metal guys; how do you go about drum replacement?

[maskedman72]

i am curious as to how people recording metal/death metal are replacing drums. i am looking to learn some tips/tricks to help make it easier or faster or better/more realistic sounding.

ill go 1st.

i am running ptle with drumagog and i have the ddrum pro triggers.

once the kit is tuned up and ready to go i record sample hits of each individual drum so that i can use the kit itself as the sample. it sounds more natural to me this way.

after the kit has been recorded (w/the ddrum transient spikes) i usually end up deleting the ddrum trigger tracks and i usually dont go to drumagog (i have them just in case though). i find that drumagog dosent really work that well so i use the tab to transient method for everything. this take more time but i find it to be perfect once finished.

i go to the individual hits that were recorded of the snare drum and copy one that i like the sound of. i will go and duplicate the original snare track than i will start pasting the single snare hit over all of the actual snare hits using the tab feature. when the drummer does fast rolls on the snare, rather than replacing each of those hits within the roll (it sounds way to fake to do that) i make the roll its own region than create a new track and name it rolls than drag all of the snare rolls in the song to that track. than in the mix i just push the roll track up or down in volume to match the sample track i have replaced with the individual hits. it ends up sounding great. once finished, you can than blend in the original snare drum with the sample snare drum but i seldom do this. i like a snare that is constant and pounding.

i do find that when using the tab feature, things can go wrong. what i find to happen is once you are tabbed up to a transient and you paste your sample there, sometimes it will totally kill the sound of the sample or make it totally weak sounding. i dont know exactly why this happens yet, but i think it has to do with how close to the initial transient you are either copying or pasting the sample. if anyone can shed some light here that would be great.

if the drummer makes a tuning change to the snare drum than you have to re-record a sample hit of it again so the rolls are in tune with the sample you are going to use.

please share you method.

[EduardoApolonia]

I record the ddrum triggers signal also (thanks for the tip Andy Sneap) and then I'm replacing it using TL Drum rehab, I was using Soundreplacer before, but in Drum Rehab you can edit each hit and you can have 3 different sounds for each of the 5 velocities that will replace in random or in sequence. This gives a bigger realism then having the same sample for each velocity.
Then I mix the replaced track (s) (because I sometimes use 2 different sample tracks) with the natural sound to taste.

[paultools]

Wow!

[Farview]

Drumagog works just great over here, what are you having trouble with?

[J-Deb]

i dont use it often thanx to nashville session players, but i never have any trouble with drumagog.......use a sample of the same snare used on the song and splice in any rolls..... drumagog has saved the day several times......


p.s. im in nashville but its not country.....and i guess im kind of a metal guy...

[maskedman72]

Originally Posted by Farview

Drumagog works just great over here, what are you having trouble with?

it can work ok on kicks but snare is aonther story.

i have played with it for quite some time and it just dosent work with fast tempo metal. perhaps i am just not using it properly or i am not dialing it in right but it just seems much tighter to do the tab thing.

i wish drumagog worked well for me but thus far it hasnt.


eduardo, what is andy sneaps tip you speak of?

[godcity]

yeah, it kind of sucks that the music that most needs triggering is the hardest to trigger, doesn't it? i've basically done the same things you have done. the tab to transient technique is the most reliable, but it can sound too mechanical.
one suggestion i have for the rolls is that when you are recording your snare samples, record a press roll. then blend that press roll in underneath the triggered roll. some automation on the roll can help as well.
i'm just getting into drumagog and haven't tried it with blast beats yet, but i've had good luck with aptrigga for fast stuff. try that.

[Hope209]

I think I'm having the same problem you guys are having with Drumagog in PT Le. It seems to cause different amounts of latency throughout all of the hits. So even if I bounce down the track, cut it, and shift it over so the first hits are lined up perfectly other hits throughout the track are off. I posted this question at the Drumagog forum, but no answer yet

[Aux13]

Originally Posted by maskedman72

it can work ok on kicks but snare is aonther story.I have played with it for quite some time and it just dosent work with fast tempo metal.

Maybe samples are too long?

[DontLetMeDrown]

Strange. Maybe your issue is because of the lack of ADC? Sonar user here and Drumagog is pretty much a sure shot even for fast kicks and snares-- even 32nd notes. Just make sure you choose the "optimized for Snare" in the settings and choose "High Precision" or whatever it's called. You can also try dragging the threshold super-low to make sure your rolls come out right. It really should not be that difficult. Maybe there is a nudging mistake or some other wrong setting in PT?

[luctellier]

I use ApTrigga2.

[Jbassist]

If your dealing with misstriggers, It sometimes helps to make a copy of your snare and filter it down to were you only have only snare (useally alot of highs and lows obvioulsy!).. if it sounds cool or not.. and use this to trigger!

This helped me alot on a recent prject were i was driven mad by mistriggers, in this case using the filter in Drumagog doesn't help alot realy..

[PoorGlory]

Its true Drumagog doesn't accel at fast insane snare rolls, but you just have to be more conscious of what Drumagog is looking for. For instance, I frequently record bands with blast beats, insane snare rolls, other weird snare-driven fills that Drumagog has a hard time with. I get it to work fine doing this:

Because blast beats and snare fills tend to vary wildly in dynamic range with regular snare hits on 2 and 4, you end up with a lot of loud snare hits and a lot of really soft ones where hi-hat bleed can cause mistriggers or snare hits in extremely rapid succession (rolls) won't trigger properly. Solution: find the frequency unique to the snare (usually somewhere around 250) that represents the body and beef to the snare sound. These frequencies usually represent the timing of snare hits better than the top endy snap we all like to hear from a snare. Boost the hell out of that frequency so that Drumagog will clearly hear every stroke. It may not sound good coming in, but it will be accurate coming out, and your using a sample anyway.

Blast beats are the worst because drummers tend to lighten up their hits for the sake of one-handed speed. This is where the above mentioned technique really shines.

[Jbassist]

Couldn't have said it better
This is exactly what i meant, just a little bit better formulated!

[Mafiso]

I use Ddrum triggers, a roland tmc 6 trigger to midi converter, and bfd.

This is nice because you can edit all of the drums on a big piano roll, and edit each velocity separately and with lots of control. I also have overheads that capture the true drum sound, and this along with triggers usually sounds pretty nice. Also since the overheads are generally pretty low in the mix I can make small edits to the placement of drums and you can not notice any difference when listening to the whole song.

[George Necola]

kit has been recorded (w/the ddrum transient spikes)

very good. that is common since triggering was an issue

I have problems with ultrafast blackmetal loooong doublebass playing. it does not fit in the mix usually and it has a holperi feel, so I edit the hell out of the spikes, and usually its the drummer.

I have no problems with the appropiate-samples (stevenslatedrums.com works very well for example).

cheers

[C_F_H_13]

I still do all my replacement manually....I guess I'm a dinosaur in that sense.

[JeffTD]

Trigger straight to disk, aptrigga to do the actual sound-replacement.

I prefer aptrigga to Drumagog (the only other I've tried) - it's insanely tight in comparison. Probably the tightest drum replacement engine I've ever heard.

[slaves666]

I too track individual hits of the drums in the studio, then use drumagog to make a gog file of each drum to eliminate bleed but keep the original tones. Snare is tricky however. Depending on the speed it is played, i sometimes grab a few hits, and create the fill, then drop it in on a separate track. I need seom Ddrum triggers, it would make things easier than cutting all my tom tracks, and missed, or extra hits on the snare and kick tracks.

[Barish]

Don't forget to watch Kenny's free Beat Detective tutorials, they may give you some other tips: Beat Detective - Collection Mode for Drums - Free Video

B.

[aghora]

I have been doing it manually the "old School" way but I think I may look into Drumagog

[lionheart]

Is there anyway or any soundreplacertool that allows you to choose/program/automate wich hits it will replace..??
I use Apptrigga and feel it's more accurate than Drumagog. but snare is still an assue here, and it would be nice to have the opertunity to programe the hits sometimes:-)

[PlatinumSamples]

Drum Rehab lets you define hits and is sample accurate... but it's RTAS (and mono) only.

Rail

[lionheart]

Originally Posted by PlatinumSamples

Drum Rehab lets you define hits and is sample accurate... but it's RTAS (and mono) only.

Rail

I Working in Cubase 4.. no RTAS for me :-(

Is'nt Soundreplacer (protools) also definable??

[PlatinumSamples]

SoundReplacer lets you load 3 samples and has 3 thresholds... and isn't very accurate. It's an AudioSuite plug-in so it works on a selected range of audio.

Rail

[lionheart]

Originally Posted by PlatinumSamples

SoundReplacer lets you load 3 samples and has 3 thresholds... and isn't very accurate. It's an AudioSuite plug-in so it works on a selected range of audio.

Rail

Ok:-)

Well, i use and really like the apptigga.. accurate and basic, but would love the oppertunity to programe some off the hits manualy..

[DeathMonkey]

Originally Posted by C_F_H_13

I still do all my replacement manually....I guess I'm a dinosaur in that sense.

I've gone back to this as well - I want to preserve the original drum track as much as possible. Part of it is my iconoclastic nature, but I have completely rebelled against the ticky tack drum sound found in modern metal. I have started recording big booming drum kit sounds for metal, and fitting everything else around it. The drummers fight until they hear how ****ing huge it sounds. I haven't really gotten the EQ or compression right yet, but just putting the drums back in the low end where the belong has triggered (no pun intended) a sea change in the way a few of my favorite local bands have approached drum sounds. It is far easier to record full low end drums and make them brighter than to record bright drums and go looking for low end.

If I need a fix, I just use an earlier hit. I am a dynamics *****, so unless it is really jarring, I just leave it alone.

[Inner Light]

Originally Posted by luctellier

I use ApTrigga2.

+1 same here! works, great , just got to watch the length of the samples, when triggering really fast stuff. but you can, adjust it, on the fly.

[mattssons]

Those that replace drums, do you often combine with miced drums or is total replacement the way you usually do it?

It seems to be a real art to this when it comes to the music that needs it! /Thanks /Toby

[amishsixstringe]

I usually blend the samples in with the origional...Sometime 2 samples, 2 of the top mic with parallel compressors and the bottom mic, making 5 tracks. It depends on a lot.


Does anyone find it odd that we take a NATURAL (real) snare drum and trigger it to make a really robotic sounding performance....and then we manipulate that for days getting it to sound more 'natural'? It's crackhead stuff.
I'm guilty though.

Neil