Drumtracker FTW!

[TheDude]

I know the guys at Toontrack and all, but holy shit! Here's the thing: I usually use drumagog to do the audio/midi conversion in my DAW and it's always good, but not perfect. There's always some mishaps going on with some hits. Enter Aptrigga: Same thing (I just realized).

I got Drumtracker yesterday and tested it on a project I'm working on (home made recorded drums, DI git and bass), and within thirty minutes I had a perfect, again PERFECT midifile of the kick, snare, and three toms. Ghost notes and fucking everything. When I imported the midi into the project and listened, I didn't realize that the original drumtracks weren't muted. No flams, no weird trigging. Perfectly spot on. I had an Aptrigga add snare for blending that I've rendered into a wav-file and I could clearly hear that it mistrigged on several occasions. I realized that I don't have to sit and go through every hit manually to see that it works, and that my friends, will save me a couple of months of boring work every year I'll be working in this business.

Andy, buy it now (or get it for free, maybe) so the rest of the guys understand how good it is! Also, do the "producer pack" Toontrack wants you to do.

I'm really happy now.

 

[Temps]

But how does it work with cymbals?

 

[Ermz]

Does this thing have the capability of laying samples right on top of the audio tracks ala Drumagog and such? Is it strictly an audio to MIDI converter, or does it kind of do the lot?

Less mis-triggering sounds like an ace proposition, but I haven't quite wrapped my head about what exactly it is that this thing does, and why in fact we'd rather be using MIDI than audio files to trigger from.

 

[The-Zeronaut]

cant wait to try it >.<

whats that producers pack???

 

[devouredremains]

Does this thing have the capability of laying samples right on top of the audio tracks ala Drumagog and such? Is it strictly an audio to MIDI converter, or does it kind of do the lot?

Less mis-triggering sounds like an ace proposition, but I haven't quite wrapped my head about what exactly it is that this thing does, and why in fact we'd rather be using MIDI than audio files to trigger from.

I believe it's meant to convert tracks to midi for triggering apps like Superior Drummer 2.0 or BFD or even Drumagog when it's set up correctly for that task.

It also seems like it would give great control over the dynamics of the tracks.

 

[NickL]

and why in fact we'd rather be using MIDI than audio files to trigger from.

As someone said before, manual control of velocity on hits here and there can be very helpful

 

[jauernis]

Wonder if this program can take care of sloppy drummers and put them in time? OH's especially! Is there a program that can time align the OH mics since I sample replace everything else anyways??

 

[devouredremains]

Wonder if this program can take care of sloppy drummers and put them in time? OH's especially! Is there a program that can time align the OH mics since I sample replace everything else anyways??

I think for replacing overheads it would depend on how much bleed from drums/hats were in the tracks and how much transient attack from the cymbals got picked up.

If you did manage to pick up all the cymbal hits in drumtracker you would still need to shift the notes to the corresponding cymbal in your sampler and manually program the hi hats.

Once you had a complete drum track transposed to midi you certainly could quantize everything to the grid if you wanted.

 

[TheDude]

I think for replacing overheads it would depend on how much bleed from drums/hats were in the tracks and how much transient attack from the cymbals got picked up.

If you did manage to pick up all the cymbal hits in drumtracker you would still need to shift the notes to the corresponding cymbal in your sampler and manually program the hi hats.

Once you had a complete drum track transposed to midi you certainly could quantize everything to the grid if you wanted.

The program is intended do be able to do hihat/cymbals as well. Actually it's made with the purpose of replacing all drums in a mixdown stereo/mono drum file. I haven't tried it though.

 

[Ermz]

I'm just trying to get my head around a convenient way of using it as a drum replacer in Cubase.

From what I've seen of the tutorial this program runs stand-alone, rather than a VST? You render MIDI output from actual .wav files, so you need to have everything consolidated ahead of time. So in cubase you pull up MIDI, and say you get drumagog to trigger off those MIDI signals, how do you actually get drumagog to print an audio track from there? In PT it'd be a synch, but the version of Cubendo I use doesn't allow for direct printing onto tracks from plug-ins.

 

[TheDude]

Yes, it's a standalone program. Consolidated files are the way to go.

To get Drumagog to print an audio track you have to export the drumagog channel as an audio track. I don't do that, since I might change the drum sound up to the last minute before the mixdown. Set the tempo and midi note in DT and the midi file is perfect. There are templates for all drum samplers (AD, Sup1, Sup2, EZ, Battery and more), and also General Midi and midi note numbers.

 

[John_C]

basically, its reliable and easily fully controllable. 2 things i'm yet to find in any VST drum replacer

 

[AdamWathan]

Think I'm gonna have to pick this up! Sounds like a really quick and painless way of setting up trigger tracks in a project...

 

[digitaldeath]

Yeah, this might save me using triggers on the kit altogether.
I like to use a mixture of the mics, Addictive Drums (via MIDI) and aptrigga for sound replacement.

 

[John_C]

The biggest gain is that once you've saved the midi file, there's no chance of any more mistriggers.

Every time i used drumagog to trigger itself from an audio track (esp. on recordings with lots of bleed) it would produce different results every time i played the track. I'd adjust it so it worked and triggered just right, and when i came back a few mins later it'd be all over the show again.

None of that with drumtracker, it saves all the pain

 

[digitaldeath]

This won't work with Steven Slate 3.0 though, will it?

 

[AdamWathan]

The biggest gain is that once you've saved the midi file, there's no chance of any more mistriggers.

Every time i used drumagog to trigger itself from an audio track (esp. on recordings with lots of bleed) it would produce different results every time i played the track. I'd adjust it so it worked and triggered just right, and when i came back a few mins later it'd be all over the show again.

None of that with drumtracker, it saves all the pain

For sure, triggering from MIDI is the most painless way to sound replace by far. Works flawlessly and perfectly every time.

 

[AdamWathan]

This won't work with Steven Slate 3.0 though, will it?

You should be able to load the samples from the Slate packs into a sampler of your choice and feed the MIDI to it no problem... Not sure if the standalone Slate VST will support MIDI input though?

 

[digitaldeath]

Version 3.0 has MIDI in I'm sure. but it'd be nice if DrumTracker could output the MIDI to use with Steven Slate.

 

[Executioner213]

So far, I think it fuckin rules! I'm confused as to how it will be any good for cymbals unless you have em all individually micd. Maybe in the case of hats or ride would be more common, and though it would still help weed everything out, I think it would still be a pain at this point. Other than that, I'm liking it a lot...other than I can't really render anything. As far as detecting hits, its pretty damn good and easy. I went through a whole snare track in 5 minutes, as compared to individually pasting midi notes where the notes hit that KTDrumTrigger missed (which is usually abundant). It might hit only a couple extra, which is a piece of cake to just click and omit. Easy as hell, so far. I really like it.