My colleague Daniel Scholz and I started developing sample libraries about eight years ago. In the beginning, Daniel wanted to have a drum sample library that could be triggered using MIDI and deliver each microphone on an individual track to allow maximum flexibility when mixing, and this work ultimately led to the release of our Drumasonic drum sample library series (www.drumasonic.com). Since then, our philosophy has been to create sample libraries which are as true to the acoustic instrument as they can be, and which use as little post-processing as possible to achieve very ‘honest’ recordings.
Looking for a marketing and sales partner, we approached Native Instruments, but as they already had their own drum sample library series, we switched to guitar sample libraries instead. Looking back on three co-operations (Strummed Acoustic, Strummed Acoustic 2 and Electric Sunburst), it can be said that joining forces probably raised the quality of the end result, bringing together NI’s expertise in creating user-friendly products and GUIs and our dedication to details regarding sound quality and the authenticity of the emulation. Another key factor was the very committed and persistent guitarists who lent patterns, in-depth knowledge of their instruments and their musical gut feeling in extensive listening tests.
There are really no shortcuts to signal quality, so for every project we combine an artistic approach with science: we record as many options as possible and carry out extensive double-blind test sessions to determine all the factors that contribute to the best sound possible. This includes the selection of instrument, room, cables, preamps, converters and mics, and microphone placement. Now that we’ve specialised in guitars, we also compare different sets of strings and plectrums, and even factors such as temperature and humidity. The goal is to have a setup that is completely controlled and can be fully recalled whenever we record new content, in order to achieve the best consistency possible. Under those conditions, it is remarkable how obviously even the slightest change anywhere in the system affects the sound, be it for better or worse.
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After extensive shoot-outs, SPL Gain Station preamps and SPL Madison converters, running through an RME Madiface XT, were chosen for the final recordings. Using high-end recording equipment makes a difference — but attention to detail makes a bigger difference! This meticulous approach leads us to interesting discoveries which wouldn’t occur during a conventional recording session. A band are rarely patient enough to wait for a guitarist to do test recordings in 15 different positions in the room, or to try seven instrument cables through 15 different DI boxes and/or preamps! Sometimes we’d find out things by accident; for example, who would have thought that many instruments have an individual sweet spot regarding the exact temperature and humidity? There seems to be always a particular combination of temperature, humidity, mic position, set of strings, plectrum and so on where everything falls into place and the signal is just so good that there’s simply no point in trying to optimise anything any more. When we try different EQ and compression settings and realise in the end that the pure signal is still better than any modification thereof, we know we’re there.
When we’re evaluating a setup, there are four factors we consider. The first of these is ‘spectral evenness’: the instrument should sound consistent over its complete playable pitch and dynamic range. The second is solid low end, which relates to the first factor. I’d like to quote the great sound engineer Michael Stavrou, who writes in his book Mixing With Your Mind: “If the bass is right, the rest will fall in place.” When playing a chromatic scale in the lowest octave of the instrument, the bass of each individual note should be equally thick and solid. If some notes are really boomy and others sound more thin or bright, that’s a bad sign. It means that phase cancellation is affecting the root frequency of that note to a certain degree. Other overtones can still happen to be in phase, which leads to an uneven tone that always seems to have audible resonances in the overtone structure while being less punchy.
The solid low end of each instrument in a mix contributes greatly to the groove of a production, as only a note with a solid, in-phase low end seems to be able to ‘push’ the listener and make them want to move to the music. A solid low end is like pushing someone while a bad low end is more like slapping someone with a flat hand: it tends to hurt while not transferring the same physical energy as a solid kick in the butt!
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The third factor is solid and well-balanced transients. The attacks of each individual note are probably the most important bits of a recording. If the transients are too strong in relation to the decay, the instrument will need some kind of compression and, depending on the frequency spectrum of the sound, corrective equalisation, to sound acceptable. If the transients are too weak, it is harder locate the instrument in a dense mix. In either case it will be hard to find the right volume for the instrument in a mix, as a part of the instrument will always seem to be either too loud or not loud enough. If you put the mic directly in front of the soundhole, many guitars deliver transients in the low end that are too strong, while pointing the mic exactly at the place where the plectrum hits the strings will deliver transients with too much high-frequency content, especially with newer strings.
As a last resort, these things can be fixed to some degree with multiband compression, but nobody wants that! We want a sound that is so well-balanced that we don’t feel the desire to fix it with effects processors. So, while moving the mic around we’d look for positions with a solid, consistent low end rather than an aggressive, ‘slap-in-your-face’ sound. The loudest spot is not necessarily the best, but a solid sustain for each note in the lowest register is a very good sign.
The final factor is the room sound. When you’re recording acoustic guitars for a specific production, it can be appropriate to capture quite a lot of room reflections, but for sample libraries it makes sense to record a rather dry signal, as this provides the most flexibility for users to add reverb afterwards. There is a significant psychoacoustic effect at work here, which I call the ‘room within a room’ effect. Just as we register the size and shape of a room when looking at it with our eyes, our ears also provide us with information about a room’s size, what materials it’s made of and what objects are in it. If you stand in the middle of an empty gymnasium and clap your hands once, you’ll hear first the direct sound of the clap, followed by a reflection from the floor. Your brain doesn’t really care about this floor reflection, as it is so used to you standing on a floor. Then there’s a moment of silence while the sound travels to the walls, hits them, gets reflected and travels back to you, before you hear the first reflections from the walls. From then on, the sound gets reflected back and forth between the different walls, floor and ceiling, until it dies away. The most interesting bit for your brain is the moment when the first reflections come back from the wall. The time between your initial clap and the first reflections reveals to your brain how big the room is, while the tone of the reverberation suggests what materials the walls are made of, and so on.
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If you decide to put artificial reverb on such a recording, you can choose a type of reverb which returns early reflections earlier than the ones in the original recording. Adding enough of such a reverb will eventually lead to the perception of a smaller room. However, if your reverb has a longer pre-delay than the original room, it will still be the early reflections already present in your recording that strike the ear first. This is not necessarily a problem in a big room, but when recording in a small, not so pleasant-sounding, room you’d better be careful to stop those nasty early reflections of your small room making it to the recording medium. Once they’re on there, there’s nothing you can do to make your recording sound bigger than it was.
NI’s Strummed Acoustic features samples of a Martin D35 dreadnought guitar from 1973, while two different guitar models were sampled for Strummed Acoustic 2: a Martin O-17 from 1930 and a Guild F412 12-string built in the 1960s. To create a big sound in a small room, then, it’s necessary to use wide-band absorbers to reduce the amount of early reflections on the recording, as these will give away the size of the room. With a dry recording, you can then use artificial reverb to convincingly recreate a different acoustic space. If the raw recording is too wet, adding further reverb will create the perception of a ‘small room within a large room’, which our brain will most likely consider muddy or not transparent. A drier signal needs less reverb to sound ‘big’ than a signal with early reflections from a small room, because you need to turn up the artificial reverb
If you decide to put artificial reverb on such a recording, you can choose a type of reverb which returns early reflections earlier than the ones in the original recording. Adding enough of such a reverb will eventually lead to the perception of a smaller room. However, if your reverb has a longer pre-delay than the original room, it will still be the early reflections already present in your recording that strike the ear first. This is not necessarily a problem in a big room, but when recording in a small, not so pleasant-sounding, room you’d better be careful to stop those nasty early reflections of your small room making it to the recording medium. Once they’re on there, there’s nothing you can do to make your recording sound bigger than it was.
NI’s Strummed Acoustic features samples of a Martin D35 dreadnought guitar from 1973, while two different guitar models were sampled for Strummed Acoustic 2: a Martin O-17 from 1930 and a Guild F412 12-string built in the 1960s. To create a big sound in a small room, then, it’s necessary to use wide-band absorbers to reduce the amount of early reflections on the recording, as these will give away the size of the room. With a dry recording, you can then use artificial reverb to convincingly recreate a different acoustic space. If the raw recording is too wet, adding further reverb will create the perception of a ‘small room within a large room’, which our brain will most likely consider muddy or not transparent. A drier signal needs less reverb to sound ‘big’ than a signal with early reflections from a small room, because you need to turn up the artificial reverb
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