Categories, Keywords & Colors

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Categories, Keywords & Colors

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Kit Maker sorts every sample into a category (Kicks, Snares and so on). Each category has a list of keywords that decides which samples belong to it, and a color that shows up on the pads. You can change all three in the Edit Categories/Keywords window.

Categories & Keywords #

Kit Maker organizes samples using categories. There are 7 default categories:

  • Kicks
  • Snares
  • Closed HHs
  • Open HHs
  • Percussion
  • Melodic
  • Misc

Each category has a list of keywords that Kit Maker uses to match samples into that category. For example, the Kicks category recognizes keywords like “kick”, “kik”, “kck”, and “bass drum”. When Kit Maker finds one of these keywords in a folder name (or sometimes filenames), it knows to place that sample on a Kick pad.

The Misc category is where any samples are put that don’t match the other categories. Misc can’t be renamed.

You view and edit the categories and keywords in the Edit Categories/Keywords window. Open it any of these ways:

  • Click Edit Categories/Keywords on the main screen.
  • Click the same button in Preferences, under Sample Pack Mode.
  • Choose Edit Keywords from the Kit Maker 3 app menu (Cmd+F).

Your changes are saved when you close the window. The Reset Categories / Keywords button puts everything back to the defaults.

Customizing Categories & Keywords #

The Edit Categories/Keywords window lets you customize the categories.

Editing Categories #

You can rename the categories, for example if you don’t want a Melodic category and want a Shaker category instead. You can also change the color of a category (discussed more below).

For example, to organize 808 subs, you can rename a category to “808s,” give it keywords that match your 808 sounds, change its color, and assign more pads to it. That repurposes a category completely, label and all.

Note: you can rename and repurpose any of the 7 existing categories, but you currently cannot add brand-new categories beyond them.

Editing Keywords #

You can also add or remove keywords for any category.

Editing the keywords is essential if you make your own custom category (for example a Shaker category): you’ll want to add the keywords that identify the samples belonging in it. This is also useful if your sample packs use unusual naming conventions that Kit Maker doesn’t recognize by default.

Keyword Modifiers #

Keywords can include modifiers, special characters that make matching stricter or more flexible.

Word-boundary slashes (/). A slash means no letter may touch that side of the keyword:

  • /hh has nothing before it. Matches “hh” but not “ahh”.
  • hh/ has nothing after it. Matches “hh” but not “hhat”.
  • /hh/ has boundaries on both sides. Only matches a standalone “hh” (not “ahh” or “hhat”).

Use boundaries on short keywords that would otherwise match inside unrelated words.

Spacer wildcard (*). An asterisk matches nothing, a space, a dash, or an underscore:

  • wood*block matches “woodblock”, “wood block”, “wood-block”, and “wood_block”.

Modifiers can be combined. For example, /wood*block/ applies the spacer wildcard and word boundaries on both sides.

Also Search In #

Some packs put several kinds of sound in one folder. For example, open and closed hi-hats may share a “Hi Hat” folder, which would normally sort them all as Closed HHs. Set Open HHs to also search in Closed HHs and any open-hat filenames found there move to Open HHs.

Click the ↳ arrow next to a Category to choose where else it should look, using the checkboxes in the popup. (Misc isn’t offered as a target.)

Category Colors #

Each category has a color. Category colors are shown on the pads in the Layout area of the Kit Maker UI. You can change category colors in the Edit Categories/Keywords window.

Category colors affect the actual pad colors in these output formats:

  • MPC
  • FL Studio (FPC)
  • Bitwig 6
  • Serato Studio
  • Impact
  • Koala Sampler
  • Logic Pro

To use each app’s own default pad colors instead of yours, enable Use default colors in kit presets in the Edit Categories/Keywords window.

Note: Sample Pack Mode and Maschine Mode roughly share the same pad categories by default. This allows you to change the colors and layout to your liking and have it reflected in both kinds of kits. Keep in mind that because the pad colors are linked, changing the color of a category in one mode will also change it for the other.

Color Themes #

Instead of setting each category color by hand, you can apply a theme, a preset that sets all the category colors at once. Themes are selected from the Color Theme: dropdown in the Edit Categories/Keywords window:

  • User (default): your own custom colors.
  • FL Studio: colors that match the classic FPC kit style.
  • MPC: colors that match the MPC pad style.
  • Serato: colors that match Serato Studio’s native pad colors.

A theme restyles the pads and category colors throughout the app, and those colors carry into the actual exported kits.

Note: only the User theme is editable. The FL Studio, MPC and Serato themes are fixed presets. To set your own colors, switch to the User theme.