Help! I want to record drums in my apartment.

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ratrod30

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Hi all,
After years of playing with loops and trying to make them do things I can't, I want to create the least expensive way of being able to play my own parts.
My songs just have too many changes that are a nightmare to try to get a loop to work with. I can play drums and have no problem creating all the fills, etc. that I want on a real kit. But I want to create the stuff at home and not in a studio. I have a pc laptop, cool edit, acid 5, and an m-audio fast track pro with midi in.
So am I to believe that really the best way is to use a midi controller to trigger samples while playing along to my tracks? We also have a Roland HP 1700 digital piano here with midi outs. Guess I could use that as my controller?
What would be one of the easier programs to use? Am I asking for a whole new host of problems trying to get midi to work? I'm pretty green when it comes to midi...

thanks!
 
Nope. I guess that would be the best option for triggering, I can't afford the roland kits with the net style pads. Supposedly they have the most realistic feel? I would be concerned with the noise level coming off the rubber style pads. This place I live in is pretty papery thin and lot's travels through the walls.
 
As an option to a full electronic kit, you could consider a multi-pad MIDI percussion controller. Roland and Alesis both have current models and Hart and Pintech use to have controllers (I don't keep up with this stuff as much as I used to and don't even know if Pintech and Hart are still around).

The advantage of the multi pad controllers....you can play with sticks -or- if you are concerned with the attack noise of stick on pad, you can play with hands.

While drummers prefer a kit to use their natural technique - the multi pads can be ideal for someone who may not have true drum kit technique, but who do what to play grooves rather than program grooves/loops.
 
I'm in the same boat

On Saturday me and some musician friends were jamming around way to late. I'm talking midnight with a full band. Yeah I was a bit tipsy, I sort of forgot it was late as hell and I live in an apartment.

I was wondering about using one of those drum trigger pad controllers. It seems you might be able to get a decent drum sound with a good program and no noise for recording.

There are a few at musicians friend for under $200. There is also that little DR55 mini electric set.
 
Yeah, one of those percussion pads might work. You can connect a kick pedal to some as well which would open it up.
So how easy is it to get a midi setup working? I don't mind doing a little dicking to get things right, but if it's a long drawn out affair with tons of tinkering and trouble shooting to get something to work right then I might as well go back to creating tracks with loops. It's all like doing math homework to me and not very musical.
 
ratrod30 said:
Nope. I guess that would be the best option for triggering, I can't afford the roland kits with the net style pads. Supposedly they have the most realistic feel? I would be concerned with the noise level coming off the rubber style pads. This place I live in is pretty papery thin and lot's travels through the walls.
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My group uses a Roland kit with rubber pads (mesh for the snare). They're pretty quiet IMO.

I live in a townhouse, and this was the only option open to us for recording. It's not live drums, but given good samples, it's probably as close as you can get.
 
There is some dicking around to make sure each playing surface is triggering the correct MIDI note - but it's not that complex and once it's set it will always transmit the same MIDI notes (unless something crashes....oh wait, that would never happen:D)

It may be easier to put up with an hour or two of programming the pads one time (rather than having to program loops every time you start a new tune).

I do agree a lot of the programming (and even a lot of the digital recording/plug ins etc.) take so much technical time. It seems everytime I want to try something new I spend 1/2 hour reading a manual (which can really suck out the creative spirit).

Sometimes I miss the old days or analog boards and reel to reel 2" tape - you could just plug in and play (vs. being a tech).
 
Thanks Mike,
Yeah, oh well, dicking is the price we pay for not paying for a studio, I guess.
I'll play a few electronic kits and see how they feel to me. Is there a make/model of brain that's preferred over others for its performance and sound? I have quite the bank of good acoustic samples already so I would think I'd be able to just concentrate on the quality of the triggers and rely on my own sounds as opposed to the sounds that comes with the kit.
 
If you get one of the single units that have multiple pads on a single playing surface you can eliminate the added costs of the hardware to mount a lot of individual pads (these don't feel amuch like playing a "real" kit - but it does reduce cost and space).

If you don't need a sound producing module, since you already have good sample - you could look for a simple triggger to MIDI converter. I know Roland makes one and I think Alesis makes one.
 
I have been experimenting just with sound and haven't recorded yet.

I just bought a Yamaha DD-55 and Roland HPD-15 with the HH pedal.

I ran them through my Behringer board and powered monitors. Well they sounded just like I expected.......poor and fake.

But I know a thing or two about sound as I had my own live sound reinforcement company and taught myself a lot, I had to. Plus I have some electronic back round.

So the first thing I did was break out my DBX 166XL......just that alone made them sound so much more life like it was an amazing transformation. If you know how to set it, there are a lot of knobs and each drum works differently. A single source makes a compressor really show you how versatile in it's overall sound shaping it can be. It's easier to recreate a recorded gated compressed of an acoustic set than it would be to make it sound live which is impossible. most CD players and home/car stereos would not be able to handle a true set of drums, they don't have the dynamic range.

Here is a very good review of the Aphex 204 and it explains a lot.
http://hometheaterhifi.com/volume_11_3/aphex-204-big-bottom-7-2004.html

Since I live in an apartment my plan is to use them and break the drum parts into separate beats, since I'm not a drummer. Run each one into it's own track for individual tonal shaping as you would any drum recording only I'll be doing it at different times. Like laying down the hi-hat and snare first then the kick, then any fills and cymbal crashes or rides.

I have an old analog Urban 622 parametric EQ so I'll run that first to shape it, then into a DBX compressor and see what I have. I also have Rane and Ashley 31 band EQ's and I'm Definitely going to get the aphex 204 ural exciter with big bottom. If that doesn't make your kick and cymbals sound real I don't know what would.

But I'm going to make sure the sound is as dry as possible with only what I would consider true drum ring and over tone.

Once it's recorded with as true a recorded acoustic drum sound as I can get then I'll add reverb to the snare and any other drums and cymbals as they and if they need it along with any more compression or limiting and frequency shaping I think it needs.

Well that's my plan and I'm stickin' to it, unless soemone has a better way.

I have a bad spinal condition and if I didn't I would buy a nice Roland kit and learn to play drums. For the music I do I don't need a truly accomplished virtuosos.
 
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