Triggers and recording channels

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phonzadellika

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Good afternoon everyone,

So, I'm not a drummer, but I record one in real life :) Anyhoo, he's interested in getting some triggers for his drumset and I'm interested in recording them. Up to this point in my life, I've avoided all things MIDI with a passion.

How do you guys record your triggers along with your kit? I usually throw a mic on the snare, kick, every tom, and use a spaced pair for the OH. I like to have two room mics as well. I'd like to put triggers on all the drums, that way I can get the MIDI information from the trigger as well as the recorded sound.

Currently, I'm running a Firestudio, but will be upgrading to an Aurora 16 soon. I'm using Reaper for my DAW, but I just got into it so I am not fluent yet. Can I run something like a MOTU USB Midi Interface with the Aurora 16 stimultaneously? Do I have to run individual line outs from the brain into the inputs on my recording interface? Or can I just get myself a brain with a MIDI Out, run that into the MIDI in on the back of my firestudio, and the Firestudio will automatically detect how many MIDI channels are on the brain and I can parse out the channels that way? Seriously, I know next to nothing about MIDI controllers or drum triggers. Help me out :eek:
 
You can run a audio interface and midi at the same time with no issues.
You only need midi out from the brain if you just want to record the midi output. Usually it will put it all on one channel with each drum being a different note. Some drum brains will let you assign the different triggers to different midi channels but it isn't really necessary since it is easy to copy individual notes to a different track if need be.
 
i actually record a lot of my drums with triggers. I have a dm5 trigger module, a roland kick and roland snare trigger and 5 ddrum tom triggers.

One way you can record with triggers is get a good drum replacement program such as reason and/or drumogog and have the triggers set up on the drums. Dont bother putting up OH's because you'll do that again later.

Have the drummer record all his parts (to a click!) and after he's done quanitize the tracks and get all the drums parts moved and exactly the way they should be (could be only a kick hit here or there or every fill... depends on the drummer). After you do that you can either a) use pre recorded kick/snare and tom samples or MAKE YOUR OWN :]

by making you own just take the drummers tom/snare/kick, put it in the room you wish to record it in and record 50 hits of the drum being hit starting by hitting it at a almost silent hit to ending in a hit that makes you think the drum will break (haha). Then choose the ones you like and save them for future reference.

After you replace the audio lines on the recording program with samples next you will have you drummer come back in and record his cymbal tracks over the beautiful sounding drums.

Most drummers will hear this and there facial expression will be priceless. But its not as hard as it looks! Just get the drummer to only set up cymbals and play as if he's hitting the other drums. By doing this you wont have the bleed from any old/existing drums that sound bad or that were played off time.



If you decide to only trigger the kick and/or snare you can do a very similar method too. What i do is i have a snare and kick that is pre stuffed with moving blankets to make it virtually silent when hit compared to the rest of the kit so that when my dm5 module picks up the hits you only hear the triggered sound. By doing that it can make your life even easier in the end so you dont have to redo the cymbals. But if you plan on recording with all triggers i highly suggest to try it that way.


hope i could help.


PS- triggers are only good and I found effective on rock music whether it be pop rock or (which works best) heavy metal. I don't see triggers making a country or jazz song good.
 
Interesting...do you know of any drum brains off the top of your head that would allow you to set the triggers to different channels? Also, do you have any experience with Alesis Trigger I|O or that Roland 6 trigger dealy-do that costs an arm and a leg? Are those any good?
 
Thanks buryher17,

My drummer has got a nice kit, and we play in a decent sounding room, and I've got micing his kit down to a science. I was going to use the triggers because he sometimes hits the drums with a little less authority than he should and also sometimes has poor dynamics control, so I'm hoping that the triggers can help me out.

My biggest thing about the triggers is just trying to get the separate MIDI channels into my computer without a fight. I seem to remember a few years ago, running different interfaces on the same DAW at the same time could be a real nightmare.
 
You don't need different midi channels, that would make things 100 times more complicated. You just need one midi channel. Each drum will be a different note. You set the sound module/plugin to trigger the snare sound when the snare note is played. Same for the kick, and the toms, etc... You have 88 notes to play with and only 16 possible channels.

What are you going to use for the sounds? Drumagog works well for this.
 
I've got a nice room, Audix D-Series mic set, a Vintech 473 and a Vintech Dual 72, so I'll probably just sample the drum kits. Haven't really picked a replacement software yet, although I did like the BFD trial version.

I'm going to trigger the kit so that I have a backup plan if the mic'd up drums don't sound great, too many flubs for sections, stuff like that.
 
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