Do most of you guys even record drums?

[Wohma]

Tbh, I think programming the drums sounds more realistic than playing an e-kits through the same software pack (ie Sup2.0). Dunno why, and I'll happily be proven wrong.

Well, the thing is - our drummer has some jazz background, so he's not just a guy who can smash things around him really hard and somehow in time. So I guess that by programming drums, we could lose some of the groove he has in his drumming Don't know, if your experience proves to be right, I might reconsider. Thanks a lot for that.

Anyone else has some input on this? please?

 

[Cyanide_Anima]

Times change! I think programmed drums and S2.0 and all that jazz are fucking incredible tools for people like me! You know, the douchbags many of you hate because we make 'laptop' metal! hahaha. Seriously though. I'm not in a band, I'm not a drummer, I don't have a shit-ton of money to spend on gear. I want to make music in my living room, and it's the only way I can! Because of my living situation (living in the city...) I cannot just blast an amp or pound on drums all day (nor can I actually play them). I can, however, strap on some headphones and programs some beatz 'n shit and rock out without disturbing anyone. And hopefully make a decent sounding recording. I don't want to spend the time learning how to play the drums because I put that time into learning how and practicing writing songs. I know it'll "never" happen, but I'm always chasing the production quality of my favorite albums. I can dream, can't I? =P

 

[Morgan C]

Times change! I think programmed drums and S2.0 and all that jazz are fucking incredible tools for people like me! You know, the douchbags many of you hate because we make 'laptop' metal! hahaha. Seriously though. I'm not in a band, I'm not a drummer, I don't have a shit-ton of money to spend on gear. I want to make music in my living room, and it's the only way I can! Because of my living situation (living in the city...) I cannot just blast an amp or pound on drums all day (nor can I actually play them). I can, however, strap on some headphones and programs some beatz 'n shit and rock out without disturbing anyone. And hopefully make a decent sounding recording. I don't want to spend the time learning how to play the drums because I put that time into learning how and practicing writing songs. I know it'll "never" happen, but I'm always chasing the production quality of my favorite albums. I can dream, can't I? =P

True, it let's "one man bands" create an album easily.

Well, the thing is - our drummer has some jazz background, so he's not just a guy who can smash things around him really hard and somehow in time. So I guess that by programming drums, we could lose some of the groove he has in his drumming Don't know, if your experience proves to be right, I might reconsider. Thanks a lot for that.

Anyone else has some input on this? please?

You could maybe record the e-kit, then mess around with the MIDI a bit. The end result of an e-kit vs programming is the same (a MIDI file), but e-kits tend to sound MORE programmed than very well programmed drums. However, they'd probably be easier to get all the 'humanising' done and get the beats in there, then you can make it more realistic by hand afterwards.

 

[AdamWathan]

Even if I sample replace all the drums and edit everything 100% to the grid, it still sounds better than programming. Recording drums is fun, I am glad I get to do it on every project.

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

Even if I sample replace all the drums and edit everything 100% to the grid, it still sounds better than programming. Recording drums is fun, I am glad I get to do it on every project.

Agreed.

 

[paladin shredder]

If you are an individual writing songs, sure program drums. If you are a band with a drummer and you play live, record the drummer in some way.

@Wohma - you can use an e-kit with a real snare and mic up the snare. You would only need an interface with two mic inputs, and record the rest midi. Afterwards, if the drummer knows his parts well enough, you could set up some cymbals, mic them up with some stereo overheads, and overdub real cymbals on top of the drum tracks instead of using sampled cymbals.

I'm actually planning for one project i have coming up to record all of the acoustic drums before I record the cymbals. First I'll track the acoustic drums with electronic cymbals (just as a scratch reference). Then I'll overdub real cymbals while he plays on the ekit that's not hooked up. That way, I have zero cymbal bleed into the drum recording, and vice-versa. Plus, I'm not using as many of my mics or inputs all at once, so I can use more mics and inputs to capture the sound better.

 

[Cacoph0ny]

the people who record bands and program drums.. do the bands ever have a problem with it or refuse to do it? do you let them know straight off the bat that the drums are gonna be programmed

 

[Barnacle]

I've starterd recording drums at my Uni studios, such a fun process working with good msucians on good equipment in amazing rooms with lots of expensive mics and pre amps. Kinda makes me feel like shit when I come back home from recording in a real studio with a live room.

 

[pitoga]

the people who record bands and program drums.. do the bands ever have a problem with it or refuse to do it? do you let them know straight off the bat that the drums are gonna be programmed

They always know, in fact at the beginning of the whole thing I tell them to choose between me programming the drums (together with the drummer so that all his fills and beats come through) or to rent another place to track drums, most of the times they end up letting me program because of the budget, and the LACK of good rooms here, damn it's even hard to get good mics here, I have to import everything I buy by myself. Hopefully I'll buy myself eventually a good drum room. I really don't see it as something bad, neither using amp sims, it does in fact sound "sterile" but there are plenty of bands that wan't to have they're songs out there not just they're performance and so, of course it would be 100% better to do it with real drums but for starting bands or bands on a budget i think it's more important to have they're music "they're creations" out there by any means, if this means programming drums so be it.

 

[ArroldW]

Even if I sample replace all the drums and edit everything 100% to the grid, it still sounds better than programming. Recording drums is fun, I am glad I get to do it on every project.

+1 I want to be this stoked when I go MORE natural.
I already love editing drums to make them sound better [turd polisher].

 

[Wohma]

@Wohma - you can use an e-kit with a real snare and mic up the snare. You would only need an interface with two mic inputs, and record the rest midi. Afterwards, if the drummer knows his parts well enough, you could set up some cymbals, mic them up with some stereo overheads, and overdub real cymbals on top of the drum tracks instead of using sampled cymbals.

Thanks, that's some food for thought!

 

[DeclanWhite]

for my own stuff, i program for pre pro/demoing and have a very sturgis sound, then for final things, i record real drums

 

[TheIllusionist]

Personally, I love working with live drums. However, even top end producers/mixers use BFD/Superior. Without recording drums in the best rooms in the world, with great mic's, they're never going to be of such high quality. So they create "false rooms" using software midi triggering the snare and toms.

This is my preferred way of working. Given this concept, live drums can be tracked almost anywhere as long as the over heads are pretty good, and some sort of ambient mic can be set up for the room sound of the cymbals.

There's so many ways of working with budget recording of live drums. Even down to sampling the individual drums as best you can, say you have ONE good mic and the rest are budget. Sample each drum, then set up the kit, and afterwards use Slates "Trigger" with your multisamples. You're technically using the same kit and you'll get the same live timing.

Just work with what you have, but I agree, live drums are better than programmed drums. Especially the overheads. You can't get the same expression, also Superior doesn't have any real metal cymbal hits, they're loud, but they don't thrash the hell out of them so you don't get that expression.

 

[AHChris]

I use microphones and real drumkits... never got satisfying results with programmed drums

 

[006]

I record real drums on everything except my own personal stuff which I program. Though I tend to replace the natural drums with samples or at the very least augment heavily. Most of that is due to the genre of music I work on mainly which the trend is to have the quantized and replaced drums. Every once in a while I get a band that plays the kind of music you can do all natural drum sounds which is fun to work on from time to time. It just comes down to what sounds better for the project. Of course that is subjective, but to me certain genres do simply sound better with the Q'ed and replaced drums, I don't think those trends are going anywhere any time soon.

 

[Sly]

When you have a great drummer available, some great gear to record (drumkit, drumheads, mics, pres etc.), I'll try to keep as much of the real kit as I can and create all the other sounds around it. I think POD, Slate drums and so on are TOOLS only, I think you still can be creative with those tools and get amazing and personnal mixes using them. I don't rely on the tools to get the sound but on the mixing and the creative way you can use those tools.

 

[drew_drummer]

e-kits tend to sound MORE programmed than very well programmed drums.

I just don't agree with that at all.

 

[drew_drummer]

Drums nowadays are a hyper-real sound. They get edited so much and layered so much, they never sound like they do naturally. But I still prefer to use natural drums as the fundamental basis of the drum-sound, any augmentation comes after. But just using samples never really pleases me... it's mostly in the room sound.

There is something magical that happens with cymbals, you get all these lush overtones from repeated hits, where the sounds are all congealing in the air from the reflections coming back towards the kit at the same time as the next hit coming from the drum. Software drums just don't capture this. You play samples one after the other, but there is no interaction - it's all static sample playback.

So yeah.... I love software drums for augmentation, but wouldn't rely on it for a serious project.

 

[The Unavoidable]

If you are an individual writing songs, sure program drums. If you are a band with a drummer and you play live, record the drummer in some way.

This should have been the second post, and the thread should have ended there.

 

[DanLights]

e-kits tend to sound MORE programmed than very well programmed drums.

I would love some clips to prove this if possible. Logic tells me this doesn't make sense, but of course I don't have the experience to actually know it