New Virtual Drums - This Might Get Very Interesting

[Mixosaurus]

Hi Re-peat,

thank you for this really amazing piece of music! You'd think that I should know best about the "playability" of MIXOSAURUS Kit A, but it definitely was a joy to hear someone else's programming, and how well Kit A was able to handle all the stuff you threw at it (that was realtime via FW400, no offline bouncing involved?).

Laurent,

MIXOSAURUS DAW Drums Kit A is ONE 14-piece acoustic drumkit that was sampled in such an uncompromising way that it will allow you to play close to anything a "drumset player with sticks" would ever want/have to play in whatever musical situation, and it was recorded using 20 mic tracks and offers a few unique options/controls to give the mix engineer the same freedom (e.g. you can choose from three completely different overhead mic setups). You might want to check http://www.MIXOSAURUS.com for more information and tutorial videos.

The "Vintage Kit" version was made with Kit A's "Vintage" preset multi, using the Soft Kick Drum Beater, "Vintage Death" muffling on the snare, the Light Ride Cymbal, and most importantly the Vintage Tube Mic Overheads in M/S configuration.
In this version, the Teldex Room track is muted.

Re-peat's Kit is the "Standard" Kit which has the Medium Felt Beater, "Standard" muffling on the Snare, the Heavy Ride Cymbal and the Small Diaphragm Condenser Overheads (A-B).

The "Light" Kit uses the same instruments as the Vintage Kit except for the "Open" snare without any muffling, and it uses the Small Diaphragm Condenser Overheads.

The "Hyped" Standard Kit is the same as in Re-peat's version, but with EQ and compression applied (not too extreme settings, but in both individual tracks and master). No extra reverb/ambience effect on ANY of these versions btw.. Whatever room you hear is from the Overheads/PZMs/Teldex tracks.

The "human" sounds in Re-peat's version do NOT come from MIXOSAURUS - but I'll probably go through the 350GB of recorded data and dig out some of the orginal noises of the MIXOSAURUS Kit A session(s) to supply users with them as separate audio samples. As you can hear, it adds quite nicely to the authenticity (thanks for the idea, Re-peat!).

Best regards,

Uwe Lietzow (CEO)

MIXOSAURUS DAW Drums

[Jazzpunk]

Originally Posted by re-peat

Also, as MXS doesn't include any sampled phrases, rolls, fills or whatever : *every* single hit in this piece was programmed — with only a keyboard and Logic's Matrix Editor

Was this 'recorded' by using drum pads or did you really program this entirely in Logic's matrix? That had to be crazy amounts of work!

[Piet De Ridder]

Jazzpunk,

Yes, this was entirely programmed using only my controller keyboard and Logic's Matrix Editor. The key is, I believe, to be able to hear 'in your head' what you're working towards and to constantly 'think drums', meaning: not programming anything that is physically impossible and not quantizing *anything* (there's not a single note in this entire piece which occurs precisely on the 'grid' and there are no two notes which occur exactly simultaneously. And another thing I always do when programming drums is to 'visualize' the performance, imagining I'm actually playing a kit as it were - even though I'm not a drummer.
And finally: it also helps significantly if you listen a lot (and with 'analyzing' attention) to real drum performances, and rhythms in general. I've always loved to do that.

It's actually much less work that you'd think it is, you know, and with a library as satisfying as MIXOSAURUS, it isn't even 'work' at all: it's pure joy.

Mixosaurus,

Yes, the whole piece was done on a dual G5 with 4 giga RAM, running OSX 10.4.8 and Logic 7.2.3 and with the MIXOSAURUS-harddrive connected to a FW400 port (I have no FW800 free at the moment). And I didn't have to bounce or freeze anything during the making, the only thing that got eventually bounced was the final mix.
Thanks for this superb instrument, by the way, it really is unbelievably good!

_

[Mixosaurus]

Here's the latest stuff:

--------------
Native Instruments have added MIXOSAURUS DAW Drums Kit A to their gallery of KontaktPlayer Libraries:
http://www.nativeinstruments.com/ind...kontaktplayer2
--------------
Impossible playing technique of the day: "Hit the open Hi Hat, then slowly (!) lower the top cymbal!" (a challenge posed to me in a German drummers' forum... imagine a drummer's evil laugh
Here's how this sounds using KIT A. These 4 examples are NOT one-shot samples, but composed to answer the posting, using an "open Hi Hat" sound + various other Hi Hat playing techniques available in MIXOSAURUS - and nowhere else:
http://www.mixosaurus.com/audio/hiha...est/openHH.mp3 <- hit open Hi Hat
http://www.mixosaurus.com/audio/hihat_contest/var1.mp3 <- hit open Hi Hat, then lower the top cymbal slightly until cymbals touch very lightly, then immediately release again
http://www.mixosaurus.com/audio/hihat_contest/var2.mp3 <- hit open Hi Hat, then lower the top cymbal until cymbals touch and sizzle, then stop the foot's movement
http://www.mixosaurus.com/audio/hihat_contest/var3.mp3 <- hit open Hi Hat, then lower the top cymbal and continue to move it down after cymbals have touched
http://www.mixosaurus.com/audio/hihat_contest/var4.mp3 <- hit open Hi Hat, then lower the top cymbal until cymbals touch and sizzle, then move it up again
--------------

Best regards,

Uwe Lietzow (CEO)
MIXOSAURUS DAW Drums

[peacenik]

VERY well done re-Peat!
I'm a serious drumKat player and I'm jealous...
Thanks MXS - now another must have..

rRand

[kwaehner]

Okay, I'll bite...

One of the issues with other offerings has historically been mapping to V-Drums and/or other brains/pads. I'm specifically curious about V-Drum hihats, which gets transmitted as like 4 different notes and a few controllers.

Anyone care to sound off on how this interfaces with V-drums? How much editing after the fact yields these results?

Also - can you output all the indidividual mic tracks for an analog mix? Sorry if I missed that on the website, I was busy looking for compatibility info...

- Kevin

[kwaehner]

So I watched the videos, it answered most of my above questions. Very comprehensive midi data manipulation without having to get in there note by note, I'm impressed.

Only question I have left to answer, and this is mostly because I've never used Kontakt - can you assign multiple notes to one kit piece?

For example, if V-Drums send 4 notes for the hi-hat + controller data for the pedal, it would be nice to leave the original data stream untouched and map notes as needed to the right destinations.

Thanks for any input, looks like a very cool product.



BTW - The Pocosaurus file is indeed Rosanna, straight down to the fills, as stated above, followed by Hold the Line (I suspect). Very nice mildly-slushy hi-hats on that second section, that's a tricky thing to get right.

[Mixosaurus]

Hi Kevin,

thanks for taking the time to watch the videos, and good to hear you liked them!

Now, the E-Drums issue. I've updated the FAQ as this is a question indeed asked frequently. Here's that section:

---- snip ----

Can MIXOSAURUS KIT A be played live with E-Drum hardware like Roland's?
No - at least not yet. There are several reasons, one being the latency due to the audio buffer requirements, another the vast amount of available articulations that no E-Drum hardware is able to address. The main focus of MIXOSAURUS DAW Drums is to realize serious and authentic drum tracks for DAW music production. Each of the included articulations is absolutely necessary to reach that goal, and at MIXOSAURUS we believe that there is nothing to negotiate about that. Cutting the programmability and the instrument's variability is what other drum sample companies have done, and it is why their products can't ever reach the realism that we feel an acoustic drum track deserves (well, one you'd like to listen to). So, I'm afraid to say that it's very unlikely that MIXOSAURUS can be realtime-played in the near future.

However, we plan to build a basic "translation" - ideally, you'd be able to live-drum a track on your E-Drum hardware (listening to its own sound), record the MIDI output, and then have specific MIXOSAURUS instruments/kits that incorporate the translation algorithm, leaving you with less to tweak afterwards. This would allow drummers to play the take in the studio and thus save programming time.

----snap----

I've talked to NI yesterday and the integration of such "MIDI translation" is possible but cannot be completed by MIXOSAURUS alone - after writing the translation algorithms we'd have to hand them over to NI to be built into the 1800 instrument patches. Obviously, this is something they can't do every few weeks, so instead of adding e-drum model after e-drum model (what I would've preferred) we'll have to finish translations for all (the most important) E-Drums and then have them added in one go. It's something I definitely want to integrate ASAP, but honestly I think this will rather be a matter of months than weeks I'm afraid.

Best regards, uwe

[peacenik]

Hmmm..?...
So are you saying one can't play this drum sampler in real time with midi drum-pads????
That would be a shame. I'm a DrumKat player and sometimes do play fast n furious free form jazz..
I'd need to hear the nuances to play a good part.
Please say it's so... after all we do have fast modern computers & HDs these days
and I've done it with 1 EXS per pad & with BFD etc....
Rand

[kwaehner]

Uwe,
Thanks for the reply. Not to worry, I wouldn't expect to trigger the sounds in real time - it's a lot of data being pulled together. I was merely thinking of tracking with the internal V-Drum sounds, then listening back using the Mixosaurus engine, WITHOUT doing an hour of basic editing / keymapping to make sure the hi-hat doesn't play back as a snare... glad to hear that's being taken care of as we speak.

Given it's a lot of data being pulled together, is there a mechanism for offline rendering? With a 2 years+ old CPU, it would be good to have a B-Plan if the data chokes the CPU and there's dropouts.

[edt: nevermind, I downloaded and read the manual... offline bouncing is covered. Nuff said...]

Thanks,
- Kevin

[Mixosaurus]

Hello everybody,

I've added a little mock-up of two popular songs to MIXOSAURUS.com:

Mock me!

Regards, uwe

[jamwerks]

Congrats on this product. I'm a BFD user but never got it to sound like that! Best H-hat work that I've yet to hear.

[Mixosaurus]

Thanks Jamwerks!

...and speaking of next-level realism:

I'm happy to announce that "MIXOSAURUS Noises" is available as a free download on MIXOSAURUS.com.

It contains 103 samples of drummer-generated "auxiliary noises" like breathing, throat-clearing, putting down/picking up sticks, snare-strainer on/off, clothes rustling etc. (zipped, 201 MB).
Coming from the original recordings of the MIXOSAURUS KIT A sessions, they allow you to take MIXOSAURUS' realism even further.

The archive includes the multitrack samples, the instrument patches and a short PDF description of where to put and how to use them.
The instrument patches as well as the samples are not encrypted and thus can be used in any sampler or setup.

Kontakt users (v2.2.3 or above) can load the included K2 patches to experience how MIXOSAURUS' controls work and feel.

Best regards,
uwe

[Dr.Wu]

i get error 404 when i try to download the add on noises

great idea btw!

[Mixosaurus]

Uh sorry Doctor, every word you sang was true - but now it works

[preben]

Brilliant idea..!!!

Now, what I REALLY would like to hear at this stage from you guys was a couple of demos where EVERYTHING works, i.e. no dodgy guitars, no dodgy reverbs, nice vocals with a SONG where I can actually hear that this works in the context of a REAL mix of a REAL song.

For me this is where all the libraries have problems so far. There's just not enough togetherness in the sound. I am not sure what it is - whether something un-samplable is going on when you play a beat to a song with the sounds of the previous hits not getting cut off but rather 'hit again' in time with the song - the thing we used to refer to as 'the performance'.

I have yet to hear a sampled kit that - even if it sounds VERY impressive on its own - sits as nicely and effortlessly in a mix like even the most crappy, half-sample-replaced 'real kit'. It's a bit the same syndrome as with guitar amp sims: excellent and impressive when soloed - bloody hard work in context.

The reason I am saying all this is that I think Mixosaurus might potentially be the best of the bunch and might be the one to change the situation..?? But it's hard to tell right now without have heard it do so.

[lematrix]

Originally Posted by preben

Brilliant idea..!!!

Now, what I REALLY would like to hear at this stage from you guys was a couple of demos where EVERYTHING works, i.e. no dodgy guitars, no dodgy reverbs, nice vocals with a SONG where I can actually hear that this works in the context of a REAL mix of a REAL song.

Hello Preben,

i´m using this Mixosaurus Thing a little while, and i can promise you that it is every Euro worth it.
I´ve done a few major recordings with the mixosaurus here in germany wich are gonna be released next quartal and i´m working right now on a release for BMG-Sony, where i only use the mixosaurus Thing (a famous german native-act).
pm me for further Infos, because it is to early to release the songs right now.

Like you, i always had the same problem, that a Virtual sampled Acoustic Kit never stick together. With the Mixosaurus it always feels like a real recording from the beginning on. My Favorite is the HH - a must have.
I also have the XLN and the EZ Drums, but thats only for Demos - not for production. There sound impressivein the beginning when everything is turned off, but when the other instruments come in the game (specialy real intruments) that for me it always sounds like a MP3 - A lot of mids and punch is going away.
excuse my bad english,

greetings, Mathias

[preben]

Thanks a lot for that LeMatrix - track very much appreciated.

Although stylistically different to what I normally work on I can hear that there just might be something *different* going on here.

[ctms777]

The Shuffle demo on the website sounds lik e a re-programmed version of 'Fool in the rain" by Led Zeppelin. Very good.

[Mixosaurus]

MIXOSAURUS.com has been updated with a little flash movie containing additional info on the production as well as a few pictures.

Kind regards!

[Mixosaurus]

Hello everybody,

great news - I've run first tests with two e-drum systems and they turned out a lot better than I had expected:

Compatibility
The first two e-drum units of which I analyzed the MIDI implementation are Roland's TD-3 and Yamaha's DTXpress. Both use MIDI CC #4 to control the HiHat's foot pressure. The great news is that both send continuous values between 0 and 127. This means that although these rather lo-budget models have a very limited foot pressure resolution, they still are able to adress the full range of MIXOSAURUS' 7 foot pressure levels (even with the basic FD-8 type pedal). With simple 2-zone-pads you can trigger both "Tip" and "Shank" (e.g.) articulations for each of these 7 foot pressure levels, plus 2 "open" articulations and the "foot down" articulation. The DTXpress even can address the "foot splashes" articulation. Implementing the "e-drum translation" in the MIXOSAURUS patches is VERY managable - however it will take some time because there are many patches to update and I want to include all or at least most of the popular e-drum models (more on this at the bottom).

Realtime Performance
The forthcoming MIXOSAURUS update will have another helpful feature apart from the e-drum implementation: To reduce CPU and streaming load, you will be able to disable mic tracks for each instrument individually. So if you choose to disable the HiHat's PZM and ROOm tracks, each MIDI note will trigger 2 instead of 4 stereo voices, effectively halving the load (or increasing the performance by 100%).

During my analysis of the TD-3 / DTXpress I have not yet run a complete "full-kit" test. However, when playing around with the HiHat (see below), the CPU and Streaming meters looked so relaxed that I'm confident that realtime playing should be possible with a top computer setup (my own test setup wouldn't qualify as the cream of the crop by today's standards anymore, se below).

Here's the little example. I changed the audio buffer from 512 samples (the buffer value I usually work with and at which MIXOSAURUS manages to play >200 stereo voices) to 128 samples, edited the script in the MIXOSAURUS HiHat patch to make it TD-3 compatible, hit RECORD in Logic and just drummed away. Please note that I am NOT an experienced e-drum user. Although quite skilled on acoustic drums, I am not at all familiar with the PD-85 pad (and its poor rim-trigger-dynamics!?) and especially not with the FD-8 foot pedal. In fact, I've had them for no more than one day to do the MIDI analysis. An experienced e-drum pad player will likely be able to get even better results.

The setup used: Roland TD-3, PD-85 pad, FD-8 pedal, PowerMac G5 2x2GHz, 6GB RAM, OS X.4.10, Logic 7.2.3, Audio Buffer = 128 samples, Emagic Unitor8 MkII. MIDI note # of the pad's center was mapped to "Tip" articulation, MIDI note # of the rim trigger was mapped to the "Crash" articulation.
The MIDI data was NOT edited but remained exactly as it was recorded from the TD-3's MIDI output. After recording, I saved the project, then restarted the computer, launched Logic, loaded the project and immediately performed a realtime bounce. During the actual recording, there were a few more crackles audible in the sample playback than in this bounce, but the difference was marginal really. The performance was definitely good enough to monitor a live-recording of a drum performance in Logic.

Bottom line: Yes, you will be able to use e-drum hardware to record MIXOSAURUS drum tracks for your productions.

http://www.MIXOSAURUS.com/audio/hiha..._AllTracks.mp3
http://www.MIXOSAURUS.com/audio/hiha...live_HH+OH.mp3
http://www.MIXOSAURUS.com/audio/hiha...ive_HHonly.mp3

What I need now are further e-drum models to analyze. According to the various bits of information I found in the respective manuals, the other models' MIDI implementations should be equally easy to translate - but I'll need to see their MIDI output data, especially for positional sensing. I'm aware that nobody will send me his/her TD-20 . The e-drum manufacturers and distributors aren't too keen on helping me establish their own competition neither... thus:

If anybody...

- owns an e-drumset other than TD-3 or DTXpress I
- can (and would like to) explain his/her model's specific implementation of articulations to me
- can (and would like to) play several articulations/playing techniques then defined by me
- can (and would like to) record the e-drum's MIDI output to a sequencer
- can (and would like to) email me the resulting sequence as MIDI file

... please contact me.

Thanks a lot, and best regards from Berlin!
Uwe

[Mixosaurus]

Hello everybody,

I'm happy to inform you that SOUND ON SOUND magazine's January 2008 issue has a review of MIXOSAURUS DAW Drums Kit A (on sale now).

Also, MIXOSAURUS.com has been updated with another user demo: a great, ballad-type piece by singer Faris, with vocals and all real instruments except for the drums. Faris used no 3rd party drum/cymbal sounds, no sample layering on this one - it's nothing but Kit A.

kind regards,

Uwe Lietzow
MIXOSAURUS DAW Drums

[iamproof]

hey uwe,
these drums sound very promising but am not sure if they would work for me ...i record and write emo type rock (kinda like 'alex is on fire' , 'thrice' , 'story of the year'). I am after a distinct rock emo drum sound (punchy/clicky) and am very perticular when it comes to drums but have not been over impressed by dfh,ezd,bfd etc.i find i have to process the crap out of them to get them punchy and by this time they tend to sound quite fake and muddy..............will Mixosaurus be able to cater for my needs? can it get close to the drum sound of the bands i mentioned above? check their myspace pages for examples.

thanks, Proof

[Animus]

Originally Posted by iamproof

hey uwe,
these drums sound very promising but am not sure if they would work for me ...i record and write emo type rock (kinda like 'alex is on fire' , 'thrice' , 'story of the year'). I am after a distinct rock emo drum sound (punchy/clicky) and am very perticular when it comes to drums but have not been over impressed by dfh,ezd,bfd etc.i find i have to process the crap out of them to get them punchy and by this time they tend to sound quite fake and muddy..............will Mixosaurus be able to cater for my needs? can it get close to the drum sound of the bands i mentioned above? check their myspace pages for examples.

thanks, Proof

Dude, sounds like Steven Slate Drums is what you are after. Nothing punchier.

[iamproof]

hey dude, i already got Slate Drums 1.0.....but wasnt overly impressed....agreed they got punch and klik but sound a bit fake......probably cus i use them over dfh room and overheads and not real drum oh and amb.....i just basicaly had trouble getting them to sound like the bands drums sounds i mentioned above

[peeder]

This actually is quite interesting.

I hope you get a TD-20 or TD-12 in the shop so you support that. I'm afraid I don't have time to sit down and map that all out for you. I would certainly be interested in this if it was available in USA for a reasonable price and supported the TD-12.

How does it integrate with Drumagog or some other sample replacer?

[Animus]

Originally Posted by iamproof

hey dude, i already got Slate Drums 1.0.....but wasnt overly impressed....agreed they got punch and klik but sound a bit fake......probably cus i use them over dfh room and overheads and not real drum oh and amb.....i just basicaly had trouble getting them to sound like the bands drums sounds i mentioned above

Gotcha. Maybe try recording real drums then?

[iamproof]

Originally Posted by Animus

Gotcha. Maybe try recording real drums then?

i mean this in the nicest possible way but..."SHEESH"....i aint heard that one b4..........wat a classic gearslut answer.............yes i'm in the studio next month but that doesnt say that i cant wish for a realistic great sounding virtual drum package aswell......(that doesn't cost £300 a day to use

[Mixosaurus]

Dear MIXOSAURUS friends,

a Happy New Year is supposed to start off with a Happy New January, and so it does:

From January 17th to 31st 2008, MIXOSAURUS DAW Drums Kit A will be available in our online store for almost half the price - at a 40% discount! Don't worry though: what you'll get is nothing less than 100% of "fantastic" sound, forming "the Holy Grail of drum sampling" (Sam Inglis, SOUND ON SOUND editor, in his review of Kit A).

Shipping remains free (worldwide), and yes, this offer will definitely end by January 31st.

For more information, audio demos, the latest FAQ and whatnot, please visit MIXOSAURUS.com (or hit the reply button).

------------

Proof, Peeder,

thanks for asking. I wanted to test this myself thoroughly before replying, however I just didn't find the time to do so yet. I've listened to the mentioned bands' stuff and also tried a few Drumagog features, but couldn't dig deeper. It's not forgotten though.
Regarding the suitability for Proof's music, all I can say is that the quality and resolution of the recorded signals is outstanding, and if you compare e.g. the "HardRockDemo" - "VintagePresetKit" - "FaresBallad" - "MockStar/Freetender" demos on the site you'll hear that this kit certainly can provide numerous sounds. Indeed there's mixing on the user's part involved (with three completely different Overhead setups, different Snare mufflings, four Kick beaters, Tuning, Envelope, Distortion and Filter per drum/cymbal you'll come a long way), but given some sensible drum programming it'll certainly never sound "fake" ... the Fares Ballad might not be your style of music, but of the demos it's the piece that has some heavy compression on the Snare and the most attack dialed into the Toms - check it out.
Regarding Drumagog - there is no direct integration like you have with BFD. You can use the MIDI out options though to trigger Kontakt via MIDI (worked fine in my brief tests), but of course this involves some delay compensation. I agree that Drumagog is a cool tool... I'll experiment with it some more.

Kind regards from Berlin/Germany,
and a Happy New January to you and yours!

Uwe

[jjdpro]

I don't like the Slate drums.. I use a combo of Addictive Drums XLN Audio and EZdrummer..

Originally Posted by Animus

Dude, sounds like Steven Slate Drums is what you are after. Nothing punchier.