New Song - please help with Drums

[Stromschlag]

Hi there.
We have finished a new song.
You can listen to it here:
http://www.aramchaos.com/main/music.html

It's the first song in the player
'Her Favorite Song'

We are quite satisfied with the recording/mixing so far.
Leaving the guitar and bass sound as it is - ok for direct POD recording, me thinks...
But I think the weakest point are the programmed drums.

First of all, after listening to it a few times I'd say the snare needs less reverb
What would you recommend the get a more realistic highhat?
Vary the velocity?
Or do we have o look for a 'better' drum kit/sample library?
This was all done with Reason's Drum Kits 2 Refill.

Any help/tips are highly appreciated.
Thanks a lot.
Lars.

 

[Jammer429]

I am in a endless battle with drums I would recommend to use a real drummer over programed or at least make your drum samples from a real kit.when you use processed samples you cant tweak them the way you would like so I thinks that is how I would do it if I left out anything or if you have a new question let me know

 

[Chris Shaeffer]

I'm not listening on the best speakers in the world at the moment

Nice work! Good song, good mix (as far as I can tell) - maybe a ittle muddy but that's pretty par for the course with POD recordings. There is so much low and low mid stuff in the guitar that bass disappears. Either that or the guitarist is doing the mixing.

Drums:

The right answer: this genre of music doesn't work with programmed drums. You will fight the sound of the drums till your dying breath and still not be happy with it. Even a poorly recorded real drumset will kill the sound of the canned drums for this kind of music. There is no way around this.

The realistic answer: If there is no real drummer or space that can be used to record real drums you have to get ceative and invest in the software that sounds as good as it can. Reason is not that software- its designed for electronic sounding music, especially if you are using the redrum sequencer in the program. With only 3 veleocity levels its hard to sound real.

With rewire you can feed Reason a midi track that plays redrum and have a LOT more control over velocity but I don't think reason has that many velocity layers. It just turns down the volume of the hit instead of playing a sample of a drum that was hit lightly.

If you are going to commit to using canned drums then its worth investing an a GOOD drum player and library and get GOOD at programming it. It takes a lot of work and a lot more time than a decent drummer would take to learn a song and lay down the tracks...

I haven't used many drum samplers having made the choice to use real drummers. I've played around with other studios that have drum software, though, and I was impressed with FXpansions BFD. It has very good sounding samples, lots of velocity layers and wicked mixing options. One of the things that is missing from most drum samples is room sound- and since this tends to define the space of a recording its a HUGE gap in what canned drums can provide. I was impressed to see that BFD included mixable room mics in their kit.

Since this means you'll be feeding a MIDI track to your drum sampler see if your DAW has randomization functions. Sometimes adding a slight variation to velocity can liven up a track. The drum software may also have "humanizing" functions. They aren't perfect but if you get the settings right it can be better than the canned drum broken record SMACK.....SMACK.....SMACK.

Another tip I've read but haven't tried is to buy a set of cymbals and a hi hat and play those for real along with the programmed drums- minus the programmed cymbals. That adds the human feel, real sounds, room tone and eliminates the weakest sounds from the canned drums.

Good luck. I love and hate programmed drums. They seem a lot more convenient then they actually are. It takes a lot more time and effort to get a mediocre sound, but if its the only option...

Take care,
Chris

 

[WhiteStrat]

Your songs sound really good. I'm impressed that you're not satisfied with your drums. Your drums sound better than most others, and most others are satisfied with them! So I think it's great that you're pushing even further.

I'm not familiar with Reason. I either use loops (really nice recordings!), or sequence the drums myself on a midi track with my own samples.

The loops are obviously more limiting, but I have a large library, so I actually use them a lot. When I track with midi, I do vary the velocity a lot. Sometimes even a random velocity curve makes them sound more natural. I also like to use multiple samples for the same sound (e.g. a light snare and a hard snare), that way the sample actually sounds more acurate for lighter velocity and heavier velocity.

(Reason might let you do this--I don't know). Keep the great work coming. Oh yeah--I really liked your lyrics, too.