making recorded drums sound like a drum machine

luckybastard · Post by **luckybastard** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:58 am

hey guys what's the best way of going about making well recorded drums(mics on every source, room mics, overheads) sound as close as possible to sampled 80's style dry drums a la Hard to Explain by the strokes. oh yeah, and the processing has to be done in the box. i know that it requires some fiddling around with compression and gates. i would appreciate and help you guys can give me as a starting point.

apropos of nothing · Post by **apropos of nothing** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:05 am

Gate and downsample to 16khz.

luckybastard · Post by **luckybastard** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:10 am

thanks. is there any gate plugins in protools that anyone is very fond of?

apropos of nothing · Post by **apropos of nothing** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:26 am

I was being curt in a smart-alecky fashion. Here are some more strategies: delay your high-hats and snares, synched to BPM. Try dramatic processing (eq, dense short delays and reverbs) on one particular element, and no other. Make sure that your part is metronomically precise (repeat phrases). Favor parts that have few sustaining elements (the ride cymbal is your enemy -- it is rarely in the drum machine vocabulary). Try eq sweeps on elementr of the track or the track as a whole. Highpass elements that need less thump. Overdrive. Use a resonant lowpass filter on the kick.

Any of these may be useful to get you closer.

Also, ideomatically, "non-drum" sounds should also be in there (playing on stands, random pieces of metal, oil drums)

luckybastard · Post by **luckybastard** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:29 am

this was really helpful. thanks alot.

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 11:16 am

Loose the room mics and maybe even the overheads (id you used a hat mic you chould be able to get away with it. Maybe open up the Oh just for crashes, or go back and re-record the crash symbals.

Use shitty, too long reverb, it seems like most drum machines have a lot of bad reverb. Add a super dry shaker and something that slightly resembles, but isn't a triangle.

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 11:32 am

drumsound wrote:Loose the room mics

+1

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

kdarr · Post by **kdarr** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 11:49 am

You could also try using Drumagog or Aptrigga or any one of those sample-replacement programs to layer an SP-12 or Linndrum (or drum machine of your choice) sound bank up with the live drums, or replace the live drum sounds altogether.

As everyone said above, no room mics is a must. Lots of gating to keep each sound totally separate from the others, metronomic time or cut/paste pattern repetition helps too. It would probably be good to use heavy enough compression to remove most of the dynamics from each track - using a trigger program can help with that, if you just erase all the velocity data on the midi map of the triggered kit, and make every hit the same level.

Basically, it's like you want to do the opposite of everything that you would do for a "regular" drum sound.

[<|>]

signorMars · Post by **signorMars** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 11:53 am

(really) close micing with dynamics works really well too, if you haven't already recorded them.

jwd · Post by **jwd** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 12:03 pm

kdarr wrote:Drumagog or Aptrigga

for the professed PT user - try sound replacer.

Colin F. · Post by **Colin F.** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 12:16 pm

jwd wrote:
kdarr wrote:Drumagog or Aptrigga
for the professed PT user - try sound replacer.

Or just tab to transient and drop in a sample.

Or, if you want to do it faster:
beat detective to chop the regions at the transients then tab to region to drop in the samples.

jaguarsg · Post by **jaguarsg** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 12:16 pm

beat detective the shit out of the track.

apropos of nothing · Post by **apropos of nothing** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 12:31 pm

I mean, all this depends on *what kind* of drum machine part you're looking for. Personally, I like a drum-machine as a tool for making rhythmic parts which are totally unlike a trap kit. I think they're only so-so for making rock drums. I also find that brush-plated or zip-stick played acoustic drums are easier to make drum machine-like.

Also, think about dropping a loop or two on the material, which would be cheating, but will establish a vibe. Doesn't even have to be a drum loop, synth bleeps and sweeps will do a lot to establish the vibe of the song as identifiably electronic or acoustic.

honkyjonk · Post by **honkyjonk** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 1:36 pm

OT,

but, what's that song on Cat Steven's Catch Bull at Four? I forget which one it is, but it sounds hilariously like a drum-machine. Frikkin great!

jckinnick · Post by **jckinnick** » Wed Feb 06, 2008 3:33 pm

Have you heard the song of the new Queens album "Im A Designer" it sounds like a drum machine but it isnt? They talk about it in the new issue.

Message Board

making recorded drums sound like a drum machine

making recorded drums sound like a drum machine

Who is online