digital drums for recording? anyone do it?

N

ninjakyle

New member
So, anyone recording with digital drums?

our sound is a bit quarky(sp?) so I think we might be able to get away with it a bit more than a serious band.

Anyone have any recordings that they have done with digital drums?

I am looking into some rolands (the cheaper ones) td 6 or something

share your experiences please!! :)
 
I have wondered about digi's too! I don't see why, with careful EQ, they couldn't sound good recorded. Of course, the cymbals would be hardest to replicate. But they'd sure beat micing an acoustic kit!
 
I recorded with them one time. I never really did care for them all that much.... (And i.m.o. the digital cymbols are just horrid).

The only way I justify ever owned a digital kit (just speaking for myself here) is if I move back into an apartment... There were several days and nights I wanted to play my drums so bad, but I couldn't.

With digital drums, you could just put on the headphones and rock away. There's no way your neighbors would hear the quiet little tapping.

My biggest gripe about them is that they just don't "feel" right to me.... no matter how bouncy they can make the heads and blah blah blah, it's still weird hitting some little pad and hearing a big tom sound come out of it.

I tend to just bang the crap out of my bass drum and sometimes after I hit the drum the pedal will wobble just enough to slightly tap the bass drum head again.... Playing on an acoustic kit, nobody would ever notice this......

With the digital drums, it sounds like an intentional bass hit..... Which lead to a lot of problems for me recording. (ie: I thought I was playing the song right, and couldn't figure out where all those extra notes kept coming from.)

Anyways, I'll some up my whole opinion on digital drums right here. They are mainly only good for one thing and that's playing in a very low volume situation, that you couldn't just use brushes or something besides sticks for. (A situation like, jamming on some punk rock in your apartment.... brushes and punk really don't go together lol).

The only way I would record with them again, is using acoustic cymbols (which I did the first time) and trying to figure out someway to control the "double triggering" bass drum crap.

My 2 cents. :D
 
Electronic Drums

IMO electronic drums are so good now, that in many situations where drum requirements aren't too great, most people can't tell the difference between good samples and a real recorded set. However I don't recommend you go the Roland route, as you are paying mainly for their name.
Now there are good and bad electronic drum solutions. Unless you go top end, the samples included in most trigger modules are sorely lacking. This is where computer sample packages come in. Of these my favorite is the "Drumkit From Hell Superior" series. This requires that you have a computer with a decent sound card (ex. $150 M-audio AP192) within midi cable reach of the set, which could be a limiting factor in live situations.

The other factor is the set. If you already have an acoustic set, it can be cheaply converted with mesh heads and piezo transducers(triggers) and the results can be identical to an electronic set costing thousands.

No matter what you decide, you need the physical drums (whether converted acoustic, or dedicated electronic), the trigger module, and if you want decent samples, a computer and sample software.

What I did:

This was my major project for the year. I bought a Mapex m-birch 6 piece including everything but cymbals. Then I got pearl MFH mesh heads for the drums and mounted radio shack piezo transducers under the heads. I got the Roland td-6v module (I usually take my own advice but this was right for the job) because of the amount of trigger inputs and the fully variable HH capability. I bought DFH Superior Custom and Vintage, which is the best sounding set sample package to date. This is all routed to Cubase sx which records the midi info from the module and plays back the correct samples. The beauty of this setup is there is zero latency and I can edit my performance after recording. Anything off time can be fixed, I can even change the type of drum or cymbal if I want a different sound...after the original performance was recorded. I put a little room reverb on the drum module and put headphones on, and the sound is exactly what it should be.

The only downside is getting the cymbal hardware. I made my own by sandwiching a plastic practice cymbal on the bottom and a real cymbal on top for feel. You can't put a piezo directly on the metal cymbal because the vibrations over trigger it and make it unusable, but plastic works well for this. Electronic cymbals and and other E drum parts for that matter can be purchased from companies like Heart Dynamics, Roland, Pintech etc.

recap:
Mapex set -850
Roland module -400
Custom & Vintage software -300
Eliminator dbl bass pedal -250
cymbal parts ~100
transducers and all cabling ~100
M-audio soundcard ~150

You can cut corners by using a cheaper set, as it really doesn't matter for triggering purposes, cheaper module, no dbl bass etc.

I'll post a mixed track using this setup when I get a chance, and pics if you want.

Of course if your not the DIY type you can disregard everthing I said and buy a Heart Dynamics set, which I would recommend if you want pre-made. Just be aware that even pre-made gear uses the same transducers that are used in the DIY route, and in most cases there is no performance difference if made correctly.

I'll reference this site, where I got alot of good info on the process. They provide instructions for makign every piece of the set.
http://www.electronicdrums.com/frames/byo_frame.htm

Phil
 
Regarding Jazzmaster's comment:
When I first set everything up, I had the same problem with double triggering from a single bass drum hit. You have to set the module triggering sensitivity so that it doesn't register the minor hits. After setting this correctly, it works fine, even with a dbl bass pedal. Personally I like the feel of the mesh drum heads BETTER than real heads. If tensioned correctly, they have better rebound, and of course they don't produce much noise, so you don't bother neighbors. The metal cymbals I put together produce a loud "thwak" when hit, but you can get cymbal dampeners if noise is an issue.

Phil
 
Vantage.... sounds like you know your stuff :D

The kit I played on wasn't mine.... Long story short my band won a local "battle of the bands" and the prize was recording one song at a pretty crappy studio. They rushed us and then were like "ok it will cost X amount to record the rest of your demo and to master this song"..... some prize huh? (Considering we had to pay like 50 bucks to enter the battle, atleast we won lol).

If I had the time to adjust the kicker, I would of been much happier. And the tension on the mesh heads screwed me up to. I felt like I was hitting a really really bouncy trampoline.......

Anyways that was some good info. :) And your set up sounds like it's perfect for a "the neighbors already hate me enough" type situation.
 
I've been using a Roland TD10 kit for the last 6 years or so and used various electronic drums back to the 80's (Simmons, etc). While there is nothing better than a greating sounding accoustic kit recorded in a great sounding room - most home studios simply can't achieve that.

Electronic kits take some work to get the head tension and trigger sensitivity set correctly, but accoustic kits also take a lot of work to get them sounding right for recording as well. Electronic cymbals suck, and in my humble opinion always will suck - so the option is using accoustic cymbals (if the room allows) or keep the cymbals low in the mix and use eq as effectively as possible.

I've got a few very nice accoustic kits (Maple, Birch & Mahagany) and more snares and cymbals than most - but for most projects I prefer the electronics, simply because they are plug and play (not to mention the ability to record both the audio and MIDI performance for more control later in the project).

I've just spent the last week recording 4 tunes at a small home studio with a decent Pearl Maple kit and fair sounding cymbals. However the drums are tuned so low with so much duct tape that they were almost impossible to play (just trying to find a place to hit that wasn't covered in tape was a challenge) and the room was so over treated (to tame the drum overtones) that I felt like I was in a very dirty cave. Extreme measure to achieve an acceptable drum sound. While I suspect the final result will be good sounding (the engineer is very good) as a performer it was not an enjoyable session. When the final product compromises the joy of playing, something is simply not right and candidly I would take my V-drums over that any day.
 
FWIW, Just something to consider...

I think you also need to keep in mind how many outputs your sound module has. Generally speaking, a lot of the cheaper ones only have two outs (a stereo mix of your "drums") compared to having 8 or more outputs in some of the more expensive kits, which allow you to allocate an output for each of your triggers.

The more outs you mave, the more options you have come mixdown time. If you only have two outs, and down the line, say for example, you want to add more reverb to your snare, you'll be stuck adding the reverb to all of your drums, which could get real ugly.

I have recorded a couple of bands where the drummer brought in a lower end set of V-drums, and had his sounds set so they sounded "cool" (his word) in his bedroom, but didn't sit well at all in mix (bad balance between kick and snare, cymbals were too loud, and so much reverb that it just sounded silly). They didn't have a big enough budget to spend time in the studio experimenting with his sounds, so I was stuck with what I got (I was able to tame some things a bit with eq and other tricks, but I never was very happy with the results).

I'm not saying it isn't possible to record good sounding drums with only 2 outputs, just that you need to spend a lot of time fine tuning your settings in advance.
 
TommyJ1112 made some excellent points to consider and you'll definately have to put some time into tweaking your kit but it can be well worth it in the end if you choose to go that route. One way to get around the limited output problem if your module doesent support individual outputs is to record all your MIDI trigger info to PC at the same time. This will allow you to access other sound banks than what your module offers and you can reprogram individual trigger hits later in the mix. Another alternative is to just run that same recorded MIDI info back out into your drum module and reprogram everything you didnt like on your module in real time untill your stereo line output is exactly what you want. (This would be good when recording to a HDR that doesnt have its own soundbanks) Your kit will then be tweaked perfectly for the next recording and you can save different kits for different applications.

CONS: What I find seems to lack a bit in in digital kits is the whole hi hat set up. Getting fully open or closed hits is easy enough but that half closed transition between the two (where a lot of a drummers finesse lies) is hard to replicate perfectly and most drummers will need to adjust thier playng style somewhat to compensate for this. Also, if this is for a money making studio your going to find that many hardcore purists dispise the thought of whacking rubber pads so it shouldnt be your only drum recording method in that situation. Having to constantly rearrange all the wires and pads to set up for leftys can be a pain in the ass too and the drummer will definately need your assistance.

PROS: Reguardles of how good your mics are, your acoustic kit and room treatment "is what it is" and will always have its limitations. Alternately, digital drums bypass all this and the sky becomes the limit. Once set up properly, getting good drum tracks will eventually become as easy as recording keyboard tracks and can be accomplished with a minimal fuss. As for the actual drum sounds, modules can vary but many (like the Rolands) have gotten so good that I agree it is entirely possible these days to produce a recording that can completely fool the listener. Also the ability to record from a bedroom or location with noise limitations is undeniable.

Im currently using an older Yamaha DTX kit that I combined with a Roland SPD6 and a custom 6 piece acoustic kit that I modifed with triggers and mesh heads. This give me a whopping total of 25 trigger sources! I'll probably upgrade the module eventually but overall this route has allowed me to build a pretty nice and flexable kit in stages and on a tight budget. A great source of info on doing all this stuff is:

EDRUMMING.COM

Be sure and check out the gallery to see what people have done.
 
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