I try to listen to myself playing along as if the drums are already recorded and I am merely accompanying a perfect recorded performance, with everything in the right place and musical context.
Simon Ayton on a Roland TD-4 then did further takes, aiming for the single, complete take with all the elements I liked within it. 8. I managed a complete take I was mostly happy with and cut in some of the better bits like a really inspired fill from other takes. I try to avoid fixing, quantising or moving parts that are poor, preferring to use “whole good sections” from another take. As master drummer Manu Katche put it, “an edited bad performance is still at heart a bad performance”. 9. Once editing was complete, I neatened up and named all my takes and trimmed the ends of the audio and MIDI regions so they began exactly on the first beat of the bar and saved my project. This is the point where I usually decide whether or not I’ll send individual audio tracks for each instrument of the drum track. In this instance, the stereo drums seemed to work well with the track and I decided I’d send this and wait for confirmation before sending individual tracks. 10. I knew they would be using Logic Pro on a Macintosh at the other end rather than Sonar, so I used the bounce function in Sonar to export several versions of my drums from bar 1 of the song: • Drums and music MP3 version for their reference and appraisal to send first; • Drums-only mix in 24bit 44.1KHZ WAV format, which they could import directly into Logic at their end; • Five separate audio drum tracks individually bounced from bar 1 which they could edit and remix (eg: kick, snare, hi-hat, all cymbals left and right, all toms left and right); • MIDI track data of the drum performance which they could also use to edit, move parts or substitute sounds. This was done as a MIDI file format ‘0’. Getting into the recording zone Obviously, playing by yourself is not the same as being in a studio with other musicians, so we sometimes need tricks to get into “the zone”. 38
Objective listening and the ability to really analyse what I’m playing from a distance allows me to make improvements on the fly and although it’s a lifelong challenge, this is what I believe makes for the best music and separates true musicians from mere players. I try to play musically and really listen to the whole piece of music and the impact I am having on it. Think musical thoughts… Just as artists learn to stretch their own canvases, mix their paints and choose their brushes to master their craft, through taking control of our own sound, learning some fundamentals and diving into recording ourselves, we’ll all be better musicians and artists for it!
To click or not to click? I reckon a lot of drummers struggle with clicks because they are simply playing outside their comfort zone. I always recommend the artist let me set the tempo of the song to achieve the most comfortable-sounding performance possible. I set the level of the click so my playing masks the sound of the click. This way, if I’m playing right on, I don’t hear the click. The trick is to play consistently with a comfortable feel. Let the click pull you along. If I’m working on a song that was not done to a click, then I play very carefully along to the main rhythm elements in the song to try to keep everything tight and feeling good: try to think musical thoughts, play respectfully of the song and imagine I’m playing with the artist in the same room. www.digitaldrummermag.com