Drum VIs? Loops?

[PatriotsBiker]

Is there a drum VI that's got less of a finished product sound than some of the other popular favorites? I use SD3 and have quite a few packs. It is a fine product and does have some behind the scenes flexibility to it. In the end, though, it is still largly a finished, mixed product. Especially with the presets/patches.

And so, I'm hoping to find something with a less baked sound to begin with. Maybe something not so heavily compressed or infused with genre specific flavorings already. Do any of these VI's have a more neutral, or perhaps an earlier stage sound than SD3? I do like being able to construct a drum track like I do with SD3 and not be entirely subject to the inflexibilities of loops.

[amagras]

If I'm not mistaken SD3 has completely raw presets. I like Sennheiser Drummica precisely for that.

[PatriotsBiker]

Originally Posted by amagras

If I'm not mistaken SD3 has completely raw presets. I like Sennheiser Drummica precisely for that.

Very polished, in the very least, which is not really a bad thing.

<Fast-forward 90-minutes>
For whatever reason, your comment reminded me of an option in the Bounce functionality where one can choose microphone channels pre-mixer (no levels, panning or FX). It doesn't say anything about any of the other settings like any tunings, envelopes, etc, etc. I will certainly look into this.

[albee1952]

What I have always done with VI drums is make them my own. That happens in a few ways:
#1-turn off all the ambience and room mics
#2-detune the drums(and make presets for all of these tips) slightly different from factory(just pushing tuning up or down slightly is enough and some folks tune for the song. As with anything, YMMV)
#3-split drums out to their own tracks and treat them as you would if you had recorded them yourself. And remember that you can decide whether to pan according to the drummer's perspective, or the audience perspective(my preference is audience perspective, but either is valid)
#4-use sends and feed everything(minus bass drum) to a stereo AUX with a room reverb that pleases you(for me, its often the IK Classik Room). Not suggesting a big cavernous reverb, just put the drums into a room of your choosing, instead of the room that was used by Toontrack(or whoever). This one tip will present a major shift way from sounding like everyone else that uses the same VI.
#5-don't just drag&drop the midi loops and call it done. Go in and edit the midi. Something as simple as removing a few hits on bass drum, change the bass drum pattern to match your bass track, or adding a few grace notes on the snare. Or dragging the notes for hihat in a chorus or bridge and moving them to a ride, or the ride bell.(a lot of factory loops are much too busy for me. Just because a drummer CAN play that busy, doesn't mean they WOULD play that busy)

[DonaldM]

Dave (Albee) has some great ideas. I use AIR Transfuser a lot. One reason is it has 2 features that allow for all sorts of creative manipulation of loops to get the "loopness" and "sameness" out. One is their Beatcutter effect. It allows you to select various ways to alter a loop. You can select "repeat" and "note order", for example, and Transfuser will make random changes to the beat, whether midi or audio source. That alone allows for getting all sorts of great variations. The other is the "Mario" feature, which will take a sequence, either audio or midi, and, depending on what variables you choose, create random variations, which you can then store as a new sequence. And you can import your own loops from any audio source, or import your own kits, piece by piece to the drum pads. You can make the starting sequence as raw as you want! Its why I really like Transfuser. There just isn't anything quite like it out there!

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by albee1952

#4-use sends and feed everything(minus bass drum) to a stereo AUX with a room reverb that pleases you(for me, its often the IK Classik Room).

That's my go to drum reverb as well. I like the smooth drum room sound. Just the right touch of reverb for drums, in most cases.

[PatriotsBiker]

Originally Posted by albee1952

What I have always done with VI drums is make them my own. That happens in a few ways:
#1-turn off all the ambience and room mics
#2-detune the drums(and make presets for all of these tips) slightly different from factory(just pushing tuning up or down slightly is enough and some folks tune for the song. As with anything, YMMV)
#3-split drums out to their own tracks and treat them as you would if you had recorded them yourself. And remember that you can decide whether to pan according to the drummer's perspective, or the audience perspective(my preference is audience perspective, but either is valid)
#4-use sends and feed everything(minus bass drum) to a stereo AUX with a room reverb that pleases you(for me, its often the IK Classik Room). Not suggesting a big cavernous reverb, just put the drums into a room of your choosing, instead of the room that was used by Toontrack(or whoever). This one tip will present a major shift way from sounding like everyone else that uses the same VI.
#5-don't just drag&drop the midi loops and call it done. Go in and edit the midi. Something as simple as removing a few hits on bass drum, change the bass drum pattern to match your bass track, or adding a few grace notes on the snare. Or dragging the notes for hihat in a chorus or bridge and moving them to a ride, or the ride bell.(a lot of factory loops are much too busy for me. Just because a drummer CAN play that busy, doesn't mean they WOULD play that busy)

Good tips - the lot!

RE #5 - Going backwards, it's typical for me to build my song's drum structure all in one sitting so that I have something to start with and print them. I'll take performance notes as I go along. Things like add a tom-riff here, or ease off the snare a bit there, etc, etc. I'll add them in just before final mix-down.

RE #4 - You're talking about out in the DAW, right? I've done similar to this. I've tried enhancing the ambience inside the VI mixer and I've tried adding ambience on the DAW - both with and without those elements coming in from the VI. What a mess that can be.

It's nice to take a Reverb from a snare track inside the VI and emulate it inside the DAW the best I can so that the snare sounds very close. Makes it available for re-use for anything. Even duplicating and giving a clean copy to a guitar track to give it sort of relational glue.

RE #3: I do this unless I am very lazy and temporary. The only thing I don't like is how SD3 with take 3-mono kick mics, for example, and make me take stereo tracks. I'm going to apply the bounce to mic channels feature and make that all Mono.

RE #2: This I need to do much more than I do. That, and the envelope features.

RE #1: I mean, why not, right? I often don't use them. Too messy and I don't seem to know how to blend them in properly.

Thanks again for the comments!

[musicman691]

I do pretty much what Dave does except for two things:
I generally don't detune the drums
Instead of a room reverb I'll use a plate of some type


btw I use BFD3


My mantra for vi drums has always been to treat them as I would a real physical drum kit - except I don't have to pay the drummer

[amagras]

Originally Posted by musicman691

My mantra for vi drums has always been to treat them as I would a real physical drum kit - except I don't have to pay the drummer

Just like a real physical drummer

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by musicman691

My mantra for vi drums has always been to treat them as I would a real physical drum kit - except I don't have to pay the drummer

And the VI drummer is ALWAYS on beat!