How Joshua Recording Studios Prefers to Track Drums!

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:02 pm

That's it, I call FOUL on this part of the thread.

Before you start spouting off the fact that someone like Portnoy agrees with your shit, how about reading the actual f'ing article???

Portnoy sez:
The drum sounds on Images and Words make me cringe. (Those would be the triggered ones).

Portnoy also sez:
I love that album musically, but, sonically, I can’t stand it. (Those are the replaced drum sounds he's once again talking about).

Then Northfield sez:
Did you do any sound replacing on Systematic Chaos?
Northfield: No replacing, but I did augment the snare drum to give it a bit more of an explosive quality. Not heavily—because I wanted to preserve Mike’s expression on the kit—but for straightforward backbeats I found I could double the snare with a sample without any trouble. In the case of rolls, though, you can’t double the drums with samples, and still honor the technique. (These being the drum tracks on their newest album).

MUST I GO ON???

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:03 pm

Now you're just being a smart-ass.

I thought that it was made VERY clear about the reasons SO MANY have been a bit negative towards your posts.

You dont seem to have paid much attention to those points..............

Jeremy went WAY out of his way to sum it up for you.......

It doesnt look like its working.

And now we're "ignorant, judgemental, old people" and we're "over the hill and have nothing better to do than to try and flex an ego....."

And you post this drivel right after the clear explanations about the negative reactions you're getting. A complete synopsis on the community as a whole, which (if you were paying attention) would go a long way to helping you understand your current predicament here at Recording.Org.

As far as you having something to offer, this is a debateable point. If I am teaching a class on recording techniques to a bunch of raw recruits, I'm not sure that I would want them thinking along those lines as a first choice method. I would prefer that they learn things the hard way. I would want them to understand the beauty and intricacies of the sonic pallette presented in different recording environments, and how they can use and control the sound to theirs (and their clients) benefits.

Also. Like Jeremy. I am so frikkin pissed off at you for using something sacred as a tool to perhaps garnish some sympathy for your plight. Whatever hope I had for you possibly integrating yourself into this community as a good member is now a lot lower.

Nobody to blame but yourself for any of this.

The general reaction has been the same from one to another person. Its not a skewed perception either....simply regular folks reacting regularly to something that is out of place .

You have been invited, several times, to look at the whole of this thread and realize where you went wrong and simply take a step back and consider.

You have done none of this and have responded by name calling and smart-ass remarks. None of which are acceptable behavior here.

We all can agree to disagree here at R.O. It works for us. It apparently does not work for you. My patience runs thin. I will not warn you again.

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:18 pm

Time to turn off the internet again. (God, I must be toasted to have used a phrase like that. I wrote 1,000 words and lots of equations today while my mother was having a cataract removed. I dread reading them tomorrow.) Watch out JoshuaRecordingStudios. Dave is the third billy goat.

Suspended Joined: Mar 05, 2008 Posts: 24 Location: Ohio

I know, I was just showing my sense of humor! LOL!

Thanks

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:36 pm

I guess I'm not a good engineer? I don't know how to play with samples? Besides, it's messy & full of germs. I only know how to record drummers with microphones. If the drummer can't play, I'll replace the drummer with another drummer. Oh! It's not jingles? He's a member of the band. OK, I guess I just have to make him sound good in that case. If he's got a contract he probably knows how to play. If he doesn't have a contract and doesn't know how to play, he'll still walk away knowing this is the best he ever sounded. Besides, it's fun and takes a little talent to get a good solid drum mix. I don't think it takes much talent to play computer games? I'm not sure I'm good with that either? Everybody keeps telling me they can hear everything in my recordings. All the drums. All the guitars. All the keyboards. All the vocals. Upfront and in your face. So maybe my recordings are rude but they rock. I love my own engineering and so do my clients.

Don't get me wrong. I know rock-and-roll engineers whose mixes just blow my mind. Technically really cool stuff to listen to and marvel at. I don't do that. I just record musicians, announcers, commercials, talking head TV shows, making it sound clear, punchy, dynamically controlled. I've never thought there's only one way to do something. There isn't. In fact, I take pride in my consistent inconsistencies. Jeremy knows I'm a hack. There is one thing I live by. If something doesn't sound good when you are recording it. Stop. Change the microphones, reposition the microphones. If you can't make it sound good for the tracking session. It's not the equipment. It's not the acoustics. Just lack of technique and YOU'RE FIRED!

Tough bitch
Ms. Remy Ann David

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:02 am

MAN!!!

I go away for 24 hours and look what happens. Gonna have to catch up!

...Page 1 was exciting and I can see things are heating up a bit. On to the next page.

...Page 2 wasn't the feast I would have expected. Natual did a great job bring the thread back down to normal and MadMax did a great job at Bringing the Noise. Onward to the next page.

...Page 3, Enter the Admins. Bent goes above and beyond to find that the secrets of the pros are being blabbed all over the interweb. God makes an apperance!!! And sshack sums up most everyones opinions very well. Next.

...Page 4, less slapping and more banter. A final post on the topic from the author....but wait, here's another, and another! Looks like I wasn't the only person to not get a ticket for this ride. BobRogers missed it too.
A great "real world" example that's misunderstood...like the post I believe. And now for the last page.

...Page 5. Bent sheds light on the misunderstanding of the "real world" example from page 4. A final warning is given followed by a pure golden nugget of advice given by RO's very own Golden Girl (sorry about that, didn't mean it that way).

My thoughts? I missed the fun so I'll stay out of it.

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 1:00 am

Man, this thread kicks. Josh, a couple of things you mentioned in your tutorial were learning experiences for me. I had never heard of one of the pieces of software you mentioned, I didn't know Drumagog had a MIDI out, and I have never heard such a detailed explaination on using MIDI to line up hits. I've done this with hit points, beat slicing and audio quantizing, but not MIDI, and not often. I will often use Drumagog on my snare with a high pitched sample mixed in lightly with the original track to give it a little sweet top end, but that's usually the extent of my fiddling. I should probably just learn how to mic and mix the bottom of the snare properly, but I haven't had much luck with this so I guess I suck. Smile

That said, I personally didn't really take offense to your original post, but when you started name calling that kinda sucked. It just seemed to me that you were excited about this new thing you learned, which is cool, but obviously the good people around here didn't much care for the way you chose to present it and offered you several opportunities to rectify the misunderstanding. I'm also new here... and everyone knows that when you're a newbie you kiss ass. Smile

Seriously though, bottom line is the name calling was lame, so the cool thing to do would be to at least apologize for that.

As long as we're here and it's sort of on topic, I would also like to express my opinions about drum replacement. I'm very passionate when it comes to this. I've been playing drums since I was 7, and I'll be 33 on Saturday. I've been obsessed with audio recording since about the same age... starting with your standard fart noises into the portable cassette recorder (we've all done that right?). I would by no means consider myself professional, or even good at either, but that's why I love them so much. It's a constant challenge and I think everyone here can appreciate that statement in one way or another.

Drum replacement to me, was at first, a great way to get a not so tight band to sound extremely tight, a great way to get a drummer with a crappy kit and no tuning skills to sound decent. However after a few years of hearing it on EVERYTHING, and I have to agree with MadMax on this one (The Road Warrior kicks ass BTW), the actual sampled sounds have become very annoying to me and will usually completely ruin a track that I may have otherwise enjoyed. I WANT to hear the drummer with the crappy kit now. I WANT to hear the subtle variations in timing and dynamics now. This is mainly because:

A. I want to hear what the drum set really sounds like, good or bad. So many of us go through unbelievable trial and error when it comes to getting the sound we want from our kits. When I track my kit, I want to hear MY kit because I chose every part (including heads and sticks) to get a sound that would be unique to me, and only me. This is one of the areas which allow drummers to have the opportunity to express themselves and be true individuals and innovators. I like my Paiste 2002's, and I would never want to sound replace them no matter what the room sounded like. I also like my old beat up cheap sh*t Zildjian Amir ride and crash from 1990, and I actually dug them out for a track I was doing session work on not too long ago because they fit the song well and gave it a ton of character. I feel that every instrument contributes to the sound of that particular band and all are very important components of artists, and even albums sounding different from each other. I agree with Mad Max, I feel that all the drums on the radio sound exactly the same and it's stale and not even slightly interesting to me.

B. (And I'm almost done here), quantized drums still sound like robots to me. Or bad drum machine programming... you know, the kind that tries to sound like real drums instead of just saying "yeah, it's a drum machine and we're going to make it sound like one" (in techno for example). I know these are usually real sampled kits, but I still hear robot. Why should someone who sucks at their instrument sound perfect anyway? That doesn't give much incentive for improving one's chops and certainly doesn't make it clear to the listener as to who has talent and who doesn't... who worked their ass off and who didn't. This type of production has lowered the standards and it's kind of taken away the "awe" factor for me. Remember first hearing Steve Vai and realizing how precise and articulate he is? What if they come up with a decent sounding guitar replacement technology with arpeggiation? Then everyone sounds like Steve Vai on the album and there's no "HOLY SH*T! This guy is insane!!". Man, I can complain... that's one thing I'm really, really good at. Smile

K. Thanks for sharing and I hope you are able to clear things up with the people here because they are very cool and extremely knowledgable. I've learned a ton just from reading a lot of posts (Davedog's D6 placement tip immediately comes to mind) Smile

.

Oh, and there is a way to repalce guitars. You get a software (or hardware) that will convert line level guitar notes (usually from single coil) to MIDI in real time (Guitar Synth is one) and use some crappy VSTi. Ack... horrible... Pukatronic.

I hope I have come across as respectful of your opinions, everyone's opinions in fact, and I understand that sound replacement has it's place, but...
I WANT TO HEAR STUFF THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED DAMMIT!!!!!! Smile

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:16 am

That post is like, the epitome of the thread. Sums every little chipped in bit nicely.
program, nice executive summary too.

And some sense of humour joshuarecordingstudios has.

"Oh, and there is a way to repalce guitars."
I know another: Buy a new one Very Happy

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:34 am

... so lets HEAR something!

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 8:03 am

MadMax, DaveDog, Jeremy, Remy.......I LOVE you guys (and gals). What great stuff you've written in this thread; couldn't agree more.

Add me to the list of "Close-minded" individuals who will NEVER AGAIN replace drums with midi samples, etc. - not while there's real drums and drummers around to do the job properly. I've been up and down all sides of this conceptual argument; from playing in live bands with real and sequenced drummers, recording in studios, playing to click tracks, learning to do it the MIDI way (Cakewalk sequences, in my case....for years and years) and back out the other side again.

Reading that list of "how-to" just gave me hives. What a non-musical, unethical and disgusting way to spend time. (He's young, maybe he'll get over it someday and get fed up with trying to "fix" every tiny bit of sound coming out of the drum booth?)

I just tracked a live gig last week for an upcoming broadcast with Cameroonian bassist/vocalist Richard Bona (go ahead kid, google him while we wait....). His band was smokin' hot, just unreal, and his drum/percussion section was (of course) drop-dead impressive: Samuel Torres (from Bolivia) on percussion, and Ernesto Simpson (drums). These guys lived and breathed DRUMS for the entire gig; everything from a full kit to congas, bongos, toys, rattles, shakers, you name it! THESE guys play; THESE guys know the interaction between human hands and the resonance of the drum. They know all about the spaces BETWEEN the beats as well, not to mention the feel and groove needed above all else. They made the core/backbone of each and every piece of music performed, and they did it LIVE, with no re-timing, no re-sampling or triggering whatsoever. THAT is what drumming/percussion is all about for me and the professionals I work with.

I'll get out of the business before I ever do what was suggested in the opening post of this thread. And people who DO recordings like that - for anything other than emergency repairs - will NEVER be legitimate in my book; merely tinkerers who've lost sight of what real drumming and recording is about.

Suspended Joined: Mar 05, 2008 Posts: 24 Location: Ohio

Cool Stuff

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:12 am

BobRogers wrote:

Except that a few of them are overly familiar with the work habits of cross dressing prosties in DuPont Circle. NTTAWT

That was specifically targetted at me, wasn't it Bob? Embarassed

I'm sure once Mike Metlay sees the fiasco here and on PSW, he'll be EAGER to run your article.

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:19 am

I think some big name newspaper will pick it up.

Like, The Onion. I can see it now, the picture will be this picture from xkcd.com...

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:40 am

This should now be a sticky titled "How to noise up members of a forum!" lol

What is the PSW site yous have mentioned? I feel like a laugh. PM me the add if you can please.

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:43 am

Joe-

I think some of the things you say go too far. There's nothing unethical or illegitimate about any of these techniques. As you say, you used many of them for years. (And we all know you are ethical and legit.)

The problem is that these tricks have been around for years and have had such a low yield of memorable, moving music. Many of us who lived through the 80's have had our fill of sterile, sequenced, quantized drum tracks. Trouble is, people keep reinventing wheel and haven't figured out it is square. Maybe this is just too big a temptation for every new generation to resist. The hope that you can bypass all of the time practicing and getting the groove perfect is just too much. Maybe it just takes a while for people to realize just how boring "perfection" is.

But if it floats your boat, by all means give it a try. Might go over big. The voters on American Idol seem to choose singers who sound like the big acts of 10, 20, or 30 years ago. Why not drummers. (Of course, in the case of drum tracks that are quantized and sampled, you can actually produce identical tracks - not just indistinguishable.) Just remember this thread five years from now when another youngster posts "The Secrets Of The Pros" and you are on the fogey side.

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