Slip editing drums

PolarityMan

what do you do when there isn't enough of a gap between hits to get 2 consecutive hits both in time without an artifact? I can probably work around it by comping from other takes but the piece im editing right now about a quarter of the repetitions of a particular figure the first 2 bass drum hits are kinda flammed rather than played a sixteenth apart and wondering if anyone had some tricks i dont know yet.

octatonic

Crossfade between the hits.

If that doesn't work the clone the channels and have a separate drum channels for 'overdubs' and editing.

This is why I mix from busses actually, it means I can automate everything on channels but use busses for processing, so in this scenario you might have 2x stereo overheads- one master set of overheads and one aux overheads, they feed a bus that has all the compression and EQ on it.

In Logic I pack them into a folder so the arrange page doesn't get crowded.

PolarityMan

I am cross fading, but the rpoblem is dragging the second hit is so out that there isnt enough silence between the hits to get the second hit into place without dragging part of the deacy of the first hit

octatonic

In that case channel cloning is the way to approach it.

It avoids any 'machine gunning' effect, although you might want to automate the decay of the first hit so it isn't too loud- you want a nice tail off.

PolarityMan

So chennel cloning you have 2 copies, fade out the first channel completely and fade in the second after the decay of the first bass drum?

octatonic

Yup.

What DAW are you you using?

It has to be a separate channel, not just a copy of the first channel (like you can do in Logic).

So, for a kick drum, you have Audio 1 and Audio 2 both as independent channels with the same level and pan settings, bussed through to Kick Bus 1.

Put your EQ and Compressors on the drum bus.

I usually put HPF on the channels, so you aren't summing low freq information that you want to cut anyway and filtering out on the bus.

PolarityMan

reaper

PolarityMan

obvs

octatonic

Ah ok- I don't know Reaper.

The principles apply fine though.

One thing- if you have ambient mics set up then you have to copy them too- if will sound unnatural if you only copy the kick channel.

I actually clone all of them, as I have a pretty open drum tonality and like to hear loads of sympathetic tones.

If you want a tighter drum sound and use a lot of gating or strip silence then just copy the ambient mics and overheads.

octatonic

I've used this approach to interject double bass parts into songs that had no double bass.

I just create copies of the original channel, shift it by a 16th and then strip out the hits in the cloned channel that I don't want.

Logic is faster than anything for this.

PolarityMan

If I end up bussing ill print it prior to mixing as i almost certainly wont be the one mixing it, so right now im not processing at all, just a touch of pan while im editing.

octatonic

Ok cool.

Let me know how it goes.

randomhandclaps

Even after reading all that I am a little bit confused.  But basically if the two hit at two close and understandably you don't want to stretch the decay of the first beat then either follow Octa's advice or similarly you could just cut the first beat and clone the second.  An alternative is to break the bar on the first point of attack on the second beat, shift the first beat in time, then record a bit of silence on a spare track and trim this into the gap you have created then crossfade the three sections.

Drew_TNBD

I'd try

time-stretching

one of

the hits

so that

the tails

can be

extended to give you enough space. Don't stretch the transient though. Twill sound shit.

Cirrus

If they're played well in 75% of the repetitions, could you not just fly in both hits from another bar rather than mucking around with the botched efforts?

PolarityMan

randomhandclaps;890098" said:

Even after reading all that I am a little bit confused.  But basically if the two hit at two close and understandably you don't want to stretch the decay of the first beat then either follow Octa's advice or similarly you could just cut the first beat and clone the second.  An alternative is to break the bar on the first point of attack on the second beat, shift the first beat in time, then record a bit of silence on a spare track and trim this into the gap you have created then crossfade the three sections.

Thing with the silence thing is that this is a real kit so there's cymbal tails and whatnot going on in the overheads and room mics.

guitarfishbay

Cirrus;890158" said:

If they're played well in 75% of the repetitions, could you not just fly in both hits from another bar rather than mucking around with the botched efforts?

This is what I was going to suggest. Seems it could be an easier way of doing this.

randomhandclaps

PolarityMan said:

randomhandclaps;890098" said:

Even after reading all that I am a little bit confused.  But basically if the two hit at two close and understandably you don't want to stretch the decay of the first beat then either follow Octa's advice or similarly you could just cut the first beat and clone the second.  An alternative is to break the bar on the first point of attack on the second beat, shift the first beat in time, then record a bit of silence on a spare track and trim this into the gap you have created then crossfade the three sections.

Thing with the silence thing is that this is a real kit so there's cymbal tails and whatnot going on in the overheads and room mics.

If it's a cymbal tail rather than transient then time stretching it by a minor amount will be unnoticeable - although ultimately it depends how busy the track is at the point.
EDIT actually ignore that as my tired brain wasn't processing it properly. If inserving the silence solve the issue and the kicks are only overran by a fading cymbal tails I would be tempted to clone a bit of tail into the gap and try and match it in but it's a lot of level and fading work.

PolarityMan

Cirrus said:

If they're played well in 75% of the repetitions, could you not just fly in both hits from another bar rather than mucking around with the botched efforts?

this will prob be what i go with but sharpening my skills innit.

Nerine

There isn't usually a decent fix in my experience. It can sound passable, but that's probably about it.

I'd usually try to find the same part somewhere else in the song and pop that in.

You could try multitrack elastic audio or time stretching, but that can sound dog also.

I'd probably take little bits from each drum channel and basically use those bits to fill out the offending part. And almost use the bits I have to sort of program or sample replace the offending section. It does depend on having some clean hits though.

The other thing that you could do, is paste in a couple of kick drums that are in time, I.e. Drop them exactly where you need them and at the same point automate the low end information on most of the other channels to cut out to reduce the flamming in the other channels.

Not an ideal situation all round really. Hits that are too close together are harder to deal with than ones that are too far apart.

Ultimately it's doable, it'll probably just be a bit fiddly is all.