Drum trigers.. good i dea?

[JonnyGinese]

hey.. I was wondering if a Kick drum midi trigger or tone triger wound be a good idea. What i mean is.. every time the kick drum hits.. instead of it recording the acctual sound it jsut uses the song form the already recorded kick sound.. that way you always knwo its going to be good whith out question. I don't think this would really work on anything else besides the kick because all the other drums have alor of dynamics. Just a thought.. input please.

Jonny

[Allen Tucker]

i am not a big fan of doing that. There are a lot of dynamics on the kick as well...especially in bridges or choruses that are very different from the verse. Also, I would be worried about false triggers and hits that aren't picked up....although it has been a long time since i have triggered anything so maybe the technology is better than when i did it last. my feeling is that if you record it normally, even if a hit isn't picked up all that well, you will at least know it is there and can drop in a good hit. if they are triggered, the hit wouldn't even be there...it would just be empty space. my preference would be to record it normally and then use soundreplacer or a comparible program to replace the hits with a good sample with the dynamics in place.

[JonnyGinese]

true.. Every badn I've recorded so far has had a sealed kick drum(no port) so its been hard to get a kick sound I'm happy with.. Even if i mic the beeters aswell.. I'll just have to see what happens. Maybe I'll jstu get a Nice kick drums and port it and have pople use that if they have a non ported kick.

[BIG D]

Hi,

I have had great success using a DDRUM head and triggers. Sometimes actually record the actual drum sound first, then use gates Compression and EQ to then send signal to DDRUM head and trigger sounds or record MIDI from DDRUM then trigger BFD. The ddrum successfully translates the different velocities.

I can then go into the MIDI and edit as well to achieve the best results before I commit triggered sounds to Hard Drive.

All the Best,

Big D

[Matt Whritenour]

true.. Every badn I've recorded so far has had a sealed kick drum(no port) so its been hard to get a kick sound I'm happy with.. Even if i mic the beeters aswell.. I'll just have to see what happens. Maybe I'll jstu get a Nice kick drums and port it and have pople use that if they have a non ported kick.

tell them they need to take off the front head...

[mkosacek]

I have an Alesis DM5 that I use sometimes. I have the DDrum Redshot triggers. they are great for the price-- about $20 a piece. Don't even waste your time with the the disc-type triggers. They are cheap for a reason. THEY SUCK! The nice thing with this is that you can record a MIDI track whenever you track drums, then take it or leave it. Sometimes I bring the audio from the DM5 into an aux track and mix it in with the recorded drum sound. not too much and it just gives it a little more "oomph". But, the DM5 is not the greatest for drum sounds. Some are OK, but its limited and you can't load in other samples. I hear Ddrum is much better in this respect.
Another thing I have done, is to create a midi track alongside the existing kick track. then zoom so you can see the initial kick transients clearly. Pencil in a MIDI kick aligned with each kick in the audio track. If you mix in the sampled audio from the midi track, it can help give you more bottom end, or more impact (depending on the sample you choose). I used this trick on a song with some fast double-kick to give it a little more definition and it worked pretty well.

[surely]

true.. Every badn I've recorded so far has had a sealed kick drum(no port) so its been hard to get a kick sound I'm happy with.. Even if i mic the beeters aswell.. I'll just have to see what happens. Maybe I'll jstu get a Nice kick drums and port it and have pople use that if they have a non ported kick.

I`ve had 3 bands without a hole also...
solution--> get knife!!
it`s stupid to not have a hole in your bassdrum.. so make one!

[superpenguin79]

I`ve had 3 bands without a hole also...
solution--> get knife!!
it`s stupid to not have a hole in your bassdrum.. so make one!

I was going to say... I keep a large rim coffee can and exacto knife just for this purpose... hehe You might try placing a mic on the front head and back head towards the beater at the same time also if you are looking for natural drum sounds. Just make sure the drummer has the kick pedal oiled pretty well so it does not squeak... nothing like that extra rhythm on a track ya know... Also make sure that the microphones are flipped phase so that you don't get phasing issues. If you take the front head off also, be sure to have some duct tape handy to tape down the lugs because they will rattle if the head is fully off also or if they are not tightened down again.

as for Midi triggers... usually I have personally only favored them when combining acoustic drums and electronic styles. I would agree with the above post that Sound Replacer might be your best bet. goodluck

[JonnyGinese]

yeha I'll get a coffe can and an exacto knife. i liek taht idea ... ANd I might go out and buy a bassdrum head and port it so if they dont' want to cut theres i'll just switch them out for the time being.

[mkosacek]

it`s stupid to not have a hole in your bassdrum.. so make one!

hell yeah. spoken like a true non-drummer. maybe we should tell everyone how to string and tune their guitars. And while were at it, no more stomp boxes and wah-wahs cause that ain't a real guitar sound either, right?

Seriously, drum heads were not meant to have holes cut in them--it totally defeats the purpose. Something about acoustics and physics... Holes in drums are orginally a result of incompetent engineers who could not position a mic correctly (or drummers that could not tune their kit). If you take the time, you can get a really nice drum sound with both heads on a kick drum.

However, not everyone appreciates the sound of real drum. Instead, we have been reduced to expecting cardboard box thump disco drum sounds (thanks to those same engineers in the 70's).

For live situations, it is usually just a matter of isolation, and its easiest to just cram the mic right inside the kick. We don't take the front heads off anymore because there are too many endorsements and sponsors' logos that have to go on our bass drum head. so enter the tiny hole... by the way, this is a "rock drums" thing too. I don't think I've ever seen a jazz drummer with holes cut in the heads (or the front head off the kick). You could just mic up a bunch of cardboard boxes and oatmeal cartons.

so the bottom line is that there are lots of different sounds that you can get out of an instrument. From a producer perspective, I would think you would want to respect, and try to capture to the best of your ability, the true sound of the artists instrument. but I guess you could cut it all up and hold it together with duct tape so you can get you mic in their just right...