Drum editing for my album has been started - Adam's Slip Editing!

[Erkan]

I have started editing the drums I recorded for my album. I've decided to edit the kick separately since the kick mic I'm using has kind of crapped itself, thus I will be blending in samples quite heavily on the kick I think. The rest of the kit I will try to keep as natural as possible but if I need to blend in samples, that's what I'll do. Having this said, the separate kick editing has yielded some slight artifacts since you can hear the snare in the kick track being out of sync with the main snare track but I'm willing to bet both my balls this won't be an issue in the mix (especially since I'm gonna edit out junk from the kick track).

Apart from the kick drum, I have only edited the snare and tom transients to the grid while leaving the cymbals alone. Listen closely and you can hear the hihat drifting in and out of perfect timing. Do you think this will be an issue in the mix? Should I edit the hihat so it's tight against the grid as well? I did edit the ride in the calm part of the song and it worked out really nicely.

I used Adam's Slip Editing tutorial in REAPER for this and oh my god... it's so fast and it yields MUCH better results than I previously had. There are basically no artifacts apart from the separate editing of the kick which won't be an issue later on.

Raw unedited drumkit: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/585020/CD raw.mp3
Raw edited drumkit: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/585020/CD edited.mp3

Edited and first drum mix (programmed vs real drums): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/585020/DuckAll AD vs Real.mp3
Edited and first drum mix: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/585020/DuckAll Drum Clip.mp3

 

[Mago]

haha hearing this reminds me that i have still some editing in front of me for the drums on our album^^

i dont think that the hihat will cause problems though. our drummers timing is not ass-tight, and its still not that hearable on the mix (i cannot say how much effects this the overall sound/feel of the track though).
but i think hihat doesnt need to be that tight as kick and snare.
depends on how off grid it is imo.
cool stuff! cheers

 

[AdamWathan]

Nice Erkan! I usually edit cymbals to the grid during slow sections where the cymbal is the only thing being hit over a longer period of time, but during most drum beats I ignore it. As long as the drummer is actually playing a real beat with a decent amount of drum shell action going on, the shell transients being on the grid are more than enough to give the illusion of perfect timing since those are the sharper and more significant transients.

 

[The-Zeronaut]

sounds really good!
very natural

btw...how the fuck do you play with that metronome sound? XDD its driving me crazy

 

[Felix Neumann]

Fucking great playing as usual, Erkan! How much tracks? This is a dream for every mixing guy. Very clean and clear tracked I´d like to try mixing it (just for fun).

 

[Erkan]

Nice Erkan! I usually edit cymbals to the grid during slow sections where the cymbal is the only thing being hit over a longer period of time, but during most drum beats I ignore it. As long as the drummer is actually playing a real beat with a decent amount of drum shell action going on, the shell transients being on the grid are more than enough to give the illusion of perfect timing since those are the sharper and more significant transients.

Thanks for the info Adam! I did exactly as you said, it felt quite natural to edit the cymbals only when they're more "obvious" as in slow parts and stuff. Man, I can't thank you enough for that tutorial, it really made editing so much less of a pain Now I can live happily with the thought of editing a whole album whereas I was haunted by those thoughts a few weeks ago when I had no idea about your tutorial.

sounds really good!
very natural

btw...how the fuck do you play with that metronome sound? XDD its driving me crazy

Haha, I haven't really thought much about the metronome sound! Just felt quite natural to have a drumstick click instead of the default metronome in REAPER Thanks for the comment btw, it really means a lot that you guys are giving me the ok about the editing. I wasn't sure if I was doing it right but it seems I am, thanks to Adam =)

Fucking great playing as usual, Erkan! How much tracks? This is a dream for every mixing guy. Very clean and clear tracked I´d like to try mixing it (just for fun).

Now this I have a hard time believing in Felix. I'm not calling you a liar or anything of that sort, it's just me who is a tad too anal for his own good. I think the unedited version sounds like CRAP and I am not happy with my performance at all. Then again, I haven't been practising drums for 1,5 years now but still, it doesn't change the fact that I'm not happy about the performance. Luckily the editing proves really useful and really saves this performance in my opinion. A little bit of mixing and some sample blending and I should have this kit sounding decent I hope.

There are only 8 tracks Felix, since I'm running it all into the Profire 2626 (which gave me a bluescreen today while moving files from one disk to another!). Kick, Snare, Snare bottom, Tom 1, Tom 2, Tom 3, OH Left (hihat side) and OH Right (ride side).

I could render each separate track and upload it if you like. I guess more people would be interested in trying to mix a half-assed kit like this

 

[Arrowed Lung Studios]

Sounds good to me man!

 

[Erkan]

Thanks Arrowed Lung Studios!

Btw Felix, I've rendered the tracks out so you can give it a go if you want to mix for fun. I had a GClip on the master on the editing project so these tracks will probably be lower in volume than the ones I posted. The file is quite large, 220mb or somewhere about there.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/585020/Rendered.rar

It's not uploaded yet and I'm turning off this damn computer now... need some sleep. It'll be up in 10 hours! Nighty nighty.

 

[Felix Neumann]

Now this I have a hard time believing in Felix

Hmmmm I think you got me wrong a bit, dude. Of course it sounded not good enough yet (it´s still fucking rough), but it´s an excellent base for mixing. I could work with it very good Your performance is tight like ass though!

 

[Melb_shredder]

I love this snare :S

 

[Vandyn]

sounding awefucking some, Erkan!

now confess that you use the "ball clap samples" as metronome/click when you're alone.

 

[Erkan]

Hmmmm I think you got me wrong a bit, dude. Of course it sounded not good enough yet (it´s still fucking rough), but it´s an excellent base for mixing. I could work with it very good Your performance is tight like ass though!

Well it was the performance I meant actually Listening to the unedited version makes me shiver in disgust at my own performance. Anyway, thumbs up for editing

I love this snare :S

Really? I think it sounds a bit distant but then again... I think it'll be alright once I've controlled its dynamics and EQ. Thanks

sounding awefucking some, Erkan!

now confess that you use the "ball clap samples" as metronome/click when you're alone.

Hahaha, oh you bet I do! I think I'm gonna incorporate the ball clap samples somewhere on the album, sort of like an easter egg

 

[paladin shredder]

i'm guessing this is the tutorial for drum editing you were talking about.

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=50654

I just watched it and I seriously need to buy reaper now! I've been doing some major editing in protools lately for drums and this looks MUCH faster! you could probably do this with guitars too so long as you have the DI. Thanks man!

 

[dasbrootal]

i dig that snare sound a ton. what mics are on the kit?

 

[Felix Neumann]

Well it was the performance I meant actually Listening to the unedited version makes me shiver in disgust at my own performance. Anyway, thumbs up for editing

Come on, the performance is good Don´t be such strictly with yourself, fella.

 

[Erkan]

i dig that snare sound a ton. what mics are on the kit?

It's just a 57 on the snare and a 58 on the bottom of the snare. As for the rest of the kit though, you might not believe me if I said I'm using a brand called JJLabs and it's a swedish brand but probably produced by some cool kids in China, but yeah that's what I'm using. Those mics cost like 200$ for a full set (4 tom/snare mics, 1 kick mic and 2 condenser OH mics). The next upgrade for my gear (if I don't sell all the drums and shit and just go the programming route) will probably be new drum mics.

Thanks for digging the snare btw!

Come on, the performance is good Don´t be such strictly with yourself, fella.

I know you are right Felix, I know everyone here is right but this is just the way I am right now. I'm too much of a perfectionist for my own good and if I wasn't able to edit the drums this good (again thanks to Adam's slip editing) I would've probably just deleted all the drum tracks and programmed the shit instead.

I'm so sorry for sounding really bitter right now btw but I am really really bitter. A few events have been occuring IRL lately and they're sort of pissing me off... but I'll just try to channel that into the music instead!

 

[Nuno Filipe]

Hey! Nice drumming. I took the drum file and I tried to mix them.
Here it is a small sample:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1457645/drums1.mp3
with no samples.

Men, this of mixing real drums it´s hard as fuck!lol Seriously it´s not easy to pull some punch without using samples. mix and eq 2 snares is always a headache for me. Well but this raw files are always welcome for us to develop some skills. Thanks Erkan.

 

[Charles J]

I can hear some fairly audible editing flubs in the 'mixed' example above.

I'm not sure how Slip editing works in Reaper, but why wouldn't you group the shells and the cymbals and edit them TOGETHER? Otherwise, how do you deal w/any slight flamming in the overheads?

Unless of course, slip editing is somehow different in Reaper than it is in Cubendo.

 

[Erkan]

Hey! Nice drumming. I took the drum file and I tried to mix them.
Here it is a small sample:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1457645/drums1.mp3
with no samples.

Men, this of mixing real drums it´s hard as fuck!lol Seriously it´s not easy to pull some punch without using samples. mix and eq 2 snares is always a headache for me. Well but this raw files are always welcome for us to develop some skills. Thanks Erkan.

Sounds cool! Pretty cool drums, sounds kind of Mastodon-ish, I like that rawness

I can hear some fairly audible editing flubs in the 'mixed' example above.

I'm not sure how Slip editing works in Reaper, but why wouldn't you group the shells and the cymbals and edit them TOGETHER? Otherwise, how do you deal w/any slight flamming in the overheads?

Unless of course, slip editing is somehow different in Reaper than it is in Cubendo.

The reason for hearing the flubs is because as I stated in the OP, the kick is edited separately from the rest of the kit. What you are hearing is mostly the snare and kick being slightly out of sync. This is intentional because I am aiming for a heavy use of sample replacing on the kick and once you high pass the overhead mics to remove the kick out of them, it will barely be audible. Considering that the bass guitar, guitars, vocals and synths will be on top of that as well - you will have no chance of hearing any flubs.

As for how the slipping works in Reaper, I can't compare it to anything else since I haven't used Cubase or Protools or whatever. I did however group everything as I just said. It's only the kick drum that has been edited separately.

 

[Charles J]

^ OHHHH, gotcha! You grouped everything and aligned the snare/toms and in that process, the OH's moved w/them, but you didnt go back and mess w/the CYMBAL transients themselves, makes perfect sense now, bro! I was just confused, hah.