Getting a monitor drum mix when recording only triggers

[Backe]

Hey dudes and... dudettes? Maybe not.

I'm recording a band in a matter of months. I want to record real drums because the drummer can actually play his kit, but I don't have access to any mics or great sounding preamps. So I was thinking of going all trigger + real overheads, maybe get a good clean channelstrip and an SM57 and go nuts with sample recording. Seen alot of people doing this with great results, joey for one. But I'm curious as to how I get a good mix for the drummer while tracking. How do I do that without latency?

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Trevoire520]

Drum module. Pop the triggers into that and then record the midi out from the module.

 

[Backe]

Drum module. Pop the triggers into that and then record the midi out from the module.

Yeah, that was my first thought too. But then you need a drummodule, which I don't have. And since I'm using real overheads with the full kit in them, quantizing while keeping phase accuracy gets kinda hard, right? Because you can't slip edit the midi along with the overheads. Unless I bounce the midi using like SD2.0 and then quantize and replace them, but that seems like an effort.

 

[Emdprodukt]

I do it with live monitoring through my daw (cubase 5/6) + trigger (I mean the plugin), you need a good soundcard/interface and a fast computer for low latency though.

 

[Backe]

I do it with live monitoring through my daw (cubase 5/6) + trigger (I mean the plugin), you need a good soundcard/interface and a fast computer for low latency though.

Trigger can handle those latencies? any chance drumagog could do it aswell? know I've seen a Live button in there somewhere

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

Trigger can handle those latencies? any chance drumagog could do it aswell? know I've seen a Live button in there somewhere

yes

 

[koalamo]

Yeah, that was my first thought too. But then you need a drummodule, which I don't have. And since I'm using real overheads with the full kit in them, quantizing while keeping phase accuracy gets kinda hard, right? Because you can't slip edit the midi along with the overheads. Unless I bounce the midi using like SD2.0 and then quantize and replace them, but that seems like an effort.

You can slip edit midi in cubase my friend. I do it all da tymeeee.

 

[Backe]

You can slip edit midi in cubase my friend. I do it all da tymeeee.

Actually it does! I was surprised. The only thing is that the hits are kinda "small" when using the GM Map. Any way I can get them bigger?

 

[aortizjr]

There is a MIDI plugin that you can insert later that will do this for you and will raise the volume of each hit by an amount you set. Or you can just put a compressor on the signal coming in.


So you are using actual triggers on each drum? Trigger/Drumagog is good enough with regular mics that you can probably just use some cheap mics and a cheap pre. If your interface can take it, grab a Behringer ADA8000 and ADAT in. Or for an interface just grab a Presonus or something.

Then grab a cheap $100 drum mic kit thing and such. Get good overheads, and then replace the rest. That would be cheaper than a drum module and regular trigger pads.

For monitoring, just do the best you can with the mics. You can actually get pretty decent results that way anyway. Depending on how much you tweak and the quality of the drums and rooms, I actually get pretty damn good results with a cheap Shure PG mic kit. I know a guy who uses Guitar Center Digital Reference microphones and gets great results.

 

[koalamo]

Actually it does! I was surprised. The only thing is that the hits are kinda "small" when using the GM Map. Any way I can get them bigger?

If you are using triggers just use that audio to slip, don't even look at the midi just do it all as one big group. When your done everything will be aligned correctly.