Saturday, March 17, 2007 (11:23AM)
WH Spicher, RA Weber, KD Broy
+ Record
* The djembe is a Remo Paulo Mattioli 14-inch, Fiber Skyn 3 Mondo
Mo-Fa Head by Remo
* Setup:
- Track 1: Overhead: B-5 through BlueTube, no tube, flat,
reversed polarity.
- Track 2: Side Head: B-2 Pro through BlueTube, no tube, flat
- Track 3: Bottom: B-2 Pro, omni, pad, direct, flat
(forgot to try flipping phase).
- Record three tracks simultaneously.
- Photos:
front_left_a.jpg
front_left_b.jpg
front_right_a.jpg
front_right_b.jpg
rear_right_a.jpg
close_up_a.jpg
* One file per syllable:
- djembe_doe.seq
- djembe_doe_mute.seq
- djembe_doon.seq
- djembe_doon_mute.seq
- djembe_goe.seq
- djembe_goe_mute.seq
- djembe_goon_1.seq
- djembe_goon_2.seq
- djembe_goon_3.seq
- djembe_goon_4.seq
- djembe_goon_mute.seq
- djembe_pa.seq
- djembe_pa_mute.seq
- djembe_raw.seq
- djembe_rhythms.seq
- djembe_scrape.seq
- djembe_slap.seq
- djembe_slap_offhand.seq
- djembe_ta.seq
- djembe_ta_mute.seq
* Record some rhythms to calibrate mapping.
- 3:59 PM Done.
Saturday, December 15, 2007 (5:35AM)
WH Spicher
+ Take a stab at building the sample kit in Battery 3.
* Battery 3 is intuitive and flows easily. In 45 minutes I have
defined two syllables with three mics and twelve velocity
zones EACH!
- Secrets:
> In PT12 use Ctrl-Shift-F3 to export wave file. Parse
on bass mic.
> Name the file so that an alphabetical sorting
arranges all samples for that syllable and microphone
together. That is, the last character is the velocity.
For example,
djembe_doon_1_micb_a.wav
djembe_doon_1_mics_a.wav
djembe_doon_1_mico_a.wav
These refer to the first set of doon, the first sample,
and the bass, side, and overhead mics, respectively.
> In Battery 3, use the browser to locate the samples.
Drag & drop the samples onto the cell in ascending-
velocity order.
> In the mapping tab, select Edit|Stack Zones.
> Wah-lah!
- If options|load multiple samples into one cell is ON,
I can drag ALL the samples at once! Plus, I can drag & drop
from the windows explorer.
- Select all three mic cells to learn the key in one step.
Now Battery 3 is the easy part. The real work is parsing.
> 7:04 AM Goon, Doon, Goe, and Doe are done--90 minutes!
> All six major syllables defined (Pa and Ta added).
Two hours work!
- Add a little level and bass boost to the goon and doon
bass mic and limiting and compression to the mix.
> battery3_scrn_a.png
> The kit is currently 35Mb.
> Also, the six major syllables are mapped to the first
two groups of three black keys. That is,
goon = F#0
goe = G#0
pa = A#0
doon = F#1
doe = G#1
ta = A#1
Sunday, June 15, 2008 (10:34AM)
* Add some more syllables.
- Parse in Powertracks.
> djembe_goe_mute.seq -> take two
> djembe_ta_mute.seq
Difficult to find well-damped hits. Use markers
to help sort. Handy A-B technique: click a marker,
press space to play & stop, click other, cycle.
> djembe_scrape.seq -> 3 samples
> djembe_slap.seq
> djembe_doon_mute.seq
- Copy djembe_a.kt3 from the song, Came The Light, rename
djembe_b.kt3.
- Edit in Battery 3.
> Copy doon cells for muted doon hits to preserve
effects settings. Same idea for goe and ta.
- Save djembe_b.kt3 and WAV files to djembe_b_kit.zip
> The kit is now 36Mb.
Monday, June 16, 2008 (3:55PM)
* I hear timing problems in Came The Light. Some of the files
were parsed sloppily with 20-ms of silence before the impact.
Clean them up!
- Method:
> Drag three mic files into audacity from Windows
Explorer--e.g.,
djembe_slap_omic_f.wav
djembe_slap_smic_f.wav
djembe_slap_bmic_f.wav
Sort by date for quick access. Copy these into a backup
subfolder just in case.
> Drag-select across the three tracks to have all three
selected with the same start and stop times. Move the
selection start accurately.
> Trim outside selection
> Choose File|Export Multiple...
Split files based on tracks (the track name is
automatically the WAV file prefix). Name files
using label/track name. Overwrite the original files.
See trim_starts_a.png
- I found one hit with 50 ms of lead-in! Do ALL the files!
- I am ashamed to see how much clipping I allowed in
the recordings. Clipping is at 80% full scale, so it is
analog and more forgiving, but still--how did we set the
gains again?
- 346 WAV files done!!! Update djembe_b_kit.zip.