Drumatom

[H-evolve]

Hi guys,

Saw a video from Glen (Specter Sound Studio) on youtube and he was talking about that new software from Accusonus, called Drumatom. I am not a pro, therefore I got no real use for it, but I thought I'd share with you, thought it might interest some of you.

It's a software that allows you to control how much sound from each mic bleeds to one another when you record drums (or at least that is what I understand it does).

He (Glen) seemed pretty excited about it, said good things about it.



So, check it out and share your thoughts.

 

[Jaymz]

It's very cool

 

[Machinated]

not convinced the example in that video sounds better than blending a sample in.

 

[H-evolve]

not convinced the example in that video sounds better than blending a sample in.

Well I didn't want to start a debate on "samples versus real drums", but I understand that recording drums is really complicated and I assume that one big difficulty is the sound bleeding from mic to mic (hearing your snare in the hi-hat mic, etc.). This software seems to really help on that aspect.

But, on a side note, I really don't think a sample sounds better than a recorded drum. For me, it's a question of dynamics : the feel that comes from the fact that a real human is hitting the drums.

Of course for writing music, samples are awesome.

 

[JeffTD]

not convinced the example in that video sounds better than blending a sample in.

This. Glenn loves un-backed hype. Not saying Drumatom isn't awesome or incredibly useful, but it's not a nail in the coffin for anything.

But, on a side note, I really don't think a sample sounds better than a recorded drum. For me, it's a question of dynamics : the feel that comes from the fact that a real human is hitting the drums.

Nitpicking, but a sample is literally a recorded drum, and you can get multi-samples to respond to that feel no problem with some careful set-up and a piece of good replacement software.

 

[MrBongo]

Drumatom 2 has already been released a while ago.

it CAN be helpful, but definitely is difficult to set up and work with. Also, it won´t completely negate bleed, only reduce its level if the recording is usable to the algorithm. If not so usable, you get pretty nasty artifacts

Would you want a sampled drumkit with 100 round-robins for all of the 127 velocities, for all the drums, in all articulations? Nah, most people wouldn´t want that. But it´s what you need to get it close to sounding like a real drummer
*btt

 

[wishtheend]

From my experience, drumatom does NOT like edited drums one bit. I think it needs to be the very first pass of anything for the algorithm to properly analyze the bleed in all the tracks (no strip silence either). And sometimes certain toms do better under different choices (hi, lo or floor). If I'm going to use it in the mix, I find percentages between 5-10% are just enough to reduce the cymbal bleed and some cross-talk on snare/toms but it can soften the transient and I'll sometimes hit it with transient enhancer after to get some snap back. I have something I was working on that I figured was going to end up almost completely sample replaced, and a pass in drumatom with high percentage 50-100 let me create some pretty easy mock trigger tracks that I converted to midi before quantizing and it killed enough bleed between everything that it only required a quick spot check (mainly on rack tom bleed).

 

[JeffTD]

Has anyone done an A/B of Pro-MB reducing bleed vs Drumatom? I bet the two combined are great but I wonder if you could match/beat Drumatom with some careful multiband expansion.

 

[Heabow]

Drumatom 2 is a good tool but it's not that easy to use indeed. Even if it's not totally the same kind of result, I found Drumleveler more flexible for gating drums.

 

[H-evolve]

This. Glenn loves un-backed hype. Not saying Drumatom isn't awesome or incredibly useful, but it's not a nail in the coffin for anything.

Nitpicking, but a sample is literally a recorded drum, and you can get multi-samples to respond to that feel no problem with some careful set-up and a piece of good replacement software.

I think you misunderstood me. Or I misunderstood you... I was talking about doing the full drum beat using a software (Ez Drummer). I don't mean that each sample on its own is bad.

I've never fully understood if Glenn was completely against samples in general, or just against doing drums on a software. Because correct me if I'm wrong (I ain't a drummer, plus I'm rather noob), but using triggers and that kind of thing, you can record a real drummer's playing and replace the sounds with samples right?

 

[Heabow]

You don't necessary need triggers to enhance/replace drums with samples (although it's often easier with trigger signals). Softwares have been designed for that.

 

[Melodeath]

In that particular example, the snare sounds like it became more dull. I don't know if this is a problem with drumatom, or simply the settings used in the example. Anyway, might be fun to try, but I have found Pro-G to be good enough for my needs when I'm doing the tracking. When someone else is tracking, I have no idea what I'm going to get. Sometimes the bleed is louder than the actual drum haha. I'm been experimenting with Pro-MB and Drum Leveler as well lately.

 

[MrBongo]

when overdone, the particular drum sounds become dull very quickly, almost instantly. On some tom tracks you can´t even get any bleed reduction at all before loss of top end is introduced.