I made my choice for a Drum Virtual Instrument that I can trigger from MIDI through my drumset or use predefined tweakable grooves: Addictive Drums by XLNAudio.
It's one the standards with Steven Slate's, EZDrummer, BFD2 and a few others.
Why AD? Well, I get the kits I need (I added the ReelMachine pack for electro sounds), I get the customization I need. I tested it and it doesn't suck out a lot of resources. And I like the way the drum doesn't sound "BIG" like a lot of others VSTs do. BIG sounding drums may sound big all right, but will most likely be hard to fit into a mix.
Price? I got both the VST + the bundle for under $160 :-) If you wanna know how, subscribe :-)
Next: replacing all the crappy drum sounds in my music, and see if it makes a difference.
Showing posts with label drums. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drums. Show all posts
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Friday, February 8, 2013
Goal tracking
I said I would not buy for more than USD500 of gear/stuff for my studio in 2013.
Boy is this gonna be hard! :-)
I needed a second mic stand so that I could track acoustic guitar right off the bat without having to circle around the room for 20 minutes setting everything up (see this post for why that's important). I bought it for a bit less than USD 70 including shipping. A nice Samson BL3, like the other one I have.
So that's USD430 left.
On my buy list, there currently is:
God forbid something breaks. Do I get a break? :-)
Boy is this gonna be hard! :-)
I needed a second mic stand so that I could track acoustic guitar right off the bat without having to circle around the room for 20 minutes setting everything up (see this post for why that's important). I bought it for a bit less than USD 70 including shipping. A nice Samson BL3, like the other one I have.
So that's USD430 left.
On my buy list, there currently is:
- Addictive Drums by XLNAudio: my drum samples suck bad. Drums and bass are the most important things to get right in modern music. AD gets the job done for a very reasonable price. I have my sight set on the a nice bundle of AD + the Reel Machine ADPak with electro sounds
- Valhalla Room reverb plugin: the guys over at http://www.homerecordingshow.com have been raving about how good this plugin is; why buy a reverb? I can't hear a bad EQ or a bad compressor (yet?) but I can definitely hear a bad reverb. Plus the guy who makes it (Sean Costello) is really cool.
- A bass guitar; yes, I can't play the bass, but the sound I get with my crappy sample and the keyboard is plain horrible. A real bass, even a cheap one, either direct in or through my Line6 PocketPOD will definitely sound better
God forbid something breaks. Do I get a break? :-)
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Drum editing?
Drum editing. It sucks.
You see, I can handle myself fairly well in a live environment because the groove there is physical, i.e. I either can see the other players and benefit from the band's natural rythm or they can follow me; also, if I practice with my MP3 player on, the whole song already has its groove so it's a lot easier to play in that situation (note to self: find some other way to practice drums).
So drummers, if you want to be recording stuff, you better be ready to play to a click track; yeah yeah, kills the groove, whatever. It's either that or you'll be drum-edited :-)
When drum editing, two things are important: 1) edit while all the tracks are playing so that by trying to fit the notes to the grid, you don't accidently kill the sync with the other instruments (yes, those can move too) 2) look at patterns in the drum playing; for example, I noticed that I start fills a tiny bit early which makes me be early for the next x measures. Note to self: be patient, the nice fill will sound better if you wait :-)
Finally, this: bass and kick have to be aligned. Really. You will notice such a huge difference by moving them in sync by even a 1/32th note. My ears seem to be more sensitive to rythm discrepancies in the lows, go figure.
You see, I can handle myself fairly well in a live environment because the groove there is physical, i.e. I either can see the other players and benefit from the band's natural rythm or they can follow me; also, if I practice with my MP3 player on, the whole song already has its groove so it's a lot easier to play in that situation (note to self: find some other way to practice drums).
So drummers, if you want to be recording stuff, you better be ready to play to a click track; yeah yeah, kills the groove, whatever. It's either that or you'll be drum-edited :-)
When drum editing, two things are important: 1) edit while all the tracks are playing so that by trying to fit the notes to the grid, you don't accidently kill the sync with the other instruments (yes, those can move too) 2) look at patterns in the drum playing; for example, I noticed that I start fills a tiny bit early which makes me be early for the next x measures. Note to self: be patient, the nice fill will sound better if you wait :-)
Finally, this: bass and kick have to be aligned. Really. You will notice such a huge difference by moving them in sync by even a 1/32th note. My ears seem to be more sensitive to rythm discrepancies in the lows, go figure.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Why bother?
So you might ask yourself, dear reader, why bother? Why bother tracking (recording) drums from an electronic set to then trigger sample in my Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)?
Well, there's multiple reasons.
Number one, when you are tracking and mixing in the same small (3x4m, or about 10x13 feet for you imperials) room, you can't have a live drum set. Obvious, right?
Number two, if I had a live drum set, I would need s lot more space because percussion with a lot of low end (low frequencies) will resonate about a shitton (metric) in such a small space.
Number three, if I had a live drum set, I would need at least 2 or 3 mics (microphones) to start recording drums: one "room" mic (whose captured sound would most likely suck because of reflections and low end travelling all over the place), one kick mic and one overhead mic for the toms, or 2 for the toms, depending on how the room would sound. The reason why I would need all these mics is because drum sounds coming from cymbals, a snare drum or a kick drum are very different and are treated very differently down the mixing road. To record all these mics, I would need to change my interface to accommodate for more inputs. And more cables. Because drum mics tend to be dynamic mics because they can absorb very high air compression from banging on these two like there's no tomorrow, I would need to buy 1 or 2 of those. Because these, in turn, require a pre-amplifier (preamp) to take the incoming mic signal and turn it into a usable signal (line-level), I would need to buy a preamp as well, which I don't have since the mics I have are condenser microphones which do not need special preamps since the ones in my audio interface are good enough.
Number four, I like to play drums; if I want to keep my marriage and paternity as enjoyable as they are now, electronic drums are a good compromise. Yes, the sound sucks, yes the pads are plastic. But if you saw my wife you'd understand :-)
So then the issue goes from acoustics and buying more gear to teaching my DAW how to receive MIDI input from my drum set, and then how to teach my DAW to trigger sampled drum sounds (samples) when instructed to. The other great thing about this method is that I can send each drum sound (kick, high hat, crash cymbal, etc.) through a different channel to my DAW, which means that I can route each incoming channel to a different track, which in turn means that I can treat each drum sound differently depending on what I have in mind. Not to mention the fact that some decent sample libraries are available for free.
So there. That's why I bother.
I'll talk about why I bother with all the rest too :-)
Well, there's multiple reasons.
Number one, when you are tracking and mixing in the same small (3x4m, or about 10x13 feet for you imperials) room, you can't have a live drum set. Obvious, right?
Number two, if I had a live drum set, I would need s lot more space because percussion with a lot of low end (low frequencies) will resonate about a shitton (metric) in such a small space.
Number three, if I had a live drum set, I would need at least 2 or 3 mics (microphones) to start recording drums: one "room" mic (whose captured sound would most likely suck because of reflections and low end travelling all over the place), one kick mic and one overhead mic for the toms, or 2 for the toms, depending on how the room would sound. The reason why I would need all these mics is because drum sounds coming from cymbals, a snare drum or a kick drum are very different and are treated very differently down the mixing road. To record all these mics, I would need to change my interface to accommodate for more inputs. And more cables. Because drum mics tend to be dynamic mics because they can absorb very high air compression from banging on these two like there's no tomorrow, I would need to buy 1 or 2 of those. Because these, in turn, require a pre-amplifier (preamp) to take the incoming mic signal and turn it into a usable signal (line-level), I would need to buy a preamp as well, which I don't have since the mics I have are condenser microphones which do not need special preamps since the ones in my audio interface are good enough.
Number four, I like to play drums; if I want to keep my marriage and paternity as enjoyable as they are now, electronic drums are a good compromise. Yes, the sound sucks, yes the pads are plastic. But if you saw my wife you'd understand :-)
So then the issue goes from acoustics and buying more gear to teaching my DAW how to receive MIDI input from my drum set, and then how to teach my DAW to trigger sampled drum sounds (samples) when instructed to. The other great thing about this method is that I can send each drum sound (kick, high hat, crash cymbal, etc.) through a different channel to my DAW, which means that I can route each incoming channel to a different track, which in turn means that I can treat each drum sound differently depending on what I have in mind. Not to mention the fact that some decent sample libraries are available for free.
So there. That's why I bother.
I'll talk about why I bother with all the rest too :-)
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Finally
I finally got Reaper to accept MIDI drums coming from my Yamaha DTX-500 set. I have been too lazy to bother, thinking it would take me too much time.
It did take time because, well, I'm a n00b and I did it the wrong way first: have my son hit each pad individually, see in the VST in Reaper to what note that pad corresponds, then proceed to determine to which VST note it should correspond since that can't be changed in the VST. But it can on the drum set. Capito? So in the middle of all this I get confused. And I have to start over.
So I sit at the drum set and decide to check for each pad what the programmed note is. Alle-f*cking-luja! Simply hit the pad and change the destination note: the VST will play whatever note the incoming signal corresponds to, so you can change it on the fly. 10 minutes later, the setup is done.
Of course, there's a bit of latency, but that's always better than those crummy MIDI-based drum loops I'm currently using.
I hope.
It did take time because, well, I'm a n00b and I did it the wrong way first: have my son hit each pad individually, see in the VST in Reaper to what note that pad corresponds, then proceed to determine to which VST note it should correspond since that can't be changed in the VST. But it can on the drum set. Capito? So in the middle of all this I get confused. And I have to start over.
So I sit at the drum set and decide to check for each pad what the programmed note is. Alle-f*cking-luja! Simply hit the pad and change the destination note: the VST will play whatever note the incoming signal corresponds to, so you can change it on the fly. 10 minutes later, the setup is done.
Of course, there's a bit of latency, but that's always better than those crummy MIDI-based drum loops I'm currently using.
I hope.
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