My post for drumming beginners, which I will gradually publish whenever I manage to finalize the text, images and sounds for one software.
Introduction:
Zynthian has many options for creating drum and percussion sounds. If we focus on specialized softwars, they are present as LV2 plugins. Not all of them are activated by default, so you need to turn them on via webconf. Select SOFTWARE / LV2-Plugins in the menu and then MIDI Synth. DrMr Sampler, DrumGizmo, DrumSynth, Geonkick will gradually be devoted to it. So I have them selected in my selection. The selection must be confirmed by clicking the SAVE button at the bottom of the page.
DrMr is an LV2 sampler plugin.
As a first pick, it’s not lucky. It is an unmaintained program for over 13 years.
It doesn’t have a GUI in Zynthian, which is important if you need to edit presets.
@jofemodo in the discussion proposed as a replacement LiquidSFZ (GitHub - swesterfeld/liquidsfz: SFZ Sampler 2) that seems to be actively maintained, but it’s not currently integrated in zynthian. It should be tested.
I managed to find that there are replacement programs based on DrMr.
The first is Drumbox
Turn on VNC connection in webconf - select Interface / User Interface / check Enable VNC server
Restart webconf (F5)
Go to Interface / VNC - Engines → this open new window with connection to the Synth Engine Native GUIs. Clik on Connect and fill password raspberry and push enter key.
2. Be able to upload files to Zynthian
There are more options. I personally use FileZilla with an sftp connection for data transfer. The important thing is to get to the directory /home/pi/zynthian-my-data/
Another of the LV2 plugins available for linux in the Distrho-lv2 package by KXStudio is DrumSynth, a realtime 32/64-bit virtual drum synthesizer available for download (see link at bottom) or ready for direct installation when the KXStudio repositories are installed, or included if using an audio-production-suite type of distro.
The installation package of DrumSynth includes an octave range of percussive sounds, ready for use either through the virtual keyboard on the GUI or with an external midi controller. But all presets can be modified and saved (either separately or as a bank of sounds) directly, on the righthand side of the GUI. (As this is an LV2 instrument, they can also of course be saved as .lv2 files if using a host such as Jalv.Select.)
DrumSynth provides a host of sonic options for creating sounds. In addition to noise and noise bandwidth control are knobs for controlling the strength and frequency of overtones, and a filter with optional highpass filtering as well. There is also a five-stage envelope section for controlling movement overtime of the filter, the noise and related bandwidths, and overtones.
If someone would like to set the parameters of the synth in such a way, let them prepare for 654 pages in the Zynthian UI. Up to 24 notes can be mapped and anything can be set individually for each one.
It’s clear from the pictures that you don’t have any presets when you first run and you need to prepare some.
Some basic sounds are available, but only a few of them. If you want to have a wider palette, you need to get ds files. I managed to find a DrumSynth lv2 presets pack made by Cris Owl Alvarez. It is available at https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts/93
Additional files are available in LMMS. You can definitely find them too by searching for ds files.
On my computer I have one directory in which I have the same data structure as the /home/pi/zynthian-my-data directory in Zynthian.
I use FileZilla to copy data to Zynthian. In the case of files with ds presets by Cris Owl Alvarez, I will place them in the directory /home/pi/zynthian-my-data/files/drumsynth/owl_alvarez
It should also be said that DrumSynth supports export sound in ds format, so sound engineers can prepare ds sounds and transfer them to Zynthian in the way described above.
Now we can create presets. To do this, you need to access the graphical interface of the DrumSynth LV2 plugin. So turn on vnc and in webconf select Interface / VNC - Engines and log into Synth Engine Native GUIs. if you have followed the steps described above, the DrumSynth graphical interface will already be waiting for you.
I chose 24 of the available files and assigned them to the following notes.
Note number - File name
36 - deep kick.ds
37 - hard kick 1.ds
38 - hard kick 2.ds
39 - punch kick 1.ds
40 - punch kick 2.ds
41 - punch kick 3.ds
42 - trap kick 1.ds
43 - trap kick 2.ds
44 - trap kick 3.ds
45 - rotten digital kick.ds
46 - snare lowq1.ds
47 - rotten digital snare 1.ds
48 - woodtom 1.ds
49 - dirty digital tom 1.ds
50 - dirty digital tom 2.ds
51 - dirty digital tom 3.ds
52 - rotten digital clap 1.ds
53 - rotten digital clap 2.ds
54 - dirty digital ride 1.ds
55 - dirty digital ride 2.ds
56 - sub hat 1.ds
57 - sub bell.ds
58 - banshee.ds
59 - dirty digital noise 1.ds
A file selection must be made for each note. In the GUI, you need to click on the preset button under the text import. A file selection window will open. You need to get to the right directory and select the right file. Its name is then displayed in the name of the note and appears with a mouse click on the black and white keyboard.
This must be repeated 24 times. Fortunately, the name of the directory can be copied via ctrl+c and pasted via ctrl+v, which speeds up this unfunny activity.
It is good to prepare several presets like this, because the last step is the longest.
You have to within web browser, navigate to webconf SOFTWARE->LV2 Plugins
Click “Search for new Plugins & Presets” button
DrumGizmo is an open source, multichannel, multilayered, cross-platform drum plugin and stand-alone application. It enables you to compose drums in midi and mix them with a multichannel approach. It is comparable to that of mixing a real drumkit that has been recorded with a multimic setup.
Features include:
Stand-alone, Lv2 and VSTi versions available
Open drumkit file format, allowing the community to create their own drumkits
Drum velocity, allowing for several different hit velocities for each drum
Multichannel output, making it possible to mix it just the way you would a real drumkit
Optional built-in humanizer, analyzing the midi notes, adjusting velocities on-the-fly
Stand-alone midi renderer, generating .wav files, 1 for each channel
Stand-alone midi input, making it possible to use DrumGizmo as a software sampler for an electronic drumkit
In the case of Zynthian, DrumGizmo comes a bit bare, with no drumkits that you have to install yourself. And then activate the LV2 presets.
The official kit source for DrumGizmo is at kits – DrumGizmo Wiki Here I also drew a description of the individual kits:
CrocellKit
The CrocellKit is the kit used by Danish metal band Crocell.
The kit consist of the following drums and cymbals:
1 kickdrum (with double pedal)
2 hanging toms
2 floor toms
1 snare
1 hihat
3 crash cymbals
1 ride cymbals
2 china cymbal
2 splash cymbals
DRSKit
DRSKit came to be as a collaboration between the DrumGizmo team and Jes Eiler of DRSDrums. Jes creates handcrafted drumkits under his own label with an attention to detail not often seen on the market.
We gave him a call and asked if he would supply a kit for us to record. And being the stand-up guy that he is, he offered to lend us an entire kit for free. The kit contains the following components (Left / right placements as seen by the drummer):
1 kickdrum
1 hanging tom
2 floor toms
1 snare
1 hihat: Paiste Formula 602 Medium hi-hat
2 crash cymbals
Left: Paiste Giant Beat
Right: Paiste Formula 602 (Lend to us by Erik)
1 ride cymbal: Paiste Formula 602 thin crash
The kit should be usable for everything from jazz to rock.
MuldjordKit
“The MuldjordKit is a Tama Superstar drumkit with all the bells and whistles. The samples for this kit was actually recorded all the way back in 2010 when I was recording / playing drums for the Sepulchrum debut album. When recording drums I always sample the kit in case we need a cymbal or a single drum hit here and there to patch up the recordings. It turns out that I sampled it so well that it can be used with DrumGizmo.” - Lars Muldjord.
The kit consist of the following drums and cymbals:
2 kickdrums
3 hanging toms
1 floor tom
1 snare
1 hihat
2 crash cymbals
2 ride cymbals
1 china cymbal
This should be considered a metal or rock kit.
The Aasimonster
The Aasimonster is a large deathmetal drumkit used to track the “Rise of the Rotten” record by the Danish deathmetal band DIE http://www.executionroom.com. Converted to 2.0 format by user Chaot4.
It contains the following components:
2 kickdrums
3 hanging toms
1 floor tom
2 16“ crash cymbals
1 18” china cymbal
2 small china cymbals (Stagg 8“ and 10”)
1 Zilbel
1 Ride cymbal.
ShittyKit
Author is Sardonicus (sardonicus [at] free.fr)
And its description is as follows:
Hello world! This is an eight channel drumgizmo bank of a brand new 5th hand Stagg Gia serie drumkit (kick 18, Snare 14×5, Tom 12, Floor 14, along with pure finest cast-iron time tarnished genuine Pont-à-Mousson/saint-gobain cymbal kit. Captured throught a saffire pro 40 with Beta52a, I5, D2 x2, MK105 matched pair as overheads and M/S coupled EM800 with tweaked RB500 (with fethead triton) as room. No processing, just a time adjustment between close mikes and overhead. M/S room couple is unprocessed (though it may be clever to reverse the stereo or play it in mono. Dunno…) because that’s what they were made for: Distants… And witches are made of wood, duh?
Sommerhack 2016-Kit
This percussive kit was made in-situ at the Sommerhack 2016 hacker camp in Denmark.
Instruments:
Hand clap
Slapped chair
Large wooden log
Small glass hit with a spoon
Camera shutter
Metal coffee mug
Finger snap
The above kits can be downloaded from wiki of drumgizmo
or directly from storage Which paid off for me as some of the wiki links didn’t work.
SM MegaReaper Drumkit Salamander DrumKit
Michael Osvald created these two kits from free drum samples in wav format. He described the creation in a post on his blog
The correct download link is a little difficult to find in the subsequent discussion, so they will put it right here.
SM MegaReaper
Salamander
JazzFunk DrumKit
This drumkit is orangetree samples conversion for drumgizmo. The xml files are in discussion
Audio samples are taken from orangetreesamples.com
This drumkit was the only one I couldn’t get working.
I think it’s well suited to rock, blues, metal, and so on. It’s probably not the best for jazz due to the lack of jazz-type articulations (no brushes used instead of sticks, etc.) It’ll probably take some EQ and compression to sculpt it just right. This is about as raw sounding as it gets; it’s good sounding, but raw. It’s a very good starting point for using reasonable amounts of EQ/compression any mixing engineer would have to do on a good neutral recording of real acoustic drums.
It is a good idea to prepare a directory with individual drumkits on your PC. My favorite Frumkit is zynthian-my-data-for-clear-installation/files/drumgizmo/CrocellKit. Each of the sounds has its own sub-array, so you can find a snare or a snare rim shot. In these subdirectories there are samples in the form of wav files and an xml file describing individual levels of the force of hitting a given drum.
Example for kick drum right pto weakest hit strength:
From this we read that there are 15 sound tracks corresponding to the positions of the microphones around the entire drum set.
To create a preset, we will always need a pair of files. One describing the set of drums, in the case of CrocellKit they are called e.g. CrocellKit_full.xml and similar. They define the “instruments” to be sampled. The number of “instruments” affects the time it takes to load samples into memory. the times are long and I list them below. The second type of xlm files are files describing mapping, i.e. assigning “instruments” to notes.
Usually, in file names, the second word joins the correct pairs. For CrocellKit, the correct pair is CrocellKit_full.xml and Midimap_full.xlm. The creation of these files is described in detail in the DrumGizmo project wiki.
** 2. Transfer DrumKit files to Zynthian **
For our example, the data from the directory zynthian-my-data-for-clear-installation/files/drumgizmo/CrocellKit needs to get into Zynthian. More precisely, to the directory /home/pi/zynthian-my-data/files/drumgizmo/CrocellKit. I used my favorite FileZilla. You can use other program allowing sftp transfer or ssh scp combination.
Make sure you have the option to show DrumGizmo LV2 plugin Engine in webconf enabled. Go to the menu SOFTWARE / LV2-Plugins check and choose DrumGizmo. The selection must be confirmed by clicking the SAVE button at the bottom of the page.
Make sure you have VNC enabled on Zynthian.
If not, then Turn on VNC connection in webconf - select Interface / User Interface / check Enable VNC server
Restart webconf (F5)
It is necessary to get into the GUI LV2 of the DrumGizmo plugin.
In webconf go to a menu Interface / VNC - Engines → this open new window with connection to the Synth Engine Native GUIs. Clik on Connect and fill password raspberry and push enter key.
To create presets, we will need the upper left part of the GUI. In detail in fig.
First, you can use the Browse button to select the Drumkit File. In our case to the file. /home/pi/zynthian-my-data/files/drumgizmo/CrocellKit/CrocellKit_full.xml The window for selection is a bit specific, all movement is confirmed by clicking the “select” button
Next we will make a choice for Midimap File. So we enter /home/pi/zynthian-my-data/files/drumgizmo/CrocellKit/Midimap_full.xlm.
Since it takes a long time to upload the samples, you will probably end up in the following state:
If everything goes correctly, the final state is as follows:
From now on, DrumGizmo will be drumming for you.
There is nothing left to do but save the preset. Selecting Preset from the DrumGizmo GUI window menu will do this for us. Store the presets in the directory /zynthian/zynthian-my-data/presets/lv2 , so it is ensured that Zynthian can find them.
It is good to prepare several presets like this, because the last step is the longest.
You have to within web browser, navigate to webconf SOFTWARE->LV2 Plugins
Click “Search for new Plugins & Presets” button
Wait, take a cafe, a few minutes and Zynthian must restart automatically.
If you decide to upload all DrumKits, prepare a 64GB SSD card.
As far as I understand, DrumGizmo was originally created to convert midi notes to a wav file from the command line. On the DrumGizmo wiki you will find a section dedicated to DrumGizmo-CLI that can do this. In the case of Zynthian, we go against this idea and make it a real-time midi signal processing. Because of this, the use of DrumGizmo has certain limitations.
Uploading created presets is very long. It takes a long time for all the samples to load, so don’t send any midi notes to DrumGizm during that time. At best, you’ll hear a horrible squeal, at worst, you’ll block DrumGizmo.
I measured the loading of the preset, I measured it directly in the GUI, so the actual times when the budter uploads the preset in the standard UI of Zynthian will be longer. Here are my measurement results for full kits.
Aasimonster2 - 1 min 04 s
Crocell Kit - 1 min 02 s
DRS Kit - 53 s
Muldjord Kit3 - 1 min 01 s
Salamander Kit - 12 s
Shitty Kit - 25 s
SM Mega Reaper Kit - 37 s
Sommerhack Kit - 2 s
Tchackpoum - 36 s
DrumGizmo is a sampler synth with very large files, this means that if you have a lot of punch, more precisely their high frequency, or different drum sounds at one time, I can jump xruns at a speed like the kicks of a speedmetalist. There are ways to customize DrumGizmo to track in real time.
If we look at this section of Drumgizma, we can influence Resampling. If you have the same samplerate sound card and drumkit samplerate, then turn off this section, as shown in the picture. If your sound card allows it, adapt its samplerate and you don’t have to use resampling.
I found the most affecting option in the Voice limit section. By reducing the number of voice and also reducing the ramdown time, you can achieve the disappearance of possible XRUNs. You always work for the instrument. Voices playing e.g. snare are muted only by another snare, not e.g. kick drum.
By turning on Bleed Control, you can influence how the Master Bleed Volume will affect the resulting signal. Here I recommend everyone to try what suits them. I keep this option turned off for now.
The Velocity Humanizer section affects the power of the punch. pAttack defines how quickly the attack force is reduced when playing fast strikes on the same instrument. Lower values result in faster velocity reduction. pRelease defines how quickly the drummer regains the velocity when there are spaces between the notes. Lower values result in faster regain. pStDev determines the standard-deviation for sample selection. Higher value makes it more like that a sample further away from the input velocity will be played.
Better not turn on the Timing Humanizer section when playing in real-time. Turning it on delays the signal as the DrumGizmo moves the beat forward and backward relative to the exact position of the beat. The pTighness value determines the amount of displacement relative to the exact position of the note. The higher its donot, the smaller the drift. pTimingRegain determines how quickly the drummer will sync back to the perfect metronome. At higher values, this will happen faster. Depending on the value of pLaidback, a fixed delay in ms is added or subtracted to all notes. Positive values lead the beat.
The Sample section affects the selection of samples. How close the sample should be to the current midi value after humanization is indicated by the pClose values. Selection of samples that have not been played recently is determined by pDiversity. pRandom defines the amount of randomness.
The Visualizer shows the velocity and time shift towards the optimal position.
The last section defines the recalculation of the incoming velocity according to the user.
I’ve moved the text about DrumGizmo to the wiki DrumGizmo - ZynthianWiki.
If you find any mistake, write and I will fix it. I am not a native English speaker.
If your experience is different from mine, write too.
If you would like to add something, write too.
Thanks a lot, I appreciate the compliments.
I’m not done yet. I’m working on a guide for Geonkick and originally started on the plugins with soundfonts so I’ll put those at the end.
At the same time, I am learning on the new Torso T-1 sequencer toy. zynthian makes a great partner for him.
The creator of this kit is Harald Revery https://haraldrevery.bio.link
It is not a drum kit in the standard sense, but a set of differently tuned kicks.
Contains the following sounds:
B-Kick
C-Kick
D-Kick
E-Kick
F-Kick
F-sharp-Kick
G-Kick
SP Kick Presets vol.1
The creator of these sounds is Oleh Bardiuk. There are 17 different kick sounds, for which no kit is created for their number.
There are three integrated synthesizers playing soundfonts in Zynthian.
1. FluidSynth - is a real-time software synthesizer based on the SoundFont 2 specifications. So need to have matching SoundFont 2 here drum sounds. A popular kit is e.g. AVL Drumkits AVL Drumkits which we will meet again.
2. Sfizz - is a sample-based musical synthesizer. Here you need to have tools in sfz format. AVL Drumkits can also be downloaded in this format. Another collection of sound fonts can be found here Drums - SFZ Instruments
3. LinuxSampler - is also a sample-based musical synthesizer. The same applies here as for Sfizz, you need files in sfz format.
FluidSynth is used in drum LV2 plugins, at least those present in Zynthian.
In this chapter of our drumming, we won’t need to transfer any other files to Zynthian, everything is already ready, only the appropriate module needs to be turned on.
Drum programs can be found in Zynthian in the LV2 Plugins section. We turn it on via webconfig local.zynthian in the LV2 Plugins / MIDI Synth section.
When I divide the available plugins by source, the first part will be about plugins from the project repository http://kxstudio.linuxaudio.org/
There are special LV2 plugins playing SoundFonts 2 (sf2) and using FluidSynth as an engine. Available in Zynthian we have:
Black Pearl 4A
Black Pearl 4B
Black Pearl 5
Red Zeppelin 4
Red Zeppelin 5
Fluid Drums
Fluid Percussion
These plugins do not have a graphical interface.
The second source is AVL Drumkits with the plugin avldrums.lv2 - a drum sample player plugin dedicated to Glen MacArthur’s AVL Drumkits. This self-contained plugin provides a convenient way to rapidly sequence and mix midi-drums. Available in Zynthian are:
Black Pearl Drumkit
Black Pearl Drumkit Multi
Red Zeppelin Drumkit
Red Zeppelin Drumkit Multi
So the basis is in the same sound samples and also the FluidSynth engine. The plugins also have a graphical interface, see the picture from Zynthian VNC-Engines. The GUI doesn’t set anything, but can be used to find out the mapping of individual sounds to notes. The mapping is as follows:
You can find the precompiled plugin at x42 AVL Drumkits
The following sets are also written here, but they are not available in Zynthian:
Blonde Bop stereo
Blonde Bop multi-out
Blonde Bop Hot Rod Stereo
Blonde Bop Hot Rod multi-out
Busman’s Holiday
For versions labeled Multi, there is a so-called Multi Channel Layout
The plugin ports are named, when using pin-management in Ardour or Mixbus, the names are displayed. Also fan-out will use the port-name as part of the created bus. For reference the 9 ports are
1 Kick (mono)
2 Snare (mono)
3 Hi-Hats (mono)
4 toms (mono)
5 Floor-Tom (mono)
6+7 Cymbals (stereo)
8+9 Percussions (stereo)
And here for an overview of how individual sets sound. Drummed by Arturia Step Pro sequencer:
I just commited an update in to the Oram version that will install the missed drumkits:
Blonde Bop stereo
Blonde Bop multi-out
Blonde Bop Hot Rod Stereo
Blonde Bop Hot Rod multi-out
Busman’s Holiday
Thanks for your excellent work with drum engines in zynthian. BTW, if you use Oram you could help by reviewing engines, improving descriptions and qualifying them.
To share your reviewing work with developers, you simply send your engines DB:
/zynthian/config/engine_config.json
and we will merge your work with the “official” default DB.
There is still much to discover. Knowledge from yesterday:
Remark for Fluid Drums : This module has the ability to change sound settings. It is hidden in the second page of UI in the CTRLS / Program settings. There are several standards to choose from, rooms have different reverberations, jazz ones have their own character, and even TR-808 or Orchestra Kit are available.
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