Calling all drum editors!! Is it a patience thing?

[duanebonney]

Hi Guys

I know that drums is the most frustrating thing to record mix, edit etc!, but what’s the best way to minimize that?

I have spent weeks even months editing my drums to the click. I get a fantastic result but the time involved is ridiculous. Is Beat Detective really the answer? The program still looks time consuming. Am I better of biting the bullet and editing manually?

Also to have a consistent sound, are you guys using Sound Replacer? Nothing worse than an inconsistent kick and snare sound!

Thanks all in advance

Duane

[dodo]

It takes a lot of time. Do them as a goup as much as you can.

[MDog]

What compression and settings are you using? Depending on what kind of material you are recording, quality compression can even out inconsistent drums if applied correctly. Even on samples or machines.

IMO, it may take up a lot of time, but what you put in to it is what you get back.

[Bastiaan]

Ofcourse the best solution is a good steady drummer that can play along a clicktrack. Be careful to not edit out the drummer's magic....the good ones have a tendency to play a bit with their timing.....try to quantize that and you'll end up with something very very weird sounding drums.

[duanebonney]

I haven't used any compression yet. But listening to recordings, all the sounds sound consistant. the dynamics and actual sound.

I think that most people won't give their secret away here

Personally , I think that the big boys use beat detective and sound replacer. Have you ever heard a drummer from a major release ever out of time? I'm definately not a pro drummer, but I'm sure that one could not play spot on all the time.

As far as 'natural feel' is concerned, Bastiaan, I still yet to understand that. I've recorded drums for a few years and to me, if it's out, it's out. Especially with tight instrumentation parts. I have heaps of engineers telling me the same thing as you are saying. That's just what I believe, though. No offence mate

Has anyone got Beat Detective? Is it worth having?

Duane

[JasonWorrel]

I am just finishing up editing the drums on 4 songs as I'm typing this.

Here's what I've found to be the fastest way.

1st, zoom way in and align all the tracks so they are perfectly in phase. Then group the tracks together. Start at the begining and Tab-to-transient. Seperate region, tab-to-transient, seperate region... It's accually quicker than it sounds, just hit Tab, Ctrl-E, Tab, Ctrl-E... and so on.

Verify the correct transient location before hitting Ctrl-E on every splice though, you may need to tab through a few times to get a good splice. Also, if it detects the transient a little before a hit, just tab forward, the hit Ctrl-Tab to go back to the last transient and it will most likely get it right on.

When done, go though each hit and move sections that are far off a little closer to the grid. Then select all and do Quantize regions. Play it and see if it aligned correctly, it may require some tweaking to get this to line up right.

Then I select all, and go in the Beat-Detective and choose Edit Smoothing. Select fill 'gaps and create crossfades' and Bam. Aligned Drums!

[will the moor]

Personally , I think that the big boys use beat detective and sound replacer. Have you ever heard a drummer from a major release ever out of time? I'm definately not a pro drummer, but I'm sure that one could not play spot on all the time.

for many many many years before beat detective, drummers were playing in time with consistant strikes. The tab to transients is good advice but I, this is just me, would ease off a little. like the other post, those hits just before and just after the beat are often what makes the drum track. If you hear things that are off 'too much', I'd slice that chunk and move it manually. As far as constistency of tone or level, (good playing +) compression can really help.

If Led Zepplin or REM were edited, the magic would be lost!


will

[KingFish]

I always hire incredible drummers, and I spend very little time editing drums, in fact, when I do, it's almost always an arrangement change decision after the fact, not quantizing performance.

1 drummer in peticular i hire, and have for the last decade, as much as I possibly can, buries the click.

Really,... we'll be cutting beds, with the click cranked, and I'll keep reaching, and looking for the click, but it's on.

he's nailing it RIGHT on the click, to the point that it gets buried at loud levels.

[Chris Cavell]

Hi Guys

I know that drums is the most frustrating thing to record mix, edit etc!, but what’s the best way to minimize that?

I have spent weeks even months editing my drums to the click. I get a fantastic result but the time involved is ridiculous. Is Beat Detective really the answer? The program still looks time consuming. Am I better of biting the bullet and editing manually?

Also to have a consistent sound, are you guys using Sound Replacer? Nothing worse than an inconsistent kick and snare sound!

Thanks all in advance

Duane

Duane,

In all fairness, it shouldn't be "the hardest thing to record, mix, edit, etc". Practice. When it comes to editing drums for me, I usually start with larger sections of the song from multiple takes (like entire verses and choruses). If it turns into a marathon drum editing session, I usually do it solo, kick everyone out, and try me best to get in the zone...so it isn't difficult, tedious - yes, but not necessarily difficult. Just practice, that's all the advice I can really give you on that...oh, and learn your keyboard shortcuts.

Cheers,
Chris

[RBaker]

everytime there's a post about how to edit drums some people will come in and say "thats wrong" etc. I totally agree...there's nothing like tracking with a great drummer. In addition to their timing and feel, they often help to make you look good--ie: great kit, new heads, knows how to tune them (or better yet is into hiring a drum tech) and their overal balance is awesome.

The problem is that today more and more bad drummers can get away with not playing like a great drummer, and maybe that's because of protools. You can't blame the engineer for that. I've seen things on here like "if a drummer sucks, he doesn't deserve to be edited" That is BS. If you're recording a band you do what it takes to get the best that you can. If you don't, someone else sure will. Where do you draw the line? "I'm not going to allow you to sing an extra take..if you were a real musician you would get it right the first time---you don't deserve punches"

Anyway onto the original question. yes it takes a very long time. but there's somethings you can do to minimize it, aside from getting better tracks.

First of all, are you just tracking one take and editing that? I always get 3 GOOD takes of each song. You have to make sure that he's playing nearly the same part each time. Then before you go through and start chopping, comp the takes together. (ie: chorus of take one is great, fill from take 3 and then verse of take 2 etc) after doing this if the drummer was decent, it may be enough to avoid all out hardcore editing. It's kind of a happy medium between editing and not.

If they still need tightening up (and some do) then go from there...maybe it's just a few edits, maybe you're doing every hit. There's some things you can do to take the pain away

There is a program called quickeys. you can program it to use hot keys. If you're chopping for hours you'll notice that cntl+e starts to hurt after a while. I always program the "Q" key to work as cntrl+e (it's right next to the tab key) then I program the "`" (key next to 1 and above tab) to be cntrl+0 which is quantize. that way all the keys you need to access are right there. I've heard rumors that you can program keystrokes in protools but I've never figured it out.

BTW I used to do the same method as described----to cut all the hits then select them all and quantize, but it's kind of a sloppy method. random hits will be off and you'll have to go back in and fix them. Instead I start by cutting the first hit, grabbing the whole section after that, quantize, move the cut over, cut the next hit, grab, quantize, move, cut, grab, quantize, move etc. It may sound like it's more difficult but it's much more efficient because you're moving the cut at the same time rather than having to go back through each one to move it over after quantizing a whole section.

One other thing to save time, and this gets back to the original topic of "saving the vibe" sometimes if everything is COMPLETELY chopped it can start to sound sterile. I'll often look ahead a few bars when I notice a trend---say he got ahead for 8 bars. Just move the whole section back a bit averaging his hits closer to the grid. it saves you time because you're not cutting each hit and it won't sound so pefect that it's not real.