Do the devs have guidelines for the Slate kits?
I’ve been transferring my samples over to NS2 ready to make kits.
This can always be problematic as we have choices to make over:
1. Where sounds are placed
2. The groupings and fx groupings used
3. The colour groupings used
By problematic, I mean trying to keep a certain standardisation between my new kits and those designed for NS2 by the designers.
This standardisation would obviously help with keeping midi in the correct places if changing kits at any point.
So, my questions are - do the designers have any notes anywhere for design standards used for the Slate kits? If so, could we see them as to help when designing our own Slate kits?
Comments
If you look better at factory kits, you will immediately see the pattern in how they are structured.
Basically all factory kits have +/- same layout (with small exceptions) ..
It's like:
First row - kick, snare, ch, oh,
Second row - alternative kick, snare, ch, oh
Third row - cymbals and crashes
Fourth row - percussion
Fifth, Sixth - various FX sounds or additional percussions if it makes sense for that particular kit
Rest 2 rows we decided to leave empty for users, so they can load own samples there.
Similiar way there was rule for Obsidian macros - IT was leave last 2 macros empty for people, so XYpad + maximum of 6 macros are defined for most of factory patches.
IAP kits on other side doesn't follow this standard, because most of them was done BEFORE we established this standard, and it would by enormous amount of work to change it.
Thanks. That’s probably why I’ve struggled to just visually gauge a standard used - because I’ve been using at the standard and IAP kits as a whole.
Your information helps as a starting place though
You're welcome, i like people with sense to make order in things so you have significant
:-D
@Fruitbat1919 Good question!!! I sorta forgot about this. This is the sort of info that we should make sure Users know ASAP so when we start swapping kits or projects, it will be smooth. A Resources Sticky might be a good thing.
I’d also like to know how well the MIDI drum mappings commonly used in other apps/programs (desktop)/hardware line up with Slate. Maybe a conversion chart is needed? It would be handy to move parts from Slate down to a Ext MIDI track and have it work with a General MIDI kit. Or hardware...
As I type this I fear I am opening a can or worms.
I’ve had some reasonable success with midi files from Cubasis with just a little move upwards - at least NS2 makes moving all the notes in a midi file super easy!
What @dendy said is exactly correct. IMaschine kits follow the exact same format, kick and snare in the lower left corner, hats and percussion in the lower right, the upper rows can either be cymbals or toms or other percussion sounds, FX synths etc.
(Incidentally the process of transferring Maschine kits to NS2 has been quick and simple thanks to NS2s built in ability to unpack Zip files, which end up in the Inbox and can be moved in bulk to the Library.)
Yep the moving process is simple enough. I know some don’t like iMachine kits, but they are so cheap that I find them a great source of new inspiration
There’s a ‘Swap’ button under the hamburger menu too which is great for swapping out samples while keeping the settings.
The velocity layers thing is something I’m still coming to terms with when adding more than one sample to a pad.
Just want to add that all credits for this highly organized kits structure goes mainly to Matt.
I was a bit wonder why is soo important to
have such strict rukes for factory banks but now i understand.
I’ve used the velocity layers in Obsidian, but not Slate yet. I probably would use it more if the standard pad views had velocity as the single pad does.
Good topic. This was the first thing I thought about when starting to make my own kits, so it’s good to see it written out. The main goal for me is to make it easier to swap out kits with minimal remapping of notes.
I agree about wanting to be able to drum in velocity, I've found it a bit difficult to drum in highhats in particular with velocity, since I'd like to play them in one take (switching from closed to open) as a drummer would. I suspect same for toms and percussion when I try that as well, e.g. drumming in a tom fill.
The velocity selection could work like Obsidian does, with "touch" being an option as well as 64, 100 and 127, but I suggest that the velocity would have to increase left-to-right instead of bottom to top on the smaller pads since these pads are wider rather than taller... I'm only looking on the ipad, though, not sure what the Slate layout is like on iphone.
At least this possibility may work on the 16 pad view and the full view, if not in the 32 pad view.
Having said that I'm about to start connecting midi controllers, and these will probably be easier than using the screen for drumming. Just not as mobile....
+1 for variable velocity on the pads.
Personally I prefer center to edge velocity on pads, with velocity decreasing toward the edges of the pad. I know there are various of schools of thought on that one, so maybe a choice (fixed, center, horizontal, vertical) would be good.
+1. That was the very same goal in development. Users should be able to record a drum beat and then switch kits while that MIDI files plays with minimum fuss/surprises.
I tried variable velocity for the smaller pad views but found the touch space was too small for me to get the results I intended. I normally lay in a beat with a fixed velocity and then revisit some of the pads in the single view to overdub a variable velocity version. Using two fingers to get a high hat with accents works quite well, as each finger's already roughly in the right place.
Show us a video or it didn’t happen
@Blip Interactive
Joking apart, my ideal set up would be the velocity number settings as available now with an added option button that does the pad like the old centre weighted metering on film cameras - the centre (70% or so) would still give you the set value, while the rest around the edges lowers the value towards the edge to around half the set value. This would hopefully mean that most hits would be at the set value with a few falling lower