Drum Replacement/Augmentation

PaulBrewer

I've been mucking about in ProTools with Drums .

I've been using Drumagog which is very easy to use .

When we record a kit we always do a sample session at the end where the drummer plays every instrument till it fades to 'silence'.

What I've been doing is making ambience samples for kick and snare.

For example to get a Snare ambience I leave all tracks open except the Snare (and Toms which could be ringing) and bounce that mix to a stereo file.

That gets loaded into Drumagog which can then be triggered by a duplicate snare track.

On first listen it seems to work quite well, the 'white noise' of the ambience covering a lot.

However when I recorded the Drumagog output on to a track and compare it to the original 'trigger' track all is not quite well with regard to timing.

This is even worse with the kick where flams were distinctly audible (using a kick amb sample of course!)

So I went about moving them -

As the Drumagog output is the same ambience sample I copied that (Apple -C or the 2 top buttons on the Expert Mouse)

I put the Trigger Track above ambience track on the Arrange page in ProTools and using my ShuttlePro 2 I programmed a Macro.

So using the Tab forward and Tab back buttons I've already programmed on my Shuttle I can whizz along the trigger track snare transients.

Once I'm on one I hit my Macro Button on the Shuttle.

The Macro consists of 'Move Edit Selection DOWN' (in this case the cursor at the snare transient) , then 'Paste' (Apple V, in this case my ambience sample) then 'Move Edit Selection UP' back to the trigger track followed by TAB which goes to the next Transient.

Whereupon I hit the Macro Button again !

I'd be interested in hearing how other guys go at things ....

woodsdenis

You are doing it the tried and tested Kenny Gioia way but with a programmable mouse. You actually can do it really fast, with practice on a keyboard, with command focus on. It is of no surprise that drumagog is inconsistent, I have found to be not great however drum replacement/augmentation is not something I do alot. Massey DTM is brilliant for this and he has a new version comming out soon:eek::eek::eek::eek:
Steven Slates trigger seems to be the new one on the block check that one out.

PaulBrewer

Who's Kenny ? (I'll google him!)

The DTM was the free plugin wasn't it ?
Don't suppose you have a copy of the installer ?

I saw the Slate one ok, but haven't tried it.

Drumagog 5 is due out too with 'improved' triggering apparently.

woodsdenis

Kenny does Protools instruction videos aswell as being a great engineer. Nice guy.

DTM is free only if you have bought existing Massey plugs, It was a thankyou for all who supported him. Check them out, the Limiter is by far one of the best out there and really well priced as are all of his plugs. If I were buying a drum replacer I would wait and see what the Massey one turns out like. Oh yea use the command focus in PT and paste is just V and copy C etc its brilliant for loads of things, B splits etc

progsound

PaulBrewer wrote: »

When we record a kit we always do a sample session at the end where the drummer plays every instrument till it fades to 'silence'.

Just curious here, but why dont you sample the kit before the session starts when the skins are still fresh and nicley tuned ???

trackmixstudio

I was using Aptrigga which is very good but I have now switched to Slate Trigger. It works really well. An ilok demo is available to try it.
It comes with a very big sample library so it is quite easy to find samples that match the original recorded drums. You also have phase accurate room samples for each drum sample. You can also set how much velocity sensitivity you want making it very easy to make sure each kik/snr is a full on balls to the wall whack if that's what you need.
Slate has promised an update in the next couple of weeks to set up your own samples with Trigger.
I also demoed the SPL drum replacer but didn't like it.
The best way to record if you think you are going to trigger later is to use acoustic triggers (eg DW pro triggers) and record them as audio tracks.
You can then get very accurate sample replacement, even on complicated rolls.
I never trigger toms because it sounds very obvious to me but kick and snare nearly always get some sample blended in.

As for Paul's macro moving thing, I have no idea what you are talking about.

PaulBrewer

woodsdenis wrote: »

Kenny does Protools instruction videos aswell as being a great engineer. Nice guy.

DTM is free only if you have bought existing Massey plugs, It was a thankyou for all who supported him. Check them out, the Limiter is by far one of the best out there and really well priced as are all of his plugs. If I were buying a drum replacer I would wait and see what the Massey one turns out like. Oh yea use the command focus in PT and paste is just V and copy C etc its brilliant for loads of things, B splits etc

I bought Tape Head recently. I think the DTM is no longer available, though it was free.

I use Command Focus a lot - the advantage I find with the Shuttle is that you don't take your eyes off the screen or move your hands.

I'm still only a hobbyist at this ( I don't do it every day) but I've found that I can really work quickly with the Shuttle.

I'm lucky enough to get Demo copies of all the plug-ins we do , Drumagog being one of them.

PaulBrewer

trackmixstudio wrote: »

I was using Aptrigga which is very good but I have now switched to Slate Trigger. It works really well. An ilok demo is available to try it.
It comes with a very big sample library so it is quite easy to find samples that match the original recorded drums. You also have phase accurate room samples for each drum sample. You can also set how much velocity sensitivity you want making it very easy to make sure each kik/snr is a full on balls to the wall whack if that's what you need.
Slate has promised an update in the next couple of weeks to set up your own samples with Trigger.
I also demoed the SPL drum replacer but didn't like it.
The best way to record if you think you are going to trigger later is to use acoustic triggers (eg DW pro triggers) and record them as audio tracks.
You can then get very accurate sample replacement, even on complicated rolls.
I never trigger toms because it sounds very obvious to me but kick and snare nearly always get some sample blended in.

As for Paul's macro moving thing, I have no idea what you are talking about.

Good point about phase. Drumagog is supposed to be phase accurate but I found reversing the polarity on both samples, in this instance, made for more meat, despite me physically looking beforehand at the phase ....

The Macro is just a bunch of keystrokes pre programmed to be triggered by one keystroke (Button 12 on the Shuttle here).

So, for one button press on the Shuttle I can get the cursor to drop to my sample track (from the transient of the trigger track) pop a sample in , return to the trigger track and move to the next transient.

1 button press now does 4 jobs for me. Across a track, (or a days work) that's a whole heap of button pressing saved.

woodsdenis

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Good point about phase. Drumagog is supposed to be phase accurate but I found reversing the polarity on both samples, in this instance, made for more meat, despite me physically looking beforehand at the phase ....

The Macro is just a bunch of keystrokes pre programmed to be triggered by one keystroke (Button 12 on the Shuttle here).

So, for one button press on the Shuttle I can get the cursor to drop to my sample track (from the transient of the trigger track) pop a sample in , return to the trigger track and move to the next transient.

1 button press now does 4 jobs for me. Across a track, (or a days work) that's a whole heap of button pressing saved.

What is the mouse you are using Paul ? Do you have a link ? Quickeys is used a lot, its a program that you can create macros, and trigger them from specific keys.

PaulBrewer

I'm using this with the additional handrest as a mouse -

http://us.kensington.com/html/2200.html

and the Shuttle Pro 2 for the rest -

http://retail.contourdesign.com/?/products/23

Best Euro 50 on Adverts I ever spent !

Quickeys uses the keyboard of course so whilst good, still means moving hands and eyes unnecessarily i.e. less ergonomic.

PMI

Being not a fan of drumagog, always had probs like phase and latency etc... I would reach for toontracks drumtracker instead and either use superior or kontakt for my sample/sound.

As it will throw the audio to a midi file and off ya go

dasdog

PMI wrote: »

Being not a fan of drumagog, always had probs like phase and latency etc... I would reach for toontracks drumtracker instead and either use superior or kontakt for my sample/sound.

As it will throw the audio to a midi file and off ya go

A little OT but I don't suppose you are using a 64-bit OS (Win7) for drumtracker? Toontrack said they were providing 64-bit support for their non-legacy products in Q1 of this year, which has passed, and there is no sign of a 64-bit version yet. Adding more than one input and drumtracker, which very much has the feel of a v1.0 program, becomes irresponsive. I'm having no problem running 32-bit Superior2.0/Cubase5.0/Reason4.0 on my 64-bit OS. Thanks.

PMI

Im using latest OSX....

so cant help ya on the windows side with this one

dasdog

No worries. As its a stand alone I may have a workaround (run a 32-bit OS like Win XP in a virtual machine and take the output). Either that or its my soundcard which I really should replace anyway.

PaulBrewer

progsound wrote: »

Just curious here, but why dont you sample the kit before the session starts when the skins are still fresh and nicley tuned ???

Good question.

How ever if you take samples after the last take (presumably 'the one') the samples will be closer to the exact track sound.

Also things like snares or cymbals do often get changed , as well as tuning, during setup or perhaps the first few takes.