Multi-platinum pro tools book (drum editing/pocketing and tempo tracks)

[FalseMessiah Mike]

So I started reading 'multi-platinum pro tools' by Nathan Adam and Brady Barnett. Extremely useful book that takes you through the advanced techniques the professionals are using.
It comes with a DVD that shows you how to do pretty much everything it tells you in the book, but it only takes an hour or so to watch. Plus it comes with a project to practice your editing on.

I know a few of you have read this book and I've got a couple questions.

In the book it teaches you to pocket (quantize) the drums and percussion just behind the beat (3 milli-seconds I think it said). But pockets the lead instruments on the beat. This makes the song sound relaxed, laid back.
They say if you have the drums on beat that it'll make the song sound anxious (I hope I've got that bit right, they may have been referring to having the drums just in front of the beat, that of course will make it sound anxious).

Now in this book the song being used is by a singer/song writer in the Nashville area.
My question to all you professionals (and those that have read the book and use these techniques) that record metal, how do you pocket your tracks (drums, bass, guitar, vocals etc.), does it differ depending on the style of music you are working with?
Do you put them on the beat, or slightly behind?



My second question is not to do with the book. The last few projects I've done the bands haven't played to a click, I tried to get them to but it wasn't working.
With metal there's going to be complex structures and changes in the tempo and time signature. What is the best way of creating a tempo track?

The last band I worked with I sat down with the guitarist. We worked out the tempo for the riffs he was playing and recorded them in. This process was slow.
Unfortunately the drummer wasn't there. The drummer turns up on the day to record drums and he say "that bit is too fast, and that bit is slow."

I was thinking the other day. The best way to come up with a tempo track would be to record the band together.
Get them all to agree "yes we played this at the tempo we normally play it at." Then use beat to detective to create a tempo map from the demo song.
Use that and average it out a bit. Then record a guide guitar to that, then start tracking drums.

How do you go about it?


My final question. No drummer is perfect. In an ideal world you would record full takes of the drummer playing along to a click, then pocket those drums to get it really tight.
What do you do when the drummer keeps on fucking up during a take. Basically I've never dropped a drummer in during a middle of a song. How do you do it and what do you need to do when editing it all together.
Even before trying it I start thinking its all going to depend on what the drummer is playing and if there are any natural breaks in the song.
Editing two takes must be pretty hard because cymbals ring out loads and you want it to sound natural and seamless.

 

[AStacy2]

I personally edit 100% to grid but that's just me.


I have a guitarist and a drummer come in before we record and make guide guitar tracks. I have both of the listen and tell me if the tempos are right and I'm listening for any mistakes. I bounce that down with a click and give it to the drummer to practice with for a week or so before recording. Usually I'll tell them to try and play each song twice a day for a week or so. Obviously, that doesn't happen every time, so sometimes you've just gotta make the best of whatever is happening.

 

[FalseMessiah Mike]

Cheers, thats some good advice giving the drummer a bounce of the guitar and click track to practice with.

Do you find if you conform everything 100% to grid that you lose all feeling in the track? I'm trying to strike a balance between tight yet still musical.

 

[AStacy2]

Cheers, thats some good advice giving the drummer a bounce of the guitar and click track to practice with.

Do you find if you conform everything 100% to grid that you lose all feeling in the track? I'm trying to strike a balance between tight yet still musical.

Yeah, doing guides like that has probably been one of the biggest improvements in my recordings. It seems like a lot of bands (that I've recorded at least) just don't practice to a metronome ever. I've never not practiced with one so I just always thought they had bad timing but really it was just that they'd never even done it before and it was throwing them off trying it in the studio for the first time ever.


Well, I record a lot of death metal so there's not much feeling anyways, but I hear you. I've never read the book you're talking about but are they saying that they grid the drums 100% and then move every hit back 3ms? I've never done that but that's and interesting idea. Maybe I'll try that and post it and see what everyone thinks.

 

[darthjujuu]

retard question: I've tried bouncing with a click before for the exact purposes of giving a reference to the dudes to practice with, and (in cubase sx) could not figure out for the life of me how to bounce a mix with the click. also, i haven't tried it yet, but i'm tinkering with transitioning to reaper so i s'pose it'd be worth asking how to do it in there too, while we're on the subject. o_0

 

[darthjujuu]

What do you do when the drummer keeps on fucking up during a take. Basically I've never dropped a drummer in during a middle of a song. How do you do it and what do you need to do when editing it all together.
Even before trying it I start thinking its all going to depend on what the drummer is playing and if there are any natural breaks in the song.
Editing two takes must be pretty hard because cymbals ring out loads and you want it to sound natural and seamless.

recording tech drums without tonsa punch-ins punch-outs would be excruciating and time consuming. i'm not a PT guy but for just about every DAW under the sun you have tons of punch-in punch-out options, i suggest youtubing around to see examples of how other people do it, or just combing through this (and other) forums. essentially what you do is rewind to a few bars before the fuck up, have the drummer start playing along to what he just did, and set in PT the "punch points" where it will seamlessly automatically begin recording a new take before the mistake. as long as he's playing the same as the previous take, the cymbals and room noise will flow seamlessly (with a quick cross-fade). most DAW's offer the "auto-crossfade" option, which will give a 5-10ms crossfade between the two takes (old and new) automatically. mastering this technique is KEY to a quick workflow!! i didn't do it for the longest time and felt like a bafoon for wasting so much time once i learned it.

 

[greyskull]

are you using P.T??
jees i need to write a book on this stuff myself....

 

[FalseMessiah Mike]

Well, I record a lot of death metal so there's not much feeling anyways, but I hear you. I've never read the book you're talking about but are they saying that they grid the drums 100% and then move every hit back 3ms?

They move the hit 3 ms behind the beat manually after making the edit point, then they finish with a crossfade. But I guess you could do it your way.

recording tech drums without tonsa punch-ins punch-outs would be excruciating and time consuming. i'm not a PT guy but for just about every DAW under the sun you have tons of punch-in punch-out options, i suggest youtubing around to see examples of how other people do it, or just combing through this (and other) forums. essentially what you do is rewind to a few bars before the fuck up, have the drummer start playing along to what he just did, and set in PT the "punch points" where it will seamlessly automatically begin recording a new take before the mistake. as long as he's playing the same as the previous take, the cymbals and room noise will flow seamlessly (with a quick cross-fade). most DAW's offer the "auto-crossfade" option, which will give a 5-10ms crossfade between the two takes (old and new) automatically. mastering this technique is KEY to a quick workflow!! i didn't do it for the longest time and felt like a bafoon for wasting so much time once i learned it.

Now it makes sense. I shall have to read up on punch-ins.

are you using P.T??
jees i need to write a book on this stuff myself....

If that was directed at me I used Pro tools m-powered 7.4

 

[xMannequiNx]

I punch in drums all the time and it comes out smooth

precount about 8 bars, let it start, have the drummer start playing along to it before it starts recording and when it punches in it's a nice transition. Sometimes you don't even need crossfading.

 

[chonchball]

Your questions lend themselves a lot to needing more experience with more bands and more situations so you can be in control of your sessions more. Keep finding bands to record and try to practice your skills at directing the session, especially when it comes to tracking drums. You can punch in and punch out on drums as much as you want. watch your transients in the editing process.

for complex songs, record everyone together and get the FEEL of the song. Then use identify beat on every measure. You'll see that it will fluctuate a lot. After you have the whole song analyzed, change your tracks from SAMPLES to TICKS and use EDIT > SEPARATE ON GRID @ 16 notes with no trigger pad. Now change each SECTION to the moderate tempo of the part. Now you have your click track to TRACK to that preserves the feel of the song but makes it more metronimically acceptable. Go back and use the edited guitar track as your scratch guitar in the drummer's cue mix, and start tracking the real drums. After this process, beat detect the song and get it all into place nicely. Yes it's long, yes it's tedious,but you won't run into everyone saying "no that's too fast, no that's too slow".

 

[dcb]

a dumb question, but :

anyone read the book / watched the dvd and used the techniques in cubase ?


i'm on cubase, thinking about buying the dvd / book, but it would be useless,
if i can't work with these methods on cubase.

thanks guys !

 

[fade_2_black]

That 3ms thing is an interesting theory, Ill have to try it out.

As far as punching-in goes, I make sure the drummer plays along for 2-4 bars previous to where I want to bunch in, and then manually punch at the beginning of a bar. Doing it at the start of a bar or section is best as that is where the drums are generally the most transient, and oftentimes small edits can be concealed if they dont fit in naturally.

 

[chonchball]

That 3ms thing is an interesting theory, Ill have to try it out.

As far as punching-in goes, I make sure the drummer plays along for 2-4 bars previous to where I want to bunch in, and then manually punch at the beginning of a bar. Doing it at the start of a bar or section is best as that is where the drums are generally the most transient, and oftentimes small edits can be concealed if they dont fit in naturally.

actually, if you drag back into your preroll to count 3 or 4 before the bar you can get a better bleed in as long as you make sure the drummer is playing on the same cymbals and playing the same parts and not just jammin along however he wants to everytime.