Question for recording drummers.

[kesterdevine]

This one is for you drummers who engineer for yourselves.

The only recording I've done of my drums at home is with a portastudio which I move right beside my kit when recording.

How do you guys manage start/stop of the recording etc...when recording to a larger unit or PC that might be across the room from your drumset?? Is there some sort of remote control for this function or what??

I'm getting ready to put a PC in my studio for recording drums and all of sudden I'm like, "uh-oh....how am I gonna do this by myself??"

Please give me suggestions.

THANKS ALOT,
Kester

[Zeppelin456]

hit record, get up, go to drums, sit down, play, get up, go to computer, hit stop, repeat

[kesterdevine]

HA, HA...


....only problem comes in when trying to record to pre-existing tracks ???

[tmix]

Zep is right!
Probably how most of us do it! Sometimes I have to add some extra time at the beginning of a project just to give me some time to get to the drums and get comfortable..

That being said I have a friend who has a remote mouse and monitor set up via USB or extensions (I cant remember) and a different buddy that is using a laptop as a wireless remote through a wireless hub to his main computer, works excellent!

a couple of extra ideas anyway!

Tom

[kesterdevine]

...thought there must be some kinda remote.

On the other hand, I could use the excercise of running across the room ;-)

[Bulls Hit]

Just keep a wireless mouse on your floor tom

[raindogred]

I pretty much just add 12 seconds to the start of every recording as thats the time it takes to hit record, run into the next room, put the headphones on take a breath and start playing.

As you can imagine I have also given this a bit of thought and reckon a cheap way to have remote is to just use an old style router box and have your mouse and monitor plugged into it. And then buy a 2nd mouse and monitor and cables. for the cost of the the box and monitor etc you could have the monitor sitting just behind your drum throne and swivel around to pretty much run your rig from there.

Not even sure of what these router boxes are called, but they allow you to have more than one mouse, keyboard and monitor plugged into it and you switch left or right and it changes the monitor from set1 to 2. I think the box gets plugged into the computer via a standard mouse and monitor-style cable. then you would need another 2 sets of cables for both sets that you hook up to the box.

A bit of mucking around but cheap considering the price of a monitors keyboards mouses etc. would be good to be able to set up a new song etc or an existing whislt your at the kit. I don,t know how many times I have mucked up the start of a recording due to rushing around too much and not being focused on what i have to play...
cheers

[mrface2112]

yep, you can either get a wireless mouse (and/or keyboard), or you can do what i do (which is what Zep does).

i always add a minute or so to the start of the track (just slide everything over). that gives me plenty of time to get behind the drums, put on the headphones, get situated, pickup the sticks, breathe, listen to the click track, get the tempo, prepare the brain for what i'm gonna do when i come in and get ready to play.

of course, that's one of the beauties of digital editing.....


wade

[kesterdevine]

Thanks a lot for the tips. I appreciate it. Never thought about leaving space at the beginning of the track. Doh! Couldn't really do that in analog land. This is gonna be fun!

[TamaSabian]

I just pull my keyboard and with a PS/2 extension cord I place it near the floor tom. Having the keyboard as close as I can that way I can hit record, start and stop plaback, even erase the whole take. Don´t know how long are those extension cords but the size I have is fine for me.

Bye
Tama

[hififrey]

I track in the same room the recorder is. I leave some blank space at the front of the song. I also faced my kit into a corner of the room so I don't have to run around the back of the kit to get in position to play.

-hifi

[virgoanmethod]

Originally posted by tmix
Zep is right!
Probably how most of us do it! Sometimes I have to add some extra time at the beginning of a project just to give me some time to get to the drums and get comfortable..

That being said I have a friend who has a remote mouse and monitor set up via USB or extensions (I cant remember) and a different buddy that is using a laptop as a wireless remote through a wireless hub to his main computer, works excellent!

a couple of extra ideas anyway!

Tom

It's alot easier to just set up a metronome countin.........

[tmix]

I do always include a metronome.

But without the extra space at the beginning.

4 to 8 clicks is not enough time to get my butt on the throne and my headphones on.

[songsj]

Same here, I always leave enough space at the beginning to get my butt to the throne pick up the sticks and still have a little quiet time before the song starts. Then I trim the intro when I'm done.

I like the idea of turning my kit around so I don't have to walk behind it.

[eddbud]

Im gonna hook up an extra monitor and input devices for my setup once its ready,

Cheap svga splitters are available from cpc which will do the job!

[F_cksia]

One minute is the least I put before the recording when recording drums. I have to hit record, then walk out of the control room, door open, another door open, extra heavy door of the studio open, jump over some cables, sit down, do the last adjustments, headphones on etc. etc. etc.

Always get a lot of bullshit before every recording, but that´s why they invented editing.

[HangDawg]

I wrote a voice activated prgram that starts Cubase for me. Picks up through a cheapy PC Mic into a soundblaster. I say command/start or command/stop. It sends the right keystrokes to Cubase. It's pretty cool when you fuck up and don't want to get up to do a retake.

[F_cksia]

You wrote that? Cool, can you share it?

[HangDawg]

Yes I wrote it. It would take some work to make it usefull to anyone else but me. There are the issues with the speech API components that you would have to install. I didn't make it configurable meaning it's set up for me(hard coded) Not that I couldn't make it work, it would take a little work. If there are more people interested, I may be persuaded into getting together an installable version. There are a few drawbacks with this. It will constantly monitor one of your audio inputs for speech meaning you can't use it for recording. If you have a crapblaster card installed along with your recording interface, it works rather nicely. Secondly, there is some delay introduced from the time it receives the command and it is sent to the program. Not alot of delay, but it would be difficult for punch ins.

[Warhead]

Dude, the first thing I did was got this on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...category=20495

then I got an LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse

and 25' extensions for all. I wrapped them all up together for neatness sake...and voila! Remote for my Nuendo PC. I found a dual head video card on Yahoo shopping for like $42 new.



Warren Dent
www.frontendaudio.com

[Zeppelin456]

I dunno I kind of like running from the computer to the kit, the feeling of doing it all by myself is nice. On the other hand, after a long take, it makes me more likely to settle for what I have then to go for that killer take.

[Warhead]

I play keys and drums, and I formulated my remote plan when I got sick of literally jumping out of my chair in front of the pc...dashing across the room to sit down...and then expect myself to cut a reasonably musical track under this circumstance. For me, it just wasn't working. Now I take a deep breath, or fart or crack my knuckles...or whatever it is I need to do to be mentally prepared to perform...and then smack my designated record button when I'm ready.

One other thing was I marked some keys on my keyboard for a transport with permanent marker.

"0" = stop
"." = play
"enter" = record
"1" = return to beginning
"2" = rewind
"3" = jump to end

Just makes it feel more like handling a tape machine, but more importantly it's a fast way to zip around my transport.

Cheers

Warren Dent
www.frontendaudio.com

[F_cksia]

The problem is, the only connection between my controol room and totally isolated studio is the multicable: 4 stereojacks and a lot of XLR's of course.

Is there a way I can put monitor, mouse and/or keyboardsignals through? Please help me, thanks a lot!

[Fret]

There are KVM switches that run on cat 5 cable or “over IP”. In situations where the monitor isn't an issue use Bluetooth. Wireless will usually only reach about 6 feet but I think Bluetooth is 30.

[F_cksia]

Originally posted by Fret
cat 5 cable or “over IP"

??
Sorry but what's that? Thanks.