SONICCOUTURE THUNDER DRUM USER GUIDE

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SONICCOUTURE THUNDER DRUM USER GUIDE

SONICCOUTURE

THUNDER DRUM
INSTALLATION
INTRODUCTION
INSTRUMENTS
TECHNICAL DATA
SUPPORT
E.U.L.A

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SONICCOUTURE THUNDER DRUM USER GUIDE

INSTALLATION
KONTAKT 4.2.4 OR LATER

Place the entire “SC Thunder Drum” folder anywhere you like on your hard
drive.

IMPORTANT : Make sure you keep that folder structure exactly as it is so

that the Kontakt instruments can always find their samples when loading.

Load presets by navigating to Kontakt’s file browser tab and double clicking
the .nki files. Do not move these presets out of the enclosing folder or they
will fail to find their samples.

NOTE : The library is not encoded for the free Kontakt Player, so you cannot
use it in Kontakt Player for more than 15 minutes, and you cannot add the
library to the Libraries browser panel on the left of Kontakt.

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INTRODUCTION
A Thunder Drum is a drum made with a spring attached to the skin. When
the drum is shaken the spring moves and creates a continuous resonance
through the body of the instrument. This results in a sound very much like
thunder. They come in various shapes and sizes, and are sometimes known
by other names such as Thunder Tube, Spring Drum, or Thunder Maker.

We found our Thunder Drum on an obscure island somewhere in Indonesia,

but they are available in many countries around the world. The size of the
drum belies the enormity of the sound it creates -- our drum is only about 20
cm long and 7 cm in diameter.

For this project we recorded a variety of rumbles, peals of thunder, strikes,

and special effects using this drum. As the samples were intended to be
manipulated, pitch shifted, and mangled, the recordings were made at 96
kHz. You can pitch them very low and still have some interesting high
frequency content if you work at full bandwidth.

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SONICCOUTURE THUNDER DRUM USER GUIDE

INSTRUMENTS
KONTAKT INSTRUMENTS
There is one main Thunder Drum instrument and 40 Sound Design presets in
a subfolder.

The Thunder Drum instruments are built in such a way that each key triggers
a different sound.

KEY COLOURS

If you display the Kontakt virtual Keyboard, you’ll notice that some keys are
coloured red, some blue, and some cyan. The red keys loop, so if you hold
a note that key will sustain. The blue keys are non looping “peals” of
thunder. The cyan keys are percussive strikes.

At the top left, there are some important controls that affect the layout and
editing method of the thunder drum. It’s important to understand this section
so that you can access the full editing power of Thunder Drum.
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Below the little keyboard the note and number of the currently selected
sample is displayed, “B2 : SAMPLE 120” in the above screen grab.

If SELECT BY MIDI is on, the name of the sample, and all the editing
controls will update whenever you play a new key. All the editing parameters
can be set differently for all keys. We recommend that you generally leave
SELECT BY MIDI turned on.

FOCUS MODE

If you select the FOCUS switch, the currently selected sample will be centred
on middle C and spread over the entire keyboard, allowing you to play just
that sound across the entire keyboard. When FOCUS is selected, the virtual
keyboard in Kontakt turns green, like this:

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Returning to the top right layout and editing section, note that you also have
three more switches here.

SHUFFLE will randomize the order of the samples on the keyboard. This is
very useful for exploring the various samples in Thunder Drum. Every time
you hit SHUFFLE the layout will be randomized. If you want to set the
keyboard back to a linear layout, you can use the RESET button.

Note that SHUFFLE and RESET are not audible if FOCUS is on, although
they do function in the background. If FOCUS is on, the keyboard layout is
ignored and you are only going to hear the currently selected sample.

Finally note the EDIT ALL button at the bottom right of this edit control
section. Normally all the knobs on this front panel will edit just the currently
selected sound (the last sound you played if SELECT BY MIDI is enabled). If
you turn EDIT ALL on, then the knobs will edit all the sounds at once. This
can be useful, but also a bit dangerous, so use it with caution.

Lets have a look at the editing knobs themselves.

Below the selection/layout panel there is an ENVELOPE section, which gives

you control over the standard ADSR envelope for either the Amplitude (AEG)
or Filter (FEG) envelopes. You can choose which envelope you’re editing
with the small drop down menu.

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ADSR stands for Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release, of course. Those being:
A - adjusts attack time for the amplitude or filter envelope
D - adjusts decay time for the amplitude or filter envelope
S - adjusts sustain level for the amplitude or filter envelope
R - adjusts release time for the amplitude or filter envelope

In the middle of the panel at the top is the LEVEL control, which adjusts the
amplitude of the currently selected sample.

Below that there is the LFO section, which contains a drop down menu to
select the controls for LFO 1 or LFO 2.

LFO 1 has controls:

RATE - adjusts the speed of LFO 1
PITCH - adjust the depth of LFO 1 to the pitch of the sample
LEVEL - adjust the depth of LFO 1 to the level of the sample

LFO 2 has controls:

RATE - adjusts the speed of LFO 2
PAN - adjust the depth of LFO 2 to the pan of the sample
FILTER - adjust the depth of LFO 2 to the filter of the sample

At the top right of the panel are some more basic editing controls for each
sample.

START - adjusts the sample start time of the current sample

PAN - adjusts the pan of the current sample
WIDTH - adjusts the stereo width of the current sample
PITCH - adjusts the pitch of the current sample
VEL - adjusts the velocity to pitch depth of the current sample

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Finally at the bottom right of the main panel is the FILTER section.

Here you have controls for:

VEL - adjusts the velocity to cutoff of the Low Pass Filter

FREQ - adjusts the cutoff frequency of the Low Pass Filter
RES - adjusts the resonance of the Low Pass Filter
ENV - adjusts the envelope depth of the FEG to cutoff
HPF - adjusts the cutoff frequency of a High Pass Filter

Remember that if you activate the Info pane, you can see hints for
knob functions displayed at the bottom of the Kontakt window.

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EFFECTS

The effects panel for all instruments looks like this, each section (other than
the delay) can be turned on or off with the small yellow switch.

Note that the effects are on all sounds at once, unlike the editor which allows
you to edit each sound individually.

The top left is a FLANGER effect, with controls for:

MIX - the amount of flanging mix
DEPTH - the depth of the flanger
SPEED - the speed of the flanger
FBACK - the feedback of the flanger

The COMPRESSOR has controls for:

INPUT - the compressor threshold
RATIO - the compressor ratio
REL - the release time of the compressor
GAIN - the output gain of the compressor

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To the right of those there are the DELAY and SPACE sections.

The DELAY has controls for:

MIX - the amount of delay mix
TIME - the delay time
PAN - the panning of the delay
FBACK - the feedback of the delay

The SPACE section has a drop down menu for selection of convolution
reverb spaces. Below this you can fine tune the reverb with the following
controls:

MIX - the return level of the reverb

SIZE - the size of the reverb
HPF - a high pass filter on the reverb
LPF - a low pass filter on the reverb

Finally you have two controls for SATURATION and LIMITER.

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TECHNICAL DATA
128 samples at 96 kHz, 24 bit
530 MB library using NCW compression

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SONICCOUTURE THUNDER DRUM USER GUIDE

SUPPORT
If you have any problems or questions relating to the use of this product,
please feel free to contact us. You can either email us at :

support@soniccouture.com

Please note that the answer to most questions can be found on our
FAQ page.

or we have a support forum within the KVR Audio community, which can be
found here :

Soniccouture Support Forum

We will always endeavour to reply to any enquiry within 12 hours, but do

bear in mind the differences in time zones, so please be patient.

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EULA
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

PREFACE: This End-User License Agreement ("EULA") is a legal agreement

between you and Soniccouture LTD for the Soniccouture product
accompanying this EULA, which includes computer software and may
include associated media, printed materials, and online or electronic
documentation ("Software"). By installing, copying, or using the software,
you agree to be bound by the terms of this EULA. If you do not agree to the
terms of this EULA, you may not use the software.
The software is protected by copyright laws and international copyright
treaties, as well as other intellectual property laws and treaties. The software
is licensed, not sold.

Soniccouture Ltd grants the Owner of a Soniccouture product the right to

create finished musical works and performances using the sounds and
software that comprise the Soniccouture product.

The making of sample libraries in any form, commercial or otherwise,

using Soniccouture audio or software (be they single hits, loops, fully
mixed audio clips, or scripts) is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN without express
written agreement of Soniccouture Ltd, and violations will be prosecuted
to the full extent of international and local copyright law.

The making of sample libraries in any form, commercial or otherwise, using

Soniccouture audio or software (be they single hits, loops, fully
mixed audio clips, or scripts) is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN without express
written agreement of Soniccouture Ltd, and violations will be prosecuted to
the full extent of international and local copyright law.

The ownership of all title and copyrights in and to the Software (including
but not limited to any images, photographs, animations, video, audio, music,
text, and "applets" incorporated into the Software ) is fully asserted by
Soniccouture Ltd.

The Owner may only install and use Soniccouture libraries and software
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on multiple computers strictly under the following conditions: where

multiple computers comprise part of a single composition workstation for
a composer; or where the Owner has two non-concurrent sites of work,
for example a studio desktop and a laptop for live performance.

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DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: The software is provided "as is" and without

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