A huge collection (3.4GB) of sound effects, samples of a wide range of real-world sounds sources and engineered effects.
The FX Toolkit comprises a massive collection of professional samples that wouldn't be out of place on one of those BBC sound effects records from back in the day. - were it not for their pristine digital quality.
As well as their intended application as straight-up effects samples, many of them also make great starting-points for atmospherics and twisted rhythm tracks. Additionally anything with a sustained pitch of even a few fractions of a second can be looped, keymapped and layered to make interesting and unique sampler instruments.
At least some of the credit for these sounds must go to The Electronics Garden's Symbolic Sound Corporation Kyma system. This high-end sound design platform has long been a favourite among Hollywood sound designers and is perfect for producing custom effects. You've heard it before in Star Wars and Star Trek movies, as well as in the Matrix trilogy and now you can hear it on your own track too . . .
A collection of 35 drum loops taken from the Drumcore virtual drummer plugin. These loops were played by a variety of top-flight session drummers. Including Sly Dunbar, Matt Sorum, Ben Smith, Alan White and Tony Braunagel.
Drumcore takes these live beats and, using its highly-specialised engine, rearranges them to create a massive library of malleable rhythms.
Free PDGood Snare Drum Multi-Samples.
The file names:
The first letter designates the brand of drum. Extra letters are added if it helps differentiate between companies that start with the same letter or different models from the same company. This is important because the sampler I use will not allow two samples with the same name, so variations must be made. I'd be glad to spell it all out to make things clear, but I don't know if the drum companies would be OK with that. Since I'm doing this for free, the last thing I need is a legal hassle.
L and R, of course, stand for left and right hand hits. There are three volumes of each. In addition, there are left and right hand rim shots and a roll.
I have experimented (and you should too) with the samples. I made variations - so some are marked "thin", "dry", "tight", or "amb" for ambient to indicate which variation.
The mapping:
You can put these in your sampler any way that works for you. My method is to put the left hand hits on C and the right hand hits on D. (all three of them - placed so that when you hit hard you get the L3 or R3 and when you hit soft you get the L1 or R1.) Then I put the rim shots on C# and D# and the roll on E.
I set the sampler so that all the hits play their full length regardless of how long you hold the note down, except the roll. I make sure that it is on a different group that plays only as long as you hold it. This allows you to vary the length of the roll to the tempo of the song. When you release the roll you whack one of the other snare hits. Works great.
A Kontakt file is supplied for those that use that brand of sampler.
Stacking the samples:
One thing you can do with samples that you can't do with real drums is layer the snare sounds on top of each other. This makes for a fat, beefy sound. Usually, opposites work well together because they are filling the gaps in each other's sonic signature. The K snare is really sloppy and loose and works well with the G snare which is tight. When I'm working on a song, if I find that the snare rattle is just too short - then I go find a sample like the D snare that has a long rattle and just add it on top of the existing sample. Stacked snares are not included here. I may add them later to my website if there is enough response.
What's next:
These ten samples were my first effort at sampling snares. I have already recorded a second session of ten more snares which are not included here that I plan to make available soon. If you are interested, just keep an eye on my web site which should be up and running soon at: www.pdgood.us
I would welcome an e-mail from anyone else who does their own samples and wants to swap files. I am gathering quite a collection that extends beyond drums to many other instruments. I can be reached at by clicking here
Hope you enjoy.
PDGood