Making my own drum samples sound more realistic

[vjferrara]

Hi everyone, this is my first post here so please direct me to the right subforum if I'm in the wrong place.

I was recording a drummer a few months ago; after a few songs I could tell that he was getting tired so I made samples of his drumkit because I knew that the more we did the less amazing he would be. I was right. By the last song his legs were shot and the drum tracks are not useable at all. I rewrote his drums in midi and loaded his samples in via Battery3. After messing around with the midi in Logic to make everything sound more realistic I STILL don't feel that they sound real enough. I did add a little reverb in order to put them into a space but they still don't feel right in my opinion.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/25553470/Drums Bounce.wav

Any thoughts? I only used Logic to run the midi through. It is easier to mess with velocities, etc in Logic than it is in PT but I use PT for my tracking/editing/mixing.

 

[Styvo]

You've done a descent job with the programming but it's most likely the overal sound of the sample's your using.
Why not try bouncing the midi to audio and add some further wight to the drum sound by using acoustic drum sample's.

Lasse has some awesome sample's as does slate and ofcourse there are so many more available.
If that isn't an option for you perhaps try an alternative Midi Drum programme like addictive drums/superior 2/slate 4 drums.

 

[vjferrara]

Well I'm trying to NOT use any other samples because I want it to be that drummer's kit. It's his bands song, since I can't have him actually playing it I'd like it to still be the sound of his kit. Do you think if I added the room mic's it would sound better? I used 20 mic's on his kit but only used the close mic's in Battery. I can add more cells and use the room mic's along with the close mic's too.

 

[Styvo]

Definately use the room mic's...it's what helps define the kit's size at the end of the day.

 

[vjferrara]

Definately use the room mic's...it's what helps define the kit's size at the end of the day.

Do you think it would be a good idea to start the sample at the transient or a leave a slight space before it? There is always that slight time difference between the close mic and room mic that I'm not sure whether to account for or not when adding them in

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Sounds like 1 sample, and machine gunning like crazy.

Drums are dynamic, and this is what I hear as the issue.

Also: Not digging the samples at all, those toms sound like junk.

Sorry for being harsh, but something has to change here.

 

[vjferrara]

Sounds like 1 sample, and machine gunning like crazy.

Drums are dynamic, and this is what I hear as the issue.

Also: Not digging the samples at all, those toms sound like junk.

Sorry for being harsh, but something has to change here.

That is a little harsh. There is no processing on anything yet other than a little verb because I was trying to make it sound like it was in a room. What do you mean by "machine gunning"? I know there is a lot that has to change, I was just trying to start off correctly instead of having to do a bunch of things later on to fix mistakes in the beginning. The samples are what they are. I'm not going to use a sample pack. I'm using those samples. The band doesn't want to use Metal Foundry or Steven Slate.

I do have 4 solid hits from the kick that I could use to alternate. I'm already alternating between 2. I also have 8 solid snare hits from top and bottom that I could use along with the 2 that I'm already using. I also have 3 sets of room mic's that I could add in along with everything.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Machine gunning: The same sample (or 2) sounding over and over again in fast succession.

Not machine gunning: It's still fast, but more than one sample is being played to break up the sound so it doesn't sound weird.

Also: I'm most definitely not telling you to go after market samples (actually I think it's pretty kick ass your using the samples from the kit), but I don't think battery is the best player in this situation.

Also: For kicks, I prefer no less than 5 samples to alternate so you don't get that kind of sound.

Also: While this is metal, nobody plays toms like that (it really doesn't sound natural mang)

Also: For snare, I prefer even more samples to pull from and alternate due to rolls and the like (the recent trigger snare instrument I shared had 112 samples per mic, there was OH stereo, room, and snare top and bottom).


Just preference man, I'm still standing by my statement though those toms sound bad (even raw as they are). It very well could be the way battery is playing them, but it sounds super artificial.

 

[vjferrara]

Machine gunning: The same sample (or 2) sounding over and over again in fast succession.

Not machine gunning: It's still fast, but more than one sample is being played to break up the sound so it doesn't sound weird.

Also: I'm most definitely not telling you to go after market samples (actually I think it's pretty kick ass your using the samples from the kit), but I don't think battery is the best player in this situation.

Also: For kicks, I prefer no less than 5 samples to alternate so you don't get that kind of sound.

Also: While this is metal, nobody plays toms like that (it really doesn't sound natural mang)

Also: For snare, I prefer even more samples to pull from and alternate due to rolls and the like (the recent trigger snare instrument I shared had 112 samples per mic, there was OH stereo, room, and snare top and bottom).


Just preference man, I'm still standing by my statement though those toms sound bad (even raw as they are). It very well could be the way battery is playing them, but it sounds super artificial.

That's an insane amount of snare samples! I agree with your previous statements as well, I just wasn't sure how to go about fixing the problems that you were telling me about. I had over 20 mic's up and recording each sample. I only used the close mics. I'll add the rest of them in and play with it.

As far as Battery goes, I'm only using it as the sample player. After I load my samples into it and cut them down to the right size I use Logic to export each drum as audio so that I can mix later. Do you have any suggestions of other programs to use? The reason I use Battery in particular is because I can load entire audio files into a single cell and edit them while still in Battery and I can have multiple lanes trigger the same sample.

The toms are an issue though. That was just the sound of his kit. I might actually have to layer each Tom with its own sample multiple times and do surgical eq'ing on each one to make them better.

I'll definitely try adding more kicks and as many snares as I can save of his stuff. This is a lot more work than I signed on for but I'm not entirely unhappy with what I've got so far. I'll definitely be using everyone's suggestions to see if I can make them sound completely natural

 

[Styvo]

We are only trying to help you out on your quest to present a good recording/mix to your client.
I understand from your end that you want to use the sample's that are genuinly his sound....and that's fine.

But you have a lesson in the process your undertaking which goes beyond midi programming and making drums sound good(realistic)
Getting your clients studio ready and presenting themselves in the best way, with the capacity to perform the recorded material they are creating.
In simplified terms this is what's meant when audio engineers say that you can't polish a turd.

In the situation you currently find yourself in,your performing more than just engineering/mixing duties and all is well if that was part of the initial agreement.
But while your on here spending eendless amount of time trying to polish his turd and finding solutions to his problems(drummer) where's he at.....on the couch resting his tired legs.

You should learn that when you come across bands and musicians who are lazy and can't play charge them double.
This isn't a direct grip at you ....but something all too common that seems to occure with enthusiastic up and comming engineers and the lazy musician lying around.

With your room mic's i could only suggest around a 2ms-5ms dly time on the strating transient,however you will need to shift it to where it seems most natural without it causing you any major phase issue's.Use your ears.
The last thing i want to add is how does the drum track stack up against the rest of the music?That's where it lives and that's where the decision is ultimately made.

 

[vjferrara]

We are only trying to help you out on your quest to present a good recording/mix to your client.
I understand from your end that you want to use the sample's that are genuinly his sound....and that's fine.

But you have a lesson in the process your undertaking which goes beyond midi programming and making drums sound good(realistic)
Getting your clients studio ready and presenting themselves in the best way, with the capacity to perform the recorded material they are creating.
In simplified terms this is what's meant when audio engineers say that you can't polish a turd.

In the situation you currently find yourself in,your performing more than just engineering/mixing duties and all is well if that was part of the initial agreement.
But while your on here spending eendless amount of time trying to polish his turd and finding solutions to his problems(drummer) where's he at.....on the couch resting his tired legs.

You should learn that when you come across bands and musicians who are lazy and can't play charge them double.
This isn't a direct grip at you ....but something all too common that seems to occure with enthusiastic up and comming engineers and the lazy musician lying around.

With your room mic's i could only suggest around a 2ms-5ms dly time on the strating transient,however you will need to shift it to where it seems most natural without it causing you any major phase issue's.Use your ears.
The last thing i want to add is how does the drum track stack up against the rest of the music?That's where it lives and that's where the decision is ultimately made.

Oh I completely understand where you guys are coming from. This is my first time using samples that I made - on a whim at that - and I am just finding it frustrating that I know where I want to be at with his sound and I have all of the pieces to get there BUT I'm just not sure which road(s) to take on the way. At this point, I'm learning a ridiculous amount about making my own samples and the problems therein. Any time I'm forced to work with a drummer that doesn't have the stamina I'll be able to use his samples AND do it with less problems than I am having now. All the while, hopefully, impressing said client enough to gain respect and loyalty to me as their engineer. I have been called a pretty decent turd polisher

I think I've figured out how to add the rooms in though. I'll load all of them into a Battery drumset and instead of solo'ing out the individual drums and rendering them like I did with the close mic's I'll make a stereo audio file with the room mics playing exactly what is being played now by the close mic's. When I import the stereo file into PT I can nudge it a milisecond at a time until it sounds like the natural sound of the drumkit being picked up by the rooms.

I never liked the sound of completely polished drums. That's one of the reasons that I'm glad the band wants to keep the sound of their original drummer. It isn't processed like the professional sample kits are. It will also keep their EP sounding uniform as we did all of the drums in the same day, the mic's were only slightly moved between each song as needed.

 

[Chainsaw Calligraphy]

You could edit the crap out of the original performance then blend in your samples to add consistency to the hits? I think thats your best bet for getting a natural sounding performance at this point.

 

[vjferrara]

You could edit the crap out of the original performance then blend in your samples to add consistency to the hits? I think thats your best bet for getting a natural sounding performance at this point.

I was thinking about that as well. The original performance was horrible in terms of timing though. I should be able to get a few good snare hits and kicks out of it. I might even pull Tom hits from other songs he did in order to get better sounding hits.

I hope you all stick this thread. I have to work at my real job through Sunday now but I will hopefully be able to get some work done on this kit throughout the next day or so. I would definitely like some feedback on my process.

 

[dankarghh]

i'm capped atm so i can't hear the sample. But if you're making samples of the kit (cymbals as well??) It wouldn't make sense to just include close hits in the sample. Include the room and OHs at the same volume you'll be mixing them in the unprogrammed songs. Obviously helps with the stereo image and getting a nice 3d sound.

Edit: Oh and yeah. As many hits of each sample as possible.