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anonymous 12 November 2001

OK! Lets help each other out!

Please add below links to web pages where you get handy audio related information.

Add a (short) description and the web link only please, no chatter here - just pure info. (anything else will be savagely edited out!)

A chatter post where we can discuss all on offer below can be found here:

(Dead Link Removed)

Jules

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Guest Tue, 11/13/2001 - 15:30

This is such an AMAZING practical description of live drum sound replacement techniques that I had to cut & paste it here. I hope McSnare doesn't mind. THANK YOU McSnare! :w:

"mcsnare" wrote in message News:41ea440e.0111102049…

Ok, here I go with my little chapter on drum augmentation/replacement using samples.
A brief history first. Back in the 80's Clearmountain used these techniques and honed them to an art. I think the whole thing started as a way to get real drums to have more of a drum machine vibe, cause sequenced stuff was becoming very popular for the first time, and if your drums sounded too real it wasn't cool. Also a lot of the inspiration came from England with the advent of the AMS DDL sampler, and the rise of the gated/compressed room sounds which further stylized the whole drum sound scene. These days I haven't taken a poll, but ever since the whole Grunge/Lenny Kravitz/Black Crowes epoch, there was a move back to more real sounding drums, or at least somewhat less stylized, and the sample thing fell out of favor. Now that we are 10 years or more past that initial change in style and things like DAW's are influencing the scene more than ever, things have shifted a bit back to a more "perfect" kind of drum sound and also a more ambient kinda thing, though not as crazy as the late 80's.
The first thing to do is to determine if you are going to go to the hassle of doing all this sample stuff. If you think the drums really need more help than you can give em with compression, ect., the next thing to do is figure out what kind of sounds to use. If the sound on tape is totally crap, that means you can use whatever you think will work in the track. If the sound of the recording is not horrible but could use help, then you have to look for sounds that complement the existing sounds. This does not mean sounds like whats there. If the
> snare on tape(or disc) has lots o nice snare buzz but tuned too low, I look for a snare sample tuned high and maybe kinda dry. If the sound on tape is high and dry I might look for something lower and buzzy, you get the idea. For bass drums, I usually replace altogether, but look for something that will work for the tune and works with the bass drum leakage, if any.
Ok, so you have what you think might work or a few contenders. After collecting drum samples over the years from sessions if done, I have several favorites among the hundreds on DAT that I know will work. Sometimes I will do a quick and dirty audition without all the fine tuning, just to get a feel for which sample to use.
Next thing is preparing a trigger track(s). My comments here apply to tape and if on DAW there are other methods that work equally well.(See * below) If you have a Studer A800 or 827, route the drums on tape that will be triggering the samples, off of the sync head and to console channels while keeping the untreated drums on their original faders but off repro with all the other tracks. If you are using a multitrack that does not have simultaneous sync/repro capability, you will have to find 2 open tracks if you are doing the kick and sn. If you only can make or have one left, use it for the snare. Turn the tape upside down and bounce the snare track to the empty track, but routed through a delay set to 100 ms. Be sure you dont clip the delay, it is feeding delay only(no dry signal), and no regeneration(repeats). Even if you have to turn the level down to the ddl to avoid clipping, that's ok cause the bounced delayed snare trigger track doesn't have to get recorded very hot, in fact better if it is a little light in level. In either case, you now have a trigger track that is ahead of the real snare in time. This is to make up for the inherent delay of samplers, so the sample will spit out at exactly the same time as the real snare. Remember when I said not to worry if you don't have room for the bass drum trigger track? That's cause if you replace the whole bass drum sound, you probably won't notice the 2 to 7 ms delay from the sampler. Sometimes you do however, and if so, do the bass drum too.
At this point if you haven't loaded your badass soon to make the track sit up and dance drum sounds, put em in your favorite sampler. These days lots of choices here, it should be a unit that has good sound quality and triggers well from an audio source. My favorite is still an AMS DMX, but Eventide H-xxxx's work well too. Eventides don't truncate to the edge of the sound as tight as the AMS except if you use the auto record mode. Somehow that mode with the threshold setting for record initiation, automatically trims very tight from the start of the sound. Good for that bass drum that doesn't have the trigger track. This won't matter for the snare, as you'll see in the next step.
Another trick I use that I learned from Bob C. is loading in 2 slightly different snare hits in each side of your stereo sampler. Then trigger them alternately using a Little Labs sample switcher or back in the day, a British triggered pan unit called a Spanner. Good luck finding one of those! This is cool for fills cause you get the snares overlapping each other like a real fill instead of that stutter from only one sample firing quickly. If you do this a lot, you will want to pick up a Little Labs, believe me.
Next step, route your trigger track off the sync head or bounced track through a delay on the way to the sampler's audio trigger in inputs. After trimming your sounds reasonably tight in the sampler, listen to them firing and compare to the original non delayed sound on tape. Adjust the delay infront of the sampler to match the real sound on tape. In theory, this will be(if using Studers) the time of the distance from the sync head to the repro head minus the sampler trigger delay. In reality, just use your ear. You will know if you are on the money when you hear a big difference when swapping phase on one of the drums. If you are not using a Little Labs you may have to gate and or compress the trigger track on the way to the sampler. I'd do it before the delay. You may not have to with the LL cause it changes the audio in to a nice short click sound perfect for what samplers like to see for triggering. This is for bonus extra credit, but if you are gating and have a stereo ddl like an spx-90, use that for the delay make up. Route one output to the sampler and the other to external in on the gate you are using for the real snare track. Adjust that delay so that the gate opens up just slightly ahead of the sound. Remember, you have the advantage of the trigger track snare which is ahead in time of the real snare. The only bitch of using 2 snare samples, is they have to have the exact same space ahead of the sound in the sampler. I guarantee this is the hardest part, when you get one snare to line up, you'll have to tweak the truncation of the other to match when the LL alternates to that side of the sampler. Also, it's very difficult to get the samples to trigger consistantly 100% of the time cause usually one of the reasons you are doing this in the first place is an inconsistant drummer. I usually have the trigger track routed out of the console on an automated fader so I can ride a few spots that may be below the sampler trigger threshold or too hot and causing double triggering ect.
The final step. You have a few options here. After everything is triggering nicely and sounds fantastic, you may have a few spots where the dynamics of the actual performance get very quiet or maybe a big fill needs to have more juice like in a real performance. Somtimes I will feather the samples in and out with automation, and sometimes you can try putting gates set to expansion mode on an insert of the sample. Have the external trigger of the expander fed by the real sound and if set correctly, the real sound will dynamically "play" the samples. Another trick is to put a gate set in duck mode on the real snare and if set right, the loud backbeats will be turned down and the ghost notes and buzz rolls sail right through. This works best if you use the ahead-of-time-mult-off the-trigger-track-delay trick that I mentioned if gating the real snare. When all this is set correctly, you should be able to solo all the drum tracks with the samples and have it sound like an awesome drummer playing a great sounding kit that was recorded properly. That is my criteria.

Happy sampling.

McSnare

* Jules note - in Pro Tools try the SoundReplacer plug in.

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