Triggering/sampling a really dynamic drummer?

[Mattayus]

Especially snares. If they're your straight forward "hammer the shit out of it!" kinda guy, run of the mill rock/metal player then it's just a case of trigger and edit.

But if they play a shit ton of ghost notes and little dynamics etc, I find it a real challenge to find the right samples and to execute it in a way that doesn't blur the nuances.

Especially with some of the Slate samples. Although they have a shit ton of velocity layers, they don't seem to favour a light touch very well. The ghost notes pop out too hard and have the snare wire way too high in the mix IMO, especially for doing little ruffles and drags etc.

Anyone else find this?

 

[Leon--]

i agree,ghost notes are hard to sample.if the material has stuff like that then it's better to keep the original snare.
Honestly i really like replacing kicks and snares,and maybe toms,but what i really despise is replacing the cymbals because they sound really fake and then there's no character in the drummers performance,i mean i've done it too but only when the studio delivers me cymbals totally out of phase,but when people aim to do that from the beggining in a good studio with good cymbals and mic placement,it's non sense
anyway in the end it's just a matter of taste,but the result is the only thing that matters

 

[Ascendant]

That can definitely be tricky if you didn't make the samples yourself with the current album and drummer in mind. I've never used Slate samples (nor do I care much for them), but if you didn't capture any samples of the snare you could try making your own snare samples out of Superior drummer 2 (if you have sd2). That way you get a lot more control over the samples, plus the snares in the avatar kit sound pretty bitchin'.

 

[AllanD]

I have no advice on how to fix it now, but what I usually do is always sample the drummers snare and use the drummers sample. Since it's the same drum, I'm able to just automate the dynamic parts up without it sounding like a different snare/sample.

 

[greyskull]

this is where using midi such as via massey's dtm to trigger say trigger is genius...

You can can go in an individually adjust the dynamic for every god damn hit.

 

[JeffTD]

this is where using midi such as via massey's dtm to trigger say trigger is genius...

You can can go in an individually adjust the dynamic for every god damn hit.

This, combined with automating the mic'd track, is where it's at.

 

[voidar]

Couple of ideas.

Use a mult of the snare to handle the ghost note stuff.

Not sure if you have Trigger, but play with the dynamics and velocity curve.

Use the mic. Compress and low-pass for just the twock. Rely on triggers for the high end.

Put the overheads to work. Maybe not kill the snare totally.

 

[jangoux]

like voidar say, leave the ghost notes on a separate track and work with them this way.

 

[tempe]

I honestly just don't trigger the ghost notes and let them come through the natural snare. Only replacing hard hits is where its at.

 

[greyskull]

I honestly just don't trigger the ghost notes and let them come through the natural snare. Only replacing hard hits is where its at.

That is nice,.. but I also use a ciopy of the trigger track as the sidechain input to the gate on my snare track to ensure accurate gating, so do it anyway/

 

[Kita]

Does slate have snare taps triggers? If not you may make them. Use those for "ghost" notes instead of actual snare hits, since that's usually what they are.