Tightening drums in Ableton Live then Moving To Logic?

I am still struggling to get a good sounding drum track from a studio session I was involved in a month ago. We recorded with a click so the drums don't always flow in a natural way. I have spent a few weeks cutting and moving various hits and such and got it sounding better but still not to my liking. Also, I have all my drum audio files chopped up like crazy and it seems to be effecting performance.

 

Would it be better to import the multitracked drums into Ableton Live, warp them there, then bounce the files to audio and re-import them into Logic? What are the pitfalls of this idea? Does anyone on here do this?

 

I am new to this whole process so maybe I am missing something. I don't think it should be as difficult as I am making it.

 

Thanks!

 

Mitch

I'm not sure why chopped audio would be a performance hit. Something else may be going on.

 

As for tightening up drums, Drumagog was built for this task. I haven't worked with it but have heard the results.

I did some reading on drumagog and watched the video and I dont think it would address my problem. My problem is with the feel of the original recorded tracks, not the sound of the drums. I don't thind drumagog addresses timing, just sounds. Maybe I am wrong.

i think your idea is worth a shot.

try doing it with 30 seconds or so of a track, and then re-import to logic to compare it to the original. sometimes a reimported file doesn't sound as good, but sometimes it sounds better (hmmm...)

 

make sure you have the right "warp type" selected [beats] in live (i forget about that sometimes)

 

i tried this with some djembe recordings a while back and liked it.

I have all my drum audio files chopped up like crazy and it seems to be effecting performance.

Yes, the more Regions you have in the Arrange window, the harder Logic has to work for any operation. I suggest lowering your undo history. I have mine set to only 1 when editing drums.

You might wanna try getting Melodyne, you can quantize audio.

In general I'd rather quantize Audio in Logic, which doesn't process the sound, than in Live or Melodyne, which timestretch the sound and thus denature it.

 

It all depends on the sound you're going for and the material you're working with.

I am basically working with drum tracks from a good drummer but one who is concious of the click in the recording. I have been doing the tune section by section and I am starting to get paranoid that the sections don't match each other.

 

Its one of those tunes that needs a metronomic feel. I have done some cutting and pasting of two good bars, etc.

 

I am just losing control of my obsessive tendencies when it comes to music! : ) This is my first shot at producing something and I want it to be right, ya know?

 

Thanks for the feedback. I will probably just keep cutting and dragging.

Obsessive? Sounds like someone I know pretty well...

 

Look at my drum tracks!

Nice!

 

So David, what is your strategy when you do that? Are you doing it by how it sounds or are there some tricks that I don't know about? I mean, I get it pretty close but sometimes I do a section then realize that the kick on the 1 is late or the snare on 2 is early, etc.

 

Any tips would be really appreciated.

For the session I showed I just wanted each individual hit right on the grid to get a metronomic feel with a real drum sound.

 

I grouped the drums for editing so as not to lose the phase sync between mics, then started cutting all the kicks, then all the snares, and then the remaining toms and hi hats.

 

Then I quantized, and pulled back each sample to avoid double-hits. Then batch X Fade everything.

 

You have to experiment with X Fade settings. I found that shorter X Fade (1ms) work better for overheads and cymbals in general. I used longer X Fade settings for snare and kick (10ms or more).

 

The first step of the process (cutting, quantizing) is really mechanical and visual. The remainging part (pulling back the start point of Regions and crossfading) you have to do with your ears.

 

Also I've allowed myself to quantize certain tracks individually in certain places... again you have to use your ears.

Wow...there is a TON of stuff I don't know. For instance...you are quantizing audio? Can you direct me to a post about that?

 

I would love to see you do this. Just watching once would be like a masterclass! You are describing exactly what I need to do with the current track I am working on.

Once your regions are cut, you just open an event list, select all your regions and quantize. That places each region on the grid.

Thanks David. I am tempted to ask a billion more questions but I don't want to take advantage of your good nature. Are there any posts that have covered this already?

 

Thanks.

I think I have described this in the past.. you might want to search the forum for quantize drums or drum editing...

 

Don't hesitate to ask more questions, that's what this place is for!

Ok, you asked for it! : )

 

Let's start here...

 

Up to this point I have cut up my drum tracks all together (meaning I cut them all at the same time, not just the kick track or the snare track, etc. - I cut down the row, if that makes sense) so as to not get double hits, etc. However, I haven't grouped them (not sure what that means), nor have I cut them evenly (for instance, every two beats or anything like that). I have cut them right near the hit, then I move it and then I drag the fades back or forward. I have gotten things at least in the ball park, but I am wary that if I lay in any sequenced loops with the live drums that it won't sound tight.

 

How would you recommend that I move forward from here? I don't understand how the event list would work if the tracks aren't cut evenly.

 

I might not even be asking the right questions here.

 

Thanks!

If you group your tracks, then you can simply cut the kick for example, and everything else in that group will be cut in the same place. Also if you drag things around, you just need to drag one region and all the corresponding regions on other tracks will follow.

 

What I do is I cut RIGHT on the attack of the drum. Then open the event list and double click anywhere in the background so it lists all my drum Regions. Then select all, and quantize. That way the attack of the drums are quantized.

 

Then you can resize the left edge of the region to make sure you don't miss any sound that might have occured just before the attack.

 

The fades I do in batches, by selecting all the Regions and entering the fade information in the Region parameter box.

 

However, my system works for cutting every single hit. I wouldn't necessarily work like that with all my tracks. It depends how tight you want your result, and how much time you have on your hands!

David,

 

Could you do a quick screen shot of what you consider the attack of a snare hit or a kick drum? Is it right where the sound starts or where it peaks?

 

Thanks!

When the sound starts. Logic has only tick resolution in the Arrange so you'll have to make a compromise, but it sounds fine.

 

Here's a screenshot where I cut a kick drum.

 

The fact that I am cutting slightly after the waveform begins is nothing to worry about since you'll resize the left edge of the regions later in the process. The cut is only your reference for quantizing.

Great! So then the very beginning of the sound, where you made the cut, gets snapped to the grid, right?

 

And...where do you group the tracks together so they all cut at the same time?

David,

 

A million thanks for your tips yesterday! Last night, in a couple hours I got the first 24 bars of one of my tunes tighter than it ever was after working on it for a week and a half!!

 

I still need to know how to group the tracks together so the cuts happen to all the tracks automatically. Also, I did the fades by hand (turning the x-fade on and dragging the left edges back to overlap the end of the previous region)...so any tips on a better way to do that would be appreciated.

 

Seriously, David, thank you. I'd send you a fruit basket if I could!

david's chop chop method is the best. nothing beats a hand made set of edits!

 

i would most definitely avoid live for warping, as audible artefacts will occur. melodyne will probably give finer sounding results, but there will still be danaturalisation, as david said before.

Once your regions are cut, you just open an event list, select all your regions and quantize. That places each region on the grid.

 

Thanks for this! I didn't know this is even possible

Can you quantize to a groove template? Or is that just midi.

Can you quantize to a groove template? Or is that just midi.

 

Yes you can quantize audio regions with Groove templates. Fun stuff

 

i

Does the groove template show up in the quantize window in the events editor?

Yes

 

i

I definitely second David's chop method, but I would add that it's often o.k. to chop even closer to the peak than he did (taking more off the beginning). As long as there is no un-natural attack, you'll be o.k. with a closer chop, and I think it makes the timing that much better. In fact, if you've chopped every hit of a drum track, quantized it, and it still feels off in some parts, there's a good chance it's because the attack point of one or more of the drums is off slightly.

I would add that it's often o.k. to chop even closer to the peak than he did (taking more off the beginning)

 

I guess it doesn't make a big difference as long as you keep using the same method throughout the song.

 

My songs include a fair amount of synth sounds, including drum samples or synthetized drum sounds. Since their waveform starts at zero it makes sense for me to align all the zero start of all live drums right on the grid.

I certainly am NOT disagreeing with you David I hope I'm clear there...I sit here all day trying to learn from you. I was just trying to add a little extra in the area of chopping that I've learned from trying to get things to "fit" right. Sometimes, logically, everything should be in time, but it's not, and I've found that it's usually because the chop of the offending parts was too far away from the main 'peak' of the sound, causing it to feel late.

 

(Also, I'm talking about very, very small adjustments in timing! The type of thing that you feel more than hear...when you're trying to really fine-tune a groove.)