Composer turned sample developer Wilbert Roget, II has just released a new ‘indie’ sample library called Impact:Steel. We spoke with him to find out more about how and why he created the library and how creating his own sample libraries plays into his composition.

CDM: First, can you tell us a bit about your background, and how you got into composing and music?

Wilbert Roget, II:Well to keep things short, I’m basically a lifer with music and composition, studying piano early on and doing improvisations almost immediately (if not before). I decided on film and video game composition as a career sometime in high school, and went on to study composition, orchestration, and conducting at Yale University. I’ve been scoring films, games, ads, and various other projects ever since.

CDM:What got you into sample library creation – specifically for Impact: Steel?

WR:I’ve been making my own samples ever since I’d been scoring video games, back in the DLS era. I created Impact: Steel specifically because I had lots of musical ideas for my soundtracks that would’ve used metallic percussion, but no commercially-available libraries had the kind of instruments I wanted. Several years ago, I’d recorded a few metal objects I found in my room into a useful (albeit low-quality) soundfont, which ended up being the inspiration for Impact: Steel as it is now.

As a side note, it wasn’t until about halfway through production that I decided to release it commercially instead of keeping it private.

CDM:What goes into making a sample library? Did you just collect a bunch of noisemakers and record them, or did you have some kind of a plan before recording?

WR:Actually, I’d been collecting most of these “instruments” for years – I have a weird habit of just tapping on things and taking note of what kind of sound it makes. Since I already had the instruments, I had a good idea right away of what kinds of articulations I’d use. Each instrument is heavily multisampled, with up to 9 velocity layers and 3 round robin variations per each of the 73 different articulations (on different parts of the instrument, with different beaters, rolls, scrapes, tremolos, etc.). So I really needed a detailed outline on paper that detailed what exactly to play, in what order, specifying mixer settings and even microphone distances.

CDM:Can you tell us a bit about the process of recording your samples?

WR:Sure! As I mentioned before, it’s almost impossible to do any kind of a large-scale project without a printed cue sheet. Mine even had specifics on the number of variations, “safety” takes, exact playing position on the instruments, and so on. I’d say once you’ve done that, it’s a good idea to do several prototype recordings, not only to check levels but also to get a sense of how it’ll sound in your sampler of choice.

As for the actual recording phase, I recommend trying to do as much as possible in one take, and splitting the files up later. This helps maintain a consistent sound throughout the instrument, which is crucial for getting an organic, convincingly realistic patch. If you made a cue sheet, it should be very easy to figure out exactly what’s playing when you’re editing the large recording files.

And again I really think it’s a great idea to have a good sense of what kind of a sound you’ll want in the end. In my case, I knew I wasn’t gonna get a huge “recorded in a giant hangar” sound, and I also didn’t want a pristine and surgically-dry tone either. So instead I adjusted my mixer, EQ settings, and mic positions to get a nice room sound, not too dry and with some air/ambience. EQing at the recording stage (ie. right on the mixer) also gave my samples a clearer and more powerful bass, with high end presence as well.

CDM:From the point of raw samples, what comes next?

WR:After the recording phase, there’s the editing phase and then the implementation and sampling phase. In editing, you’re basically splitting it up into samples and doing whatever post-processing you’ll need. Sampling is where you plug all the samples into your sampler of choice.

In my case, I threw the samples into Kontakt 2 and played around with them a lot before going back and post-processing them; this helped to get a sense of what kinds of edits and effects I’d need. The final product sounds remarkably different as a result, and I almost never needed to use real-time effects in Kontakt to compensate.

I’ll also point out that I wrote demo tracks not only to show off the library, but also to get firsthand experience with it myself. This helped me figure out what kinds of tweaks the end users were likely to implement, and it gave me a lot of ideas for making the library more ergonomic and playable.

CDM:Do you find that creating samplebanks is easier in one particular format vs. another?

WR:I’m not sure how diplomatic I should be here, but, far and away Kontakt 2 was the best editor I’ve ever worked with. I’ve used lots of other editors in the past, starting off with soundfonts and DLS, and Gigastudio; nothing really compares to how powerful and easy it was to build patches in Kontakt 2. In fact, I think I’ve built new Kontakt instruments for every one of my recent film soundtracks, either editing an existing patch to fit a certain musical context or even inventing something completely new. It’s highly addictive!

CDM:What makes Impact: Steel different from some of the other ‘junk percussion’ libraries available?

WR:I think the fundamental difference is that I never really considered Impact: Steel as being “junk percussion”, but rather a library built around the concept of metallic percussion instruments. One effect is that I:S is made of detailed, organic and ergonomically playable instruments, instead of being a collection of single hits and sound effects. Additionally, its basis on an abstract concept also meant that I could include a diverse range of patches that fit the idea of a metallic sound world, such as textures, swells, colossal hits and other FX patches.

CDM:From a business perspective, what’s next for Impact: Steel? Do you plan on marketing, licensing or selling the library to a larger company, what types of distribution, etc.

WR:At the moment, I’m handling all sales and marketing through my own sample development company, Impact Soundworks. I already have some other sample library ideas in mind for the months to come, so stay tuned!

CDM:Do you have any recommendations or advice for other composers or creators who might like to try their hand at creating a sample library?

WR:I think every composer should try and make some of their own samples, or at least tweak their existing commercial libraries so that they’re less recognizable. Ultimately I only made Impact: Steel just to give my own music a new and unique sound that hadn’t been done before. My advice to people trying to make a commercial library is to choose a subject that hasn’t been done a million times already, or at least take a different approach to it.

Our take: I’ve been playing with Impact:Steel for a little over a week now and it has already found a place in my regular sample library. As the demos on the site suggest, it works extremely well to add metallic flavor and impact to your compositions. I’ve found it really wants to be ‘played’ – that is, I find it hard to not want to smash my keys while I’m playing with the samples! Those with something like the M-Audio Trigger Finger or some Roland drum-pads will be greatly rewarded with the playability and musicality of this library. Here’s an excerpt from ambient demo I’m working on now, showcasing some of the ‘Clang Ensembles’ from Impact:Steel. Be sure to check out the official site for more. Enjoy!

Demo

Koi-beat: Manual rhythm-making machine in the shape of a carp. Inputted-rhythm by the switch is output at 100V.
Glass-Carp: Compact,easy-to-play carp-shaped glass harp. Turn the handle to move the glasses round.
Pachi-Moku: A unique back-pack-type”winged”musical device operated by electronic finger snappers. Two tones: high and low.

Pictured are the fish-shaped glass armonica (Franklin would be proud), and of course, the electronic finger-snapping device. (West Side Story will never be the same.)

Catalog of fish-themed products

The unusual fish-themed gear doesn’t stop at music, either. There’s a “fish swatter and container”, for instance. (What do you mean, “what for?” For swatting fish, silly.) Then there’s a custom painting kit so you can “Create your own one-of-a-kind ink rubbing of a fish for its memento”, and a fish bladder in a glass jar with air pressure controls. (Don’t ask.)

I like the fish bone extension cord, myself:

The CDM sea creatures leitmotif continues for reasons even I can’t explain. Now I half expect someone to come and slap me with a herring.

Hence, this exposition, or perhaps exposé – you choose. For anyone who came in late, Electroplankton is a title for Nintendo DS that basically has a set of 10 “minigames” that revolve around music creation.

Electroplankton is one of those titles that you hear about and assume that will never surface with an English translation. Lots of interesting titles come out in Asia and never see the western market. But then again, there’s very little to Electroplankton and translation of the game itself would have taken all of about, say, 10 minutes. The manual is a work of art though, and well worth a look in its own right. These days most games don’t really have printed manuals of any description. Thanks be to the folks at Nintendo who have chosen to release this game and documentation in such a complete way to the western market.

What’s fascinating about this title is not so much the fact that Nintendo have released a music title for their handheld, but that the crossbreeding of music creation and art interaction could be so compelling and commercially successful.

Hopefully that’s gotten everyone up to speed. Electroplankton is a music toy. You could conceivably use it as a tool in your musical arsenal, but right now, it’s just not suited to that, at least not in a regular performance sense. However, with some changes it could be absolutely mind-bending. So, let’s call this the…

Electroplankton 2 Wishlist

Or how they could make Electroplankton ROCK…

I’m relatively optimistic, but I realize that most of these things just won’t happen. This was created bearing that in mind, and should be entirely achievable within the confines of the existing DS hardware.

1. Collaboration.

Playing music together is fun. Playing games together is fun. The DS has built-in wireless and support for online play. When Electroplankton initially came out, the multiplayer scene for the DS was pretty weak, but now it’s starting to mature and the infrastructure is there. It would be an incredibly compelling title if the wireless sent timecode and allowed collaborative composition. Given Electroplankton’s current setup which revolves around 1 plankton (instrument) at a time, the simple addition of multiple units synced wirelessly would realize it as a more complete performance instrument.

The speed of the wireless connection (802.11b 11mbits p/sec) is more than enough to support the transfer of basic control information, if not audio itself from one unit to another.

2. Two Plankton at once, on one unit.

Given that the DS is a multiscreen unit, and the second screen is at the moment mostly used as decoration (currently a closeup of the plankton that you are manipulating), the simple addition of a button on the touchscreen that swaps between 2 sets of plankton would be the ideal next step. I don’t think that it would be necessary to have more than 2 plankton at once, (it may be beyond the processor and sound chip on the DS anyway) and having a limitation of 2 plankton would be a nice way to encourage more collaboration as well.

Currently, without some recording hardware on hand, you cannot record your compositions. From the perspective of the serial public transport commuter, it would be nice to have a wider sonic canvas.

3. More plankton

I like the plankton that came with the game — some of them have fantastic little personalities (at least in my mind) — but I’m greedy, and I would love it if there were more plankton to play with. The DS game cart could hold literally hundreds (thousands?) of plankton. Also, if the plankton were user editable (make use of the stylus to modify set attributes of the plankton) how amazing would it be if you could share your plankton via the DS’s inbuilt wireless?

There’s a variety of new sounds that are easily generated with Electroplankton, and having some user-editable attributes would be a nice way to diversify the sound even more. This would also make it more functional as a reliable noisebox for performance.

4. Genepool.

Another compelling way to encourage interaction would to allow wireless gameplay that placed the your plankton and others in a pool, where you can affect the plankton by placing it in closer proximity to other plankton. As you get closer, the behavior of the plankton could change. A simple and appropriate reaction could be falling into similar tempo with the nearby plankton.

The addition of collision detection would create interesting interactions from the user’s perspective. Simple AI that affected the default behavior of the plankton when they are closer to other groups of plankton could be another useful idea for meaningful interaction. While I’m not suggesting that the plankton should fight or anything of that ilk, an appropriate auditory response to proximity to other plankton would further promote the idea of the plankton as interactive creatures in their own right.

(This thought is brought to you courtesy of flow.)

5. Add a simple sequencer/recorder

It doesn’t have to be Ableton Live, but a simple system that allows recording of your settings and songs would turn this into a performance device. Regardless of any features that could be added, the addition of this to Electroplankton as it stands would see it turning up on stages all over the place. If it could reliably record your songs & settings for playback, it would be a viable option for anyone who wants some new and interesting sounds.

Electroplankton is a fun bit of software, and I’m aware we may never even see Electroplankton 2, but if even a few of these features turned up in a new version, it would be AMAZING.

Related Electroplankton webzen

Nintendo Electroplankton Site
Mile Zero – Composition in Electroplankton
Mile-Zero Electroplankton Composition – Innsmouth Blues
Tenori-on – Toshio Iwai’s collaboration with Yamaha
MTV.com fluff piece
DJ Dave Hollands talking Electroplankton
flow – Indie microbe game with soothing ambient tunes.

Nintendo.com Electroplankton Wallpapers
Wallpaper 1
Wallpaper 2
Wallpaper 3

Nathanael Jeanneret designed the graphics and layout for Create Digital Music and the upcoming Create Digital Motion, thus making him our hero. -Ed.

Here’s a twist on interactive aquatic music: how about letting the fish be the music-makers? BBC News reports that digital artist Julie Freeman has created an installation out of a fish tank, installed in a silo at the Tingrith Fishery in Bedfordshire, southern England. Surgically-implanted radio tags track the movement of the fish, which generates music and animation. (via Gino Robair at Electronic Musician)

I think this is even better than the MIDI hamsters.

game ElectroPlankton. (Articles, photos, and videos at IGN, though some videos require a paid subscription.) Think cheery post-modern minimalism, with duets between the DS (video art and hypnotic patterns) and live violinist (more hypnotic patterns).

Meanwhile, Nanoloop 2.0 is running just swell on my DS, thanks to its new life as a GBA-style cartridge. (More on that soon.) Sure, it lacks ALL the credibility of real oldskool chip music . . . but how else will I switch from music to Nintendogs?

Of course, I won’t be performing with Electroplankton — this begs for a new generation of custom visual/audio interactive instruments. My tool of choice would be a computer or PDA and Flash (and, like the DS, the PDA has stylus input after all).

This week's understatement of note: "Sometimes I am self-driven to do some weird stuff. I have no idea why."

Indeed, Troy Errthum. Like turning an old upright piano into a 20-gallon pianoquarium, complete with live fish. (via
hackaday) The piano itself is no longer playable (guess that's what
happens when you replace the soundboard with fish), but there's room
for an electric piano.

CDM challenges its readers to start building fish storage into digital instruments. Maybe there's a market here.

The Nintendo DS is already a model for thinking creatively about handheld interaction, but a game slated for Japanese release called Electroplankton
looks to be the most creative yet. It's hard to say exactly what it is
– maybe just as confusing even if you do read Japanese — but it
appears to be an underwater musical game that finally expands beyond
the old 'Simon' model employed by games like Dance Dance Revolution.
Against an ever-present calm backdrop of rising bubbles drifts an
imagined landscape of imagined, smiling single-celled organisms and
protozoa, generating cheery, modal aleatoric music, as bouncing objects
on leaves produce notes and mic input (look at that spectral input in
one of the shots) and stylus perform simple, organic tasks.

And, of course, something involving the classic Mario theme.

What, you think I'm making this up? Go take a look.

Ah . . . soothing bubbles . . . like staring into a fish tank . . . (via joystiq)