Anyone else hate triggering toms?

[Ermz]

Up there amongst my highest pet hates. Everything out there seems to suck at deducing tom transient points, so you're left to do half of it manually. Then there's that bleed from other toms in rolls that can be hugely misleading, causing you to false trigger.

Just spent about 4 hours triggering drums across 5 songs, and have rekindled my hatred of doing it.

100% natural toms ftw.

 

[brianhood]

I personally find sample replacement(via drumagog or sound replacer) and making cuts 100x more efficient on trigger tracks than on mic tracks.

i've never had a single issue with other toms causing the trigger to misfire. I can hardly even see a tiny little transient on the tom triggers when the snare hits(and thats when i magnify the transients a lot). I have, however, had problems with splashes close to the toms or loud snares false triggering drumagog when i trigger via live mic.

to each their own i suppose

 

[Ermz]

I never get handed sessions with tom triggers tracks. Never. All the triggering is done from the mics.

 

[DeclanWhite]

yes.

 

[NNotN-ENN]

So you mean you hate replacing toms then?

But yes, I can relate. I had a session where the toms had been bussed down to stereo but sucked, so I had to work out where to cut the tracks to place them onto appropriate separate tracks to sample replace before even getting anywhere. Also had tracks where for instance, the 2nd tom will be louder in the 3rd tom's mike than the 3rd tom!! Definitely wish I could do all my own tracking all the time...

 

[006]

Ermz: Usually what I do with mic'ed tom tracks is a combination of Cubase's Strip Silence and some manual editing, if no trigger tracks are available that is. Basically what I end up with is just the transients pretty much, then consolidate and run through DrumTracker. I'm betting on TRIGGER making life easier though.

 

[Felix Neumann]

100% natural toms ftw.

So true! I only replace the snare (about 60%) to avoid the Hi-Hat dirt in the snare mic. Basically I want it as natural as possible, when micing drums.

 

[JeffTD]

Yeah toms seem to be the most under-triggered thing out there, but they're the most PITA to 'trigger' from the wavs. I can live without a kick trigger 99% of the time, and snare really isn't tooo bad, but toms... FML.

 

[Ermz]

Just finished... 8 hours, and I'm positive some of those fills are totally fucked. Honestly if you are going to insist your toms get replaced, at least record triggers on them alongside the mics. Anything less is pure torture.

@006: The problem with that is that these toms are intended to be blended maybe 60/40, so that's where the FML element comes in. They need to not only trigger rhythmically correct but also be phase accurate. I'm considering just ditching the raws altogether after what I went through.

@NNotN-ENN: I used the term 'triggering' because I'm essentially setting MIDI trigger points with Drumtracker. The idea is to augment with samples rather than outright replace, but yes I can see how the word may have been misleading in this context. Sorry about that.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

It's only because drummers hit like girls. Also: It's a little easier if the toms are not mounted to each other, had a nice drumset like that come in once and it was great to trigger off.

 

[NNotN-ENN]

..but yes I can see how the word may have been misleading in this context. Sorry about that.

Ehh, I was really only jerking around but yes, I still sympathise..

 

[Soundlurker]

Then there's that bleed from other toms in rolls that can be hugely misleading, causing you to false trigger.

Yeah I hate that but also in some cases when you're cutting things up for quantizing there are some rolls where you just can't see the transients because some of the hits are softer and get drowned in the previous hits' sustain.

 

[Proggm]

You know what I've been doing for a while now?

Drummers use my TD-12 kit. No exceptions. If everything's gonna get quantized and replaced to death, I might as well do it the easiest and most accurate way.

 

[pfhuck]

I really don't understand why y'all are still using drum replacement plugins.

Check out the JS Stillwell Drumtrigger plugin in Reaper.

Use that to make MIDI blips, and pipe the MIDI into your favorite sampler.

WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY easier than drumagog/aptrigga/etc in my opinion.

Please and Thank You,
Pfhuck

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Just finished... 8 hours, and I'm positive some of those fills are totally fucked. Honestly if you are going to insist your toms get replaced, at least record triggers on them alongside the mics. Anything less is pure torture.

I absolutely hate that feeling. Mic bleed, weak hits and über-fast fills always leave me with the feeling the fills aren't replaced even half right, and it doesn't seem to get better with practice, either.

I usually manually strip away parts with no tom hits, then gate the fuck out the tom tracks and then use a sample replacer. PITA.

 

[MetalSound]

if the drummer hits the toms too weak chances are that he isn´t able to play everything else well as well.
so i normally end up programming the whole set (bd, sn, toms) in midi. sometimes guessing what he intended to play...

 

[Mago]

PITA, yes.

 

[vespiz]

I've basically given up trying to use Sound Replacer with toms, except on some very special cases.
I just use Tab to Transients and line 'em up by hand. Yeah, dynamics go out the window, but if the original tracks are useable, I'll tuck the samples in there somewhere between -6 to -10dB, relative to the original track. Then if there's a tom build up or something else that really needs dynamics, I'll make a fade to the samples or go and use the Gain plug-in to tweak individual hits.

 

[gabriel g.]

REAL TOMS FTW!!!!!

I only once had to trigger the toms because I only mixed the project and the toms totaly sounded like shit.

It is like ÜBER-pain-in-the-ass!!!!

 

[JeffTD]

I really don't understand why y'all are still using drum replacement plugins.

Check out the JS Stillwell Drumtrigger plugin in Reaper.

Use that to make MIDI blips, and pipe the MIDI into your favorite sampler.

WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY easier than drumagog/aptrigga/etc in my opinion.

Please and Thank You,
Pfhuck

We do this, just with drumtracker, and use aptrigga/drumagog to trigger from the midi.