AL DrumLord

Unfortunately a graphic designer was unable to be found, and so the emphasis on the project changed to have a simpler GUI.

The graphics were designed in PhotoShop and through the use of a dedicated GUI design tool ‘KnobMan’.

Here is the final Reaktor structure, the reverb system is from the user library, Arena Reverb by Bryan Lake, and it can be found here.

But firstly after some discussion with my tutor it was decided that rather than a mouse over to display the edit window for each sample allowing the user to click on each area was a more practical method, as the user does not have to worry about accidentally triggering another on the way to using the edit window, the time that the edit window displays for also needed to be increased but that was no problem at all as the existing value was temporary anyway.

Changing the mouse over to a mouse button click was simple as the mouse area module that was used includes this feature, and was already in use to allow the user to click on the mouse area to trigger a sample. After that was done, the correct values were added to the channel message module (which sends a midi output which is read by the patch’s internal midi input) to allow this feature across all mouse areas. 

I also worked on the spill and ambience features ready for when they can be implemented, the system I’ve decided on includes extra samplers to be triggered the same time as the main ones with either spill from other microphones or convolution reverb applied. These are then applied to the mix with their own VCA fed into the mixer’s VCA. 

In the event of not being able to find a graphic designer, a contingency plan of sorts was devised. This plan moves the emphasis of the GUI from that of a generic drum sampler to that of a virtual e-drum brain or module, I have made this decision in an attempt to make the project more unique and to reflect my desire for users to use the drum sampler with a midi drum set.

We’re looking for someone who is interested in creating graphics for software or music, the main graphics that are needed include GUI elements, two drum kits and background images relating to settings chosen by the user.

The GUI will be based around a bar at the bottom which allows the user to firstly select which drum they would like, secondly edit the envelope and choose settings specific to the drum selected and then thirdly choose the ambience settings. Along with that a mixer for each individual drum (known as slots in the software).

The GUI will have to reflect the drums and ambience chosen so two whole drum kits will be needed and each drum will have its own image to allow the user to swap individual drums, each drum will have to be able to fit into both sets as to make it look as natural as possible. 

Here’s an example of the preferable POV of the drum kit but spread out a little better for a clear view of each drum. The drums will have to have two images each, one is the normal state, the second image will be the drum coloured corresponding with the colours of the slot it’s in. Below is a screenshot of each slot with their colours.

The background would change depending on the ambience (or ‘room’) the user has selected from ‘Studio’, ‘Small Hall and ‘Large Hall’. Here’s some pictures of the room the large hall would ideally be based on. Preferably similar to the last photo with the drum kit in the middle of the room. 

And finally here’s a screenshot of what the software looks like with its default GUI.

This is what the main instrument view looks like now.

Here’s a reminder of what the mouse area macro looks like with added inputs, to recap the Mouse Area module at the top provides logic output from MO (Mouse Over) when a cursor is placed over the area, that triggers the hold module on the right, while the time of the hold is dictated by the the inputs of the other mouse over macros, into the compare module and then into the multiply module. If another mouse over is active the output of the compare module is 0 which makes the time of the hold 0. This results in only one sample’s edit window is able to appear at one time, which considerably cleans up the GUI and allows us to have one small section for nine samplers. 

The work I have done looks relatively simple but it took a lot of work to get it all together, I believe the fact I had done most of the work separately saved some time and allowed me to think more clearly about how it will turn out this created its own problems. For some reason, every so often when a module or connector is copied between macros and ensembles it can not line up with the existing ones, this is observable in the above screenshot as some of the inputs and logic OR gates aren’t very neat, that is purely because of this. Also when a macro is copied over from another ensemble the panel view of that macro sometimes doesn’t maintain its layout. Which means I would have to re-align it.

So finally this is what the edit window and the whole panel looks like now.

The drum selection section is a good example of this process, my original vision for this section would have been a matrix allowing the user to first choose a stand, and which drum they were able to select depended on which stand they chose, however this proved to be more difficult to achieve in Reaktor than I originally thought, and after careful thought I came to the conclusion that it was more effort that it was worth, and my target audience of singer-songwriters that need access to drums easily may appreciate clear and quick access to the drums they want more.

This was more of a visual element than an practical one, inside the macros are a visual representation of which drums the user has selected, the lamp (the module with the orange box titled “1″) represents the colour of the slot they are working with. 

As of now the visual representation of which drum has been chosen is a text box.

The important bit of this macro is the list module (far left) which controls the which drum is being selected, the list module can be represented as a set of buttons, drop down, list, or spin menu. 

This is what the drum selection section looks like so far.

The dropdown menu is connected into the input named ‘Sel’, which then selects which of the three macros are visible and enabled, a non zero value also triggers another lamp.

This is what the edit windows look like so far.

They are then connected to a stereo mixer module, which is a normal mixer module but it also allows you to pan, I added a simple boolean switch to allow the user to enable or mute a slot if they wish.

After everything is connected it looks like this:

As the second screenshot shows it's merely the output of the existing multiplication module and a button going into another multiplication module, the button's values are flipped so a value of 1 is outputted while open and a 0 while closed, so in reality while the button is open the value of 10,000 is free to pass it and enter the hold time input of the Hold module, however when the button is pressed, as it is set to the 'gate' mode (which means the on value is only outputted while the button is pressed down) it temporarily sets the hold time to 0, therefore resetting the hold module, just as placing the mouse over another module. This system is favourable as it's simple, effective and doesn't disrupt the patch, as stated in the previous post work is still to be done hooking these mouse areas to a stacked macro panel index (which displays two or more macros depending on an input value, in this case when the mouse area is off we expect there to be no macro displayed at all).

However while putting this addition together I discovered that the mouse areas seem to take priority over other modules, which means you can't seem to have buttons or knobs under them, while I intend to investigate this further if this is the case I will have to slightly rethink my GUI plan to have an area just away from the drums that will display these edit windows, although the mouse areas have limited switching and value increase/decrease capabilities themselves so this is something to be investigated also. I'm especially keen to see what I can do with the individual click capabilities, such as right click, left click and double click, for example a system where if you double click on a drum it resets the 'slot' back to blank.

I experimented with many ways of achieving this, for example through the use of the value module, which presents a specific value once triggered by a signal, however the technique that worked best was using the hold module, which holds a value in one state for a specific amount of time.

However I needed a way to turn the current mouse area off when you enter another, the way I achieved this is by using a compare module, which reads the A and the B input and outputs a 0 or a 1 value depending on whether A is less than, equal to or more than B, as the input values I was working with were also 0 and 1 I felt 0.5 was the perfect B value to use to avoid any confusion. If the mouse enters one of the other mouse areas the A value is changed to 1 which is more than 0.5 which changes the less than output to 0 therefore changing the hold time to 0 and turning off the original mouse area. This way was useful for various reasons but mainly because through use of the Logic OR module I can add as many mouse areas to this algorithm as I need, also as there is a time limit the edit windows won't clog up the GUI forever. 

I have decided I will follow the standard software release lifecycle, and I am expecting a first pre-alpha version in time to demonstrate in the first Viva, which will not include GUI or my own samples. 

  (Photo source)

Release stage projections will be symbolised on the Gantt chart when they are established, therefore I will date and record all Gantt chants. Due to other university commitments I have left room after the second viva for anything that needs to be pushed back, however it is important that recording of the samples remains early January. 

My major project will be to design a drum sampler instrument with the view to creating a pack of other instruments in Native Instruments’ Reaktor. I have a lot of experience in Reaktor and I am passionate about sound design, I see this as an opportunity to explore my ability with the software as well as an opportunity to learn more about sampler instruments and their place in the market, as I will also be recording the samples myself this is an opportunity to gain experience in the studio, with editing samples within a DAW or sound editing software and to collaborate with the musicians playing the instruments I sample.

  The main aspects of the instrument will include a two whole drum kits which each drum, module or cymbal can be chosen from, so the user can build their drum kit from their favourites, a graphic display of the drum kit which the user can click to preview their chosen samples and similarly a clickable piano across a portion of the bottom of the GUI.

  The user will be able choose a sample through a matrix where he or she will have a number of slots to fill with drum or cymbal stands, the samples available will depend on the stand chosen, stands available will include tom racks, cymbal stands and electronic drum pads. I intend to explore different ways of making the drum sampler more customisable through different forms of effects such as reverb and room ambience, these can help the instrument sound more lifelike and less dry and static, another possible feature is dialable spill from other microphones, spill is common when recording acoustic drum kits. Each drum will have common settings such as envelopes and effect parameters, however some will have individual controls that are specific to them; for example each kick drum will have a sub kick emulator which the user can configure.

  A main feature of any software instrument is the GUI, in my opinion it is crucial for the instrument to have a friendly and descriptive interface, I hope to acquire the services of a graphic designer to truly achieve my vision of the sampler, a part of this is a ‘speech bubble’ style edit window for each slot, Reaktor has recently introduced new mouse over capabilities and I hope to explore these new features and allow the user to summon these edit windows by placing their mouse over each slot.