The Infamous ongoing SR-16 project

Phil_Flood · February 22, 2018, 1:34pm

I have started work on converting the SR-16 to series of BB songs and BB drum kits. It will take a minimum of two months, and, when completed will be available as a paid download, containing all 50 SR-16 kits, in a couple different configurations, and all 50 SR-16 pattern sets as BB files. Interestingly, though, if I made just that, you would not get a full SR-16. Of the 233 sounds built into the SR-16, 110 of them do not appear in any SR-16 preset kit! Many of these are alternate kick and snare tones, that, for some reason, Alesis decided to include but not showcase. There are also a couple very nice sets of toms that never get used, a few cymbals, and a few miscellaneous percussion pieces. I was able to make a couple more kits out of some of these, but was still left with many kick and snare drums. For now, I have grouped those into “kits” that would best be described as kick or snare rooms, where you can try out a punch of kicks and snares, and then pick what you want to use in a kit.

A few of the names Alesis assigned are quite odd. A “fish” is apparently a guiro. I kinda recall seeing some fish shaped guiros at some point, so maybe that’s where that comes from. There is also one called Sample&Hold, that I have not quite figured out.

The kits will be multi-sampled with 12 samples per drum. As there are only 12 drums in an SR-16 kit, space should not be a problem. But, I am also going to provide a set of single-sample drum kits, which can be used as very compact kits for kit builders to expand upon.

I will be providing some samples as teasers, as I go along.

PhilGillis · February 23, 2018, 7:02pm

this is interesting

Phil_Flood · March 2, 2018, 3:42pm

I will have Teaser 1 posted to Resources on Monday. It’s close to ready, but I want to give my son a chance to review it with me. He is hand percussionist, guitarist and cellist, so I value his opinion on these things. What you have to look forward to is one complete BB multi-part song, including fills and transitions, taken from the SR-16, and also created or edited by me. Also, you’ll get the 3 drum kit variations that would correspond with the Pattern. I am using Rock 2, because it triggers Perc 1 and Perc 2, while Rock 1 does not. You’ll also get an idea of what my documentation will include. And, there will be a special very useful surprise for those of you that already own an SR-16.

Look for it Monday, 3/5/18, hopefully by noon Central Time (GMT -6).

Phil_Flood · March 5, 2018, 2:47pm

The demo is posted. Development is slightly ahead of schedule.
Samples are recorded for 100 of the 233 instruments. That’s 1200 of the 2796 samples needed. 10 of the 50 BB “songs” are prepared, and the documentation is taking form. Projected release is May 1, 2018, but we all know how software things go. That said, I do have a schedule, and right now I am 2 days ahead.

I hope you like the demo. Please direct feedback to me using the Conversation feature.

http://forum.mybeatbuddy.com/index.php?resources/asr16-4bb-demo.2772/

kir · March 5, 2018, 9:48pm

Cool! I played around with the demo for a little bit. Your methodology and documentation is very thorough, and I imagine the final product will be amazing! Great way to have all the sounds and patterns of the SR-16, but with the added flexibility of live arrangement that the BB offers. (It is too bad, as you note, that the BB does not allow for more flexibility of controlling volume for the individual drum kit pieces (beyond adjusting and ‘baking’ those in to a kit using the BB Manager).

One quick thing on the documentation: it seems to slip back and forth between “Type 2” and Type B" drum kits interchangeably, which confused me.

Phil_Flood · March 5, 2018, 9:50pm

Thanks. I’ll take a look at that.

Klink · March 6, 2018, 2:20am

Phil, page just refreshes when click ‘download now from external site’ - can’t download anything (same problem in Microsoft Edge & Explorer browsers).

Phil_Flood · March 6, 2018, 2:34am

https://www.dropbox.com/s/46xwh8f5otftsty/ASR16%204BB%20demo%20101.zip?dl=0

Here is the link in case the one in Resources is not working.

ruairiau · March 6, 2018, 2:56am

How does this work from a licencing and legal point of view?

Not looking to cause any arguments here, but surely Alesis owns those samples and you can’t legally redistribute them or sell them.

Phil_Flood · March 6, 2018, 3:20am

I don’t think Alesis does own those samples. I recorded a drum machine playing notes that I caused it to play. They no more own those samples than Ludwig owns Goran’s samples in the Vintage Ludwig kit. There is not a direct digital transfer of what is in the Alesis to the ASR16 4BB. Now, a more cogent argument could be made for the midi sequences. Thus, I am making alteration to those as well such that they are inspired by the one’s in the SR16 but are not exactly the same. But, yeah, I have thought about it.

Phil_Flood · March 26, 2018, 1:31am

Time for an update - The project is moving along ahead of schedule. But, I do find some rework from time to time, so I am still looking at an early May release. I’ve decided to call it LBDM 4BB, short for Little Black Drum Machine for Beat Buddy. I’ve have scrapped the idea of building the kits that all fit within one octave. I decided that general users wouldn’t see much value in these, and since I’ll be providing all the waves, the few users who might want to build them easily could. In point of fact, you could just change midi number on instruments in existing kits and not do very much work at all. However, it does greatly reduce the size of the download, and that was going to be an issue. The songs are coming out great. Instead of just using the canned intro and outro for all, I decided to create custom intros and outros. The advantage is that the intro generally provides a 3rd very basic beat that could be used in construction from the patterns. One more change was the addition of 13th tone per each kit. The SR-16 has Toms at midi 48, 45 and 41. Beat Buddy stock kits do not have a 41, but they do have a 50. I’ve moved the existing Toms up to match the Beat Buddy, but since many of the Tom sets in the SR-16 had 4 Toms, I added a 4th Tom at 41. The advantage is that most standard BB beats will now play on the kits from the LBDM since the toms will match up.

And, it’s been getting to be a serious time commitment. Hence my lack of much new output to the Resources section. I will be adding additional simple beats to the LBDM, like the Boom Chick that I recently posted. That’s about it for now.