drum damn machine

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Stan Williams

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I;m using a alesis sr-16 drum machine to lay down tracks, yea i know, i don't like um either. My problem is starting the machine with a foot switch and playing guitar at the same time does ok until, i try to lay down the next track. With no lead in riff there is no count. I must have done it 100 times before i nailed it. How can i put a count down so i will know what time to come in. If the drum machine could it would be great. I guess i could count on a mic to one trac.
Thats it !
 
What are you recording to? Computer?

Whatever it is, doesn't matter. You need a count in. Program an 8 bar click at the start and record the whole thing to - tape, computer, standalone. Or is the alesis synchronized somehow? More info and I'm sure someone can figure it out.
 
Yo Stan the Man:

I think you can put in a "click" count when you do the first two tracks; it comes at the beginning, just like a bandleader counting off at the start of a tune; then, when you're finished with the entire production, you can mix down and eliminate the click count more than one way.

Don't know what you're recording on? But, you should be able to do this without trying 100 takes.

You can put in the click count just by pressing a drum pad on your SR16 four times.

Try out the Boss 770 drum box; it is just great.

Good luck.

Maybe Sonusman can give you a better method if you tell him what you are using to record.

PS Just thought about another way to skin the "timing" cat: You can add your bass line after you do the drums and guitar -- then, you can just listen for the bass to lead you to where you want to come in. Pretty easy. I should have thought of that first.

GH

Green Hornet
 
Timing

I'm using a yamaha md8 mini disk recorder, and everything else is guitars, no keyboards. I'm doing all guitars and bass. Hey Hornet, are you saying like a click track. I don't guess its possible to add that to song thats already tracked is it? I guess i need to read the manual again. Thanks !
Thats it !
 
I have done this by syncing the drum machine to the tape. That way the drum machine counts in for me. When I then mix I just change the count-in beats at the start to silence.
 
Yo Stan the Man:

Re=read the last part of my post: if you are doing a "bass" line, you can use that to set-up your next track;

Like, man, do the chords and drums; then, add in your bass line and make notations in your head or on paper or with the MD-8, like mine, you can punch in a MARKER to let you know exactly where you want to add the next take.

But, the bass line can be set-up to cue you into your next over dub.

Try it; you can do it.

Green Hornet
 
Hey Hornet,
I don't understand exactly what your talking about with the bass track since everything starts the same time. What i did first was to hit the foot switch for the drum machine and play the first chord at the same time. Since then i have put the bass track and other guitar tracks down by just trying to look at the counter and guess when the drums and original guitar starts. With no count, i am just guessing everytime.
I may just have to do the song over with some kind of count this time. I don't know a way to sync the drum machine with this song. Thanks for the info though.
Thats it !
 
I don't know, maybe I'm missing something here, but it seems kind of obvious. When you're programming your drum track, have it start with a hi-hat, or stick click, or something, just going "1-2-3-4" before the actual drum part comes in. You can go back and erase the intro later when you're mastering it or bouncing tracks. I do this all the time with my Alesis HR-16.
 
exactly!!!give yourself an 8 beat countoff.is this your song that you programmed on the sr-16,the main beat,fills and bridge ,ending all that good stuff?if so,it should be easy enough to edit the song ,so that instead of the first measure being the beat,the first two measures can be the count off,with hi-hat,sticks or even a cool little drum fill.there are so many classic beginnings of songs that once youy hear it ,you know what song it is.like the ac-dc song,"back in black"has the classic 4 hi-hat pedal to 4 stick on the hat intro,or a classic drum fill"american band"grand funk railroad,cowbell and all.i tend to lean towards a rock and roll count off ,so during the click or the hi hat or cowbell or whatever i yell the count off on the guitar track,usually that's enough to get you right in sync.i don't exactly know sr-16's,so i don't know how easy it is to edit ,and insert the 8 count.as i have said in numerous threads ,i am boss' no.1 fan,and will always push their products,but with them you sync the machine with the recorder,(your yamaha md-8 has midi time clock?)plugin the machine from the midi out on the md-8,set up a tempo map or the sync mode or whatever there is available in order that you are not worrying about stepping on a pedal and have to jump right into a song and re-take a 100 times.hearing a substantial count off will ultimately sync everything together,allowing you to relax and enjoy yourself.and ultimately doing multiple takes 'cause you can't decide which solo you like better.
 
Is this Stan The Man of Australia and Texas?

Late of Swords Music and Ape?
Tom Hicks
 
Thanks !

Hey guys, I used the preset patterns for this song, no way to edit other than the A or B version plus fills, I think. I know one way even with the preset patterns, just let the damn thing play for 4 or 8 counts befor coming in and then go back and erase it like you guys said. But i can't do that without rerecording the song. I could redo some parts, but the only thing wrong with them is the untight way they come in. It's like playing in the dark with a band, and the drumer just stars playing. I will never record another song this way !
 
Stan:

You can still add the click intro if you are step writing the song using preset patterns and A and B fills. Simply construct ( step write) yuor song using the preset patterns. For example, develop a count pattern, and make it your first bar of the song. Then use whatever preset pattern you like for your next , say, 8 bars, followed by a fill...and so on..I do this all time with mine. I, however, prefer to develop my own patterns and fills. I have a TSR8 open reel. I record the drums on four separate tracks, dry, (kick, snare, toms, and cymbals and high hat on same track), then mix them down to 1, adding just a touch of reverb to snare. Its worked well for me. Hope this helps.
 
Here's a sick old analog-domain solution to that problem. I was recording a band in the old studio, and the leader brought in a 1/2" 8-track demo with a cold start like you describe. Problem: he wanted to keep his vox and guitar from the demo. Just flat didn't want to start from scratch. It was driving them _nuts_ trying to hit the cold start.

But the client is always right, right? The demo had track 8 more or less free at the start of the tune... So I put it up on the 80-8 spooled tails-out (backwards), and punched in an 8-count with claves after the "end" of the tune onto track 1, listening to it *playing backwards*. Flopped it over heads-out so that 8 was 8 again, transferred it to the big machine, and we used that sick-sounding backwards clave countoff temporarily until they could get their drummer to get his stuff together.

All in a day's play. Boy, do I feel old.
 
csid inim

Damn Skippy !
Were you standing on your head when you thought of that, damn that was great. I 'm feeling old myself trying to hang in there with all these young guys. At least i can hide my on Easter eggs now. I wonder how you get a mini disc in backwards.
Thats it !
 
Stan,

The backwards trick only works with tape. I did it once, but that was the last time I ever recorded a song without a click track intro! Doesn't the MD-8 have an editing feature that lets you view your song position as a function of beats, or time, rather than using the counter? Couldn't you add a 4 or 8 beat intro that way? Just a thought.

On the other hand,If it were me, I would start over with a click track intro, record the drum track, then add the other instruments. It shouldn't take any longer than doing a hundred takes to hit the cold start, and if you leave the rough beginning as you say, you'll never be happy with the song.

Many's the time I wished I had taken the time to go back and do something right, rather than settle for less than my best effort. You'll always say, " I could have done that better".


Twist
 
i'm afraid so

" I could have done that better" Thats becoming my favorite saying, other than " oh no "
 
Well, if the deck has decent editing features, just copy any 8-beat segment out of anywhere in the tune, and paste it on the head (before 0: the end of pasted segment would be exactly at beat 1 for the tune) for just long enough to use it as a guide. Listen to it, and punch a countoff onto some empty track before the intro. Once you've got your countoff, just edit the wild sound you copied back off again. You just need it as a temporary guide.

That's the joy of these digital thinguses: they're easy to cut and paste on, usually. I'm too new at this to know what your particular deck might allow, but I can certainly do this on my Fostex... If you can do any copy and paste operations at all, that ought to be enough. Gnarly, but functional!
 
yo skippy,how do you like your fostex?which is it?how old?so forth...i used to have a real hard time with their cassette 4-tracks,so i always hesitate whenbrowsing and i see fostex.do you have some praise for them?anybody?
 
I like it quite a bit, within reason. I'll explain that qualifier in a minute.

I have the D1624 standalone 16-track HDR. I got it because it was a good balance between performance and price, and because it was actually available at the time. Had it for a couple of months now. I chose it over the Tascam MX2424 because of price, availability, and the fact that they nickel and dime you to _death_ in putting together a usable configuration; and over the Mackie because I have exactly zero patience with vaporware. The Fostex arrived (well, arrived twice: the first one was DOA), got plugged in, and was in use right out of the box within 2 hours. My kinda machine, once I got one that was alive.

I have an old-world view of what a studio should look like: the multitrack is a box here, the mixer is a box there, the mastering machine is another box over there, there are lots of wires, and no computers in the room. When one box melts down, I can still work with the other two... So I wanted the 1624 to replace the multitrack tape machine in that picture. It does that very well, and it does offer some useful editing features (cut/copy/paste) beyond what you could hope for with tape. To me, it's a tape machine with no razor blades needed, and that's exactly what I wanted. Other folks might well loathe it, because the manual is written in an amusing form of Jinglish, and if you expect it to be a DAW-in-a-box, you'll be *hideously* disappointed.

However, for what I needed, it was the perfect machine: cost effective, decent converters, adequate basic editing capabilities, swappable drives for different projects, and with a simple transport-control remote I can relocate anywhere in the room, and not one damned thing more. I have a big leg up on the game over most newbies, because I have a definite working style already from my old analog days, and know what sort of hardware behavior I need to support it. Just because my working style evolved in the Cretaceous period don't make it a bad thang!

Anyway, to do that hack edit that I described to Stan Williams, I'd go set clipboard edit points on a chunk of the drum machine track, and scrub them until I had exactly the chunk I wanted, down to the sample. I'd then calculate the length of that (end time - start time). I'd set the paste point to be that length value *before 0*, and paste it onto some victim track. I'd then reset the "song start time" to that negative value. I'd probably copy 12 beats, to give myself a 4-beat pickup to make the countoff. Punch in some nice click 8-count, erase the reference blob, be happy. No one need ever know.

Like I said, I'm new to this digital recording stuff. For all I know, some decks may not let you paste before zero. No problem, if that's the case: scrub and set edit points as before, to get the length of the reference chunk. Then, move and paste all the track data for the *whole tune* from 0 to whatever that reference length value is ("making room" for it after 0). Then, paste the reference chunk in at 0, and it'll sit right before your original beat 1. I don't know that this is an issue with any real deck, but if it is, there's a workaround. There's _always_ a workaround, as long as you don't hit "format"...

Beats the living, breathing _hell_ out of demagnetizing razor blades and cleaning the oils off your fingertips with trichlor.

[Edited by skippy on 11-03-2000 at 10:19]
 
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