Slipperman's ESX Drums from Satania

[Slipperman]

Hi.

I've started this thread to give a BLOW BY BLOW(keystroke x keystroke) tutorial of how we do "DRUM SAMPLING ON ESX-24" at my shop.

I'm hoping the powers that be will both 'sticky' and 'lock' this thread for me until I get all the posts up and we can use the "old thread" (http://thewombforums.com/showthread.php?t=6533) to tell me I'm a fukwit and my system sux or whatever we gotta do over there.

Here we go.

Starts with proper drum samples.

We almost always record drums onto 2" tape initially here.

So, our(my shops) samples must be captured on tape initially as well or they will sound wrong downstream.

Then we dupe them into Logic 7.

OBVIOUSLY: If yer NOT recording to 2" INITIALLY... it's a non-issue for you.





Once we have the drummer set up in the room we take a MINIMUM of following samples from the kit.

10 kick shots.
10 snare shots
5 tom shots from each tom

Have the kid strike the drum in the CENTER with SOLID AND FORCEFUL strokes that DON'T CHOKE the fucking drum!!!

BAD SHOTS DO NOT COUNT TOWARD YOUR SAMPLE TOTAL.

Bad news: This is where the plot thickens and GETTING GOOD at this starts to become something you hafta work at and can't be covered so easily, if at all, in a tutorial.

After you do this for a while, you will learn to better recognize what will HELP, and what will HURT, you downstream. It may not be as obvious as you initially think. The basic mission is to get CLEAN, CLEAR and FORCEFUL SOUNDING samples that will sound somewhat, but not totally UNIFORM upon close inspection.

In any event, we are usually recording "other" samples as well at this point, like:

(Possible additional samples taken)

Kick:

1-2 "Bury the beater in the head" shots.
5-10 "dynamics" shots ranging from a low tap thru the 'relaxed' range right up to the 'authority' range.

Snare: ANY "specialty shots" that are needed for the songs you are recording.

Might include:

10 "dynamics" shots ranging from "just above loud tap" to "almost as loud as main sample shots"
5 Side stick
10 taps ranging from "super low" to "loud ghost stroke".
2-3 "off center loud" shots

Just as an additional note. If the kid is the type who plays with the "hook in", that is, he CONSISTENTLY crosses the rim of the snare with the shaft of the stick on all, or almost all, hits... You sure as fuck better be taking your original "standard" samples to reflect this.

SAME THING applies for the "dinner gong" kids. That is, the guys who consistently play more than 2 or 3 inches off the center of the drum(usually towards the 7-8 o'clock position). These guys are a major pain in the ass and I could write a fucking Tome from Hell on how you attack this particular bunch of freaks from a drum tuning perspective alone. Then I'd never finish this thing and Damaged Aorta and EllaMentalCase and whom-everk-else would bust my nads about the ghost of Billy Flutey. A story, I'd like to add, I FUCKING FINISHED IN ONNA DOZE 'narrative' thingies I did somewhere. Where..? I dunno. Anyhoo. You guys can swoggle my hoze. I'll fucking stab ya.

Toms:

10 "Dynamic hits" ranging from true ghost strokes thru "relaxed" thru "authority" hits. Obviously, if the kid is playing hardcore where he never even does a "Tom Build" and just beats the shit outta the drums at full pelt(Aussie saying learned from the wifey)... then ya really don't hafta bother with these additional samples. Same goes for the other "specialty samples" on the various drums.

Knowing WHAT to record is half the battle, and it's also a case by case scenario.

Knowing HOW to record the stuff is the OTHER HALF of the case by case nightmare.

In most cases I will just get the kids to record them all ANYWAY. As I save all my samples and sample kits in a(now massive) library for future (dis)use.

HOHOHO.

OK. So right now yer saying... FUCK THIS... THIS IS WAAAYYYY TOO MUCH WORK.

Well.

Maybe.

You might wanna go thru the ENTIRE process with me and then decide.

Which, in my humble estimation, should be about 25 more of these little posts.

No, I'm not kidding.

OK. Next post will be about how we check our recorded sample work and prepare our audio before we start to set up an ESX-24 drumkit.

SM.

[Slipperman]

OK.

Sorry it's been so long but that's life.

A few more pointers for the 2" crowd before we get started on the whole ESX24 mess.

DON'T use the SAME 2 minutes of tape to cram all your sample hits onto, UNLESS you separate the samples with a "barrier" track.

That is:

Imagine you drum tracking plot on the 2" is:

Track1: Hats
Track2: Kick (*)
Track3: Snare (*)
Track4: Ride
Track5: Tom1 (*)
Track6: Tom2 (*)
Track7: Tom3 (*)
Track8: Floor Tom (*)
Track9: LOH
Track10: ROH
Track11: Room L
Track12: Room R
Track13: Mid Junk mic
Track14: Side Junk
Track15: Mono Rm

(*) Denotes the tracks we are concerned with sampling here.

So... Tracks 2-3 are adjacent tracks.

As are Tracks 5-8.

Potentially a BIG PROBLEM if you are "slamming tape" at all.

ie: "Crosstalk" from adjacent tracks gets you hearing "ghosts" of the snare hits in the Kick samples and visa-versa. This varies from machine to machine depending on a number of factors.

You can solve this 2 ways.

1.) Run the samples consecutively in the order of ascending tracks. Kick samples, snare samples, Tom1, Tom2 etc.

2.) Move the "destination" tracks temporarily to new "non-adjacent" tracks(with barrier tracks in between them) and record them on the same 2-3 minutes of tape.

Option Number 1 takes up more space on the reel.

Option Number 2 takes more time to patch and repatch on the desk.

THIS IS FOR EVERYBODY(Non-Analog guys as well) from here on out.

Brings up a number of additional points of interest.

Allow ALL samples to reach the point of "Quiescence", in this case, ostensibly the TAPE MACHINES NOISE FLOOR.

Or: The inherent "system noise".. Mics/Pre's/AD's... whatever.

For a kick drum... it's pretty short. Usually less a second unless yer drum is a pretty "open" drum.

Snares are gonna be a bit longer.

Toms longer still in most cases.

Floor Toms can be as much as 3-4 SECONDS.


PLEASE, PLEASE, DON'T UNDERESTIMATE the IMPORTANCE of capturing ALL of the DURATION of the samples BEFORE the noise floor swallows the signal.

It's like a piece of beef on the grill... You can always PUT IT BACK ON if it's UNDERDONE. You CANNOT "UNCOOK" it if you don't take it off in time.

You will have PLENTY of "quick and easy" control of PLAYING duration AFTER the samples are assigned to a drumkit in the ESX.

SO: You've set-up your expertly placed microphone plot in the live room, tuned the drums like the drum tuning God you are(A WHOLE OTHER BOOK, and I shit you not on that)... Sat the poor sap behind the kit with a cue mix.

What you DO NEXT is going to have MASSIVE ramifications regarding the quality and flexibility of your END PRODUCT.

Not just during the TAKING of samples, but also during the ENTIRE DRUM RECORDING PROCESS.

No way around it.

Here's the skinny.

YOU WANT: The ability to use ANYTHING downstream in mix from the ENTIRE RECORDING process.

This means.

The "real track" at any time.

The "samples" at any time.

Any COMBINATION(and this is a LOADED statement if there ever was one) of the 2... AT ANY TIME.

ANY TIME.

Like... even in the "nothing but drums" sections of the songs.

It only SOUNDS EASY.

God help us all.

OK. I gotta flee again but I am going to start persisting at this thread most every day starting the 8th of Sept.(as promised in my "Dread of Modern Metal Mix Topo" thread in my forum).

Best,

SM.

[Slipperman]

Some additional things to consider:

During the progress of recording your drums for the record you are going to be tuning and re-tuning the drum kit. You are very likely to be changing the snare head at least once or twice.

This is because you use COATED WHITE AMBASSADORS on the snare (Remo BA-0114), and NOTHING ELSE. Because you need quality, hate to be associated with losers and don't take shit from anyone.

Especially drummers.

Who are notoriously cheapskate mofo's, hang with other clueless fuktards at the GC drum department rolling sticks on the counter whilst arguing about Dave Grohl's bottom hi-hat thickness, and basically just don't know SHIT FROM SHINOLA regarding recording snares.

They just know that "they read in Modern Drummer that the guy from Tool uses an Evans triple reinforced titanium sheet metal head that has been dipped in molten Kevlar... and this allows it to withstand both the temperatures of the solar surface and 26 G's at a depth of 4000 fathoms upside down in total darkness".


Great.

Where do we find him and how do we have him killed(guy from Tool)?








This was a joke.



But maybe not really.

Anyhoo. Let's ASSUME your drummer is a totally happening type of studio maven guy and he(THANK YOU CHRIST) SHOWS UP with SEVERAL Remo BA-0014 for his session(s).

BECAUSE your drummer is a studio God.... He will have some idea how to TUNE THE FUCKING DRUMS, and of equal importance... RETUNE the drums as the session progresses.

Here's some crazy, and also some NOT SO OBVIOUS stuff that may rear it's ugly head.



SNARE TUNING VIGILANCE IS EVERYTHING.

Tom tuning takes the silver medal.

Kick is last but hardly unimportant.

Not just the "tonic" of the drum. The OVERTONE SERIES.

This is ESPECIALLY true if you are assembling a "composite of takes" in digital over a considerable period of tracking time.

There are a few schools of thought regarding HOW and WHEN to manage this considerable series on conundrums.

A lot of WHAT YOU DO is going to be predicated upon WHAT YOU KNOW about WHAT YOU NEED downstream.

The basic idea is ALWAYS...

COVER YOUR ASS WITHOUT BREAKING SESSION MOMENTUM UNNECESSARILY.

A few different methods/schools of thought on this subject.

1.) Take all samples BEFORE the "takes" and attempt to ATTAIN and ADHERE to a DRUM SOUND ACROSS THE ENTIRE KIT AND SESSION.

2.) Take all the samples AFTER "the take"(and this can be nigh on IMPOSSIBLE, or at the very least VERY IMPRACTICAL, in sessions where multiple takes are chosen "after the fact").

3.) Some COMBINATION of the two mindsets DEPENDING on WHAT HAPPENS AND WHEN during the course of the proceedings.

I usually do some flavor of 3.)

I will normally do all my "standard" samples BEFORE the snare and other drums start getting dinged up and re-tuned a whole lot, and try to constantly use THESE SAMPLES as the WATERMARK of the aggregate DRUM SOUND as the tracking progresses.

If I get a GREAT TAKE... or "THE TAKE" and I am under the impression(after examining the track vs. samples) that the sound has changed substantially on the snare, I will take a few "safety samples" of the snare drum IMMEDIATELY to CYA.


WAY more stuff on this soon.

I gotta go play the drums for 2 hrs. right now. It's after midnight.

I've got a 11am attended mastering 70 miles from here tomorrow... So I'm getting up at 9am.

I normally GET UP at about 12:30pm and I suffer from both sleep apnea AND insomnia.

So basically...

I'm totally fucked.


Just the way I like it.

HOHOHO.


Anyhoo.

Chipping away at it every day.

XOXOXO

Slippy

[Slipperman]

Alright.

This is gonna be a clusterfuck so let's just get into it without further ado and I'll revise and organize it better as it develops(hopefully).

In Logic 7(We can do 8 @ some point if we gotta, not a big deal difference for what we're doing).

I'm going to set up 2 screensets.

Screenset #1: Basic old "Arrange Screen Only"


6166



Screenset #4: "Drum Related BS screen"

6167




You can see in the Screenset #1 shot that the basic "Analog dupe" of the sample shots is a consecutive series of hits on the various drums that have been performed in a sort of chronology, as I suggested in an earlier post in this thread. Once again, this to prevent adjacent channel crosstalk on the 2" from ruining our samples.

Looks like 10 kick hits, followed by 10 snare shots, followed by 10 snare taps, followed by 10 Tom 1, 10 Tom 2, 10 Tom 3, 10 Tom 4.

This is VERY BASIC form for a sampled kit around these parts, but should be sufficient for this tutorials objectives.


Screenset #4 is showing a small arrange screen in the top left, a small audio window(would be an "audio bin" in Logic 8) in the top right, and a larger "sample editor" on the bottom. This type of screen set-up may or may not be helpful for you in Logic 8. This is because the basic layout of the "Arrange Screen" in the program now INCLUDES these 3 windows in a "clickable" form.

In this screen shot you can see the windows are "linked" with the little "chain icons" to provide you with a continuously updated graphical display of what you are currently working on in each window simultaneously. Sorry this is so fraught with detail but I am assuming the user has only limited grasp of the program to cast the net as wide as possible, it may slow things down a bit but hopefully it will make the tutorial "Idiot Proof", which in the case of my shop is the ONLY WAY TO MAKE SURE THAT SOMEBODY DOESN'T DROP THE FUCKING BALL AND KILL US ALL DOWNSTREAM... Boy do I wish I was joking.

OK. First thing I'm gonna do is chop the basic sections up by hand in the #1 screen to diminish confusion about what is what downstream.

Like this:6168


And this:6169

I simply turned to pointer arrow thingie into the scissors thingie in the toolbox in the upper right corner of the arrange screen(hitting the esc key will getcha the same dealio) and sliced up what I needed, and deleted what I didn't need from the field of battle(Yer gonna hear me call the arrange screen that a LOT).



Notice I didn't get freaky with trying to get too precise with WHERE I chopped the files up... I'm just making sure I've got MORE AUDIO than I need... both before and after each of the various instrument sample groupings.



I will normally then select "convert regions to new audiofiles" from the "audio" pulldown menu in the arrange screen in an attempt to organize my samples in the first, and most coarse, fashion. Each newly saved region/audiofile is now a small selection of raw samples grouped together(and named) by instrument which I can always REVERT back to should the shit hit the fan somewhere in the future.

The program will give me an interrogative screen as I save each one and, in this case, I will call the first one SlippyKikAll, The second SlippySnrAll, The third SlippySnrTapAll, Etc. Etc. Yer gonna see much more of this "organizational/redundancy madness" as we go forward. I assure you, I have my reasons which should become more apparent as this fiasco progress. In short, it's basically all about "housekeeping" and "covering yer ass".

OK. Looks like I've got a 4 tiff attachments max for the screen shots so I'll hit another post.

SM.

[Slipperman]

INCOMPLETE POST:

I'll finish it tomorrow.











Because I've used the "convert regions to new audiofiles" in the arrange screen Logic is going to automatically replace the ORIGINAL REGIONS with the NEW region/files on the arrange screen.

Like This:6170

This is handy BECAUSE:

Once I have done the saving/naming dance I will normally delete the original audio files from the Logic document by selecting them in the audio window(or bin) and simply hitting "delete" on the keyboard. Of course, this does NOT destroy the originals, it just eliminates the confusion going forward and makes it easier to keep track of things.

OK. Now we're gonna do a bit of qwik and dirty "strip silence" work.

We'll start with the SlippyKikAll file we have created.