Drum Tracking and Editing (MIDI) This Weekend - Tips Wanted

[schismatic]

Hey everyone,

I'm tracking drums this weekend and I'm looking for some tips from everybody on getting the process nice and natural.

We'l be tracking using a MIDI kit into Reaper, and the drummer will be hearing SSD4 drums while tracking. We'll be using a click while tracking.

What I'm concerned about is the editing process. I know that my drummer can play to some extent with the click, but he will still be loose in parts, particularly because the feel of the MIDI kit on things like the kick drums is slightly different, leading to small timing issues usually.

How does everybody approach tightening up a MIDI recording so that it feels tight without being mechanistic? (I'm worried about over-quantising and being overly tight).

Do you bounce down the MIDI to individual audio files first and then make changes, or do you stick with editing a single, combined MIDI file?

Also for Reaper users, are there any Reaper-specific approaches you guys take (e.g. use of humanize functions etc)?

Cheers!!

 

[egan.]

Edit the midi. If you don't want it to sound mechanical the fix what sounds bad and leave the rest alone.

 

[crillemannen]

I would never go through the process of recording midi with an e-kit. Just program the midi and humanize it. Probably will save allot of time in the end.

 

[Sloan]

Mic real cymbals if you can.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I would never go through the process of recording midi with an e-kit. Just program the midi and humanize it. Probably will save allot of time in the end.

E kit performance is much faster in my experience, even if it's sloppy.

 

[rapucore]

Mic real cymbals if you can.

+1

 

[schismatic]

Do you guys prefer to edit midi then render, or render (to seperate stems, kick, snare, etc) then edit the audio?

 

[rapucore]

Edit the midi.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Yeah edit the midi.

 

[mharwood]

Pretty much what everyone else has said. Definitely edit the MIDI, not the audio. Use real cymbals if possible; even the best of the e-kits don't quite have the same feel (although some of the better ones nowdays are pretty damn good). For me having the drummer actually play the e-kit would be highly preferable to programming the MIDI by hand.

 

[mstone564]

Someone mentioned tracking real cymbals, so do that if you can. Honestly, with drum tracking these days almost everything is perfectly aligned (or at least the kick/snr/toms are). If I were you I would just track the midi from kit and make sure it's capturing the dynamics properly (you might have to change some settings on the module for light hitting drummers, but it should be fine by default) and edit the shells to the grid, or however close you want them. Leave the cymbals alone timing wise unless the performance was REALLY bad. Then you can adjust the velocities if you need to or not.

 

[Studdy]

If the kit has rubber pads good luck getting rid of all the smacking in the cymbal mics. Mesh is better but I'd track the kit midi with electronic cymbals, edit the midi and remove all the cymbal midi information. Then retrack the real cymbals after the drums have been edited with nothing but cymbals. I've had success doing it this way, not great feel for really complex playing, but neither is an electronic set.

 

[Sloan]

If the kit has rubber pads good luck getting rid of all the smacking in the cymbal mics. Mesh is better but I'd track the kit midi with electronic cymbals, edit the midi and remove all the cymbal midi information. Then retrack the real cymbals after the drums have been edited with nothing but cymbals. I've had success doing it this way, not great feel for really complex playing, but neither is an electronic set.

^this might be the way to go, i can see the thud/thwack of the pads being a pain in the ass.