my kick tracks are quieter at some spots and I want to make them louder

[bryan_kilco]

I want to try to replace kick drums with samples, but everytime I try I get the same result. Seems that the left beater isnt hitting the head as hard as the right in certain spots. The replacer doesnt recognize them for some reason, and there are dead spots. I want to figure out a way to maybe chop off the spikes of the louder hits and make them even with the softer ones, and I've tried compression and still havent gotten anywhere.

Any suggestions? Was my micing/recording process just not good enough, and resulting in a problem that cannot be "fixed"?

 

[Morgan C]

Compress with rly fast attack, rly fast release. Or try a different replacement program?

 

[AHChris]

Which drum replacement plugin do you use? There has to be a slider / knob named sensitivity or similar. Try fiddling with that.

 

[Machinated]

use a trigger if the hits are getting too soft.

something is wrong along the line (be it the drum,tuning,drummer,micing). to get consistent hits after the recording, triggering or MIDI-ing the kicks would be your best bet IMO.

compressing is just going to bring up the weak hits

 

[AerialThesis]

volume automation? raise the left beater's fader higher?

 

[Masticore]

+1 with aerialthesis

 

[bryan_kilco]

volume automation? raise the left beater's fader higher?

only one bass drum. =/

what we got is basically a home recording of 3 songs. just something to hand out or put on the myspace to get the name out. its not going to be razor sharp and face ripping....but I guess at least it'll do the job for now until we can record again. I have much more knowledge this time around....lots of thanks to this forum!

 

[AerialThesis]

only one bass drum. =/

what we got is basically a home recording of 3 songs. just something to hand out or put on the myspace to get the name out. its not going to be razor sharp and face ripping....but I guess at least it'll do the job for now until we can record again. I have much more knowledge this time around....lots of thanks to this forum!

where did you mic both beaters? I mean did you mic each beater with it's mic or did you only use one mic? You might need to record again... or filter alot of the frequencies so you can boost that one frequency that the bass drum owns more than any other piece of the drum kit. When using a double pedal on a single bass drum, i suggest using at least 3 mics. One at the end of the bass drum where the "woof" takes places and one for each beater ( from inside or outside the bass drum depending on the sound you want or simply if the pedal is noisy. Good luck man!

 

[nwright]

i suggest using at least 3 mics. One at the end of the bass drum where the "woof" takes places and one for each beater ( from inside or outside the bass drum depending on the sound you want or simply if the pedal is noisy. Good luck man!

 

[bryan_kilco]

where did you mic both beaters? I mean did you mic each beater with it's mic or did you only use one mic? You might need to record again... or filter alot of the frequencies so you can boost that one frequency that the bass drum owns more than any other piece of the drum kit. When using a double pedal on a single bass drum, i suggest using at least 3 mics. One at the end of the bass drum where the "woof" takes places and one for each beater ( from inside or outside the bass drum depending on the sound you want or simply if the pedal is noisy. Good luck man!

yeah, we used 1 mic. I was messing with the replacer last night and I think I got it working ok, but I will need to purchase the real copy because the trial version puts a "whoosh" sound every few seconds.

I've learned a lot since we recorded the drums a few months ago. I cant wait to do it again, only better!!

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

I always use a trigger for that, even if I don't plan on replacing the kick, you just never know.

It's a good investment for 100$ or so

 

[bryan_kilco]

I always use a trigger for that, even if I don't plan on replacing the kick, you just never know.

It's a good investment for 100$ or so

what is all involved in triggering?

Obviously, the sensor/trigger itself, but anything else?

 

[ahjteam]

what is all involved in triggering?

Obviously, the sensor/trigger itself, but anything else?

triggering software

 

[bryan_kilco]

triggering software

but what type of cable would be used and it would just feed right into an interface? I know completely nothing about actual physical triggers.

I've been doing home recordings for about 7 or 8 years now but am just recently getting into "proper" methods.

 

[darthjujuu]

a trigger works the same as a mic, it just "feels" instead of "hears". use it like any other mic, it just records a little blip.

 

[AndrewPGlover]

Does your DAW have any type of tab to transient or audio to score mode? If it does you could manually replace the hits and/or make a midi kick track and just run it to the replacement program or something like ezdrummer or bfd if you have either of those.

 

[ahjteam]

but what type of cable would be used and it would just feed right into an interface? I know completely nothing about actual physical triggers.

regular XLR cable (atleast with Ddrum triggers), or you can connect it to a DI-box if you need to drop the input volume if it's clipping.

 

[Erkan]

I want to try to replace kick drums with samples, but everytime I try I get the same result. Seems that the left beater isnt hitting the head as hard as the right in certain spots. The replacer doesnt recognize them for some reason, and there are dead spots. I want to figure out a way to maybe chop off the spikes of the louder hits and make them even with the softer ones, and I've tried compression and still havent gotten anywhere.

Any suggestions? Was my micing/recording process just not good enough, and resulting in a problem that cannot be "fixed"?

The only thing you need to do is to even out the hits so that the trigger will trigger every hit. All you have to do then is to compress/limit/clip the signal so that the waveform looks rougly the same for every hit. What's good is that it doesn't matter how the trigger signal sounds, the only thing that matters is that there are sharp and clear transients. I've never had any problems getting all hits to trigger but then again, I play both left and right pretty consistent and I cut and adjust the hits in volume manually so the trigger doesn't have any problems with it.