Creating my own kits - is there a faster way through folder structure and import?

BeatBuddy Help, Questions and Bugs
1

Hello!

I made a post on a facebook group I found but figured I might get some more engagement here. I will paste that post below.

Essentially, I have made my own kit (linked below) after a few misses - And I rather like it. The kits on the beatbuddy are a bit too “wet” for me, and I just don’t think even with the premium library I will be totally satisfied - im picky. So, I figure welp I should make my own.

So, this was the process:

Get my samples (user made kits that a made a long time ago in Kontakt) into reaper, and I made a reaper project to batch render everything out.

They spit out files in a certain folder structure, numbered 1-15

I take these and go drummaker, and drop them in. I then have to assign velocities for each. I save the kit, try it out, and I might have to go back and add reverb, compression, eq, and then repeat the process.

What I am wondering is this:

  • Can I automate this process so that I could overwrite my existing kits and just have them update without going through the whole thing?

for instance, I have the “Me_Myself_Lie” kit. That’s based on a song I wrote. It all rendered out like so:

image
image749×460 22.3 KB

image
image713×446 5.2 KB

After I made the drumset, I noticed just now that there is a wave sources folder here

(ADDITIONAL QUESTION: how can I control where these folders are and why is this one in such a weird structure. What did I do and How can I avoid this in the future?)

image
image1123×349 23.6 KB

image

Can I just overwrite these files and update the kit? If so, how? I want to make this process easier as I would like to make a lot of different custom kits from my samples.

Here is my original facebook post, before I finished.

Ok so I’ve tried my hand at creating my own kit. It’s here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zcb5b4fbzm7tk60/Me%20Myself%20Lie.drm?dl=1

It’s based on a song I have.

So, here’s what I’ve done. I’ve created a reaper (www.reaper.fm) template here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5w2drzbmk95dav1/Template.rpp?dl=1

This makes it so you can load up a Vsti (say, Kontakt with a free kit) and then assign the midi notes, and then render each hit out to subfolders of your choice.

The render settings are tweaked for this to happen.

I used samples from a kontakt kit I made myself.

You could also put audio samples in there and make it work. I can answer any questions about that, but here are MY questions.

It looks like the total size of a kit has to be around 100 MB. That’s pretty tough to get within.

My questions:

  • does beatbuddy handle panning on its own or do you have to render stereo files of anything which occupies the stereo field (Toms, HiHat, Cymbals) and pan them in your sample

  • What are the format of the Beatbuddy samples? Maybe I could more closely mimic those. I don’t see going down to a lower bitrate. Maybe a lower sample rate for kick, snare, and toms. Maybe.

  • Anyone find that certain instruments/velocities are just not typically used?

  • What are good velocity ranges for each instrument (in your opinion)?

  • What happens when Beatbuddy wants to play floor tom 1 and none is present? Will it sub floor tom 2 for it?

  • Choke groups. Obviously for the hihat. But anything else?

  • Polyphony - what does this mean practically? I know what it means technically. But for the kits, how would it help realistically?

  • Is there any way to script the insertion of these notes? It would be nice to just have a folder and beatbuddy detect it as if it made it itself.

2

You can make a copy of a kit by changing the kit’s name within the Drumset Maker window, and then exporting that kit with the new name. You can then import that new kit, and then make changes to it as desired. This can greatly spedd the kit making process, if for example, you have a set of toms you already like, or hats or whatever. See my editing document here:

FYI - LBDM is a package I made for BB to port the Alesis SR-16 to the BB.

AS for your questions, BB does not have a panning built in. Any panning has to be doen with the the stereo wav files that you add to the BB.

Sample rate - 16 bit, 44.1khz. Make sure samples have no meta data. UIse a tag stripper.

I normally set up samples in groups of 0-30, 31-60, 61-90, and 90-127. If I create them myself, I have my drummer son play "very soft, soft, moderate, and loud, and take 3 samples of each.

If BB tries to play tom 1 and there is no tom 1 in the kit, it will play nothing. It is an unsupported note.

Choke groups - hats, ride, snare vs. rimshot possibly.

Polyphony really doesn’t some into play with drums. IF you have a choke group, you’ve likley set it’s polyphony to 1. If you are using melodic instruments, including bass, you may want to limit polyphony within a group. Sometimes you want to kep bass to 1 note. You might limit keys to prevent a digital peak.

I have found no way to automate or script the kit creation process. I suppose anything is possible.

You can overwrite what is in a kit without manually replacing a file in the Drumset maker and then saving the kit. It’s not a very elegant process.

The template idea for sample creation is good. I do something similar in Logic.

3

THANK YOU!!!

I am starting to figure out the file structure and how to more easily script things. My reaper project file will be updated to reflect that.

It will basically be this process:

Load your samples, make sure the note map is correct, point to the right folder, and hit render.

4

Ok I’m really coming along here.

I have a reaper project in which you can render out all of the pieces to the exact folder structure, using reaper’s extensive customization of a render paths and filenames -

So to make a new kit, you would copy an old one, rename it to what you want.

you would go into reaper, open the template, put your own samples in and name the project to the exact name of the drumset you just saved. If the drumset was named “Angry” you would name your project “Angry” and reaper is set to already put in _WAVES after it.

Render the files - overwriting everything

Save the drumset in BB manager

synchronize…

viola!

now your kit is in there.

If you want to change volumes, you can do it in the manager or you could just alter the project in reaper for your particular instrument - you can put compression, reverb, alter how long the samples are, whatever you want.

If you want different velocity layers, it gets a little more complicated, but you can also do that by re-organizing and renaming the regions in reaper along with changing the parameters in drum maker.

But once you have one kit made, the rest is simple - and once you have that kit made, changes to that kit are EASY.

The template above has been updated to reflect my work :slight_smile:

1 Like