Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[Augie]

Hi all. I have the Jamboree bundle and am close to having some eminently useable kits for my recordings in Cubase. I've been looking into Battery 3 (seemed good bang for buck) but have been counseled that load times can be long and it might not be the best choice. I've found that the Yamaha Stage Custom kit in JS sounds just great with some outboard compression in the right places. In fact, given the price, I am stupefied by just how good the drums can be especially when they sit properly in a mix. I think I need to become more facile in setting up JS with more than 4 outputs in Cubase SL3 and Studio 4 (I really need 6-10 per song) and that would help too.

My Biggest Problem: I'm having trouble finding a nice, fat punchy pop/rock kick sound that really cuts through a mix. Given the range of drums Ralph has provided in the sample sets, are there any favorites I may be missing out on? I do NOT want metal sounds (one reason I really do not like the stock kits in the otherwise very nice DFH Superior), but solid pop and rock sounds. I've been considering Battery 3 and/or BFD to augment JS (and now Ralph has me considering Addictive Drums too, too many choices ), but have been very happy so far with what JS provides on it's own. Given that JS2 is coming out and presumably will extend my possibilities, I'm wondering if I just haven't experimented around enough inside JS available samples.

I know this has to be me, not JS. Also, I'm not expecting these samples to eclipse those in BFD, DFH, RMX, etc. - It's just that I've been incredibly surprised at how useful they are and that up to now I've not needed to invest in another program. Given that there are tons of drum programs out there and this is a highly subjective issue, please feel free to be as opinionated as possible. If someone feels strongly that a certain sound is really cool with certain settings on the appropriate tabs and sliders in JS I would LOVE to hear about it.

Any feedback from the JS user community would be welcome, and thank you in advance. This Forum is just chock full of useful info, and I must go on record again as saying that Ralph is the single most "engaged" developer I've ever encountered. His on and off-line support are unmatched and I wanted to publicly say thank you to him.

[darcyb62]

You might want try adding Digital Fishphones Blockfish to your channel. I use it all the time to great effect....
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darcyb62

[Augie]

Thanks - I'll give that a shot, I have Blockfish in my VST's.

[Ralph [RZ]]

I've just been working on the MIDI import function in Jamstix 2 and had to switch back and forth between Jamstix (SnarePak Bright Kit), Addictive Drums and EZDrummer. Maybe it's just me but I was surprised how pleasant the SnarePak kit sounded, especially with bossa rhythms. The highly processed sounds of EZDrummer and AD seemed almost 'cartoonish' by comparison.

I'm not trying to put those products down at all, I like them very much. I'm also not trying to blow the horn for the Jamstix Paks too much but it's just a thing that I've noticed and many users as well. Especially the combo kits that come with SnarePak seem very useful, flexible and 'neutral' to me.

The bad news is that there is almost no kit in the Jamstix arsenal today that gives the deep, punch modern sound. This is an omission that will be rectified with Jamstix 2. We're recording the JS2 kick with five mics (two ambience, two close mic resonance side, one D112 in the drum) and will mix two versions, one with a good balance of close stereo and D112 and another with the D112 being dominant which will give us that modern punchy sound.

In the meantime, check out the 'SnarePak Bright Kit' mapping, edit the kick in the mapping tab to have zero ambience and tune it down a bit.
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Ralph Zeuner
Rayzoon Technologies LLC
http://www.rayzoon.com

[Augie]

Thanks, Ralph, You've confirmed what I'd had at the back of my mind on this. Honestly, the $200-$500 I'd be spending for packages that I frankly don't need based on the results I'm getting could be put to much better use anyway. Now that I know you'll be doing a more solid kick in JS2, I'll just patiently wait. It really isn't that urgent of a matter, I certainly don't owe some major label an album anyway

I'd rather spend the $$ on another Glyph drive if I'm going to spend it anyway. I have been astonished at the performance difference I've gotten by switching my Cubase projects over to a Glyph drive from another well-known brand. It's almost unbelievable. I'd rather spend the money on good hardware anyway or just NOT spend it at all.