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For Sample Creators: General Advice on Making Sample Libraries Based on Real-World Instruments

Hello Samplists,

Here’s a list of general advice for people making sample libraries based on real-world instruments. All of this advice falls squarely into the “give advice that you yourself need to hear” category. I should also mention that this is an intermediate-level post that assumes that you already know that basics of how to make a sample library.

1. Don’t get hung up on capturing the “authentic” sound of an instrument

Think carefully about your actual goal when making a sampled instrument. When I first started, I approached the work of making sample libraries as though I was an archivist trying to preserve the “authentic” sound of a real world instrument for posterity. This is a noble goal, but it doesn’t necessarily yield the best sampled instruments. I quickly realized a much better goal was trying to make virtual instruments that are fun to play, sound good, and useful to composers or producers. And yes, sometimes these two goals are at odds with each other. 

For example, when you record a piano, you may discover that some notes sound great and others sound lousy. If you are trying to be accurate, you may think you should include those lousy notes in the same, because, after all, they also represent how the instrument truly sounds. Of course, this is a valid perspective. I would argue that you should leave them out, or at very least, provide a version with a curated selection of “good” notes. The vast majority of composers and producers would rather have something that just sounds good immediately, that they don’t have to wrestle a good sound out of.

Another important thing to realize is that samplists are never getting the “true” sound of an instrument anyway. When it comes to acoustic instruments, even something as basic as where you put your microphone can drastically change the way an instrument sounds. In other words, even someone trying to capture the authentic nature of instrument is still making creative and aesthetic decisions. So give that you’re already inserting yourself into the process at the recording stage, why not continue making aesthetic decisions at every point in the process. If you record a violin sample, and it sounds harsh and grating, by all means EQ it until it sounds good! If it sounds to dry, add some reverb.

I’ve made the mistake several times of faithfully re-creating, an instrument sound, only to find that for whatever reason that sound didn’t actually work as a sample library. It’s been helpful for me to think of the source sound as the departure point on which I’m building a brand new Instrument – a virtual Instrument – that will be most likely be triggered using a piano keyboard.

2. You don’t need nearly the number of samples you think you do. 

When most people are getting started, they see sample libraries releases by big sample library companies boasting about how many samples are included in a release and they will naturally think that they also need to record every note of an instrument with five different velocities and sometimes even round robins. I’m here to tell you that 9 times out of 10 this is not necessary. Most users would rather save the hard disk space. Most melodic instruments you can have a zone every 3 to 6 notes — sometimes even just one zone per octave – and it will sound every bit as good. 

As you get more experienced, you will discover which instruments require more samples and which can do without. For example, one exception is when there is any sort of modulation like tremolo, vibrato or an LFO filter on a synth. If you try to pitch bend samples that have these sorts of fast, time-based modulation, you will end up with different rates of modulation depending on which note you play, which may sound terrible. In other words, use your aesthetic judgement.

3. Always pitch-bend down

If have not recorded a sample for every note, you may need to set up mapping so that pitch-bending takes place. Often, when you map samples in a sample-mapping product (such as Logic Sampler or Kontakt), the mapper will want to put the root note in the middle of a zone, meaning that if you play a play a note above the root note, it will pitchblende the note up. For example:

A screenshot of the Logic sampler's default mapping.

Here’s the thing: samples that are pitch-bent down almost always sound better than samples that are pitch bent up. This is because when you pitch-bend samples down, you remove some of the higher frequencies, which at worst just sounds a bit like a nice low-pass filter. On the other hand, when you pitch-bend a sample up, you are actually adding high frequencies, which can sound weird and “chipmunky.”

The solution is to always map your samples with the root note at the top of the range. To continue our example from above, you would get something that looks like this:

A more desirably sample mapping

4. How to know when your instrument is done and ready to release

This is easy. Your sample is done when you can’t stop playing with it. When every time you open it up the library, you get distracted and start writing music. You are your own first customer, so be honest with yourself. If your own reaction to playing with a library is a tepid “I guess this is good?” then there’s something wrong. Figure out what’s bothering you about the sounds and fix them.

Hope this little list has been helpful. As I think of more things, I will go back and update this document as more things occur to me.

All the best,
Dave

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Dropdown Menus, Colored Keys, and Keyswitches come to Decent Sampler

An example of the key coloring functionality

Version 1.4 of Decent Sampler recently got released: Download it here.

It brings with it a number of under-the-hood features that sample developers can make use of:

Colored Keys

It’s now possible to color the keys of the on-screen keyboard.

This can be useful for showing different ranges of notes that serve different purposes or highlighting notes used as keyswitches. In order to implement colored keys, make use of the new <keyboard> and <color> elements as follows:

<DecentSampler>
    <ui>
        <em><!-- Other stuffhere --></em>
        <keyboard>
            <color loNote="36" hiNote="50" color="FF2C365E" />
            <color loNote="51" hiNote="57" color="FF6D9DC5" />
            <color loNote="58" hiNote="67" color="FFCCF3F5" />
            <color loNote="68" hiNote="73" color="FFE8DA9B" />
            <color loNote="74" hiNote="84" color="FFD19D61" />
        </keyboard>
    </ui>
    <em><!-- Other stuff here --></em>
</DecentSampler>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

By default, Decent Sampler highlights all of the notes that are mapped for a given sample. If you use the color keys feature, this default highlighting will be turned off and it will be up to you to color whatever keys you want.

Full documentation for the new elements is here.

Dropdown Menus

In order to implemented dropdown menus, use the new <menu> and <option> elements. The <menu> element defines where the dropdown menu will show up in the ui, whereas the <option> XML elements determine what menu options it has and what if anything those options actually do:

<menu x="10" y="40" width="120" height="30" value="2">
  <option name="Menu Option 1">
    <!-- Turn on this group -->
    <binding type="general" level="group" position="0" parameter="ENABLED" 
    translation="fixed_value" translationValue="true" />
    <!-- Turn off this group -->
    <binding type="general" level="group" position="1" parameter="ENABLED" 
    translation="fixed_value" translationValue="false" />
  </option>
  <option name="Menu Option 2">
    <!-- Turn off this group -->
    <binding type="general" level="group" position="0" parameter="ENABLED" 
    translation="fixed_value" translationValue="false" />
    <!-- Turn on this group -->
    <binding type="general" level="group" position="1" parameter="ENABLED" 
    translation="fixed_value" translationValue="true" />
  </option>
</menu>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

In this example, a menu is being used to switch between two groups (the first menu option turns group 0 on and group 1 off; the section option turns group 0 off and group 1 on). Full documentation for the new <menu> and <option> elements is here.

The new fixed_value translation type

You’ll note, in the example above, there’s something new in the bindings: the four bindings elements have a translation parameter of type fixed_value. This is a new translation type. Up until now, binding translation has strictly been about taking an input parameter (such as a knob value or continuous controller amount) and translating it so that it is useful for some other purpose (it’s our way of being able to do a little bit of math without having a full-blown scripting language). This new fixed_value binding is different. It ignores the input value completely and instead provides whatever is specified in the translationValue parameter. In this way, each menu option can have hardcoded values that it provides its bindings when it is selected.

Keyswitches

It is now possible to implement keyswitches. For a long time, it’s been possible to trigger events when a MIDI continuous controller event is received: using MIDI CCs we can change knob values or group volumes, for example. It is now possible to trigger events using MIDI notes as well. Here’s what the setup for a MIDI note-based event mapping would look like:

<midi>
  <note note="11">
    <binding type="general" level="group" position="0" parameter="ENABLED" 
             translation="fixed_value" translationValue="true" />
    <binding type="general" level="group" position="1" parameter="ENABLED" 
             translation="fixed_value" translationValue="false" />
  </note>
  <note note="12">
    <binding type="general" level="group" position="0" parameter="ENABLED" 
             translation="fixed_value" translationValue="false" />
    <binding type="general" level="group" position="1" parameter="ENABLED" 
             translation="fixed_value" translationValue="true" />
  </note>
</midi>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

In this example, MIDI note 11 turns on group 0 and turns off group 1, whereas MIDI note 12 does the opposite. Note the use of the fixed_value translation type.

More documentation on this can be found here.

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We’ve made a Kontakt Piano Template: Just add samples

We’ve created a Kontakt template that should be perfect for people trying to build piano instruments in Kontakt. The basic idea behind the template is that it it should allow you to build a piano instrument in Kontakt 5/6 without doing much scripting. Check it out!

Download the template here: https://github.com/dhilowitz/kontakt-piano-template/releases/latest

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Kontakt Video Tutorial: How To Remove Unwanted Frequencies + FREE Kontakt Library

Have you ever had an audio file that contained a bunch of extra frequencies in it that you wish you could just remove? Spectral editing may be for you. In this video, I show how to use spectral editing to clean up a sample so that I can make a Kontakt instrument–but not just any instrument:

A few weeks ago, Christian Henson announced a competition: he challenged the internet community to try to turn two oddball samples he’d recorded into true sample-based instruments.

So this video serves two purposes: it’s both a quick introduction to spectral editing as well as my entry into Christian Henson’s Rusty Gate sample competition.

Here’s a link to the free sample (Kontakt 5.3 or higher).

Here’s a link to Christian Henson’s Rusty Gate Sample Competition.

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Video Tutorial: How to Make Release Triggers + FREE Tea Kettle Whistle Kontakt Library

In this video, I show how to make release triggers in Kontakt. In the process, I create a full-featured Kontakt library out of the whistle from a Chantal tea kettle.

The instrument that I make in the video can be downloaded for free here.

– Dave

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Video Tutorial: How to Make Mic Level Controls in Kontakt + FREE BOWED NAGOYA HARP SAMPLE

In this video, I find out what happens when you play a Japanese Nagoya Harp (Taishogoto) with a violin bow! In the process, I demonstrate how to make microphone volume level control knobs.

The Plucked Nagoya Harp Library (with 3 mics, velocity layers, round robins, etc.) is still available for $10 here.

The completely different but related Bowed Nagoya Harp Kontakt Library that I created in this video is available for FREE here.

Enjoy!

– Dave

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Intro to Kontakt Scripting: Adding your First Knob + FREE KONTAKT INSTRUMENT

In this video, I cover one of the most basic aspects of Kontakt scripting: creating knobs to control instrument parameters. In particular, I use this occasion to add a lowpass filter with cutoff and resonance knobs to a Korg Volca Keys sample library (FREE). This video is a great starting point for anyone looking to get into KSP scripting.

The new Korg Volca Keys Kontakt instrument is available for free here.

Dave