What is your Strike Audio Tracking Strategy?

[PatriotsBiker]

I'm coming back to the Strike world from a year and a half of using Kontakt and the Abbey Roads' Studio and decades series. It seems to me that the AR/Kontakt solution was better at allowing one to sort of follow that one time typical studio set-up I keep reading about. That's the one with Overhead mics getting most of the high end information, the Room mics getting the room sound and the individual kit piece mics getting close in audio from their respective pieces.

I would run my MIDI against what I had set up in Kontakt, make a whole bunch of adjustments (normally) and wind up with what I imagine to be a classical set of drum tracks to work with.

I think Strike-2 behaves differently, and I'm trying to get a handle on it. It seems that I have to track the kit or mix twice in order to get the scenario I wrote of above. I also have much stronger overhead and room mics that I'm used to, but that can be adjusted easily enough. I can't track it all at once, because when I send the Kick output to a channel, I lose it in the overhead and room mics.

It's almost like I have to set up two entirely different mixes within Strike to get to that traditional spot what I was with kontakt.

This tells me one thing. I GOT to be doing it wrong. How are you guys approaching the OverHead/Room and the instrument mic mixing, tracking and subsequent mixing within Pro Tools? Are you able to use a traditional approach, or is my take on the traditional approach flawed?

Thanks in advance.

[DC-Choppah]

I don't use the Strike 'mixer'. Instead I bus record each instrument to separate protools tracks. So I get a snare track, bass drum track, room mic track, overhead mic track, etc. and then work with these like a real drum kit.

It is somewhat unnatural as there is no bleed (unless you set it to bleed).

I find the Strike mixer to be very sensitive and a little jumpy. So I prefer to do all the mixing in protools.

Strike drums sound really good IMHO.

But I'm still using Strike 1.

When I bus record Strike I have to set the master slide in the mixer all the way up. The individual tracks are affected by the master slider in the Strike mixer. Setting it to max essentially takes it out of the play. Otherwise the tacks are out of balance when bus recording and most are too low.

[PatriotsBiker]

Thanks for your response, DC_Choppah. I assume the "chappah" portion of your user-name references the two-wheeled variety. Cool!!

Anyhow, here's where I've ended up. I wrote it out mostly for me or anyone not too familiar with drum VI's yet. Maybe it'll help someone. Hopefully not hurt. A more seasoned professional would be able to offer additional or alternative advice or even bash my entire method and start over.
(If so, be courteous. ) :)

Oh, before I start, I agree with your assessment of the Strike drum sounds. This is especially so on this version. For whatever reason, I was able to get what I wanted in a much quicker fashion than before. I'm much quicker to that point with this version than I am in the Kontakt/AT/SD package.

So I dug a little deeper and did the channel selection for all the kit pieces, not just one or two. I was indeed left with the somewhat thin and quiet overhead and room channels containing all the instruments. Much, much quieter than I expected, even when dimed, but it's there.

My solution for tracking will be to set it everything up to track as is in Pro Tools and Strike. I will then solo one PT Track at a time. I'll run through each instrument to get the levels where I want them in the Mix window using only the Overhead or the Room level sliders one instrument at a time.

After the Overhead and Room channels are done, I'll go to each instrument Channel & Track combination and make adjustments one at a time. I'm just aiming for a good sound somewhere in the -25db to -35db range.

Out of that, I get my Room, OH and Instrument components and channels all ready to be tracked. From there and within PT, I'll do my mix. It's a step backwards as I basically took an entire canned Setting that sounded good and made it sound like collective crap, but getting my final mix becomes much easier. The Overhead and the Room channels provide the base and cohesiveness while I dial in all the preferred tones on the Instrument pieces.

A couple notes.
#1: If I have to adjust the main slider for an instrument, I go back and check it's level in the Overhead and Room channels.
#2: I generally knock down the peaks in the Overhead and Room mics. I don't like to have to notch anything out, like an annoyingly loud ride or something. I'm not skilled enough to notch it out and not take too much with it.
#3: I test most, if not all of the patterns, making sure to get a good sampling of what I will get if using the canned patterns for any reason.
#4: This is for next time for me, but it's probably better to up the Intensity and Complexity sliders in the main window just so that I have louder tones covered and not blasting through unexpectedly later, and so that I have a more complete sampling in general of what can be played.
#5: It's especially useful if get to a point where I want to just focus on a bit of snare side stick or something. I don't have to fish it out of anywhere or re-tool & track a section, but rather just mute everything else. No bleed to worry about.
#6: My biggest reason to save the original Mix in it's original state for the Session is that I can make a Stereo Track Master recording after I've initially gotten things set. It gives me a pretty good idea what I'm dealing with when tracking other instruments and vocals. I sometimes wait until I've gotten most everything else tracked before tracking my entire kit. Definitely before mix-down, though. If I feel the need to Track and mix the kit earlier, I do it. No biggie, except that I'm sure to have adjustments to make later. Will one way or the other, though.
#7: When reverting to the original mix or changing a mix by double clicking the mix name in the list, the channel assignment will remain as you currently have them. Related to #6, if I want to hear the original mix in a stereo channel as it was, I have to double click the mix in the pre-sets section and then change the channel selector back to "Master" on all the Instruments, Overhead and Room channels. The other settings made do indeed change back, though.


edit: Added #7, and after only a mild bit of cursing.....which is really good for me. :)

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by PatriotsBiker

Thanks for your response, DC_Choppah. I assume the "chappah" portion of your user-name references the two-wheeled variety. Cool!!

I assume the "choppah" part of the name is "chop them beats up"

[DC-Choppah]

Originally Posted by PatriotsBiker

So I dug a little deeper and did the channel selection for all the kit pieces, not just one or two. I was indeed left with the somewhat thin and quiet overhead and room channels containing all the instruments. Much, much quieter than I expected, even when dimed, but it's there.

My solution for tracking will be to set it everything up to track as is in Pro Tools and Strike. I will then solo one PT Track at a time. I'll run through each instrument to get the levels where I want them in the Mix window using only the Overhead or the Room level sliders one instrument at a time.

Right. I am with you. The levels coming out of the 'mixer' within Strike during bus recording do not correlate to the levels you hear listening to Strike itself.

I have learned to bus record Strike in two shots. First the 'close mics', then the overhead/room mics.

You have to set the record levels differently here. But once you get good levels into PT you are good to go. Just can't bus record it all in one shot.

[kev1]

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here's piece i did for the a.i.r. blog

A Strike Mix Strategy
I use Strike a lot. I like it. The issue that I’ve had with the program is with the kit’s stereo image – in particular the high hats. I noticed awhile ago that there was a problem with the overheads in Strike. Like me you may have assumed these are stereo outputs but they really kind of a expanded mono – except for the cymbals, which are designated left and right by the samples themselves. I don’t think that the ìmono-likeî aspect of the overheads is mentioned in the manual.
Rather than complain and bug Russ about it, I’ve come up with a way to get a more usable stereo image. Below is a mix that I think works for typical acoustic-type drum kit (I don’t think that this image is as relevant for electronic drum kits). To use this strategy you need to have a working knowledge of Pro Tools and Strike.
Mixing Goal: To create a stereo image of a right-handed drum kit from the perspective of the audience facing the stage. Then record each kit sound from Strike into Pro Tools as a separate source so we can then mix these sounds in the same way we would mix an off-the-floor recording of an entire kit.
This would be the approximate positions:
1. Ride cymbal – right
2. Crash cymbal – left
3. Hi-hat – centre right
4. Kick – centre
5. Snare – centre
6. Floor tom – right
7. Low tom – centre left
8. Mid tom – centre right
Add to these sounds the settings for overheads and room mics as we do below.
Mix Strategy:
The general is to keep the hi-hats out of the overheads and use the room mics for stereo imaging.
1. In the Strike program the kit sounds are selected and tweaked to your preference.
2. Set up the outputs of each sound to a Pro Tools audio channel (if you don’t know how to do this see the manual or Russ’ videos). Set each sound in Strike as follows (I’m giving you the values I use but you can adjust them to your preference +/- 2dB or what ever gets you your mix. I’m taking the values from the read-out given on the bottom black strip on the Strike GUI):
· Kick
- three direct mics = set to your preference
- room = off
- overheads = off (With overheads off there is still a small amount of bleed of the kick to the other drum channels, snare in particular)
- overhead send to overheads = off (yellow button is off/dark)
- out = 1 (Use all of channel one for the kick. You can put it into Pro Tools as either mono or stereo. I tend to take the left and make it a mono audio track)
- pan = centre
· Snare
- two direct mics = set to your preference
- room = on -13 dB
- overheads = on; 0 dB (I like the sound of the snare in the overheads more than I like it in the send to overhead)
- overhead send to overheads = off (yellow button is off/dark)
- out = 2 (Use all of channel two for the snare. You could record it to stereo if wanted)
- pan = centre
· Hi-Hat (This is the hardest sound to keep in place. It may be an idiosyncrasy of the program that makes it change from pattern to pattern regardless of your settings. You need to keep an ear out for any unexpected changes and correct for them. If you want to know how I’ve corrected for this, email me.)
- one direct mic = on all the way
- room = on -5 dB
- overheads = on -2 dB
- send to overheads = on (the yellow light is lit)
- out = 3
- pan = hard right
· Ride Cymbal
- Direct mic = off
- room = on -5 dB
- overheads = +9 dB
- send to overheads = off
- out = master
- pan = hard left
· Mid Tom
- Direct mic = on +4 dB
- room = on -1.3 dB
- overheads = on -1.6 dB
- send to overheads = on
- out = 5
- pan = hard right
· Low Tom
- Direct mic = on +3.5 dB
- room = on -3.5 dB
- overheads = on -2 dB
- send to overheads = on
- out = 4
- pan = hard left
· Floor Tom
- Direct mic = on +4 dB
- room = on -1 dB
- overheads = on -1.3 dB
- send to overheads = on
- out = 3
- pan = hard left
· Crash Cymbal
- No Direct mic = n/a
- room = on +3.3 dB
- overheads = on +8.6 dB
- send to overheads = off
- out = master
- pan = hard right
· Overheads
- cymbal width = all the way on (100%)
- width = 100%
- out = 7
· Room
- size = 0.4 seconds
- width = 100%
- out = 8

Note: Overheads and rooms will be sent to a stereo audio track in ProTools. I set the width to maximum (100%) because we can shrink it to any size we want in the ProTools mix by panning right or left. You’ll notice that the room mics tend to centre the sound. To my ears the room mic sound is very realistic, I’m thinking that these are the actual rooms sounds recorded with the main /direct samples. You can mess with mic bleed settings to your preference, I keep it turned off, I feel there’s enough bleed factor in the room mics.

· Talkback
- Off/mute

This leaves channel 6 left and right for either another pair of toms or other instruments. For instance I tend to use this channel for bongos. I like the Bongos. You can’t have enough Bongos.

Recording from Strike to ProTools
1. In Pro Tools set up audio tracks for each kit sound and select the corresponding inputs from Strike
So you should have mono audio tracks for: kick, snare, hi-hat, mid tom, low tom, floor tom,
and stereo audio tracks for: overheads and room mics.
2. For each track arm the record button and set the pan control to:
- Ride cymbal – right
- Crash cymbal – left
- Hi-hat – centre right
- Kick – centre
- Snare – centre
- Floor tom – right
- Low tom – centre left
- Mid tom – centre right
Approximately, i.e. wherever you want these instruments to be in your mix.
3. Initiate the performance (either in Strike or Pro Tools)
- Solo the overheads and make sure that the snare is low enough so that it is not overwhelming the cymbals. You can bring the direct snare up in the mix later.
- Solo the room audio track and listen for balance and instrument placement and adjust as needed
- Remember to listen to the hi-hat position while monitoring and adjust as needed

4. Record the Strike kit performance into Pro Tools.
You should now have a good representation of a stereo drum kit image that functions fairly closely to a typical off-the-floor recording.

[email protected]

[PatriotsBiker]

Very interesting and thorough. Thanks for posting, kev1.

I find myself thinking about two things.

#1: Paying more attention to the panning pre-tracking. If I understand the inner workings of Strike-2, the more I set pre-tracking, the less differences I will have between my room/OH channels and my instrument channels should I find a reason to change the panning drastically.

#2: In strike-2, I now find myself taking the next step to what I was doing in the Kontakt/AR world. In the Kontakt platform, I would split the stereo tracks into mono tracks, which allowed for greater flexibility when mixing and automation throughout the song. I expanded that to all tracks in Strike-2, as the all have left and right signals at least from the output channel standpoint.

I love the way it turned out. For example, say my ride is strong to the right and weak to the left. A point in the song comes along where I want just a strong right side ride, but most other points I want some ride in the left to varying degrees. Having the two mono tracks lets me do this with great ease.

Taking #2 a step further, I would have to kill the left side room and OH enough to make it sound like it's all right side during that one scenario I used for an example. The volume automation on the mono track just makes it easy as pie. I can even sneak a little bit back in to maintain the echo that would happen on the left side should I need or want it.

[tonwurm]

Thanks kev1 for sharing this !!