The story
A ‘found’ drum kit made for the Pianobook/LABS Afrorack Discord Challenge.
I’ve taken all the percussive sounds I could find in the raw material and made them into a rudimentary GM drum kit.
Where possible I’ve managed to lift similar sounds to give 4 round robins although in places some of these are repeats.
I’ve processed the resulting set of samples in a variety of ways similar to one of my earlier sample packs to give 4 different signals which can me mixed as required.
I’d be fascinated to see if someone can find a use for it.
The instrument uses the note assignments associated with GM Dumkits. That is:
B0 – Kick
C1 – Kick
C#1 – Rim Shot
D1 – Snare
D#1 – Snare
E1 – Snare
F1 – Low Tom
F#1 – Closed Hihat
G1 – Low Tom
G#1 – Open Hihat
A1 – Mid Tom
A#1 – Pedal Hihat
B1 – Mid Tom
C2 – High Tom
C#2 – Crash
D2 – High Tom
D#2 – Ride
E2 – Splash
In places the sounds are ‘loose interpretations’!
The matrix of faders on the GUI allows the mixing of the four available signals (original, -8va, +8va, reversed) between the 5 areas of the kit (kick, snare, hihats, toms, cymbals).
Reviews for Far Croak Percussion
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
Lo-Fi Beat-y Goodness
A fantastic and highly playable beat kit which has a slightly rusty and grungy flavour. Though the uses are limited, the quality of the editing and options available in the FX make this pack very enjoyable to use. The only thing I would add is an ADSR control to get more variation in the tightness of the samples within- well done!
Quite quirky, decidedly dreamy, and completely cool!
When being a grumpy old synthesist was somewhere way off in the far distant future, I remember that memory was so tiny, and samples were so short, that round-robins were a crazy dream for all but the richest musicians. And here we are in that halcyon time, where a free 'found' percussion sample pack has up to four round-robins!
I'm intrigued that more people haven't used anagrams of Afrorack in their virtual instrument names, so 'Far Croak' is very welcome (I was expecting at least one modular synth-oriented submission: 'For a Rack'!). Even more so, because in a contest full of dystopian pads (a curious metaphor!), a 'found' drum set is like a breath of fresh... percussion!
18 sounds, some with 4 round-robins, some with 2 (or at least, that's what my ears tell me...), and lots of variations, laid out in a very neat grid (full marks for ingenuity, there!). That's what you get, and some of them are very nice. I loved one of the four Kicks at B0, although the C1 Kick may be more conventional. The C#1 rimshot is...unusual, but usable. Some of the D1 Snares are good, but the D#1 Snare is exceptional in every way - even ways in which you aren't expecting. But the real stand-out (runner-up) for me was the F1 Low Tom, which is complex and not at all what I expected, which is always a sign of a good drum set.
But full kudos goes to the amazing D2 High Tom, a pair of samples which go together perfectly as a 2 step 'clippity clop' sequence. A complete rhythm section in just two sounds, and if you add the 'Original' and "Reverse' options, then you are totally in 'You haven't heard this drum sound before' territory, especially if you close it with the C2 High Tom.
Fun, found!
Unusual, tick!
Novel? Definitely!
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An SFX-based drum kit
This is a very different kind of a drum kit. It features a very raw set of sounds that are gritty, textured and just plain different than your average garage-like drum kit. It has tons of character and it plays nicely, featuring the generic midi drum mapping. Inside the GUI you will find some octave-sliders that will let you greatly change the tone of all the groups individually. The reverse slider is also quite good and fun!
You will also find filter, reverb and delay settings, but in my opinion, it sounds best when it's completely raw!
A nice Industrial / Trashcan style kit
A neat little kit plundered from the Afrorack samples. The kick and less-fruity snare sounds are especially usable. There are a number of useful controls (pitch-shifting and reversed samples) to customise the individual parts, though I found the cymbals/hats and toms hard to adapt to a sound I wanted even with these. Some kind of individual group filters or EQ (though I don't know if the latter is viable in DS) could help here, though there is always the option of individually tracking and EQing the kit-parts in the DAW for more customisation. There also appear to be RRs on the toms with quite different qualities; I would personally prefer to have these sounds mapped separately for a bit more predictability / reproducibility in the sounds.
Overall though a cool, fun and useable kit. Great job!
