Drumming and punching in

  • Thread starter Thread starter Chris Fallen
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Chris Fallen

Chris Fallen

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Hey, I've been trying to record my band and it seems that everytime our drummer goes through one of our songs he messes up at least once. We play fast aggressive music, so I guess it's not too hard to believe that he can make a mistake everytime, but I'm just wondering is there any good methods of punching in/out while recording to overdub some drumming? I tried cutting stuff out and since the overheads pick up everything it's not exactly easy since it always ends up with a cut our cymbol or something like that.

I'm using a snare, kick, and two overheads. Suggestions?

Christopher
 
Tell him to play it right. Seriously though, it's pretty damn hard to do a good punch in on drums, at least in my experience it has. Maybe if he was playing all electronic drums, but it seems like the nature of the sound makes punching in difficult to accomplish. I've spent up to four hours repeatedly playing a five minute song till I got a take I was happy with. Perhaps someone else has the secret to doing this.
 
Yeah, we had some really good takes that were marred by one or two little mistakes that really screwed them over. Made us pretty unhappy. I was just hoping there was some way other than playing it flawless. Heh. I guess not. I'll just tell him to practice more. :D

Christopher
 
If the mistakes aren't during a transition, you may be able to copy a similar section sans error and stick it in place of the screwed up part. I've never done this myself, but I know people who have and the results were seamless. It's pretty critical that timing is solid though or this won't work so good.
 
Yeah, he usually messes up during a crazy fill. Heh.

Christopher
 
Like Elevate said.... Record it until you get it perfect....

If you have daw.....

Try and track it about 10 good close-to-perfect performances... Chances are the mistakes will be in different areas each take..... Then cut & paste all the good parts into one perfect performance.....

You will need a click for the drummer, to make the timing identical on each take.... but thats easy.. most drummers seem to like having a click..

Joe
 
Do your songs have places where the drums stop and a guitar or something plays a riff for a while before the drums come back in?

If so, this is your key. In almost all of our songs (fast aggrassive music as well) we have parts where the drums stop for at least a few seconds. As we record drums (I'm the drummer for the recording as we're still auditioning drummers) I tend to make at least one mistake. But hey, I'm supposed to be the guitarist, so I don't want to spend all my free time away from work trying to get a song perfect in one take. What I do is divide the songs into sections.

The first section would be the first part where the drums go nonstop until theres a short break. When they come in again that would be the second section. I concentrate on one section at a time. If I screw up in a certain section, I punch in on that section and redo that whole part.

For a clean punch in, you need to either wait until the cymbals and toms are done ringing, or mute them with your hands. I've never had to mute my toms manually, but if they are still ringing when you punch in it will sound funky. Also try to make your punch in spot right on the spot where the drums come in, so if there is any slight change in sound you wont notice it. After the other instruments are layered over the gap, the punch in will be totally inaudible. But then if you have no breaks like this your drummer is screwed and is going to have to play it till he gets it right. :D
 
You need some experience for this but you can punch in on cymbal crashes. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt......

You wait for the crash to come at right as he is about to strike the crash, you punch in (before he strikes it).
 
If you are using DAW, this isn't problem.
Just record new drum part over bad region.
Good crossfading is the key.
Also, you don't want to have cut thru all the tracks in same place - if you slide crossfade back or forth ( best at beginning of next beat in track ) you will get best results.
 
I have punched in a whole band (recording analog), no problem....

We all make mistakes when playing, and the really good musicians does too, but not as often.
A mistake also suggest that you are trying to play something you are not capable of doing, practice!!!!!

Amund
 
My guess is that it can be done, but only if it's during the same session, same mics, setup, etc.

Just tell the drummer to "play along with the song" and do EXACTLY the same fills, the do the punch in about 5 secs before the mistake (when he's still playing rhythm). If he is a solid drummer (always plays with similar intensity) that would do the trick.

What someone said before about cutting and pasting can also be done (I've done it and no one, even the drummer listening very hard, seemed to notice) but the performance must be really tempo-tight to get it to work.
 
the problem i get sometimes when punching in any acoustic instrument is that you always have resonance from what was just played, and if you punch in you can sometimes lose the resonance if you dont start playing before the punch in, so i always make sure i start teh playing before the punch in.
 
When the drummer is playing the same stuff you can solve the resonance problem with a fast and well-placed cross-fade
 
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