Secrets of the newbies,
Hey guys, my name is JoshUA Hamilton and I own and operate a recording studio in Middletown, Ohio called JoshUA Recording Studios. You can check out some demos of my work at http://myspace.com/joshuarecordingstudios .
I am writing this article to maybe help some of you out there with questions you may have about pro recording and how the crap they get such awesome sounds and why your stuff doesn’t sound as good.
Just a little about me, I didn’t go to school for engineering, but I did learn from some of the greats which I think may count for something a little more than a piece of paper. I have been in the recording industry for the past 11 years asking my self the same questions everyone else does when they begin recording bands and such.
This will be part 1 of a 6 part tutorial on how I approach recording.
1. CLICK TRACK
First things first, you need to record to a click track! If you do not record to a click then you are setting your self up for disaster down the road if not immediately. I usually start by having the guitar player play the song and use tap tempo to figure out the tempo of the song, input that in to your tempo track and have the band follow along with it to make sure it feels right to everyone, including the producer if he’s there. In some cases you may have a tempo change at one point in the song, you’ll need to edit that in the tempo track at the exact point in measure where the tempo change takes place, just because there is a tempo change doesn’t mean you don’t have to use a click.
2. GUITAR SCRATCH TRACKS
Once you have the tempo mapped out with correct tempo’s and tempo changes you’ll need to record guitar to the click track. I usually double the guitar scratch tracks to get extra volume in the head phones for the drummer and because it just sounds better, you’ll be hearing these scratch tracks for a while so you might as well make them sound decent! Usually you’ll come across something that isn’t right if you made tempo changes in your tempo track, fix that and then proceed with the guitar scratch tracks. Once you have the guitar scratch tracks recorded and double up panned left and right sounding pretty, you’ll want the band to take one more final listen to the entire song to make sure it sounds the way they intended. Here you are looking for a thumbs up from everyone EVERYONE in the group!
3. DRUM TRACKING
You need to have the drummer set up in a different room than where your main mix speakers are (the control room) so that you can hear what’s coming out of the speakers and not what’s coming from the drums. Once the drummer is set up and ready to go you can start placing your mics or triggers to begin tracking. If you are using microphones make sure and mic the drums in way that mostly only that drum will be heard when its hit and if you are using triggers just make sure you have at least one overhead set up so that you can hear all of the cymbals. NOTE: you need at least one overhead to hear the cymbals, you’ll see why in a bit. After you get the mics or triggers placed have the drummer play the kit and make sure nothing is in his way, for your sake and his, last thing you want is some guy you don’t even know to be banging up your microphones. Here you are looking for a thumbs up from him and once you get it, you need to do a level check. The level check is pretty important for your later editing. You need to have each drum wave look like a spike, but not clipping. This would look like a vertical line from top to bottom, it doesn’t have to be a really thin line but for the most part an up and down line. Once you have all of the levels have the drummer play the whole kit and then readjust all of your levels accordingly, because usually in level checking the drummer won't strike the drums as hard as when he’s actually playing, so you need to make sure and get proper levels no matter how hard he hits the drums and make sure that it never clips.
Now you need to play the click and guitar scratch tracks through the headphones for the drummer to make sure he’s got a good mix and that he can hear it while he plays. You are once again looking for a thumbs up; don’t move forward unless he can hear what he needs to. Also, you need to hear what is happening in the recording so make sure you can hear a decent mix of the drummer playing along to the scratch and click. A talk back mic is crucial because the drummer is going to need your suggestion or command on punch INS.
From here, you just need to have the drummer play for the most part to the click track. This can be achieved by punching in section by section. It’s not necessary for your drummer to play the song from beginning to end, most of them cant. An example would be to play only the intro of the song, listen to it back and make sure its close to the click and its what the drummer intended to play. Through and through you want to get a thumbs up from everyone in the band and mostly the drummer that the parts are recorded correctly. Proceed with the same steps until you have recorded the entire song. At this point you will need to cross fade your punch ins so you don’t get cuts in the sounds and so that the song plays like a song, not a section. Once you have that done, have the drummer listen back to the entire performance and make sure he’s happy with it. And whala drum tracking is done.
4. DRUM EDITING
This part of the process can be the most time consuming and the most important part of the recording. Have you ever asked the question, why is every song I hear on the radio flawless in timing? Surely not every single drummer in a signed band is perfect at timing, right? Well, the answer is no, they aren’t perfect at all. Granted most of them are great at timing, but none of them are perfect!
So what we need here is perfect timing on the drums! There are several ways to achieve this, but I have been using different methods for years and I will reveal the method I use right now! Things you will need in order to do this, a recording program that has a drum editor used for midi notation. (I use cubase, but nuendo, Pro Tools, logic and others will work) You need a registered copy of drumagog 4.0 platinum preferably with some nice sounding gog files (I use the Andy Sneap gog files) and you will also need toon tracks ez drummer or superior drummer. Don’t worry at the end of this tutorial I will list links where you can purchase everything you need.
First things first, you need to open drumagog on all of your drum channels as a vst insert. The trick here is that you don’t want double triggers or false triggers to occur. You want the track to play back as intended, once you have that then move on to the next step.
Second you will need to turn on the midi out function on the drumagog, you can find this feature under the advanced tab. Set the midi notes to different notes, an examples would setting you kick to c3 and your snare to c3#. You want your drums to play different notes.
Third, you need to create a midi track for every drum track you have. Assign the the drumagog to each midi track so that you get the kick on midi track 1, the snare on midi track 2 and so on.
Fourth, record a segment of the song to the newly added midi tracks to make sure you are getting a midi note recorded for every drum hit on every midi track you created. Once you got that, record the entire song to the midi tracks.
After you have recorded all of your drum tracks to the midi tracks you can now delete the original audio drum tracks, or you can keep them if this scares you, but I trash them as soon as I have the midi on my new tracks.
At this point you will need to open ez drummer or superior drummer to hear the play back of your midi tracks as drums. Go to your midi tracks and select the output to go to ez drummer or superior drummer. You might need to create your own drum map to better suit your needs for drum placement and editing.
If you are lost at this point and you cant get it to work, go back through the steps until you get it right, a suggestion might be to create a copy of the entire project and use the copy to figure this out on, that way you don’t loose anything important.
Once you have your drums playing back on ez drummer, you’ll need to edit them to perfect timing. Note: your overhead mics should be turned off at this point! This part requires a little bit of timing theory, you must know what 4/4 is and 3/4 is, also 8th notes, 16th notes, 32nd notes and so on. Open the drum editor for the midi tracks that are playing your drums. Here you can see a grid to tell if the drum hits are on time and off time. You’ll need to quantize the drum hits accordingly to the timing quantize grid. An example would be if you have a kick snare back and fourth on a 4/4 beat at 120 beats per minute, you’d be able to use 8th notes quantizing to move the note to the grid where it should have been in the first place. If you are in doubt what so ever about where a drum should be on the grid, have the drummer help you, he probably knows a thing or to about timing and will be able to assist you.
Once you have all of the drums edited and they sound perfectly on time there are other functions that midi will allow you to do that audio tracks wont. Typically on a snare track you’d use compression,a noise gate, and a limiter to achieve optimal striking of the drum. In a midi track all you have to do is select the fixed velocity feature and bam your snare hits the exact same level every time. You may not want it to hit the exact same on a snare roll for example, so get out your pencil and draw in the velocity curve so that it plays back the way it was played or intended to be played.
Once you can set back and listen to the drums and not hear anything that sounds off or out of time or dynamically wrong like volume builds, you can move on to the cymbals.
At this point your overheads are so out of whack, it sounds like noise if you play back your perfectly edited drums along with the original overheads, right? So what you need to do is, bring up the overhead track by its self along with drum editor and start placing your cymbals in the midi editor. That’s right; you’re using sampling for cymbals also. This is the part where the drummer doesn’t mind at all to set there and tell you what they like and don’t like as far as hitting cymbals go. Once you have all your cymbals placed where they need to be, you don’t need your over head audio track anymore, so you can trash it or leave it, it’s up to you, but I would defiantly mute it, lol.
So, now you have perfectly timed drums that sound great and is exactly what the drummer wanted, if not go back and fix it. You should be able to set back and listen to the start of a great song at this point and not hear anything that is out of whack, your guitar scratch tracks might sound a little off at points, but remember those are getting scratched and the drums are there to stay.
Links:
Cubase 4
here
Drumagog
http://www.drumagog.com/
Ez Drummer
http://www.toontrack.com/ezdrummer.asp
Superior Drummer
http://www.toontrack.com/s20.asp
I hope you guys got some questions answered out of this tutorial. Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have along the way. You are now one step closer to recording like a PRO!
Sincerely,
JoshUA Hamilton
http://myspace.com/joshuarecordingstudios
Comments
joshuarecordingstudios wrote: I still dont understand why you gu
joshuarecordingstudios wrote: I still dont understand why you guys are so raged at my post!
I am not a pro, I am a student, how many times do you want me to say that? I think some of my work turns out sound really great, but I am not a pro by any means. What qualify's one to call them self a pro any ways, I mean when do you start saying ok, I know everything and everyone must listen to me, thats foolish and also seems to be the way you are coming across.
Pot calling the kettle young man.... Let's address your statement that you are a student and that you are not a pro....
Secrets of the newbies,
Hey guys, my name is Joshua Hamilton and I own and operate a recording studio in Middletown, Ohio called Joshua Recording Studios. You can check out some demos of my work at http://myspace.com/joshuarecordingstudios .
I am writing this article to maybe help some of you out there with questions you may have about pro recording and how the crap they get such awesome sounds and why your stuff doesn’t sound as good.
Just a little about me, I didn’t go to school for engineering, but I did learn from some of the greats which I think may count for something a little more than a piece of paper. I have been in the recording industry for the past 11 years asking my self the same questions everyone else does when they begin recording bands and such.
This will be part 1 of a 6 part tutorial on how I approach recording.
I see no where in the above paragraphs your claim of being a student and not a professional. Just the opposite... and THAT is what is getting your turn in the hot seat... and the additional roasting is because you refuse to seeming acknowledge that you've stepped right in the middle of a big pile of poo... and that you are still in the pile with it all over your shoes.
Do me a favor, get to know me before you give me a bad name! You have no clue what your talking about when you address my personality, ethics,morals, and standards.
Do us ALL a favor and realize that it is your own ego which gives you a bad name.
YOU and you alone came into this community with ego blaring loud and clear that you and your experiences gave you authority to give advice from on-high atop your mighty pinnacle of experience.
Because of how you have conducted yourself from the outset, to this very moment, indicates to me that you are purely here for the purpose of being a Troll.
Nothing would give me greater pleasure than for you to prove me wrong and see you become an active contributing member of this community. However, I will reserve the right to refuse to hold by breath in that anticipation.
"when do you start saying ok, I know everything and everyone mus
"when do you start saying ok, I know everything and everyone must listen to me, thats foolish and also seems to be the way you are coming across."
Cucco has quite evenly said he learns all the time. I've seen it happen. Look up threads on mics and you find everyone learns because every pro has a different area of expertise.
"Computer based , me too!"
There's a difference between say, a Pro Tools HD uber system with ADCs so good even NASA doesn't have them; and a PC connected to a Firebox or something equivalent.
OK, so you're not a pro. Neither am I. So you're a Christian? So am I. What does it matter (until the end of the world, anyway :))?
"get to know me before you give me a bad name!"
I suppose we would try, if you would come on and introduce yourself and become part of the community instead of punting out some formula which most here hate (but still have to use sometimes) [NB: in general, we are attacking the method you use because producers use it to ruin music, not attacking you].
The point here is that replacing drums with samples and MIDI files etc. happens because producers demand everything to be "perfect".
Is perfection really drum samples that sound the same on every ****ing song released these days? Is perfection really vocals that sound exactly on pitch every note, making these folk seem perfect (for 3 fake minutes), while the rest of us struggle to hit that high G?
Oh and as a Christian, don't you find it ever so slightly guilt inducing to be destroying someone's work because you feel they're substandard by a slight amount? Is the point to make the drummer a better drummer to make the whole band better overall or to make the song better than the band is?
I don't do sound for a job, it's a hobby, and for me it's simple. Just record what's there. The band is the real magic.
I could link to our church band's songs on soundclick. The vocals are (in all honesty) out of time for half the song, the drums didn't get picked up too well unfortunately, because I don't mic them live. The mistakes in the guitar tracks actually added to a song one time. Would I retrack them and fix it? Maybe for one song, because a connection came loose and the guitar track turned to static.
One day we're going to wake up and the whole industry will just use elaborate midi players.
Wow this is impressive. First let me say, this has gotten silly
Wow this is impressive. First let me say, this has gotten silly and become nothing more than a slam fest.
In my opinion this all a big misunderstanding. Attitude counts for a lot on this forum.
No one likes to be told how to do something they already know. I think that’s all that’s happening here.
Quite a few people on the forum have loved and lived with audio for a long time. They all have there personal tricks and methods.
It might be best to swap ideas, rather than instruct.
Difference of opinion is normal around here. Aggressive re-education is not.
Best of Luck!
This topic has raised a few eyebrows! I don't recal joshua ment
This topic has raised a few eyebrows!
I don't recal joshua mentioning he was a student either.
I am a student and I only posted a reply as I thought it was a bad example for anyone learning about the recording industry, such as myself.
I think it's clear that it was the wrong way of entering a forum and time to move on.
Ok this is my last reply I promise! I bet you guys are over the
Ok this is my last reply I promise! I bet you guys are over the hill and have nothing better to do than try and flex an ego, right? I mean what other reason would you have to cause so much drama on this discussion?
It’s like this, when someone has something to offer and they offer it, its there for you to take or leave it.
So DO it, take it or leave it, but don’t complain about the offer.
I was saying get to know me because you guys were taking my post out of context as to what I was really trying to say, but you already know that and apparently don’t care.
Anyways, just get over it! I am not going to apologize for something I didn't do; I am not authoritive and never will be.
I bring religion in to it so you can understand my morals and faith! It’s who I am and if you cared to know that at all you wouldn't mind me saying so!
anyways, I am done with wasting my precious time arguing when I could be mixing a song or something , I don’t know , anything would be better than dealing with judgmental , ignorant , old people.
Thanks
Joshua! Step back! Why don't you just appologize for making a fo
Joshua! Step back! Why don't you just appologize for making a foolish assumption. You're calling names now? Over the hill? Chalk that up for experience as opposed to naivete.
I know sometime people get pegged wrong. So start new, with a fresh perspective. Reread your post. You came on with attitude and ego. Maybe you're talented. Maybe you could help out some newbs. Great. There are lots of newbs here. There are also lots of real honest to goodness pros. Don't be presumptuous. "He who wishes to be first must be last".
This article speaks to this subject perfectly: http://www.eqmag
This article speaks to this subject perfectly:
http://www.eqmag.com/article/answer-lies-within/mar-08/33641
This is in this months EQ mag, about Mike Portnoy (drummer for Dream Theater, Neal Morse and others) and Engineer Paul Northfiled (I think he comes under the heading of a 'Pro')
Portnoy is one my fav drummers and his recent work with Neal Morse is now one my new benchmarks for comparing drum sounds.
Here's a short excerpt concerning thier first CD
EQ:Was the entire kit triggered on Images and Words?
PORTNOY: I believe the entirety of what you hear is triggered. David Prater [producer] was a very difficult person to work with. He was the kind of producer who would lock you out of the studio during the mix, and just do whatever the hell he wanted. I made it pretty clear from the beginning that I hated those drum sounds during tracking, but he had just done a popular record with a hair metal band called Firehouse, and he thought it would be a good idea to use all those drum sounds on our album, as well. That kind of sound may work with pop metal, but it was completely out of place with an over-the-top, progressive metal band. But that was our first album for a major label, and we had no leverage.
Ok- So 'nuff said,
I'm guessing that we're all ready for installment 2 of 6?
I have nothing to add about this that hasn't been addressed, but
I have nothing to add about this that hasn't been addressed, but I have to agree with everything that's been said.
Josh man, you've got to man up and admit that you came off as all-knowing and just start over. The first words out of my professor's mouth when I went to school were "You have to be humble in this game".
And never bring religion in to clear anything up. I'm not a religious guy, but I'm certainly a stand up, honest, hard working dude. You don't need religion to have morals or ethics.
Boy! Turn off the internet for a day and try and get some work d
Boy! Turn off the internet for a day and try and get some work done and you really miss a lot. You guys are tougher than the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Now I'll never learn the secrets of the pros. :roll: Except that a few of them are overly familiar with the work habits of cross dressing prosties in DuPont Circle. NTTAWT
Thats awesome , even Mike Portnoy uses drum replacement, notice
Thats awesome , even Mike Portnoy uses drum replacement, notice he never said he didn't like triggering, he just didn't like the samples the dude was using! Thanks Natural, you've helped me out here 10 fold. And even knowing that, I am still not saying that this is the only solution for tracking perfect drums, but if its good enough for Mike portnoy and Firehouse, its certainly good enough for most drummers! Once again , this is my opinion and I dont want anyone to get offended or anything.
Enough Said!!!!!!!!
Hey Natural, I would post part 2 of 6 but I dont think the other
Hey Natural, I would post part 2 of 6 but I dont think the others really want to hear it. If you'd like to hear it personally from me you can email me and I will send it to you and we can discuss it! Also , you guys might want to know to look for me in Recording Magazine in a few months, I just got off the phone with Mike the chief editor and we are talking about posting my article in one of the up coming editions.
Hopefully the readers there will be a little nicer!
:)
joshuarecordingstudios wrote: Thats awesome , even Mike Portnoy
joshuarecordingstudios wrote: Thats awesome , even Mike Portnoy uses drum replacement, notice he never said he didn't like triggering, he just didn't like the samples the dude was using! Thanks Natural, you've helped me out here 10 fold. And even knowing that, I am still not saying that this is the only solution for tracking perfect drums, but if its good enough for Mike portnoy and Firehouse, its certainly good enough for most drummers! Once again , this is my opinion and I dont want anyone to get offended or anything.
Enough Said!!!!!!!!
Respectfully Josh, I think the article snippet was pretty clear that it wasn't good enough for Portnoy...he said that they had no leverage because it was their first album. To me that says if he had his drothers, he wouldn't have opted for that method.
IMO he's certainly a solid enough drummer to not need it, but whatever. I've heard of the method being used before and have some engineering friends that use it from time to time...to each their own.
And there is no guitar replacement, so don't even bark up that tree.
:roll:
That's it, I call FOUL on this part of the thread. Before you s
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???
Now you're just being a smart-ass. I thought that it was made
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.
Time to turn off the internet again. (God, I must be toasted to
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.
I guess I'm not a good engineer? I don't know how to play with
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
MAN!!! I go away for 24 hours and look what happens. Gonna h
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.
Man, this thread kicks. Josh, a couple of things you mentioned i
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. :)
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. :) 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. :)
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) :) .
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!!!!!! :)
MadMax, DaveDog, Jeremy, Remy.......I LOVE you guys (and gals).
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.
BobRogers wrote: Except that a few of them are overly familiar
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? :oops:
I'm sure once Mike Metlay sees the fiasco here and on PSW, he'll be EAGER to run your article.
I think some big name newspaper will pick it up. Like, The Onio
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 [[url=http://[/URL]="http://xkcd.com/386/"]xkcd.com[/]="http://xkcd.com/386/"]xkcd.com[/]...
Joe- I think some of the things you say go too far. There's no
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.
Can I just say... I don't use Google often (I use Clusty.com), b
Can I just say...
I don't use Google often (I use Clusty.com), but I have just checked it for "joshuarecordingstudios"
http://
Top result? PSW's thread.
Next? His profile here.
What happened to our thread, has something been put in place to stop google scanning it?
I for one am really pleased that this thread was created. By l
I for one am really pleased that this thread was created.
By looking at other forums this exact same post is on and reading some of the feedback members have written I was directed to youtube where I found a whole series of quality educational videos on how to set up your own recording studios.
I now have the knowledge to start straight away.
I feel it's my duty to let the cat out of the bag and share this info:
[youtube:3958d9fd00]http://www.youtube…]
Can I please suggest you don't have your mouth full of water, juice etc at the time of viewing. I'm just about to clear up my area as we speak!
After viewing these clips I guarantee you'll be glad this thread was created too...
Codemonkey wrote: Can I just say... I don't use Google often (I
Codemonkey wrote: Can I just say...
I don't use Google often (I use Clusty.com), but I have just checked it for "joshuarecordingstudios"http://
Top result? PSW's thread.
Next? His profile here.What happened to our thread, has something been put in place to stop google scanning it?
It's third in the list from that search m8.
joshuarecordingstudios wrote: Well , I did check out your websit
No...I primarily record classical music. However, I do rock, jazz, country, bluegrass and others as well. I master all types of music. The difference is, I know full well that the folks on the mastering boards here and on PSW know a lot more about it and are better equipped to do mastering than I am. In other words, I know my place.
Uhh...check that gear list there dude. Crane Song, Manley, Millennia, Benchmark??
Any single one of those pieces of gear costs more than your entire setup. None of them are computer based. Yes, I also use some computer-based replications of hardware - mainly those found on the UAD and TC dedicated computer cards.
However, the room, the acoustics and the monitors are THE most important ingredient in mastering, not the gear you use. If those things aren't top notch, the only thing you can do to music is hack it up.
We get that. In fact, we've understood that since the moment you posted. That's not the issue. It's the hubris in which you posted to begin with. Even now that the subject is changed and some of the words in your first post, it comes off as authoritative.
The fact that you came here to "help" and you felt the self-importance enough to do so on your VERY first post is arrogant. Should we be thankful that for all of these nearly 10 years, no one on Recording.org or PSW has been curteous enough to explain drum recording techniques to us?
The point is - you're welcome to hang around here, read and post and even share ideas and "help." However, when your very first post comes off as authoritative, it's standoffish. Even if you were Steve Albini, most people would have just said "TOOL!"
Simple - the ability and requirement to use this as the means for living. In other words - the work pays the bills. This doesn't count if you live with mom and dad. For example, my studio grossed a decent chunk of money this year. Enough that, even though I have no "day job" at the moment, I could pay a mortgage payment (of over $3000 a month) and cover health insurance for my family.
Many people here are doing far better than I am too. Folks like Bent and Remy actually have recording as their primary and only jobs. These guys are pros.
I don't know everything. Far from it. I don't think anyone here has represented themselves this way. I've studied physics for 12 years both at brick-and-mortar institutions and through private studies. I've studied music for 26 years again through brick-and-mortar and private studies.
However, at no point in my career did I ever say "Ok, I know everything and everyone must listen to me..."
In fact, one of the first things I tell my interns and part-timers is:
"I learn something new on EVERY recording gig I do. Keep your ears and eyes open."
Have I done this? Has anyone here done this? I think we've address the fact that you are trolling and/or spamming, and even said you have no clue what you're talking about, but has anyone called into question the nature of your character?
See, it's this that pisses me off.
First, I don't know where religion comes into play in this conversation. Second, why do people feel the need to hide behind Jesus Christ instead of using him as an example to live.
When's the last time you read anything in the Bible about Jesus walking into a room full of people and immediately advising them on what to do and how to do it?
Last time I checked, it's the meek who shall inherit the Earth, not the authoritative.
Put another way, the best way to help is NOT addressing people whom you've never met and with whom you have no experience and ASSUMING that they need your help.
Most often, it's best simply to listen, listen and listen. And when you're done listening, listen some more. Then, if you see a need and desire for your special brand of help, then you may help.
I absolutely hate it when these discussions bring religion into the issue and now I'm pissed off.
Then stop defending yourself and simply apologize and walk away. I don't mean leave the forums. I mean walk away from the topic.
If you'd like, I can lock this topic so that you don't have to keep defending yourself. Just say the word and it will be done.
Cheers-
Jeremy