Drum Editing

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metalj

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Some DAWS call them "regions" other "Events". What I am talking about is the cone shaped sound wave you see in your DAWS editing grid.

When editing drums you'll usually see a cone shaped sound wave for each hit that shows the initial hit (largest part of the wave) and then it tapers as the what ever drum sustain tails off right? Even on a quick roll of 4 or 8 hits you usually can see the peak of each hit.

My problem is I have a couple songs I have to edit drums and the people that recorded the drums must have done something wrong with their set up as the quick rolls are all mush meaning there is zero distinction between each hit and makes it impossible to see where each hit is. Its all just one big long tall audio region that does not show ANY variation between hits. I can guess where the hit are, but they are soo fast that I feel I would screw the song up if I guessed wrong.

My question is.... is this a performance technique my the drummer ? Is it a gating setting set up wrong, are the Preamp trims set too high ? Is the drum heads too boomy that they sustain too long. I have never encountered this before and is very frustrating.

I am trying to figure out how to coach them so the next tracks are not so time consuming for me. Any ideas how should I tell them to change their set up ?

thanks for any tips. I hope I explained it ok.
 
Not to mention the fact that replacing the drums is not the best way to go ever!

I understand the sometime need to enhance drums with samples, but without good sounding drums to begin with, you are just fixing/faking the final result.

If this is something you do professionally, then figure it out yourself before giving advice to others that this is the way it is done.


Sorry, but it don't look good when you give advice in one thread to record with crap mics and replace, then post another thread asking how to do it....


Just sayin..
 
Relax Jimmy, wow you are way over the line here. If you don't have any advice for my question than keep your BS to yourself.

Im not asking how to hit replace or how to record drums. Did you even read my OP ? Seems like you are looking to make yourself seem real smart and wasting everyones time verses giving some help to a fellow brother in music.

I think my actual example I posted in "Another thread" speaks for itself. Did you even listen to it ? You are just spewing your personal advice without backing it up and you did not even take into account what the OPer asked in that thread or MINE. Lets hear something you have recorded and how it sounds and how it pertains to the OP question.

I dont do this professionally. I thought my question is what this website was for and that is asking when you have a question and need help. Tell me how exactly did you help answer my question ?

With this type of attitude, I don't believe you should be a "moderator" on this website. You don't have an objective enough view for this type of thing.

Look at your statement LOL "Not to mention the fact that replacing the drums is not the best way to go ever! " How closed minded are you ? There are TONS of Indy artist out there that don't have any money to even replace a drum head or a cracked cymbal sometimes let alone spend money on expensive mics, studio costs. The method I am using is only ONE of many ways to solve that problem.

To bad you are too closed minded to consider another approach. How can anyone like you be a Moderator ? That is puzzling to me.

You should apologize and remove your post or I feel you should remove yourself as moderator as I feel a moderator should be modeling the type of behavior and a friendly helpful approach we all want on a website like this.
 
I happen to agree with him. What is the point in badly recording a poor drummer and then spending far longer editing it than he took to play it. It's backwards. If you want to do this kind of editing, then YOU need to insist that the people who record it do a better job! You are trying to fix two people's poor work? If the decay on some drums is easy to work with, then the poor miking is the initial thing they need to sort out.

If you are stuck with your workflow, then your ability to repair and do a good job is compromised.


If you know that you will be editing it - then stop them gating it. For what you are doing, you don't want post eq, post insert, post fx sources, you need the raw mic signals so you can do your job.How can you possibly edit with hits that have the tails cut off, or re-triggered by the drum next door?

You say it will screw up the song if you guess wrong? As it's a complete mess to start with, why not copy and paste some other events. After all, YOU are the drummer now, not the poor drummer who you are trying to edit. If you do not have the authority to make artistic decisions, don't do the job because everyone will blame you.

An awful lot of people feel that playing with crap equipment and perhaps a crap drummer is acceptable - as it can be 'fixed' afterwards. I don't. Plenty of musicians are poor - comes with the job, but if you need to replace every horrible nasty cracked cymbal hit, it passes the problem to somebody else. I'd be ashamed if somebody took my playing and replaced me with a better player in the studio or took all my notes and 'fixed' them. Using technology to repair shoddy recording is apparently acceptable nowadays. Repair for emergencies, or the odd duff note or drum hit are fine - but if a drummers part needs replacing by somebody else with a decent sample set, or somebody who can sort out timing, then that's dire.

I guess the problem is when does small editing become an entirely fabricated performance.
 
Without hearing an example everyone here is guessing anyway. So if you want actual helpful advice post up a short clip of the drums in question.

My problem is I have a couple songs I have to edit drums and the people that recorded the drums must have done something wrong

Guys it's apparent to me that he didn't track the drums, he has to edit them though.


My question is.... is this a performance technique my the drummer ? Is it a gating setting set up wrong, are the Preamp trims set too high ? Is the drum heads too boomy that they sustain too long. I have never encountered this before and is very frustrating.

I am trying to figure out how to coach them so the next tracks are not so time consuming for me. Any ideas how should I tell them to change their set up ?

These questions are absolutely impossible to answer correctly without at the very least being able to hear the original drums. So anyone here attempting to answer these questions is guessing at best.
 
Without hearing an example everyone here is guessing anyway. So if you want actual helpful advice post up a short clip of the drums in question.



Guys it's apparent to me that he didn't track the drums, he has to edit them though.




These questions are absolutely impossible to answer correctly without at the very least being able to hear the original drums. So anyone here attempting to answer these questions is guessing at best.

Thank you for asking questions and trying to help me.

Yes that is correct I DID NOT RECORD THESE DRUMS and have never encountered this before. I am only editing and trying to get them to fix what they are doing so it will save me time. IF all they have to do is make a few adjustment on their end, then great for both parties.

Also, this type of triggering takes a live drummer and a very skilled drummer at that, as it is triggering the sounds live as each hit goes through the plug in. I am not altering any of the hits or the performance in any way moving anything around or falsifying the artists song or performance in anyway, its a real drummer playing a real song with each hit being replaced with a drum tone of choice.

Think of it as how most studios do it but getting to an end result quicker and more affordable as every studio will eventually EQ, compress, limit, verb etc.

I am simply trying to capture the performance 100% accurately so the trigger plug in will trigger the hits properly. Without a clear wav form the plug in will not trigger it properly. So all I am trying to do is figure out what to tell them to do with their set up so there is clear definition for each hit on the remaining songs they are doing.

I will post a picture soon if that helps, and if I can, I have had trouble getting pictures on my posts in the past.
 
Gothcha! You need them to record with as much separation as possible, and with the drum mics closer to the skin, and further from other mics as you can. If the plan is simply to use these a triggers for drum samples this is very different to what I (and maybe others) thought you were doing. If the mics don't have to feed the PA, then you have much better scope - and you can even bottom mic the alternate toms to get more isolation - it doesn't matter if they sound different. One band I saw last year who did live triggering put a cheap drum mic inside each shell, and fed out the cable through one of the vents? Would that be any use to you?
 
My samples

View attachment TOM SAMPLE.mp3Good Example.pngBAD Zoomed.pngBad.png


I hope this works. 4 attachments.

1 is an MP3 of a tom roll (look for the little blue underlined html link labeled Tom Sample). all the attachments are kinda squished together.

1 picture of the sound region of this mp3 zoomed in
1 picture of the sound region of this mp3 zoomed out.

As you can see NO definition in the sound wav. Other drums I have done with similar hits have a definition on the initial attack so the trigger program will recognize when to trigger and what to filter out.

The "Good" picture is what I would consider a good looking and normal wav form and what I am used to seeing even with faster stick work by the drummer.

Thank you for checking it out.
 
Hey, this is why you don't just use whatever crap mics you want for close miking. This is why things like mic placement and tuning matter EVEN if you're going to edit and sample replace everything. You're learning a valuable lesson. Too bad you probably can't do much about it.
 
Hey, this is why you don't just use whatever crap mics you want for close miking. This is why things like mic placement and tuning matter EVEN if you're going to edit and sample replace everything. You're learning a valuable lesson. Too bad you probably can't do much about it.

OK now we are getting some place. Thank you for giving me some ideas and feedback related to my problem THAT I CANNOT FIX OR DO ANYTHING ABOUT with the current songs LOL.

Just so Im clear, So you feel this is a result of a cheap mic? And the cheap mic could not be gated or trimmed better to get better seperation ? Thanks.
 
Gothcha! You need them to record with as much separation as possible, and with the drum mics closer to the skin, and further from other mics as you can. If the plan is simply to use these a triggers for drum samples this is very different to what I (and maybe others) thought you were doing. If the mics don't have to feed the PA, then you have much better scope - and you can even bottom mic the alternate toms to get more isolation - it doesn't matter if they sound different. One band I saw last year who did live triggering put a cheap drum mic inside each shell, and fed out the cable through one of the vents? Would that be any use to you?

WOW, thanks those are some outstanding ideas. Thanks you so much. I will definitely give these ideas a shot. Thank you for thinking outside the box here. Much appreciated.
 
Is it possible they compressed the tracks with a nil attack? Sounds like you have no dynamic.

ANOTHER great point of view. YES, now that I read this, I think maybe they are compressing the recorded signal. Another great note to make on what not to do. Thanks !!
 
I dunno....in the bottom two pics it looks like the recording was done too hot, and hits look clipped off at the top...

...or, you have the wave view zoomed in too much, and the wave only "appears" clipped.

Which is it?

The sound bite doesn't sound like the audio was clipped.
 
I dunno....in the bottom two pics it looks like the recording was done too hot, and hits look clipped off at the top...

...or, you have the wave view zoomed in too much, and the wave only "appears" clipped.

Which is it?

The sound bite doesn't sound like the audio was clipped.

Top answer!
The latter images you posted are either clipped, or zoomed in too far to see the waveform peaks.

Jimmy's post may not perfectly answer every aspect of your OP, but it was all good info from an experienced guy.
If you already knew it or felt it wasn't relevant, just say that. There's no need to fly off the handle.
 
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I dunno....in the bottom two pics it looks like the recording was done too hot, and hits look clipped off at the top...

...or, you have the wave view zoomed in too much, and the wave only "appears" clipped.

Which is it?

The sound bite doesn't sound like the audio was clipped.

There are two pics one zoomed in the other zoomed out. No matter how far out I zoom its still just a solid mass LOL, it just gets smaller. No peaks to be found anywhere.
 
There are two pics one zoomed in the other zoomed out. No matter how far out I zoom its still just a solid mass LOL, it just gets smaller. No peaks to be found anywhere.

If you zoom out and the tops of the waveforms are still flat then the recording was clipped on the way in.
If you're certain this is the case, advise your friends (or whoever recorded the drums) to do a proper soundcheck and set their preamp gain levels so that the peaks are well below zero at the converters. Say -10 or so?
Tell them to soundcheck loud. <sigh> The number of people who soundcheck their 'peak' levels then bang the drums 10 times harder during recording....


Clipping is irreversible. Then peaks should still be identifiable though - Good enough for sample replacement software to know what's going on, I guess.
I'd say try this *this* time, and make sure your guys avoid clipping next time.
 
I don't know what DAW you are using...but most have two types of zoom.

1. Track zoom.
2. Wave zoom.

You're zooming in/out with Track zoom.

Check your Wave zoom for the tracks that have their tops lopped off.

When audio is THAT clipped off...it would be very obvious on playback. Your rolls sound fine (a bit too much room and resonance, but not clipped)....so that's what I think you have the Wave zoomed in on those tracks.
Maybe the audio was clipped...but it doesn't sound like it.

I've done it accidentally when working....it's a keystroke, and all of a sudden the wave looks like what you have.
I only like to use Track zoom, so I removed those keystrokes from my setup.
 
Jimmy's post may not perfectly answer every aspect of your OP, but it was all good info from an experienced guy.
If you already knew it or felt it wasn't relevant, just say that. There's no need to fly off the handle.

I disagree, he came out questioning my integrity and my ability from another thread that was only trying to help another brother, and highjacked my thread with trying to start a completely different argument that has nothing to do with trying to help me with a specific problem I am having.

That type of behavior should not come from a "Moderator". If he wants to argue triggering verse real drums then let him start his own thread and he can spew his god like opinions on anyone that wants to associate with him and get into it about the integrity of recording drums… It has no bearing on my thread what so ever what his opinion is on how he prefers to record drums.

I have higher expectations from the leaders on this site, and I expect them to be better than that. Why not just help and not bitch ? Why not just approach every questions with "how can I help, do I have any ideas to help this person?" verses "I'm going to exalt myself and establish how smart I am and try to run you down before helping you" Happens WAY too much on this site.

Experienced guy ? yeah? If you say so… I've listened to a few of his "demo's" on his website ;)
 
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