Tuning drum samples

[guy in latvia]

Hi guys,

So I've been experimenting with augmenting real drums with sampled drums. How does one pitch match the sample to the recorded drum? Say I've got a real snare and want to blend 2 snares from Superior Drummer on top of that? Do you do it by ear or is there a better way?

Also, I've got a project where the toms were not close miced and they sound odd in the overheads, I can't figure out what pitch my samples should be. What can I do (completely removing them from the overheads is impossible)?

 

[rapucore]

You could sidechain the toms to the overheads, so when the toms are playing the sidechain comp would lower the OH's.

And I don't know about SD but in Trigger you can pitch them in the plugin.

 

[guy in latvia]

Sidechaning actually is a great idea, never occured to me, hah, thanks!

Yes, its possible to tune in SD, but the tuner isn't very useable, its a +/- pitch thing. Very easy to overshoot, which is why I'm curious if there is a better way, e.g. using a specific tuner plugin or something in the chain?

 

[Winston Wolf]

Curious about this as well

Any easy way to find exact pitch of samples? it's fairly easy with hi pitched stuff like hi toms.kick,snare and floor tom is a problem.It could be naive idea,I have tried to put distortion plugin followed by a tuner, it worked in a way that tuner
picked the pitch easier,though I'm not sure that way it shows any useful information,as there were different pitches at attack and sustain stages.Podfarm tuner was more consistent then stock cubase one though.

Does anyone here tune the samples to the root of the song?

 

[El_Gato]

Always tune the samples just by ear when augmenting (but the kick. I don't care about the pitch as I can't hear a difference).

Also treat (eq, compress) samples along with the real shells so you don't hear the samples.

I currently tune the shells to notes but not to the song. Some people say they tune the kick to the song. Rubbish! I can't hear such a low note difference. I just tune the kick to the best/most comfortable/most ideal tension.