FWIW, I think you're underestimating the quality you can achieve with a little careful programming inside BFD, especially if you invest in some of the Expansion packs.

Bristol_Jonesey


 

+1 to Jonesey on that one as I stated similarly in my early post in this thread

mike_mccue


Hi Kiosk,
I set up the Hi Hat controller to function as it was intended and I've gotten better at my foot timing.

I think for me, I probably have bad real hi hat technique in that I utilize the "up" sound as much as the other sounds and I have yet to find a sample library that has an "up" sound.

With the Edrum kit I have had to learn to use what they library provides which is usually a nice gating type sound as you lower your foot on a recent hi-hat hit.

The basic fott close "****" sounds seem a bit lighter in all the libraries than my real life style as well.

I am not a trained drummer... so I have to admit that part.

best regards,
mike

Hi Mike,
 
As a drummer and e-drummer with the same e-kit as you, perhaps I can make a couple of suggestions to try to help. Firstly is one of playing (and therefore practising) technique. When starting out drumming, gaining separation of the mind control of four limbs is the first skill to be acquired, genuine lack of ability to do this rather than lack of dedication to practise is of course why some people could never drum in a million years. Separating the arms from the feet comes first but then controlling the feet individually needs extra work. May I suggest this is why you end up with more open hi-hat hits than you intend as your left foot (assuming the kit is set up right-handed) inadvertantly follows the beat. Try this exercise I developed myself early on in my drum playing career:-
 
 
Play a simple 4/4 beat with eighths on the hi-hat, 1 and 3 on the floor (The money beat !) with the left foot keeping the hi-hat permanantly closed, this is the first stage in separation control, next, play a bar where you open and close the hi-hat for consecutive strikes (sizzle) on the and- 2 followed by the and-4. Then, return to a bar of foot closed, till you get total control and don't skip the sequence. Once mastered, follow that two bar pattern by a four bar pattern with a bar each when you only play one of the sizzles per bar, firstly the and- two followed on the fourth bar by only on the and-four. Repeat until the muscle memory embeds itself permanently in your mind. This is where drummers on real kits can drive people insane with practise but edrummers can get away with it. You will soon achieve mastery of your hi-hat beats. Playing dynamics (ie musically pleasing and appropriate velocity control can only come after this.
 
Yes I agree with both your points regarding e-drum libraries, you have to search for a good gating open to close hi-hat sound on a kit piece, they are all recorded by different players in different recoring styles. I like the recorded NY Avatar Sabian Hi-hat sounds in Superior Drummer 2 myself, and can port them as an X-drum into other kits if required.
 
The other point you made being that the Hi-hat close sound (known as the 'chick' ) tends to be too quiet in relation to the rest of the kit sounds. On the DM 5 Drum brain. if you perform a MIDI chase on the Hi-hat close note, you can adjust the velocity sensitivity to a higher level to compensate and give you the balance you are looking for.
 
Hope this helps
 
Cheers
 
Garry Kiosk

Personally I find midi drums and live cymbals are a good compromise.

Given than many songs recorded with acoustic drums are often doctored with some kind of drum replacement technique providing or augmenting the final sound.

The cymbals are the hardest to emulate through sampling even that given that 127 steps of velocity would be accurate enough to represent a full range of hit strengths.

The reason being is that the radial vibrations on each physical cymbal will be in a different phase on anything other than the first hit.

Fortunately it's an easy enough thing to do to record cymbals in isolation with a stereo pair of condensers.  Back in the eighties I even used a consumer grade stereo Sony mic with great results in order to capture cymbals to incorporate into an effective drum track.  Just make sure if you are using such a mic it is a condenser in order to capture those bright brassy top end frequencies.

After that if you have mics to burn try to capture some of the room any old mic or mics will do but boldly experiment with position until you get a good marriage between the main (overhead sound) it doesn't really matter about getting a stereo room sound so if you only have one mic available try it anyway.  It can add some real depth and meat to the sound.

Another thing I find common in the songs forum is that many folk try to get a really hyped sound in the high frequencies and not only does this make the cymbals prone to 'frying' in the final mix you'll miss out on some of the good stuff lower down the frequency ranges.

My personal favourite benchmark for recorded cymbal sounds would be on Steely Dan's 'Reeling in the Years',  listen to the crashes in particular and how much of the tone is down in the mid ranges and not all about hyping the highs.

Hi Hats are very hard to fake as each players foot pressure will often contribute to a signature playing style which is often a very expressive part of a style and differs even with the same player at 10 am at the start of a session than it will at 4 pm when the same player has got fed up with too many takes.

This subtlety of nuance is nigh on impossible to get near with midi, but on the other hand a mechanical type feel can suit certain genres so there is no hard and fast, you have to satisfy that what you are trying to do is adding 'feel' to a song or destroying it.  So all in all it is just down to production choice whether you go for a sloppier live feel or robotic tightness.

Another thing that gets overlooked even when somebody has programmed some great articulations along with getting a great hi-hat sound, is that the 'feel' is missing.  Humanisation or some other kind randomisation can help to some extent but in other cases it can make the drumming feel loose and frankly bad.

 The reason is that most drummers have an inherent amount of swing even when playing straight notes so make use of Sonar's groove quantising feature particularly on hats, the MPC grooves are great to add that little bit of feel and the sweet spots are around about the +/- 2% and +/-5% (i.e. small) amounts for my tastes, although I tend to groove my beats with Reason 4's 're-groove' engine rather than Sonars' DNA engine I'm sure they are pretty much equally capable in practice it's just that I got familiar with the Propellerhead's product for doing that kind of thing first.

Like all these things there is no hard and fast apply all to every track you are doing and great results seem to be inexplicably linked to the amount of effort put in.  The hybrid approach of live metals and midi drums seems to me, for the reasons given here of simplicity to do and the difficulties of representing cymbals effectively with midi, like a good one.

I use those Steely Dan albums as my reference mixes.... I hesitate to say they were the best ever... but that's just because I believe statements like that are silly.

:-)

A year or so ago, I pulled in to a colleagues studio parking lot and I was jamming to Katy Lied. My buddy walks out from behind his steel door and greets me "was that Katy Lied? that's the best mix...EVER!"... and then we laughed at the fact that I rolled in playing it loud enough for him to recognize it from inside his studio's office.

The kids are alright. :-)

What do you guys think about my "up" sounds ideas?

Is that just unorthodox self taught technique? Is it a frowned upon bad habit?

I'm trying to figure out why it doesn't seem to be addressed by all the sample library coders?

Thanks!

best regards,
mike

ok off to study

Thanks for elaborating Garry.

This seems like very useful info... and yes my real hi-hat is tilted enough to get both the opening wash and a explicit swish when it closes. Good call!!!

I guess I listened to too much Chick Webb as a child. :-)

Isn't that why rides are beefy?

mike_mccue


ok off to study

Here you go Mike.

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=9952162

You'll get this effect be clearly lifting your foot of the pedal whilst playing quarter notes, the up hi hat sound should be on the 'and' as in 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, far too athletic for me these days.

Notice the reverb switching in at 07.00 too no subtlety there LOL

Thanks Jon!

Interesting thread & ideas here lads - keep it coming!!!

Not that it wouldn't be better to have a great studio room and real drums and a rack of vintage Neve pre-amps and such.

The beauty is you don't need all that if you're just recording cymbals to get a great sound.  A pair of non-expensive condensers in whatever room you find yourself in then you just need to be prepared to experiment a little.

After lurking over these most excellent posts ... I'll post-pone the Z4 Zendrum option (tho I called their propietary number).

From personal limited hacking experience, I'd validate:

1) What I understand of Jonbouy's thoughts: The "wash" of studio bells per se is a notch or 10 higher with mic'd bells.

2) That "wash" sounds better with studio tambs and glocks as well.

3) I'll start hacking with my Sabian hats (on my next piece)

4) Oftentimes, nothing beats a real percussionist, groove meister, or loopster ...  pre-recorded samples

5) Zendrums and BFD/2 seem old school performance driven paradigms that appeal to virtuoso drummers much more than home composers and producers.

6) I'm not about to re-invent any drum wheels that you drum masters can do better. 

7) For sample-driven 'new-school' composers ... midi-loops, beatz and purcheasable 3rd-party loops and blasts ... these seem to me much more time and cost-effective for 90% of the workflow and inspiration ... for solid groove foundations.

8) Off Topic: I'd speculate that a 'pop' song often leans either to old-school (performance) techniques ... or else ... to new-school (sampling) techniques ... not the 50/50 old-new that I'm guilty of.  Its difficult to be in both camps 50/50 anyway ... as they oppose each other.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8syiOwwVyY

I can't think of any sampler currently that would cope with either of those very well...