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So are most of the drummers for these bands EXTREMELY accurate and consistant or is it common practice to add kick and snare samples? ( i know terry date does) Where do you normally find good samples and how do use them? Generally when you use a sample do you not rely on the original at all or do you pick something that will compliment what you have and lay it under the original. When I use samples I normally have a hard time getting them to fit, and either give up, or turn the original way down. So whats the scoop? Anyone know of any good drum sample CD's for when the drummer brings in sh*tty equipment and doesnt know how to play?

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anonymous Fri, 04/12/2002 - 01:05

Originally posted by planet red:
So are most of the drummers for these bands EXTREMELY accurate and consistant or is it common practice to add kick and snare samples? ( i know terry date does) Where do you normally find good samples and how do use them?

Common practice.
Many people take samples at the start of the session for later use in mixing.

If you're having a heard time getting samples to blend in, check to see that they're in time with the original (they're usually a little late, so you have to nudge them back to line them up).

I go for the blend rather than total replacement.

Hope this helps.

anonymous Fri, 04/12/2002 - 03:57

Great sample CDs for drums

Pure Drums by Yellow tools
Bob Clearmountain Drums

Think about Battery PT studio edition which is a Native instruments RTAS plug which is a great sampler with low latency and they have some great sample banks and I think Yellow tools has done some 24 bit samples for them as well. This is a convenient way to get time accurate samples into your mix. i know what you mean about sloppy drummers, I recently dropped the drums from a track and just used some loops by Conti, you know what the song rocked. I think its poor drummers that sometimes gets PT a bad name. jules said once that to get a great drum sound in PT you need one over the age of 35 who can really play + Apogee + Fatso and alll that stuff :D
James

planet red Fri, 04/12/2002 - 08:10

Making sure they're on time is a bitch. Soundreplacer always wants to drop every 10th hit or so a couple miliseconds in front of the original. I normally spend like 5 to 10 minutes going thru and making sure they're all on time. Maybe I'll try to make a couple of my own samples before I start mixing the thing im working on now.

Where would one pick up the clearmountain disk? Does it have a lot of different sounding snares and kicks? Is it pricy? Some of those sample cd's seem ridiculously overpriced.

RecorderMan Fri, 04/12/2002 - 08:33

I raelly hate to use samples,,,although it is an nescessary evil sometimes. Blending is usually better. If the snare doesn't have enough, "snares", "shell" "crack", ect. Pick a sample to blend with that does. Andy Wallace used to use a snare hit reverb sample that he's add. Dave Jerden, Back when the Forat was the rage would use 2 kick and 4 snare samples that he would blend accordingly.
If you have access to Pro Tools, sound replacer is the greatest little thing ever for this purpose.

a GREAT sample cd is The RossGarfield Drum Docters CD. I like it better than Clearmountains, because Ross used his extensive DrumRental collection; so there is just about every kind of snare,kick & tom sound (along w/cymbs & hats.etc) needed to reinforce what you're lacking.

If anybody needs the fullproof/ in sync analog set up for triggering I'd be happy to type it out.

erockerboy Fri, 04/12/2002 - 14:55

Rather than mess around with finding a sampled snare or kick that blends well with the live kit sound, my fave option is to take samples of the actual drumkit at the beginning of the session while the drummer is fresh, and then use those as needed. (Of course if the kit sucks that's probably not such a great idea. :( )

Make sure to grab a few variations of each drum hit, so all the consecutive hits don't have to be identical... big pet peeve of mine!

Apart from that, here are some "sleeper" sample CD's not mentioned above. I personally really like the Sweetwater Total Session Drums for Kurzweil. Also "Rhythm Section Volume 1" from the old Roland S-series sample library is surprisingly usable. "Drum & Percussion Tools" from Time and Space is good, and cheap too ($39 at SoundsOnline I think?). You can use the Translator software from Chickensys to convert those samples into your desired target format.

Good luck!

e-cue Sat, 04/13/2002 - 12:15

As much as a fan as I am of what Bob Clearmountain has accomplished, his sample cd's are kinda weak in my opinion. As a matter a fact, I have yet to be impressed with any sound cd (especially at @$100 a pop). At the end of every mix I do, I have a "drum dat" that I have my assistant lay all the drums down. I know a couple other engineers that do this, and we swap from time to time. I also lift samples from CD's on the market. If I hear an open snare, I grab it. I've been doing this for years with my F-16. Over time you'll have an arsonal of samples (I'm at about 5 gigs which is a lot considering how small each sample is)... I love pitch shifting my kicks to the key of the song.
Also, sometimes the sample you need sounds like crap by itself. You might, for example, have the greatest low end on a kick drum, but no definition, so you add a "click" sample to it (like the beater sound you get on a death metal kick drum). By the way jules, I'd love to see this site get a "sample trading" section... I'd visit hourly.

zeuss Tue, 04/16/2002 - 19:47

Seeying that some of you use samples with the actual track what do you do to get rid of that slight phasing of say a kick track with a kick sample? Especially when you use the same sound. Even when using sound replacer the sampled sound is still like 5 to 10 samples off and varies for every hit. I understand that you would not want the sampled sound above the real track but slightly behind but with kicks I can still hear it in the high end especially if its a slappy type of kick sound. I usually roll a little high end off of one of them. Or "GO IN" and move every hit so they are in perfect sync. Has anyone here come across that situation? And what do you do about it?

-Z-

planet red Tue, 04/16/2002 - 21:34

Yeah soundreplacer can be a bitch when it wont put the sample right on time with sound. I always end up manually sliding them around. It really sucks to waste a bunch of time doing this though, so i dont bother using it unless the drums REALLY need it. If it worked perfectly i'd probably always drop a sample in way in the background to add a little something to kick and snare. But since it ends up taking so much time, i only do it if it really needs to be done, and will be loud in the mix.

RecorderMan Wed, 04/17/2002 - 08:41

Originally posted by Julian Standen:
Do you guys all know that SoundReplacer (TDM ProTools plug in) operates in stereo? That you can use stereo samples with it?

It took me a year and a half to figure that out! :o

:w:

Doh...I've heard/read that before. But my own ingenuitty coupled with my apathy and laziness has led me to futillity in using stereo samples.
Please tell how you do....