Drum editing Needed

[JeffTD]

thats a lot of EASY work

just bustin balls man ... everyone knows you're the guy to go to for drum edits when I'm not available hahaha

You say that not having heard the raw tracks.

I'll take a decent deathmetal drummer over mediocre scene drummer any day... Do you know what it's like to have to fix an albums worth of tracks where the drummer is incapable of hitting the kick and cymbals at the same time? uke:

 

[bryan_kilco]

Do you know what it's like to have to fix an albums worth of tracks where the drummer is incapable of hitting the kick and cymbals at the same time? uke:

Sounds like an amazing time!

On the topic of editing drums - do you normally go 100% to the grid or just "close enough"? I heard talk of people editing kick and snare to grid always and sit the bass guitar a tiny bit behind the kick as it lets the master comp work easier.

 

[JeffTD]

On the topic of editing drums - do you normally go 100% to the grid or just "close enough"? I heard talk of people editing kick and snare to grid always and sit the bass guitar a tiny bit behind the kick as it lets the master comp work easier.

It really depends on the style, but these days I'm mostly going 90% strength and then doing fills by hand. On the pop-punk stuff I've been tracking most recently I'll eyeball the whole thing and let the kicks fly around a bit more than I would in a metal track, but it really depends on the genre, drummer, overall production goal (super slick vs lively and real), and my mood that day.

Bass always gets pocketed behind the drums, though, and the guitars a bit behind the bass. I push my guitars further back than I think most people on the forum would, but I'm not editing every note.

 

[bryan_kilco]

I've been coming to the conclusion that it's a bit rough trying to edit bass and sometimes guitar DIs when the playing consists of a lot of open string stuff and/or trem picking where you can't clearly see definite transients.

I'll have to play around with pocketing guits and bass behind the drums. I usually just let everything sit close enough to the grid.

 

[JeffTD]

You'll eventually train your eyes to see exactly what a transient is on a bass track, but I agree; like poorly played tom tracks, they're often just messy waves of undefined shit.

I should say that while I pocket everything, it's not always a conscious note-by-note pocketing. often times I'll edit it so it sounds bang-on with the drums and then play with sliding the entire region backwards a few ms until it's really grooving for me. This is part of why I don't trust anyone else to do my personal edits; I edit with feel 100% of the time.

 

[bryan_kilco]

I hear that. I pretty much only record myself/my band but I find that a lot of the times I'll go in and super edit DI tracks and then realize the unedited version has more feel or groove.

And yeah I am starting to be able to see different transients, specifically different notes being played pop out so I can sort of see where to make cuts on bass tracks etc.

 

[heshian46]

Bass always gets pocketed behind the drums, though, and the guitars a bit behind the bass. I push my guitars further back than I think most people on the forum would, but I'm not editing every note.

How do you feel about pocketing the drums behind everything else, instead of the other way around (like you've mentioned)? I've always just defaulted to this because the John Bonham in me wants them to sit back a bit, but now after you've said you do it this way, I'm thinking it may work as well.

 

[bryan_kilco]

How do you feel about pocketing the drums behind everything else, instead of the other way around (like you've mentioned)? I've always just defaulted to this because the John Bonham in me wants them to sit back a bit, but now after you've said you do it this way, I'm thinking it may work as well.

I imagine you would get more punch and attack if the drums sit before the guitars/bass.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Sorry for my many posts suddenly, but how do you guys deal with trem-picked riffs? Do you track as tight as possible and let it be, or do you go in and edit every note?

I can't edit trem-picked guitar parts to save my life and I can never seem to get them tight enough during tracking. Close, but there's always the slight bit of inconsistency between dual tracked trem-picked stuff.

 

[JeffTD]

How do you feel about pocketing the drums behind everything else, instead of the other way around (like you've mentioned)? I've always just defaulted to this because the John Bonham in me wants them to sit back a bit, but now after you've said you do it this way, I'm thinking it may work as well.

I always view the drummer as the backbone of the band, tempo/groove wise; makes sense for everyone to follow him in my head. Never tried it the other way but I know I hate when guitars sound 'early' vs the drums so I can't imagine it being too much to my liking.

Sorry for my many posts suddenly, but how do you guys deal with trem-picked riffs? Do you track as tight as possible and let it be, or do you go in and edit every note?

I can't edit trem-picked guitar parts to save my life and I can never seem to get them tight enough during tracking. Close, but there's always the slight bit of inconsistency between dual tracked trem-picked stuff.

If I absolutely HAVE to edit them I like to move the downbeats into place and let the others kind of float around a bit.

 

[LeSedna]

I have some tremolo riffs in my own songs sometimes and I found that to edit them correctly I need to get those riffs absolutely tight in the recording process, AND try picking harder/cleaner than I would normally because it sounds better most of the time. Then the transients should be more visible in your DAW. Also, like Jeff said, I tend to focus on the downbeat notes because that's also what you do as a musician (if at least the downstroke every 4 notes is on time, it sounds good). If I really want a tight result, and some parts are unclear, I simply copy/paste a clearer part of it from earlier/later in the track, or even from the other guitar (of course not the one playing at the same time otherwise it would sound mono). In the end, I can have 2 or 3 copy pastes of the best tremolo part of the riff coming from a few seconds before to fix the messy parts.

I never tried "pocketing" as you say bass or guitar behind the drums. How far would you say you do that ? I usually just edit close enough to the grid without being a nazi about it, but as I'm more into groove than into djenty-tight productions, I'd like to know. Would you adapt this to the riff ? Say you're going for an epic chord after a short pause, would you exagerate and put the bass further away for more difference so that the kick/cymbal have more punch, or to the contrary edit more to the grid for such a case so it sounds tight ?

 

[JeffTD]

I never tried "pocketing" as you say bass or guitar behind the drums. How far would you say you do that ? I usually just edit close enough to the grid without being a nazi about it, but as I'm more into groove than into djenty-tight productions, I'd like to know. Would you adapt this to the riff ? Say you're going for an epic chord after a short pause, would you exagerate and put the bass further away for more difference so that the kick/cymbal have more punch, or to the contrary edit more to the grid for such a case so it sounds tight ?

It's definitely a part-by-part thing, but the situation you used an example is definitely a part where I would look into doing it. It's super easy to try it out and then undo if it sucks so why not? I move my regions about like that all the time and then when it 'feels right' I leave it and move to the next one. Do a once-through without being super attentive (still paying attention, just not in edit-sniping mode) of the entire song to make sure it's all cohesive, and then print. I really think people put way too much thought into a lot of these processes; I definitely have some rules I follow but I tend to use the grid as more of a suggestion than a rule these days and my productions have been thanking me for it as a result.

 

[LeSedna]

I see where you're going, I'm nowhere near a pro like you or most others here but I realized the best non-edited player in the world is not perfectly to the grid either, so usually just editing "more or less" to the grid works fine. I tend to not like when the notes are too much before the grid though, it feels weird (and funnily I tend to play more upbeat than downbeat when I'm not paying attention !), but other than that I sometimes leave it there if it looks or sound more or less all right. If I'm nitpicking too much with myself, I give a listen with all the others instruments unmuted and it usually sounds good enough. I don't have much experience in editing drums so I don't know how much I would like them to be on the grid, I usually just edit my own guitars or basses

 

[JeffTD]

Exactly; great players push/pull on their own and don't need to be corrected to the grid even if it looks 'wrong.' I don't edit guitars so much as I nudge them into place chunk by chunk, and I think over-edited guitars sound like ass. I used to have issues over-editing my own playing until I realized that I just rush a tiny bit, but do so consistently. Once I slide my tracks back a bit, they're perfect.

You bring up a good point about listening with other instruments, though. I absolutely cannot edit instruments on their own (aside from drums, but a tight-ish scratch guitar is still greatly preferred to silence!). when I'm editing bass I ALWAYS have the drums going until I spot-check at the end, and with guitars I ALWAYS have the drums+bass going unless I'm checking for consistency between double/quad tracking specifically or spot-checking at the end. With vocals, I have everything going for timing and tend to drop the guitars/raise the bass when tuning. If I don't have a bass track, tuning vocals is a fucking nightmare for whatever reason.

 

[LeSedna]

I have the same kind of issue sometimes with my playing, and a whole nudging solves a whole riff sometimes as well.

Hum, I think you are right, I usually don't use other instruments during the process of editing itself, but it's probably a mistake, you can't lose too much from using bass and drums while editing guitars, except for a last spot check. I should do that.

About vocals and bass, do you mean you can't tune or did you mean edit ? If you actually meant tuning, maybe it's down to the fact the bass already gives you the root note of the chord or an implied harmony from the background ?

 

[Skinny Viking]

You say that not having heard the raw tracks.

I'll take a decent deathmetal drummer over mediocre scene drummer any day... Do you know what it's like to have to fix an albums worth of tracks where the drummer is incapable of hitting the kick and cymbals at the same time? uke:

ok 1st of all .... at the 1st comment

2nd ... not to have a dick swinging drum editing contest or anything but a couple people on here were unfortunate enough to be my only source of venting for a full album's worth of super fast, progressive death / black metal I edited not long ago enough where not only could the drummer NOT hit any 2 elements at the same time (kick / cymbal .... hat / snare ... ride / kick) ... this pathetic excuse for a drummer somehow managed to miss ALL 3 typical elements (kick / hat / snare ... etc ...) and EVEN MORE than that ... NONE of those would even land on the click!

so technically, this fucker was missing 4 things at the same time ... almost all the time

lets not bring up the amount of push / pull he had either ... it was more like fall forward on fall back

This dude was a complete bullshit artist of a "pro session drummer" who didn't even have the decency to provide me with clean multi-samples of his kit. Instead I got what sounded like drum sounds Duran Duran would have thrown away

I can't believe I still feel like I need to vent about this guy

 

[Skinny Viking]

You'll eventually train your eyes to see exactly what a transient is on a bass track, but I agree; like poorly played tom tracks, they're often just messy waves of undefined shit.

I should say that while I pocket everything, it's not always a conscious note-by-note pocketing. often times I'll edit it so it sounds bang-on with the drums and then play with sliding the entire region backwards a few ms until it's really grooving for me. This is part of why I don't trust anyone else to do my personal edits; I edit with feel 100% of the time.

truth

Only difference with me is I won't slide the whole region after pocketing ... usually just select sections if it allows for it. When I say "allows" I mean if it feels right as opposed to "looks wrong"

 

[JeffTD]

Carlos it's your birthday, stop bitching about old drummers.

I have the same kind of issue sometimes with my playing, and a whole nudging solves a whole riff sometimes as well.

Hum, I think you are right, I usually don't use other instruments during the process of editing itself, but it's probably a mistake, you can't lose too much from using bass and drums while editing guitars, except for a last spot check. I should do that.

About vocals and bass, do you mean you can't tune or did you mean edit ? If you actually meant tuning, maybe it's down to the fact the bass already gives you the root note of the chord or an implied harmony from the background ?

The biggest thing with listening to other instruments is that when I have reference tracks I actually edit less; you can get away with more swing on the drums when you're listening to a guitar track with them vs. just the click.

With vocals/bass, I mean tuning. And it's exactly what you mentioned; the root note, the fundamental thing going on in the song, is defined by the bass; if the vocals aren't in tune with that, you're out of luck.

 

[mva801]

jeff, just out of curiosity, are most of the Sturgis productions these days tracked drummers, or is he still programming a bunch? I'd imagine you wouldn't need to edit if it was midi really....

 

[JeffTD]

jeff, just out of curiosity, are most of the Sturgis productions these days tracked drummers, or is he still programming a bunch? I'd imagine you wouldn't need to edit if it was midi really....

He's done MIDI on maybe 3 albums since I've been working with him. 1 was because the drummer sucked total ass and needed his parts re-written, one because there was no drummer in the band (Emmure), and one for reasons I'm not privy to.

Why people think he's still using programmed drums on everything is beyond me; he doesn't that often at all.