Hello again,
Today I share some drum editing I did for a local metal band I’ve been fortunate enough to work with. These drums were recorded with a midi drum kit into a drum software program. The editing I performed was to get the performance in time and to customize the kit for the drummer. I would have LOVED to record his acoustic kit, however, I don’t have the inputs or ADAT capabilities in my audio interface to handle 8 + microphones. So, troubleshooting led us the midi kit.
This is with only rough mixing involved. I set the mixer faders, threw on a EQ over the kit and used slight compression to help it pop. The trick to getting it to sound like a real kit and not a computer generated kit is to have a person actually play it. Drum loops are not the way to go when trying to capture a humanistic feel. Get a real drummer to play the kit. The only difference between what we did and the traditional way of recording drums was HOW we recorded the drums. Traditional uses mics to capture the performance; we used midi to capture the performance. Many want to believe this is a subpar way of recording drums. I disagree.
Without further ado, enjoy this sample and feel free to comment.
http://soundcloud.com/calidingo/metal-drums-edit-sample
Till next time…
David (Cali Dingo)
Drums sound great Dave, :^( however just a tad robotic and cymbals sound to synthetic in the over ring. They dont ring out naturaly,its like they cut off at the same time in the same spots. But for using a midi and software and not acoustic drums that have to get mic (and we both know WHAT A PAIN IN THE ASS THAT CAN BE) sounds really clean my friend. Keep in mind thats coming from somepne who couldn’t keep time even if i had inventedthe wrist watch
I totally agree about the cymbals. My only fix (if I had the inputs) would be to use real cymbals mic’d. But, thanks for checking out my latest efforts. To this day, you, my old feathered friend, are my favorite drummer. You have a very unique and appealing style that kicks the nads. In the meantime, I’ll work on my “robotic-ness”. Lol.