Protools Drum Editing

PaulBrewer

I've been working with a great band called J90.

Seeing as I got meself some ProTools HD action I thought I'd get stuck in on the drum editing.

Their drummer played really well and really put his back into it so the editing wasn't for 'repair' purposes but to grab the best bits of his best takes and some minor drum pocketing i.e. pulling or pushing the very odd stray beat.

I spent 2 days on it between mucking about/experimenting doing and undoing but got what I think is a very satisfactory result.

When I got used to the process I transferred over the Key Commands,
(Zoom tool, Trim Tools, Select/Grab, Zoom In, Zoom Out, Split, Tab Transient Forward, Tab Transient Back, Slip and Grid, Undo and Redo plus Save and Edit/Mix window Toggle) to my Shuttle Pro 2 so I have that in one hand and the mouse in the other.

I'm using Waves Soundshifter for Time Stretching.

After a few hours of it I feel I'm flying it.

Do the Brothers use the Shuttle Pro or equivalent ?

Any other drum editing tips for me ?



Beat Detective I banish you forever !

madtheory

That looks cool. I have Editors Keys on my mac keyboard.

woodsdenis

I always have command focus on. B splits, E zooms etc. Always use elastic time. Make a group for your drums and away you go, multitrack fixing totally in phase.

How does the Waves thing work on 12 drumtracks, do you need it on all tracks.

PaulBrewer

woodsdenis wrote: »

I always have command focus on. B splits, E zooms etc. Always use elastic time. Make a group for your drums and away you go, multitrack fixing totally in phase.

How does the Waves thing work on 12 drumtracks, do you need it on all tracks.

I tried the Command Focus and 'Normal' .... my thinking was to have all the tools necessary at hand without having to take your eyes off the screen and with minimal movement.

I have the Editor Keys and the rubber overlay one too.

Even for the few hours I've been doing it, the time it takes for 'think' to 'do' is getting very short.

I have the two outer black button as tab back and forth, so without having to move my hand (as opposed to fingers) I have all I need to complete and edit without taking my eyes off the screen.

I am indeed grouping.

Firstly I'm recording the click on a track and dragging kick and snare to top of the group with just the 3 aforementioned tracks on screen.

One of the clicks is about 12 miliseconds long (I can't remember which one!), so you have a visual 'pocket' no matter what zoom level you're at.

I'm trying hard to avoid the Beat Detective rigidity by having nothing ahead of the click but a bit of leeway behind.

I'm Time Stretching using the Trim Tool, with what Plugin is used (Waves Timeshifter at the moment) and at what setting (Rhythm Polyphonic) set in Preferences beforehand.

So, for something behind the beat I'm trimming, dragging back and crossfading (pressing the Trim + Select Buttons selects the Combi Tool too).
If something is ahead I'm splitting, dragging it back and time stretching it AFTER the previous transient ....

Listening back to the track on headphones (drums only) I can't hear any degradation on the time stretched stuff so I'm well pleased.

There is usually a better way of doing things though isn't there ?

studiorat

Two words Playlists...

woodsdenis

PaulBrewer wrote: »

I tried the Command Focus and 'Normal' .... my thinking was to have all the tools necessary at hand without having to take your eyes off the screen and with minimal movement.

I have the Editor Keys and the rubber overlay one too.

Even for the few hours I've been doing it, the time it takes for 'think' to 'do' is getting very short.

I have the two outer black button as tab back and forth, so without having to move my hand (as opposed to fingers) I have all I need to complete and edit without taking my eyes off the screen.

I am indeed grouping.

Firstly I'm recording the click on a track and dragging kick and snare to top of the group with just the 3 aforementioned tracks on screen.

One of the clicks is about 12 miliseconds long (I can't remember which one!), so you have a visual 'pocket' no matter what zoom level you're at.

I'm trying hard to avoid the Beat Detective rigidity by having nothing ahead of the click but a bit of leeway behind.

I'm Time Stretching using the Trim Tool, with what Plugin is used (Waves Timeshifter at the moment) and at what setting (Rhythm Polyphonic) set in Preferences beforehand.

So, for something behind the beat I'm trimming, dragging back and crossfading (pressing the Trim + Select Buttons selects the Combi Tool too).
If something is ahead I'm splitting, dragging it back and time stretching it AFTER the previous transient ....

Listening back to the track on headphones (drums only) I can't hear any degradation on the time stretched stuff so I'm well pleased.

There is usually a better way of doing things though isn't there ?

That shuttle thing looks like a cool tool. What I dont understand is if you have a snare thats late and you drag it back to a beat, how using your setup do you drag all the corresponding mics (top/bottom/room/ambience) back keeping the same relative phase. How is this done using the the trim tool/Waves Soundshifter. Using elastic time you just drag the warp marker on the snare wherever you want and all the grouped tracks will follow. It really is that simple. It seems you are making life more difficult for your self.:D

woodsdenis

studiorat wrote: »

Two words Playlists...

Oh yes and those too:D

PaulBrewer

woodsdenis wrote: »

That shuttle thing looks like a cool tool. What I dont understand is if you have a snare thats late and you drag it back to a beat, how using your setup do you drag all the corresponding mics (top/bottom/room/ambience) back keeping the same relative phase. How is this done using the the trim tool/Waves Soundshifter. Using elastic time you just drag the warp marker on the snare wherever you want and all the grouped tracks will follow. It really is that simple. It seems you are making life more difficult for your self.:D

I tried Elastic and it seems to be audible on anything but tiny stretches.

Also this way, you don't stretch transients, very important I think.

Using the trim tool T+E it works on all Grouped tracks in phase simultaneously.

So you just grab, stretch to where you want, and crossfade but the initial transients aren't getting distorted in anyway, just moved (or not).

I will relook at Elastic though, the above is just today's idea !

PaulBrewer

studiorat wrote: »

Two words Playlists...

And have my shyt sound like your sloppy shyt ? Feck Out!

woodsdenis

PaulBrewer wrote: »

I tried Elastic and it seems to be audible on anything but tiny stretches.

Also this way, you don't stretch transients, very important I think.

Using the trim tool T+E it works on all Grouped tracks in phase simultaneously.

So you just grab, stretch to where you want, and crossfade but the initial transients aren't getting distorted in anyway, just moved (or not).

I will relook at Elastic though, the above is just today's idea !

http://www.groove3.com/str/elastic-time.html


Check the sample video, Its that easy.

PMI

Heard that band are pretty HOT, the next big thing hahaha....

nice tool, evan wont be happy that he played a STRAY hit

DamagedTrax

PaulBrewer wrote: »

I tried Elastic and it seems to be audible on anything but tiny stretches.

Also this way, you don't stretch transients, very important I think.

Using the trim tool T+E it works on all Grouped tracks in phase simultaneously.

So you just grab, stretch to where you want, and crossfade but the initial transients aren't getting distorted in anyway, just moved (or not).

I will relook at Elastic though, the above is just today's idea !

do your elastic with the rhythmic mode until you have everything you want to be where it is and then switch to x-form and render.
it will take about 30mins to render a full kit but you wont hear any artifacts.

PaulBrewer

woodsdenis wrote: »

http://www.groove3.com/str/elastic-time.html


Check the sample video, Its that easy.

Thanks for that Denis and Damage.

digitaldeath

DamagedTrax wrote: »

do your elastic with the rhythmic mode until you have everything you want to be where it is and then switch to x-form and render.
it will take about 30mins to render a full kit but you wont hear any artifacts.

Bull****. EA is terrible for drum editing - why aren't you using Beat Detective?
To be honest, I no longer bother with BD either - it's quicker for me to edit drums in Reaper by slip editing the tracks - a feature which is not in Pro-Tools.

Watch this tutorial and weep!
http://www.adamwathan.com/tutorials/reaperslipedit.mov

DamagedTrax

digitaldeath wrote: »

Bull****. EA is terrible for drum editing - why aren't you using Beat Detective?
To be honest, I no longer bother with BD either - it's quicker for me to edit drums in Reaper by slip editing the tracks - a feature which is not in Pro-Tools.

Watch this tutorial and weep!
http://www.adamwathan.com/tutorials/reaperslipedit.mov

horses for courses. i get my work done perfectly with a mix of elastic and BD. and no offence, but if you think elastic is terrible for drums you obviously arent aware of how to use it properly.

as for reaper, you're preaching to the converted. but until the day that they implement edit grouping ill stick to editing in protools and mixing in reaper.

studiorat

If you're having trouble with the elastic audio and you're only moving stuff by a gnats. Why use it at all? Why not just move it and cross-fade.

If you are moving stuff that ends up with a double hit on the out of the edit I'd say that's moving it too much.