Blending Drum Samples with Recorded Drums

  • Thread starter Thread starter AshX
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AshX

AshX

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Hey guys,

I'm in the process of putting together a rough mix of a few tracks that I recorded drums in a studio in 2011. The experience was awful to say the least, and the drum tracks are pretty spotty. Playing wise they're solid, but the snare drum sounds like a toy drum and the toms are pretty dead sounding (they were not muted in any way) and the kick drum has a lot of bleed and issues. I was curious if any of you guys had any suggestions as far as blending the recorded drums with some samples to retain the live feel but also help the drums pack more of a punch since no matter how I EQ, compress, or gate them they don't deliver the energy needed for the song. I've heard of software like Drumagog, but am no expert on the matter nor do I know how to even begin "blending" the sounds.

Thanks a bunch.

Ash
 
Why don't you completely replace them with good samples? No one could tell the difference and it's a whole lot less work. Big name producers do it all the time. The technology is available so why not take advantage of it? Your ultimate goal is to make the best recording possible. Samples are nothing but digtital recordings of REAL drums. You'd be doing nothing except replacing one digitally recorded drum sound with another. Good luck!
 
XploZiveToyz said:
Why don't you completely replace them with good samples? No one could tell the difference and it's a whole lot less work. Big name producers do it all the time. The technology is available so why not take advantage of it? Your ultimate goal is to make the best recording possible. Samples are nothing but digtital recordings of REAL drums. You'd be doing nothing except replacing one digitally recorded drum sound with another. Good luck!
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Is that difficult to do, and could you point me in the right direction of a tutorial or something? I assume I could keep the overheads and just replace the kick and snare, and maybe a few toms if needed? I've heard great things about Steven Slate drum samples.
 
You can keep what you like and get rid of what you don't. Which DAW are you using? Any of the good drum programs are good. EZ Drummer by Toontracks is popular as is the one by Native Instruments, and there a re a couple more that I can't recall at the moment. Some more people will read this thread and help you you out. Let me look around the web a little bit and I'll find you some tutorials. Tell me which DAW you're using and I'll see if I can find something specific to your DAW.
 
Complete replacement really wont work well, unless you have it planned from beginning of tracking. You have to make do with what you have. Steven Slate Trigger is the best thing I have found for 'enhancing' drum tracks.

I wouldn't go the route of trying to replace anything. Enhance the tracks by adding samples to them.

XZT asked what DAW you are using. Do tell.

I would be willing to take your tracks, and throw you some SS Trigger samples, to give you an idea of what it can do. This is really only possible if you have separate mics on each drum you wish to work with.

Elaborate on what you have as far as individual tracks on this project.

I am not following you around Toyz, it just seems we are the only ones here without a gig tonight. Lol
 
Listen to Jimmy on this one. I'm an old analog guy use to 2 inch 24 track recording and only switched to digital a couple of years ago, so Jimmy probably knows more about this than I. I'm a member of Groove3.com and watch some of the tutorials there. They had a some big name producer who's name I cant recall who did a whole series of tutorials on recording a song from start to finish including final mix down, who replaced the kick and the snare with samples because he didn't like the sound he got during the initial tracking. I've never personally done it myself so I'd be lying if I told you I had. But I've seen it done and I've read about it being done, so I know it is done. I think I could do it and make it sound good, but the situation has never came up. I'm interested in what Jimmy has to tell you because I might just learn something if I'm not careful! LOL!
 
Careful man! We might start another debate! lmao!

It all comes down to making the best of whatever situation we have. Yeah, you can enhance some stuff, but if the performance isn't good to begin with, or the recording is crap, then you are in damage control mode. If a recording is worth spending the time to enhance, then by all means use what you can to make it as worthy of the performance. We all have bad recordings. Shit, I have more than I would wish on an enemy. If I knew then what.....
 
Hey guys,

I'm running Pro Tools 10 on a 2011 iMac. The drums were mic'd and tracked:

1 Mic Hi-Hat
1 Mic Snare (Top only)
1 Mic Kick drum (inside the shell, I believe)
1 Mic Sub-Kick
1 Mic Rack Tom
1 Mic Floor Tom 1
1 Mic Floor Tom 2
1 Mic Overhead L
1 Mic Overheard R

Here's the drum track solo'd with no EQ, compression, or effects of any kind.



And Jimmy, that would be awesome!
 
You need to set your Soundcloud to public.

And yes, I will give you an idea of what you can do with SS Trigger samples.

Sending PM now.
 
You all let me know whats going on here because I value any opportunity to learn. Jimmy is right about one thing: you can't fix a bad performance! LOL!
 
XploZiveToyz said:
You all let me know whats going on here because I value any opportunity to learn. Jimmy is right about one thing: you can't fix a bad performance! LOL!
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Will do. I am offering samples for his drums, as a learning experience. The Soundcloud link works now. We will have direct results as to what we come up with here. I am looking forward to it!
 
And, the drums do not sound to bad to start with. Curios what the overheads sound like alone, but we should have no problem getting this sounding the way I think AshX is looking for.

Hey, can you post a rough mix of the whole band here so we can all hear it?
 
jimmys69 said:
And, the drums do not sound to bad to start with. Curios what the overheads sound like alone....
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I'm glad i'm not the only one who thought that. Tbh i've only ever done a bit of drum doubling with samples and have never gone full out and replaced stuff but the doubling has been well worth it. Saying that, Logic does make it super easy to do with the two click drum replacement thing that just creates a new midi track under the track you want to replace/double based on the transients of the original track and then you chose the sample you want and just adjust the volume of the original and sampled drum to taste.

As XZT said, EZ Drummer is pretty cool and BFD by FXpansion is also pretty cool. I'm looking forward to what jimmy does with it :thumbs up:
 
jimmys69 said:
And, the drums do not sound to bad to start with. Curios what the overheads sound like alone, but we should have no problem getting this sounding the way I think AshX is looking for.

Hey, can you post a rough mix of the whole band here so we can all hear it?
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I just finished a couple smaller tracks to finish up the arrangement for the song. I wrote, performed, and recorded everything myself...an attempt at including a different perspective into a pop punk/post-hardcore song...full string arrangement...piano...organ...glockenspiel...etc. I know Jimmy has already heard it but for all of you interested in what the drums sound like in context with the whole song, here it is. I think there are about 50 tracks for this song, hence the CPU glitch at the beginning of the track (oops).

 
Yep, I'm definitely interested in this little project as you never know when something like this could come up and knowing how to fix it could mean a booking for you and your studio, if you're doing commercial stuff. The producer I alluded to had a midi track directly under the audio track and just painted in the kick and the snare in the midi track exactly in the same place as the bass and the snare were located in the audio track. He also did something with the velocity of the hits so that they sounded more real, but I can't remember exactly what it was. Can't remember if he was using REAPER or Pro Tools. I'm aware that the blending of drums is done frequently, but took it for granted that total replacement of drum parts was done at times. I know that I sometimes blend a synth with bass guitar, but that's a different topic altogether. This could come in handy if you were recording a band and the drummer insisted on using his own drums, but the drum set didn't sound good, but the performance was good. Since wer'e on the subject of drums , do you think the music listening public can tell the difference between sampled drums and real drums? I've also been thinking about when recording bands, talking them into using an electronic drum set and having the pads trigger good samples. It would would keep me from having to mic each drum, over heads, etc. Do you think this would work? I don't think the public would know. What do you think?
 
XploZiveToyz said:
Yep, I'm definitely interested in this little project as you never know when something like this could come up and knowing how to fix it could mean a booking for you and your studio, if you're doing commercial stuff. The producer I alluded to had a midi track directly under the audio track and just painted in the kick and the snare in the midi track exactly in the same place as the bass and the snare were located in the audio track. He also did something with the velocity of the hits so that they sounded more real, but I can't remember exactly what it was. Can't remember if he was using REAPER or Pro Tools. I'm aware that the blending of drums is done frequently, but took it for granted that total replacement of drum parts was done at times. I know that I sometimes blend a synth with bass guitar, but that's a different topic altogether. This could come in handy if you were recording a band and the drummer insisted on using his own drums, but the drum set didn't sound good, but the performance was good. Since wer'e on the subject of drums , do you think the music listening public can tell the difference between sampled drums and real drums? I've also been thinking about when recording bands, talking them into using an electronic drum set and having the pads trigger good samples. It would would keep me from having to mic each drum, over heads, etc. Do you think this would work? I don't think the public would know. What do you think?
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Jimmy would probably know more and be able to give you a better answer than I would, but from my experiences I don't think the general listening public can tell the difference between programmed drums that are created to sound like a real kit through samples and a recorded kit unless it's different styles (metal vs. indie rock). I've asked a lot of friends if they could tell the difference and they couldn't, some of them said they didn't even pay attention to the drums. It really depends on who is listening I guess and whether they're a drummer or a musician.

As far as using an electronic drum set, my friend used that for some of his recordings and I wasn't too impressed. This was a few years ago, though, so I'm sure things have improved and I'm sure the quality depends on how good your electronic kit is and how well it can record the different dynamics of a player for each hit. The progressive metal band Periphery is one of the few bands I know who did the whole electronic drum recording and then replaced all the hits with samples for their first album. You can definitely tell, in my opinion, compared to their second album which was recorded live and then blended with samples. The latest Marilyn Manson album, Born Villain, has drums that were completely programmed by Chris Vrenna (Nine Inch Nails) and he justified his reasoning because it was just much easier to get a clean sound that way. Still, it's pretty obvious (mainly by the hi-hat and lack of oomph in songs like 'Murderers are Getting Prettier Every Day') and I think it hurts the energy of the songs compared to albums like Antichrist Superstar. But hey, it ultimately comes down to what you can do with the gear you have. I myself am still wrestling with programming drums or heading into a studio to record them for about 5 more tracks that I have planned for an album. I played a demo to a friend and they liked 'my drumming' and thought it sounded like me even though I was just using Battery 4 and had played all the parts on a midi keyboard and then quantized them. So, that made me reconsider the concept of going out and paying money to record drum parts that will probably need samples just to cut through anyway. It depends on the song, I guess. Some raw punk and grunge songs I have just need live drums if nothing else but for the energy and human errors and inflection you find in any performance.

My 2 cents.
 
You can completely replace the drums with samples, the trick is to compress the overheads to keep the live feel.

If you are going to blend, it works best if you use the attack of the sample and the body of the real drum, or the other eat around. The thing that will make it sound bad is having two different attacks at the same time.
 
That is what I thought Farview, but as I stated, I've never done it myself. There seems to be two schools of thought concerning this subject. Personally I'm of the mind that if you have a good performance, you can put the audio track on top, midi track on bottom, and then paint the sample in at exactly the same spot as the real drums. It seems feasible to me. Answer if you would, my question about whether the listening audiences can tell the difference between the real drums and the samples? I don't think they can. After all, the samples are nothing but digital recordings of real drums. In other words, the samples are just as real as the real drums themselves. This question has been on my mind for a while. You other members participate in this thread because I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject.
 
I don't copy and paste samples, I use drumagog to place the samples. Sound engineers can sometimes tell the difference, but normal listeners can't tell/don't care if they are samples or not.

Only musicians and engineers care about how the song is recorded, listeners just care if they like the song or not.

Go to my website and find the song samples. See if you can figure out which drums are samples and which are real.
 
Farview said:
Sound engineers can sometimes tell the difference, but normal listeners can't tell/don't care if they are samples or not.

Only musicians and engineers care about how the song is recorded, listeners just care if they like the song or not.
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That's very true..... :)
 
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