Equipment for triggering drums

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sk8a123

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so since i'm mainly focusing on recording all types of metal... i plan to trigger instead of using mics. anyhow,what equipment would i need?

#1. ive looked at the ddrum redshot triggers, but i'm not sure what it would connect to. Any feedback will help, thanks!
 
An electric drum kit would probably be the easiest and more accurate way, but it wouldn't be very cheap. But if you have the money for one, it will be super easy to set up via MIDI.

You could also always mic the drums and then use a plugin to change the drum hits to MIDI so you could replace the drum hits with samples.
 
Triggers will cue a digital sound device - either an external one, or hooked via MIDI/interface to computer software. This will NOT pick up the original drum sound, only the playing.
 
Bump this...

Can you recommend a plug-in that will convert the recorded audio to a midi signal? I haven't done a lot of work with midi.
 
There are a few things to consider.

1. The redshot triggers are crap. Either get the good ones or don't bother.
2. The triggers are designed to plug into a drum brain that has all the sounds and/or converts the performance to midi. You will need one of those, if this is the way you are going to do it.
3. you can just plug the triggers into mic preamps, just like you would a mic, and use something like Drumagog to play the sounds of the preformance you have recorded. The thing about this is you will need just as many inputs as you would with mics.
4. you still want to mic the cymbals, triggered cymbals just suck and there is no real way around it.


Drumagog also converts to midi and triggers from midi, it's a great tool to have.
 
Farview said:
There are a few things to consider.

1. The redshot triggers are crap. Either get the good ones or don't bother.
2. The triggers are designed to plug into a drum brain that has all the sounds and/or converts the performance to midi. You will need one of those, if this is the way you are going to do it.
3. you can just plug the triggers into mic preamps, just like you would a mic, and use something like Drumagog to play the sounds of the preformance you have recorded. The thing about this is you will need just as many inputs as you would with mics.
4. you still want to mic the cymbals, triggered cymbals just suck and there is no real way around it.


Drumagog also converts to midi and triggers from midi, it's a great tool to have.
Click to expand...


hmmm... my buddy has gotten decent results with the redshot triggers, but i do hear what you are saying... i plan on plugging the triggers into the interface, and then replacing them with various samples i have. and i will record the cymbals...(probably should have mentioned that earlier
 
Farview said:
...a drum brain that has all the sounds and/or converts the performance to midi. You will need one of those, if this is the way you are going to do it.
Click to expand...

I've always recorded drums the ol fashioned way with mics. I pretty much know nothing about using midi- Any suggestion on an inexpensive brain to use?


Also... Sk8a- you can download a free pluggin in called drumtrig. Its uses the peak in a recorded track to trigger a sample. I've used this for snares in the past. You wouldn't want to do this for an entire set of drums, but it works pretty well if you just aren't happy with the tone of a kick or snare or something.
 
Jeff_D said:
Also... Sk8a- you can download a free pluggin in called drumtrig. Its uses the peak in a recorded track to trigger a sample. I've used this for snares in the past. You wouldn't want to do this for an entire set of drums, but it works pretty well if you just aren't happy with the tone of a kick or snare or something.
Click to expand...

Logic also comes with a pretty nice drum replacement tool that has bunches of different samples for each drum. This might not apply to the OP, but I'm just putting it out here in case somebody in the future stumbles across this thread.
 
ok.... so can you tell me if this is correct? id plug the cables from the triggers into the alesis... and after that i could still do post processing?
 
The only reason to get the DM5 is to use the sounds or use it to convert the performance to midi.

The DM5 has 4 outputs, so you can separate the kick, snare and stereo toms.

Other than that, there is no point to having it. Plugging the triggers into the interface and using a plugin will work just as well. Since you can edit the recorded triggers, you can completely eliminate mis-triggers
 
Farview said:
The only reason to get the DM5 is to use the sounds or use it to convert the performance to midi.

The DM5 has 4 outputs, so you can separate the kick, snare and stereo toms.

Other than that, there is no point to having it. Plugging the triggers into the interface and using a plugin will work just as well. Since you can edit the recorded triggers, you can completely eliminate mis-triggers
Click to expand...

oh got it. thanks. and the best plugin to change the midi sounds would be drumtrig?
 
I've been interested in experimenting with triggers but I haven't looked into how I would get it done, this thread looks promising...

I use Logic Express 9, like guitarplayr82 mentioned there's a nice plug-in called "Drum Replacement/Doubling" under "Track" settings. I've used it recently to replace some obnoxious floor toms and double the snare sound for more definition.

The issue with the replacement/doubling is you have to set the threshold for the signals you want replaced/doubled. If all the hits are even it's easy but the hits are never even, so I've been tediously editting each hit, adding and subtracting the midi data until all hits are covered. I know there has to be a better way, and I'm thinking triggers would be answer...

So if I trigger all the drums, plug the cables into my Tascam US1641 interface and hit record I should get a signal each time the drums are hit. I can then use Logic's drum replacement to insert the sounds I want from the captured signal. Does this sound correct? What cables are used? 1/4" to XLR?

Thanks for the info, Merry New Year!
 
nb508 said:
So if I trigger all the drums, plug the cables into my Tascam US1641 interface and hit record I should get a signal each time the drums are hit. I can then use Logic's drum replacement to insert the sounds I want from the captured signal. Does this sound correct? What cables are used? 1/4" to XLR?
Click to expand...
Yes. The cable you will need depends on the triggers and the interface you are using. Some triggers use 1/4 and some use xlr. The trigger will put out a pretty loud signal, so you won't necessarily need a preamp but it's good to have the control.
 
thanks for all of your help farview. now i'm in the market for these triggers!
 
Good stuff Farview and everyone else who posted. In the future I'll be trying a combination of mic and trigger. It'll be another tool in my recording closet. Peace!
 
sk8a123 said:
Equipment for triggering drums
Click to expand...




This is all you need:



420805.jpg



(Sorry RAMI...I couldn't resist) :)
 
mjbphotos said:
Triggers will cue a digital sound device - either an external one, or hooked via MIDI/interface to computer software. This will NOT pick up the original drum sound, only the playing.
Click to expand...

Just want to point out that this is incorrect. Triggers are transducers, they work exactly like microphones do. They just pick up a much smaller frequency range than mics do.
 
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