Efficiently editing drums in LE

[spartacus]

Here's the situation: I've got a drummer with some major timing issues -- dude slows up, dude slows down, dude makes late hits, dude makes early hits. Obviously, dude should stick with his day job, but I'm stuck with dude until I can find a new drummer.

So here's my question -- how do I quickly edit his recorded tracks so they are of a steady tempo but still sound good? I've tried tabbing to transients, separating the late/early hits and repositioning them in grid mode. But what comes out of my speakers sounds unnatural -- hits get cut off, there are blank spaces in the recording where I've separated hits so the room's ambiance is missing. It just doesn't sound right.

Yes, I could spend hours tweaking, copying and pasting, trying to make it sound better. But there has to be a better/faster way. Can anybody provide me with any ideas or direction? My hope is to retain the sound of his drums, but edit them quickly. I hate getting lost in hours of PT tweaking if I can help it.

And I know...I know, the ultimate solution would be to get a new drummer. Ain't happening. Other suggestions, ideas, recommendations are mucho appreciated. Other products other than PT that would solve my problem if there isn't a solution there?

[Chris Coleman]

What you want is Beat Detective, which is only available in TDM/HD PT.

Either that or you get real good at editing (which you should do anyway).

[spartacus]

Right. But Beat Detective isn't available for LE systems, as you pointed out. So what's an alternative that still fits the bill? Perhaps nothing...

[losttimestudios]

Have you tried getting your drummer to play to a click track?

[Paul Cavins]

My drummer (er...myself) is not the next Buddy Rich. I get around this by playing many takes to a click track and making the editing as easy as possible.

Using a click track and multiple playlists rules. Of course, if I were better and not recording alone, I would rather not use a click.

However, if you group your drums in editing and play to a click and then choose a new playlist for each take, you can switch between takes and edit to a new "master" take pretty efficiently. I find passages I like and then copy and paste them to the master, or final drum comp. With the click, I often copy and paste two passages together and the transition is flawless. Often it isn't, but matching up a few good bars to another good few bars is easier than performing micro-surgery to a whole take. Try having him play parts of the song a few times in a row so he can concentrate on a limited set of moves. I'll record the intro-1st verse 5 or 6 times, then move on. It frees up my brain a bit.

Maybe this is old news to you, but it works well for me. Of course, I hope to improve my playing as to make the editing easier.

Good luck-

PC

[spartacus]

Paul. Those are good suggestions. I will try that on the next song we record.

On the software side, are there any options out there (aside from the aforementioned Beat Detective) people are using?

[Homebelly]

If you have recorded your drums to separate tracks,,ie,snare on one track,,kick on the next and so on,,you could try soloing each track and listening to the performance , when you hear a bar that is good,isolate it and make it a separate region,,name it something like good bar snare 2 and 4,,ect,,do this with all the tracks untill you have a group of regions all named accordingly.
Now empty all of your drum tracks and build up a performance a bar at a time by looping the song and dragging each new region onto the edit window,,you may still need to do some editing but if you use Slip mode and take your time you should have it all work out fine.
Another way would be to use LIVE or,,if you have reason,,go out and get RECYCLE 2.1 and turn your drums into REX files,,then load them up into Dr REX or NN-XT and trigger them with MIDI,,

[spartacus]

I've been considering getting Recycle, if it weren't so damned expensive. But I do own Live 3 -- how would I use that to accomplish the task?

[Homebelly]

I've only used the demo,,,but, assuming you have all of your kit instruments on different tracks, you would load them into different tracks in live and then assign different warp points to each hit,,i think LIVE will do this for you but you may need to add some and move others till you have all of your hits tagged,,now when you re-wire live into PT it will follow the tempo of your PT session,,
To make the drums sync up to your rhythm tracks,,I would go through the bass track and tab to transient one bar loops,,then use the Identify beat dialogue,,de select the conductor in the transport window then apple I,, to create a tempo map,,
Now i'm not a LIVE user,, but i think the theory of what i have described is sound,, maybe a live user will jump in at this point to clarify .

[JFreak]

you would load them into different tracks in live and then assign different warp points to each hit till you have all of your hits tagged

that's exactly how it should be done. if the drummer is really bad, this takes ages, but correcting a hit here and there shouldn't take so long.

but remember - great drum sound comes from great drum player and nicely tuned kit. it's not the sum of individual drums tweaked into perfection, but rather the sound of the kit [overheads and room sound!] instead. if the drummer is that bad, you'd make yourself a favor by finding a mucisian to play the kit.