I probably know the answer to this already, but I'm going to ask anyway in case someone knows of a plugin that can do the following:
I love the realtracks drums in BIAB, but in some cases I'm not crazy about the sounds - maybe the kick isn't big enough, or I don't like the snare sound, etc.
I'd love to be able to use the realtrack drums, but have something that would trigger a snare and/or kick to enhance what is there. I suspect that most software would get confused by the two-track mix of the entire kit and and there would be a lot of false triggers, but maybe some developer has figured out a work-around.
Probably an unreasonable ask, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
*before someone suggest that I should use EasyDrummer, SuperiorDrummer, etc. - I've tried that, but I find it really overwhelming and I haven' been at all pleased with the results I've come up with. Drums aren't my instrument, and I just don't have a good enough working knowledge of them to be good at it.*
Since you are a Mac user, I'll assume that you use Logic (?).
There is a function in Logic that will map the drum transients (somehow) and allow you to add a snare sample to each of the snare hits (exactly matched timing) - or Kick if that is what you are after.
I am a Studio One user (Windows), so I am not familiar with the specifics, but Bud (of Janice & Bud) uses this function regularly and can explain it. If he does not see this thread you could PM him and ask...
Optionally - what I sometimes do - is simply drop a snare sample into another track in your DAW and add it everywhere the snare (in the RealDrum track) hits.
In my case, the snare will copy (duplicate any number of times) pretty close to the snare beat and then I expand the tracks significantly to move the sample to the exact timing. It takes about 30-40 minutes to do that - which some might find tedious, but you only have to do it once for a recording that will last for as long as you choose to keep it.
thanks Floyd, that was exactly what I needed!
I find that Logic drummer is an excellent tool (if, as Floyd says, you are using Logic). I am also assuming you have EZdrummer as you say you have used it.
I was intrigued by this question and tried out an idea. Here's my suggestion...
1. Load the BIAB drum track into Logic.
2. Open a Drummer track, line the start up with the BB drums, fill to the length of the song, and find a similar style from the drummer menu library.
3. In the Drummer Editor click 'Follow' then there is a drop down menu. Choose drums.
Logic drummer will now do a darn good job of following the BB drums. Surprisingly good!
4. In the track strip change the instrument to EZdrummer.
5. In EZdrummer open the mixer window and fade out all the drums you don't want. Let's say you just want the kick and snare - fade the kick and snare in to get the level you want.
Of course you can select whatever kit sounds best for the job.
(If you don't have EZdrummer, use one of the production kits in Logic which allow you to mix each drum on a separate track.)
Another thing to bear in mind is that Drummer always adds 8 bar sections so if you want 12 bar measures you need to cut one, join the 8 and 4 bars together and then copy and paste to the song length. Sometimes endings need some fiddly cutting and adjusting to get them right.
I'm glad you asked this question Roger. By looking into it I now have a really good hack that I will definitely be using in future.
I am a huge fan of Logic Drummer. It is so much quicker than pasting loops bar by bar and the variations available with the editor window makes it possible to vary so many parameters throughout the song. It is far easier than EZdrummer although I do use that for the quality of the instrument sounds. I usually build the drum track using Drummer and then (as I described above) change the instrument to an EZdrummer kit.
Mac users who don't have Logic can use Garageband to get the same effect as above.
In the editor, select follow - drums. Then turn 'fills' to zero and select the instruments you want by clicking on their icons to turn them off/on.
Hi Roger,
I am asking myself these questions too, and I found an interesting video on YT.
As I expected the AI 'Tracker' function in Superior drummer 3, should be smart enough to recognize the various trancients from a stereo drummix on one track, and turn them after some tweaking, into seperate tracks with the different parts of the drumset.
I will try do copy this workflow myself, and see what happens If I would do this with a BIAB drumtrack.
I will post the result a little later this year.
Here's the link to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQEZeHwl91IRegards,
Hans
Chris,
Thanks a lot for the play by play instructions using Logic Pro X
That should be very helpful in stepping up the quality of my backing tracks.
I went to your Soundcloud account. I like your stuff.
If you have a daw with a reasonably modular signal flow, you can use one of several different plugins that will trigger midi notes based on band passed transient signals. The one I’m most familiar with Is called KT Drum Trigger. About 15 years ago I used it to show how you could ‘beat box’ into a mic and have it trigger kick, snare and hi hat sounds
I worked with a BIAB realTracks song in Logic Yesterday.
I created a new drummer track & selected a drummer I liked.
Hit the Follow click box and had it follow BIAB real track.
Voila, I had a new track that was pretty good
You can easily convert a section of the Logic drummer track to midi within the drummer track.
You can also copy/convert the whole drummer track to midi:
1. Create a new software instrument track (SIT).
2. Copy Channel Strip settings from Logic Drummer track to new SIT.
3 Copy the actual drum part(s) from Logic Drummer track to SIT.
4. The new track will show up as midi. Tweak till your hearts content on the piano roll editor.
This second approach works great for a guy like me who is new to all this. Preserves the original track and I can copy over sections if I really muck one up.
For me it provides a significant enhancement to the BIAB drummer in Logic.
Each drum synth has it's own learning curve.
I was a big fan of Jamstix for a period of time. It had lots of cool options and a bunch of good sounding sampled kits. It did take a bit of time to learn it and then to create a track. Once I found Real Band and Real Drums, I haven't used it since.
I do however, feel your pain with the real drum tracks not always being quite what you want them to be. I'd love to see PG start splitting the real drums into multiple tracks to give us more control over the volume and tone of the various kit parts. Kick, snare, toms, cymbals, hats, would be a good start. With Jamstix, you have control over each individual kit part and ALL of it's parameters.
I have used something that Floyd mentioned. I have added a synth played kick and snare in a few of my tunes to give it that harder kick/punch and snare smack. Just drop a new track, insert the synth and adjust the levels and EQ.
BTW... I haven't used Jamstix in so long now, I'd have to go back and relearn it all over again. RD made me lazy and fat.
Many of the RealDrums include midi versions of those drums - you can export them in a MIDI file or using the Band-in-a-Box plugin. The drums that have notation are listed in the RealDrums picker starting with "Ntn" in the # column.
I would also love to see separate drum stems in future versions of BIAB, however there are some technical challenges with that. We would have to reprogram the Mixer and the BB Plugin to have separate channels for the additional drum tracks, your computers would have to be more powerful as there would be more tracks to deal with when generating and playing, and then we would have to account for the increase in disk space. The Audiophile Edition has around 76gb of Drums, and for every separate audio track we add it would likely increase by tens of gigabytes. At a very rough estimate, separate drum stems for kick/snare/overheads/toms/hats would add at least 200gb of extra files. Not saying this is impossible, but it's a technical issue we would have to work with given that we're already using 75% of a 2tb drive.
Like Simon said, some RDs were recorded (I think) with MIDI kits, so the notation for these include all the MIDI data.
That's a really cool feature. Not on all RDs have this, but the ones that do have it may surprise you.
Of course you still need a decent drum synth to play and 'hear' it.
For some of these tracks, if you are a savvy user, you can also go into the raw RD track, and at the end of the file you will often find individual drum hits, which can be very helpful in multiple ways (especially when combined with the MIDI data);
you can build a new drum synth patch with these 'samples' and have the same sound drum but triggered by MIDI,
you can use a different drum synth with just the MIDI
or you can copy various drum hits from that raw RD track as audio snippets, and then paste them as needed.
All different ways to accomplish what you need.
Rharv - To my knowledge, the recordings were done with real drum kits, and the recordings were fed into a MIDI trigger software, which generates MIDI notes for each drum hit. Like you said, not all RD's have this yet, but many do.
Great trick with the individual drum hits! There may not be as much variety there as in a dedicated MIDI drum plugin, but it'd be great for editing your own grooves a bit.
The BIG issue I've had with RealDrums of late, other than the frequent use of very clicky kick drums or excessive hihat level - both of which can be addressed by careful EQing, is a rather narrow stereo image. On my most recent track the cymbals were in the centre of the stereo image. This may be the eccentricity of an individual drummer but it's been the similar with the last couple of songs I've used in BIAB.
Using a stereo expander VST isn't a real solution as it's moves sounds into positions that may not be realistic. In most modern rock iterations a kit's L & R extremes are determined by the stereo overheads plus, occasionally, a wide tom spread.
If the RealDrum track had a notation as to the recording method used..."Recorderman", "Glyns Johns method" or using a BIAB determined nomenclature would be handy. Similarly I'd like guitar tracks described by the guitar type - or at least pick ups used as well as the regular info.
Now, I may seem picky, I am, but I've also used BIAB RealDrums in many situations where real, GOOD drummers are impressed - particularly as RealDrum tracks rarely suffer from over playing or unnatural patterns.