Beefing up session drummer

Whilst I've been happy using Session Drummer, and thankful that HS2004 was able to import it from my previously installed Pro9 programme, I'm finding the rigidity of its sound a bit frustrating.
What I'm trying to say is that sometimes I'd like to beef up the impact individual drums have in any given mix.

After converting the midi SD track to audio I've experimented with applying audio fx but as this is a global application ie snare, kick, hi-hat are all affected, it's not a very satisfying process. For instance adding a touch of reverb to brighten the snare brings on the Phil Spector sound!

From what I understand of SD 2 it's possible to isolate each component of the kit and tweak them individually. I guess this isn't possible with the original SD.

Anyone out there found a solution to this? All suggestions very welcome
Thanks, Gareth

I don't know if you've thought of this but:

After you've created a full drum track for your song and you've 'process/apply midi effects' so the track is now displaying the midi data, highlight the whole track in the clip pane, use edit/select/by filter, select by note for just the kick drum "note", then cut, paste into another track. Do the same thing for the snare drum. You'll end up with the snare and the kick having their own tracks.

Garreth, I stumbled thru the same thing as you’re going thru right now. I probably didn’t provide enough detail. And the good news is I found an easier way than using the ‘Select’ page. Don’t be daunted by my long-winded explanation, this is actually quite simple when you get the hang of it.

From your post I’m assuming you have a drum track with the midi data displayed in the clips pane.

1 – Save your project with a different name before trying this, I don’t want to be blamed on you losing any data.

2 - Have an empty midi track available for later when we do the paste. (Insert/Midi Track)

3- Identify the note that represents your kick drum note. Click on your drum track so the whole track is displayed and open the piano roll view (View/Piano Roll). I located my kick drum note by seeing the lowest note in my track that had events was C3, I clicked on the displayed keyboard on C3 and confirmed that yes that was a kick drum.

4. Select the whole kick drum part. We’ll use C3 in my example for the kick drum, use which ever note your track is using for a kick drum (it’s probably C3 of B3 if you’re using GM). Simple click C3 on the displayed keyboard in the Piano Roll view, and you should see all the events for C3 darkened to indicate they are selected (and none of the events for the other drums should be darkened).

5 – Cut the kick drum part (Edit/Cut, select ‘Events in Track’ button only), when you do this the kick drum part should disappear from your drum track.

6 – Click your empty midi track to select it and paste (Edit/Paste, make sure your starting time and destination track is displayed correctly.

Ta da, your bass drum events are now in their own track. Do the same procedure for the snare drum.

I just did this myself as a test. It took my 35 seconds to do, so once you get the hang of this it’s really quick.

Cheers,

Frank

Thanks again Frank and Jack.

Today will be spent travelling, doing a gig, and travelling home so I'll get down to the nitty gritty tomorrow and let you know how it goes.

Have a nice Sunday!
Gareth

ORIGINAL: Gareth
From what I understand of SD 2 it's possible to isolate each component of the kit and tweak them individually. I guess this isn't possible with the original SD.

With SD2 I believe you can also send individual pads to 1 of 4 separate stereo outputs removing the need to create separate midi tracks.

ORIGINAL: Gareth

Fep, am I right in assuming that I now convert the snare and kick midi tracks to audio and do the tweaking, then bounce them into a final audio drum track? Or keep them as separate tracks for mixing?
Thanks again for your time, Gareth

There is no need to bounce to audio unless you want to conserve CPU.

Keep the tracks separate, if you want to control the drums as a unit use a bus as a drum submix.


BTW altima_boy_2001, SD2 has eight separate stereo audio outs not four.

CPU space is an issue so I guess I'll do a conversion to audio then keep the kick and snare as separate tracks for the mixing stage.

Frank, thanks once again for giving me this very useful leg up in the learning curve!

Gareth

ORIGINAL: scook
Keep the tracks separate, if you want to control the drums as a unit use a bus as a drum submix.

That's what I do. Keep the kick, snare, hihat, each tom, etc on a separate audio track, and send them all to a master drum bus. Then route that bus to the master. This way, you can adjust each sound as you need, and as a whole with the master drum.

Generally you'll want to add reverb, EQ, compress, etc, but it's hard to say what will work for you. That depends on the sounds you're working with, and what you want the end result to sound like. I found that The Art Of Mixing, by David Gibson, had a lot of tips for drums.

re. Panning drums

In 'Guerilla Home Recording' the author suggests that you imagine that you are standing in front of a standard drum kit and pan the drums accordingly ie. the kick and snare dead centre, hi-hat quite a bit to the right, crash cymbals half right the other half left and toms ranging from extreme left to extreme right.
But its just occured to me that maybe SD has already configured them this way?

Gareth