adding new elements - batch mode?

[randalraywilson]

Brand new to aerodrums v1.1.2 this week!
So far, I'm pretty excited. Now I want to add a bunch of elements.
I found a nice collection of samples at https://cymatics.fm/products/percussion-toolkit-vol-1
When I unzip it, there is one directory with 110 .wav samples, named appropriately.
These are all unique, so I want to add each as an element.
AD wants a folder for the element, so I ran a couple of dos commands to create folder for each by name and move that file to folder.

cd \aerodrums\drum_samples\cymatics
for %i in (*) do md "%~ni"
for %i in (*) do move "%i" "%~ni"

Now each one is in it's own folder, so I can add each one in AD as an element. I tried the triangle - success! Now I have a triangle.

Before I add each element folder separately now, I thought I'd ask if there was trick to avoid adding each of the 110 separately. If not, that would be a nice feature to add.

Thanks in advance!

[Wolfgang]

Before I add each element folder separately now, I thought I'd ask if there was trick to avoid adding each of the 110 separately.

Good luck for importing 110 instruments! No, I don’t think so. It would have helped me a lot in the past. I don’t know if Richard or Yann have something in their drawer, but if it’s so I’m sure this are only scripts using another software than Aerodrums and certainly not for public use.

AD wants a folder for the element

This is for placing multi-velocity samples of the same instrument. Aerodrums would sort them automatically by velocity and packs them into one element. This is for avoiding the “machine gun" effect and sounds more natural.
Your samples are one-shots, just one sample par instrument. This works well for programmed music, but for triggered sounds this is not ideal. If you are looking for samples, try to find multi-velocity samples. Anyway, thanks for the link.

BTW, with my instruments I didn’t follow the naming scheme of Aerodrums. I don’t mind to have them sorted by size, I want them sorted by instrument. So I start each element’s name by something letting me identify if it’s a kick, snare, ride or whatever. Like this I have them all sorted by family in Aerodrums.

[Richard]

Sorry there is no way to create multiple elements at once in the Aerodrums software. We have separate command-line tools that we use internally to create element files. They haven't been released but I can share them with you if they would save you a lot of time.

That's a very good point Wolfgang. We should have named the elements as you suggest so elements of the same type appear together.

[randalraywilson]

I'd love access to any command-line tools we have.
I'm a programmer by trade and spend quite a bit of my batching up command-line stuff.
Thanks, Richard.

[Richard]

No problem. I'll be in touch about this in the next couple of days via email. I owe you a reply.

[Wolfgang]

No problem. I'll be in touch about this in the next couple of days via email. I owe you a reply.

Hi Richard. I am also interested to have this information. I’m not a programmer, but I’m using scrips in Linux.

I have actually beside the stock elements 116 imported ones in my elements folder, but all the procedure was always little show-stopper for me. Especially selecting the sample-folder in the little explorer window is tedious if you have long filenames or a lot of samples to do. A little drop-zone for dropping the sample folder would be a big help. The best would be if Aerodrums could look itself in a defined place for sample folders. There could be a fixed folder for each type of instrument and Aerodrums would import each folder in there as an instrument of the same type.

Most of my elements are converted VSTs, in the beginning I used the procedure described here How to convert your Vsti to samples to use them in Aerodrums. But since some time I’m using a much more fast and easy method with the program SDSE - Simple Drum Sounds Exporter by Lustark Software.

With SDSE you can export an entire kit to wav folders in one click. And they are supporting a big number of Drum VST Instruments. Developed in first for the 2Box drum module, it provides now profiles for certain drum-modules from Alesis, Pearl, Roland and Yamaha. It would be nice to see a profile for Aerodrums in there.

[Richard]

I'm not sure how useful this will be to you Wolfgang but here is a link to the Windows command-line program we use to make .ele files:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/d220gzoq ... ma9k4&dl=0

It expects three parameters. The first is the output .ele file name. The second is the path to the folder containing the .wav files. These should be organised using the same conventions as the Aerodrums software. The third parameter is a number between 0 and 20 inclusive that identifies the type of element being created.

0 - KICK
1 - SNARE
2 - RIMSHOT
3 - CROSS_STICK
4 - VERY_HIGH_TOM
5 - HIGH_TOM
6 - MID_TOM
7 - FLOOR_TOM
8 - FLOOR_TOM_2
9 - HIHAT
10 - HIHAT_SPLASH
11 - CRASH
12 - SPLASH
13 - RIDE
14 - RIDE_BELL
15 - CHINA
16 - COWBELL
17 - TAMBOURINE
18 - CUSTOM_HAND
19 - CUSTOM_FOOT
20 - CUSTOM_HAND_AND_FOOT

So, for example, this is the command we run to convert the .wav files in the folder "pn8cowbell" into a corresponding .ele file:
make_ele.exe \aerodrums\data\elements\pn8cowbell.ele pn8cowbell 16

I wasn't aware that SDSE had become so capable. I must take another look at it. Thanks

[Wolfgang]

Thanks a lot Richard, this will certainly be very useful to me. So it’s just make_ele.exe, a 373 kb tool, who does all the velocity sorting and packing. I’m impressed.