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Ideas on Audio to Percussive Drum Sounds (Long Post Here)
Hi,
I am using plugins to produce drums sounds or percussive sounds from a violin.
I play on the violin a certain combination of notes and chops (chops are simply hitting or chopping the bow against the strings without making a clear specific note) - to match the rhythm that I want; namely just a simple KICK and SNARE type sound. I have attached a simple wave file. But in essence - I play one thing or note to trigger or represent the KICK and a different thing or notes /chop sound to trigger or represent the SNARE.
I am using the AUV3 Gate Lab to allow me to cleanly filter my playing to separate out the KICK and SNARE from the instrument. I route the input to 2 buses /channels in LP. I set up Gatelab on one channel to let the KICK through (filtering out the snare sounds) and another instance on the other channel to let the SNARE sound through (and filter out the kick). This is very very very effective in isolating the KICK and SNARE sounds. And if I want to change the kick, snare pattern - I can just change the Gatelab settings or presets.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gatelab/id1556198848
NOW.... that I can cleanly isolate the sounds (or notes) from the instrument for the KICK and SNARE; I have 2 options.
1. Audio to MIDI (use some drum kit plugin like EG Pulse or others to play the drum sounds)
2. Use plugins to turn the violin sounds into a percussive KICK or SNARE
OPTION 1)
The challenge here is in the audio to MIDI conversion. Right now I am trying to accomplish this with FAC Envolver, which can send a MIDI note when any audio goes over a threshold. The problem here (right now) is that it sends different notes because the tracking of what audio is being played is not great.
FACT: Violin is not like a guitar where the notes are generally solid and clean. When you bow a note on a violin you actually all types of harmonics, wolf tones, etc. - a person standing 3 or more feet from an acoustic violin doesn't hear all of that because their quiet and subtle, but the violin pickup gets it all. Unless a note bowed meticulously perfectly tracking can be tough and low.
So with my setup right now - FAC Envolver sends out whatever MIDI note it seemed to track, and then I have to convert those various MIDI notes - to a SINGLE MIDI note to trigger the drum plugin. What's the best plugin to convert a range of MIDI notes coming in, to a single MIDI note going out? I am trying to use MIDI Messenger
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/midi-messenger/id6446505967
Also - IDEALLY it would be nice to be able to track or capture the volume as well. I have Jam Origins guitar to MIDI but, even if it converts the audio to MIDI better than FAC Envolver, I still have the challenge of converting the many or several MIDI notes it hears to a single MIDI note that would trigger the KICK on a drum synth.
SooOOOoooo - considering the challenges of tracking audio to MIDI, what plugins or approach would you suggest?
OPTION 2)
Forget the audio to MIDI conversion. Just use plugins to turn the sounds from the violin into a KICK or kick-like sound, and a snare or snare-like sound.
Listen to the sound clip - and please provide any ideas on what plugins could produce a KICK-like sound from a plucked string on a violin; and what plugins could produce a SNARE-like sound from a bow chop.
Sorry to make this so long..... there's such a great user community here of amazing folks!!
Thanks
AJ
Comments
At the risk of taking the usual flack around here ...
tbh, the easiest all-in-one solution is Drambo
I've already set up a test that lets you select the note out, does output velocity, and uses only three modules. It could be improved upon to do your frequency isolation to avoid routing to two plugin instances.
I won't bother polishing it up and posting here though if Drambo isn't an option.
@Vmusic : I think there is a misunderstanding. fac envolver doesn’t track pitch. You can set the note you want it to send. There is no need for anything fancy.
Yes.... that's what the brochure says. However....when feeding the MIDI from FAC Envolver to MIDI Monitor, you'll see various MIDI note on and off messages.
You are using the MIDI In version. Use the regular one that might be why.
@Vmusic : set scale to none. Otherwise consecutive triggers send different notes from the chosen scale.
It would be so nice to learn that @FredAntonCorvest might add pitch detection to a transient detection app so we could
convert rough pitches to 5-8 drum patches (Standard MIDI Drum map values would be a nice touch).
It could be called “Pitch to Drummer”.
My original thought on Envolver was to map acoustic tapping to MIDI events. Envolver produced a nice CC stream and
a Streambyter script would detect the “peaks” and fire off the drum MIDI note. I could play rudimentary drum lines on
a practice pad or table and send the audio into “Envoler” et al and a drum app would play the snare notes with velocity mapping data envolver also provides (it’s the height of this particular “peak” acoustically).
Anyway…. another chance to entire @FredAntonCorvest on this pitch detection use case.
@wim - I'm very interested in your Drambo setup for this type of scenario. This probably needs to be a separate thread or dm conversation, but I've been thinking a lot about ways to take a recording and doing some sound processing/pitch detection and having it convert into kick/snare/hi-hat/etc.
I'll mess around with it some more. I stopped, knowing that Envolver should be able to do it, and that Vmusic is already partly there. I had simply used the Transient Detector module triggering CV Quantizer to let me pick a particular note, then to a MIDI Note Generator module. Pretty easy to set up but could be improved.
What would be better to have is 1) A Band Pass filter first to split out the incoming signals into different hits, and 2) A more robust way of selecting the outgoing note.
If I come up with anything really useful I'll put it on Patchstorage.com and PM ya'.
You are a genius. I owe you!!
Thanks!
===> while I have OPTION 1) functional
I am still open to ideas on OPTION 2)
What plugins takes a note and morphs it into a percussive sound (of any sort)
I know Rambo can do ::: it's the learning curve and time, sorry.
You say a "note". Do you mean a midi note to a percussive sound? Just about any synth can do that. It's just a matter of making the right patch. But, I think the most straightforward answer is Ruismaker Noir. I think that would be right up your alley.
Or, do you mean a note sound and alter it to sound like a percussion instrument? That's a totally different thing.
Ironically, Drambo probably is the simplest and easiest to learn solution if you want to turn particular sounds played on a violin into percussion type sounds. Probably a lot quicker and easier than the other suggestions you're likely to get.
Sound routing is going to be an issue though with any such solution. If you want your regular playing to be unaffected, but only pick out certain percussive type sounds to alter, that's going to be a bigger challenge than turning something that is already percussive in nature into something that sounds like a percussion instrument. Triggering with midi notes will be easier.
@wim I can use gate lab to "pick out" or allow through either the kick or the snare. That filtering part is taken care of, and works great. Now transforming audio into percussive sounds. Yes, I have Drambo.....
It can be as simple as this, but could be expanded in many ways.
I know there are other FX apps out there that can do similar things. I have a few possibilities in mind, but I'd have to go back to them and experiment, which I don't have time to do right now. Hopefully others will chime in.
Here's another simple one that I like better:
