Hydrogen GM espeak test kit : the drumkit that can speak

A couple of days ago Emanuel Rumpf (one of the H2 users) pointed me to the fact that it is really important to follow the GM midi mapping when you create a new drumkit, and right he is!
Since we are in the middle of the Hydrogen spring drumkit contest I updated the info in the H2 manual right away, but while doing that i noticed that there is something very weird going on with Hydrogen's 'GM kit' : is't not GM compliant  :-(

While figuring out the correct mapping i decided to create a GM compliant drumkit template, and added something extra ;-)

The 'GM espeak test kit' holds 46 instruments and the instrument names contain all the info you need to create a GM compliant kit (see image above) :

• I:3       = Instrument position 3   (position in the H2 drumkit)
• M:38   = Midi note 38
• K:X    = Keyboard key X   (key on your computer keyboard that triggers this instrument)
• Snare Drum 1    = the instrument name

So by just reading the instrument name you already know all you need to know to make a GM compliant kit.

But there is more ... the drumkit can speak !  espeak to be more precise :-)

A drumkit is more than a collection of instrument names : it contains wav files.  I could have picked sounds that match the instrument, but instead i created wav files with espeak, a speech syntheses app.

As a result this is what you will hear when you play Instrument 3 : 3-1 I:3 M:38 K:X Snare Drum 1

Like it? You can download the drumkit here


Below you can also find the instrument mapping table :

EDIT: if you like espeak, you should check out this little demo song I made :-)