead. This query will be repeated recursively until an available and activated articulation has been found. If none is found, or if there are feedback loops in the remapping, no sound will be played. Please note: the remapping settings are saved along with the mapping presets. They are not contained in the workspaces or the sound presets. 3 Technically speaking, the global beater selection feature is entirely based on drumasonic s versatile remapping system. 22
5 Articulations Page drumasonic User Manual 5.7 Control sub page On the Control sub page, you can set keyswitches or MIDI controllers for remotely controlling certain parameters, such as beater selection or snare wires on/off. Also, you can fine-tune the reaction of the hihat, played via e-drums. Basically, there are three columns: Beaters/Cymb. Choke With the learn buttons, assign three keys that will switch to sticks, rods, or brushes mode, respectively. You can also learn another key that will toggle between the beaters. Additionally, all crash and ride cymbals can be choked at once via keyswitch. Depending on the choke velocity, the choking will be executed quicker or slower. Snare Wires On/Off To remotely control the snare wires and switch them on or off, you can assign three keys with the learn buttons: on, off, or toggle between both states. Alternatively, the snare wires can be controlled via MIDI controller. By default, the sustain pedal (CC#64) is assigned. You can invert the behavior of the MIDI controller to define whether pressing the sustain pedal activates or deactivates the snare wires (on/off vs. off/on). HH Control Arctic. When the hihat is played via the virtual articulation HH Control, its openness will be triggered via incoming MIDI CC, which is #4 and #1 by default. With the six value edits, you can fine-adjust the behavior to perfectly adapt drumasonic to your hardware controller. By default, the Opening articulation is not used in this context. Instead, it s an articulation that is most suitable for playing open hihat offbeats via keyboard. Since some controllers send inverted values, there is also an invert button to match those. Please note: the control settings are saved along with the mapping presets. They are not contained in the workspaces or the sound presets. 23
6 Effects Page On the effects page (see Figure 6.1), you can create a full, high-quality, in-the-box mix of your drums, using pristine EQs, punchy compressors, powerful transient shapers, analogstyle tape saturation as well as customized convolution reverb and delay. 6.1 Buses vs. bus inspector The upper area contains ten stereo buses and one stereo master bus, each of which is structured like a channel strip of a mixing console: from top to bottom, you ll find a fourband equalizer (EQ), various dynamics (DYN), as well as send effects (FX). Finally, there are width and balance controls, mute and solo buttons, a volume knob and a level meter. Depending on the currently loaded KONTAKT instrument ( Damped Room, Large Room, or LUXURY ), the naming of the ten mix buses differs according to the available microphone signals. However, any signal can be routed to any bus, so the actual bus configuration of the drum mix is up to the user. On the bottom of the effects page, you are presented with the bus inspector which provides more detailed settings of the currently selected bus. While the buses only have 24
6 Effects Page drumasonic User Manual Figure 6.1: The effects page 25
6 Effects Page drumasonic User Manual the primary parameters as little knobs, the bus inspector also provides control over various secondary parameters with the bigger knobs. Please note that the display of the bus inspector is always linked to the currently selected bus, or master bus. As soon as you touch any of the buses controls, three things will happen instantly: 1) the according module, for instance EQ, will be switched on. 2) the bus will be selected and highlighted. 3) The bus inspector will display all relevant values associated with that bus. 6.2 Bus parameters EQ DYN FX Width In the EQ section, you can boost or attenuate high, high mid, low mid, or low frequencies. The frequencies can be changed in the bus inspector. Also, the high and low band can be switched from a shelving curve to a bell curve; both mid bands provide a bandwidth control, instead. Dial in or out compression, impact, sustain, or tape saturation. In the bus inspector, you can also adjust secondary parameters for the compressor: ratio, attack, release and signal flow (dynamics pre or post equalizer, that is DYN > EQ vs. EQ > DYN). Adjust the reverb send level or the delay send level with the according knobs. These signals will be fed into the send effects (see section 6.4). With the width control, you can narrow or widen the stereo width of any bus. Please note that this only works as intended, if a stereo signal is fed to the bus. For a mono signal, this parameter makes no sense. (With a mono signal, you will only hear the effect of our automatic gain compensation feature). 26
6 Effects Page drumasonic User Manual Balance This controls the balance between the left and the right channel of a bus. Mute, Solo Each bus can be soloed or muted separately by clicking its grey m or s button. To solo several buses, solo the first bus, then un-mute the other buses to add them to the set of soloed buses. To switch mute or solo on/off globally, use the Mute/Solo buttons at the very left of the mixer page. Volume Drag the bigger volume knob to set the bus volume up to +12 db. The current value is displayed below the knob. Output routing Each bus can be routed to either any of the available direct outs (see section 2.2), or to the master bus. Select a bus and then select an output from the drop-down menu on the bottom right. 6.3 Link and split link modes Like the instruments page, the effects page also provides two horizontal link modes link and split link 1 (see section 4.4) that can be accessed by clicking on the upper left Link button once or twice. When link or split link is enabled, all horizontally linked knobs values will be changed in a relative manner. If you want to change values in an absolute manner instead, hold down the ALT key while dragging or clicking. In contrast to the knobs, all switchable on/off buttons will always be synchronized in an absolute manner. 1 Split Link: all close signal buses are linked, and all room signal buses are linked. 27
6 Effects Page drumasonic User Manual 6.4 Send effects To access the settings of the send effects, simply touch any of the controls related to them: the buses reverb or delay sends, the send effects return volumes, their on/off switches etc. This will result in displaying the send effects settings in place of the bus inspector. Reverb Select any of the provided impulse responses from the reverb drop-down menu. These are arranged in terms of short, medium and long reverbs. Besides the Room presets, there are also some Bleed and Combi presets available. With the bleed presets, you can dial in mic bleed and tom resonance to create an even fuller and more natural drum sound. The combi presets combine bleed and conventional, but custom designed reverb. With the seven knobs, you can adjust all the typical, reverb-specific parameters, where ER stands for early reflections, and LR for late reflections. Delay With the delay unit, signals can be delayed the amount of time set with the time knob. You can also control the amount of delay feedback, the high frequency damping as well as the panning intensity. If you do not need the send effects, please switch them off to gain CPU performance. 6.5 Copy, paste, reset, and bypass functions From the bottom right corner, you can call up some very neat extra functions: Copy Copies the settings of the selected bus into drumasonic s clipboard. 28
6 Effects Page drumasonic User Manual Paste Pastes the settings from the clipboard to the selected bus. Reset bus Resets all settings of the selected bus: equalizer and dynamics all off, 0 db gain, all buses routed to the master bus. Reset all Resets the entire mixer. Bypass all Bypasses all effects and temporarily sets the master bus volume to 6 db. 29
7 Grooves Page On drumasonic s groove page, you can load or record MIDI grooves, modify them to your needs, and save them by dragging the Drag MIDI icon to any folder, the desktop, or directly into your DAW. 7.1 Groove browser: internal or external grooves The groove browser shows all available MIDI files in a column view (see Figure 7.1). Navigate to the file you want to play back and load it via double-click. If you want to use your own MIDI files or third-party groove libraries with drumasonic, simply copy those files (file type: MIDI file with one track, file extension:.mid ) or folders into the Grooves subfolder of your drumasonic 2 [or drumasonic LUXURY] main folder, and restart drumasonic. Even if those external grooves have a different mapping format, drumasonic can easily convert any mappings in real time (see section 7.4). Right next to the groove browser, there is a pane divided into three sections: transport, time base, and interpretation mapping (see Figure 7.1). 30
7 Grooves Page drumasonic User Manual Figure 7.1: The grooves page 31
7 Grooves Page drumasonic User Manual 7.2 Transport controls Rewind, play, record As soon as a groove has been loaded or recorded, it can be played back or paused with the play button. Use the rewind button to jump to the start of the groove. After you have set a signature and a tempo (see below), you can record your own performances with the record button. Please note that drumasonic starts recording as soon as you begin to play. Empty bars before your first note will be automatically cut off. Also, all empty bars after your last note will be cut off. Please note that recording features are disabled, if drumasonic is synced externally (see below). Previous/next bar After you have loaded or recorded a groove, you can toggle between all its bars with the small < and > buttons. On the bottom of the page you are presented with a graphical display of all note events of the current bar. Enabled bars only Each bar can be activated or deactivated with the little checkbox next to its number. Select Enabled bars only to play back the enabled bars only. This feature is non-destructive. Hint: before you activate this button, play back the entire groove an check/uncheck each bar as you listen. Signature You can set the signature by defining its numerator and denominator via dropdown menus. If drumasonic is synced externally (see below), the signature cannot be changed. Setting the correct signature is useful in these situations: First, to fit the signature of any performance you intend to record. Second, to correctly display each bar s note events on the bottom of the page. Although different signatures have in general no effect on the interpretation and playback of the groove itself (only resulting in varying total numbers of bars etc.), when the numerator of the signature (e. g. the 2 of 2/4) is set to 6 or 9 or 12, shuffle detection is deactivated (as it wouldn t make sense to shuffle the 8th notes of a 6/8 groove). All 32
7 Grooves Page drumasonic User Manual 6/8 time signatures in drumasonic s groove library are realized as ternary 4/4 grooves (e.g. 4/4 time signature containing 4 groups of triplets). Advantage: By setting the quantize knob to 100% and setting the shuffle knob to 12 o clock, they can be altered to a binary feeling. However, if you d like to use them as regular 6/8 grooves (e.g. 6/8 time signature containing regular 8th notes), simply click the 2/3 button in the stretch section and the groove is stretched to a real 6/8 time signature. Tempo Set the tempo for recording or playback. During playback, the tempo can also be changed in real-time. If drumasonic is synced externally (see below), the tempo cannot be changed. Click In drumasonic, you can set up your individual click very easily: First, select a primary and a secondary click sound with the two drop-down menus. Then, adjust their volumes with any of the two little knobs. You can also change the primary and secondary volumes independently by holding the ALT key while dragging any of the knobs. Sync to host If this button is enabled, drumasonic reads the current tempo and signature information from its host environment, typically a DAW. The transport (start, stop, foward, rewind, position change etc.) will be synchronized to the host s transport; drumasonic s internal transport will be disabled. What s more, live tempo changes will be adapted and followed in real-time. 7.3 Time base controls Basically, drumasonic differentiates between 8th, 16th and 32nd notes as the time base of any groove. These can also appear as a shuffled variant, depending on the notes 33
7 Grooves Page drumasonic User Manual positions. Hint: drumasonic s intelligent auto detection algorithm listens to the groove just like a musician would do, and automatically sets its timebase and shuffle amount. 7.4 Mapping This one is extremely powerful: drumasonic s seamlessly integrated mapping converter makes it possible to load grooves from third-party manufacturers and to convert them automatically and in real-time from any source mapping format to any target mapping format. Select the source, or interpretation mapping format via the drop-down menu, and drumasonic will instantly convert the mapping of the loaded MIDI file to the current internal mapping (the one you defined on the mapping page, see section 5.2), thus, the destination format. So when you drag the loaded (and auto-converted) groove from drumasonic into your host sequencer, it can be perfectly played back using drumasonic s current, totally independent format. To make this work, it is important that each articulation referenced by the input groove interpreted according to the selected interpretation mapping must also be defined by the current internal mapping. By defined, we mean that at least one key must be assigned to these articulations. Another problem might be that the loaded MIDI file does not fit the selected interpretation mapping. This means that it has notes that are not assigned to any articulation in the interpretation mapping. If any of those problems occur, drumasonic displays accordant messages at the very bottom of the KONTAKT window. If this sounds a little too complicated, just follow the step-by-step instructions to work with grooves from third party manufacturers: 34
7 Grooves Page drumasonic User Manual 1. Copy the desired MIDI files or folders into the Grooves subfolder of your drumasonic 2 [or drumasonic LUXURY] main folder, and restart drumasonic. 2. Go to the articulations page, click load mapping and select the drumasonic mapping (could be other mappings as well). 3. Go to the grooves page, load a third party groove and select the appropriate source mapping in the Interpret mapping as drop-down menu. 4. if drumasonic displays an error message, just try a different mapping. 7.5 Shuffle, quantize, delay, velocity, stretch According to the selected interpretation mapping, drumasonic s musical and intelligent groove engine splits the loaded or recorded groove into seven distinct rows, or lanes, representing the seven instrument categories. Along with the shuffle, quantize, delay, and velocity columns, their various parameters are displayed in a table view. Shuffle For each lane, you can check or uncheck the shuffle feature. Set the global shuffle amount with the shuffle knob. drumasonic will always analyze the shuffle amount of the current groove, based on the selected time base. If the auto button is enabled, you will always hear the groove in its original state in terms of shuffle. If you want to alter the original shuffle into any direction, simply drag the knob in the according direction. In other words: not only can you shuffle binary grooves, but also un-shuffle shuffled grooves. Furthermore, real triplets are recognized and not altered. Quantize For each lane, you can check or uncheck the quantize feature. Set the global 35
7 Grooves Page drumasonic User Manual quantization amount with the quantize knob; all notes will be gradually quantized according to the current shuffle amount. Real triplets are recognized and retained, which makes the quantization feature more intuitive and powerful than conventional quantization. Delay With the ticks value edits, you can delay each lane separately. Also, negative values are possible. As soon as you touch any of the value edits, the scale knob will jump to 100%. Then, you can adjust the total delay amount with this knob from 0% up to 200%. Hint: try these settings: Kicks -10, Snares 18, Toms 0, HiHats 40, Rides 40, Crashes 40, Percussion 30 and then dial in the scale knob from 0% up to a value that sounds musical to you. Velocity Bend the groove s global velocity with the curve knob towards the harder or softer samples. With the max parameters, you can also set the upper limit of each lane s velocity. Please note that the velocities will not simply be clipped; instead, each lane s individual curve will be altered in its steepness. Stretch This is the last link in the chain of groove modification: the modified groove can be stretched from its original speed up to quarter time, or down to quad time. Besides such even multiples, there are also the odd ones, like: 3 /2, 2 /3, 1 /3. These are useful for converting an 6/8 groove, for example, into an 2/4 groove, or vice versa. 36
8 Practical Hints 8.1 Speed up your workflow Solo an instrument Select the instrument s slot and click the solo button on the left. Solo a microphone for the whole kit Activate the Big All mode and click on the microphone s s button. Change an instrument s overall volume Select the instrument s slot, activate the link mode and move one of the volume faders. Change a category s volume (e. g. the toms ) ALT+click on any category (= little all mode ), activate the link mode and move one of the volume faders. Change a microphone s volume relative [absolute] for the whole kit Switch to the Big All mode and move the fader of the corresponding channel [while holding the ALT key]. Assign a specific output to a specific microphone for the whole kit Switch to the Big All mode, click on the output drop-down menu and choose an output. Switch a microphone on/off globally Switch to the Big All mode and activate/deactivate the according microphone. 37
8 Practical Hints drumasonic User Manual Un-load an instrument [all instruments] Activate the link mode and disable any microphone button [while the Big All mode is activated]. Combine presets Click on the load preset menu, select Show settings... and check/uncheck the parameters you want to load from a specific preset. Load that preset, then change the load settings, load another preset and so on. For example, you could combine a preset containing a custom routing setup with different factory presets. 8.2 Performance optimization guide Basically, there are two ways to optimize drumasonic s performance: Firstly, by reducing the number of voices being played back simultaneously and, secondly, by minimizing the memory footprint. Reduce the number of polyphonic voices When playing drumasonic, the many microphone signals and the unshortened decays of each sample can add up to a huge amount of simultaneously sounding samples, especially when playing many fast notes, such as rolls or cymbal patterns. To keep the polyphony under control, drumasonic incorporates outstanding voice reduction technology, which intelligently fades out sounding notes that are psychoacoustically less relevant. To maximize the effect of voice reduction, click on the drumasonic logo in the upper left corner and increase the Reduce voices/cpu load value to 100%; as a starting point, try a value of about 50%. 1 1 In contrast to conventional voice stealing approaches, drumasonic s unique algorithm does not compromise the sound quality. In fact, higher settings of the voice reduction feature can even lead to more transparent and natural sounding results. 38
8 Practical Hints drumasonic User Manual Unload unneeded instrument models You can unload unneeded instrument models by clearing the respective slots at the bottom of the instruments page. Unload unused beaters The most effective way to reduce the amount of used RAM is to unload all unused beaters by deactivating the appropriate checkboxes on the righthand side of the articulations page. Unload unneeded wires off or wires on samples If you do not need either the wires off or wires on samples, you can unload them by unchecking their checkboxes just below the beaters section on the articulations page. Unload unused articulations To reduce the memory footprint even further, it is also possible to manually deactivate every articulation you are not going to use. If very few articulations are needed, however, it might be quicker to deactivate all available beaters in the first place and to manually activate only the desired articulations afterwards. 2 Switch off microphones Deactivating microphone signals on the instruments page unloads the respective sample content from memory. By activating the big all mode in the bottom right corner of the instruments page, microphone signals can be activated or deactivated for the entire drum kit. Keep in mind, that more microphone signals do not necessarily sound better and that it can make perfect sense to create a drum sound based on a single pair of overhead microphones in conjunction with a single set of close mics for bass drum, snare drum and toms. 2 While the process of loading and unloading different parts of the sample content is straightforward, there are some exceptions for the bass drum, the sidestick articulations of the snare drum, the pedal articulations of the hihat as well as the cymbal choke samples: As these samples are independent of the selected beater, they remain loaded, unless their articulations are deactivated manually. 39