Intelligent samples with external drum pads

Brian06660
Brian06660 Member Posts: 5 Newcomer
edited July 2022 in Battery 4

Hey everyone, brand new to battery. I'm using a Roland drum brain and electronic drum pads to trigger sounds out of battery. Until now my only experience with electronic drums is Roland. Also I'm a drummer, so maybe I'm not using the correct terms.


Some Roland samples will trigger some sort of automation if you will. Each time you hit the pad the same sound is triggered although constantly pitching up, or perhaps randomly changing pitch or panning. Or maybe each hit plays a different and random note on a scale. Or more importantly velocity based pitch changes.

Is this type of functionality possible in battery? Thanks

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Best Answer

  • JesterMgee
    JesterMgee Member Posts: 2,531 Expert
    Answer ✓

    What you describe is either programmed "variation" in the drum machine/kit or for sampled kits it is what is referred to as "round robin" sampling.

    Basically, electronic drums can sound very artificial if the only variance in the sound played is the velocity since a real drum kit has a lot of different variances in each hit based on how hard/fast you hit, where on the kit you hit and the fact things in a natural setting will just vary slightly each time you do things.

    Round Robin sampling will have several of the same hit recorded at each velocity break capturing that slight difference and when you play the samples are randomly cycled through making it sound much more realistic but the actual kit or content must have this available in it.

    Battery can achieve this kind of thing but you will need to get in and learn how to do it yourself as most of the basic factory kits have nothing set.

    Most kits are just a single sample on a cell with no modulation setup. You can layer samples on cells and create some variance based on velocity:

    You can also setup modulation to affect different parameters such as volume, tune, pan and trigger this from a variety of input triggers.

    In this quick example I affect tune randomly on every hit which will vary the sound of each hit. The slider adjusts the amount of effect applied to this modulation. With some time spent you can setup a kit that will always sound a little different every time you play

Answers

  • JesterMgee
    JesterMgee Member Posts: 2,531 Expert
    Answer ✓

    What you describe is either programmed "variation" in the drum machine/kit or for sampled kits it is what is referred to as "round robin" sampling.

    Basically, electronic drums can sound very artificial if the only variance in the sound played is the velocity since a real drum kit has a lot of different variances in each hit based on how hard/fast you hit, where on the kit you hit and the fact things in a natural setting will just vary slightly each time you do things.

    Round Robin sampling will have several of the same hit recorded at each velocity break capturing that slight difference and when you play the samples are randomly cycled through making it sound much more realistic but the actual kit or content must have this available in it.

    Battery can achieve this kind of thing but you will need to get in and learn how to do it yourself as most of the basic factory kits have nothing set.

    Most kits are just a single sample on a cell with no modulation setup. You can layer samples on cells and create some variance based on velocity:

    You can also setup modulation to affect different parameters such as volume, tune, pan and trigger this from a variety of input triggers.

    In this quick example I affect tune randomly on every hit which will vary the sound of each hit. The slider adjusts the amount of effect applied to this modulation. With some time spent you can setup a kit that will always sound a little different every time you play

  • Brian06660
    Brian06660 Member Posts: 5 Newcomer

    Man! Excellent answer I appreciate it.

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