d8b Forum

would anyone care to share processes for getting really high fidelity snappy clap sounds from the d8b, i know a good clap sample is a good start but i was wondering about what eq / comp / gate settings to set in the d8b?

Sampled claps are ok but they inevitably sound mechanical because it's the same sample over and over again. It's best to add a few passes of the real thing recorded to offer the movement and flamming that such will bring. Eq is subjective.

Peter

Claps are a very dynamic source. I would record them with some compression to control the heaviest claps.

I have had nice results shaping the recorded claps with SPL's Transient Designer (in my case the UAD's plugin)


Peter Holmquist.

This is what I did a few years ago. I set up a Studio Projects LSD2 Stereo mic in an XY config in my garage, sans car. I recorded claps (listening to a click) onto a stereo track in my DAW.

I marked the floor with tape in 5 spots (L-LC-C-RC-R) and did 5 takes, moving from spot to spot. Then I stepped back about 8' from the marks and did another 5 tracks. Mixed all 10 pairs down to stereo and cut out about 8 of the best samples. Did the same thing for the "front 5" and the "rear 5".

Those were loaded into Native Instrument's Kontakt and set to fire from one key, "Round-Robin". Every time I hit the same key on the keyboard, the sampler played a different sample in rotation.

As for processing....I find that a relatively narrow bell-curve lift (+3 to+12dB), somewhere between 1-2kHz will tweak all the extra "clap" sound you'll need. If you want more "snap", add a compressor with a very slow (100-200ms) attack. Reverb? I have no preference....depends on the material. I may also insert a dual mono panner plug-in on my DAW to squeeze the stereo field closer to mono. This too, depends on the material.

It is best to invite a bunch of friends over - those with rhythm good, those with not so much rhythm still good. verb........

Frank, thats a neat implimentation for variating the samples. like a do it yourself version of the humanizing velocity variation in Toontrack's Superior Drummer Software. You never get the same triggered sample twice. Claps ARE very dynamic, and you always want a Compressor/Limiter in there somewhere. Depending on the type of Clap sound you are after for a given song, I usually clone the clap track and pan them L & R to widen/fatten them up. A little timing nudge of one or the other can also fatten things up nicely.