Download all 207 PCM drum samples from a Korg EMX in 16-bit stereo WAV format:

I recorded a long file of manually playing each sample one after the other, with some silence in between to ensure I didn’t cut off the samples early. The packs with tube gain were recorded using a ChucK script to automatically switch between samples, with the tubes already warmed up for over an hour. The samples were played with the following settings on the EMX:

  • Level: 127
  • Pan: center
  • Pitch: 0
  • EG time: 127
  • Amp EG: non-decay
  • FX send: disabled

This entire recording was normalized at 0 dB to ensure a consistent sample level.

I then imported this file into Audacity and used the Sound Finder and Export Multiple features to automatically export one file per sample, using the following settings:

  • Treat audio below this level as silence: -40 dB (-30 dB when using tubes)
  • Minimum duration of silence between sounds: 0.2 s
  • Label starting point: 0.01 s
  • Label ending point: 0.01 s
  • Add a label at the end of the track: No

The metadata editor that pops up for each file when exporting can be disabled.

Audacity exported files numbered 1.wav to 207.wav without leading zeroes, which can mess up alphabetical file ordering in some cases. To add these leading zeroes, I used the following bash script:

for a in [0-9]*.wav; do
    mv $a `printf %03d.%s ${a%.*} ${a##*.}`
done

Finally, I stripped any unnecessary metadata that Audacity had included in these files:

mkdir meta
for i in *.wav; do
    ffmpeg -i "$i" -map 0 -map_metadata 0:s:0 -c copy "meta/$i"
done