ThumbJam Forum

So I decided to try out adding a new instrument to ThumbJam. Appropriately...it's also an instrument played with your thumbs! The Kalimba.

For my first attempt at sampling an instrument I think it turned out okay!

Much better than I anticipated actually. It is so awesome that this app has the ability to add your own instruments. Was pretty simple to load it up.

Using the tremolo effect by shaking really mimics the effect of waving your thumbs over the sound hole of the kalimba quite nicely.

I created a sample for all 17 tines on the instrument...I don't know if that was overkill? Perhaps it would have been just as well to sample half of the notes?

Anyway here it is. The Hugh Tracey Treble Kalimba. Enjoy!

http://www.significantimagery.com/Kalimba.zip

Cool, you're the first user to post their own samples!

I do have some comments about it though.... what did you use to record them? I ask because I did notice that most of them are clipped at the attack. If you see a flat waveform at the top or bottom of the range in your audio editor you know you had the mic gain too high, or were too close to it.

Another tip, you want to trim off all the silence before the attack starts in your sample so that the response when you play it is immediate and consistent with the others. Alternatively you can set the attack_offset up a bit, which does the same thing.

And yeah, sampling every note is probably overkill....for most of the instruments in TJ were sampled every 4th or so, but it does depend on the instrument what is called for. In this case the only downside is disk space and loading time, as it just sounds more realistic with more samples.

I hope my comments helped, just a little constructive criticism to help you and others out, I want as many people who can to create their own instruments. The next version (coming soon, I promise) has tools to let you build the instrument in the app, so you can just upload your raw samples into the app and not have to deal with the XML file format.

I re-sampled it again. This time using fewer notes.

Sound shouldn't be as clippy this time.

File is still at the same link:
http://www.significantimagery.com/Kalimba.zip