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Topic: Yet another percussion question !! Mallet Rolls (Read 7532 times) previous topic - next topic

Yet another percussion question !! Mallet Rolls

Has ANYONE ever come up with a super way to get Mallet rolls on a cymbal to give that mellow, non-staccato "swish" sound over a couple or more measures WITHOUT hearing the tap of the stick on the cymbal for every 32nd (or less) note that is notated? I have several things I'm trying to sequence and while I'd LOVE to use a nice soft mallet cymbal swish, all I have ever been able to get is (the same) thing I get with Tympani rolls - TOO perfect and TOO staccato to sound legit. I even tried (and came real close but no cigar) using a REVERSE cymbal patch but still couldn't avoid the tap-tap-tap etc. of the stick on the cymbal. Are there NO mallet patches around that will do this does anyone know? I'm determined to make this work one day. But any help would be greatly appreciated. It's frustrating.

By the way, whoever figured out the slur so we could actually do Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (the sweeping clarinet at the start) you're to be commended. Thanks. Now can someone come up with a way to do this mallet cymbal swish too? Here's a challenge for yunz!!

Bill Barto

Re: Yet another percussion question !! Mallet Rolls

Reply #1 –
About rhapsody in Blue, I think Fred had sent a small NWC file that started like that.

About mallet, I don't know what you're talking about, except if you're talking about maillet, but it may be a language problem :) I do not know any patch about it, but what you could do is ask a friend that really plays drums to record one, and put it as sound fonts.
Or edit your soundfont and remove the beginning of the sample, leaving it without the 'tic' :)

Re: Yet another percussion question !! Mallet Rolls

Reply #2 –
Marsu,

I think this
will clear up your linguistic query.

However, your solution (to kill the initial attack on the cymbal hit) is probably the most practical one.

Bob

Re: Yet another percussion question !! Mallet Rolls

Reply #4 –
THANKS so far for the responses folks. I do appreciate the replies. I've been discussing this with Fred as well and it appears that since Noteworthy one has ONE Channel 10 percussion track, that his "overlap" idea that he used with the clarinet slide won't work. But I do like the idea of eliminating the "tap" of the stick on the cymbal however how would YOU attempt that since it's almost required to use 32nd or 64th notes to create the full measure or multiple measures of this long cymbal swish? That means you'd have to eliminate the tap of the cymbal from EVERY 32nd or 64th note you key in - am I correct in assuming that?

Anyway, I know this will stay up till archived and I will continue to try to make this work somehow so if anyone has any other ideas please post. But thanks for those who have so far.

Bill Barto

Re: Yet another percussion question !! Mallet Rolls

Reply #5 –
Just a note in case there's any misconception: The reason that NWC has only one percussion channel (ch. 10) is that there /is/ only one such channel, as defined in the General Midi spec.

My first suggest to Bill was to use the multiple notes, but at a very low velocity (pp to p), adjusting the other staff channel volumes lower to compensate (allowing "normal" velocities to be used for natural-sounding attack timbres).

Just had another thought: if you have one of the soundcards that supports two or more midi devices (such as SBLive!) that are otherwise identical, then the "ping-pong" approach would work by alternating between devices (instead of between channels, as in the slide demo).

Fred

Re: Yet another percussion question !! Mallet Rolls

Reply #6 –
>Noteworthy one has ONE Channel 10 percussion track

If I understand this correctly, this is inaccurate. You can have multiple staves (parts) that all use MIDI channel 10. Nothing in NWC stops you.

Re: Yet another percussion question !! Mallet Rolls

Reply #7 –
You're right. I am confusing terms. NOTEWORTHY doesn't have only ONE channel 10. General MIDI as Fred says has only one channel 10. YOu CAN have multiple staves all assigned to channel 10 but whether or not you can utilize this same kind of "slide" that Fred came up with for the clarinet is questionable. I'm still trying however. I AM going to beat this monster that's bugged me for so long. Why General Midi is soooo limited when they COULD have done much more in the way of instrumentation is beyond me. I don't know that much about it but I have to believe that it could have been better since not everyone has modules, keyboards or anything more than their computers with which to make music.

Thanks again to all for the added ideas and thoughts. Still plugging away trying to make it work.

Bill

Re: Yet another percussion question !! Mallet Rolls

Reply #8 –
Yes, GM is limited. However, keep in mind that it's a very old protocol. It did leave room for a lot of features that were originally deemed un-necessary by many, and this is really the only reason it's lived as long as it has. If nothing else, its restriction to 16 channels and bitrate of 30-odd kbits/sec make it challenging at best to compose/realise more complex musics.

Yamaha and Roland both came up with proprietary (yet partially compatible) midi extensions, while other manufacturers have used their own System Exclusive (sysex) controls to accomplish more than the GM spec allows.

In a way, it's gotten even worse... There has been ongoing work on a new Midi II spec, but the last time I looked (a couple years ago) there was little agreement on how it should be implemented. Each special interest group and major manufacturer has its own agenda, with the result that there's little room for consensus.

Like it or not, it seems that the present midi spec is the best we can hope for in the foreseeable future. :-(

Fred

Re: Yet another percussion question !! Mallet Rolls

Reply #9 –
Marsu, have you tried Audio Compositor? I think a 300MHz PC would not be able to render complex files in real time, but you can process any MIDI with any sf2-type soundfont and listen to the results as a WAV file.

hth,

Bob

Re: Yet another percussion question !! Mallet Rolls

Reply #10 –
I agree with Fred about Midi: it's an "ancient" norm, if we can call ancient things that are +/- 20 years old. But it works, even better than hoped.
About how to suppress the attack: I had in mind to edit the soundfont itself, but as I don't have a card (nor software) which is capable of soundfont-ing, I do not know if this is possible. Suppose so though. At worst, you can re-create a new one by recording all the different souns to create a new one; in which you will edit the wav file for your mallet sound, cutting off the attack.
It's funny, because doing this with an old amig aor atari would be easy... Hope there is a solution for editing/modifying soundfont --I do not mean while playing, but once for all. Just as you would "prepare" a piano to make special honky-tonk or Cage's music. You don't do it will playing ;)

BTW, does someone know a software that allows my PC (AMD K6 3D 300MHz, W95/3.11) to use soundfonts? I'm now using Yamaha softsynth to enhance(/Replace!) my SB16. But I still can't hear properly the wonderful orks that use Organ soundfonts for example...