Ok, there is a great, FREE way to do this with KTDrumTrigger and your favorite drum sampler.
Download KTDrumTrigger
here and install it to your VSTPlugins folder.
There are a few steps to get this to work right, but generally it takes me a few minutes because I have presets saved.
1. Duplicate the relevant drum track; kick, for instance.
2. If there are any edits, select all the events on the track and press "v". This will bounce it to one consolidated event.
3. Right click the new event, and select Advanced -> Detect Silence
4. Use the Detect Silence menu to strip all of the silence between each hit while leaving each transient of the kick drum. This will help KTDrumTrigger track each hit more accurately and negate the need for any filtering. Make sure there aren't any other drums that have leaked through.
5. Insert KTDrumTrigger onto the track you just stipped silence from.
NOW.
KTDrumTrigger has MANY parameters that will help you fine tune the detector. There are actually three triggers but I only usually use the first one. These are the parameters I usually set:
1. Filter type: High Pass
2. Filter Cutoff: 50Hz (for kick. For snare, I'll set it higher, to like 100Hz)
3. Follower attack: Fastest
4. Drum MIDI Note Number: Whatever note triggers the kick in your sampler. Snare is usually 38 so kick will be 36, which is the default.
5. Drum 1 midi channel: 1
6. Drum 1 Use MIDI Velocity: Yes
7. Audio Output Mode: Mute
I usually make presets for each drum (kick, snare, etc,) which helps to speed things up next time. The first time you use the plugin, it'll take a bit longer. Next, play the track with KTDrumTrigger inserted and lower the threshold until you see little circles appear on each hit (there is a graphical display of the waveform that scrolls left to right)
OK, now, create either a midi track or an instrument track and link it to your favorite drum sampler. I use Steven Slate drums or Steinberg's
Groove Agent 3. If you've made your own samples, load them into a sampler. For the MIDI input, select KTDrumTrigger (it will also tell you which track it's from and appear in the input patch pulldown selection menu).
Now, record enable the MIDI track and record the entire length of the song. Usually there is some sort of latency so if you don't hear them sync at first, don't worry, we're going to fix that shortly. Alternatively, you could set a negative track delay on the KTDrumTrigger track until you hear them sync, which would negate
the next step we're going to perform. On my system it's usually a latency of around 22ms (which means you'll set the track delay to -22.00). The name of the game here is matching the triggered sound as close to sample per sample as accurately as you can.
However, if you choose NOT to do that, do this:
Once the track has recorded each hit to MIDI, go to he arrange (project) page, and put the cursor at the beginning of the FIRST kick drum transient. This will usually be a trough, so don't set it at the beginning of the peak. You'll see it once you zoom in. DON'T move it. Now, open the recorded MIDI event and select ALL hits (ctrl-A). Press CTRL-X to cut all of them out and then press CTRL-V to past them where the cursor lies. They SHOULD all properly align now.
There is an art to this, obviously, and it's not as easy as inserting drumagog, but it's free and once you get the hang of it, it WAY more accurate and powerful, IMO. I will never use any other method.
Cheers
