Unsteady drummers

[FK]

What's the best way to tidy up the drummers unsteady preformance?
Other then get a good drummer images/icons/grin.gif

I guess I could use cut, crossfade and alot of time, but does anybody know a faster way?

Frode

[AverageJoe]

You're pretty much right- cuts and A LOT of time- you will have to deal with some other issues due to the fact that his late snare hit will still be audible in the OH mics and the Hat mic, and probably the tom mics, etc., so it's not just as easy as quantizing all the hits!

Some things just require time.

Or a better drummer! images/icons/wink.gif

[bassmac]

Re the issues Joe mentioned. The first step is consolidate all your drum tracks, zoom in to the sample level, and align them all together so your hits are all in sync. Then put them in a group for editing. If the song has a click track, use that as a guide for your alignment. As a time saver, you could paste in a *repaired* verse or chorus again in other parts of the song where they occur. Just be careful where the cymbal crashes occur so you don't clip any decay. After all the repair is done, I'll consolidate again and experiment with nudging the entire snare and kick track to improve the feel.

ProTools makes very steady drummers images/icons/wink.gif

[Slider]

Check out what I worte under the Bass And Kick post. It will help! images/icons/cool.gif

[FK]

Have you ever tried fixing a stereomix?
I have a mix that varies from 132-144bpm.
Other than that it sounds good...
I guess this is where the Beat decective comes handy.

Thanks for your input,
Frode

[ June 21, 2001: Message edited by: FK ]

[PeeTee]

I just edited 11-tracks of live drums...50MB of fades, 500+ edits. It sounds like I added 20 years of playing experience to the guy! images/icons/grin.gif

I don't use Beat Detective...it sucks too much life outta the performance. Just dig in and start command-E'ing, nudging/shifting, and pulling those region boundaries. In 1hr you'll be done!

[ June 22, 2001: Message edited by: PeeTee ]

[[Benjamin]]

Use region autofade, 5ms. Then you'll only have to carry out very few fades yourself.

Most of the time you'll be best of only cutting and nudging all the drumtracks together. Then copying good parts to irreparable parts. I only nudge single tracks as a last resort, or maybe I just pass. Most of the time, the drums will sounds great to anyone but the editor much sooner than the editor is happy. Okay, I'll admit nudging the kick from time to time images/icons/smile.gif

Aligning the tracks so all the hits match up? Afraid that's not possible. I assume you mean phase-aligning the tracks. The problem is, what's your reference? You can't have both kick, hat and snare in time in all the mikes. Normally I'd go for the snare, but watch it with cymbals, they don't sound too god when not in phase.

My name is Ben and I am an editor..

[PDupre]

Something that might help is to use Strip Silence on the drum tracks to have each mic isolated to a particular part of the kit. Overheads are the hardest but you can get them to only pick up cymbals if they were placed properly during recording. You will have to trash your room mics and this won't work if you were using over heads for toms. The funny thing is, the worse the drummer, the more mics you need so you can get the separation you need for editing. images/icons/rolleyes.gif

[[Benjamin]]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by PDupre:
Something that might help is to use Strip Silence on the drum tracks to have each mic isolated to a particular part of the kit. Overheads are the hardest but you can get them to only pick up cymbals if they were placed properly during recording. You will have to trash your room mics and this won't work if you were using over heads for toms. The funny thing is, the worse the drummer, the more mics you need so you can get the separation you need for editing. images/icons/rolleyes.gif<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That would never get you natural sounding drums.

/ Ben

[PeeTee]

I thought it not necessary to mention that my live drum tracks are _grouped_ together while editing. images/icons/rolleyes.gif

Region autofade slows me down.

"Aligning the tracks so all the hits match up?"

Who the hell would do that? I treat the drumkit as a whole instrument. I use the kick drum as the overall reference against either a click, drumloop or tempo map I define.

Strip silence for drums is a no-no. I'll set up a basic faders mix, and only automate the toms by bringing down -15dB overall when the toms aren't sounding.

You and I are probably recording/editing different styles of music. For this particular production, drum machine tightness is a must! images/icons/smile.gif

[ June 23, 2001: Message edited by: PeeTee ]

[bassmac]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by PeeTee:
"Aligning the tracks so all the hits match up?" Who the hell would do that? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Look here PeeTee, Isn't recording about being creative and experimenting, and, oh yeah - having fun too.

Is it really necessary to imply someone is a f * c k ing moron just because they do things differently than you???

There are many ways to do things in recording, and this forum is suppose to be about everybody contributing their ideas and techniques.

It's not a pissing contest for prima donna's who think *their* way is the only way.

Lighten Up!

[marcusb]

ProTools is often referred to as the 'dehumanizer' around here in the
studios when someone decides to "line all the drum hits up".

There's nothing wrong with a bit of feel! ... then again different strokes for different folks, if a drum part is THAT bad that it needs to be completely rebuilt you're better off pushing the drummer harder or replacing him with someone who can play.

However, for fixing them timing of your stereo mix as you had asked about, I would cut the tune into 2-4 bar chunks, switch to shuffle mode then use Serato Pitch'n'Time to time stretch each chunk into time. You can try bigger or smaller chunks depending how tight you want it to be but you'll find this should fix your speed up problems quick effectively.

Cheers,
Marcus

[[Benjamin]]

bassmac: What I was implying (and I think maybe PeeTee?) was that it's not PHYSICALLY possible to align all tracks so that the hits match. Trying to go in that direction would cause phase-hell, but maybe that's the sought-after effect here? No?

/ images/icons/smile.gif Ben

[PeeTee]

bassmac...Sorry you took it that way. Yikes! images/icons/shocked.gif

The drum editing in question was regards to editing multi-tracked live drums. If you wish to avoid phase problems, then aligning each hit to the beat would lead to such problems. Like I said, I treat the drumkit as a whole instrument...which it is. I also would rather not experiment with clients' tracks...it's not my job.

[ June 23, 2001: Message edited by: PeeTee ]

[bassmac]

OK Pee Tee, thanks for explaining images/icons/smile.gif
It just seems lately like a lot of people think their way is the only/right way, and everybody else's is wrong. Your "who the hell would would do that" statement just pushed me a little over the top.

It was suggested to me on this forum to slide back the overheads to line up with the snare hits. While I'm at it, I align the toms as well. I haven't had any phasing problems, and it really tighten's up my drum tracks. I haven't decided yet if I will stay with this method as I'm still experimenting, but I certainly don't see it as being wrong, just different.

If I was a pro with clients like you guys, I'm sure the amount of time I spend editing drum tracks would be out of the question, but it's just me here - bad tempo and all, no clients, and plenty of time to tweak my own out of timed hits.

No hard feelings - now back to the waveforms...