Your proccess?

[ShawnV]

Hello!

I was wondering what everyone’s process is for using drumtracker. I have yet to really get into using it, and it seems very…. daunting for me.

I figure tonight I’m going to try and use it. I have a track that’s mp3 that I’m using to base off from. I believe I still have all the drum tracks in mono though. I think I will start with the kick, and move up from there.

I’m not too sure how to go about the snare. I tried it a few times with only the mp3, it seemed pretty good, except it would pickup other hits from other drums. I changed the sensitivity and stuff.

Seemed to help. I will work though tonight on only kick drum to really get into it. I use Reaper and EZdrummer, sounds really good, can’t wait to finish this up.

I re-tracked the guitars and vocals using the mp3 as a guide. I hope I can find the original multitrack though.

Thank you for reading.

Any tips on the following is appreciated:

Rendering/getting the snare. Do I need to edit or add a groove/fill that is similar?

P.S. Does anyone use both the multi-track takes and mix with ezdrummer/drumtracker? Does this mix well?

My only concern would be bleeding, IE, I use drumtracker on everything but snare, or overheard for cymbols etc.

Thanks again!

Topic

[Scott]

When I use DT, I make sure that I have multi track drums to work from. I record drums in my own room but sometimes when drummers choose to use their own kits (as apposed to my nice studio kit) the sounds are, well, not so hot. I do multi track the kit so that if/when I need to augment/replace to original sounds, I’ll have an easier time at it. Trying to separate the kit pieces out of a drum mix isn’t so quick and easy.

Anyways, sometimes I end up mixing my Drumtracker’d tracks with the original but alot of the times I will just replace them. I do use the original overheads and room mics and just end up replacing kick, snare, and toms. That’s just the way I work it.

Here’s a track I did recently using the above method (replacing live kick, snare and toms with original overheads). I used the Allaire SDX for S2.

http://www.rainbowsounds.com/Breaking%20and%20Entering/Northeast%20with%20DT%20and%20S2.MP3
http://www.rainbowsounds.com/Breaking%20and%20Entering/Northeast%20with%20DT%20and%20S2.MP3

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[ShawnV]

Thank you Scott, I will check that out when I’m at home. I have mostly multi-tracks for the drums so it’s all good.

When you keep the overhead, does it sound strange since you’ve replaced the others? What if you fix a note or beat, won’t it sound “off”?

Thank you for replying, I really appreciate it.

[Scott]

When you keep the overhead, does it sound strange since you’ve replaced the others? What if you fix a note or beat, won’t it sound “off”?

Well, when I select my kit pieces, I tend to choose similar drums to the original. For example, if the original is a low tuned damped snare I choose the closest one I have in the library I want to use. I’ll even tune the sample to match the original (tuning is available in S2 of course).

And, yes, if you fix a note or beat via either Drumtracker or post Drumtracker and also use the overheads, it will sound off.

If I initially intend to use the overheads but find that there is some major timing issue (which won’t happen if I recorded the session ’cause I’d make the band ‘do it again’) I will do the cymbals ‘by hand’ in Cubase (my workstation of choice).

I know you have EZdrummer and I use S2 mostly. But EZplayer pro and the built in MIDI browser in S2 both have the ability to separate the kit pieces of a MIDI groove to be dragged and dropped in a MIDI track. So, if I’m looking for a hi hat groove, I’ll go into the S2 browser and click through some grooves until I find one that is close to my song’s hat pattern and just drag the hats onto my MIDI track. I’ll have to original hats or OH track available to match and it isn’t that long of a process. I’ll do the same for the ride and crash hits.

Here’s a song I did awhile ago where I Drumtracker’d the kick and snare but manually added the hats and snare brush swirls. I knew that DT wouldn’t be able to track a jazz brush swirl so I set the threshold in DT high enough to pick up the 2+4 snare hits but not the swirl noise or the snare ghosts.

[audio src="http://www.rainbowsounds.com/Toontrack/Debut.MP3"]

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[ShawnV]

I forgot to check this out last night. I grabbed a kick drum track, seemed to work really well. I’ll need to go in though and edit out some “double notes”

I will eventually get SD2. It’s really something I want but I cannot afford at the moment. Having you explain you can tune the drums makes me even want it more 🙂

Right now I’m just trying to replace everything I guess. I doubt I will keep anything of the old tracks. Esp for timing problems. What I cannot fix I will try to do like you and replace with a close sample/groove.

I hope to post something this weekend to get some feedback. I think I may start playing again with my old drummer friend. I love his beats and style, and he wrote well with my songs.

Now it will be more off a focus on using and recording the drums with the intent to convert with drum tracker. Should be interesting.

Do you think breaking a song, drum wise, into parts would be easier? I’m not sure about it for the drummer. Thanks for replying, I hope my post is not too confusing 🙂

[Scott]

Do you think breaking a song, drum wise, into parts would be easier?

Are you talking about during tracking? Many a producer has done it this way. They hire a drummer to come in and have him/her play to a click. Have the drummer play a groove they want, a couple of variations, and the same for chorus and so on. Then the producer can create the drum track from the parts played. It’s kinda like using the MIDI grooves from EZdrummer/EZXs.

It would depend on the style of music IMO. There are times when I would never track a song without the band all playing together. I may overdub and replace alot of those original tracks but the vibe and groove is maintained when the band plays together. There are other times when piecing together the song is the best way. Maybe the artist is a solo artist without a band and I need to build the track around their playing and I’m overdubbing everything. There’s so many ways of tracking and making a song these days that, really, if it works, it’s the right way to do it.

Scott Sibley - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[ShawnV]

OK, so I had alot of fun this weekend. I worked on a few old songs, and I was able to get something sounding decent.

Now my question would be, for let’s say kick, which is the easiest so far. I am getting double beats, and it sounds weird.

Do I need to make the red bars higher or lower? I can go in and disable them individually, but sometimes there is even 3 beats/notes.

So far I love it, I just needed to give it some time and patience.

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For me, with the kick drum, I was using I think the bell or something high pitched, and fiddled with the volume / mixer to hear better.

Another question would be: Sometimes I get no sound. Esp if I have more then one track in the project. Should I just use one track per project? It does not really matter to me as I’m rendering and converting each instrument to one track in Reaper.

What else…. it rocks. Sometimes EZdrummer though sounds alittle bright or crisp. I guess though after I am done I will mixdown or bounce these tracks and can EQ them separately. Looking forward to getting SD2 though in the future 🙂

[Author]

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