Drum Trigger?

Jeff_D

New member
I record acoustic drums; a set of Pearl exports I picked up from Dross. Sometimes I'll make a copy of my snare track, keep one "natural" then on the copied track use a drum replacer software that uses the peak of each snare hit to trigger a sampled snare (like this one). I only do this if I have too much bleed to manipulate the track or if I'm looking for a slightly different snare sound than I can get manipulating the recorded track. Anyway, a track I (very hastily) recorded last night has so much bleed that it didn't even have a transient loud enough to trigger the sample. Is a drum trigger something I could use? Do I just plug it into an available mic channel? So it would create an "audio" track with basically just a click or clunk on each hit?
 
Yes this is how people have used them (I have met individuals that snagged a ADA8000 just for running triggers to), the problem though is a trigger like a mic is also a transducer and susceptible to all the acoustic information it gets.

In other words, it might not fix your issue. Although then again it might because it's closer to the head of the drum and less likely to pick up bleed as loudly.

But it could also make your life more difficult if it mis triggers.
 
Cool. that's what I needed to know... I wouldn't use the trigger exclusively. I'd still mic the snare to get the mic'd sound and then use the "trigger" track to use a sample, then blend the two.
Thanks for the response...
 
What replacement software are you using? Can you treat the recorded signal with gate or eq prior to sending to replacement software to help isolate the snare? I know even the free KT Drum trigger has filters to help with this. In Steven Slate Trigger you can even send a signal from the drum causing the bleed problem to negate that signal from triggering the sample. I suppose you could also manually create a MIDI trigger for your replacement software. Sounds like fun. NOT. :D
 
A drum trigger is just a contact mic, so you just plug it into a mic input.

You might need to fool around with the dynamic tracking because the dynamic range of the trigger will be bigger than the dynamic range of the sound of the drum. (assuming that your replacement software has that control)
 
Depending on what DAW you use, there is a better option than solely relying on the trigger software (drumagog, slate, etc) to catch the right transient.

There is a function in Cubase, and I know Pro Tools has it, called "detect silence", or "strip silence". I'm sure other DAWs have this feature as well. What you do is you use it to strip all the excess noise (and bleed) below a given threshold so that all you're left with are the drum hits. This negates any bleed from causing miss-triggers. You can then trim each event or region until you're left with only the transient of each snare, which is what the trigger software is after.

You could also filter out any troublesome frequencies that are causing problems, or boost fundamental frequencies of the specific drum, or use a transient designer to accentuate the attack portion of the waveform. This makes it easier for the trigger software to "read" it.

Although, [on the topic of filtering] I turned to the process of stripping silence because I was finding that fluctuations in frequency response due to inconsistent playing were causing miss-triggers and sometimes vast inaccuracies. I am now of the opinion that drum replacement plugins work best when they are fed with the full bandwidth original recording.

Personally, I use a plugin called KTDrumTrigger by Koene Tanghe at Smart Electronix. I like it because it puts out a midi event for each triggered drum hit and can be recorded to a midi track for later manipulation. It works great!

Hope that helps.

Cheers :)
 
called "detect silence", or "strip silence".

I've used this feature before. The key however is to duplicate the track you are stripping and make sure cubase isn't killing anything that was supposed to be a hit.

But it does make for a very nice track to trigger off of.
 
For sure. I always duplicate the track and then bounce the kick to a new file. I then make sure my threshold is set correctly so as to not miss any crucial hits.

Truth be told, it's not 100% a sure thing that you won't get the odd miss-trigger. Once I've done my first pass I'll go through and make sure I haven't missed anything. I'll then line up the transients to as sample accurate as possible and make sure the dynamics of the fills are as natural sounding as possible. This often involves note-by-note manual MIDI editing but once the "meat and potatoes" are down, it's a matter of a one more listening pass before you have a perfectly triggered track.

Cheers :)
 
Good info... thanks guys. I've been using this plugin; Download Drumtrig – VST sample replacer - Hometracked Its pretty basic, but its done the trick. Really, I'm just looking to find a more reliable / dummy proof way and a trigger seemed like a logical fix. In the past, I haven't had trouble. But my session a couple nights ago was literally toss up some mics and live-record band practice. It was zero time with mic placement, tweaking, etc.

What do you guys like for triggers? Looks like the least expensive is a ddrum redshot for around $20. Any good? I've come across a bunch of diy sites where they make a trigger out of a $3 radioshack piezo and couple bucks of wire and connectors. Not sure how I'd mount it.

Also... one more Q. The triggers I've seen in pictures have a foam pad on it. Does that actually touch the drum head? Does that change the sound of the drum by dampening the head?
 
Back
Top