Drum replacement question

[Genius Gone Insane]

So when y'all trigger drums, you usually replace them with samples of the original kit (maybe you use other samples, maybe blend a few together). So when you are recording samples of your kit's drums, what treatment do you give them, especially toms, snare, and kick? Do you isolate them if the room doesn't sound great? Do you compress the original samples before you replace them in the track? Sonic maximizer? EQ? reverb?

Thanks!

 

[vile_ator]

I would like to know what people's techniques are for recording their own samples as well. I think the general answer to your question is "It depends". Samples come from many places. But basically, my question to add to yours is, what other mics on the kit do you mix in with each individual mic when you are sampling?

Also you can take that BBE and use it for a doorstop. All its good for.haha.

Colin

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

I would like to know what people's techniques are for recording their own samples as well. I think the general answer to your question is "It depends". Samples come from many places. But basically, my question to add to yours is, what other mics on the kit do you mix in with each individual mic when you are sampling?

Also you can take that BBE and use it for a doorstop. All its good for.haha.

Colin

hey woah! the BBE has saved me more than a couple times haha, it's quick and easy on a fixxer-upper

 

[evildonkeymaster]

I replace the kick with the drummers actual kick like 75% of the time (just for consistency and clarity). As far as the technique goes. I like the kick to sound real and "fit" into the kit so I leave the whole kit in the room in the same position as it will be for tracking and then try to get 6-8 samples of the kick in several mic placements (with a bunch of different mics). If I am recorded a band other then metal (yes this does happen ha ha) I try to get 10-13 velocity sensitive kick samples. Then I just EQ and comp as if the kick was recorded at the same time as the kit.

But like Colin said "it depends" is right. There are a zillion mic placement techniques and tricks to iso the kick when needed. But when I am in a decent room I general use a EV-868 or Beta 52 in the kick (3" from the head were beater makes contact) and a RE220 (If I am lucky enough to have one in the studio I am working at) or MD421 out side the kick for "boom" ambience. The only if needed a 57 on the outside of the kick near the beater. The sample blend becomes like 80% 868 20% MD421 and I leave the 57 on the beater side a separate track to control the amount of click but I only use that part like 1 in 10 times.

This is the same thing I usually do even when not making a "sample". Bottom line is if the kick sounds god in the room with the kit then sample it if sounds like shit bust out the Alesis or a good sample CD. ha ha

 

[Exsanguis]

I personally like to use my normal kick micing setup when recording samples, which usually consists of a D112 or D6 inside the kick, a speaker rewired as a mic right outside of the kick, and some type of LDC a few feet back in a tunnel. I'll record each of these mics separately, making sure there are no phase problems, and save each signal as a separate sample, but then I'll also mix the three mics together to get what usually acts as my final kick sound if I'm not sampling. I then save that sound as a fourth sample. I usually don't use the single mic samples, but I like to have them in case. I'll do the same thing with the other drums(with their own respective mics, obviously), and there's my sample library for that kit. I don't use any effects or processing on my samples, so I can use them during the mix. Oh yeah, I've recently started recording room sounds for the drum samples as well, oftentimes actually editing out the initial drum sound so all I get is an ambience with the drum's pitch reverberating. Obviously this takes a good room, but it's a great way to add brightness and body to a drum without washing it out in its own room or reverb. I read about Andy Wallace having a whole library of just drum ambiences, so I gave it a shot and so far it's worked really well. Oh yeah, Sonic Maximizers SUCK.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Anyone else want to add to this?

 

[Jeremy Krull]

It depends on the project really. A lot of the time I don't always have the luxury of using samples of the kit, so I would just use Drumagog's stuff and tune roughly to match, or use the Drumkit From Hell raw samples and match-tune those, most of the time. I use the DFH samples normally when I program midi stuff, so I would spend time making channel strip and plugin settings with the raw samples and then tweaking them to work with the real stuff (like the bleed in the overheads) that is still there. There's a pretty cool Enveloper plugin in Logic that you can use to really reshape the attack of drums, it's groovy. Generally, in Drumagog's case when you use it for Auto-Ducking on non-replaced tracks (which is where it receives replacement information from the actual replaced tracks and dips the acoustic sounds in volume whenever they are triggered), it can be somewhat choppy and/or destructive if you don't set it close enough, so usually if I'm doing like a full replacement, I'll try and at least take most of the kick and snare out of the overheads with 1-band Parametrics, or depending on how shitty the original drums sounded, I'll try and kill them completey with the Auto-ducking and Parametric EQ's.

I've only been using Drumagog/sound replacement plugins, since about the end of June, so I don't know how much any of this helps.