While I’ve been away from my Mac and my Beat Buddy on vacation, I’ve had time to catch up on some Logic Pro X tutorials, and, boys and girls, I’ve got some work to do. Mainly, I think I’ve found the way to properly balance some of those piano kits to ELIMINATE all the clipping. So that’s first, remix those kits. But, it turns out, while I am doing that, I can also create new EXS24 instruments from the samples that I used to make those kits. This is HUGE! That means when I’m building songs, I can have the exact same samples on the BB as I am using in Logic. This will improve the mixes greatly. So, if you have requests for new kit mixes, now is the time to get them in. And I have not forgotten about the didgeridoo, bagpipes, and church bells version of It Don’t Come Easy. Yes, I know it was a joke, but, why not? It should put smiles on your faces, if nothing else. With regard to the kits, when I remix them, my current plan is to have a new center panned kit, the old right and left panned mix, and a new mix with the voicings spread across the stereo field.
Phil, I’m blown away by what you have done and continue to do for the Beat Buddy community. You’ve a great product THE ultimate product. Can’t thank you enough.
Can’t wait! Thanks, Phil!
I just made a test run with the Electric Jazz Trio 3 kit, which was already pretty good, and I can report that it was a success as far as eliminating the little of clipping that I was still having prior to the edit. For everyone’s benefit, this is what I picked up from viewing a tutorial for the Logic EXS24 Sampler, as it would relate to BB drum kits:
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When preparing samples, EQ out the extreme low end of the sound. This can cause samples to get muddy and it uses amp power (i.e. adds to potential clipping). Basically get rid of sound below 16hz.
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Normalize samples. I recommend using peak normalization, and, if you have the tools, normalize at 95% rather than the full 100%. This will give you some margin for error.
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Drums should be added to a kit at a -3db setting. Of, course, you will want to vary from this some to get a good balance, but this is a starting point suggestion.
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Basses, and other monophonic instruments should have a -6db setting. Note that in this context if you are going to use multiple brass pieces together, it would be best to treat those instruments as a polyphonic instrument.
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Polyphonic instruments should have a setting of -9db, depending upon your maximum polyphony, you might wast to go as high as -12 db. -9 is a good start, and if you have clipping at that setting, then keep reducing 1db at a time.
Thanks for sharing your findings but I’m like a pig looking at a chronograph on my wrist 
; can’t wait to try some of your refreshed and new kits.
Sometimes I post this stuff just so I don"t lose it. o_O
Nicely done, sir, nicely done.
Thank you, Phil! My biggest problem from the start has always been getting a consistent volume between different kits. That’s why I always wished we could set volume levels on a per song basis just like we do BPM. Unfortunately that hasn’t happened.
Little by little I’ve been doing just what you said and I’m finally starting to get the kits (thus the songs) to sound like I want. Obviously everyone has different equipment setups and individual preferences but I highly recommend that everyone fine tune their kits if they want a consistent sound.
BTW I have a question if you or anybody else knows. Given that anything other than drums like bass, piano, synth, horns, etc only use 1 .wav file per instrument/note, does changing the velocity really do anything?
Yes. In your midi file, if you lower velocities you will actually have a lower volume on the output note. The difference with the multisample instruments is that they will play a different sample if the note is struck within the velocity range for that sample. And, if you wish, you could have multiple samples for the bass, etc. It just tends to take too much space. We end up having to control volume via velocity, which is not a best case scenario, but it is effective within the limits we have.
I just had a major BB crash that corrupted nearly all of my drumkits. I have back-ups, but I will need to rebuild my Workspace. It will take some time, so, unfortunately, kit revisions are on hold.
Thank you for your work Phil!!!
Really appreciate it!!!
If you ever come to Warsaw, you have a free coffee waiting for you 
Darn! I’ll be in Budapest at the end of July, and Prague in the beginning of August, but no time in Warsaw. 
Hope you recovered, Phil! Get well soon…? 
Thanks. I think I got it rebuilt last night. I had about a month’s worth of stuff that wasn’t in the backup of my BB card, but was in my archives. But since two weeks of that time was from while I was in Mexico, it really came down to rebuilding and then adding those couple weeks back. Essentially everything from when I built the STAX kits forward. Barring further problems, I should get the Hammond XRL version of the kits posted tomorrow.
Next time Buddy! 