Recording Drums With Triggers

[zim]

When recording drums in a studio with triggers through a module; do some actually have it set up to place the notes in a midi drum-map in real time? Is that actually something people do?



I'm watching a video about recording drums for a Vile album and the hard-on bearer says if the drummer were to mess up a fill he could correct it in midi. I thought that this was done but I never knew or heard anything about it. Can't say I'm a fan of this. I'm a big supporter of triggered drums but not for using them to correct mistakes in midi.

[Uni777]

[quote name="zim"]When recording drums in a studio with triggers through a module; do some actually have it set up to place the notes in a midi drum-map in real time? Is that actually something people do?[/quote]

Yup, that's one of the possiblitities.



[quote name="zim"]Can't say I'm a fan of this. I'm a big supporter of triggered drums but not for using them to correct mistakes in midi.[/quote]

Since studio time is getting more and more expensive, drummers are under a lot of pressure to complete their parts in as little time as possible. This is one way to work faster. Punching in is another but more time consuming option.

[supa tuna]

if you can actually play it then i dont think its a big deal



but if you were to throw a 500 bpm double bass run in there or something, then thats not right

[baron von blondle]

Triggering drums is pretty standard in death metal and isn't so bad so far as you can actually play the parts.



using it to cheat tho is totally meh and there's a LOT of drummers I know (and have worked with) who use it to fake excellence.



would you get a computer to play your guitar/bass parts? might as well be in an electro pop band!

[Devy]

Pretty much what the Blondle said.

[supa tuna]

he just spiced up what i said.



assholes.

[Devy]

I have to side with my english brethren!

[supa tuna]

okay. i'll give you this one, but next time, oooooooooooh next time..........

[zim]

[quote name="uni777"]

Since studio time is getting more and more expensive, drummers are under a lot of pressure to complete their parts in as little time as possible. This is one way to work faster. Punching in is another but more time consuming option.[/quote]



I didn't think about that, I guess it might be okay to use it in a situation like that, but I still don't like the idea of it.



[quote name="baron von blondle"]Triggering drums is pretty standard in death metal and isn't so bad so far as you can actually play the parts.



using it to cheat tho is totally meh and there's a LOT of drummers I know (and have worked with) who use it to fake excellence.



would you get a computer to play your guitar/bass parts? might as well be in an electro pop band![/quote]



Did any of those drummers cheat live? or just in studio?

[Devy]

The only live drumming "cheat" I've heard about is upping the trigger sensitivity to the point where you only have to blow at a drumskin and the trigger will fire. I'm willing to be told I'm wrong about that though as I can't claim to be an expert on drums.

[vO)))id]

We used the snare trigger to maybe use some of it's signal during the mix process, when there is a snare hit that's a bit off or soft, we can use that trigger signal instead of using samples (we also recorded samples of every part of his kit on the spot just to have some backups). Personally, and many will probably agree, I prefer to always use the real signal, or atleast mix it with a sample. Only if the sample is supurb and fits well in the mix, I would use it.

[cat hallucination]

it isn't really isn't "ethically" important. it's just music. if the goal is to milk studio magic for whatever its worth, go for it. whatever. just look at the production on gateways...trigger heaven....which resulted in the clearest of all morbid angel recordings. it certainly can't be reproduced live...but all death metal sounds like a bunch of fucking noise live, so whatever.

[baron von blondle]

[quote name="zim"]

Did any of those drummers cheat live? or just in studio?[/quote]



both, more heavily in the studio but as mentioned by my compadre above turning up the sensitivity so the merest tickle or brush gives the impression of extreme talent has been part of the game too.

[zim]

[quote name="cat hallucination"]it isn't really isn't "ethically" important. it's just music. if the goal is to milk studio magic for whatever its worth, go for it. whatever. just look at the production on gateways...trigger heaven....which resulted in the clearest of all morbid angel recordings. it certainly can't be reproduced live...but all death metal sounds like a bunch of fucking noise live, so whatever.[/quote]

[Hugo.]

A hell of a lot of drummers these days have their drum tracks, especially the kicks, quantized don't they?

[vO)))id]

[quote name="MorbidAngle"]A hell of a lot of drummers these days have their drum tracks, especially the kicks, quantized don't they?[/quote]



Not really, quantizing just the kick wouldn't make sense because then everything else is miss-timed. Most of the time everything gets edited a little so it's exactly on the grid (like the clicktrack is - just to make sure), so the other musicians (guitarists, bassists, etc.) will also be on the click/grid when recording together with the drumtracks. Ofcourse guitars can then always be recorded on click as well, but it works differently for every person. For some part you'd rather hear the drums, or for another part only the click, or both.

[Abzu]

[quote name="Devy"]Pretty much what the Blondle said.[/quote]

[L Macey]

The only live drumming "cheat" I've heard about is upping the trigger sensitivity to the point where you only have to blow at a drumskin and the trigger will fire. I'm willing to be told I'm wrong about that though as I can't claim to be an expert on drums.

I'll chime in as I've been recording bands and messing about with triggering for what seems like forever.



What you say is true to a point but bear in mind if you turn the sensitivity control up too far, hitting the kicks or any other drums will set the snare trigger off. Or using the kick drum as an example, having the kick trigger set very sensitive will mean the bass player will set it off the entire time at rehearsal / live.



Also let's say you turn the gain up high so you can "tickle" the kick drums when playing fast, when you play slower you'll inevitably hit harder and get loads of mistriggering.



When I record me drumming, or another band's drummer in the studio I use head mounted triggers, I record the midi from the drum brain into the pc, then use said midi to play back through a vsti sampler. There's numerous reasons for this, a) you can change the drum samples later to fit the mix better b) any mistriggers can be removed c) you can use the midi to do all sorts of things like gate the drum mics.... You'd actually be better off having slightly over sensitive triggering, then removing the misstriggers from the midi than having to start drawing notes in in the studio. It's actually quicker to do this than spend hours and hours tweaking the drum brain in the hope of getting accurate triggering to tape.



On the 'Forever Advancing..... Legions' album we had two days to track drums and most of that was spent fighting the DM5 drum module as we were triggering direct to tape, there was no possibility of editing or punching in so it was one take per song and if there's a mistrigger, tough shit. This wasn't very enjoyable and i'd have much rather spent the two days actually drumming (if I had the ability to remove any mistriggers later on).



The reasons for misstriggering generally a) the faster you play the harder it gets to have accurate triggering b) wanting to retain a good miked sound thus not dampening the drum heads much c) playing harder when playing slower then lighter when playing fast - no drummer can play 280bpm with the same power as when they play 180bpm. The commonly used drum brains for metal aren't really designed for use with head mounted triggers on acoustic drums, so if you're serious get a ddrum module.



When recording bands I always mic the drums too (and use as much miked sound as possible) and and interestingly the moment anyone (like a drummer from a band I won't mention) starts fucking with the midi triggering in the studio computer (cos his playing sucks and he wants everything quantised when we get to the final mix) it makes the sound totally out of phase with the mics and thus really crap/dubious. The only way you can record live drums then quantise them to death is if you don't use any mics at all and don't over compress any live overhead mics on the cymbals.



Also worth bearing in mind; some bands (bizzarely) claim they don't trigger (i.e they don't attach ddrum triggers to the drumheads in the studio). In the mix you can take a miked drum track and trigger it using all manner of programs, often better than you can using a head mounted transducer.



Really though, it's funny how much "stick" drummers get when most guitarists, bass players and vocalists cobble their performances together in the studio in multiple takes :D Some guitarists even use distortion to hide the fact they can't pick very hard, or fast enough, and singers and bassists use compression to hide the fact they can't keep a consistent volume (joke ). Most bands recording in a studio use punch ins, editing, tonnes of compression, copying and pasting, that's just what has always happened in the studio when people want "perfect" sounding albums.



Interesting all Morbid albums use triggering apart from Altars, so do almost all modern dm albums and many of the "classics" from way back. Before the advent of drum modules, engineers would use a modified noise gate to trigger samples which features on a lot of those old Morrissound recordings.

[Hugo.]

I heard Tim Yeung is quite a 'cobbler'