Editing drums in logic 9 with flex time

Awesome dude :D Thank you!!! Exactly what I needed!

Couple quick questions though, after youve donethe transients for the kick, do you do a short cut to get into flex view? AND do you only detect transients for the kick?

Oh and if your interested I got a Distinction, Merit, Merit for my Btech National Diploma in Music Technology :p
 
Some great tips by Adam here.
I definitely agree about the cymbal issues. It's very important to check for that. If you have good monitors you'll be able to hear it so always listen! The ride can also be a culprit so don't just listen for cymbal crashes.
Adam in the video you cut a region and I believe quantize it. Haven't you run into some weird phase/pops when cutting flex regions? I know it's happened to me.
I usually cut regions and save them under different names then bounce in place and then edit them together. Cross fading if needed. So I usually have a little extra in the beginning and ending for this.
It's also great in case you realize later on that you missed something so you can go back and fix it and rebounce and edit in.

Also, I've noticed that while in transient detection mode sometimes the transient marker is a little behind the initial transient, and for some reason it's not accurate enough to where you can move it back just a little. It'll move back too far. But you can fix this while in flex editing. You can zoom in, delete the transient marker and put a new one just before the hit so you don't for instance move half of the kick transient.

Adam have you found a good way to deal with snare/kick simulatenous hits that are not perfectly aligned? I've tried doing a different group for the kicks and lining them up. It seems to work decently but not always. The snare track will sometimes get weird artifacts. I'm thinking perhaps just pasting in a clean snare hit might fix this. Any suggestions?
 
Charlie E. said:
Some great tips by Adam here.
I definitely agree about the cymbal issues. It's very important to check for that. If you have good monitors you'll be able to hear it so always listen! The ride can also be a culprit so don't just listen for cymbal crashes.
Adam in the video you cut a region and I believe quantize it. Haven't you run into some weird phase/pops when cutting flex regions? I know it's happened to me.
I usually cut regions and save them under different names then bounce in place and then edit them together. Cross fading if needed. So I usually have a little extra in the beginning and ending for this.
It's also great in case you realize later on that you missed something so you can go back and fix it and rebounce and edit in.

Also, I've noticed that while in transient detection mode sometimes the transient marker is a little behind the initial transient, and for some reason it's not accurate enough to where you can move it back just a little. It'll move back too far. But you can fix this while in flex editing. You can zoom in, delete the transient marker and put a new one just before the hit so you don't for instance move half of the kick transient.

Adam have you found a good way to deal with snare/kick simulatenous hits that are not perfectly aligned? I've tried doing a different group for the kicks and lining them up. It seems to work decently but not always. The snare track will sometimes get weird artifacts. I'm thinking perhaps just pasting in a clean snare hit might fix this. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

I remember for like a couple of years my phone bill was addressed to adam, maybe i should just change my name.

yeah i agree on everything you have posted, just got to watch out. if the transient markers get it wrong, ill usually just make a new flex marker where it should be and move that. i dont rely 100% on transient markers. as far as the different sections go, you just have to be careful that there are flex markers at the end of the regions, sometimes its a pain to get things right though (just a bit fiddly sometimes).

with snare and kicks together, it really depends on a few things. usually ill try and move them as close together as possible. if the drum part allows for it, you can copy and paste a decent one where they hit together, but obviously the part has to allow for it.

worst comes to worst, id keep the snares as is, and paste in some new kicks to tidy it up. its easier to get the kicks out of OH tracks than it is to get rid of snares.
 
The apple +f shortcut doesnt seem to want to work for me haha

But im assuming you'd already annylysed all your tracks previous to the video? So I'd just View > Flex View > And then enable Slicing?
 
Machinated said:
I remember for like a couple of years my phone bill was addressed to adam, maybe i should just change my name.

yeah i agree on everything you have posted, just got to watch out. if the transient markers get it wrong, ill usually just make a new flex marker where it should be and move that. i dont rely 100% on transient markers. as far as the different sections go, you just have to be careful that there are flex markers at the end of the regions, sometimes its a pain to get things right though (just a bit fiddly sometimes).

with snare and kicks together, it really depends on a few things. usually ill try and move them as close together as possible. if the drum part allows for it, you can copy and paste a decent one where they hit together, but obviously the part has to allow for it.

worst comes to worst, id keep the snares as is, and paste in some new kicks to tidy it up. its easier to get the kicks out of OH tracks than it is to get rid of snares.
Click to expand...

Good point about pasting in kicks. However, since I move everything together (except the kicks) when trying to line them up together I don't usually have an issue with that (snare vs OH).
For example, when a snare hit is a few milliseconds later than the kick I'll group everything except the kick, and move it back so they line up.
I've soloed the tracks when I hear those weird artifacts and the snare track always seems to be the source. It's as if the transient has been too compressed so there is a weird sounding initial artifact in the snare track. This is why I think copying a clean snare hit or as you said, copying in a good kick/snare hit from a different part of the song would be the answer.
I guess it's all a matter of experimenting but I think I'm getting the hang of it.
Doing flextime drum editing is definitely not as easy as it sounds. At least if you want it to sound right.

No idea how I got Adam and Machinated confused lol my bad

Btw I read an article in Soundonsound about removing samples from the room mic tracks so they line up with the rest of the tracks before editing. You then simply insert a sample delay plugin on those tracks with the amount of samples that you removed.
I'm not sure how helpful doing that is but I'm sure there are advantages. Perhaps less of a chance at accidentally chopping up transients like what can happen with badly placed markers.
 
I've found also that the snares are usually the problem when it comes to weird artifacts.

Also, how do you copy kicks and snares? Is it through flex time?
 
I wouldn't copy while in flex time. I'd go out of flex time and simply cut a region and paste it in.
If you recorded samples of each drum you could paste in one of those hits.
Alternatively you could copy/paste a section or good hits after bouncing the tracks in place. That's probably what I will do.
 
After editing about 5 sessions worth of drums in flex time I've abandoned the transient marker route entirely, I just treat it like slip editing and do it by eye creating flex markers as I go, simply because I find it faster and more controlled.
 
tempe said:
After editing about 5 sessions worth of drums in flex time I've abandoned the transient marker route entirely, I just treat it like slip editing and do it by eye creating flex markers as I go, simply because I find it faster and more controlled.
Click to expand...

Thats what I think I'm gonna try mate
 
tempe said:
After editing about 5 sessions worth of drums in flex time I've abandoned the transient marker route entirely, I just treat it like slip editing and do it by eye creating flex markers as I go, simply because I find it faster and more controlled.
Click to expand...

A major +1 on this! I've started doing the same thing and it's sooooo much easier. I still get certain artifacts though, like cymbals sounding bad. Has anyone tried to compare slicing mode and slip editing in Reaper? Is there any difference? It should be the same, but the flex algos aren't as transparent as what you do when you slip edit.

I'm too lazy to google right now, does anyone know how to set the crossfade length for slicing mode in flex time?
 
My way of working.

First thing to do is time align all the tracks then use sample delay plugin to slightly delay the overheads and room (if you want) making sure they are in phase. You will then need to cut the start and end of the drum tracks so the regions are the same length for phase locked editing.
I move the kick to the one count of the bar every 8 bars then cut at every 8 bars then work on the song section by section.

If the kicks are out of time with the snare on double kick sections I duplicate the double kicks to new tracks (automating the original tracks down in volume) and manually put the snare in time then do the kicks separately and hi pass the overheads in the mix.

If the audio is moved too much giving artifacts to the cymbals I switch to polyphonic complex mode which will time stretch rather than slice , yet preserve transients.
Polyphonic complex is very cpu heavy so I freeze the source files as soon as I finish editing.
If you are sample replacing the kicks and snare you will get away with the time stretching.

Also, if the drummer is playing triplet time double kicks make sure to set the divisions to 12 or 24 (below time signature in transport bar). The default is 16.
Makes it much easier to edit because you can set snap to division.
 
mickrich said:
My way of working.

First thing to do is time align all the tracks then use sample delay plugin to slightly delay the overheads and room (if you want) making sure they are in phase. You will then need to cut the start and end of the drum tracks so the regions are the same length for phase locked editing.
I move the kick to the one count of the bar every 8 bars then cut at every 8 bars then work on the song section by section.

If the kicks are out of time with the snare on double kick sections I duplicate the double kicks to new tracks (automating the original tracks down in volume) and manually put the snare in time then do the kicks separately and hi pass the overheads in the mix.

If the audio is moved too much giving artifacts to the cymbals I switch to polyphonic complex mode which will time stretch rather than slice , yet preserve transients.
Polyphonic complex is very cpu heavy so I freeze the source files as soon as I finish editing.
If you are sample replacing the kicks and snare you will get away with the time stretching.

Also, if the drummer is playing triplet time double kicks make sure to set the divisions to 12 or 24 (below time signature in transport bar). The default is 16.
Makes it much easier to edit because you can set snap to division.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info dude :) I'll give it a whirl soon!
 
Bah, sorry for bumping this one too :/

If you have recorded triggers for kick, snare and toms, you would group them together with the rest I guess. But would you use the snare and kick trigger tracks as key tracks? should be easier to see and work with the hits that way.
 
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