Drumagog, is there a downside?

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

Hi folks!!! Me and the Ablazeguys are currently har at work taping our debut CD and as the drumrecordings are coming to an end I've got a question for those of you who use Drumagog on a regular basis (Andy in perticular).
I've recorded som eight samples of each of the drums we use (bassdrums, snare top, bottom and four toms) in addition to the drumrecording itself and I'm contemplating creating my own gogfiles to soundreplace away any leakage, sloppy beats and so on.

My question is: By using eight multisamples and the whole dynamic tracking thing, what do I loose by using drumagog instead of keeping/tampering with the original files? When I thought it through it seemed like an ideal thing to do to get rid of microphone leak and so on...

What's your 2 cents on this?

 

[greyskull]

Hey dude, in my opinion the best way, is if you can is to have both live and sampled drums in your project, so ,that when it comes to mix, you can blend the triggered sound with some of the real kit, or not!
however that all depends what the recording is like. BUT if its good, you can use the samples for the really fierce stuff, and bring up the mics if you need to do any quieter ambient stuff. Hope that helps

 

[Torniojaws]

Drumagog will sound unnatural no matter what you do, especially on quieter parts. I suppose the best use of it would be to restore poor recordings to an acceptable quality.

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

Quieter parts you say? =) You obvously haven't heard us then
I'll give the drumagoging a chance and present som A/B versions for you.

There's no difference soundwise between the GOG files and the tracked files, I would just be aiming to remove leakage with the drumagog setup

 

[006]

Here's the deal. For straight-forward balls-to-the-wall metal, Drumagog owns. You want that direct as shit drum recording so they are tight as hell, and then add some reverb and whatnot to peices here and there to add that room effect. However, if you didn't want to use Drumagog initially, you should have gated your drum signals a little better before they hit your recorder and used a room/ambience mic to have a little down in the mix to give that little "oomph" to your drums. If you aren't doing any quieter parts, as you said, then I would say there would be no problem sticking it on the tracks for the whole album. Plus, using your own samples from the actual kit was a great action you took. That way if there are any quieter parts that you want the bleed with, then it wouldn't sound like two seperate kits, heh. I would suggest doing the A/B and deciding for yourself and/or letting some 2nd-5th opinions get thrown at you. Cheers.

~006

 

[Andy Sneap]

gated before recorded???? no no no no

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

No gates anywhere before going into tape.
I was just thinking that this might make things easier over at Los Angered when we mix the album.

I've just made a backup of the original wav's so you'll get som A/B samples coming this week...

Whats your view on this Andy? Think it'll work or is it a complete waste of time?

 

[006]

gated before recorded???? no no no no

I was taught the other way, however, for metal stuff I've had better results by gating a little bit before going to the recorder. Remember, there is no one right way to go about this job.

However, I'd like to hear from you about why I shouldn't do this. Like I said I've had better results gating a little beforehand, makes things much easier later on...for me anyway. I can see why it would be a bad idea, however I know enough to not set my gates too tight on accident and be left without things I will need later. ??

~006

 

[SPLASTiK]

However, I'd like to hear from you about why I shouldn't do this.

Drummer hits something below the threshold and it doesn't get recorded?

----

I've been messing around with drumagog this week (4.0) I've heard the update is better but I just spent yesterday nudging toms and kicks. It's weird.... Some tracks are pretty much dead on perfect the whole time and others there's random hits that are off and need to be nudged. Sometimes the interface is a little buggy like randomly won't let me switch preset sounds and then I have to browse to open a saved gog file and for some reason it won't let me deleted saved presets and a few random things here and there. I'm using an HD rig by the way on a Dual 1.25 G4. It's pretty cool though, and it can only get better, need to check the update out.

I tried using a multisample once but I didn't like it really, I just preferred the sound of mixing a sample in with the original. The two sounds add and create a unique sound with the positives of both enhanced. Multisample just sounds too machiney and fake to me unless you spend a lot of time with it.

 

[006]

Right, I know that reason, but as I said, I know enough to *not* set my gate too tight so that doesn't happen. Everything always comes through fine.

~006

 

[metalkingdom]

Nah, man. You never, ever, ever track ANYTHING with gates on them!!! I don't know who you learned that technique from, but there isn't a recording engineer worth his salt on this planet that will tell you that gating during tracking is a good idea.

Why would you even want to do this? There is absolutely NO benefit to gating tracks during recording . You can slap the same exact gates on during mixing for the exact same effect. You can't reverse the effect just in case something doesn't go as planned. Maybe another engineer might end up mixing your project....maybe he likes to have the natural ambience and bleed for his sound. He'll definitely be pissed that you gated the tracks, fo' shizz. Drummers dynamics totally change from the "getting sounds" stage to the tracking stage. If the drummer decides to hit ghost rolls or something, the gate is gonna kill it - and the drummer isn't gonna be very happy with you in the control room. You're also limiting your options with your drum sound during mix, too. Sometimes bleed is a good thing. There's more negatives, but I have a Nevermore show to go to!

 

[006]

...I'll say this for a third time now. I gate very lightly before it hits the recorder. Everything comes through just fine. I didn't learn that technique from anyone, I just did it myself. It makes things a hell of a lot easier later on. I close mic everything, and so that little -28db overhead bleed isn't necessary in the snare track, I gate very lightly for that, etc. I think you guys are misunderstanding my usage here...I'm not gating entirely like I would after it's recorded. That's where I really gate the stuff...

~006

 

[Ermz]

I guess what they're asking is: If you gate properly afterwards, what's the point of gating very slightly on the way down? I also can't see how it presents any benefits whatsoever. Keeping in mind analogue gates are slow and you lose transients as well. I would never ever gate on the way down, ever.

About Drumagog, I'd say use it sparingly. Obviously for metal kicks it really comes in handy, and even keeping consistency in snare. I hate going overboard with it unless it's completely necessary. If you just want to take out cymbal spill after tom fills or whatever, I'd say just do it manually. I can't see how drumagog would present any advantages to you.

 

[egan.]

If you just want to take out cymbal spill after tom fills or whatever, I'd say just do it manually. I can't see how drumagog would present any advantages to you.

The benifit IMO comes when the drummer hits a cymbal right before the tom fill. I've found it pretty useful to mix samples taken of the toms w/ the tom tracks in situations where the drummer is hitting the toms too lightly (and/or the cymbals too hard). Mixing them this way can keep it sounding pretty natural but solve your problem. Obviously if you don't need to clean anything up why waste the time but...

 

[metalkingdom]

It makes things a hell of a lot easier later on.

How?

I close mic everything, and so that little -28db overhead bleed isn't necessary in the snare track, I gate very lightly for that, etc. I think you guys are misunderstanding my usage here...

Getting a real drum sound is becoming a lost art.

 

[Andy Sneap]

006, why wouldn't you just gate it after the recording if thats what you are going for?

It's absolutely the wrong thing to do when recording.

 

[carl@laruso.com]

yeah man, you must miss subtle ghosting etc and the first few transiants from drags etc... personally i dont even EQ on the way in for drums but thats just me, i find all thats necessary for a good sound to "tape" is the right mics in the right place (seams to change from kit to kit tho which is annoying!)

.... suppose if you like gating for triggering on the way in the better solution would be to get some ddrum triggers (or similar) and track the clicks off that and send that to drumagog, this actually works really good. that way you get a clean signal from your mics and hyper acurate triggering on separate channels.

give it a go man you may find it better, it's just gating to tape seams wrong man much like recording vocals with verb or delay on creates a comping nightmare.

ps dude.... not digging at you cos you undoubtedly have skillz! \m/

yo, C

 

[chadsxe]

I was always under the impression that processing something before recording in which the same process could be taken with out any negative effect after the fact is a No NO.

 

[boogiemotel]

I never gate to tape ... just a really bad idea
in Pro Tools after the fact
use Strip Silence to clean a duplicate of your tom or snare or Kik tracks so that Drumagog doesn't trigger incorrectly
You also might find that with Strip Silence and a little time
You can clean up around the track, that then you can compress and gate this real drum, and blend it in and it works better than your gog file

 

[mmetalmilitiaa]

I was taught the other way, however

I didn't learn that technique from anyone, I just did it myself.

.....ehhh?