Drum replacement insight

offcenter2005

offcenter2005

New member
Since i have been mixing a lot more lately and referencing recordings by other artists in the genre of the project im mixing i am noticing a trend. I might be hearing other AEs ability's to even out things and make tracks blend and seem extremely cohesive but im also thinking that there may be some trickery (A.K.A) "studio magic". Drums seem too even and consistent in most new records. Is it a possibility that they do their track and cut a good solid hit on any given drum then use the overheads and room mics but replace the kick, snare, and toms with that one solid, great sounding hit? I know a local guy that does this and everyone raves about his drum sound and i called him out on it and he told me that he does do that but doesn't use ezdrummer and others of the like because it is too obvious. I have heard about this being done in a lot of newer country pop also. The drums seem almost too even throughout the track sometimes. Im not saying this is the norm but what do you guys think about this?
 
The word is "steady state" and it's been happening since the 80's. We're now at the apex of that pursuit.

Cheers :)
 
I think that in certain circumstances it would be ok to do this but it seems like that kind of recording mentality is why music is so shitty these days. Having some mistakes is what makes it feel accessible. If all i ever heard when i was growing up was guitar players with surgical accuracy i would have never wanted to be a musician. I do like some of the virtuoso stuff but ill never be able to shred like those guys so i probably would have gotten frustrated and put my guitar in the backyard fire. Ha. But on the other hand maybe there will be something great that comes out of the state of music these days.
 
meh....I don't think you'll ever see all those pop 'stars' on a plane together ala La Bamba. I think we missed the boat at the last Woodstock.


is Family Values still going on? maybe Warped Tour? perhaps we can still save rock n roll
 
Ha! Yeah but if all the chick pop stars go away we wont have any "leaked" sex tapes to look forward to when they try a comeback.
 
Thats what Drumagog and Trigger are for. I don't really care for full replacement of a single drum. I usually doesn't sound very natural. A lot of times when you track drums you get a snare with a great "crack" to it but no fullness and vise versa. Sometimes blending samples with the real drums is a necessity to get the sound you want. This goes for the kick and toms as well. Sometimes the cymbals too (for clarity) , but it is very time consuming.
 
drums, by nature

Great drummers are by no means a dime a dozen. Most of the best are, I believe, on the road, playing with the best artists they can get. No $ in sitting in a studio anymore with sampling and all the other tricks I've been reading here about. And the tricks are all fakery.

In a sense, right now I'm just learning how to play drums, without a drumkit in my 1 room studio. All I can base what I'm doing is on the good (sometimes great) drummers I've worked with, trying to think a bit like them. Using Session Drummer and drummaps to get a few shortcuts to move my arrangement around. And what I'm doing might change significantly when I get a real one one to work on a track.

Of course it depends on what genre you're working in. Hiphop/dance emphasizes different rhythmic elements than rock. Nature of the beast.

I also think we all should think of the end user when we mix, rather than what's right in front of our ears. Tannoys, etc. are just awesome in a soundproof controlroom, but you have to think what will it sound like on an Ipod, on the radio, and in the car.
It was the Beastie Boys who taught me that. They'd do a "box mix", where they'd put a take on cassette, put it on a boom box, and play ping pong as they listened to it.
 
walt8 said:
Great drummers are by no means a dime a dozen. Most of the best are, I believe, on the road, playing with the best artists they can get. No $ in sitting in a studio anymore with sampling and all the other tricks I've been reading here about. And the tricks are all fakery.

In a sense, right now I'm just learning how to play drums, without a drumkit in my 1 room studio. All I can base what I'm doing is on the good (sometimes great) drummers I've worked with, trying to think a bit like them. Using Session Drummer and drummaps to get a few shortcuts to move my arrangement around. And what I'm doing might change significantly when I get a real one one to work on a track.

Of course it depends on what genre you're working in. Hiphop/dance emphasizes different rhythmic elements than rock. Nature of the beast.

I also think we all should think of the end user when we mix, rather than what's right in front of our ears. Tannoys, etc. are just awesome in a soundproof controlroom, but you have to think what will it sound like on an Ipod, on the radio, and in the car.
It was the Beastie Boys who taught me that. They'd do a "box mix", where they'd put a take on cassette, put it on a boom box, and play ping pong as they listened to it.
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I think when programing with the right stuff you can get close to a real drummer playing type of sound, but nothing beats a real drummer in my opinion. Although most of us that arent drummers or have a great one on call can still use a great sounding program if we get inspired to write. And I really like making rap beats on battery. That program is awesome in my opinion.
 
offcenter2005 said:
I know a local guy that does this and everyone raves about his drum sound and i called him out on it and he told me that he does do that but doesn't use ezdrummer and others of the like because it is too obvious.
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Just about every AE I've ever met does this. I believe he doesn't use EZDrummer for it because its almost impossible to blend any of the sounds from those kits without it sounding like shit. Most engineers use their own samples. Most drum replacement programs all you to make your own samples out of recorded hits. I usually sample the kick from the song I am working on and then used that to replace the whole kick track. It sounds more uniform and gets rid of the crappy hits. If it still needs more crack or body then I'll blend it slightly with another sample until I'm happy.
 
rfahey86 said:
Just about every AE I've ever met does this. I believe he doesn't use EZDrummer for it because its almost impossible to blend any of the sounds from those kits without it sounding like shit. Most engineers use their own samples. Most drum replacement programs all you to make your own samples out of recorded hits. I usually sample the kick from the song I am working on and then used that to replace the whole kick track. It sounds more uniform and gets rid of the crappy hits. If it still needs more crack or body then I'll blend it slightly with another sample until I'm happy.
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That is what i figured. I have been using battery 3, and if you would sample 4 or 5 different hits on the same drum at different velocities you can stack those sounds to trigger at whatever velocity the original drum hit is. So say the drummers hit doesn't exceed a certain volume then battery knows to use the sample that is set for that velocity. I talked to a guy who recorded at that studio and he said that he went through all the drums and made at least 5 individual samples of every drum at different attack levels. So i figure that is what he may have done. It seems like a pretty brilliant way to do drum replacement but still use the drummers actual kit. And with the room and over heads I bet the samples blend very well.
 
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