well yes, some drum creators especialy those going for 'realistic real' drums in pop rock & advertising music do use lots of multiple samples to imitate old classic or new-sound drum kits being played live, especialy to reproduce old classic tunes for advertising etc - yes, alot of the old classic's you hear on TV ad's are NOT the original tracks, but copies, cos then they only have to pay publishing royalties, NOT mechanical licencing for the tracks, and there are studio's for the industry specialising in reproducing old classic's just for this purpose -
These drum creators DO use multiple samples such as from the Bob Clearmountain CD's etc etc to create 'real as possible' drumming immitations, and they are undetectable in most cases from live playing. Multi-layering, possible with bigger modern samplers is done cos of course a drum when hit at different velocities with a stick, sounds different as has different overtones when hit harder or softer - also there are varieties of hits, working nearer towards a rimshot for example until full-on rimshot is acheived (a rimshot for the un-initiated is when the drummer plays the drum with the stick tip hitting the skin, and the stick shaft hitting the steel rim simultaneously to create a drum sound with a loud 'cracking' noise. Stuart copeland of the police was the archetypal 'rimshot man' in popular music, playing most of the Police tracks with a rimshot on every snare beat, no mean feat if you're a drummer I can tell you, and easier with his jazz stick techique cos the stick is already held in a flatter position in the palm level with the head/rim angle - -
Then you also have stick noise, etc, then you have the total difference in the drum character when real drums are 'rolled', associated with multiple stick hits whilst the decay of the previous hit's have not fully reached the end of their decay cycle etc...
so in these cases, to create as real as possible 'real drums' yes multiple samples, layering several samples on the same pad/note number with velocity cross fading etc is often done....
For dance and other styles the EASIEST way to simulate these subtleties without going mad with multiple drum samples is simply to assign a filter to the drum VELOCITY, then the HARDER the drum is hit (the higher the velocity) the 'sharper' the sound, as is true with real drums...
some drum boxes such as ALESIS SR16 does use two samples for it's DYNAMIC sounds such as dynamic conga & snare presets, cross-fading between the two samples (one softer, one harder with more rimshot in the case of the snare) - Others actualy have a filter, such as the yamaha RY30.... some allow you to do velocity cross fading as well as filter velocity fading, but they are rare, and would be really classed more as a drum sample synth, you get this type of power now cheap in the drum s/w's appearing such as BATTERY from NATIVE INSTUMENTS or the RM-2 & freeware RM-F from Linplug etc etc..
Velocity cross fading - This is DIFFERENT to velocity SWITCHING -
VELOCITY SWITCHING simply allows two different samples to 'switch' with velocity, once you HIT the pad or a sequenced note exceeds the set velocity (perhaps 80-100 from a total 127 max midi velocituy) the sample switches to a different one...
and THAT people, is all in all why we bang on about using samplers for drums so much at DT...
A sampler like the awesome E-MAX sampler (MY SECRET WEAPON) goes s/h in the free-ad's for about 250 quid now, and offers FULL ANALOG synthesis of your drum sounds, with cutis chips (same brand used in TB303 as well).... two samples per key, and of course the superb e-mu 12 bit sound made famous by the SP12 & SP1200 boxes so renowned in hiphop that NO new sampler can do no matter HOW expensive... and you get 8 mono outs and stereo, and it'll do loops to as well as ALL other sounds such as basses & synths, strings etc,,,, a MONSTER drum machine.
Other GREAT drum samplers often overlooked are the ROLAND samplers, the s330/s550 and their keyboard-version counterparts and the wicked S760 and of course the sampler of chocie for Liam of the Prodigy, the W30 (keyboard version of the S330/S550) - the old akai 12 bits the s900 is also good, as is the S950 (best bet as it has more memory, time stretch and variable sampling for maximising your sample time - these samplers ALL turned out ALL the classic club hits that are the basis of dance as we know it today, also the FZ1/10/20 etc from Casio was THE sampler that made all COLDCUT's seminal tracks - 16 bit, but an AWESOME device !!!!!!!!
yeah verily we say unto you - eschew the modern smaplers of today with their mind numbing features, and get an old 12 bit or old classic 16 bit and LIVE !!!!! - they are as cheap as a cheezy cheap effect unit in the s/h ad's, and GUARANTEED BY DANCETECH to do more for your toons than ANY other bit of kit could do at any price.
___________________________________
I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!