Help? Basics on recording a drum machine?

[astaticwhitesound]

Hey everyone,
I have an EMU 1212m interface and a modest home studio set up. I have NO experience recording hardware drum machines. I do have REASON and have used that for programming drums whenever the need arose for myself. But I am recording my friends' band tomorrow and they have a Roland R-8 drum machine. They want to just record live, and they envision me just using the stereo outputs of the drum machine sraight into my system, which I can do, I obviously would prefer to have each drum on a seperate track. So, I asked them what other outputs they have and they said the box has 8 analog outputs but they don't know how to assign different drum sounds to each and the manual is apparently no help.

How would I go about doing this? Is anyone familiar with these old Rolands and how to assign sounds to channels? Or is there a way to use the MIDI out to record it all as MIDI and separate it once its in my system somehow (can i use REASON for this?)?

Any advice & suggestions would be really helpful! Thanks!

[LazarusLong]

MIDI is not audio. The best way to think of it is that it's a control language. MIDI says things like "Note On 34, Velocity 123" to whatever is listening, not "beep" or "boop".

[astaticwhitesound]

MIDI is not audio. The best way to think of it is that it's a control language. MIDI says things like "Note On 34, Velocity 123" to whatever is listening, not "beep" or "boop".

Ahh okay. So it sounds like I can't just use the MIDI out to my system and then separate it there, then... So, the analog outs are the way to go. Do you have any experience with a drum machine & have an idea how to assign the sounds to particular outputs? The band is very laid back and unconcerned, but I really want to do it as close to correct as possible to have options come mix time.

[sheinke]

Well that seems really lame and lazy that the band can't figure out how to assign individual outs, especially with the manual. Output assignments are one of the most basic things a person needs to know when using a drum machine. There's probably an online version of the manual that you could check out figure it out ahead of time.

Also, there's probably a way to "record" the MIDI pass into your DAW. I work in ProTools, and I believe you could go from the MIDI out of the Drum Machine into the MIDI input of your interface, then assign to a MIDI track in record. Then you could trigger Reason like you mentioned.

And if none of this works, record it in stereo as a reference while the band plays, then figure out the output assignments later, record it "wild", then slip the individual tracks as a whole to phase with the stereo reference. Good luck.

[DrummerMan]

What about just recording the band the way they sound? If they use that drum machine and are happy with it as-is as just a stereo output, then why not just use that sound, instead of worrying about over complicating things in an attempt at making them "better"? Or am I missing something...

[Marc Alan Goodman]

Yip, it might be fine left alone. But it should be relatively simple to assign outputs. Check out the manual yourself

[rhythm ranch]

Yip, it might be fine left alone. But it should be relatively simple to assign outputs. Check out the manual yourself

I'm with Marc, it might be fine. It's the ITB version of recording the kit with one or two mics. You get what you get.

If you want to assign them to separate outputs it's not that tough. You can download the manual (and just about all of their manuals) for free from Roland here.

[astaticwhitesound]

thanks guys, that's what i've been leaning toward. they are a real "wanna capture us playing live" kinda band, so i'm cool with that but at the same time, if i want to eq the snare sound they've got later, i won't be able to. i don't like not having options like that, but if they're not overly concerned, i guess i shouldn't be... i guess we'll spend a little time with the manual, trying to assign outputs and if it isn't happening, we'll just use the stereo outs and get recording... thanks for the replies!

[drumsound]

What about just recording the band the way they sound? If they use that drum machine and are happy with it as-is as just a stereo output, then why not just use that sound, instead of worrying about over complicating things in an attempt at making them "better"? Or am I missing something...

I think the OP is looking to treat the machine like he would if a drummer brought in a drum-set. Most of the time, most of us would have multiple mics going to multiple tracks. Why not do that with a drum machine?

[DrummerMan]

What about just recording the band the way they sound? If they use that drum machine and are happy with it as-is as just a stereo output, then why not just use that sound, instead of worrying about over complicating things in an attempt at making them "better"? Or am I missing something...

I think the OP is looking to treat the machine like he would if a drummer brought in a drum-set. Most of the time, most of us would have multiple mics going to multiple tracks. Why not do that with a drum machine?

I can see that. I guess I was thinking about how much time some people put into trying to make a many-mic'd kit glue together and it just seemed to me like going in the opposite direction. I was also imagining for some reason the drum machine as an addition to an already existing drummer, not that that really affects my comment.

I'm also over-tired and therefor a bit crankytoday, so who knows what the hell else was going through my brain.

[astaticwhitesound]

What about just recording the band the way they sound? If they use that drum machine and are happy with it as-is as just a stereo output, then why not just use that sound, instead of worrying about over complicating things in an attempt at making them "better"? Or am I missing something...

I think the OP is looking to treat the machine like he would if a drummer brought in a drum-set. Most of the time, most of us would have multiple mics going to multiple tracks. Why not do that with a drum machine?

I can see that. I guess I was thinking about how much time some people put into trying to make a many-mic'd kit glue together and it just seemed to me like going in the opposite direction. I was also imagining for some reason the drum machine as an addition to an already existing drummer, not that that really affects my comment.

I'm also over-tired and therefor a bit crankytoday, so who knows what the hell else was going through my brain.

Hehe, I know how it is - no offense taken. But yeah, Tony hit the nail on the head in how I've been thinking of it approach-wise. And since it IS the only drums or percussion on these loud rock songs, the sounds coming out of that drum machine better be sounding good if I'm not going to be able to tweak them later. But I totally agree about capturing the band how they actually sound. If they aren't stressing about it, I'm not going to add stress to the situation when it might not be warranted. I think they said they only use a couple drum sounds anyway. Mostly snare. So, we'll see what happens.

Thanks again, everyone, for the comments!

[cozy]

I would definitely get them to track out the drums separately. I use a drum machine for all of my music and find that most of the samples are going to have a lot of low end on them. I usually end up having to eq each track to get rid of the mud.

Also, if you end up 2 tracking the drum machine, I would either ask them to mix the drums in the machine itself (levels, panning the hats) so that there is a good balance coming from the box. I know the hi hats on drum machines are really loud at default levels.

You probably already knew this, but just wanted to throw it out.

Good luck

[apropos of nothing]

Subject to the same considerations as a drummer. Good drummer, two channels, no problem. Not as good drummer, more channels preferred. Lousy drummer, nothing'll help. Technique with drum machines is in the ears and programming rather than in the hands and forearms, but sounds a lot alike -- hats present but not blaring, kick pleasantly thumpy but not overbearing (and you'll pr'y high-pass it later), snare full but not overwhelming the rest of the kit. The bulk of the trick of it is in velocity programming.

You could actually grab the MIDI and map your own samples to it.

I'm a big proponent of single pass capture, where possible.

By way of response to the previous poster, if you're eqing all of the samples separately, why not eq them all together? That's why root gave us multiband compression, hi-, low- and band-pass filters.

[cozy]

By way of response to the previous poster, if you're eqing all of the samples separately, why not eq them all together? That's why root gave us multiband compression, hi-, low- and band-pass filters.

I should have said hi passed. I do that so that they all have their own space and are not overlapping frequencies. A kick, snare and hats are going to have different cutoff points, so I process them separate.

[Marc Alan Goodman]

I should have said hi passed. I do that so that they all have their own space and are not overlapping frequencies. A kick, snare and hats are going to have different cutoff points, so I process them separate.

Yup, but if it's a drum machine it's probably not going to have crazy weird parts of the signal that you might get with a microphone and have to trim off.

Anyway, if I was doing I'd want to have the separate outputs, I just don't think I would stress if it didn't happen. There's still plenty of things you can do to a stereo track, just ask any mastering engineer.