Geoff Khan produced a soundfont
drum kit called Live Kit 7 and posted a link to it on KVRaudio.
His soundfont includes the samples (of course) and a number of different kits to show the samples off
in various ways.
It's a good demonstration of the power of soundfonts (and one of the features sfz format doesn't yet
handle so well, with only single-depth grouping
).
Most pieces of the kit were recorded with both close and overhead mics live.
As Geoff supplies a soundfont, the first thing to do is to extract the Waves files. I used Steve Holt's sfZed. This is particularly useful if you're working with sfz format files, of course! The sfZed mappings formed the basis of what I'm providing here (subsequently munged with a little perl and quite a lot of hand-editing).
Geoff used a mapping reasonably close to the General MIDI drum map.
I've provided all the presets pretty much as is
.
The main change is double the kick (down to B1) and snare (up to E2).
The soundfont is available from sf2midi, along with Geoff's comments. There was quite a lot of response - see the KVRaudio thread, which also provides alternative download sites.
Once you've downloaded and extracted the samples, save the sfz format files into the same folder.
I prefer drumming with the following mapping. I find getting around the keyboard is easier as the layout is more like a real kit. The "Choke!" key mutes all the cymbals except the hihat: use the pedal for that. It's also adjusted so you can hit four things at full velocity without driving the output levels over the top.
In addition to the full mix in the alternate mapping, I've also provided two automatable mappings that enable you to use MIDI automation to adjust the mix of the various layers. There are two:
Check the description at the top of the mapping for more details.
| The alternate layout | ||
| Key | Note# | Instrument |
| C | 048 | (unused) |
| 049 | (unused) | |
| D | 050 | (unused) |
| 051 | Crash 2 | |
| E | 052 | Snare Rim |
| F | 053 | Snare Rim |
| 054 | Open Hihat | |
| G | 055 | Pedal Hihat |
| 056 | Closed Hihat | |
| A | 057 | Snare |
| 058 | Closed Hihat | |
| B | 059 | Snare |
| (middle) C | 060 | Kick |
| 061 | Mid Tom (tone up) | |
| D | 062 | Kick |
| 063 | Mid Tom (tone up) | |
| E | 064 | Crash 1 |
| F | 065 | Ride |
| 066 | Mid Tom | |
| G | 067 | Ride Bell |
| 068 | Mid Tom | |
| A | 069 | (unused) |
| 070 | Low Tom | |
| B | 071 | (unused) |
| C | 072 | (unused) |
| ... | ||
| C | 084 | Choke! |
And here are the mappings:
Full mix - alternate
Auto mix 1 - alternate
Auto mix 2 - alternate
Last updated: 21 March 2005
Redid all the GM kits with latest sfZed and a new bit of PERL. Several renames.
7 February 2005: Added automatable mix maps, minor tweaks to full mix alternate mapping.
26 January 2005: Removed off_by from closed hihats (following some discussion on KVR).
25 January 2005: Adjusted volumes for alternate layout full mix kit again.
23 January 2005: Adjusted volumes for alternate layout full mix kit.
22 January 2005: first version
