Using the Drum Stem Feature. Exported 5-10 drum tracks (my term) from biab as .wav files to my daw(Logic).
I noticed some aberrant behavior the other day working with an existing arrangement. It seemed with certain tracks, the ride for example, I would hear other drum parts. Not faintly but right up there in the mix.
I did not expect this.
This morning I built a simple blues from scratch, selected a 3 instrument blues style. THen I added a new "stem" drummer, rebuilt the project and exported the .wav files like I've done for years. Nothing fancy at all.
In my DAW, the track labelled "ride" i can clearly hear the snare, the ride, and the crash. The track labelled "hiHat, I can clearly hear the snare and the ride. Clearly, not ghosts.
I've also notice certain parts (snare top, snare bottom ) seem mixed at greatly different levels. That's a minor issue compared to the bleeding. I do export all my tracks, flat & center
I know its difficult to isolate each drum in a kit 100%. Nevertheless this seems to defeat the purpose of "stems".
What Drum is it ? You can try and drag the original file in from that Drum folder, like AmericanaLooseShuffleFred_120_Ride.m4a into the DAW and listen to it.
It is normal to have some bleeding in the stems because each stem is is from one of the mics that was setup while recording. But the other drums should not be that strong when you solo a stem track.
Does it sound the same when you solo the track in Band-in-a-Box vs your exported track? What RealDrum had you selected specifically so that we can also test it? Are you exporting it with the drag/drop station or another method?
Chantelle, The project starts with the _Mope.sty with PopRock16ths as the drummer
I then add the Americana Slow 8ths Fred Stem Drummer a Snare,HiHat, B Snare Ride. I enclose the screenshot of the biab project
I soloed every stem track in the biab mixer. Here's the most troublesome issues.
Both the hiHat and the ride have very loud snare (sidestick) in them when soloed in this arrangement THere's a crash in there also, It sounds perhaps like the "Mix" track without the kick.
TomFloor sounds the same at a much lower volume - with the ride and the crash Tom Rack is about the same. with the ride and the crash.
I get exactly the same thing in the daw.
My normal workflow 1. Work out the biab arrangement (changes,intros,endings,choruses, etc) 2. I export the entire set of tracks as .wav files (using the biab .wav icon) and save them to my local hard drive. 3. Using finder I drag those tracks into my project.
I have used this approach with few hiccups for about 4 years. Perhaps its a bit "step rich" but I find it 99% reliable, which is a priority for me.
I sometimes will add a part in biab (say another bass line or a b3 or something) and then I normally use the drag track to the wav/m4a/aiff/daw button and drag the .wav directly into my project, creating a new audio track. I did not do this for the above exercise
You just need to add a Gate vst to the track that you can adjust the threshold and invert it so it cuts the high level snare out and just lets the low level cymbal through. There are plenty of free gate vst, if you can't find one with an invert/reverse you can duplicate the track in the DAW and reverse the polarity of the gate track. See how you go and I will look for one later if you can't work it out.
Wondering if my "expected user experience" at odds with what PG Music had in mind for this whole Drum Stems project.
I'm not yet sure how this is a real improvement over the whole real drum track as a single wav. At least this particular example.
The Drum Stems are not isolated drum sounds, these are the original recordings from each of the mics used in the recording session. So yes you will hear the other drum sounds, some more so than others. There are some exceptions to this, for example in some cases the percussion instruments were recorded separately so those ARE isolated. Regardless, the drum sound (snare, kick... ) is much more prominent in the individual stem. This allows you to raise or lower that sound relative to the overall mix. Depending on the RD it might also be useful to combine sounds from different RDs even though they aren't isolated.
I've had some experience mixing multitracked drums since about 2010, (as mention the drum "stems" aren't isolated samples...you can buy those things in many place), and there is always bleed and that bleed adds a little cohesive glue to a kit. As mentioned a gate will, often, clean things up with many drum tracks but not the cymbal/ohs. In fact one usually needs to add just the slightest amount of the sane track to a mix as the OH carry quite a lot of that sound. Manual volume automation or cutting out the unwanted sections will garner best results but won't be 100% great. For me the OH track often contains excess kick drum "click" so it's a case of EQ rather than automation or gates. Setting the gate will take time & experimentation. These things said the Drum Stems project is a great leap forward in control and brings BIAB drums closer to other multitrack drums, drum "stems" is another slightly clunky misnomer. Look at Drums On Demand and you'll find excellent mic tracks that have bleed and, occasionally, annoying bits. If these things bother you then try programming drums with Slate etc. they will let you control the amount of bleed but take time to learn and, as is often the case, the resultant "programmed" drums are likely overplayed.
Last edited by rayc; 01/11/2312:10 AM.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
I get it. The tracks will bleed. I mentioned in my op I recognized track bleed. I've recorded and mixed real drummers before. I just did not expect arterial level spurting bleeding.
I also understand EQ can help remove truly annoying portions. I have used eq (and volume automation) that with biab drums for a few years now in my DAW. Its a bit brute force but it does get the job done
I thought stems would afford me the opportunity to mix the kit in a way that would let me reduce/expand certain parts. I'm just not seeing/hearing it from this.
Please take the time to listen to it. (American Fred Slow 8) In certain cases it is all but impossible to know which drum they are "showcasing" in the stems unless you read the title of the stem.wav file Even if you read what it says, you may not believe it
Perhaps I stumbled into the worst example of the stems available. I hope so. I may try a few more.
Based on my initial forays the Drums Stems project has been underwhelming. Don't get me wrong. I want it to work. I was hoping for a more finessed approach to mixing drums.
I'd be interested to hear if other users of Drum Stems have had different or similar experience. Perhaps I'm going about it wrong?
Please take the time to listen to it. (American Fred Slow 8) In certain cases it is all but impossible to know which drum they are "showcasing" in the stems unless you read the title of the stem.wav file
Are you sure you aren't hearing the full mix track as well? In my testing, the individual drums are clearly defined so either I disagree with you, or you are hearing something different for some reason. I made a test .SGU that solo's several drum tracks in sequence, and I'll paste in a screenshot here of the chord sheet, showing which drum track is playing. Perhaps you can compare this to what you are hearing.
Here is the link to the .M4A to listen to, and below is a picture of the chord sheet. I let the Toms play for four bars since you only hear them on the fills.
As musocity suggested above I went to the source files at \biab.
Under \drums\americanaSlow8thsFred_75
check out the _Ride.m4a. or the _hiHat.m4a
Is that much bleed to be expected? Sounds like pretty much the full kit less the kick.
If those are correct I'll keep at it. Possibly something was lost in translation between biab and Logic. Simple user user error could be at work. Pebcak. Wouldn't be the first time.
Again, I'm very much interested in trying to use the stems in my backing track projects.
Alternatively If the source is not as its should be, I will stand by.
Is that much bleed to be expected? Sounds like pretty much the full kit less the kick.
If you're playing the .m4a files directly from the folder, you would not necessarily be hearing a relevant section of the file. For example, for the ride file, you would need to play the file somewhere near the end. And even then it can be difficult to compare it to another file, if you're just listening to one file at a time.
It's true that some of the drums have more separation - for example I listened to ModernPopBallad16ths^ - depends on the drum kit, the player, the equipment, mic positioning...
My question for YOU, is did you listen to my example I posted above? That plays the drums one after the other so you can easily hear the differences. I think you'll agree that they are much different from one another.
I used to use Drumagog to do all that. I looked for a free Mac plugin, I tried it with the ride track and I could filter out the snare https://a1audio.alexhilton.net/downloads BUT it's a vst3 on Win so you can try the Mac one and see if it's the same or they might have one that work directly in BBMac ? It will work in your DAW. In Logic you should have a Gate with ducking so you can invert the signal to let the low level through.
EDIT: I had another look and there are VST2 there also, so you should be able to try the in Biab.
In Reaper you have square wave generators to turn the volume on/off by automation. You have volume automation now in Biab, it should be in the Mac version by now also. I can't remember if you can copy paste the volume automation yet in Biab ?
I think I'll shelve biab drum stems for the time being.
I'm going to give midi drums a try. I've got plenty of sound libraries and some support from this forum to get the ball rolling. I've done a couple of preliminary efforts and it looks promising. Who knows, maybe I'll take up finger drumming.
It's great for adding custom sections to the RealDrums. If you want individual drum control and you can't get it in a particular stem the midi is ok but just may need a bit of tweaking, you can use the PG Sforzando library with the midi as it has a Rock and Jazz Brushes kit that are pretty good. When you get the Playable RealDrums you could use the stems but put a midi stem with it's SFZ in where you have an audio stem issue, you could actually try that now with the ride track with the Rock Kit sfz. Try: generate up the stems with a stereo mix track included drag the stereo mix drum track to Drop MID then drag export midi to a folder drag midi from the folder into Biab import it to the Ride track (if you have erased it first) or import to another track load Sforzando VSTi on the track load PG Drums Rock Kit remove the midi notes that are not Ride notes mute the stereo drum mix and the RD Ride track (if not erased).
Plenty of compelling sound libraries exist for midi drums. No lack of options there.
My next question is to determine how artificial the midi rendered performance from biab is. I guess that will come by comparision to real drums vs midi on a few projects.
If midi sounds natural enough i'll probably just go with it. I see bit cleaner workflow with midi than the hybrid realtracks/midi embellishments approach. Especially if a number of iterations are required to get the track where one wants it But others clearly may think differently.
If the midi renderings from biab sound like little robots vice real drum tracks we may not have much choice. When they work, real drums really are a powerful feature. One of my favorite.
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