edrums - midi / audio recording

[andybhoy]

Hi guys,

I have a home recording studio - cubase, firewire mixer everything mic'ed up really except my drums which are cheapo electronic drum kit (i think session pro £199 just to get me started). the drums which were terrible to start with are on their last legs now and I'm going to replace them.

I need electronic drum kit, so I can have them coming out my PA when i can make noise, and headphones when I cant.

Im thinking of getting a midi kit so I can use it with the likes of Superior Drummer etc. Having looked at a few videos this looks like it could be pretty amazing, I have a few questions tho...

Latency - obviously if im playing live with other band members - I wouldnt want to monitor the midi drums being recorded in cubase, via cubase as Im imagining the latency would be pretty bad - for this I would record the midi but direct monitor the audio output from my mixer, so we can all hear what the drummer is doing...?

In drummers headphones > Metronome from cubase and direct audio from mixer headphones (should be 0 latency?)


If this is the correct way to do it, will the recorded midi be in time? or is there still going to be latency problems recording the midi drums with other tracks going? (at the moment recording my audio out from the existing edrums works fine - latency wise..)

Should I just stick to recording the audio out from the drums, live and perhaps trying out Drumagog or something?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.thanks.

Andy

 

[I Got Riffs]

If you have a half decent system, you shouldn't have to worry about the latency. Recording a midi drum kit is no different than recording any other midi instrument. Many musicians, myself included, record beats by tapping on their keyboard or an mpc pad. Sure, we quantize things later for the tiny details, but if you can keep time on a keyboard during the performance, then a kit shouldn't be any different. To be sure, research all the ways you can bring the latency down.

 

[Guitargodgt]

Hi guys,

I have a home recording studio - cubase, firewire mixer

Good because this is what is gonna be needed for low latency when running superior.

I need electronic drum kit, so I can have them coming out my PA when i can make noise, and headphones when I cant.

Depending on how much you want to spend, I'm going to recomend something Rolland. I love my cheap td-3 and it works great with superior.

Latency - obviously if im playing live with other band members - I wouldnt want to monitor the midi drums being recorded in cubase, via cubase as Im imagining the latency would be pretty bad - for this I would record the midi but direct monitor the audio output from my mixer, so we can all hear what the drummer is doing...?

If your computer is stout enough latency isn't as bad as you think. As long as your not recording a ton of tracks or running anything other than superior, running a lower buffer setting (lower latency) makes monitoring through superior fine. I can get the latency on my system down to 3ms, and this is more than good enough to record with.

I would strongly recommend having at least 4 gigs of RAM if you are thinking about running superior on any machine. It can be a ram hog.

In drummers headphones > Metronome from cubase and direct audio from mixer headphones (should be 0 latency?)


If this is the correct way to do it, will the recorded midi be in time?

Andy

Cubase has really good latency compensation (all versions), so yes the midi will be in time. If you have a problem getting your buffers low enough to comfortably play through superior then track using the drums sounds and then run superior through the recorded latency. Since most drum brains are stereo out, I would not recommend the drumagog idea as it's gonna be a bigger pain in the ass that just rolling out with midi.

 

[andybhoy]

tyvm for your informative reply guitargod. appreciated.