On the topic of 44kHz vs. 48kHz. I think you are right and that Orba wants 48kHz by default. I just noticed that the PanDrum Lead Preset I made seems approximately a semitone out of true pitch. I never really paid attention to the samples since I found them online and just accepted them as is. I wonder if the difference between 44kHz and 48kHz would be about a semitone.
The difference is about 1.5 semitones. There's a legendary performance of Valen Halen's "Jump" where the keyboard backing track was played at 48KHz instead of 44KHz.
https://youtu.be/LCIyeXn1sKQ?t=169
Okay, here is my attempt into hang drum preset, sorry for questionable skills in advance:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mfmmSMcB_o8
I guess it lacks velocity-defined samples as a next step, also probably I should try finding some other samples to try out other scales ( I do not believe that transposing samples to get other scales would be any good due to the wrong harmonics) and tinker with other xml values.
But I really love working muting-by-holding-a-finger, first notes in video are played that way. Could not find any real musical value in that yet, but it feels pretty right.
Imitating hang drum on orba was my first dream when I saw it, and here we are.
Thank you guys for the information you provided here, it helped a lot.
I converted my samples to 48kHz and problem solved. Note to Self: Much easier to work with 48kHz and avoid pitch math since pitch/note tables are published all over the internet. Sharing my beta Preset.
Steps to Install:
What I am thinking of as a kind of theoretical possibility - there are tons of SoundFont instruments out there in the wild (SF2). Literally, gigabytes.
SoundFont is somewhat similar to what we have got in orba2 - couple of samples and their assignments to notes.
Could be an interesting challenge to be able to do some converter from SF2 to orba format.
Maybe these SF2 instruments are not that impressive compared to the modern Kontakt libraries - it is till a big legacy library of sample based instruments, that are not that much heavy on the sample size, as SoundFont comes from the 90th era, when people were limited by their PCs the same way as we are in Orba2, and SoundFont first of all was developed as a way to override standard midi bank sounds on ancient audio cards and stuff.
While converting beloved samples by hand to the Orba presets is still quite cool, possibility to generate presets from SoundFonts could be a giant leap ahead, by providing thousands of already existing sampled instruments via only one tool.
Absolutely Agree! There is also the EXS File Format that is similar. It defines mapping audio files to note ranges and supports layering for velocity thresholds but has many other features such as articulations. I don't think Orba can support articulations but maybe. Think about a saxophone that plays clean notes as you play but adds growl as you radiate. This can be done externally (MPE) for example with the GeoShred Preset.
This could potentially be done internally if you could assign two samples to the same range and use a controller to blend between the two.
I'm currently piecing together parts of code I need to create a Python script. This script will take a reference to a folder of .wav files as input. It will then sort the wavs in the folder based on tokenized pitches and velocities and generate the <SampleSet> node. I should be done by next week but haven't had much time. I'd like to build several Presets to work out the process. I'm planning to share the script in a new Custom Preset Forum I'm going to start at the same time.
I have 3 a.m here, so I am a little bit short on testing possibilities, but seems to me that I've found a possible workaround for this problem.
This broken configuration as below:
Can be fixed by adding the same sample into group twice, so there will be no decrease in group members amount in the sequence. I mean, all the groups have the same amount of samples.
velocityThresholds="[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90],[90]"
sampleMap="[0,0],[1,1],[2,3],[4,4],[5,5],[6,7],[8,9],[10,11],[12,13],[14,14],[15,15],[16,16],[17,17],[18,18],[19,19],[20,21],[22,23],[24,25],[26,27],[28,29],[30,31],[32,33],[34,34],[35,35]
Thanks, I'll take a look at the samples to see if they are recorded low. There might be some volume related attributes too for me to look at. The samples I found were recorded at 5-7 levels for each of the notes they recorded. So the ones at lower velocities are naturally quieter. I may want to try to normalize them a bit so the more quiet samples are closer to the louder ones.. Who knew developing a good Preset would be so much work.. I guess that's why Artiphon partnered with another company :)
@Ignis32
I had a chance to download your FreePatsHang Drum Preset and play with it a bit. Its Nice! I really like the muting feature and it seems to have some basic velocity that the notes get louder with more velocity. :) A few packaging suggestions.. It looks like most of the Preset images are 500px x 500px (but it probably doesn't matter since your image worked). I noticed that your folder in the SamplePools doesn't have a UUID but it appears to be standard for the User folder (see what happens when you use the app to make a custom sample preset). Also I think it will be best to wrap everything in a Common folder so that one can simply drag the Common folder into the Artiphon folder and install in one action. I'm curious what you used to generate UUID for the .artiPreset file since it contains the UUID in the file itself? I just grabbed the MD5 of the file with UUID="" and then once I had the hash value I inserted it back into the file.
I'm going to start a new Forum on the weekend: Orba 2 Preset Makers Forum. I think there is a lot to discuss there and still many things to figure out. I have lots of theories to discuss.. For example Drum Presets seem to support bends and flams :)
As far as I remember, I'd installed it with an app, more or less without problems.
BTW, I'd played quite a lot with your preset today, as it is cool. And it feels like it is a bit quieter than other presets around - had to set volume on max and reduce volume for others, to hear it in a mix.
@Ignis32
I had a look at the Drum attributes and you are correct they seem exclusive to Drum Presets. For melodic sounds there were a few attributes that contained the word "Hold" and "Release" but I haven't messed with these yet.
I chose 3 levels of velocity for each pad but I have more samples and I could add more. I'm still undecided on this.
I'm curious if you installed manually or if the app allowed you to add?
@Subskybox
I've checked out your preset and I love the velocity-defined samples and possibility to do vibrato. (Not sure if it works for real-life Pan, but I know it is possible to do something similar with Rav Vast).
Finger muting seems to be a Drums exclusive feature at this point, but it would be nice if I am wrong, still trying to find any param responsible for that for Lead.
Goddamn, it is the first forum in my life that does not allow editing your own posts..
..Forgot to mention it works with Key changes so you can choose any key + Major/Minor modes. I have it set to Pentatonic at the moment but my next step is to see if I can get custom scales like we could do with Orba 1.
Can't wait to try your preset! Yes editing is crap. You can copy the content of an old post, then delete it and re-paste the content into a new post.. But lame.
Chris Hernandez
Hi Artiphon,
Any updates on whether/when there will be added functionality to the Orba 2 app allowing for user-customizable drum presets? I realize there are only 2gb of space available, but would love even just 2-4 customizable preset slots on the desktop app where I could assign all 9 keys. I primarily use my Orba 2 for on-the-go songwriting, and having a drum kit that matches the sound(s) I'm going for would be huge.
I realize that in order for the functionality to fully transfer on iOS, the user would probably need to send the drum sample files with unmodified file names to the associated preset folder on their phone. I've already done this with custom bass presets from OrbaSynth and I don't think it would be a problem for anyone with mid-level technical prowess. I think this feature would exponentially boost the value of the Orba 2 for anyone interested in quick, on-the-go production.
I'm about to write another request/problem I'm having with OrbaSynth, which is otherwise incredibly useful from a production standpoint. Planning on making a youtube review video as well. Thanks for keeping the updates coming, super excited for what's to come!
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