Best application for recording drums?

[hare314]

Hi all. I hope this is the correct forum. Anyway, I am recording a kit with a daw and I have used Adobe Audition and Sonar 4 producer. I am satisfied with the results but I am curious as to what others like to use and if there are any better multitrack recording apps out there that sound good (or better) for accoustic drum recording. Thanks for any input!

 

[HangDawg]

Hi all. I hope this is the correct forum. Anyway, I am recording a kit with a daw and I have used Adobe Audition and Sonar 4 producer. I am satisfied with the results but I am curious as to what others like to use and if there are any better multitrack recording apps out there that sound good (or better) for accoustic drum recording. Thanks for any input!

What software you use should be the last thing you need to worry about. You should be more concerned with the room and the drums themselves. Is there something in particular you are try to achieve? What's wrong with what you have?

 

[Farview]

Recording drums is more hardware intensive that software. Once the sound is in the computer, any of the programs you have will be fine.

 

[hare314]

Thanks for quick responses. I am actually fairly pleased with my recordings (considering the room). There is really nothing wrong with them. I guess my question was more of a preference of applications (features, etc) that people were out there using. It was more of a question of just a general preference. I know there is Cubase and Cakewalk...etc. But I would like to have some comments on just what peeps use for their recordings with accoustic kits.

 

[Farview]

I use Nuendo, but that has nothing to do with the drums. I really don't see how any multi track software capable of recording a drum kit would be any better at it than anything else. Drums is audio just like anything else, there is nothing special or magical about drum tracks. Choose the software that will help your overall workflow and that will help you with the drums.

 

[JKestle]

Look into Adobe Audition if you have no use for Midi.

 

[LemonTree]

If you've used Adobe Audition I'd stick with that if it's purely audio you're recording, the editing features are second to none on an entry level basis. It really is a solid recording engine.

I always record everything to audition and do all my edits then import all the tracks into cubase cause the effects are tweakable in realtime. Saying that, as my outboard gear collection grows I'm using fewer and fewer plugins and could probably get by Mixing from Audition back to the desk and using hardware.

 

[hare314]

Ok .... cool thats good to know Lemontree. Thanks for all of your quick responses! I have learned a tremendous amount of information from these forums. Its all gravy.

 

[LRosario]

As was mentioned,

Your outboard gear and technique take priority over your software in this situation. Be concerned with every piece of gear up and to the point of being transfered straight into your DAW.

 

[chessrock]

Dude ...

Seriously, I can't stand Adobe Audition for drums. It has a really slow slew rate; not fast or accurate enough for percussion.

I've also tried Pro Tools, and that sucks donkeys on drums -- especially on cymbals -- too harsh on the cymbals.

Now Sonar, on the other hand ... you gotta' hear the sweet drum tracks that thing is capable of. Wow. It sounds so much more analog -- like you're recording to 2". I eaven heard John Bonham used Sonar for his drum tracks. It's totally slammin.

 

[Farview]

I eaven heard John Bonham used Sonar for his drum tracks.

What exactly have you been smoking?

 

[chessrock]

Don't laugh. So what if Bonzo was a late adapter?

I heard he was even running on an Athlon XP until he borrowed Keith Moon's G-5 and then it was all over with.

 

[hare314]

See? Now this is what I was starting to look for. I know that hardware, profenciency, mics, room, tuning (heads) make the biggest difference but .... There has got to be a slight diff between apps that are used to record with. Right? Uh ...

 

[hare314]

By the way I just came back here (to my puter) from the "studio"/ bedroom and I was just playing Bonzo's Montreux. Yeah baby!

 

[fenix]

well, if you plan on doing any time correction Nuendo or Protools HD might be the way to go. I think Logic might also have this feature, but i'm not sure.

 

[dgatwood]

take it from a software engineer

Speaking as someone who has written a number of small audio apps, there cannot possibly be a difference in the way dry audio sounds between one application and another (bugs notwithstanding) if you set the audio card's capture settings to the same values in both apps (e.g. bit depth, sample rate, preamp settings, etc.)

Once the audio has been converted to digital information by your audio card, it is a bunch of numbers, and nothing any audio app does (effects notwithstanding) will change that.

The reasons to choose one app over another are:

1. Editing ease-of-use and flexibility---does it match your workflow? Does it have the editing features you want? (e.g. time stretching/pseudo-quantization, slip & slide editing, etc.)
2. Plug-in effects---what types of plug-ins does it support, and can you get the plug-ins you want in that format?
3. Capture modes supported---does it support 24-bit or only 16? Does it record at 88.2/96kHz or only 44.1/48kHz
4. Stability.

#3 is the only way that one audio app can differ from another in terms of the quality of a dry recording. It makes a big difference if you sample at 96kHz, mainly because of low quality filters used in most audio cards. Basically, capturing at a higher rate and downsampling tends to produce less HF roll-off than capturing at a lower rate....

 

[tmix]

I agree that initial sound capture and unaltered playback may not be different from one app to another. But I have found the editing, mixing and effecting to be more enjoyable and time efficient (for me) from one app to another.

After trying Cakwalk / Sonar / Protools / Vegas /N-Track and a few more , I have stuck with Samplitude (6.04) for audio only recording.
I am primarily a drummer as a musician and am picky about my drum tracks. I am really pleased with how easy it is to cut / paste and move mutliple tracks around with incredibly seamless crossfades.
There is nothing worse than working on a set of tracks where you are on a ride cymbal with all that sustain and carry over, and you want to snug in the tempo a little on a snare hit, but you get a weird glitch at the crossfades.
I am able to edit very well with Samplitude, to me it has been a real pleasure to use.

Tom

 

[manning1]

tmix. samp is a very good product in my opinion.
ive been using its younger brother magix music studio together with powertracks for quite a time now. the one thing that impresses me is ive never had a crash ONCE. the other thing that impresses me is the mixer layouts and view. i can see why you like it. also one thing i like is the object editor where i can do wild things like take a vocal track , copy it to a new track then using the object editor offset the copy track just a bit to get some interesting effects. i often take the mix out of magix into powertracks where i then add the midi parts i need or vice versa.
the other thing i like about magix is it seems to run on anything.
also the way i can set up session templates. and the para eq.

 

[HangDawg]

take a vocal track , copy it to a new track then using the object editor offset the copy track just a bit to get some interesting effects.

I can do that in three mouse clicks in Nuendo. Its not really anything to get excited about.

 

[Farview]

I can do that in three mouse clicks in Nuendo. Its not really anything to get excited about.

If you know the keyboard shortcuts it's even faster.