As much as I love my AR and have zero complaints about its sound, I’ve struggled in the 3/4 of a year that I’ve owned it in terms of establishing a quick work flow setting up a kit. Idea being: the best way to quickly browse through drums, get a kit up and get going on making music.
I have tons of great samples loaded, many of which are chains. But the process of previewing samples, getting them loaded to the appropriate pads and saved into a kit has been cumbersome to me - especially with sample chains. In their case I need to preview the chain; listen to the sounds while counting; determine the number (position w/in chain) of the sample I want; cross reference the (most excellent) AR slice calculator for the right start and end points; turn the sample on, volume up; etc.
Up until now, I haven’t used “sounds” at all, hadn’t saved a single one. I thought their primary use was for sound locks and this isn’t a functionality I’ve needed. 8 voices/12 pads has always been plenty for me. But after OB was released, I started drooling over the sound browser and the potential for access to the +drive sound library with tags and all that. I always wished the samples could be accessed the same way.
But it’s just dawned on me (and I know I can be a bit slow)…I can save all my samples as sounds, and then I’ll have the instant access I want! Admittedly, this process of turning samples into sounds will be time consuming, but I think it’s going to be worth it. It’s pretty easy with chains: load one up for example to the BD machine. Figure out what your chain start/end increments are. Set up the sample parameter the way you want them (a bit of OD for volume, sample level, track level, amp level where they need to be for punch), synth volume down for me as I can add this in later as needed…and then name the sound in the OB sound settings, assign the tags you want, hit enter, tab to OB sound browser, and drag the newly set up sound into whatever bank you wish for your +drive. Go back and repeat, only changing the name (for chains I keep the same name but increment up the number at the end) and advancing the start/end points to the next sample in the chain.
What I think I’m going to get out of the enormous amount of work this will take to do right: the ability to quickly make great kits independent of what project I’m in. Sounds saved in the +drive are available across all projects regardless of what samples are currently loaded. So I can create a quick basic pattern in a brand new init project, just hearing the default AR sounds. And then within the OB sound browser, select a track and just start clicking through various sounds as they instantly populate to the pads. And I can filter with tags to hone in on what I’m looking for.
It would be great if you could make your own tags…feature request.
So…duh, I already knew this and so does everyone else? too much work and hassle? maybe a good idea?