Hi folks,
I've been tracking drums more and more lately and I'm running into a few challenges that I was hoping to get some input on...maybe see how other folks are doing things and thus try and help out my workflow.

To start with, here's a common drum kit setup for me: 13 mics: Kick in and out, Snare top and bottom, hat, toms 1-3, stereo OH, stereo room and mono room. Mic's all feed discrete preamps and then arrive at my Lynx Aurora 16.

Here are the challenges I'm finding:

1 - Track grouping. I know that I can group track controls and, by using quick groups, I can group most things in multiple tracks, but I keep finding myself wanting to group entire tracks on a long term (non "quick") basis. For example, once I've panned the 2 overhead tracks I'd really like to be able to group the entirety of both tracks so that anything I do to one also happens to the other. Same for the stereo room mics. Are folks here just using quick groups or is there some other mechanism that is common?

2 - Lane editing. I'm not a giant fan of Sonar lanes in their current format, but that aside, one thing I'd really love to do is edits across multiple tracks on a common layer. For example, let's say I have 10 takes of drums spread across 13 tracks with each take on a layer. I keep wishing there was a way to make it so that slip edits I perform on layer 1 on the "kickdrum-in" track would happen to every other layer 1 on every track in the folder (Cubase does this pretty well within folders and PT uses playlists). When you folks do edits, is there a mechanism you use to keep edits in sync across multiple tracks within takes? I've been more or less doing this with clip grouping, but doing it on a per-lane basis has some advantages.

3. Disk performance and drum takes. One thing I've noticed with Sonar is that when I do multiple drum takes it REALLY degrades my computers performance. I have a theory about why: If I have 13 mics and do 10 takes of drums I'm ending up with 10 lanes on 13 tracks and all of them are streaming at any given moment, even when I only have one lane solo'd. That means that even though only 13 lanes are audible, 130 lanes are streaming from disk. This inevitably leads to dropouts and such. Again, the cause I've outlined is only a theory, but the outcome (dropouts) are certainly happening when I get high layer counts and go away when I've archived tracks with lots of lanes.

When I track drums in PT or Cubase this works great, I think because each has a mechanism to keep the amount of streaming data to a manageable level. For example, in Cubase you can have only one layer on any track playing at any given moment. PT, again, uses playlists to accomplish roughly the same thing. While I REALLY don't want to see Sonar go the direction of Cubase in terms of 1 voice at any time on a track (it annoys the crap out of me in many cases), it may be nice to somehow limit the amount of streaming data on a track...maybe an "exclusive layer" toggle so that we could put the track into one-voice-at-a-time mode when we wanted?

In any case, other than creating new tracks and archiving old every 5 takes or so, how do you folks do this? Or does it even happen to other people?

4. Finally, more of a feature request. I generally really like Sonar's track/bus/output organization, where all tracks are grouped on the left, buses next and outputs furthest right. That said, I also sometimes wish I could have a bus in the track section of the console. For example, it would be nice to have the kick-in and kick-out tracks feeding a bus track that was right next to them in the track section of the console, but then have that bus feed a drum bus in the current bus section of the console. One way to do this would be to make console sections configurable (so you could have as many as you wanted) and then toggle where you'd like any particular track, bus or output to live. This way if you want things to remain as is, you can have it that way, and if you want to move stuff around or create more sections you can do that also. Hmm...maybe I'll head over to the ol' FR page...

Anywho, I'm interested to see if the folks here who track live drums are having similar challenges and if there are work-arounds.

Thanks
Dean

I probably won't be much help here Dean because I work way different than you do with real drums. But for what it's worth, I'll try to answer a few of your questions.

1. Track grouping, I don't use for drums. I like full control and most times cannot do what I do on one side of a overhead to the other. Different volumes, different eq's, there would be no reason for me to group those. Hats are picked up more on one than the other...it's just not the right way to do it in MY realm. I take care of each overhead and then level match after I have things sounding the way I want them.

2. Take lanes on drums? I definitely don't use this and have no idea why anyone else would want to. If I have to fix drums I set up punch points and punch in the whole kit with a little pre-roll so it glues itself seamlessly. To me there's just no reason to comp drums. It's not a vocal track. 10 takes on 13 tracks is just pure insanity. I just can't see why you'd need to do things that way.

3. Disc performance: This you can fix, but if you eliminate #2 and change the way you work, you probably won't have to touch a thing. Go into Sonar's options, then sync and caching. Under "file system" in that option, look for "I/O" playback and record buffer boxes. If they aren't set to 512, set them both to 512. Leave the "enable read" and "write" boxes UN-TICKED. If you are still seeing drop-outs due to disk, raise those buffers from 512 to 1024 on both sides. You may get a 1/2 second lag before playback starts, but you shouldn't get any drop out or high disc usage.

4. Ah I gave up on feature requests. I've come to the conclusion that you either get a DAW that has all the stuff you want, or use a few of them. I've been using quite a few different ones as of late. Though I don't like working like that, it's the only way to have the best of all worlds. :)

-Danny

Hi Dean,
 I track drums and I rarely use more than 2 layers per drum. I only use the 2nd layer for overdubs, and collapse to one layer ASAP.

 SONAR is so wasteful with the GUI display real estate that I can't stack up multiple takes of drum tacks and actually get any work done.

 I tend to work horizontally with drums and add extra takes further out on the timeline. When I track drums or ensembles I tend to revert to using SONAR as if it is a simple multi track tape deck.

 SONAR has never made any improvements in take management and the new "take lanes" seem to farcically highlight Roland's and Cakewalk's ineptitude at imagining how an ensemble of musicians in a contemporary tracking session would like to work. 

 X seems to have been tailored to suit the convenience of a one-man-band composer, and its authors seem wholly unaware of the needs of an ensemble of musicians hoping to engage with SONAR as a band.

 I find it frustrating to have to treat SONAR as if it is just a multi track tape deck rather than a full featured DAW but sometimes that's what it takes.

 I'm doing what Danni reccomends. SONAR 8.5.3 is still my favorite but I just bought PT11, and am incorporating Studio One into the place as well. Cubase 7 is on my wish list too.

 I am just coming out of a big remodel and I want to feature the idea that I have a live kit ready to track. I'm looking for the best tracking solution. Right now I think it's PT11 and with the addition of multi track Beat Detective it's hard to think of better.

 It seems like getting a old fashioned "master track" down and then moving over to mix on my favorite DAW may be a ok workflow.

 Just some random thoughts.


 best regards,
mike

 


 

I'm looking for the best tracking solution. Right now I think it's PT11 and with the addition of multi track Beat Detective it's hard to think of better.

 
I'd have to agree with you. Beat Detective alone is worth the price of admission there. We need Audio Snap to work like that. I gotta say though, I hate mixing in PT. I like Sonar a whole lot better for just about everything and 8.5 is my weapon of choice also though I've been using X2 a lot more. Of the X series, I like X1 better so far.
 
-Danny

I like X1 better as well and when I have midi work to do, I still default to that version.

I use PT10.5.3 version for all audio.

13 mics? Wow, a great exercise in what can be done but I have gone the other direction on tracking drums with 5 or 6, sometimes 3 or 4 and am focusing on the sound of the drums in the space vs. the sound of each drum.

I take all of the drum tracks and buss it down to a single stereo aux buss called the Main Drum Group. I do have numerous aux busses off the individual drum tracks as well which, except the FX and meaning EQ and compression parallels, go into the main drum group. Sometimes however, I will have a separate aux group for kick and snare which is the amalgamation of all the treatments from plugins. Then I will send these to the Main Drum Group which only has a limiter on it.
 
The multi edit across takes is a feature of PT by the way, if I am reading your description accurately.

Wouldn't a typical answer to #1 be to change the output of each track to a new stereo bus?
 
example:
2 kick mics ---> kick bus
3 tom mics  ---> tom bus
2 overheads --->overhead bus
2 snare mics ---> snare bus

kick bus ---> drums bus
snare bus --> drum bus
tom bus ---> drum bus
overhead bus -->drum bus

drum bus --> master bus

Then if an EQ is placed on the overhead buss it would affect both overhead mics with only one instance of the eq being used.

To expand:
2 kick mics ---> kick bus  3 tom mics  ---> tom bus  2 overheads --->overhead bus  2 snare mics ---> snare bus  kick bus ---> drums bus  snare bus --> drum bus  tom bus --->  ALL drum bus  overhead bus --> ALL drum bus 
Drum bus -> Parallel Compression Buss
Par Comp bus - All Drum Bus drum bus --> master bus 

I do a lot of drum multi-tracking. I have two habits which I select randomly based on the moon position and coffee quality. Like Mike, I may save previous takes horizontally. Either I record takes one after one or if there are already ready made tracks then I move (grouped) drum tracks horizontally to empty space. In this case I ensure that all clips start from zero time in order to make it easy to move them back if necessary. Take lanes: few months ago I tried to keep all takes in lanes. It was a complicated, 13 minutes long song and drummer required dozens of takes to finish it. Editing was total nightmare due to bugs and unpredicable behavior of clip auto cross-fades between take lanes. Splitting takes is next to impossible if there are - say 10 drum takes and 20 empty lanes - because one track may take up to three FullHD's vertical space. That's blind editing and very uncomfortable. Alternatively keeping lanes closed doesn't solve anything because then you can't select which lanes to split. I learned to avoid take lanes (when working with multi-tracked drums) whenever possible. Sorry no formatting.

Razorwit


Hi folks,
I've been tracking drums more and more lately and I'm running into a few challenges that I was hoping to get some input on...maybe see how other folks are doing things and thus try and help out my workflow.

To start with, here's a common drum kit setup for me: 13 mics: Kick in and out, Snare top and bottom, hat, toms 1-3, stereo OH, stereo room and mono room. Mic's all feed discrete preamps and then arrive at my Lynx Aurora 16.

Here are the challenges I'm finding:

1 - Track grouping. I know that I can group track controls and, by using quick groups, I can group most things in multiple tracks, but I keep finding myself wanting to group entire tracks on a long term (non "quick") basis. For example, once I've panned the 2 overhead tracks I'd really like to be able to group the entirety of both tracks so that anything I do to one also happens to the other. Same for the stereo room mics. Are folks here just using quick groups or is there some other mechanism that is common?
 

Grouping. Like quick grouping only permanent. Set up as many as you want as complex as you want. Right click over the control and  Select "Group"..... There are a whole load set up already but new ones can be created as you wish. The group manager allows you to edit them and set up some complex arrangements, such as increasing the volume as you pan a track or panning one right as the other goes left. Imagination is the limitation here.

2 - Lane editing. I'm not a giant fan of Sonar lanes in their current format, but that aside, one thing I'd really love to do is edits across multiple tracks on a common layer. For example, let's say I have 10 takes of drums spread across 13 tracks with each take on a layer. I keep wishing there was a way to make it so that slip edits I perform on layer 1 on the "kickdrum-in" track would happen to every other layer 1 on every track in the folder (Cubase does this pretty well within folders and PT uses playlists). When you folks do edits, is there a mechanism you use to keep edits in sync across multiple tracks within takes? I've been more or less doing this with clip grouping, but doing it on a per-lane basis has some advantages.

 
Clip  Grouping is the answer here. It can be done at record time by making sure "Group Clips across tracks" is checked in the record options. To create a clip group after the event select the required clips, right click and select "Create Selection group from Selected Clips".
 
Once the clip group is set up, editing one clip will perform the same edit on all others. This works great with lanes/layers. I use it all the time especially when comping.

 
3. Disk performance and drum takes. One thing I've noticed with Sonar is that when I do multiple drum takes it REALLY degrades my computers performance. I have a theory about why: If I have 13 mics and do 10 takes of drums I'm ending up with 10 lanes on 13 tracks and all of them are streaming at any given moment, even when I only have one lane solo'd. That means that even though only 13 lanes are audible, 130 lanes are streaming from disk. This inevitably leads to dropouts and such. Again, the cause I've outlined is only a theory, but the outcome (dropouts) are certainly happening when I get high layer counts and go away when I've archived tracks with lots of lanes.

When I track drums in PT or Cubase this works great, I think because each has a mechanism to keep the amount of streaming data to a manageable level. For example, in Cubase you can have only one layer on any track playing at any given moment. PT, again, uses playlists to accomplish roughly the same thing. While I REALLY don't want to see Sonar go the direction of Cubase in terms of 1 voice at any time on a track (it annoys the crap out of me in many cases), it may be nice to somehow limit the amount of streaming data on a track...maybe an "exclusive layer" toggle so that we could put the track into one-voice-at-a-time mode when we wanted?

In any case, other than creating new tracks and archiving old every 5 takes or so, how do you folks do this? Or does it even happen to other people?
 

I don't normally use many more than 10 mics on a kit at a time but do track other instruments/vocals at the same time using multiple takes. I can't say I've ever hit a limit where drop outs or such problems happen. It's worth checking your I/O buffers. They will have a big effect on how well audio is written/read from disk. Find those in Preferences--->Audio--->Sync and caching. There is no "correct" setting. It's a matter of trial and error to find what works best for you. Too large will cause as many problems as too small.

 
4. Finally, more of a feature request. I generally really like Sonar's track/bus/output organization, where all tracks are grouped on the left, buses next and outputs furthest right. That said, I also sometimes wish I could have a bus in the track section of the console. For example, it would be nice to have the kick-in and kick-out tracks feeding a bus track that was right next to them in the track section of the console, but then have that bus feed a drum bus in the current bus section of the console. One way to do this would be to make console sections configurable (so you could have as many as you wanted) and then toggle where you'd like any particular track, bus or output to live. This way if you want things to remain as is, you can have it that way, and if you want to move stuff around or create more sections you can do that also. Hmm...maybe I'll head over to the ol' FR page...
 

To a certain extent this already exists using the inspector. In channel strip mode, the track will be the left hand strip and the down stream buss or currently selected send the right hand strip.Change tracks/busses by clicking on them in the Track View. A little more flexibility wouldn't go amiss though.  
 
HTH

FastBikerBoy

Razorwit


Hi folks,
I've been tracking drums more and more lately and I'm running into a few challenges that I was hoping to get some input on...maybe see how other folks are doing things and thus try and help out my workflow.

To start with, here's a common drum kit setup for me: 13 mics: Kick in and out, Snare top and bottom, hat, toms 1-3, stereo OH, stereo room and mono room. Mic's all feed discrete preamps and then arrive at my Lynx Aurora 16.

Here are the challenges I'm finding:

1 - Track grouping. I know that I can group track controls and, by using quick groups, I can group most things in multiple tracks, but I keep finding myself wanting to group entire tracks on a long term (non "quick") basis. For example, once I've panned the 2 overhead tracks I'd really like to be able to group the entirety of both tracks so that anything I do to one also happens to the other. Same for the stereo room mics. Are folks here just using quick groups or is there some other mechanism that is common?
 

Grouping. Like quick grouping only permanent. Set up as many as you want as complex as you want. Right click over the control and  Select "Group"..... There are a whole load set up already but new ones can be created as you wish. The group manager allows you to edit them and set up some complex arrangements, such as increasing the volume as you pan a track or panning one right as the other goes left. Imagination is the limitation here.

2 - Lane editing. I'm not a giant fan of Sonar lanes in their current format, but that aside, one thing I'd really love to do is edits across multiple tracks on a common layer. For example, let's say I have 10 takes of drums spread across 13 tracks with each take on a layer. I keep wishing there was a way to make it so that slip edits I perform on layer 1 on the "kickdrum-in" track would happen to every other layer 1 on every track in the folder (Cubase does this pretty well within folders and PT uses playlists). When you folks do edits, is there a mechanism you use to keep edits in sync across multiple tracks within takes? I've been more or less doing this with clip grouping, but doing it on a per-lane basis has some advantages.

 
Clip  Grouping is the answer here. It can be done at record time by making sure "Group Clips across tracks" is checked in the record options. To create a clip group after the event select the required clips, right click and select "Create Selection group from Selected Clips".
 
Once the clip group is set up, editing one clip will perform the same edit on all others. This works great with lanes/layers. I use it all the time especially when comping.

 
3. Disk performance and drum takes. One thing I've noticed with Sonar is that when I do multiple drum takes it REALLY degrades my computers performance. I have a theory about why: If I have 13 mics and do 10 takes of drums I'm ending up with 10 lanes on 13 tracks and all of them are streaming at any given moment, even when I only have one lane solo'd. That means that even though only 13 lanes are audible, 130 lanes are streaming from disk. This inevitably leads to dropouts and such. Again, the cause I've outlined is only a theory, but the outcome (dropouts) are certainly happening when I get high layer counts and go away when I've archived tracks with lots of lanes.

When I track drums in PT or Cubase this works great, I think because each has a mechanism to keep the amount of streaming data to a manageable level. For example, in Cubase you can have only one layer on any track playing at any given moment. PT, again, uses playlists to accomplish roughly the same thing. While I REALLY don't want to see Sonar go the direction of Cubase in terms of 1 voice at any time on a track (it annoys the crap out of me in many cases), it may be nice to somehow limit the amount of streaming data on a track...maybe an "exclusive layer" toggle so that we could put the track into one-voice-at-a-time mode when we wanted?

In any case, other than creating new tracks and archiving old every 5 takes or so, how do you folks do this? Or does it even happen to other people?
 

I don't normally use many more than 10 mics on a kit at a time but do track other instruments/vocals at the same time using multiple takes. I can't say I've ever hit a limit where drop outs or such problems happen. It's worth checking your I/O buffers. They will have a big effect on how well audio is written/read from disk. Find those in Preferences--->Audio--->Sync and caching. There is no "correct" setting. It's a matter of trial and error to find what works best for you. Too large will cause as many problems as too small.

 
4. Finally, more of a feature request. I generally really like Sonar's track/bus/output organization, where all tracks are grouped on the left, buses next and outputs furthest right. That said, I also sometimes wish I could have a bus in the track section of the console. For example, it would be nice to have the kick-in and kick-out tracks feeding a bus track that was right next to them in the track section of the console, but then have that bus feed a drum bus in the current bus section of the console. One way to do this would be to make console sections configurable (so you could have as many as you wanted) and then toggle where you'd like any particular track, bus or output to live. This way if you want things to remain as is, you can have it that way, and if you want to move stuff around or create more sections you can do that also. Hmm...maybe I'll head over to the ol' FR page...
 

To a certain extent this already exists using the inspector. In channel strip mode, the track will be the left hand strip and the down stream buss or currently selected send the right hand strip.Change tracks/busses by clicking on them in the Track View. A little more flexibility wouldn't go amiss though.  
 
HTH

Wow!!! this was one of the most useful posts that I've ever read here!! Thanks!!!!