Recording with an electronic drumset

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hmmrnhnk

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The set up that I am working on right now is going to be centered around my Roland td11 kit. It occurred to me that I have no real plan or idea of how I would get my drums into the mix. Like most things I'm sure there are a few "best" ways to do this. So -
How can I record the drums?
And, how does a program like studio drummer fit into the mix?
 
Need more information? Are you recording to a computer? A stand alone recorder?

If you fill us in on what you have and what you want to accomplish, Im sure you will get helpful answers.

There are several outputs available from the Roland brain, stereo line out, MIDI out and digital out.
 
Assuming you're going to PC/Mac most likely you'd record the MIDI and replace the samples with better ones via a drum sample program ITB and do whatever editing needed to be done there as well.
 
Exactly. I run from my Alesis DM10 directly through midi into Reaper, edit any problems, trigger the midi with SSD, send the unmixed signals to wav, import in Reason and mix. There are easier ways, but I do all my mixing in Reason, and I bought SSD instead of Reason Drums (which I don't regret sound-wise, but it adds a few steps to the process).
 
mdainsd said:
Need more information? Are you recording to a computer? A stand alone recorder?

If you fill us in on what you have and what you want to accomplish, Im sure you will get helpful answers.

There are several outputs available from the Roland brain, stereo line out, MIDI out and digital out.
Click to expand...

Touche. I am running everything thru my iMac via Focusrite's Saffire Pro 26 using Reaper. My goals are reasonably humble:
1. Expand my current kit selection with the td11 brain.
2. Expand my control over the drum mix in songs I control.

For the short term I am just looking to record some sessions I play with friends. I'm green and my focus is on learning and growing. This being said, I'd prefer to grow into something slowly than out of something quickly.

Cheers
 
I highly recommend looking into SSD, Superior Drummer and whatever other trigger programs you have in mind. The kits you can make there and the mike options that are built in (at least in SSD where all my current experience is) are well worth the time. You would not need to upgrade the brain that way, as all you need is the midi. SSD is still running their super deal at only $99. Latency should be fairly low (<10ms) with your setup. Just run midi out into the 26 into Reaper. Set up Steven Slate Drums in Reaper. Set the triggers to trigger specific things in SSD and voila! you have all the SSD drums at your disposal. You can now create whatever kits sound good to you for whatever projects, get those great drum sounds, and even be able to practice through the setup with those killer drum sounds from SSD (or SD or UD or BFD, whatever you choose to use).
 
depends on what kind of band you are playing for. If you want it to sound more "live" plug it in and mic up the amp get some roomshittiness in there
 
I also recently bough the Roland TD 11...so I am just getting my feet wet... but have you tried modifying the parameters of the individual drums yet ?
You can do quite a bit of modeling within the brain already...I spent hrs getting the various volumes for individual toms
compared to the snare and Hi Hat for example to get the levels to the way I hammer the drums.
I'm not that great a drummer so I recorded the individual drums separately for better timing control in Cubase.
So far I've been happy with the basic sound I achieved...getting tight sounding low resonance toms and snare was my goal...but still tweaking.
I also wrote down all the final parameters in Modified on the "Rock Drum" set on a chart...so I know where to start again for reference to get my desired sound next time.
I used the left and right output jacks on the TD 11...will try the midi out at some point...may be a quality surprise.
 
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