Recording a drumkit with triggers for the first time....

[bryan_kilco]

Just used Sneap Search for this topic and read for a few hours. I apologize if this topic has been discussed to death. So, here's my deal:

Going to be tracking drums soon for my own band. Our drummer just got dDrum Redshot triggers and a cheap DD1 brain/module (pretty sure that's the model).

We have a Profire 2626 interface. What I'd like to try and do is:

- trigger kick/snare/3 toms
- record 2 OH mics
- maybe room mic (room is shit)
- replace/blend kick/snare/toms with samples

We don't own Superior Drummer or Slate or Trigger or any of that.

What would be our best option? Just running MIDI from the drum brain into the interface would leave us all mic inputs open, but again, no drum VSTi to turn midi to "drums".

Or would be better off just mic'ing everything and replacing the audio tracks with something like DrumReaplacer in Reaper?

Just trying to wrap my head around this before we start setting up gear and getting headaches.

 

[thefalloftheheretic]

You could always send the MIDI to someone who has the software.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Yeah, I guess that's an option. But then I wouldn't really be able to tweak samples afterwards too much to suit the rest of the mix, correct?

I guess I'm just looking for a DIY method and feel maybe I'm just overlooking something really easy.

 

[thefalloftheheretic]

Well, I suppose if you were looking to do a really basic down and dirty method, you could run the triggers into your interface (not the drum brain) and trigger samples with something like DrumTrig.

 

[bryan_kilco]

I think this may take some experimentation and time and tweaking....

I'd realllllly like to mic everything and trigger the shells at the same time. Maybe I'm better off just ditching the triggers and ditching the snare/kick secondary mics, and micing 1x kick, 1x snare, 3x toms, 2 OHs and 1x room, then using the audio tracks from the shells to replace with Drum Reaplacer?

Thanks for the help so far.

 

[voidar]

Really depends on the style really, but for dense metal I would try..

Have your OH pickup mostly cymbals, then toms and less snare. Also have some off-axis rejection from the hi-hat.

Trigger toms and kicks (I'd not bother with the snare - see below). Your drummer will probably want to monitor this from the module. Make sure you get some OK sounds and response from the module. Record this too. It might just be what you want. Definitely record the MIDI out.

If you have a kick mic, put it on the kick. Could be nice for dynamics.
Don't bother with micing the toms. I'd rather put an extra mic on the snare is this is the most expressive drum on the whole kit. Have one for overal tone and one for most rejection (trigger off this). Maybe another somewhere else and ditch the kick mic. Remember; center of drum produces the least amount of high-frequencies, these are found towards the rim. So record the snare so it will require the least amount of high-end boost during mixing.

A room or kit mic can be very usefull. If the toms and kick sound good (they should), maybe put the mic low on the floor between the kick and floor tom. Maybe have it pointing over the drummers right shoulder down between the kick and floor tom. Smash it in mix

 

[JeffTD]

What you could do is record it all, edit the cymbals to taste, and then send the MIDI to someone with a variety of samplers and run some tests back and forth between the two of you to make sure the sounds were right, as well as humanize the MIDI to suit the specific sampler.

I've done just this for a number of projects, including a couple where it was just cymbals recorded and drums entirely programmed, and it's always turned out really well.

 

[nwright]

If you want trigger signals AND mic signal, wouldn't it be easiest to run the triggers to the brain, output to MIDI into the interface and record that while simultaneously recording the mic signals? And then do what Jeff and others suggests with the MIDI (i.e. send it out to get your tones)?

In the end, IMO it would be MORE worth it to invest in something like Slate's Trigger which can use MIDI or miked signals rather than pay someone else, especially if you would be doing more projects down the road...

 

[bryan_kilco]

Thanks for the responses guys! Is Slate's Trigger easy to use? I'm a total n00b at MIDI stuff and I guess I'm just a bit overwhelmed at a lot of the stuff I see/hear you guys talk about on the forum. I'll download the demo version and see how it goes.

EDIT: Looks like the demo version is pretty limited so I won't be able to really test the MIDI in/out stuff. Oh well....

Are the samples that come with it decent?

 

[bryan_kilco]

Ok, demo seems straight forward enough, but I can't seem to get the few .tci files that came with it to show up in the instrument selector....

EDIT: Durr, I'm possibly 200% retarded. Figured it out.

I gotta say, this is pretty cool. Can't believe I haven't checked it out yet. The very easy way it lets you blend multiple samples really helps a lot!!

Would I need to buy sample packs if I bought Trigger, or does it come with some good samples?

 

[Matt.Mead]

Ok, demo seems straight forward enough, but I can't seem to get the few .tci files that came with it to show up in the instrument selector....

EDIT: Durr, I'm possibly 200% retarded. Figured it out.

I gotta say, this is pretty cool. Can't believe I haven't checked it out yet. The very easy way it lets you blend multiple samples really helps a lot!!

Would I need to buy sample packs if I bought Trigger, or does it come with some good samples?

It comes with some samples, not a huge library but more then enough to get started + you can find loads around this fourm, or you could even sample the kit you are recording with and use the samples of that if its well tuned.

Matt.

 

[luismars]

Try loading (or replacing the original kits sounds) some samples into this: http://www.yellowtools.us/cp21/cms/index.php?id=842 (Velocity sensitive)

Also there's a bunch of free samples over here, (look for Erkan pack)

 

[nwright]

I like the Slate samples well enough, but I generally dont use them on their own. Making TCI files is easy and I tend to use samples created from the drummers kit and sometime blend in Slates or others.

IMO Trigger is the best/easiest triggering plugin I've used.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Thanks again guys. Yeah, I have the Erkan pack and probably most of the samples that have floated around here for the past few years. I've just been so out of the loop with the newer stuff. I did a quick mix last night, and just by replacing kick and snare in a song that was already 100% programmed, with the Slate kick/snare, it made a world of a difference and I could actually get the "master" louder than I normally can without totally losing out on kick/snare dynamics. I think I'll be purchasing the EX version soon.

 

[Backe]

midi out would be the best way to go, maybe split the trigger outputs with Y-cables to make for easier quantizing (just slip edit the muted piezo-pops along with the oh's and midi). otherwise playback and monitoring would suck pretty hard.

 

[electricred]

I am in a similar situation. I'm about to record my own band at our practice space, which has horrible acoustics. One of a members works in a music store so we're able to borrow some decent microphones and instruments when needed. I was looking at getting a set of those redshot triggers and the Slate Trigger EX software, then fully replacing the toms, kick, and snare. Ideally, I would want to attempt getting a good miked sound, then supplementing with samples, but due to our terrible acoustics, lack of experience, and the fact that I can only get 8 simultaneous input, it's probably the best option to goes from the triggers direct into the preamps and replace with samples. So, we are going to use a couple overheads, and triggers on three toms, snare, and kick. I have one input left on my interface, which might go to hihat. We could borrow any additional mics to mike the kit, but that probably wouldn't sound great since I've not got the experience to properly treat and mix them, not to mention the acoustics. After we get out this demo I'm going to spend a lot of with our drummer working on getting that sounding right for future use, but we need a demo in a hurry. I could trigger from the mics but I've that due to leakage and transients that can be finicky sometimes.

So, does this sound like I have my head wrapped around this process properly? I use the overheads to grab most of the cymbals, high pass out the kit and low-end mess if needed, eq/comp if needed. Then use the ticks from the triggers to queue the samples in Trigger EX. I've still got to read more about mixing drums too, but it doesn't seem too hard.

Is a MIDI brain something needed? Or is that if I wanted the drums to go to the MIDI editing map? I guess that MIDI map could be used for just about anything, from Trigger to Superior if I wanted, but we are on a very tight budget and if I could get by without getting the MIDI brain, that'd be great.

 

[Manicompression]

no you have this correct, you dont need a brain if you have trigger/drumagog, just mic your overheads and connect triggers to the shells