Anyone use mainly sampled drums and guitar emulations

[Star Ark]

Howdy. The names Doofus, long time lurker 1st time poster. I'd like to give a huge thanx to the slutz as I have picked up more vital information regarding recording here over the last year than i have in my entire life. I still can't get over how mature and polite the majority of the community is here, very lovely people indeed.

But enough ass kissing

I record rock/pop/metal from my humble melbourne home studio using mostly drum samples played through a td3 and guitar/bass simulation software. I found the recent addition of a UA solo 610 has taken the guitar sims to a whole new level and i finally have a kick ass bass di/rock vocal pre. Basically i'm searching for fellow slutz who work predominantly in this way so maybe i can pick their brains. Does anybody seriously work this way and achieve reasonable results?

I am aware that a real amp is the way to go, and I have been messing around with my roland cube 30 (I also have a krankenstien and marshall 1960 but house mates aren't down with my kranking the krank when they are home and someone is always home) but anybody else have any experiences to share?

I would love to hear some samples of others work done in this way. I'd be interested to hear what can be achieved but top notch engineers with emulations and sampled drums played by a real drummer on a digital kit.

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, i wasn't sure where it belonged.

[Never1]

I guess I'll bite on this one.


It's totally doable, if you're savvy, to go all ITB with your amp sims and drum samples etc...

The style of music is what's going to determine how believable the end result is.

Some pop rock music will work but other more organic sounding music will not sound right.

I don't work this way for "real" projects but for at home demos and such, I have DKFH superior and Guitar rig 3. It gets the job done well enough, but it's always kinda like looking at a picture rather than a motion picture.

I will use samples and amp sims in the studio for certain things but it's always to enhance something that's already there or create something unnatural as an artistic choice.

From a drum standpoint, it's very hard to capture the vibe of a real kit resonating in a real room, captured with real mics from a drum sample set.... even taking a live kit and totally replacing the kick, snare and toms and keeping the OH's/rooms real will sound way more natural than using a TD-20 kit and triggering everything through something like DKFH superior.

For guitars, I always find the sounds to be too direct and they don't have enough depth to the simulations. The "room ambience" always sounds cheesy, to me. One way around this has been to create the best tone I can get, that sounds more like my amplifiers and pump it out of the studio monitors and recapture it with a mic and a pre, a few inches from the speaker. It lets the amp sim step back a little bit and sit better in the mix.

YMMV

[kojak]

Definitely if you can get a good sample set like BFD or the like, that will make the drum sound much more convincing...guitar wise, I use a combination of real and emulated sounds from Guitar Rig and Amplitube, which sound better with every version they put out. Re-amping some of the sounds as mentioned above is a great idea as well, particularly for solos or anything that will be up in the mix.

[moops]

In terms of your situation, I'd say both are potentially suitable solutions, though there are certain limitations.

I use Guitar Rig 3 a lot as an ampsim, along with EZ Drummer as a drum sample solution...and it usually works pretty well. I think GR3 is the best of the ampsims at the moment (for those that disagree there's probably another thread here somewhere where we can go at that ) but to get the sound we like we tend to re-amp live, i.e. we pick the sound we want in GR3 (effectively as opposed miking the real cab) and the guitar is tracked live through GR3 and through the monitors at a decent volume, with a mix supplied to guitar player in headphones, so you get the interaction between the guitar and ampsim, which is what is missing sometimes.

It's pretty good still when mixed after the event or in headphones ITB when tracking, but you can really get the ampsims to ring when you play out loud with the guitar 'in circuit' as it were. GR3 amps are miles ahead of GR2 BTW. It does need a decent room reverb though and placing gently in it's own space to sound real enough as already mentioned. As with a lot of these things, you need to play WITH the sound, that is, don't just play, listen to what you are getting out of the tool and play accordingly.

Drum-wise, EZDrummer has some great sounds, and the new superior drummer looks even better...EZD has multi-velocities/multi-samples to stop that 'machine-gun' sample triggering thing, and I've a couple of things we're working on at the moment where we're tracking it from a midi v-drum kit, with all the 'mics' split and going through required compressors/verbs etc...the sound quality is excellent, and if played on a V-drum kit by a real drummer you'll get a decent result.

Having played both v-drums and acoustic drums for recordings, there IS a difference, and a lot of it is down to how the kit and the room translate the nuances of playing...It's true that if you've got a decent sounding room and well-maintained well-miked kit then you're done, but when circumstances won't allow, a decent drummer playing a decent v-drum kit with/triggering good samples will get you a long long way...only you'll know if it gets you to where you want to be, but I certainly wouldn't discount it. If there was a distinction, I'd say that the nuances make the difference between what you might call an 'analogue' sound and 'digital' one, but you can reduce that often with a little midi editing to remove hits that multi-trigger etc afterwards...and I don't ever have a problem with that, it's sometimes part of 'producing' v-drums and samples to get a more 'analogue' result in the mix.

Again though, if you can set up a stereo mix for the drummer that sounds like a believable kit placed in front of them like a regular kit would be, and have them play the instrument a little to get used to it, you'll probably get better results.

I know a lot of people round here don't like amp sims and sampled drums, but I think there's certainly a place for them, especially when real world demands require keeping the volume down...and some of these tools are getting to the point now where if used/played in the right way, they can be used extremely effectively.

[Star Ark]

Cheers for taking to time to respond guys.

I forgot to mention i use the td3 with battery 3 and have searched the net for free samples and found heaps of nice kits to mess with and spend ages adjusting velocities to get rid of the machine gun effect.

But the one comment about finding the sound you want from guitar sims before tracking so the player can interact with the tone you plan to keep was something i never even considered. That is something i will most definitely try over the next 5 days, ( I took some time of work to mess around with my gear, it's gonna be sweet! ) and i'm sure it will help me out.

And I like the idea of using the real amp for the solos, or whatever is taking the center stage if you will.

Reamping is something i have been interested in but if i use the krank i have to have it loud to get the best tone, and in a less than ideal room i'm afraid of capturing too much room sound. But maybe a little room sound of a real amp in a bad room is better than an amp sim?

I think i may have to do a search on re amp boxes now.

[stcroix]

Greetings Doofus,

I too am making music from a humble home studio in Melbourne.

I do everything ITB and am very happy with the drum and guitar sounds I'm getting using all software.

I'm about to throw 40k down on some serious kit though, complete with Roland TD-20 digital drum set, a couple Nevana UAD-2's and a custom 32 channel console with a bunch of outboard gear.

Will be experimenting with micing real amps etc to double over my favorite guitar amp sims. If you know how to work Toontrack's Superior 2.0, you can get fantastic sounding drums going.

Let me know how you get on with things m8.

Cheers
Brad

[Star Ark]

throwing down 40k you say?

So is this a personal venture? Or are you planning on recording the local bands as well? And what styles?

Sorry for the many questions but the Melbourne scene is very close knit and I like to keep up to date.

Also any myspace page where i could hear some examples?

You can check me out at myspace.com/doofusband

Also I work at Allans music and can help you out with good deals if you havent already got your prices sorted.
I know we do the td20 at least.

[ryst]

I have a solo rock EP I am working on and when I am done I plan on getting a live band to play out with and have some fun. For my drums I use DFHS, Superior 2, Addictive Drums, and SSD.

I used to use a PodXT and Guitar Rig for guitars but I decided to use my podxt as a distortion pedal in front of my old Peavey Classic VTX....it sounds way better than an amp sim. Nothing can replace a miked amp. And a lot of times I will just use the pod and guitar rig for fx. I'm glad I went back to real amps because I was never completely satisfied with my guitar sounds until now. And you don't necessarily need to crank the amp for a good recorded tone if you and recording at home and have neighbors to worry about.

For bass I go direct and use the Ampeg Bass plug for the amp sound. I actually love the way it sounds.

Overall, I really love making records this way....especially since I am doing everything myself. And it's easy to get some demos happening for new songs to show my band or other bands i am producing.

[gearaddict]

I sometimes use Guitar Rig 3 and EZ drummer...Ez drummer is the best I have used and I have used them all (Just my opinion)...But the guitar sims always seem to be noisy...but hey..they do the job!!

Try those and I bet you like them!!!

[David Robinson]

hi,
EZ drummer has an add on called "Claustraphobic".
this has a small room/drum booth vibe, that i find appealing.
most of all the others leave you with close, o/h, and room.
the close is to me, too close and the room, too big for a lot of music i do.
plus, it's rather hard to get the other instruments into the same "room" as the drums.
DR9.

[TornadoTed]

There is a studio near me run by a pretty talented teenager with a Roland V Drums, 2 POD XT's, a Bass POD and a cheap Rode vocal mic who knocks out pretty good demos for peanuts. He has a pair of Behringer monitors and a laptop with loads of freeware, cracks etc

They don't sound quite right on a good system but on crappy mySpace quality they sound pretty decent.

Scary

[Star Ark]

Originally Posted by TornadoTed

There is a studio near me run by a pretty talented teenager with a Roland V Drums, 2 POD XT's, a Bass POD and a cheap Rode vocal mic who knocks out pretty good demos for peanuts. He has a pair of Behringer monitors and a laptop with loads of freeware, cracks etc

They don't sound quite right on a good system but on crappy mySpace quality they sound pretty decent.

Scary

Yeah I find many a local musician commenting on the quality of my demos but i suspect most have only heard them on myspace too.

I'd say what they are also responding to is the time i can put in to polishing the tracks, where most of them have put up the cash to record in a studio with tracking room, control room, acoustic drums real amps but due to time constraints can't nail each riff as tight as they like and so on. I think i may be hoping for something that cant be done just yet but I'm sure in the future these emulations will keep improving.

All yesterday i was messing with tones through amplitube metal demo and my roland cube 30 with an sm57 and a UA solo 610. I pulled the grill off the cube, rammed the mic right up onto the speaker, pulled back the gain on the guitar just a touch and found a pretty decent tone, more real than amplitube.

But I'm still leaning towards emulations, they are just so convenient.

Anybody here have experience use a roland cube 30 for rock/pop/metal tones in their recordings?

[stcroix]

Heya Doofus,

Yeah it's going to initially be a personal project. I've been mucking around with computer based recording since I was 15 (25 now!) and never really was able to achieve the sound I was looking for. I started recording with general midi -> audio sample converters and eventually moved on to the POD etc. then software amps and drums.

Seems now the technology is finally there to make a decent record in a personal room and times ticking for me. So the money I'm going to put down will be to initally record an album then eventually to mix for local bands as a side project (can't see it being a money maker in this day and age).

I shop at Allans in the CBD all the time! Is that the store where you work? I've probably met you before if that's the case.

If I can get a decent deal on the TD-20 I'll be wrapped. Came in to buy one in January but Roland were out of stock and I ended up blowing the money on guitars.

I'm from the UK and only been in Melbourne a little over a year so am not really up to play with the local scene here. I have a couple of mates in bands here but to be honest I've been focussing more on my own stuff and haven't headed out to St Kilda etc. to watch many bands in a while.

How are you finding the scene over here?

[Star Ark]

Originally Posted by stcroix

Heya Doofus,

Yeah it's going to initially be a personal project. I've been mucking around with computer based recording since I was 15 (25 now!) and never really was able to achieve the sound I was looking for. I started recording with general midi -> audio sample converters and eventually moved on to the POD etc. then software amps and drums.

Seems now the technology is finally there to make a decent record in a personal room and times ticking for me. So the money I'm going to put down will be to initally record an album then eventually to mix for local bands as a side project (can't see it being a money maker in this day and age).

I shop at Allans in the CBD all the time! Is that the store where you work? I've probably met you before if that's the case.

If I can get a decent deal on the TD-20 I'll be wrapped. Came in to buy one in January but Roland were out of stock and I ended up blowing the money on guitars.

I'm from the UK and only been in Melbourne a little over a year so am not really up to play with the local scene here. I have a couple of mates in bands here but to be honest I've been focussing more on my own stuff and haven't headed out to St Kilda etc. to watch many bands in a while.

How are you finding the scene over here?

Dude you're in the same boat as me. I'm 24 and been messing around with recording for about 5-6 years. I actually work in the Kew store and to make matters more confusing there is a Neil that works at the CBD store too.

I'm finding the scene pretty cool at the moment as I like my arty rock/metal sort of stuff like Karnivool and Cog and Dead Letter Circus. The current metal scene stinks I reckon, i'm not into this emo/hardcore tight pants big fringes music, doesn't seem to be much substance just image. But there are always plenty of gigs on any night of the week so it's going pretty strong i suppose.

I'm on a holiday until Saturday but if you wanna give Allans kew store a call on Saturday on Sunday and ask for Neil we could chat about it. I need the computer in front of me to sort out the best deals I can do, maybe some of the other items we can help out with too like the outboard gear.

Take it easy

[salomonander]

i've been doing ITB stuff for many years. but nothing can replace the real thing.
not talking about amp sims...they won't mess too much with your sound.
just talking about a real drummer. no matter how good your library is...it will never sound nearly as good as a real drummer. never.
there are so many unemployed drummers looking for an opportunity. seriously grab them. just take them down to your place and have a listen.
you might not have the same recording equipment as the guys doing libraries.
but it will still sound a million times better...
i've been programming drums for years. but then i realized just how many unemployed drummers are out there. they won't charge you a fortune. and if they like your music they might even do it for free.

just a thought....give it a try
and all the best to your music!

[stcroix]

Salo,

I agree - I've also been programming drums manually for years and they do sound a bit robotic, but if you have access to a real drummer and a set of V-drums + all the toontrack libriaries you can't tell the difference between that and a multi-million dollar live tracking room. They are just that good

Doofus,

I'll give you a bell next week mate

[Bang]

Here is drummer Dan Kirk playing one of my emulated kits, the DEFTONES kit, on some Vdrums:

www.stevenslatedrums.com/demo3/KirkTone1.mp3

www.stevenslatedrums.com/demo3/KirkTone2.mp3

cool!

[FireMoon]

Originally Posted by David Robinson

hi,
EZ drummer has an add on called "Claustraphobic".
this has a small room/drum booth vibe, that i find appealing.
most of all the others leave you with close, o/h, and room.
the close is to me, too close and the room, too big for a lot of music i do.
plus, it's rather hard to get the other instruments into the same "room" as the drums.
DR9.

Try unloading all the kit but say a snare of bass drum. Render the mix of the individual drum, with as much or as little of the room as you want. Bring that back into the mix and reload the other parts of the kit. Superior drummer actually includes this in its' programme. You can alter the sends to the room mics from each part of the kit separately. For that reason alone i shall be upgrading when funds allow.

One trick i found works. Is to use a dry render of the Slingerland snare from EZY mixed with the tight Rogers. You can drop the level of the snare quite considerably on the EZY drummer as the dry rendered one provides most of the body. The tight one gives it some snap and room. That helps glue the kit together as whole.

[IntenseJim]

I use a Roland TD-6. No, it's not fvcking killer but I'm a hobbyist and record at home. I have two good solid drummers who pound on it for me and I get decent results.

One of the drummer is leaving his kit at my place . I may try to mic a kit with < 3 mics but for now the Roland drums suffice.


*musical styles: rock, blues, electronica, metal, jazz @ Marcus Miller/Alain Caron and Bill Frisell. It's 95% instrumental

[Star Ark]

Originally Posted by Bang

Here is drummer Dan Kirk playing one of my emulated kits, the DEFTONES kit, on some Vdrums:

www.stevenslatedrums.com/demo3/KirkTone1.mp3

www.stevenslatedrums.com/demo3/KirkTone2.mp3

cool!

Hey Mr. Slate

About a month ago I was drooling over those emulated kits!

The Mike Portnoy Kit is something else!
Actually they all are
Do you plan on selling just individual kits?
Because I only record me and my band and it would be great to have them all but it all comes down to the dollars and if i could just have a few for less cash I'd be a happy camper.

The black album kit is so close to the original it's scary