electric drum kit question

[Red Black]

Superior Drummer works very well with electronic drumkits . . http://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=30

[joeq]

Originally Posted by jimjames29

hey , we have been recording our jams with the drummer using an electric kit just to save time , but is there any way to make an electric kit sound like a real kit , or is the best rout to mic up the loud kit and do it that way

If you are using the electric kit "just to save time" you already have your answer.

If you making a serious recording and you can't spare some "time" to at least TRY micing up a real drum set and comparing the two recordings yourself, one would have to question how much you even care which one will give you the better sound.

[jimjames29]

Originally Posted by joeq

If you are using the electric kit "just to save time" you already have your answer.

If you making a serious recording and you can't spare some "time" to at least TRY micing up a real drum set and comparing the two recordings yourself, one would have to question how much you even care which one will give you the better sound.

i obviously care or i wouldnt have asked? we use an electric kit cause we all work and get a few hours to jam after , we record our IDEAS . but now we are noticing the kit doesnt sound the way we want it , so i was curious if you could edit it

[jimjames29]

Originally Posted by Red Black

Superior Drummer works very well with electronic drumkits . . http://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=30

thanks alot , i have heard about this but wasnt too sure what it exactly did

[joeq]

Originally Posted by jimjames29

i obviously care or i wouldnt have asked? we use an electric kit cause we all work and get a few hours to jam after , we record our IDEAS . but now we are noticing the kit doesnt sound the way we want it , so i was curious if you could edit it

You can perhaps find better samples, you can try some mixing tricks- small room ambiences for example, you can overdub real cymbals - all will help, but IMO you will have to do a LOT of work to make it sound "real" if that is what you are after.

In a recent thread, someone posted 6 drum tracks and asked us to guess which ones were real drums and which ones were sampled kits. I thought they all sounded like samples, I said so, and of course I was correct. The poster seemed surprised because, to him, a little bit of reverb or some velocity-layering was 'convincing'. But to others it was obvious.

Recording your ideas when you are short for time is what such E-kits are FOR, IMO.

Now that you have your ideas, and you want to make a good-sounding recording, slow down and spend some time micing up a real kit and record at least a song or two like that. Experiment. Try it yourself instead of relying on internet advice about which is more 'real'.

It's just my internet opinion, but I bet it will sound like a 'real kit' from the get-go and if you are missing the consistency of the samples you can always trigger them back in with one of those replacement programs.

[Jose]

If you want to save time, record a real kit.If you are not experienced with drum vstis you'll probably have to spend a lot of time tweaking the program to find a convincing sound...