Just upgraded from elements to pro- finished “comping” acoustic drums, and I’m looking to detect hit points as a means to create a MIDI track for blending samples , as my snare could use some reinforcement.
The issue I’m having is that I’ve got a lot of Hi Hat bleed , and my drummer does a TON of ghost notes on the snare, so Im embarking on the tedious task of setting the threshold at 1 and going through and editing all the hitpoints. ( which is fine , its good practice anyways)
Heres my question: as soon as I get to the first comped take from another lane- I realized im still editing the hit points on the take that is now underneath- so basically its not following the “main” comped lane- what’s even worse is that ;lets say the next event is just half a bar long… well, if I click on that section and try to edit hit points , it brings up the whole damn take including all the parts from that lane Im not using on the “main” track-
First I tried gluing, but that didn’t work very well… I finally settled on exporting the audio of the track and importing it to its own track- then using that track to generate and edit my hit points for my midi track
which is kinda scary because if I want to go back and edit my comped take; all my work will have been for nothing
What is the best way to create a new track based off a “finished” comped audio track?
should I just ignore how they overlap , frustratingly, and try to follow the project window? because I suppose that’s possible, but when I generate the midi im not even sure its going to follow my comped “main track” for lack of a better term.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, I spent years on pro tools, and Im loving cubase but a little bit out of my element here so ANY advice on any part of this process would be greatly appreciated!
The Lanes are just better (expected) visual representations for the user. But in fact the whole recording is the only one file. Therefore if you open any Audio Event in the Sample Editor, you can see the whole Audio file (all takes one next to each other). But you can also see the Audio Event Start and End markers, so you know exactly, where the Audio Event is placed in the file.
For easier editing, I would recommend to Render in Place the tracks and do the Hitpoint task on the newly created tracks.
You can also consider to generate the MIDI data from the source and these the ghost MIDI Notes instead of removing the Hitpoints.
Working with compound drum tracks for snare, kick, etc… sample replacement is a nightmare. I was recently mixing a song for a friend who only gave me the stereo comp tracks and just like you wanted to reinforce the snare and kick. I only had a day to mix the song and the drum comp track was all they had.
Hitpoint detection was picking up too many ghost notes and cymbal bleed, I even tried using 3rd party sample replacement software but that wasn’t helping either. So, I ended up duplicating the track twice and used an EQ to filter out everything but the fundamental frequency and put a tight notch point to raise the volume and exaggerate the transient of the kick on one track and the snare on the other. Bounced the tracks, then used hitpoint detection to catch the main transients and created midi tracks from there. It wasn’t the best solution but was manageable with some fiddling around moving some of the midi notes manually. If you’re under a timeframe you could try this, but its still going to be somewhat time consuming.
It’s always best to have the individual mono kitpiece tracks, but sometime you just have to make due with what you have.
Sorry, I wrote it in hurry… I wanted to write:
You can also consider to generate the MIDI data from the source and edit/remove the ghost MIDI Notes instead of removing the Hitpoints.
Actually, you could even make a Logical Editor preset for this. Something like:
Filter Target
(Media Type Is | Equal | Note | And
Value 2 (Velocity) | Less | 32 ) // Or the value, you find useful
Action Target
-
Function
Delete
@xerogh
Omg that sounds like my nightmare times 10-
Fortunately by “comped” I meant the ALL the individual tracks - so I am dealing with just the snare but these ghost notes are kind of part of his style (and sometimes even a bit of a bad habit)
So I was just dealing with the hi hat bleed- and trying to find a happy medium with the physical drumset placement as well (he likes everything “low profile “ and tightly configured so I’m trying to find a happy medium)
On the flip side- I got through the snare edit my very first time in under two hours and it may not be perfect but it’s damn close- and I’m absolutely stunned by the amazing result I have with Steven slate drums- it’s incredible
The kick was easier (took 5 mins)
I just gated it, and bounced the audio, and generated my hit points from the imported audio, converted to midi, dragged it on to My instrument track and it was done!
I’m definitely going to try render in place tho-
I’m really just trying to find the best way to do it where if I wanted to go back and edit the drums I could edit the hit points as well and quickly fix it- because the way I’ve done it- it’s pretty concrete- and if I just edit the midi I don’t necessarily trust myself to get the timing right but it’s not impossible.
It’s a work in progress with this drummer and the new room we are in, to try to find the best location for the snare mic to eliminate as much of the hats as possible, taking the time to multi take the parts of the song to solidify what’s written.
Thankyou for sharing your experience and advice tho- much appreciated
Well guys, I’ve settled on trying render in place-
Thanks again for the help, it definitely adds to my confidant switch to Cubase , to know that I have an awesome community I can talk to! You guys are GREAT!
Last question-
IF i generate my hit points from a rendered track- that’s it isn’t it?
Like I can’t go back into my comped track and take a hit from another lane , and still have all my edited , or “locked in” hit points there (minus the new edit) and quickly regenerate the midi track?
Not trying to answer my own question but sounds like @Martin.Jirsak ‘s suggestion of going into the midi notes and “copying” my audio edit on the midi track may be best should that happen yea?
I’m just trying not to develop any bad habits there, and hey, I know it’s bad practice to go back and have to edit audio AFTER I’ve moved on - but sometimes you miss a flub ya know?
If I do go into midi, any suggestions on “lining” up the hits?
I suppose I could see how the existing ones line up with the audio and copy that, but so far I’ve had trouble with aligning midi to audio hits “manually”
@Martin.Jirsak the logical editor comment you made, really got my wheels turning- I know nothing about the concept so I’m gonna be looking that up- must be something similar to like an advanced key command?
Anyways I probably should have clarified- the ghost notes on the snare I’m trying to keep- the challenge was they tend to be quieter than some of the hi hat bleed.
There’s gotta be a way to gate it that’s frequency specific so it “ignores” the hats - maybe that would help? Just dreaming here
hi my advice as a drummer and cubase user when using booster samples.
take your time and catch ONLY the hard hits, don’t ghost notes them. that’s it. Then you add the sampler track to the original track to get the drummer’s touch. I use a lot of ghost notes too. The result is a snare with punch and naturalness
if you start editing the ghost notes it is a nightmare, a long time and the result is not very good.
adamanderson98, when you comp, before you render and start erasing all your comp parts, you can make a copy of all your comp tracks. Just go to the main comp track ‘channel name’ area and right click - the option to ‘Duplicate track’ will show up. Click on this and all you comp tracks will be duplicated. To save space on your Project, you could then create a Folder channel (name it Drum Comps?) and then drag your various drum tracks into the folder and close it. Then you only have the one ‘Drum Comps’ folder taking up space.
That’s what I’m talking about! Great advice there that’s perfect-
Then all my extra takes are still there!
Usually when I finish a mix, and it’s ready to master , I’ll go back and do some cleanup to make the file smaller wherever I can but im all for keeping everything I can until the end- just in case.
I only blended kick and snare with similar sounding /tuned samples- it had great results.
But I do have a question for you, - how do you like set up your samples ?
For instance:
I used Steven slate drums 5 (the instrument doesn’t matter) and I put both the kick and snare on the same midi track-
Then I set the sends via Steven slate and activated the outputs so that I have a fader for the kick, a fader for the snare, and a fader for the snare ambience- then hide the original midi instrument track (because no audio is coming out of it)
I think this works pretty well- I mean if I want to readjust the “send” level of the sample I just reopen SSD5 but I find once I have a good volume in there the faders do a good job at adjusting levels.
Just curious if you did it any differently, and if so - what your reasoning for it was.
well, exactly the same. that’s the MY procedure when I’m in the editing phase. I usually use a lot of that sound library, by Jeff Juliano and Nir Z along with Groove agent Se, a way that the great Greg Ondo taught me! as you said the VsT doesn’t matter. when I record the drums what I usually do is record some loose strokes of the elements I have used, such as bass drum, Snare and toms. that also helps.
at the end of the tracking, I press rec and record a few strokes in case I want, or the one who is going to mix it needs to replace some hit, or whatever he needs. I don’t think I can explain. you do it as a lifesaver. I think the engineers will appreciate it, and if they want to use their own samples then they also have the option.