Recording drums using a multitrack

[bannyisme]

Hello all,

After abandoning MIDI, I wonder if people have some general advice on recording drums, using a manual external drum machine, and a manual, external multitrack. I'll propose a few methods here using this setup, but I hope there are more efficient methods...

Though it doesn't matter too much for this post, I use a Tascam 2488 MKII and an Alesis SR-18.

1) My friend uses a similar setup and records each drum separately - he copies / pastes each drum in the right place, on a separate track. It takes him roughly 4 hours to do each drum, but he does get brilliant results.

2) Make a decent pattern and record it all onto the multitrack; snare, bass; hihats and all. Pros: quick and simple; Cons: less control over stereo effect (in my opinion key to get intelligent-sounding drums), less ability to manipulate post-recording (eg, take out a poor-sounding snare beat).

3) Record each drum pattern separately, putting in some variety every now and again. Pros - nice stereo manipulation; Cons: less control over actual sound of drum combinations (eg, sound snare and bass make together – do the variations sound good?)

It would be nice if each drum could be isolated, then recorded separately. Using my current setup, I’m not sure if this is possible – ideally, a nice drum track would be made, each part isolated, and recorded. I don’t think this is possible using an Alesis SR-18 or similar methods. I assume this is another advantage of software-based drum machines.

Any thoughts at all?

Cheers

Dave

 

[The Green Hornet]

Yo Banny:

Seems like someone does a whole lot of work to patch some drum sounds.

Here is what you might try:

Look at "someone's" BOSS DR-880, and look at the manual too.

This box can do almost anything; I've been trying different patch-variations and the BOSS manual is pretty simplistic, IF ONE JUST READS SLOWLY.

If you want, you can also program drum sounds and write your entire drum song to fit whatever music you use. But, doing this takes longer.

When you try a drum patch, you will easily see how to change any key that you want to use when doing a song. [I don't use my sequencer on my Motif.] I should try that sometime but there is plenty of "stuff" to do just using the Synth with its environment.

I guess if you want to learn other methods or more different programs, you can hook up to a Junior College and do some music stuff of your choice. Low price for that type of learning.

But, back to what you "may" be trying is really fun work. Sometimes I do one 3 minute song for a CD that runs 4 to 5 hours or more. Again, you may want to check out the BOSS 880--a good machine for the money or the learning.

Green Hornet