Drum Mic'ing VS. Triggering in studio?

[armytanker]

Wanted to get your thoughts on Drum Mic'ing VS. Triggering in studio? One question I have is if the inputs of the triggers go to the brain and one cable(output) goes to protools, how can you separate the different drums? What are the advantages/disadvantages of each?

[albee1952]

Triggering...WHAT? If you are triggering something like Superior Drummer, triggers are great, BUT(great big BUT), you will want to stick with samples that are tuned the same as the acoustic drums if you are tracking audio from overheads(you want the samples to "fit" the bleed in the overheads). Any modern drum VI plugin(SD2, Addictive Drums, etc) allows for each drum sound to be split out to its own track(AUDIO or AUX, your choice), so that's not an issue.

A while back, I ran a top of the line Roland kit and fed just MIDI into PT, triggering one of several drum VI's and it worked quite nicely. Some drummers would bring in real cymbals(put up a pair of overhead mics and this was a step better). Some would also add a real snare(add another mic and it got still better).

These days I use a real kit at the request of my biggest client. Although its a KILLER sounding kit(a Shleishman Bop Kit), I still replace the toms with....the toms. Okay, you're wondering what I mean and simply, I record single shots(and flams if needed) into the session(well past the song ending). I then paste these clean hits(with zero bleed from other drums or cymbals) over the actual tom hits on the tom tracks(and delete everything in between). This gives me tom tracks with no bleed, nice decay and total control, come mix time(and this blows away any gate or strip-silence technique). Today I did this to a recent project and the toms were not ringing well(tried different heads), so I replaced them with my own tom samples with the better sounding heads(using Elastic Pitch to match the tuning).

If I am in a hurry, I will load my samples(either my own drums, or samples I created from several drum VI's) into Drumagog, which also works quite well.

If you DO use samples that are triggered by real drums, you MIGHT want to record the samples to their own track(s) and nudge them to align perfectly with the acoustic drum hits Other than this possible timing offset, there really are no disadvantages to either(and doing BOTH gives you lots of options later on)

[Bill Denton]

A slightly different take on this subject...

Years ago I read that Max Weinberg (Bruce Springsteen), used triggers to fire samples of his own drums when playing live, and it was the sound of the samples that was fed to the PA.

IIRC, he is a hard hitter, but he preferred the feel of a single-ply head, such as Remo's Coated Ambassador, which meant the possibility of a broken head was quite real.

Supposedly, if he did break a head, as long as he could hit any part of it (or even the rim), the trigger would still fire and he could finish the song.

I'm planning to do the same thing next time I go out on the road with Springsteen...

[Raoul23]

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

A slightly different take on this subject...



Years ago I read that Max Weinberg (Bruce Springsteen), used triggers to fire samples of his own drums when playing live, and it was the sound of the samples that was fed to the PA.



IIRC, he is a hard hitter, but he preferred the feel of a single-ply head, such as Remo's Coated Ambassador, which meant the possibility of a broken head was quite real.



Supposedly, if he did break a head, as long as he could hit any part of it (or even the rim), the trigger would still fire and he could finish the song.



I'm planning to do the same thing next time I go out on the road with Springsteen...

I also heard that story to :)

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

I'm planning to do the same thing next time I go out on the road with Springsteen...

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by YYR123

Wow, I must be doing a good job if you haven't noticed! I have to admit the Max Weinberg mask gets a bit uncomfortable under the lights, but it beats the hell out of the Guy Fawkes masks...

[YYR123]

I bet it beats the heck out of punching a clock for 8/5 also

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by YYR123

I bet it beats the heck out of punching a clock for 8/5 also

Which is what the replacement drummer (Rich Scanella) for Tico Torres (bon Jovi) does as his day job before he replaced Torres on tour a little while back. Worked at the local Whole Foods store. It's my understanding when Tico came back Scanella went back to working at Whole Foods.

[Bill Denton]

I was trying to describe this comic strip, which is not easy, but then I found it online!

http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1974/07/28/

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

I was trying to describe this comic strip, which is not easy, but then I found it online!

http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1974/07/28/