Stereo Drums To Tape

  • Thread starter Thread starter NotADrummer
  • Start date Start date
N

NotADrummer

New member
Hello all, I am currently attempting to record all guitars for the project I'm doing on a Tascam 414 Portastudio. I plan on having someone else handle the vocals after all instruments are recorded, but I'm not currently settled on the way to do drums. The way I have the drums now is that I have the drum MIDI for each song loaded onto Reaper, then I have the MIDI set with drum samples from a VST and humanized timing/drum velocity to make the drums sound more real and human-like. Once that's done I connect an aux cord from my PC to the Portastudio and let the drum track in Reaper play to get the drum audio onto Portastudio tape. Then I do the standard overdubbing the guitars over the drums for each track. The problem I have doing it this way is that the drums are in mono. Now this isn't a dealbreaker for me with the current stuff I'm working on, but in the future I would like to find a way to get stereo drums using close to the same setup that I have now.

I thought about getting an 8-track recorder, and recording snare+kick on one track, panned center, and then having the toms and cymbals on two different tracks panned slightly left and right, but I'm not sure if I can get these three drum tracks recorded simultaneously using the same method from my PC to whatever 8-track I happen to get. I've looked at a couple audio interfaces like the Behringer U-Phoria with its 4 inputs and 4 outputs, but I don't see a way to output each drum track from the PC to the audio interface.

Can I get stereo drums using this method or something or is this all just totally wrong?
 
The best thing to do would be to stripe one of the tape tracks with timecode and then feed that timecode to Reaper so that the drums play in Reaper while your other tracks play from the Portastudio. If you want the tape sound on the drums then I would record the drums in stereo (or even 3 tracks) on the Portastudio and then play them back into Reaper and record them as audio tracks. You can then use the tape tracks for other instruments.

Reaper has a timecode generator and reader built-in so you don't need any extra hardware although a 4in/4out interface would make life much easier.
 
What kind of MIDI drum kit? My VSTi MIDI drumkit has it's own mixer that allows panning of each piece into a single Reaper track item. If you don't have that mixer, Reaper can split your drum kit into tracks for each MIDI channel, one for each piece, then you can pan each one how you want.

Here's one way Reaper offers. It demonstrates different instruments on each track, but you could easily assign different drum pieces from a single MIDI drum kit and pan them separately.

 
Why is it only mono going from your PC to the Tascam? You need to split the stereo output of the PC to two lines (L + R) into 2 inputs on the Tascam.
 
I have each of the drums panned with the VSTs in Reaper, but I'm not sure how to keep the audio for each set of drums panned going into the Tascam.

Currently I just have an aux cord going from the PC into one track of the Portastudio, which I think means that all the panning information from Reaper is effectively lost and gets set to whatever the Tascam panning control for that track is. I think it should be an easy enough fix to split the outgoing signal from PC into L+R, which is a step up from what I'm currently doing. But that's still only two degrees of panning.

Since I don't think there's a way to split the audio more than two ways simultaneously going out from PC to tape, I'm guessing the best way to do more than two drum tracks is to sync each drum track with the timecode method as jamesperrett suggested. I'll try playing around with the SMPTE timecode function on Reaper and see how it works.
 
Not sure I follow all of this but, the Behringer UMC404HD will deliver 4 discrete tracks out of a PC.
Not THE highest quality interface I grant you but way better than tape!

Dave.
 
I'm sure I'll get shot down here, but you are using VST produced sounds, so you don't have the computer resistance some analogue folk have, so why not use one of the DAWs - either free or budget and not have to worry about working with limited tracks and noise generation? You have a computer for the VSTs - so what not just use the computer and get rid of the compromises?

I do understand the idea of analogue, and even invested a considerable sum in some recorders, but the persistent 'you can't do this' philosophy, track bouncing and annoying noise has meant, I'm firmly back in the box.
 
I'm definitely considering moving over entirely to digital recording rather than analog for future projects. But I'd like to explore this method of recording, as a lot of the stuff I listen to is stuff recorded with analog gear, some of which is pretty lo-fi.
 
NotADrummer said:
I'm definitely considering moving over entirely to digital recording rather than analog for future projects. But I'd like to explore this method of recording, as a lot of the stuff I listen to is stuff recorded with analog gear, some of which is pretty lo-fi.
Click to expand...
Way to go friend and if you are looking for an interface I don't actually recommend that Behringer! It has the singular advantage of cheapness and, with care over levels (never run it close to -6dBFS) it gives very good results. The mic pres are also low in noise but don't have a lot of headroom. I LOVE my MOTU M4!

Having got all your music mixed down to a stereo track 'ITB' you COULD then stuff that through the Portastudio for some tape ***t but do bear in mind that cassette is not at ALL the same as a pro Scully or Studer running at 15ips!

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
Having got all your music mixed down to a stereo track 'ITB' you COULD then stuff that through the Portastudio for some tape ***t but do bear in mind that cassette is not at ALL the same as a pro Scully or Studer running at 15ips!
Click to expand...

I think the sound of a Scully or Studer might actually be too subtle for most people wanting analogue "warmth". A Portastudio comes much closer to the sound of tape that people who've never used decent tape machines expect.
 
Well, hate to be a party-pooper, but you're half-way into the future now: why don't you just use Reaper and cashier the tape machine?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top