http://www.drumagog.com/

Cool. Except...

"Drumagog rules! At last a drum replacement program that has the same feel as the drummer intended."

I think a major problem with the tracks I have is the fact that the dummer was not very good. But it does look like a neat plugin to try out. The other problem is of course, the fact that I can think of about 100 other things I'd rather spend money on right now.

think a major problem with the tracks I have is the fact that the drummer was not very good.

75 per cent of the drummers out there are not great...if you look at what makes a top pro band... its the Drummer or Drummers , a very good Drummer is worth his or her weight in gold....

Does anyone ever substitute in sampled drums within a recorded track? I am thinking of putting in a separate kick track to see how that sounds. Does anyone have any techniques for this kind of situation?

I think you're misinterpreting that quote, but anyhow. Drumagog is just one technique. Any MIDI gate/trigger can be used to play a sample. The concept is that audio data (the kick track) triggers a gate which plays a MIDI note, i.e. "kick", then during playback you route that MIDI data through the sampler of your choice. Simple as beans. Bottom line though is that there's simply no way to make badly recorded, badly performed drums sound good. 8-)

There's some free MIDI gates on the net, you can even build your own quiet easily using Synthedit by Jeff Mclintock, one of the coolest proggys ever. 8-)

I think you're misinterpreting that quote, but anyhow. Drumagog is just one technique. Any MIDI gate/trigger can be used to play a sample. The concept is that audio data (the kick track) triggers a gate which plays a MIDI note, i.e. "kick", then during playback you route that MIDI data through the sampler of your choice. Simple as beans. Bottom line though is that there's simply no way to make badly recorded, badly performed drums sound good. 8-)

There's some free MIDI gates on the net, you could even build your own quite easily using Synthedit by Jeff Mclintock, one of the coolest proggys ever. Synthedit exports to VST. 8-)

My question was not about "how to substitute a midi drum sound for a real drum sound" my question was, does anyone actually do this and more importantly how do they think it sounds? I understand all things midi, my question is about sound and audio techniques. I'm not interesteds in buying something that makes midi easy, i'm interested in hearing about different ways of EQing, processing, layering, panning, doubling, delaying, distorting, exciting, blah blah blah, to get a heavy bass sound and to fool around with drum tracks.

I have had good sounding drums where it was all midi except the cymbals were recorded. That sounds pretty real. I just wanted to hear what other people think about it.

I changed several times the sounds in a drum section. i agree the idea " it's not my fault".
My tehnique it's brute and simple. I plugg the out of the channel in the input of a soundmodule with triggerin capabilities( Alesis D4 in my case). That's all.

Of course do not forget to record the result. Ha ha ha.

Definitely the best for improving the bass sound is the multiband compressor. Better than any kind of EQ.
In fact you can consider it as a dynamic EQ.
But better than everything rerecord the bass.

My question was not about "how to substitute a midi drum sound for a real drum sound" my question was, does anyone actually do this and more importantly how do they think it sounds? I understand all things midi, my question is about sound and audio techniques. I'm not interesteds in buying something that makes midi easy, i'm interested in hearing about different ways of EQing, processing, layering, panning, doubling, delaying, distorting, exciting, blah blah blah, to get a heavy bass sound and to fool around with drum tracks.

I have had good sounding drums where it was all midi except the cymbals were recorded. That sounds pretty real. I just wanted to hear what other people think about it.

You asked "Does anyone ever substitute in sampled drums within a recorded track? I am thinking of putting in a separate kick track to see how that sounds." which, providing you speak english, is *cleary* you asking "how to substitute a midi drum sound for a real drum sound". So I offered help. Never fear though, I'll certainly not burden you with any more tips in the future. :D

Pepino: A dynamic EQ allows you to EQ a signal based upon its dynamics whereas a multiband compressor allows you to adjust the gain of a signal based upon its dynamics. Either can be suitable for "fixing" bass but they arey different. You can also sidechain your compressor with an EQ to use one signal to activate compression for another, i.e. ducking, de-essing, using a kick track drum to trigger compression for a bass track, etc. FWIW I wouldn't think of a multiband compressor as a dynamic EQ, they are similar but different. Each very useful. Cheers. 8-)

Hm I recorded a drumtrack last week.. And it sounded rather bad, especially the kickdrum. So I took a sampled sound from Reason, and replaced every time the drummer kicked it with the sample. Quite effective, sounds a lot better than the original. Took me quite some time tough

excellent.

Sound replacement is VERY common.....mostly because most of the musicians in most projects cant play their instruments to save themselves.And since the price of an ego is fairly cheap anyone can get one and expect their poorly played part to be louder than the other poorly played parts.

The answer to your question is ,yes, its done regularly. It sounds 'better' because of it, and theres lots of ways to do it....thus the plethora of simple replacement programs available.

NOTHING can replace a well played properly captured take......NOTHING.

You said that the cymbols spill into the snare and tom mics too much, have you tried using a gate to eliminate the cymbals from the mics they are not intended for, or edit out the parts of these individual instrument mics when not being played, if you don't need them that is. I guess it really depends on how many things are mic'd up on the drum kit. For instance I had to try and fix a friends live recording for him and we ended up just blowing up the wave forms and only leaving the actually hits of the snare, tom and kick waveforms and deleted the ambient sections that were picking up to much of the rest of the band. It helped big time, since he had overheads on the kit you didn't notice the edits at all. 8-)

I 2nd the multi-band compressor idea. When the mix or recording is bad, MBCs are the best fix-it. I guess you would want to try it out on both the bass and kick.