Adding Snare Sample to Original Snare

[madcowvt]

Originally Posted by Methlab

I use drumagog to avoid this issue. DGog allows you to blend the sample in how you want it. What i do is loop the part with the roll and adjust until it sounds natural. pretty easy, and also a good place to start when you put in a snare sample. once it works on that roll, it will blend in nicely with the single hits too. if for some reason it doesn't, you could automate.

I do the same thing and it works great. Honestly, thank God for Drumagog somtimes.

I had to hire a session drummer on a project im doing now because the bands drummer couldnt play the songs. We wasted 3 days, got one song down without a click (he couldnt play to it) and is was horrible. The session drummer tracked all 6 songs in about 7 hours and it sounds amazing. A great drummer is key... no doubt.

Sorry for running off topic

[Bang]

I'll use Drumagog's blend feature, but I do sometimes like to have the original snare and the sample on their own faders. It makes it a bit easier to automate if you need the balances altered at different parts of the mix.

[BLueROom]

I started my sample company simply for this reason... to make my life easier. I always get drummers that want to use their $400 kits and try and play way beyond their capabilities. Even after dumbing their crazy fast beats and off-the-mark fills I still found myself editing for hours on end, knowing the whole time the end result wasn't going to make me happy. Then, one fateful day, I decided to go the sample replacement route and ever since my life ....and ears have been much better

To answer the original question, I almost always leave the original snare on a track by itself with mild processing and then bring the sample(s) up underneath it. If the original snare was crap, but the drummer insisted on using it anyway, I then replace it 100% with one mf my samples using Drumagog. After the drummer hears his pingy snare in the mix after using one of my samples he usually decides to trust me.

[Gregg Sartiano]

Originally Posted by Gregg Sartiano

Also, if you're using delay compensation in PT, you can send the samples to SD sub--> Drum sub and also dry to master by control-clicking the output and adding an A 1-2 output to the bus out already there (it'll look like +Bus 1-2 after you add). Nothing will make a squashed SD poke through aggressive master compression faster.

This is still a good trick, but I found that delay compensation doesn't work 100% using this setup -- as far as I can tell, there's one offset per channel, period, not one offset for each output (or bus).

The solution is to output to your SD bus AND through another bus (same basic procedure, but replace "A 1-2" with "Bus XX-ZZ"), make an aux return for that bus, and THEN go from that bus to master.

[JP11]

Originally Posted by Tibbon

George Martin didn't want to use Ringo at first... and used a session drummer instead without even hearing Ringo for their first recordings together. I guess it happens to the best of us.

OT trivia:

Ringo did play the drums on his first session. They did Love Me Do and How Do You Do It. George Martin and the engineers decided the drum sound wasn't happening, so they brought in Andy White for the next session, re-doing Love Me Do, plus P.S. I Love You and a failed attempt at Please Please Me. Ringo was stuck on tambourine and maracas. Ringo and the others were not thrilled. Next session found Ringo back in the drummers chair with a re-worked Please Please Me and their first number one. As far as I know, they didn't replace or layer in a sample with Ringo's snare.

[timbrewolf1]

Originally Posted by RockNashville

Here's what sucks. Sometimes to keep a client, you've got to let them try out their lousy ass drummer. I f'king hate that. I feel like if I tell the client up front that there's no way in hell we're using their sucky drummer, then I'll lose the gig. So I waste three days cutting bad drums, two days editing them, then a half hour or so re - recording it with myself or another drummer. Oh, how much time is wasted in trying to keep the client happy. The older I get, the less I try to play that game, but it's still a problem.

I know what you mean. I heard about a demo session where some clown named Ringo Starr showed up and thought that HE was going to play on the track!

[timbrewolf1]

Originally Posted by JP11

OT trivia:

Ringo did play the drums on his first session. They did Love Me Do and How Do You Do It. George Martin and the engineers decided the drum sound wasn't happening, so they brought in Andy White for the next session, re-doing Love Me Do, plus P.S. I Love You and a failed attempt at Please Please Me. Ringo was stuck on tambourine and maracas. Ringo and the others were not thrilled. Next session found Ringo back in the drummers chair with a re-worked Please Please Me and their first number one. As far as I know, they didn't replace or layer in a sample with Ringo's snare.

Two versions exist. If you hear tambourine it's Andy White on kit.

[Musiclab]

Originally Posted by timbrewolf1

Two versions exist. If you hear tambourine it's Andy White on kit.

Actually after Pete Best George Martin insisted they use a session drummer, I believe it was Allen White, Ringo played tambourine, then they redid the track with Ringo on drums and he played on just about everything after that, unless it was Paul

[timbrewolf1]

Originally Posted by Musiclab

Actually after Pete Best George Martin insisted they use a session drummer, I believe it was Allen White, Ringo played tambourine, then they redid the track with Ringo on drums and he played on just about everything after that, unless it was Paul

I just finished Geoff Emerick's book, George Martin's book, and Peter Brown's book - all, of course, on The Beatles. GREAT overview, but it's difficult to remember what I saw where.

One of them said that they thought a few copies with White on drums got released. Also, I think it was Emerick who thought that Paul was a great drummer doing tracks whenever Ringo quit or went home early.

It's really simply amazing what those guys did in the studio. Hell, Lennon recorded the first feedback guitar! It's a hard call but I think Harrison is my fav ex. I got to see him with Ravi, Billy Preston, and Leon Russell did an end show cameo back in the 70's.

-~wolf

[Ben B]

Originally Posted by Led

I've got a bunch of snare hits I've recorded over the years in different stairwells/halls/rooms and often I'll trim the hit off and just trigger the room ambience to add to a live snare. It can work well also....

Every time I record drums, I take room mic samples of each drum at multiple dynamic levels. I never use samples from the close mics. In the mix, the "real" close-miked drum tracks are used, and these are combined with room mic samples of the same drums. This helps me deal with the problem of "not enough snare in the room mics," or whatever. When the room mic samples blend with the "actual" room mic tracks (the normal ones that were used during tracking) it sounds very convincing, and allows me to bring out any component of the kit within the room tracks. (Tip: If you're using Sound Replacer, turn off the Peak Align feature when you do this.) In my opinion, this technique sounds way better than adding artificial reverb to the close mics, and doesn't sound like sample replacement at all, as long as you're blending the room samples with your original room tracks.

It can also be interesting to take room mic samples from other drums, and/or from other studios to use in a mix. It can really save the day if you're recording in a small room, or if the drummer brings in an anemic kit, or plays like a wet noodle.

Ben B

[Jack Ruston]

For anyone who's not aware of this....

In PT:

Bring in your samples and place them on spare tracks above the original snare.

Trim them using tab to transient, and zoom in to make sure they are lining up ok with each other, and are all in phase. Use invert to correct any that are the wrong way up.

Create a group of just the sample tracks. Highlight the trimmed aligned samples and copy to clipboard.

Create a second group with the sample tracks AND the snare track.

Press Tab right (') and the cursor will jump to the first snare hit. Press V to paste (in command focus) and notice that because you copied to clipboard before engaging the second group the snare track is left unaffected.

Now you can just alternate ' and v to jump right and paste all the way through.

.......

Here's another tip...use samples which offer three or four variations at each velocity and paste all of them simultaneously...so you end up with say: Dry snare, Dry snare Alt, Dry snare Alt2 and Dry snare quiet plus Roomy snare, alt and quiet. You can then go through and manually mute the regions in such a way that in the main sections of the song the samples very subtlely vary, and you have your quiet option for any 'half' hits.

J

[kkll00b]

Back in the good old Emulator II days (mid 1980s) , I used to enhance some of my snare drum sounds by sampling balloon pops and layering it with the snare sound. You can get some very interesting "snare attacks" by varying the pitch of the pop or the size/pressure of the balloon being popped. I also sampled a dribbled basketball in a high school gymnasium for some cool ambiance.

[C_F_H_13]

Originally Posted by Bang

I'll use Drumagog's blend feature, but I do sometimes like to have the original snare and the sample on their own faders. It makes it a bit easier to automate if you need the balances altered at different parts of the mix.

This is what I do. The blend feature is awesome, but more often then not I need the creative control over the sounds separately.

Whenever I do a drum session, I have the drummer (or myself if I know the drummer won't want to do it) play a bunch of hits...loud and quiet on all the drums. Then I make 2 Gog files for each drum....one of the close mic and one with just the room mics.

This way I generally sound replace with the drummers actual snare....or if I do use another random snare sample..I'll blend the room samples back in with it so it sort of sounds like it was in the same room.

[absrec]

Originally Posted by JP11

As far as I know, they didn't replace or layer in a sample with Ringo's snare.

Actually, they had Ringo sit there and overdub another snare to enhance the one from the original performance. Usually because they realized it was getting swallowed up by the other instruments. And probably to just have more control.

I'm warming up to this whole sample thing. It's been done for years. Now it's just really easy to do (and overdo).

-Aaron

[wheatus]

Short of having a great drummer play on the track....

In PT I always find that.....And call me crazy....Going into every snare and kick hit and manually trimming them to the transient and fading the decay get's me at least half way there without adding samples. It's a lot of tedious, hellish, blindingly unmusical work but it makes for an extremely accurate gated result and can make for some interesting compression and limiting.

But great drummers are better....I've had one of those for a long time now....what a treat!

[Beyersound]

Originally Posted by Methlab

I use drumagog to avoid this issue. DGog allows you to blend the sample in how you want it. What i do is loop the part with the roll and adjust until it sounds natural. pretty easy, and also a good place to start when you put in a snare sample. once it works on that roll, it will blend in nicely with the single hits too. if for some reason it doesn't, you could automate.

+1! Aptrigga lets you do the same thing as well.

[Musiclab]

Originally Posted by Ben B

Every time I record drums, I take room mic samples of each drum at multiple dynamic levels. I never use samples from the close mics. In the mix, the "real" close-miked drum tracks are used, and these are combined with room mic samples of the same drums. This helps me deal with the problem of "not enough snare in the room mics," or whatever. When the room mic samples blend with the "actual" room mic tracks (the normal ones that were used during tracking) it sounds very convincing, and allows me to bring out any component of the kit within the room tracks. (Tip: If you're using Sound Replacer, turn off the Peak Align feature when you do this.) In my opinion, this technique sounds way better than adding artificial reverb to the close mics, and doesn't sound like sample replacement at all, as long as you're blending the room samples with your original room tracks.

It can also be interesting to take room mic samples from other drums, and/or from other studios to use in a mix. It can really save the day if you're recording in a small room, or if the drummer brings in an anemic kit, or plays like a wet noodle.

Ben B

I usually take hits after I've gotten drum sounds, I just finished a hard rock album
where I did the same thing just used the room samples blended in and compressed. I don't usually do that but for this project and this drummer it worked