Keymapping/velocity crossover question

[69ShadesofRed]

OK, up until now, my sampling efforts have been limited to one shots, single velocity stuff, or chopping up drum loops. Recently I downloaded this incredibly beautiful sounding drumkit (NSKIT) and would like to create a Kurzweil version of this thing. But before I plunge into this I would like to get some advice, mostly regarding the handling of velocity crossovers.

Normalize or not? The low velocity samples are really quiet. How do people handle this? Should I normalize all samples so that they are all at 0dBFS? Wouldn't this add unnecessary noise to the quiet hits? Or maybe I should forget about the very quiet hits, as memory usage is of concern?

Another question about velocity handling... How do people normally set velocity crossover points? Or should I just do what sounds good to me? I am thinking that setting velocity crossover points so that most of them are set at higher velocities would trigger different samples more often at normal playing velocities thus making it sound more lively and interesting, or am I just pulling this outta my a$$?

I think that's it for now. Any advice would be appreciated.

[TexRoadkill]

You definately do not want to normalize the samples. What's the point of a low velocity sample if it's just as loud as the high velocity ones?

I've never tried building a kit completely from scratch so I can't really recomend a good way of setting the velocity switch points. I would probably split it up fairly evenly then if you need to adjust later you can adjust the global velocity curve of the patch or controller instead of having to adjust every sample.

Open up some exisiting kits and see where they set the velocity switches. That should give you a good indication of where to start.

[69ShadesofRed]

Thanks for the reply, TexRoadKill. The only reason I was thinking of normalizing is I've heard others doing that (or maybe I misunderstood), and also, wouldn't the velocity control the amplitude of the patch? I will definitely follow your suggestion about looking at other kits, the only thing is, the NSKIT offers up to 16 velocity levels(!), and most kits on the Kurzweil offer around 3-4.