drum triggers

[Falopo]

hi, first of all my goal is to replace a drum track i record with a sample sound. I know they have that program drumagog which does what im talking about, or i could use drum triggers and a drum machine such as the alesis d4 or something.
my confusion is if i get a drum machine and triggers. How would i go about hooking it up so that i can record to seperate tracks. ive never used one in that way before. i know my question is vague but please help clear it up for me. thanks

 

[Simman]

More info please

If, you provide more detail I'm sure I can help.

How do you record? Do you use software, (e.g., cakewalk)?

Are you using the triggers on accustic drums (really doesn't matter but you have the option of recording the accustics as well)? Allows you to layer drum sounds.

 

[Farview]

With a dm4 you would have to route the different sounds to different outputs of the unit. I think there are 4 (kick, snare and stereo toms)

 

[manning1]

falopo these are the ways you can use drum triggers.....
1. drum triggers terminating in a male qtr inch jack input to a "brain"
or "sampler" that allows triggering. if the brain or sampler has midi output you
can even get fancy and trigger many other sounds and synths if you have the equipment. in summary a trigger can trigger anything - not just drum sounds. for example if you have a video track and were laying down
an audio track against it and for arguments sake you needed a helicopter sound at 3 mins 34 secs you could use a drum trigger via brain to do this kind of work.ie: trigger the copter sound.
2. another way would be to put triggers on a drum kit to replace the kik and snare. i once got rid of a kik drum (thus no mic needed) and replaced it with a BIG trigger pad that the drummer hit with the beater that triggered kik sounds in a brain that i recorded to the daw. most brains have a stereo out.
so the drummer can play a kit with triggers on that trigger great sound samples in a brain which get recorded on a stereo track in the pc daw.
3. another way would (and this used to be done on tape 2 inch multitracks a lot). lets say you have the snare on its own track but it sounds awful.
well you could route the snare track to trigger snare sounds in a brain that were great sampled snares.
today with pc daw you could do same thing if you have a multi out sound card prolly. just route the snare to the output and trigger a new snare in the brain. there are lots of sample cd's of great drum sounds around. clearmountain comes to mind. or you can find freebies on the net in wav format.
hope this helps a bit.
ps - digikey or other electronics supply houses sell flat piezo triggers for about 25c. look for ones with a white inner circle and a copper ring.
the white is ground. what i do is put a teeny hole in the copper ring
(the trigger signal) then you can encase it in something like flexible tile or a pc mouse mat and make it as big as you want. you wire the trigger up to a
male qtr inch jack. i think some shack stores sell flat piezos.
this will save you paying hundreds for commercial drum pads. so all you need is a brain with trigger inputs.
any questions ? just ask.

 

[manning1]

also i forgot re drum machine. if you want to record to seperate tracks on the daw like a kik track, snare track etc. you need a device that has both trigger inputs and also has lots of outputs and also a multiple input sound card and software that allows multiple inputs. you can use powertracks if say you have a sound card with 8 inputs. try the demo at pgmusic,com assuming you have a pc.
another way is to output the triggering from midi out of the "brain" to a pc fitted with midi input.
NOTE: drums are normally on channel 10. so you set the brain to send on ch 10 and the track in the software (eg powertracks i mentioned ) to ch10 to receive the midi data. this is very important. as to drumagog. i have not had a chance to try it.
peace.