The creation process of Glow Worm sample packs

This is just a look in the kitchen, it does not contain any instructions. Below you find a detailed description of the creation process of the sample packs.

The process of creating a sample pack consists of the following steps:

1. Creating or finding patches for a given HW synth.
2. Setting up the physical MIDI and audio routing.
3. Setting up SampleRobot defaults.
4. Starting the sampling process.
5. When all patches have been sampled, create instruments in Kontakt.
6. Write a short description of the HW synth, the sample pack and the individual instruments.
7. Combine small sample packs or split large ones.
8. Make back-ups and upload the finalized sample pack to the shop (OneDrive).

Creating or finding patches for a given HW synth

The initial collection of patches may consist of factory presets, home-made patches (instrument name will start with “WB”), patches found on the web, or patches bought from commercial parties such as Kid Nepro (in which case the instrument name will start with KN).

Next a selection will be made, based on quality. Also duplications or very similar patches will be removed.

Setting up the physical MIDI and audio routing

In order to create a private audio patch for the sampling of a given synth, the outputs of the synth are split into an unbalanced path that leads to the monitoring system and, via a DI, a balanced patch that goes straight into the RME interface, which connects to a dedicated computer for the sampling process.

This means that during the sampling process, which may take weeks, the rest of the studio can be used for other activities.

Setting up SampleRobot defaults

The actual sampling is done with a great program called SampleRobot. Check it out, it is worth every penny if you are into sampling SampleRobot 6 | Your Sample Library Creator).

SampleRobot can be set up with a series of defaults, like MIDI interface and channel, audio path, target folder for uploading the samples, thresholds for starting the sample, etc. Setting up those defaults correctly saves a lot of work later in the process.

Starting the sampling process

Now all initial set-up has been done it is time to actually start sampling. After selecting or creating a patch on the synth, the following needs to be considered:

• Remove velocity modulation of the VCA, especially when also the filter is modulated by velocity. In that case SampleRobot will be set up to sample various velocity layers, but the volume of each sample needs to be as high as possible. Later, the velocity sensitivity of the volume can be determined in Kontakt.

• Are the any LFO modulations in place? If so, can the LFO’s involved be synced with the gate trigger (to avoid samples for adjacent keys to become very different). Also in most cases each individual key needs to be sampled when LFO modulations are involved, to avoid differences in LFO frequency when Kontakt needs to calculate frequencies within zones.

• Another consideration in case of LFO modulations is about the speed. The beauty of sampling monophonic synths is that they will finally become polyphonic. However, fast LFO modulations sounding perfectly ok when played monophonically, may sound a lot better with slower LFO speeds when played as chords.

• The release time of the VCA envelope needs to be 0, to avoid that the start of a sample overlaps with the release of the previous one.

• Echo and reverb effects need to be removed, unless they are very characteristic for a patch or synth. Those effects can be added later in Kontakt, and make the later use of the instrument much more flexible.

• Patches which fade out, must be handled with special care. Finding in-audible looping points in a decaying sound is a mission impossible for SampleRobot, despite the brilliant algorithms provided. So either no looping must be selected, or the sustain levels need to be altered.

• Careful listening to the patch when a note is held is required to determine the sampling length. I tend to be on the safe side and use long sampling times to capture all the small fluctuations in the sound, but with 5 sample layers and each key sampled individually, we are easily talking 380 samples. When they are average 25 seconds long, an instrument will easily occupy 1.5 GB. If needed, no problem, but something to take into account.

• Levels need to be checked carefully to avoid clipping. The peak meter provided by SampleRobot comes in handy.

• While SampleRobot is doing its work, it is important to check the graphical representation of the samples to see if the setting have been chosen correctly. If not, fix and redo.

• When SampleRobot is ready, save the project and export for NI Kontakt.

Creating instruments in Kontakt

Creating the actual instruments in Kontakt is another time consuming activity. The following considerations and activities play a role:

• Play the raw material and decide: Is it any good? If not try to fix or delete.

• Check the tuning. I use a Korg DTR-2000 for this. Most instruments can be tuned overall using the central tuning, some synths however appear to be not very accurately calibrated. In that case it may be necessary to tune each individual sample.☹️

• Adjust the amplitude velocity sensitivity. Default is 100%, which means a range from inaudible to max volume. I prefer to set the velocity sensitivity between 50% and 10%, so that notes played softly are still audible, but softer.

• Adjust the pitch bend range to -2 notes down and +2 notes up. The advantage of standardizing this parameter is that when instruments are layered, the behavior of the pitch bend wheel is equal for all layers.

• In almost all cases set the modulation wheel to produce a subtle vibrato with a triangle LFO speed of 6Hz. The maximum vibrato is set using the modulation shaper for which I have created a preset. The advantage of standardizing the vibrato speed and range is that when instruments are layered, the behavior of the modulation wheel is equal for all layers.

• The keyboard range for almost all instruments is stretched from C0 to C7. In case of multi velocity layers the velocity range of each layer is modified as shown in the picture below. This is done so that a maximum sound variation is achieved even when playing loud (mostly high velocity values.

  

• In some cases false triggers, caused by small spikes in the audio connections result in up to 0.5 sec delays before the actual sample starts. In such cases all samples are to be checked and the start point of the sample needs to be adjusted.☹️

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• As patches are sampled with amplitude release set to 0, release time have to be determined in Kontakt, as well as the other envelope parameters in some cases.

• In many cases a limiter is inserted so that for instance a bass sound when played monophonic will hardly affect the limiter, but when chords are played the level will be tempered to avoid clipping. The limiter should always be inaudible.

• Chorus, delay, stereo widener, gainer, etc. will be inserted where that makes sense. Typically, when the HW synth has a build-in chorus, that effect will be used as part of the samples, rather than the Kontakt chorus.

• Kontakt reverb or convolution reverb is added to taste. Like the other effects, those can be removed or altered by the user as required. In most cases the effect send level needs to be turned down to avoid clipping.

• Last but not least the overall volume is to be set, in such a way that it is very unlikely that clipping occurs. So even with lead or bass sounds, you should be able to play chords without clipping.

Write a short description of the HW synth, the sample pack and the individual instruments

Writing a description and add a picture of the HW synth from which the samples have been taken, is of course purely for synth aficionados. The description of each instrument in the sample pack may help finding the right sound for a given project. Included in the description is the number of velocity layers when more than one, if the sound will have no looping and will fade out, if the MW is used for anything else than vibrato, and a short description of the sound itself.

Combine small sample packs or split large ones

Most Glow Worm sample packs consist of around 100 instruments. In some cases it did not make sense to create so many samples and in that case multiple small sample packs are combined in one larger pack. The zip file contains separate folders and descriptions.

Some synths have hundreds of patches sampled. In that case the complete pack is being split into multiple pack from around 100 instruments each. Also the description of the instruments is being split, although the description of the complete set can also be downloaded, for those who purchased the complete set.

Make back-ups and upload the finalized sample pack to the shop (OneDrive)

You can imagine that after all the work done as described above it is essential to make backups of the raw materials (as produced by SampleRobot) and the sample packs with finalized Kontakt instruments. Yes, that requires both discipline and disk space.

Conclusion

When you made it to here, you may wonder why the Glow Worm sample packs are so cheap. Good question indeed… Not because the quality sucks, I can tell you. Try it for yourself.

For a large part this is labor of love, and the collection of synths that have been sampled (and will be sampled in the future) are part of a rather extensive collection that I have build over many years. Those synths have never been purchased with ROI (return of investment) in mind.

I hope you enjoy exploring these sample packs and make good use of it. You can do that without breaking the bank.😊