I’m working on a mix that only kids would record. The drums were recorded entirely with Shure SM 57’s & 58’s! The bleed is overwhelming!!
Needless to say, trying to gate the drums in order to get any separation is proving to be extemely tedious. Chopping the parts of each track is the only certain route to getting any decent separation for processing and there will certainly be use of some samples made in order to get those tracks to be listenable. This, however, is even MORE tedious!
So my question here is, when/how do you decide which method to use? Do you ONLY base it on pay (If they can pay for all the editing time the “surgery” will take, then it’s worth it?), or can there be other considerations (you want to date the kid’s Mom or something )? Is there even a gate in existance that would give you the same precision as slicing up the tracks?
Just wondering how you guys might handle a project like this.
Other tracks that accompany: will replaced drums make the other tracks pale in comparison.
Is the band looking for a garage band sound or do they want you to produce their sound. You have to deliver what they are looking 4. Not what you think it should be. It is their music. If they are looking to you for guidance and for production of their sound, that’s a completely different thing.
Is the band worth all the effort or do they suck. Not trying to be harsh with this comment, but sometimes giving them a very poor sounding mix based on their abilities to record and play can offer insight for them in order to grow as musicians. Don’t deliberately make it sound bad, just work with what they gave you. Making a lousy band sound good limits their growth. They will think they are awesome when they really aren’t.
If there is a speck of consideration dating there mom, have them into your studio and record the song or songs.
If it’s less time to have the drums re recorded properly, you could offer that as well.
Thanks for the tip. THIS IS A GREAT PLUGIN!!! It did in seconds what I spent 90 minutes doing on one track!! It worked great on everything except the snare track. It still calculated the kick drum as the dominant transient. So I tried to fool it by re analyzing the snare as the Hi Hat. That helped some, but it still didn’t remove the kick.
Nevertheless, if I only have to slice one track or gate one track, that’s still a savings of 7 to 9 tracks. So it was definitely worth the price! Thanks again!
To the rest of you who replied, my question was HOW DO YOU DECIDE whether to use a gate or go full out surgical on these time of problem tracks. I’d already made my decision and was working on fixing the tracks (slicing + clip gain is working great!). I was just curious what criteria you guys applied to this kind of situation.
Thanks for all the replies so far. This is a cool conversation!
Well, since she’s a totally hypothetical “Mom,” on emight assume that she is very hot. But then again I don’t know of any woman hot enough to make you want to jeopardize your livlihood by releasing mediocre to poor work!
Glad that I could be of any help. Maybe you already know and tried, but the way you group tracks together and the length of tracks influences the way Drumatom interprets tracks. There are some useful videos on the internet.
Did you label the snare track as ‘snare’ in the panel? Sorry to ask, but sometimes the devil is in the details.
Yes it was labeled Snare. That’s why I tried it again labeled as Hi Hat, hoping it would focus on the higher frequency of the snare. As I said, that DID help a little. But not enough to make a difference. So I ended up slicing the snare track and using clip gain to remove the kick. I’ve seen several of the tutorial videos on Drumatom. They were very helpful. But the program itself is it’s biggest help. IT DROP DEAD SIMPLE TO USE!! I love that about any tool! Because of that plug, I don’t have to do any more slicing for the remaining 10 tracks. I can just start balancing and finessing them into a decent sound kit. Thanks again for the suggestion!
Huh Cubase is great to use for drum replacement, no need for any additional plugin.
Just convert every drum track to midi and use groove agent as VSTi
It should not take more than 15 minutes.
The tricky part is to mix the overheads in, to make it sound natural.
Chopping the parts of each track is the only certain route to getting any decent separation for processing and there will certainly be use of some samples made in order to get those tracks to be listenable. This, however, is even MORE tedious! 
Maybe you already know and tried, but the way you group tracks together and the length of tracks influences the way Drumatom interprets tracks. There are some useful videos on the internet.