Question about Drums

ok, this may have been covered before, but here goes...I have heard of the tricks to "chop" drums out of a sample that has other music over it, and i know it has to do with gating...but using something like COOL EDIT, how would I go about this process?? also, if someone can tell me what you do AFTER you get the drums from the sample, I've heard normalization is a must, becuase it always seems my drums are low volume no matter how high i turn up the channel on the mixer. also alot of times the kick drums kind of "melts" into the bassline, unless i use a bass drum from a sample cd, which i have been forced into doing lately...any responses will be appreciated.PEACE!

FLUENT wrote:ok, this may have been covered before, but here goes...I have heard of the tricks to "chop" drums out of a sample that has other music over it, and i know it has to do with gating...but using something like COOL EDIT, how would I go about this process?? also, if someone can tell me what you do AFTER you get the drums from the sample, I've heard normalization is a must, becuase it always seems my drums are low volume no matter how high i turn up the channel on the mixer. also alot of times the kick drums kind of "melts" into the bassline, unless i use a bass drum from a sample cd, which i have been forced into doing lately...any responses will be appreciated.PEACE!

For drums:
Attack 0
Hold/Sustain 40
Release 200

This is what my GATE is set on right now cause
I JUST got through doing this exact same thing.

This is what I did:
I put a CD in my computer. Opened Sound Forge and ripped
the song from CD.
Listened for a while and found the drums I wanted.
Ran the song through a real-time noise gate to isolate the drum hits (use the above settings for drums).
Saved those drums hits as single files (one drum hit per file).
I bring the volume of the file (drum hit file) down to like -2db for processing. I use a litte noise reduction, maybe some eq, a very quick fade out at the end most part of the file (maybe like the last 10-15 ms) to ensure that no pops/clicks occur right at the end point so it's all smooth.

Lastly, normalize to 0db. A complete process for extracting a drum hit.

Sometimes I do more creative stuff but this is the basic junk of it.

If your using Cool Edit, use EDIT -> Find Beats, or EDIT -> Auto-Cue -> Find Beats & Mark (or use Find Phrases & Mark). Once you use the Cue markers to identify the drums, open the cue list (Alt-F8), and hit the [Batch] button at the bottom. That lets you save each marked beat/phrase to it's own file.

thanx for the responses, but im having problems doing this with cool edit...first off there is no hold/sustain option, and when i set the attack to 0 and release to 200, it really doesnt do much..and the attack/release are split into 2 catergories (gain processor/level detector)...is there any way to even do it with cool edit? i appreciate the responses guys, i guess im on the right track....maybe its time to get soundforge

i use soundforge noise gate, and when i use the noise gate to isolate drum sounds i only seem to be able to isolate snare drums. is there something wrong that i am doing?

Fluent, you have the right idea in the Dynamics Range Processing, I was just playing in CoolEdit/Audition and had a sample with a heavy electric guitar and a snare, and just using Gain Processor tab, you can easily bring a snare forth so its usable. You just have to play with the numbers until it sounds right... thats what I do anyway... I wouldn't ditch CE though, this program is the shiit!

thanx for all the helpful feedback guys, i actually managed to use soundforge to isolate a RUGGED snare that ive been wanting, kicks are a little harder to get i guess...but so far there are small hints of noise behind whatever i isolate, any way to get around this? or is this normal or what...thanx, peace!

Fluent, sounds like you are one the right track from everyones responses. Cool edit will do basically the same as Sound Forge but it's menus are different and more confusing sometimes.

There's no way to get that faint artifact noise outta your drum sample without messing up your sample. You just gotta find another spot to sample from. When you finally make your whole song using that snare though the other sounds you use will most likely drown out that artifact, try it anyway.

FLUENT wrote:thanx for all the helpful feedback guys, i actually managed to use soundforge to isolate a RUGGED snare that ive been wanting, kicks are a little harder to get i guess...but so far there are small hints of noise behind whatever i isolate, any way to get around this? or is this normal or what...thanx, peace!

actually you might wanna keep that to color your snare and seperate them from the others

yeah, that is true prah, it does add a little flava to the snare...as far as kicks tho, are these impossible to lift from a mix? because im having some trouble getting one without a whole lot of noise behind it...

i replaced the snares in another beat with the new ones i chopped off, and it fits great..i knew you could this, never knew how to get there tho, guess you do learn something new every day

one more thing, i know the settings differ for each sample you are trying to get drums from...but what exactly is the "output level" slider in soundforge for? not sure where this should be..

FLUENT wrote:yeah, that is true prah, it does add a little flava to the snare...as far as kicks tho, are these impossible to lift from a mix? because im having some trouble getting one without a whole lot of noise behind it...

i replaced the snares in another beat with the new ones i chopped off, and it fits great..i knew you could this, never knew how to get there tho, guess you do learn something new every day

one more thing, i know the settings differ for each sample you are trying to get drums from...but what exactly is the "output level" slider in soundforge for? not sure where this should be..

actually for the kick, once you get the kick in the mpc make use of the filter......the output on soundforge is for you kick you up and keep you out the red(clip) zone....

yeah i have the same message for kick, what is the best way to get one off a record or cd in soundforge or other applications? just curious if anyone has any good ideas.

say Lamp,

could you give a play by play on "Ran the song through a real-time noise gate"

I have seen / used the noise gate in Wav Lab but I am not sure how
to do what your talking about in CE or Sound Forge

explain where the feature is located, i just don't get it

(I read archives first but this was the best thread addressing sampling drums, its time i learn how to maxmize the usage of all this shit I got!)

your assistance is much appreciated

ok here is the update

I figured out how to Chop the sample up by "regions" in Sound Forge
the real time Noise Gate i know its location but its not isolating the drum hits for me (I could still use some clarification on its settings)

At this point, more less I would like to get more feedback on the general settings you use on the samples once they chop

like Lamp was mentioning about

For drums:
Attack 0
Hold/Sustain 40
Release 200

what are some other settings for the Snares, 808 Bass Drum, Kicks
in general

do you use the Equalizer, Limiter, or other features on your samples to prep them for production

run it down to a brother

(i will be experimenting with this all day so i should have some better persepective on things by the time i come back to the site this evening)

One of the parameters in a Gate that hasn't been mentioned is the theshold. There is no universal setting for this parameter as it depends on the source material. For anyone who's ever been to a theme park here's a little analogy for you. Think of yourself and everyone else in line as the source(beat), the gate, sign with the minimum height requirements and the girl in charge of lettin' folks through as the noise gate. First, you have to stand next to the sign and see if you're tall enough to go through(threshold), if you're tall enough you're allowed through the gate, if you're not, you're not allowed through and kicked out of line(or in this case muted). Now the girl represents the release and attack settings, the attack setting represents how fast she lets you through the gate and the release represents how fast she closes the gate on your ass.

Another factor in all of this is that all noise gates don't work the same, and by "the same", I mean quality. I gated the same track with SF, CE and WaveLab using the programs stock gates and also some plug ins. The SF gate was the easiest to use and had the best results out of the three stock noise gates. CE's gate was a bit awkward but still gave me good results. WaveLabs was just garbage plain and simple(I should add that I used the same settings for all three programs.) While SF and CE were decent they couldn't even come close to the results I got from the Waves C1 Gate and the Sonitus:fx Gate(my favorite for this task).