Drumagog woes..

I

inmyheartx

New member
So, the current band i'm recording is kind of sloppy. The drummer will start out good, hit really clean and hard, but then when a fast part comes a long he hits really soft. Now, I just thought I would replace the snare with Drumagog, lower the dynamic range with the samples, and it would be good. I'm still new to Drumagog, so maybe someone can help me..

On the "soft" hits, Drumagog has a hard time recognizing then, and when I set the Sensitivity too low, or the Resolution too low, it picks up unwanted hits.. I understand the hits being soft and the Sensitivity being set relatively low, it's going pick up unwanted stuff. I was curious if anyone could help me out with this. Tell me what I can set differently, what I can change, etc. I tried changing the EQ, trying to bring out the snare and cut out a lot of other stuff, didn't work too well. I tried raising the gain in the softer parts, didn't work too tell. I tried a combination of both, still didn't get the desired result (being a clean, steady snare throughout the song).

Any help or suggestions (besides have the band get a new drummer, I can't manage that, haha) are greatly appreciated. Thank you. =]
 
inmyheartx said:
Any help or suggestions (besides have the band get a new drummer, I can't manage that, haha) are greatly appreciated. Thank you. =]
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Have you considered waiting until the drummer is ready to record - i.e. has practiced a bit more - before you record?

G.
 
Unless Im wrong I think with the sensitivity set low it will NOT pick up more of the unwanted noise, high sensitivity WILL pick up for unwanted noise,but Maybe Im off. Did you try a gate before applying Drumagog?
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Have you considered waiting until the drummer is ready to record - i.e. has practiced a bit more - before you record?

G.
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Oh Ouch! Glen you said that out loud! :p
 
If you can't get a gate to work, or any of the sidechain options in Drumagog, you are stuck cutting the snare track up (manually gating) so that only the snare hits are there to trigger Drumagog. It sounds like more work than it is.

In Cubase and Nuendo there is a 'detect silence' feature that will get rid of anything below a certain level. That does most of the cutting work for you, then just weed out the stuff that isn't a snare. It will go pretty quick, then you can play with the gain of the bits that are left and get Drumagog to trigger off of that.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Have you considered waiting until the drummer is ready to record - i.e. has practiced a bit more - before you record?

G.
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Yeah, really great advice there southside. You ever think maybe he needs some money and needs this project, or maybe the band isn't interested in waiting and practicing more. If you're a project studio and you tell a mediocre band to leave and practice before you come back you can almost be certain they won't be back in your studio.
 
Farview said:
If you can't get a gate to work, or any of the sidechain options in Drumagog, you are stuck cutting the snare track up (manually gating) so that only the snare hits are there to trigger Drumagog. It sounds like more work than it is.

In Cubase and Nuendo there is a 'detect silence' feature that will get rid of anything below a certain level. That does most of the cutting work for you, then just weed out the stuff that isn't a snare. It will go pretty quick, then you can play with the gain of the bits that are left and get Drumagog to trigger off of that.
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This is my vote. Almost exactly what I do in this kind of scenario. Works well, and really isn't as much work as you would think!
 
jonnyc said:
Yeah, really great advice there southside. You ever think maybe he needs some money and needs this project, or maybe the band isn't interested in waiting and practicing more. If you're a project studio and you tell a mediocre band to leave and practice before you come back you can almost be certain they won't be back in your studio.
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A-fucking-men brotha!

It is amazing that people use that kind of answer when they don't know what to suggest eh? ;)

It is the job of the engineer to do the best he can for his client. Trust me, if you can't get the job done, somebody else will!

I wish I could have afforded to be altruistic concerning the recording process, but that is NOT real life!
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Have you considered waiting until the drummer is ready to record - i.e. has practiced a bit more - before you record?

G.
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It's not my band. They think they're practiced enough to record, and honestly I think this is the best they can do. I can't tell the dude to fuck off and get better at drums, i'm just going to have to try and deal with the problem at hand. Thanks for taking the time to read, though. Peace.
 
jmorris said:
Unless Im wrong I think with the sensitivity set low it will NOT pick up more of the unwanted noise, high sensitivity WILL pick up for unwanted noise,but Maybe Im off. Did you try a gate before applying Drumagog?
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You're right, I was just going off the Visual window in Drumagog (the Sensitivity being LOWERED, ya know?). I just got confused. Right you are. =]
 
Farview said:
If you can't get a gate to work, or any of the sidechain options in Drumagog, you are stuck cutting the snare track up (manually gating) so that only the snare hits are there to trigger Drumagog. It sounds like more work than it is.

In Cubase and Nuendo there is a 'detect silence' feature that will get rid of anything below a certain level. That does most of the cutting work for you, then just weed out the stuff that isn't a snare. It will go pretty quick, then you can play with the gain of the bits that are left and get Drumagog to trigger off of that.
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I will try this pronto, thanks for the great advice Farview. Also, do you have any .wav samples or song samples of the gogs you have in the Farview Rock Drums? If so PM me or something, when I get money I might buy them, but Drumagog wiped me out for now, haha. Peace.
 
jonnyc said:
Yeah, really great advice there southside. You ever think maybe he needs some money and needs this project, or maybe the band isn't interested in waiting and practicing more. If you're a project studio and you tell a mediocre band to leave and practice before you come back you can almost be certain they won't be back in your studio.
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Exactly.. ha. The band isn't interested in waiting or practicing anymore. They think they're good enough, I took them in on that. I'm not going to refuse it, ya know? If it doesn't sound up to par because of the drumming / it's something I cannot fix, then I can't really blame myself too much. I'm just trying to get it the best I can. Thanks Jonny. =]
 
inmyheartx said:
You're right, I was just going off the Visual window in Drumagog (the Sensitivity being LOWERED, ya know?). I just got confused. Right you are. =]
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Im glad to know I was right about something :p I use Drumagog and "thought" I wuz a wurk'in the dang thang corektly.
 
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inmyheartx said:
It's not my band. They think they're practiced enough to record, and honestly I think this is the best they can do.
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I apologize for misreading the OP, I thought it was a band you are in. My mistake there.

G.
 
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SouthSIDE Glen said:
I apologize for misreading the OP, I thought it was a band you are in. My mistake there.

G.
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Naw it's cool man, if it were my drummer I would have told him to fuck off and practice more, hah. But it's not. =]
 
You can always try automating the original mix. If I am reading this correctly, Drumagog cant pick up the soft snare because the volume is too low? Raise it using envelope automation in a program like Sonar. Raise the individual notes that are too soft.
 
DavidK said:
You can always try automating the original mix. If I am reading this correctly, Drumagog cant pick up the soft snare because the volume is too low? Raise it using envelope automation in a program like Sonar. Raise the individual notes that are too soft.
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It's not that the hits are too quiet, it's that the hits are quiet against the bleed. When drummers start fairy-tapping the snare during blastbeats, things like the hi hat are just as loud in the snare mic as the snare is.
 
Farview said:
It's not that the hits are too quiet, it's that the hits are quiet against the bleed. When drummers start fairy-tapping the snare during blastbeats, things like the hi hat are just as loud in the snare mic as the snare is.
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Fairy tapping! LOL I have never heard it called that, but what a great description! :) Green chicklets for you today! :D
 
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