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Post by jcoutu1 on Aug 2, 2016 11:56:08 GMT -6
Recent example : had a producer tell me the drums we tracked recently surpassed his wildest hopes, and that they were so much better than the big name NVille studio he tracked his last project at. Specifically told me that he absolutely LOVED them (and he's a drummer go figure). 2 months later I hear the song - Snare and Kick were replaced, and the kit no longer "breathed" and as a result the song felt totally "static" and lifeless because of it. But man, those drums sounded BIG and PERFECT and CONSISTENT!!! Hey Bill, any chance that we could hear a quick sample of these drums that you tracked before and after the samples? Or another example of some killer drums that you tracked?
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Post by drbill on Aug 2, 2016 11:58:02 GMT -6
So...sound over feel then?
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Post by ragan on Aug 2, 2016 12:14:02 GMT -6
It's interesting to note that with as much advancement as electronic kits have made over the last 15 years, every drummer that I know that has been "forced" to play one because of live sound issues hates it. They just can't get the feel and subtlety they can from a real kit. Kind of like asking a race car driver to drive a mini-van. IMO, sample replacement is no different unless ghosted under the real deal, and at that point, you're not really changing the sound of the real kit - just beefing it up ala Randge's comments on how he does it. All this is in reference to achieving a realistic live sound, not an electronic or heavily processed sound. If you're looking for THAT sound, then that's a different ball game - which was kind of what I was after in my initial question. Are those of you who consistently replace going for a different affected sound, or just trying to fix problems? Personally, if going for an affected sound, I'd rather use loops or programmed drums. But that's again my personal opinion..... Is there any sample replacement software that has 15-20 layers of dynamics with ability to trigger ghost notes on the snare, flams, etc? Or libraries that offer that amount of detail for sample replacement? Slate Trigger has more "layers" than that. You can also set each samples highest lowest dynamics, tell the trigger engine how sensitive to be, sidechain in other drums and tell it not to trigger off those, all kinds of stuff. With their "Instrument Editor" you can make your own multi-velocity samples. I think you get 256 dynamics increments and 256 individual hits or something like that (so not every hit is the same). I don't use it like that because I'm not doing full replacement. I don't think I've ever done more than adding a kick and a snare sample, both blended into the rest of the mics on the hardest hits. 99% of the time I use my own sample hits, usually from the kit/song I'm mixing. It's a creative sculpting tool and it works. It can be as natural or as artificial as you want to make it. But if you don't like it on a dogmatic level, regardless of sonics, that's an easy one to solve. Don't use it!
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Post by ragan on Aug 2, 2016 12:15:48 GMT -6
So...sound over feel then? ? Doesn't have anything to do with the "feel". You don't hear the samples when you're tracking (being a drummer myself). You just hear your mic'd kit like any other session, regardless of whether you're going to augment later or not.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Aug 2, 2016 12:16:29 GMT -6
So...sound over feel then? Huh? I think that everyone using samples is using them to enhance the sound of the drums, not the feel. I don't think you necessarily lose the feel by using samples though. This is also a stylistic thing too. If you're doing modern rock type stuff, you're most likely going to be using samples to get the sound to fit the genre. Anyway, got a sample?
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Post by svart on Aug 2, 2016 12:18:46 GMT -6
I'm not fond of samples but if the drummer doesn't have a decent sounding kit and there's little or no time available to make it a lot better then samples are sometimes a necessary evil in these days of no budget. That's why I have the studio drum kit. It's always ready to go! But I'm also a drummer who's spent decades perfecting how to tune drums too. I'll be the first one to admit that maybe about 80-90% of drummers that come into my studio have NO idea how to tune drums. NONE. So I give them a choice. Most end up going with the studio kit. A few choose to take a few hours with me to change heads and tune drums. They get a crash course in drum tuning, and most had no idea that tuning a drum was such a time consuming but important process. Both are usually extremely surprised at how drums can sound when tuned properly, with heads that are reasonably matched to the drum. The little smiles that happen when tune a drum into it's happy range is what tells me that magic will happen..
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Post by drbill on Aug 2, 2016 12:19:57 GMT -6
It's interesting to note that with as much advancement as electronic kits have made over the last 15 years, every drummer that I know that has been "forced" to play one because of live sound issues hates it. They just can't get the feel and subtlety they can from a real kit. Kind of like asking a race car driver to drive a mini-van. IMO, sample replacement is no different unless ghosted under the real deal, and at that point, you're not really changing the sound of the real kit - just beefing it up ala Randge's comments on how he does it. All this is in reference to achieving a realistic live sound, not an electronic or heavily processed sound. If you're looking for THAT sound, then that's a different ball game - which was kind of what I was after in my initial question. Are those of you who consistently replace going for a different affected sound, or just trying to fix problems? Personally, if going for an affected sound, I'd rather use loops or programmed drums. But that's again my personal opinion..... Is there any sample replacement software that has 15-20 layers of dynamics with ability to trigger ghost notes on the snare, flams, etc? Or libraries that offer that amount of detail for sample replacement? Slate Trigger has more "layers" than that. You can also set each samples highest lowest dynamics, tell the trigger engine how sensitive to be, sidechain in other drums and tell it not to trigger off those, all kinds of stuff. With their "Instrument Editor" you can make your own multi-velocity samples. I think you get 256 dynamics increments and 256 individual hits or something like that (so not every hit is the same). I don't use it like that because I'm not doing full replacement. I don't think I've ever done more than adding a kick and a snare sample, both blended in on the hardest hits. 99% of the time I use my own sample hits, usually from the kit/song I'm mixing. It's a creative sculpting tool and it works. It can be as natural or as artificial as you want to make it. But if you don't like it on a dogmatic level, regardless of sonics, that's an easy one to solve. Don't use it! Thanks for that. I was aware of Trigger, but don't know the real capabilities. Appreciate the tip. <thumbsup> The thing I don't like about replacement is the very static sound of one sample on every backbeat, a little softer, a little louder, but "the same". Sounds like Trigger can deal with that. Does it round robbin the samples so you can get different hits to break up the sameness?
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Post by drbill on Aug 2, 2016 12:21:55 GMT -6
So...sound over feel then? ? Doesn't have anything to do with the "feel". You don't hear the samples when you're tracking (being a drummer myself). You just hear your mic'd kit like any other session, regardless of whether you're going to augment later or not. Being a drummer, I'd guess that your replacement technique is very good then in terms of keeping your feel. But it doesn't always go that direction....
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Post by drbill on Aug 2, 2016 12:24:29 GMT -6
So...sound over feel then? Huh? I think that everyone using samples is using them to enhance the sound of the drums, not the feel. I don't think you necessarily lose the feel by using samples though. This is also a stylistic thing too. If you're doing modern rock type stuff, you're most likely going to be using samples to get the sound to fit the genre. Anyway, got a sample? Agreed. Style makes a huge difference into choice of tools. I'd guess that we could agree that it's possible to loose the feel with heavy handed replacement? Not going to go down the sample road. Not trying to put myself as a pinnacle of drum recording. Just trying to learn something here. I try to stay on top of current production techniques, but this path is just not intrinsically "natural" to me. Hence the questions....
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Post by ragan on Aug 2, 2016 12:35:27 GMT -6
Slate Trigger has more "layers" than that. You can also set each samples highest lowest dynamics, tell the trigger engine how sensitive to be, sidechain in other drums and tell it not to trigger off those, all kinds of stuff. With their "Instrument Editor" you can make your own multi-velocity samples. I think you get 256 dynamics increments and 256 individual hits or something like that (so not every hit is the same). I don't use it like that because I'm not doing full replacement. I don't think I've ever done more than adding a kick and a snare sample, both blended in on the hardest hits. 99% of the time I use my own sample hits, usually from the kit/song I'm mixing. It's a creative sculpting tool and it works. It can be as natural or as artificial as you want to make it. But if you don't like it on a dogmatic level, regardless of sonics, that's an easy one to solve. Don't use it! Thanks for that. I was aware of Trigger, but don't know the real capabilities. Appreciate the tip. <thumbsup> The thing I don't like about replacement is the very static sound of one sample on every backbeat, a little softer, a little louder, but "the same". Sounds like Trigger can deal with that. Does it round robbin the samples so you can get different hits to break up the sameness? It has a randomization feature. I cant remember precisely how it works cause I never use it (wouldn't even make a difference anyway the way I have my samples tucked) but it's meant to address what you're talking about. I can tell you this, when you're using Slate's own samples and you know what you're doing, you can take really complex snare fills with ghosting and rim shots and dynamics all over the place and get the Trigger sample to mirror it remarkably. Solo it and it just sounds like a different drum playing the same fill. Unfortunately, I can't stand most of the Slate samples. Too overcooked for me. The Blackbird pack sounds more natural. I use a couple of those from time to time. You can also have like 8 snare samples in one instances of Trigger, each with their own parameters. You can pretty much do whatever you want with it. Imperceptibly subtle to over the top, pop/country radio style replacement.
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Post by ragan on Aug 2, 2016 12:37:33 GMT -6
? Doesn't have anything to do with the "feel". You don't hear the samples when you're tracking (being a drummer myself). You just hear your mic'd kit like any other session, regardless of whether you're going to augment later or not. Being a drummer, I'd guess that your replacement technique is very good then in terms of keeping your feel. But it doesn't always go that direction.... It is very good...now. I've done plenty of horrible sample augmentation, using tab-to-transient and spending excruciating hours making my drums sound like ridiculous machine guns. Like any other aspect of engineering, drum samples can be as good or bad as you can imagine. All up to your skill and taste.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Aug 2, 2016 13:14:28 GMT -6
Huh? I think that everyone using samples is using them to enhance the sound of the drums, not the feel. I don't think you necessarily lose the feel by using samples though. This is also a stylistic thing too. If you're doing modern rock type stuff, you're most likely going to be using samples to get the sound to fit the genre. Anyway, got a sample? Agreed. Style makes a huge difference into choice of tools. I'd guess that we could agree that it's possible to loose the feel with heavy handed replacement? Not going to go down the sample road. Not trying to put myself as a pinnacle of drum recording. Just trying to learn something here. I try to stay on top of current production techniques, but this path is just not intrinsically "natural" to me. Hence the questions.... It's totally possible to lose to feel with too much. Just like with anything, you don't want to overdo it. That said, obviously people use samples for the sound over the feel. The only thing the sample will improve is the sound.
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Post by wiz on Aug 2, 2016 15:23:51 GMT -6
Its interesting reading everyones replies.....
Everyones experience is different. If you have always recorded great drummers, on great drums, in great rooms..I can understand your confusion as to why you would use samples.
Conversely, if you have crap drums, crap drummer, crap room.. I can understand why you would love Slate Trigger, Drumagog etc.
If you are mixing, crap drums, replacement may be your only answer.
If you have all the time in the world spending days tuning the kit, moving the mics and waiting for the artistical sonic muse to arrive may be par for the course... where as if you have 3 hours to set up and track the band on a Tuesday night, that is a different story.
Here is my 2 cents...
I have done all the above.... The important thing is (I think) I have done all of them artistically as best I could, given the abilities and sounds I have had to work with... THAT is the most important thing in my book.
In some ways it shouldn't matter... as long as the end result is artistically pleasing...
I coined a term "internet emptor" ... meaning, yes we all know moving the mic makes more difference.. yes we all know that a great drummer, singer, bass, player, coffee getter is better than buying the latest XYZ5000 plug in .... 8)
sometimes.. I just wanna write INTERNET EMPTOR 8)
cheers
Wiz
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Post by jcoutu1 on Aug 2, 2016 18:07:06 GMT -6
Not going to go down the sample road. Not trying to put myself as a pinnacle of drum recording. It still feels to me like you're implying that your real drum tracks without samples generally sound better than sample enhanced tracks. I'd like to hear an example of something. Even if I have to spend the $1.29 on iTunes or whatever.
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Post by drbill on Aug 2, 2016 18:17:18 GMT -6
Not going to go down the sample road. Not trying to put myself as a pinnacle of drum recording. It still feels to me like you're implying that your real drum tracks without samples generally sound better than sample enhanced tracks. I'd like to hear an example of something. Even if I have to spend the $1.29 on iTunes or whatever. My personal preference lies in the perfect beauty of controlled imperfection. It took me 20 years to develop that, but the subtleties of "non" perfection and the human-ness of performance bring me joy and I hear the beauty in it - of course you can go the other direction where it just sounds like crap cause it's TOO "human". But that's not what I'm talking about and it's a different discussion, although one I find super fascinating. It's kind of the anthesis of modern quantized, auto tuned, beat detectivized, perfected pop music. (Which can be cool, but again, not really my thing) I do not call it "better" or "superior", but it is different. I in no way claim the drums I track to be the ultimate, or even better than sample replaced drums. I just call it my preference. Many agree with me, many do not. It's all about what you prefer. I don't want to get drawn into a pissing match any more than this already has become. My initial query was to see if I could learn something, but some seem to be defensive on the topic - not all though. I did learn quite a bit as to why people are replacing drums. Thanks.
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Post by rowmat on Aug 2, 2016 18:28:09 GMT -6
I'm not fond of samples but if the drummer doesn't have a decent sounding kit and there's little or no time available to make it a lot better then samples are sometimes a necessary evil in these days of no budget. That's why I have the studio drum kit. It's always ready to go! But I'm also a drummer who's spent decades perfecting how to tune drums too. I'll be the first one to admit that maybe about 80-90% of drummers that come into my studio have NO idea how to tune drums. NONE. So I give them a choice. Most end up going with the studio kit. A few choose to take a few hours with me to change heads and tune drums. They get a crash course in drum tuning, and most had no idea that tuning a drum was such a time consuming but important process. Both are usually extremely surprised at how drums can sound when tuned properly, with heads that are reasonably matched to the drum. The little smiles that happen when tune a drum into it's happy range is what tells me that magic will happen.. We had a kit but it belonged to my studio partner's son and he took it back a while ago. Some of the session drummers we have used are great drummers but they often have pretty ordinary sounding kits which they usually seem quite happy with. However a couple of the drummers we use have great sounding kits and do actually tune the kit to suit the track which makes a massive difference. In the past I have tended to trust session drummers to get great drum sounds but I have found out the hard way that their drums often sound no better than the average joe's kit. We are starting to insist the drummer arrives at least two hours before the rest of the band as taking short cuts with the drums at the start of a session can add hours of turd polishing during mixing and oh boy how I hate polishing turds!
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Post by swurveman on Aug 2, 2016 18:39:38 GMT -6
I'm not begrudging anyone anything - I just want to know know the consensus on why people here are using "samples". Is it because you can't get a good sound from the drummers / studios you use, don't know how to mic/process the sound you hear in your mind-but can easily grab a sample that matches your muse, you tend to get crappy drum sounds delivered to you and you need to use samples to get a good sound up to your standards - OR - (as I suspect) is it because samples are the sound you're specifically after. Cause (IMO) samples being triggered don't sound like a real drummer in a real room with good mic-ing technique. They have a unique sound of their own that - to greater or lesser degree - takes away from the immediacy of a drummer playing his kit live. Which can be better or worse depending on what you're after. Curious here..... For me it is to give customers what they want and to win business. I just had a band come into the studio and discuss doing a 6 song CD. They want to sound like the song was produced in Nashville. With my dual purpose room with 8 foot ceilings, samples will help me get the drum sound they want faster. It's that simple. I have people quibbling over $150.00. I have competitors offering to record and mix at a per song rate of $100.00. It's survival for me.
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Post by drbill on Aug 2, 2016 18:49:30 GMT -6
I'm not begrudging anyone anything - I just want to know know the consensus on why people here are using "samples". Is it because you can't get a good sound from the drummers / studios you use, don't know how to mic/process the sound you hear in your mind-but can easily grab a sample that matches your muse, you tend to get crappy drum sounds delivered to you and you need to use samples to get a good sound up to your standards - OR - (as I suspect) is it because samples are the sound you're specifically after. Cause (IMO) samples being triggered don't sound like a real drummer in a real room with good mic-ing technique. They have a unique sound of their own that - to greater or lesser degree - takes away from the immediacy of a drummer playing his kit live. Which can be better or worse depending on what you're after. Curious here..... For me it is to give customers what they want and to win business. I just had a band come into the studio and discuss doing a 6 song CD. They want to sound like the song was produced in Nashville. With my dual purpose room with 8 foot ceilings, samples will help me get the drum sound they want faster. It's that simple. I have people quibbling over $150.00. I have competitors offering to record and mix at a per song rate of $100.00. It's survival for me. If they're good with it ^^^^ THAT makes perfect sense to me.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Aug 2, 2016 19:11:45 GMT -6
It still feels to me like you're implying that your real drum tracks without samples generally sound better than sample enhanced tracks. I'd like to hear an example of something. Even if I have to spend the $1.29 on iTunes or whatever. My personal preference lies in the perfect beauty of controlled imperfection. It took me 20 years to develop that, but the subtleties of "non" perfection and the human-ness of performance bring me joy and I hear the beauty in it - of course you can go the other direction where it just sounds like crap cause it's TOO "human". But that's not what I'm talking about and it's a different discussion, although one I find super fascinating. It's kind of the anthesis of modern quantized, auto tuned, beat detectivized, perfected pop music. (Which can be cool, but again, not really my thing) I do not call it "better" or "superior", but it is different. I in no way claim the drums I track to be the ultimate, or even better than sample replaced drums. I just call it my preference. Many agree with me, many do not. It's all about what you prefer. I don't want to get drawn into a pissing match any more than this already has become. My initial query was to see if I could learn something, but some seem to be defensive on the topic - not all though. I did learn quite a bit as to why people are replacing drums. Thanks. Not a passing match from me. I just want to hear some of your work. You brought up the story about the drums that sounded amazing and we're ruined by the replacements. I'd like to hear something that you've done that you think the drums sound great on. I personally think both ways of working have their merit. I work with a lot of blues and jazz and generally wouldn't be replacing those genres. I'm not trying to berate you for not preferring samples or something, I just want to hear what kind of sound you dig.
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