Producing real drums for hiphop...

Beat God wrote:u can convert hit points from audio into midi hit points in cubase sx 3 and save it as a groove template. most of the roots stuff that sounds sequenced is sequenced or replaced and shifted in software. it's really not that hard just time consuming, but jobs like these are usually given to interns to do

...INTERNS!!!!.. WTF!!?!?!! Cats is tryin to come up on new methods and this cat is talkin about interns??!! I don't know about yall, but skill-wise I came up the hard way, buying everything I own outright and not having anybody or anybody else's resources to rely on. It's great for you if you're in the position of having world class recording resources available to you, but most on here do not, nor could we afford to pay the $250/hour or $1,000 and up daily lockout rates to obtain access to such resources.
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Now, on to the topic - Check this out (and this is gonna sound weird but trust) - A homie of mine did a replayed remake of Pina Colada, YES Pina Colada from scratch using session players. He added a few synth sweeps and such to make it more modern the the meat was all live. When it came to the drums, he wanted a 2 for 1 effect. Since he had live drum tracks but they didn't bump how he wanted, he layered up pretty much just the kicks with a harder kick more hip-hop style if you will and left the rest alone, but he basically layered every kick the drummer played in Protools and put em down one at a time. I have done this myself when looping long eight bar samples. Instead of chopping I just tempo map the drums hits in the loop manually.

Now when it comes to triggering or these self-mapping applications, great, they do the job...to an extent. The missing element, at least for me is total air-tight layering. With live drums not every hit is the same and finding the actual peak of the attack can be elusive. But as much as I hate to say it, you will get the best results simply by doing each drum hit manually. You actually have to zoom in and find that sweet spot on the drum hits to get your drum samples to match flawless. These quick fix solutions mentioned will not guarantee accuracy or sound great off top IMO. As far as the Quest love debate, I'd say it's either one of two things. 1.They either record Quest live and take the best parts and layer them similar to what I described, or 2.They take their time tuning in the sound and responsiveness of the drum kit and add triggers with which they use to trigger whatever drum sounds they think will work best with the live drums. My 2/100... 5000

ASK90 is the magic word when you get to the s950.
Its like the 8outs but its 8 trigger inputs - I havn't worked with this myself, but from what I heard you can trigger 8 individual samples from there, which means you could hook up a drum set, mic it, and let it trigger some samples as someone suggested earlier(does anyone know if this also works as midi so you can trigger perhaps a mpc via mic'ed drumsets?). You can always get some e-drums but it doesnt feel the same...

.toon

L the point about interns was that in major studios and some not so major editing work like this is given to interns. and i guess u just ignored the part where i talk about how to do it in cubase sx. oh and i purchased every piece of gear in my studio myself. i am the one who made the specs for my studio and built the computer i use myself. when i was 16 i worked all summer to buy my second drumset a pearl masters custom which was $4000. i aint new to dis i'm only 28 but i aint a new jack. so if u want sob stories i got plenty. i helped build a studio from the ground up when i was 20 for someone, and i am talking about construction not gear. i put in the work in this industry

The MPC 60 has a audio trigger mode, but it only works for one sound and you can't do anything else while it's in that mode (like sequence). version 2 of the software had a special screen for the akai ME-35T, a trigger to midi device, the screen made it an easy set up so non techy drummers could just rock and roll.

Some company must have a simple "audio in -> midi out" device?
Or what?

Red Sound have one, cant remember the name of it right now

Beat God wrote:L the point about interns was that in major studios and some not so major editing work like this is given to interns. and i guess u just ignored the part where i talk about how to do it in cubase sx. oh and i purchased every piece of gear in my studio myself. i am the one who made the specs for my studio and built the computer i use myself. when i was 16 i worked all summer to buy my second drumset a pearl masters custom which was $4000. i aint new to dis i'm only 28 but i aint a new jack. so if u want sob stories i got plenty. i helped build a studio from the ground up when i was 20 for someone, and i am talking about construction not gear. i put in the work in this industry

Yeah, well f*ck a sob story, I take my good words back....good for you bruh!! You always ignore the relevant section of my posts so why should acknowledge yours...can't believe I tried to come clean what's the point with yall cats?...

itchyvinyl wrote:There's a plug-in for ProTools called "Sound Replacer"......it allows you to take a live drum track and layer it (or replace it) with samples exactly on beat.

It's not used just for hiphop, in reality, just about every big major label rock record you hear on the radio these days is using this technique to some degree.....even going back to records like Nirvana's Nevermind (Butch Vig is big into this technique.)

The last rock recording I played drums on, we used it.....you can't really tell - it didn't really sound "layered", it just allowed us to get a different sound in case the one we originally recorded wasn't cutting through the mix right, and makes it so that every drum hit sounds more consistent.

Even if you track to a metronome (click-track) you won't be able to just sequence in the layering, unless your drummer plays like a robot. They won't line up exactly, and it will sound all "flammy."

You'd have to sequence the layering in...put it on a track in ProTools....and then by hand (by mouse) chop up the layer drums and move them around slightly to line up exactly with the live drummer's track.

......OR.........
Import your snare sample into ProTools....then copy it, and using an empty track, just paste a snare in every time the drummer hits his snare....and line them up exactly.................then do the same process with the kick.
I've done that on a track before.

I was always wondering what that plug-in was for....I always just use grid mode and line everything up perfectly....Quite simple!!!!

check out yamahas twiddly bits midi break beat files, good stuff