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  #11  
Old 01-31-2021, 07:44 AM
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albee1952 albee1952 is offline
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Default Re: Need advice on a good way to quantize live drums w/wo plugins

Agree that this is a tough one. No plugin can do it. Elastic Audio tends to cause more issues than it fixes. Beat Detective is the proper tool, but its easy to lose whatever hair you have left Many years ago, Russ Hughs(protoolsexpert.com) did a good tutorial on manually adjusting, which is how I do most drum editing(you might find this on youtube). I also agree about not moving everything to the grid, only move what sounds bad(unless you have to, because someone decides they just have to use loops in the session). If you recorded with no click, trying to use any grid is likely to make you jump off the roof. In this case, maybe make a tempo map for the drums and do subtle corrections within that framework
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  #12  
Old 01-31-2021, 09:40 AM
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Default Re: Need advice on a good way to quantize live drums w/wo plugins

Quote:
Originally Posted by Southsidemusic View Post
...I hate to play to click...
"Loose" manual editing works best for me. I try to RETAIN as much human drift as possible, but still keep the overall song tempo consistent for the most part. This method will NOT put everything onto a tight grid. If you need that, look elsewhere.

Find a section of the take that is closest to the desired tempo. Find a 4-bar chunk. On a separate track, create a guide "chunk" that is 4-bars long. Place it onto beat 1 of the song, and repeat it to cover length of song. Mute the sound; it's only to be used as a visual reference for tempo edits. Group all the other tracks, include all tracks here i.e. not just the drums. Every 4 bars, cut the grouped tracks on beat 1. In shuffle mode, use time compression/expansion (I use Waves Time Shifter) to lengthen or shorten the grouped tracks to the length of the guide chunk. Proceed 4 bars at a time through the entire song.

I use 4-bars because it retains the fun minor human timing fluctuations, but still keeps the over-all tempo of the song consistent. Two bars or one bar edits makes it feel too tight "to the grid" in my opinion. If the player makes a bad timing shift within the 4 bars, I will cut that segment into smaller pieces and TCE further as needed.

Works for me!!!
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  #13  
Old 01-31-2021, 04:03 PM
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Default Re: Need advice on a good way to quantize live drums w/wo plugins

Quote:
Originally Posted by albee1952 View Post
... Beat Detective is the proper tool, but its easy to lose whatever hair you have left Many years ago, Russ Hughs(protoolsexpert.com) did a good tutorial on manually adjusting, which is how I do most drum editing(you might find this on youtube)...
Easy to understand why (2nd to Avid) Pro Tools Expert gets “The Google” for “Best website for Pro Tools information” – oodles of top info for nix!

Here’s a great Beat Detective video from Puremix Mentor Ben Lindell:
Pro Tools | Quick Tips | How To Use Beat Detective | Lock Drums On The Grid
https://youtu.be/QE4zlj2_RrU
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  #14  
Old 01-31-2021, 05:22 PM
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Default Re: Need advice on a good way to quantize live drums w/wo plugins

Beat detective.

For plugin,,,,, Or try melodyne studio. I've done it for multitrack drums and it works. But I forgot what I did for the phase relationships between mics. Can't remember exactly.

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  #15  
Old 01-31-2021, 05:35 PM
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Default Re: Need advice on a good way to quantize live drums w/wo plugins

Call me old fashion, but I sit down with all the drum tracks.... and across all tracks (treating entire drum kit as one instrument) using tab to transients, tab, cmd-e, nudge, tab, cmd-e, tab, nudge, cmd-e, nudge... across all drum tracks on "grid" mode.

Then, I switch to slip, go back, pull overlaps (on all tracks at once) back and create cross fades on every edit.

It's a painstaking manual process, but I can get through one song in a few hours. For a full length 10 song record, pack a lunch... but the results are very good.

I try not to make every transient fall on the grid, otherwise human feel is lost, but the ones that are far out, I certainly fix.

Then if that wasn't enough punishment, I put bass track under the kick-drum track, and do the same thing to the bass track, not for the fills and accent notes, but mainly on the notes that are supposed to line up with the kick.

It's brutal standard, low-level production work... but that's how I do it. I never learned beat detective or elastic audio... all done by hand.
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  #16  
Old 01-31-2021, 06:12 PM
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Default Re: Need advice on a good way to quantize live drums w/wo plugins

You can choose a percentage of how close you want Beat Detective to move the clips to the grid. This helps tighten up a performance while keeping some of the human feel. Whenever I think I'm done with Beat Detective on the drums, I listen to the entire song to make sure everything is right.
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  #17  
Old 01-31-2021, 06:40 PM
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Default Re: Need advice on a good way to quantize live drums w/wo plugins

Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_g View Post
Call me old fashion, but I sit down with all the drum tracks.... and across all tracks (treating entire drum kit as one instrument) using tab to transients, tab, cmd-e, nudge, tab, cmd-e, tab, nudge, cmd-e, nudge... across all drum tracks on "grid" mode.

Then, I switch to slip, go back, pull overlaps (on all tracks at once) back and create cross fades on every edit.

It's a painstaking manual process, but I can get through one song in a few hours. For a full length 10 song record, pack a lunch... but the results are very good.

I try not to make every transient fall on the grid, otherwise human feel is lost, but the ones that are far out, I certainly fix.

Then if that wasn't enough punishment, I put bass track under the kick-drum track, and do the same thing to the bass track, not for the fills and accent notes, but mainly on the notes that are supposed to line up with the kick.

It's brutal standard, low-level production work... but that's how I do it. I never learned beat detective or elastic audio... all done by hand.

You’ve pretty much described a manual Beat Detective process.


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  #18  
Old 01-31-2021, 11:22 PM
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Default Re: Need advice on a good way to quantize live drums w/wo plugins

I have an answer for you that will solve your problem ... and then some. There is a plug-in that will solve your problem ... I have a customer that uses GarageBand loops as well as recording himself playing ... say ... a bass-line in GarageBand. Of course ... not being a musician ... he not only would “drift” from the tempo as well as make mistakes note-wise. On top of that ... sometimes the selection of a particular instrument would not appeal to him ... but the virtual instrument choice in the app is limited. So he approached me with the following question:

Is there a way to change the wave files selected in GarageBand and turn them into MIDI files for quantizing ... note correction ... and perhaps select another virtual instrument of his choice and not be “stuck” with the GarageBand virtual instrument?

I had not ever needed to address this prior to his asking ... but I had often thought about doing something like this. The following is how I did it:

ProTools version 12
Celemony Melodyne Studio 4.0
Any analog recorded wave file

1. Bring up ProTools (or whatever DAW you are using ... the logic should work across the board).

2. Record any / all live tracks ... or load audio data into required tracks.

3. Add the Melodyne insert to each track. Melodyne comes as a standalone app ... but it requires extra steps since it is outside of your DAW ... better to add the insert. Perform the next steps for each individual track so you don’t get confused. It’s easy to do if you run this on multiple tracks simultaneously.

4. When Melodyne loads up and its app screen opens ... trigger the “Record” button ... which will remain in standby mode until you press the spacebar or transport “Play” button in ProTools. Melodyne runs with the ProTools track and records the analog data.

5. Once you’ve captured all the data ... stop ProTools and Melodyne will stop. You will notice now that the Melodyne data will move from a single recorded stream of data to many individual “blobs” (yes ... that what the data looks like and is what it is called)!

6. Now ... to work with this data ... you can move to the Melodyne screen and “double-click” anywhere within the data to hear it play, quantize, move blobs up or down on the screen to change the note pitch (example: C to C# or B ... or anything several octaves up or down ... including the slightest variation in the pitch)! Editing also includes changing note amplitude ... separating and combining notes ... changing whole melodies from Major to Minor ... and scales of other cultures!

7. After editing your data ... return to ProTools and press the spacbar or press “Play” on the transport to hear the Melodyne data along with the song ... as with any insert ... the Melodyne track will replace the original track ... any further edits to the original track will not be heard ... only edits in the Melodyne data track.

8. IMPORTANT: Melodyne data works like MIDI data for such edits as quantizing ... but it is not MIDI data. If you plan or want to ... you can save and export the Melodyne data track as MIDI data ... which will then be imported into the ProTools session as a new track. You will want to Mute or “Hide and Make Inactive” the original track ... since it is of no value to you now. From here you can now assign virtual instruments to the MIDI data from within ProTools (Xpand2, Komplete Ultimate, any virtual instruments you like using)! Now you have real freedom and endless choices! And of course ... once you export as MIDI data from Melodyne to ProTools ... you have all of the editing options such as quantizing data ... etc.

9. If the desired result for your analog data is to convert it to MIDI data within your DAW and select other virtual instruments that you like ... then just:

A) Capture the data in Melodyne
B) Save the data as MIDI
C) Export the MIDI data to ProTools
D) Quantize ... correct notes ... etc
E) Assign to a virtual instrument

This works beautifully ... and will work for you. For any support you may need please email me at:

[email protected]

Understand that I am a ProTools user ... so I will not know the “where and how” for your DAW if it is not what I use ... but I can certainly walk you through the process.

Good Luck!
Brother Reggie


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  #19  
Old 02-01-2021, 02:42 AM
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Default Re: Need advice on a good way to quantize live drums w/wo plugins

Hey Guys

Big thank you to ALL for the really helpful tips and suggestions. I will try afew of them and hollaback. Since this is gokng into a worldwide RCA label release ir has to be 100000% and I guess it is time to go to work then without any magic plugin or such hehe

Again really appreciate everyone here!

It is a Paramore-ish kind of poprock song and some of you heard a rough take so it has to feel like it is real musicians which there is playing and not too quantized and over produced.

And for quantizing drums played in the studio not using samples or beats from anyone else I can see WHY there aren’t a one press click bang for this. I would never want to kill the drums by making them too stale and booring so i will try a few suggestions and report back.
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  #20  
Old 02-01-2021, 07:43 AM
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Default Re: Need advice on a good way to quantize live drums w/wo plugins

Quote:
Originally Posted by Southsidemusic View Post
...it has to feel like it is real musicians which there is playing and not too quantized and over produced ... I would never want to kill the drums by making them too stale and booring...
Try my "loose" 4-bar TCE idea above!!!
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