Straight Ahead Samples - Straight Ahead!

Jazz Drums

User Guide 1.3

STRA
IGHT

Copyright ©2013 - Straight Ahead Samples

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S A M P L E S
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Straight Ahead Samples - Straight Ahead! Jazz Drums is supplied under a formal license agreement that you enter
into when you install Straight Ahead! Jazz Drums. Please refer to the Straight Ahead! Jazz Drums - END USER
LICENSE AGREEMENT.txt

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The Concept
With the plethora of amazing drum libraries out on the market, there was still a gaping hole in
the world of drum sampling. JAZZ!

Firstly, the sound of the drums was the first reason for creating a new sample library. The
natural sound of a real jazz drumset is something that simply hadn’t been sampled. For
instance, the functions of rock kick drum vs. jazz kick drums is totally different. A super beefy
and tight rock kick drum has no place in jazz. A jazz drummer’s kick is for accents and should
be open-sounding, with a fair amount of pitch. In basically all other genres of music, the snare
and kick drums are the motor force driving the music forward. In jazz music, it’s mainly the ride
cymbal that pushes the band. Therefore, using actual jazz drums and cymbals and recording
them in a different but appropriate way, is essential to creating a useful jazz drum library.

The second half is: the SWING! The feel of jazz swing is something that cannot be faked or
imitated. Attempting to imitate the ride cymbal (ting-ting-tah-ting) will leave a track seeming just
plain silly. We sampled a great young jazz drummer, Billy Williams (Larry Willis’ Trio, Cyrus
Chestnut, Warren Wolf, Tim Green) and captured as much of his hard-swingin’ self as we could.

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Key Features

• Authentic classic jazz drum sound

• Playable ride patterns
• Playable snare/tom/kick comping patterns
• Authentic swingin’ loops played by young jazz drummer phenom Billy Williams
• 4/4, 3/4, 6/8, and latin/straight eighths (in all tempos - synced to your DAW)
• Fills
• Double-Time Keyswitch

Straight Ahead Jazz Drums Overview - 1

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The Interface

Take a moment and familiarize yourself with the main SA!JD interface.

• TEMPO PATCHES - Each patch is for a specified tempo range (i.e. Fast {205-285bpm}) and
should only be used for sequences whose tempo is within this range.
• FEEL SELECTOR KNOB - All feels are included in each patch (4/4 Swing, 3/4 Swing,
Straight/Latin) and are selectable by the feel knob at the bottom-right of the interface.
• DRUMS PURGE - The “Drums” button can purge and load the drum samples to save RAM if
you only want to use the loops.

• PURGE LED’s - The green led’s next to each feel purge and load that particular feel. Again,
this is a RAM-saving feature.
• LOOP QUANTIZE - Use the Loops Quantize button to turn off & on a feature which
automatically quantizes the loops to the next downbeat.
• MAIN/MIXER - toggle the Main and Mixer screens with the tabs on the bottom-left
• OUTPUT SELECT - In the Mixer window, you can select which Kontakt Outputs you’d like to
use for each kit piece

Straight Ahead Jazz Drums Overview - 2

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The Layout

The mapping of SAJD’s patches are split in to 2 sections. The bottom 3 octaves (in blue) is the
“sample” section. Here we have multi-velocity/4x round robin samples of the drumset. The
drums/cymbals have some special playing styles that are particular to the jazz style of playing.
The top 3 octaves (in varied colors) is the “loops” section. Here we have 4 different sub-
sections: Left-hand comping, Right-hand ride patterns, fills, and miscellaneous.

Samples (hits) LH Comping RH Ride Fills Misc.

Patterns Patterns

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Keymaps
Samples - C0 thru A2
(displaying middle-c as C3)

Key Sample Info

C0 kick

C#0 snare - cross-stick

D0 snare - cross-stick

D#0 snare - LH

E0 snare - RH

F0 snare - long ghost notes use modwheel to increase length

F#0 snare - press roll

G0 snare - measured roll not available in “Slow” patches

G#0 snare - snares off - LH

A0 snare - snares off - RH

A#0 hihat closed - LH

B0 hihat closed - RH

C1 hihat pedal

C#1 hihat slightly open - LH

D1 hihat slightly open - RH

D#1 hihat more open - LH

E1 hihat more open - RH

F1 hihat pedal - to open

F#1 hihat totally open - LH

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 Key Sample Info

G1 hihat totally open - RH

G#1 ride 1 - bell

A1 ride 1 hardest velocities for crash

A#1 ride 2 - bell

B1 ride 2 hardest velocities for crash

C2 hi tom - triplet modwheel all the way up for tom-snare triplet - not available in
“Slow” patches

C#2 hi tom - LH

D2 hi tom - RH

D#2 hi tom - press roll

E2 hi tom - measured roll not available in “Slow” patches

F2 low tom - triplet modwheel all the way up for tom-snare triplet - not available in
“Slow” patches

F#2 low tom - LH

G2 low tom - RH

G#2 low tom - press roll

A2 low tom - measured roll not available in “Slow” patches

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Using the “Mid” Ride Loops

Oftentimes, you’ll find that following fills or other hits necessary to the musical arrangement, it
sounds awkward to start one of the Ride Loops directly after. This is because often the ride will
be crashed on the downbeat or an anticipation to the downbeat. We have solved this issue by
creating “Mid” samples. Which is just our word for a ride pattern that starts on beat 2 or 3. The
sample starts in the middle of the loop, already with some cymbal wash buildup, usually on beat
2.

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Here’s an example of what your sequencer may look like:

Fill - to anticipation
Ride Loop “Mid” sample - note hardest velocity

Ride crash - anticipation

Kick/snare accent -

Notice that the fill used is one that leads to the &-of-4. To help with the accent, the ride (crash),
snare and kick samples are also played on the &-of-4. The hardest velocity is hit on the one of
the ride loop keys, which will begin playing on beat 2 of the following bar. If you didn’t use the
“mid” sample, you would hear a fill and the and accent hit on the &-of-4, followed instantly by the
ride pattern starting on beat 1, which not only obscures the big accent we just heard, but sounds
very unnatural and choppy.

Straight Ahead Jazz Drums Overview - 6

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Double-Time Keyswitch

By popular demand, we added a keyswitch up at the top of the keyboard (B6) that switches all
the loops/fills to double-time feel. Keyswitch directly above it (C7) reverts back to standard-
time. When Double-Time is active, a label will appear in the interface.

Standard-Time

Double-Time

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Drum Specs
• Yamaha Maple Custom Absolute Noveau Drums
• 14x6 Sonor Delite Snare Drum (Remo Coated Ambassador Batter, Hazy Snare Resonant)
• 18x14 Kick Drum (Remo Coated Emperor Batter, Yamaha Logo Resonant)

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 • 12x8 Rack Tom (Remo Coated Ambassador Batter and Resonant)
• 14x14 Floor Tom (Remo Coated Ambassador Batter and Resonant)
• 14” Zildjian K Custom Session Hi-Hats
• 22” Zildjian K Constantinople Prototype Over-hammered Thin Ride Cymbal (Main Ride)
• 20” Zildjian K Constantinople Prototype Light Ride (Left-Side Crash Ride)

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Sampling Specs
• 12,500 Samples, 24 bit/48k
• Compatible with Full Kontakt 5.0.1 or higher
• As much as 6 velocity layers and 4 round robins

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What’s New in 1.3?

• Tempo-master-patches. Each Tempo has it’s own patch which includes all feels.
• Saving bug fixes
• Smaller library size

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Troubleshooting/FAQ

• Do I need the full version of Kontakt?

Yes. At this time our libraries are libraries are programmed for the full version of Kontakt 5.

• Why no brushes!?!
We are working on a follow-up library right now called Straight Ahead! Brushes and Mallets.
Brushes are very important and we didn’t want to skimp on them, so we decided to devote a
whole library to them. Stay tuned for updates.

• How are the samples processed?

This library was recorded very cleanly through SSL mic pres and Apogee converters. They
have been very minimally compressed and are ready for processing in your DAW.

• When I load SA!JD into Kontakt, it says “Demo.” Why?Straight Ahead! Jazz Drums is a
Kontakt 5 library, that works with the full version of Kontakt 5 Sampler only. The Kontakt

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 Player will not work. Go to http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/
kontakt-5/ to learn more about Native Instruments Kontakt 5.

• My loops have stutters or dropouts?

The tempo ranges are very strict. If the tempo selector is set to “Medium 120-205bpm”, you
can’t go ANY lower than 120bpm. The top of the tempo range is a suggestion, you can go
above it if you’d like, although some of the performances my sound strange at faster tempos.

• Why are jazz drums so different than the rock drum samples I already have?
First, the sound of jazz drums are very different. The drums themselves often have more ring
and are tuned very differently. Also, the function of drums in jazz music is very different than in
pop/rock music. In most modern popular music, the kick and snare are the “motor” of the music.
In jazz, it’s the ride cymbal that delivers the pulse and the feel. We have sampled the drums in
a way that reflects and exploits these difference, to produce results that sound natural and that
are very playable/usable in your compositions. Lastly, how they’re played is everything. The
swing feel is not easily imitated, so it needs to be performed by a true jazz musician.

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