Quantizing Drums

[Pedro Teixeira]

Hey guys,

I'm recording this band, their sound is more southern rock/metal, it's pretty cool, I dig them... only thing is, we just tracked drums, the drummer wasn't very tight, but after a lot of takes it ended up acceptable, another thing that was pretty bad was his dynamics, this is straight up rock in your face, and he was hitting the snare really low then pretty BANGING on other parts, although I hope I'll tame those later when mixing.

But the thing is, the bass player and guitar player are pretty good musicians, so I know I won't have problem with them, but my dilemma is this, there are some parts that he get's off tempo, not too much, not even the rhythm itself but some kick hits, some cymbal hits... My question is this, should I have the guitar player and bass play with the click and don't give a shit about drums and quantize them later, or on those parts that he get's off a little bit, turn off the click and have them adjust to the drums?

My problem is... how should I quantize? Yeah I could quantize the kick pretty easily but there are the OH's (although those always get a pretty big HPF) and the Room mic!! I can't quantize the kick in the room mic obviously... or even the cymbal hits!! Any ideas please?

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Machinated]

You must quantize all tracks together to avoid phasing and bleeding issues. With a bit of practice you can fix the drums pretty quickly; I'd fix the drums first and then track the guitars.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

Hey Machinated thanks for the quick response... but how do I quantize the cymbals for example... there will be a cut in their decay right?

 

[Machinated]

Cut at the transient of either the kick or snare, and cut all the tracks. Then quantize all the tracks, so they move together. The amount the hit moves shouldn't be too much, and as long as you are careful with your edits you should be fine.

 

[Machinated]

Shouldn't need to quantize the cymbals, the kicks and snares should pull it all together. If you do, just do the same thing, using the OH tracks as the references.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

Btw, I do have Beat Detective in ProTools Mpowered, though I never used it (new to pro tools)

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

I started quantizing, it's actually easier than I expected, except for big tom fills, but otherwise it's pretty easy... although BIG TIME consuming :|

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

Sorry to spam this thread more... but I just figured out how to use beat detective.... wow LOL!!! seriously!!! WOW!! Piece of cake !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[greyskull]

yes sir... yes it is.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

Well... or not lol... not that easy it seemed easy at first... but it's causing a lot of trouble now... I have 10 tracks of drums, and it's going hell right now :X

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

Does anyone else hate with a flaming passion the way you have to quantize drums in cubase? It takes forever to do, it never works right (at least for me), and it is giving my carpal tunnel.

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

I never tried it on Cubase although that's the DAW I like the most... but on ProTools even with Beat Detective it's being kind a pain in the ass... anyone has any tips? Like I have 10 tracks of drums, should I divide each small section, beat detective it, another small section, beat detective it, and so on and so on...?

I even tried the collection mode, selecting the Kick drum, add to collection, then snare, add to collection, just those two... and it worked out shit... :|

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Does anyone else hate with a flaming passion the way you have to quantize drums in cubase? It takes forever to do, it never works right (at least for me), and it is giving my carpal tunnel.

Yeah I fucking loath it (tried it 1 time... never again).

 

[James-Doolan]

Does anyone else hate with a flaming passion the way you have to quantize drums in cubase? It takes forever to do, it never works right (at least for me), and it is giving my carpal tunnel.

I tried it once and found it a lot faster (for me anyway) to just make all the cuts by hand drag the hits to the proper place highlight everything hit x and then just listen for any dodgy crossfades and mess with them untill it sounds right. Whenever i used any of those guide with the dectect silence shiz it always took longer and gave me far more mistakes that i had to go back and put right. I like the way i have more control by doing it by hand anyways and it doesent take to long to do plus you know its done right the first time.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

I tried it once and found it a lot faster (for me anyway) to just make all the cuts by hand drag the hits to the proper place highlight everything hit x and then just listen for any dodgy crossfades and mess with them untill it sounds right. Whenever i used any of those guide with the dectect silence shiz it always took longer and gave me far more mistakes that i had to go back and put right. I like the way i have more control by doing it by hand anyways and it doesent take to long to do plus you know its done right the first time.

That's true, I never really thought about doing it all literally by hand.

Does Cubase have a tab-to-transient feature? That would make it a bit less painful.

 

[Ermz]

I bought ProTools LE for the sole purpose of editing and being session-compatible with most studios. It's a worthy investment in that regard, especially if you get it with that tiny jerkoff dongle thing.

 

[LSD-Studio]

Does Cubase have a tab-to-transient feature? That would make it a bit less painful.

duplicate ref tracks (for example snare)
move that out of your drum-folder (if you don't have one you should create one) and isolate hits (strip silence).
with that track highlighted hit n to go to the next event, and cut.
I've created a macro to do that, it's really the same as BD now.

 

[Keregioz]

I found this link in these forums a while back, can't remember who posted it.

http://www.clubcubasenashville.com/PAGES/TIPS_&_TRICKS.htm

That's not exactly the way I do it but it really helped me.

 

[greyskull]

Re: Beat Detective....

Always select from the begining of the bar, and never over tempo changes, it goes mental...
do it in small sections.. and do fills seperatly,
set region start pad to 10 ms
and when you fill and cross fade, setto 7 ms...
thats the best advice i can give without typing for years....


Okay, i never got on with collection mode, so heres how i do it....

Create a separate group with just your kick, snare and toms in it.... turn off your drum edit group....

High light the section your editing,
Capture selection
Analyze - about 21% or so is normally about right.
Then turn on drum edit group....
select down (think its " underneath p)
Separate.

Choose the correct time division and then quantize.

Then on to the next section and edit group off...
Be careful of triplets, and only use 16th notes when you really need them, or things can get pulled to the wrong side.

 

[LSD-Studio]

any quick guides to do it in LE 7.4?
I think BD is limited there, isn't it?
don't wanna upgrade the package just to have a fully functional BD