Drum replacement emergency

[Ruairi]

I'm in the middle of mixing too tracks of upbeat rock which is a kind of mix of The Strokes, Kings of Leon, Zeppelin etc. The drum tracks were recorded elsewhere and though they sound good the drummer played the kit quite softly. The band have listened to the rough mixes and want the kit to be much more upfront and explosive so the producer and I have decided that some drum replacement is in order.

The problem is that I have to do this today and I have no drum samples as I have never done this before. I've rented soundreplacer for 2 days. Is there somewhere I can download some good kick and snare samples today? I got the naturalsound kit and it's pretty good but not quite the style we are looking for.

Any help would be appreciated as I have to finish these mixes today,

cheers,
Ruairi

[Jules]

post up an email (with spaces) so folks can send you some samples!

[Jules]

This is all I could find on my (home) laptop

[Jules]

One kick drum in 26 minutes aint bad...

[Jules]

BTW Ruari is one of the good guys!

help a slut out!

[lloyd]

Hey Ruairi, im sure purists and v high end users will dismiss such an idea but ive had to deal with a similar problem recently. Are you mixing in tools/logic? if so i found putting an L2 (on modified track slam setting) across the drum mix realy helps give the track some punch and will even bring forward any lame snare hits. An 1176N can provide the same affect (hardware or software).

lloyd

[Ruairi]

Great idea Jules, thanks for the kick sample too.

My email address is ruairioflaherty(at)eircom.net

All donations greatfully received! I guess they seem to be looking for a tight punchy kind of sound.

lloyd, thanks for your suggestions. I have tried most of the usual strategies already including parallel compression with a crush buss, limiting, Cranesong Phoenix. The sounds I'm getting are good but I think the band want to turn roomy, gently played drums into in yer face dry drums,

thanks again guys

[Travl]

Just sent you a couple samples via email. Hope it helps and you are able to get the sound you are after. Drum replacement can be a cool technique. I have used drumagog before and had some really great results. Good luck with the track...

Travl

[7rojo7]

Originally Posted by Travl

Just sent you a couple samples via email. Hope it helps and you are able to get the sound you are after. Drum replacement can be a cool technique. I have used drumagog before and had some really great results. Good luck with the track...

Travl

Maybe an upward expander followed by heavy compression (alla early DBX) or the Sony TD
I only have SampleTank Samples which don't seem to like being exported, other wise there are a few kits there worth listening to. You might want to try layering some samples instead of treating just one, works wonders in a short time. One for punch, one for thwack and one for room. they can be mixed dynamically with the music.
I'm really interested in those that have used Drumagog and have an active thread on the music computers forum here
break a leg

[Ruairi]

Sorry for the late response to the thread, my mix session just finished a little while ago. Thanks for all the help and a special thanks to those who took the time to email me a few samples - they saved the day and the band were delighted with the final drum sound.

For those who have an interest I setup a parallel drum bus and compressed one bus with about 8-10db of gain reduction using an 1176 style preset which I tweaked in a MC2000 2 band compressor. I used the shortest possible release and an attack just long enough to leave the the front edge on the drum sounds. I then summed the compressed and non compressed busses to a final drum sub which I equalised with the OXF-EQ to remove a little mud and an over insistent hi-hat in the over head mics. The final sprinkle of fairy dust was the obligitary Cranesong Phoenix on Dark Essence/Saphire.

I used pretty heavy eq on the kick drum and a about 3 ddb max of gain reduction using an L1 and backed it up lightly with a donated sample. For the snare I used one replacement sample to augment the verses and another which I sampled from a very unlikely source (and pitched up to match the ring on the original drum) for the chorus to give a bit of extra weight.

For the kit reverb I used a short room in Altiverb (can't remember which room) and I equalised the send with a high pass filter to reduce the mud on the reverb and a little mid range shaping to create the right vibe. I also compressed the reverb return to simulate a compressed room mic on the kit and get a little dynamic excitement and pumping. Though I didn't record the drums they were well recorded but the room mic was a little uneventful so the post Alti compression did a good job of adding a little bit of excitement.

It seems like an awful lot of processing but the task at hand was to turn lightly played drums into something with an explosive weight and we got somewhere close to the bands requirements.

Thanks again for all your help,

cheers,
Ruairi

[Ruairi]

Hey Randy,

it looks like we but submitted our last post at the same time. I am through my emergency situation but if you have a particularly good sample or two that you wouldn't mind passing on I'd be grateful.

I will need to purchase some drum replacment software and samples in the near future( I rented Soundreplacer today - cool rental system but a little pricey). I was going to wait and demo the new TLL one and also Drumagog for RTAS when it comes out. I know there are plenty of threads on here about samples so I will do a little searching before I make a choice. Any favourites for drum repacement?,

cheers,
Ruairi

[roughly]

I've had a ton of luck with drumagog, and my own samples made at most every session.

[kudzu]

Does drumagog work?
I'm on mac.....drumagog?
On Logic....so groove template my wayadoinit......intersested in drumagog on mac

[syra]

Originally Posted by djui5

Soundreplacer works very very well and I use it a lot..especially to fix bleed in the snare mic. It's really easy to use and works like a charm. I love it. It's been a blessing for a mixer

So...is it just me that thinks SR blows?...

I am usually amazed if it tracks 80% of a track correctly without me having to manually fix it...

I am looking forward to Drum Rehab...keyword" Realtime"

Drumagog is awesome btw...

[84K]

Here is a snare for ya to work with... best of luck!!

[84K]

Originally Posted by syra

So...is it just me that thinks SR blows?...

I am usually amazed if it tracks 80% of a track correctly without me having to manually fix it...

I am looking forward to Drum Rehab...keyword" Realtime"

Drumagog is awesome btw...

I can't wait to try Drumagog... SR is a pain in the a$$ with manual movement... I can't imagine ever NOT needing to manually "tuck in" my samples.... is this true??? Is Drumagog the answer??

[Ruairi]

Thanks for the snare 84K, it sounds great. I think I will wait for Drumagog and Drum Rehab to come out before I purchase a solution, there should be demos of both available this month. I'm on PTHD by the way.

Does anyone have suggestions for commercialy available samples, I'm guessing I would be using them mostly for rock. I actually resisted buying a drum replacement option until now as I thought it could make me lazy in the tracking stage but many drummers have no understanding of the connection between what they give me and what I give them back - "so if I hit this $100 out of tune snare late and inconsistently you can make it sound like (insert latest fav cd here)". I'm also ending up mixing more projects that were recorded elsewhere,

cheers,
Ruairi

[Stick]

Lately I've been using the sounds in BFD. Basically, I open it up in PT, dial in the snare sound I need (being able to tune the snare to the original is handy, and adding the room mics or whatever for "bigness"), print it to a stereo track, bounce it to an interleaved file in my Samples folder, then open up SR and replace the original onto a seperate stereo track (oh... more on that in a sec), then add it back into the mix, usually with the original still there. I do the same thing with Kicks and Toms out of BFD as well.

On the stereo thing with SR. I've found that to get SR to replace a mono snare track with a stereo sample, I have to make a stereo track of the original for SR to work from. I just make another mono track, and 2 stereo tracks. Copy the original snare to the second mono track, then select both copies of the snare, and copy those to the new stereo track. Then the last stereo track is where SR puts the replacement snare. Then I just inactivate the second mono original snare, and the stereo original snare, and hide them in the session. Then if I end up not liking my replacement, I can unhide the stereo original and run SR again (it doesn't have to be active for SR to see it).

Hope this helps someone out there...

[largeunit]

I thought SoundReplacer was ok - unweildy and clunky but workable - until I tried apTrigga. I'm using it with the VST Adaptor in ProTools and it works incredibly well and I've never had one crash or bit or weirdness with it. You can audition samples in realtime while the track is playing, stack samples instantly in realtime, and lots of other flexible features. It's really pretty amazing.

And it only costs $50.

[syra]

Originally Posted by djui5

You gotta be carefull when you bring down the sliders to tell it which hit's you want to replace with that sample. It's really really sensitive (this is a good thing) and you can miss a few hit's if you don't check the track before processing.

If you zoom in and check sample by sample next to the original (keep a duplicate of the track) you will see that no matter where the sliders are some of them are early/late...peak align or not I always have to check manually and correct the errors...

[quasimodonyc]

Originally Posted by syra

If you zoom in and check sample by sample next to the original (keep a duplicate of the track) you will see that no matter where the sliders are some of them are early/late...peak align or not I always have to check manually and correct the errors...

Soundreplacer never sounded natural to me. I started placing snare samples manually based on whether the drummer was hitting it with his right or left hand (making one sample a little darker and matching the volumes by using the ASuite Gain plugin) and got better results. A little more time consuming (I can get through a 3 minute song in about an hour) but at least I know it's correct.

[kudzu]

Originally Posted by largeunit

I thought SoundReplacer was ok - unweildy and clunky but workable - until I tried apTrigga. I'm using it with the VST Adaptor in ProTools and it works incredibly well and I've never had one crash or bit or weirdness with it. You can audition samples in realtime while the track is playing, stack samples instantly in realtime, and lots of other flexible features. It's really pretty amazing.

And it only costs $50.

Largeuint.....Any chance of website details 4 "apTrigga" ?

[kennyd03]

Originally Posted by roughly

I've had a ton of luck with drumagog, and my own samples made at most every session.

You make a good point here about getting your own samples. I always try to remember to sample any drum kit that I'm recording. It usually takes just a couple of minutes of time to have the drummer hit each drum/and cymbal a couple of times, and then another few minutes of editing later. I figure, hey, I'm paying (in one way or another) for this sound, I might as well be able to use it later.

Having my own library of drum sounds has been a great resource that I use almost weekly.

-KD03

[Ruairi]

Originally Posted by largeunit

I thought SoundReplacer was ok - unweildy and clunky but workable - until I tried apTrigga. I'm using it with the VST Adaptor in ProTools and it works incredibly well and I've never had one crash or bit or weirdness with it. You can audition samples in realtime while the track is playing, stack samples instantly in realtime, and lots of other flexible features. It's really pretty amazing.

And it only costs $50.

I had been alerted to that option before but i was always freaked out by the idea of using a vst adapter in my PTHD rig. My rig is absolutely stable and the idea of introducing any weirdness is not good.

Is there a version of the adapter that is more stable, any hints on making this work? What version of PT are you on?

cheers,
Ruairi

[largeunit]

Originally Posted by Ruairi

I had been alerted to that option before but i was always freaked out by the idea of using a vst adapter in my PTHD rig. My rig is absolutely stable and the idea of introducing any weirdness is not good.

Is there a version of the adapter that is more stable, any hints on making this work? What version of PT are you on?

cheers,
Ruairi

I was reluctant for the same reason, and didn't do it until I saw it working on a friend's system. It is absolutely solid on my system, not even a slight issue. I'm running the most current version of PT and the latest version of the adaptor.

In any event, all the adaptor does is drop a single file into your plug-in folder (for each plugin you introduce), so if you ever did suspect it was introducing instability, you can just pull out that file.

[largeunit]

Originally Posted by kudzu

Largeuint.....Any chance of website details 4 "apTrigga" ?

http://www.apulsoft.ch/aptrigga/index.php

[7rojo7]

Just bought Drumagog4
Thanks all for the tips, we should keep contact with new findings on the use and abuse.

[Stick]

Does Aptrigga work with stereo samples?

[largeunit]

Yep.

[Stick]

Huh... pretty cool. Of course, now I'm done with the record with all the replacement...

Maybe by my next mix project DrumRehab will be ready... I'd like to check that out before messing with the Wrapper.