Drums Online

Creating Samples from your Drums – Part 2

The Recording Process

Hopefully you’ve done all of your preparation, in which case we’re ready to record!

My recording setup is pretty basic, but I’ve pulled some decent results from it. I use a single overhead – an SE Electronics S2200A large diaphragm condenser mic as the overhead, a Shure SM57 on the snare and a cheap, generic dynamic mic on the bass – the high SPLs generated by the bass drum destroy mics quickly, and I find that the quality is good enough that it wasn’t really worth sacrificing a more expensive mic.

Once you have your mics set up, have another play of your kit in order to find, isolate and fix any creaks or unwanted noises. Then we’re ready to record.

I recorded my samples in chunks, taking a break in between to listen to what I’d just done and redo any that didn’t make the grade. I grouped my kit as follows:

• All snare drum hits and ornaments
• Bass and toms
• All Hi hat hits
• Cymbals

Using my favourite DAW, Reaper, I set up a track for each of my three mics and did my levels check – making sure that the gain was low enough to avoid any clipping on my biggest hits, then for each group, I just hit record and got to work.

After each block, I stuck on some headphones and listened carefully to each hit for any issues. Any that didn’t make the grade, I simply made a note of (e.g. flam #3, hi-hat #6) and then went back and re-recorded them before starting on the next block.

It’s better to just add them to the end of the file and then copy and paste them over the original hit later, rather than trying to replace them as you go.

Things To Remember

• There’s no such thing as too soft – Some of my hits barely register on the waveform, but often these ghost notes can make the groove. I can’t tell you how often I use ghost notes when I’m playing for real.
• Record the samples dry – You can always add effects later, but if you apply them as you’re recording you can’t take them away. This is especially important with external effects – if you want to use the external effects at a later date, you can always route the signal from your DAW, out to your effect, and back in again, so there’s no real need to use it now.
• Make sure you re-record any samples that have any unwanted noises in them – I can’t emphasize how important this is. Even if it’s something that would be ordinarily unnoticeable if you were doing a real recording, you have to redo it – especially if it’s on a kit-piece that’s likely to be used a lot throughout a tune. Hearing the same artifact again and again will alert your listener that you’re using sequenced drums. It will also get really, really annoying to listen to.
• Leave enough time between each hit for the ring to sufficiently decay – Especially on cymbals. With some of my crashes, I left a space of up to 20 seconds between hits – yup, you need a lot of patience when doing this.
• Label your samples – Most DAWs allow you to apply markers to sections. The length of my sample file is about 1 hour, so I’ve marked the beginning of each sample set for ease of use later. It’s also a great way of making sure that you don’t miss the really soft notes that might not register on your waveform preview

In the end, it took me about 3 hours to record the 180 samples and I haven’t cut them up yet, but I’m pretty pleased with how they’ve come out. Here’s a preview of my snare drum:

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Creating Samples from your Drums – Part 1

Why Sample Your Kit?

I’m about to go off travelling indefinitely and I’m going to miss my drums but I don’t have to lose them completely. If I create samples of each of my drum sounds, then I can plug them into sample software such as Battery and be able to ‘play’ my drums wherever I am – even in the middle of the jungle!

This isn’t the only reason why you might want to sample your kit, though. Perhaps you live in an apartment, and have to use an electronic kit. Wouldn’t it be great to get the sound of your acoustic drums without the accompanying noise levels?

Maybe you house your drums at a studio across town, and can’t always get access to them, but would like to experiment with new beats or lay down scratch tracks at home or late at night. Using samples gives you the flexibility of composing electronically while maintaining your own signature sound and feel.

And those are just some of the practical reasons why you might want to do this – there are also the creative reasons, like being able to mash up your sounds in new and unique ways.

Preparing the Kit

Whether you want to hire a studio for a couple of hours and get it done professionally or you want to do it all at home, DIY style (like me), it’s worth sitting down and doing some prep work before you jump in.

The first and most important part of the whole operation is tuning your kit. Shit sounding drums are still going to sound awful even if you record them on million dollar microphones, but a killer sounding kit will still sound great recorded on a $10 Wal Mart special.

I would seriously recommend spending some time reading Professor Sound’s Drum Tuning Bible – it’s free and is one of the most detailed resources on tuning drums I’ve ever seen.

Invest in some new heads, put aside a day and follow this guide to the letter. It’s well worth it.

Once you’ve done this, have a play of your new kit and listen out for any unwanted noises such as pedal creaks, rattling wing nuts or loose lugs. Isolate them and then fix them. You really don’t want them turning up in your samples.

What to Record

It’s a good idea to write down a checklist of all the things you want to record or else you’ll get to the end and find that you’ve forgotten something important. Here are a few things to think about:

• Number of velocity levels – a drum hit at a low velocity sounds totally different to one struck hard, even if they are played back at the same volume. The timbre totally changes, so don’t expect to be able to record one hit and then simply turn it up or down – it just doesn’t work like that. Work out what your dynamic range is and make sure you capture a hit from each level that you use most often – I decided on 10 levels (very, very soft to very hard).
• Drums to capture – If you have a huge kit with tons of cymbals, you may want to think about choosing only your most important pieces or doing a pared-down version of your lesser-used pieces, otherwise you’ll be at it for days (if you have the patience and the time, then go for it!)
• Strike zones – It’s important to think about which areas of the drum/cymbal you hit regularly and capture samples of all of those, too. For example, I recorded 10 levels of the hi hat being played with the foot; 10 of it played fully closed; 10 of it played 3/4 of the way open; and 10 levels of it played fully open.
• Techniques – This is probably most important on the snare, but think about the kinds of ornaments you use when you play – the idea is to create a sample set that best reflects your playing, so if you use a lot of drags or flams, for example, make sure that you capture a set of those.
• Beaters – Different sticks and beaters give different sounds, so if you play with brushes or soft mallets a lot, make sure you get some samples of you playing with those too!

In the end, I recorded 10 levels, from very soft to very hard, of the following:

• Snare drum straight hit
• Snare drum flam
• Snare drum drag
• Snare drum cross stick
• Bass drum straight hit
• High tom straight hit
• Mid tom straight hit
• Floor tom straight hit
• Hi hat foot
• Hi hat closed
• Hi hat 3/4 open
• Hi hat fully open
• Crash cymbal 1, straight hit
• Crash cymbal 2, straight hit
• Ride bell
• Ride, straight hit
• Ride edge, for the crash sound
• Ride with soft mallets

That’s 180 different hits to record!

That’s why it’s important to write stuff down, especially if your memory is as bad as mine. Also, it’s important to read over your list while you’re actually in the process of recording too. Don’t do what I did, which was write everything down then not look at it again until I was finished – at which point I realised I’d forgotten to record my 10 levels of cross stick…

Now that we’re prepared, we can make us some samples! In part 2, we’ll look at the actual recording process and some hints and tips on post-processing. Stay tuned!