Need tips on recording drums

Hi.

I'm about to record a demo with my band. I'm using Sonar 4.0.3 PE and a Firepod. We plan to record the drums with 8 mic's. In other words: we're going to record 8 mono tracks at the same time.

My question is: When the drummer plays a take that is pretty good, but he want to re-record some measures. What do you think is the best way of doing this?

(sorry about the short post, but my english is a bit limited, so I have a hard time explaining things)

-Ranietz-

Ranietz,

I think it's difficult to get punch-in of multi-miked drums to sound right, but anyway . . .

On this punch-in, I'd try to begin recording a little before you really need it, and end a little after. Then, in Track view, after the new part is recorded, you can "slip-edit" (adjust the length of the clips with click-and-drag of the mouse, including the old material that you just recorded over). So, shorten the beginning of new clips so they start at the right point, then highlite the original clip that comes before this part, and slip-edit that clip to end where the new one now begins - maybe overlap a little if it sounds better. Then, same thing at the end of the new audio clips.

I hope this helps.

Rigel

Another suggestion:

You could clone all drum tracks (without events) and do another take seperately without punch ins. Make sure the drummer hits the same cymbols prior to the expected punch in spot. Have him play past the expected punch out point and get a good take.

Then you can select, drag, and drop the "punch in" section to the original tracks using "Replace.." as the drag option. You will need to zoom way in and slip edit the crap out of the transitions. Go forward past the measure, or backward before the measure to avoid any snare / kick hits during the transition. Use tiny crossfades to eliminate pops.

I effectively do this all the time myself as I typically take 3 or 4 complete drum takes for a song and then drag and drop measures or sections around to combine the best of the takes.

Thanks for the replys everyone. :)

bermuda: Could you please explain a little more about Curve EQ since I'm not sure if I understand what you mean.

I guess I'll try what Rigel said, but I'll try to record a lot more before and after the measures I want to re-record so I can find a good spot to connect the two takes. There is one proble though: We play some sort of Death/Thrash metal and there is a lot of drumming going on, so it might be difficult to find the right spot to connect the pieces. Any suggestion on where to make the connection? I guess somewhere with as little cymbals as possible?

And one more thing: When you connect the clips. Have you tried crossfading? Any luck with that?

Thanks again,

-Ranietz-

Similar advice... maybe slightly different approach.

My way assumes you are playing to a click. If you are not it is going to be hard any way you try to do it.

After recording a song length take, if there is a bit I want to redo, I go to a blank area AFTER the song, and start the take well before and end well after where I want the punch to happen. Then I make a hole in the original take about the size of the new stuff, and cut the new stuff into the right size and move it into the hole. Then I will choose my edits/crossfades based on what sounds best.

Using track folders is a HUGE timesaver to this process.

Punching in would work as well, I just dont do it for some reason.

cAPS

ORIGINAL: Ranietz

Thanks for the replys everyone. :)

bermuda: Could you please explain a little more about Curve EQ since I'm not sure if I understand what you mean.

I guess I'll try what Rigel said, but I'll try to record a lot more before and after the measures I want to re-record so I can find a good spot to connect the two takes. There is one proble though: We play some sort of Death/Thrash metal and there is a lot of drumming going on, so it might be difficult to find the right spot to connect the pieces. Any suggestion on where to make the connection? I guess somewhere with as little cymbals as possible?

And one more thing: When you connect the clips. Have you tried crossfading? Any luck with that?

Thanks again,

-Ranietz-

Curve EQ alows you to copy the Frequency profile of a recorded loop and apply it to another...folks do this so that loops don't sound separate, but were part of the same thing.

Check the product out at Voxengo.com

Sometmes two takes, punched, the drummer may be more dynamically active (hitting the snare harder or hit hats harder, this produces higher frequencies. and louder volume, the volume can be controlled but the frequency mis match is not so easy...

Easiest is to do a couple of takes and choose the best one (being you are doing a demo)

even if it takes 20 takes and a lunch break.



Although for a simple demo

Thanks again bermuda. I thought Curve EQ was some function in Sonar that I didn't know and that's why I didn't understand at first. But I get it now.

I think I'll try the other suggestions first and see how they work out before considering getting more plug-ins, but thanks anyway...

-Ranietz-

ORIGINAL: bermuda

Being it's probably a first go at a demo with your gear

1) Good luck, hope it works out well

2) Probably not a good idea to concentrate too much on the mixing, production and just focus on tracking the best takes and alternatives you can get...double track the guitars, as you may want a secong guitar track of the same thing, but not a clone when you come to mixing.

3) Encourage your drummer, I hated playing with a click...I would have the bass player listening to a click and I woul track with the bass an the click in headpones.

Think about using an audio or midi looped TTs 1 simple drums for him to play along with before getting stressed. I would forget the counting at times and play to feel which is what my problem was...if your drummer is a counter 100% then he should have no problem with a click.

Thanks. This is actually our second demo. On our first demo we recorded the drums with only 4 mic's and did the drum recording with one take. If the drummer wasn't pleased with the result we recorded the the drumtracks for the whole song all over again. Now for our second demo, the songs are much more tecnical and more difficult to play, so I doubt the drummer (or any of us) can play a whole song through without small annoying mistakes. So that's why I'm doing this research on how to replace the parts that has mistakes...

And about the click track: I've recorded two guitar tracks for each song and mixed them down to one stereo track, so when the drummer records the drumtracks for the song hi will hear a metronome and the guitartracks in his headphones. I decided to record two guitartracks for the clicktrack instead of one so when we're done recording the drums for one song we can get some sort of preview of the song with drums and two guitars.

And yes we're going to double the guitar tracks (not cloning), and I thinking about experimenting with aditional guitartracks that are played one octave above the original riff and stuff like that...

-Ranietz-

ORIGINAL: dmassey
I'm not sure I understand why you have to "bounce" the guitar tacks. Does PE limit the number of audio tracks?

I don't think PE has a limit of audio tracks (not sure though). I recorded two mono guitar tracks and "bounced" to one stereo track. Then I deleted the two mono tracks and kept the stereo track. Just to make it simple and tidy. No big thing...

-Ranietz-

ORIGINAL: SonicClang

Holy crap man, if you've never recorded drums before and you're asking a few nights before you're recording a demo, I hate to say it man, but your demo is going to sound like junk. Recording drums is an art form in itself that takes a long time just to get a handle on, let alone master.

If you have read some of my previous posts you'll see that I have recorded drums before (I'm not claiming to be an expert), but then we took the whole song in one take. Now I'm just researching the possibility to re-record some of the parts...

-Ranietz-

You know one other useful bit...

If you are going to be doing the edit on or near a crash or ride or other sustaining sound make sure you do them the same-ish way in the other take.

You dont want to have to cut the end of a crash cymbal off in the middle of an edit.

Obviously recording extra on both ends helps solve this, but even then you might run into the crash problem if you don't think it through. ;)

cAPS

I don't like punching in and out for drum recordings. When I record drums, I wanted it to be just in one take. If the drummer didn't get it the first time, I make them do it again...until he gets it right without mistakes.

Not unless there are rests or pauses in the song, then i let them pick it up from there and do the re-takes after those rests.

ORIGINAL: Ranietz

Thanks again for the adivces everybody. This thread is very helpful to me.

I plan to try punch-in recording, but I'm not going to delete the old recording. I'm just going to slip-edit it away. Then I will set the punch-in/punch-out to long before and after the measures I want to replace. When I have recorded the second take, I'm going to slip-edit the old and the new take and try to find a point where they fit together.
It's similar to the process of recording the new take to 8 new tracks, but I'm recording it to a new layer instead.
(I hope that makes any sence)

-Ranietz-

It looks like this may get addressed in Sonar 5, but the version 4 implementation of tack layers is difficult when comp recording a single track because as soon as you try to slip edit... the layers jump all over the place.

You're talking about using layers with multi-tracked drums? It's a nightmare and useless.

You don't need to do this... simply punch in well before the section you really want to correct (in overwrite mode) and punch out well after the part is over. As cAPS said... do this in sections where there are no crashes.

Make sure all the drum tracks are in a folder and the auto-crossfade feature is on. Then simply slip edit the folder groups togther as close to the problem area as possible.

BTW... if you are quick and skillful at pressing record in between hits on the hi hat or ride... Sonar does an excellent job of creating silent punch-in's. If the punch is good and the performance is good... you may not have to slip edit the punch-in at all.

ORIGINAL: Ranietz

Thanks for the reply.

Maybe I'll try what you said, and record to a new track rather than using layers.

Thanks again,

-Ranietz-

Just so we're clear... I'm not suggesting recording to new tracks.

Punching in to the existing tracks grouped by a folder in overwrite mode (not sound-on-sound), and then slip editing works very well... but you must be the ar-tiste' and use your ears.

Use the folder handles on the folder clips to slip-edit all tracks in the folder at once with the auto-cross fade option enabled.