timing problem with tambourine or shaker

[dvincent]

Hi All. Well, I'm having a real rough time syncing up the tambourine or shaker with the drums to get a nice tight beat. I keep moving the wave form around to try to line up the wave "points" with the snare but it still sounds sluggish. I'm not using reverb or delay either. I 'm kinda baffled and my engineer where I record is not too experienced with Protools. I hear this stuff on the radio and all the Beats and timing is PERFECT. Its frustrating. Does anyone know the trick? Also the beats are not synced to grid. Thx.

[Stealthtech]

More than likely, what you hear radio wise is a tambo or what have you recorded in midi and quantized then converted to audio.

[boingoman]

Originally Posted by Stealthtech

More than likely, what you hear radio wise is a tambo or what have you recorded in midi and quantized then converted to audio.

Or some one who can play the tambourine. Seriously, though, at some point doesn't it make sense to just rerecord the track to get a tighter take? I'm kinda new to this stuff, but it seems like before all that futzing and nudging and quantizing you could have just tried a few more takes. I've heard a few engineers say "Oh, we'll just fix that in post." Sometimes it just doesn't work, it seems.

[Bulls Hit]

You gotta play the shaker so the emphasis is on the beat. Doesn't matter whether you're doubling or halving or slushing around in circles. If the emphasis is not on the beat every time, it will sound off

[dvincent]

thanks guys. I guess you really have to nail it right on the beat. I will work on that! However, thats interesting that one of you had mentioned midi. in other words you are saying a lot of tambourines you hear on these top 40 songs are samples? and midid in? I just cant get over how tight these songs are on the radio lately.

[boingoman]

Originally Posted by dvincent

thanks guys. I guess you really have to nail it right on the beat. I will work on that! However, thats interesting that one of you had mentioned midi. in other words you are saying a lot of tambourines you hear on these top 40 songs are samples? and midid in? I just cant get over how tight these songs are on the radio lately.

I'm not sure, but I'd bet alot more of what we hear on the radio is like he says than we think. It probly depends on the style, like top 40 pop stuff, you know, Britney and boy bands, is way computerized. And since you can quantize stuff and use midi, yeah, you can get it perfect. A lot of that stuff probly isn't even real drummers, just loops.

What software are you using? If you check the forums here you might be able to get some help and work with what you have- like i sadi, I'm not too hip on this computer stuff yet. If there isn't one here maybe somewhere else.
People seem to want help, and will talk forever if you let them- like me!

Good luck

[dvincent]

I have been recording the tambourine live into pro-tools. I think I just need to TAKE my time. I always do it when Im running out of studio time. $$