Multiple samples per custom instrument

[RichieHindle]

(Suggestion from Guy Shaham via Fracebook.)

I know that in the default samples of the module when you trigger them, they cycle through 2 or 3 samples actually, right? Is there a way to create a wav that will do that or that's only with the default samples?

[RichieHindle]

One way to do this would be to use a naming convention, so that if you load "AbsurdWarblingNoise.wav" it would also look for "AbsurdWarblingNoise2.wav", "AbsurdWarblingNoise3.wav" and so on, and load them up as alternative samples.

[RichieHindle]

There are two dimensions to "multiple samples" - Guy's original request was for round-robin, but there's also the question of velocity layers, as requested by David:

"I want to make drum tracks that follow patterns and insert randomness to make a long organic beat. My question is: could I somehow insert multiple custom samples into one voicing to create velocity layers such as you have in the default kit? I am interested in using other percussion instrument samples such as tabla so having the accents triggering another sample would be very useful."

The idea of a naming convention still works, but the numbers would be per-dimension, eg. v1, v2, v3 for velocity layers, and r1, r2, r3 for multiple recordings within a velocity layer. That easily allows for the four possible cases:

• Just one sample with whatever name you like, eg. tabla.wav.
• A set of recordings to be played round-robin (or random-robin), eg. tabla_r1.wav, tabla_r2.wav, tabla_r3.wav.
• A set of recordings for different velocities, eg. tabla_v1.wav, tabla_v2.wav, tabla_v3.wav.
• A set of recordings with multiple recordings per velocity layer: tabla_v1_r1.wav, tabla_v1_r2.wav, tabla_v2_r1.wav, tabla_v2_r2.wav.

All the samples should have normalised volumes, so they are all equally loud. The quieter velocity layers should not actually be quieter - they will have their volume set on playback.

That would make custom samples just as powerful as the built-in kit in terms of expressiveness.

[RichieHindle]

Well this is embarrassing, but in a good way... it turns out that I implemented this feature request back in 2021, but never marked the issue as resolved, never updated the documentation, and then forgot all about it. 😃

I'll leave this issue open until I get the chance to update the documentation.

[RichieHindle]

The documentation at http://entrian.com/audio/entrian-acoustic-drums.html now describes this feature.