Quantizing Drums

C

COA23

New member
Hello, everyone! Wil from Children Of Aries here again. I had the "Drum Mics Help?" thread a while back.

I'd like to get opinions from those of you who like to record live drums, miked up, no triggers (Although, I suppose you could quantize triggers as well, though my only experience with them is watching YouTube tutorials on how to use them.)

How do you feel about quantizing drums, or setting hits to the grid? Personally, I don't mind it as long as the whole song was just recorded for the hits and the producer, engineer (me) is not going back and setting it all straight. Fixing mistakes, sure, but getting a performance is what I feel is important.
 
Well, I only record myself. I'm not a "producer", "producah" or anything other than a home recordist.

So.......NO, I do not quantize my drums. It makes no sense to me for what I do. I might as well use a drum machine.

If you're recording someone else, then I guess it depends on the style. Some "Math metal" or whatever the fuck they call some shit, might need it. But at that point, you're probably also using triggers and samples, too.

For most styles of music, I don't see the point. If the drum track is so bad that it needs quantizing, then either record it again or change drummers..or use a drum machine.

Jesus, I wonder what people did until about 12 years ago. Oh, I remember now. They learned how to play and then recorded themselves. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm pretty sure that's what they used to do. I still do. Maybe one day I'll get my shit together, forget how to play, and start fixing all my "live" tacks by quantizing them, making them anything but live. :)
 
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COA23 said:
How do you feel about quantizing drums, or setting hits to the grid?
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Well...timing/tempo is a form of virtual "grid" that we all play to, with and around...
...but when you say "to the grid" I assume you mean putting all the drum hits right on the grid...?

No.
 
COA23 said:
Personally, I don't mind it as long as the whole song was just recorded for the hits
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What the fuck does this even mean?

RAMI said:
Jesus, I wonder what people did until about 12 years ago. Oh, I remember now. They learned how to play and then recorded themselves. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm pretty sure that's what they used to do. I still do. Maybe one day I'll get my shit together, forget how to play, and start fixing all my "live" tacks by quantizing them, making them anything but live. :)
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Lol. Truth.

I'm quickly and totally losing faith in people as musicians. These technological crutches that people seem to now embrace as normal is really sad.
 
RAMI said:
Jesus, I wonder what people did until about 12 years ago. Oh, I remember now. They learned how to play and then recorded themselves. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm pretty sure that's what they used to do. I still do. Maybe one day I'll get my shit together, forget how to play, and start fixing all my "live" tacks by quantizing them, making them anything but live. :)
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12 years ago, people were quantizing drums. I know I had to do it as early as 1998, but I'm sure I wasn't the first one ever.

Before that, you could have the drummer record each part until he got it perfect, then splice the tape to put the song together. Copy/paste was possible with slave reels.

Roger Nicols used tape loops (actual loops of tape) to keep the beat steady on Steely Dan's Show Biz Kids, which came out in 1973.

The idea that studio trickery didn't exist before computers isn't true. It just wasn't as easy, but the budgets were higher, so you had time to do all of it the long hard way.
 
Farview said:
12 years ago, people were quantizing drums. I know I had to do it as early as 1998, but I'm sure I wasn't the first one ever.

Before that, you could have the drummer record each part until he got it perfect, then splice the tape to put the song together. Copy/paste was possible with slave reels.

Roger Nicols used tape loops (actual loops of tape) to keep the beat steady on Steely Dan's Show Biz Kids, which came out in 1973.

The idea that studio trickery didn't exist before computers isn't true. It just wasn't as easy, but the budgets were higher, so you had time to do all of it the long hard way.
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Sigh.....

OK, I threw "12 years" out there. Excuse me for not being completely accurate with my dates. I think my point still stands.

People are DEPENDING on it now more than ever. If you don't think that people are using tricks as a crutch to make up for their lack of talent more now than ever before, then we must not be listening to the same home recordings. Or maybe one of us doesn't listen to home recordings at all.

Yes, studio "trickery" has been going on for a long time. I know that. But quantizinq real drums TO A GRID is not something that was common many years ago (I'm not going to say exactly how many for fear of getting the exact day of the week wrong). :D
 
The Clash's "Magnificent Seven" was a loop that just went on and on. 1981.

I think the point is that trickery to cover bad performances is much more prevalent now than it's ever been. And it's lame.
 
Greg_L said:
I think the point is that trickery to cover bad performances is much more prevalent now than it's ever been. And it's lame.
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was my point. I think it started on a Tuesday at 2:13pm. :D
 
Sure....digital technology has made it easy and the tools are cheap....so every home-rec guy has them, and it's no wonder they get used much more.

I think the point Jay was making is that "studio trickery" is not a home-rec phenomenon, and has been used by pros in pro studios going back 40 years or more.
The pros were/are just better at it. :D
 
I wasn't getting nit-picky about the date. I guess my point is that it seems more prevalent because there are simply more people doing it. 30 years ago, you couldn't really hear any home recordings, unless it was done by a guy you happened to know. There really weren't that many people home recording, and when they did, the stuff never got out in public beyond being sold at local shows.

Until relatively recently, talentless hacks didn't have a way to thrust their stuff on the public at large. I don't think studio trickery is as big of a problem as the fact that we can too easily be subjected to talentless hacks in the first place.

BTW I do listen to home recorded stuff. At least 75% of my mixing business is stuff recorded in someone's basement/garage/living room. I am well aware of the state of home recording.
 
Until MIDI started happening in the 80's, "Quantizing drums to a grid" was nowhere near as prevalent as it has become in the last 10, 12, 15 or so years. I realize the 80's are 30 years ago....but that's not the point. DAW's and home recording for the masses isn't that old.

Again, I know "studio trickery" has been around for while, but not used as a crutch as much as now. In the 70's, whether it's the Stones, Zeppelin, Sabbath, Deep Purple or whoever else, did not quantize their drums to a grid using studio trickery. Those guys could play. If you couldn't, you wouldn't get a record deal in the first place.

In the 80's, MIDI came out and so did Duran Duran and a bunch of bands that barely could play, but made great vidoes. :D The drums on those records were drum machine more often than not.

Maybe we're talking about 2 different things. I thought the question in this thread was about quantizing real drums to a grid. Not studio trickery in general.
 
To me it seems like people that use midi drums are trying their best to humanize them and move them off the grid and those with real drums want to quantize them to the grid and make them more robotic? Especially in that heavy death metal noise thrash thing extension of music. That's bat shit crazy!

I'm learning drums to get as far away as possible from quantized drums. Granted I only use an electric kit at the minute and can manipulate and mend my bad playing, when needed but the goal is to eventually have a real kit, mic it up and record it.

If you want quantized drums on a grid, get a drum machine! :thumbs up:
 
I don't plan on using any samples unless it's hits from our own drumkit. Long story short, drummer will likely be in college an hour away, making it difficult to get him down on weekends to record. He'll have a job, too, so that'll strain things as well. Hopefully, we'll be practiced enough to record smoothly and quickly. Since I have weekends off, I can set up mics, get phase, get EQs, compressors, whatever all set and he can just play. If that's not possible, then I'll have to backpedal to recording him play and sequencing drums, which I really, really, really don't want to do.

As for my question on quantizing, it's more to get opinions on fixing mistakes than quantizing the whole performance. (Maybe some of you think that quantizing once is messing with the whole performance? I don't know.)
 
Farview said:
I wasn't getting nit-picky about the date............
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Shit, I just saw this now.

Sorry man. I was trying to be funny with my "specific dates". You didn't say anything that bothered me in the slightest. :cool:
 
miroslav said:
Well...timing/tempo is a form of virtual "grid" that we all play to, with and around...
...but when you say "to the grid" I assume you mean putting all the drum hits right on the grid...?

No.
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Yes, I meant the timing. Setting mishits right with the click, if that provides more clarity.

No, not all the hits, just the ones that go out of time, which everyone has made pretty clear is a no-no. Lol.
 
Nudging an erroneous drum hit in to place is not quantizing. (Is that a word?) It's audio editing. Audio editing is something the majority of people will do at some point. Others flat out won't do it and prefer to re-track and get a perfect take.

Each to their own, do what you feel is right. :thumbs up:
 
RAMI said:
Whoah! OK, I didn't know that's what you meant. In that case, no, I have never done that.
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I've never done it with a live recording. Up until last year, I didn't have the money, know-how, nor the DAW, to record a full kit, so we just got samples off our kit, recorded a demo of the drummer playing, and set the samples to that demo. Technically, it's the computer playing, but it's playing what he wrote. It was a necessary evil then. Now, I have a full-time job, so I can get mics and such. I bought Reaper, which allows multi-tracking.

"A-Movin' on up," I guess. Lol.
 
Mr Clean said:
Nudging an erroneous drum hit in to place is not quantizing. (Is that a word?) It's audio editing. Audio editing is something the majority of people will do at some point. Others flat out won't do it and prefer to re-track and get a perfect take.

Each to their own, do what you feel is right. :thumbs up:
Click to expand...

Maybe I've got a wrong definition of quantizing. Is that not where you use stretch markers to move hits into time?
 
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