Are Double Floor Tom Flams in sync with Snare/Hat Hits OK?

[MondoLikeMetal]

I'm a guitar player that is in charge of producing my band's upcoming three CD's. As a "one man band" project, I'm comfortable with guitar, bass, keys, vox, etc, but i could use some advice on drums. How do mix drums? (Just kidding).
I've put our midi drum tracks together using three sources:
1) I've imputed midi drum hits using a keyboard
2) My drummer used Alesis drum trigger and pads
3) Slam tracks for fills and such
4) Next - replace drum module sounds with Steve Slate

I've got most of it done, and I'm now in the process of "humanizing" the drum tracks by adjusting velocities and deleting multiple hits that would be impossible for a real drummer to produce, but I want to keep one thing in ....
..... multi floor tom flams that hit at the same time as cymble/snare hits for dynamics. I want to keep it real, but the floor tom flams sound really good added to the snare/hat hit (got 4 hands?)

Is this done alot, or is it frowned upon. I know Slipnot does this in the studio AND live, but we would only do this in the studio (can't afford a seperate "toms" player for the live show.

 

[Morgan C]

For the sake of realism, I'd keep the drums as one person, and then put some other tom hits (different samples) for the flams. You could even put one set on the left and one on the right for some stereoness. But drums on top of drums can sound good as an effect, it was done a little on the latest Underoath.. but it sounds like two separate tracks/drummers, not one drummer going insane.

 

[JeffTD]

I'd be more inclined to add a bass drop or some kind of SFX creation for impact that go with a technique that will make things sound obviously fake.

 

[MondoLikeMetal]

Hi, Morgan C. I was hoping you would respond to this thread. Could I give you the midi drum tracks to evaluate? I can give you the drum tracks (midi), with just a simple bass and rythm guitar track (wave), all starting at 0.
Should be done by Friday.

 

[Audiosprite]

go for it. what you're doing is definitely possible for a real drummer using both ends of his sticks. play the hat with the foot, snare with left stick, and use each end of the right stick for a tom.

 

[egan.]

go for it. what you're doing is definitely possible for a real drummer using both ends of his sticks. play the hat with the foot, snare with left stick, and use each end of the right stick for a tom.

Uhhhh....
I'd go with Jeff's recommendation and use a drop or even a surdo or some other aux percussion stuff --or at least a different set of toms -- to make it clear that it's not one dude/take.
IMO the most annoying things with programmed drums is that people tend to program as though they have Thomas Haake or Danny Carey in their band. Lot's of stuff is possible but that doesn't mean it's likely or ultimately very realistic sounding. The imaginary drummer in this situation could also have one tom on a footpedal but everyone is going hear it as a dude with three arms.

 

[Morgan C]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/324723/Underoath Drum Stem.mp3
You can hear throughout this they overlay a lot of drums, and I think it sounds pretty cool.
They also did this in a really small part in Avril Lavigne's "What the Hell", near the end... totally different style, but they kept the main techno drums going while having other samples play a fill, panned a little to one side.

go for it. what you're doing is definitely possible for a real drummer using both ends of his sticks. play the hat with the foot, snare with left stick, and use each end of the right stick for a tom.

I'm sure it's 'possible' to hit four drums at once, then you have to go ahead and set all the velocities to 30 to make it realistic. And then you can't hear anything. Or maybe the drummer is using two sticks in each hand?
Anyway, no matter how it could be done in real life (ie. it can't), the fact that he's using Slate drums which always sound programmed, is going to make it sound like bad programming rather than a cool trick from a drummer.

I'd go with some really messy, dirty samples to separate it from the cleanness of Slate's.

 

[Audiosprite]

yeah probably. but i'm definitely not the only drummer that's experimented with that kind of thing.

 

[Paulie!]

Just do it and sample it on an e-kick live so everyone thinks the drummer is really good...

-P

 

[OctoberRust]

Seriously: if you like it so much and want to do it that way I would not give a fuck, especially when everything else is cut/edited so much.

Why not ask the singer to perform the "additional percussion", he could also pull it off live (if this makes it more fun and maybe "legitimate" on the record).

 

[MondoLikeMetal]

Basically, what I want to is play two floor toms at the same time as the snare. and pedal the high hat. The only "third hand" would be the high floor tom hit for the flam. It would be no different than a band with one guitar player playing a rythym track to back up his solo in the studio. but then soloing just to the bass player live. Also, there are some bands that have small keyboard parts to their songs, but then play live without keys. Most music fans know the studio version is going to be bigger than the live show and accept it.
I just want to get more thickness to the accent part of my songs.

 

[JeffTD]

More thickness is fine, but again... this is going to sound like an unnatural drum part, and will (if it isn't already) make the fact that the drums were programmed painfully obvious.

The reason this is different than another track in the recording or keys that aren't used live or something like that is because nobody is going to go in and track a single snare hit where there was a tom flam - they're going to do something in post to simulate the bigness.


Why not just have the snare flam with the floor tom, with the floor tom being the second hit? That should prolong the attack of the floor tom enough to make it sound bigger than a simple snare + tom hit.

 

[MondoLikeMetal]

I guess I'll do some experimenting with....
Snare/Floor Tom/High Hat pedal (no stick but pedal push)/ and then a slight delay of the kick. That would be two hands and two feet.
Would everyone be happy with that?
Thanks for your help, guys