Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - Best Drum Trigger interface for BFD and similar?

skramnor · 12th January 2012

I know this is an old thread but I would like to add my take for people that may find it later like i did.

I have a decent drum set but a no so decent room to record them in. Mics, Pre-amps, high end interface, room treatment etc can all add up to plenty of money. I have spent many years fighting the bad sound and trying to get what I can out of my small room. I found a very very simple solution though!

I record my drums using a few inexpensive mics. One on the kick, one on the snare, 1 close on hi-hats, 1 close on ride and one single mono over head. I use Reaper software to track each mic. After the drums have been recorded, I can assign a gate to each track. Reaper has one included in the bundle that allows routing of the audio to a MIDI channel. Basically this converts audio hits (ones above the gate threshold, to trigger a Virtual Instrument. I use EZ Drummer but I have also use the FREE "My Drum Set Rocks" Virtual Instrument. You need to find out which MIDI channel the snare sounds are on and assign the Snare track's gate to rout to that channel. You can also turn off the original drum sound by turning off the master output for that track. Enough natural drum sound comes from the mono overhead. This helps keep a more natural dynamic sound.

The fun part is that I can literally mic my desk surface, hit it with my finger, triggering the process and it comes out as a kick drum. Makes finger drumming easy!

You can find tutorials on the Reaper website and also on YouTube.

You can also use a program called Drumagogg but that costs more than the FREE Reaper/Mydrumsetrocks combo.

12th January 2012	#15
skramnor Gear interested Joined: Jan 2012 Posts: 1	option I know this is an old thread but I would like to add my take for people that may find it later like i did. I have a decent drum set but a no so decent room to record them in. Mics, Pre-amps, high end interface, room treatment etc can all add up to plenty of money. I have spent many years fighting the bad sound and trying to get what I can out of my small room. I found a very very simple solution though! I record my drums using a few inexpensive mics. One on the kick, one on the snare, 1 close on hi-hats, 1 close on ride and one single mono over head. I use Reaper software to track each mic. After the drums have been recorded, I can assign a gate to each track. Reaper has one included in the bundle that allows routing of the audio to a MIDI channel. Basically this converts audio hits (ones above the gate threshold, to trigger a Virtual Instrument. I use EZ Drummer but I have also use the FREE "My Drum Set Rocks" Virtual Instrument. You need to find out which MIDI channel the snare sounds are on and assign the Snare track's gate to rout to that channel. You can also turn off the original drum sound by turning off the master output for that track. Enough natural drum sound comes from the mono overhead. This helps keep a more natural dynamic sound. The fun part is that I can literally mic my desk surface, hit it with my finger, triggering the process and it comes out as a kick drum. Makes finger drumming easy! You can find tutorials on the Reaper website and also on YouTube. You can also use a program called Drumagogg but that costs more than the FREE Reaper/Mydrumsetrocks combo.