Triggers, and recording with them.

[Amalloy]

I've been thinking through some ideas for recording, doubling up mics with triggers on toms, and the bass drum. I've done what research I can, I know it can be done. But, I've been having trouble finding examples of it. I was wondering if anyone on the forums has done it, and can show me an example? Perhaps some give me some pointers?

I use a pretty expensive kit, and it gets good sound. But the issue is when EQing the drums won't sound as big as I'd like, because my cymbals tend to over power them. I've been learning to hit my cymbals much lighter over time - for the purpose of shows, and recording. But I still want to get a nice full sound, without doing the typical post recording studio 'magic' - without sacrificing a full bodied cymbal sound.

And so far I think this is the best option available.

I'm also trying to find a good quality but an inexpensive drum module, and I'm hoping someone can give me a good recommendation?

 

[Winspear]

You definitely haven't been having trouble finding examples. Most modern metal records are triggers.

It's compression that will make drums sound bigger. If it's a modern sound your going for you are going to need said studio 'magic'. No need to sacrifice the cymbal sound - that's what multiple mics are for!

Tom and kick triggers aren't a bad idea. I can't give you any technical advice on modules etc., but I can say that you should probably try compression and gating on your kick and toms first. You should be able to get at least 80% of the way there without triggers.

 

[Epyon6]

I've been thinking through some ideas for recording, doubling up mics with triggers on toms, and the bass drum. I've done what research I can, I know it can be done. But, I've been having trouble finding examples of it. I was wondering if anyone on the forums has done it, and can show me an example? Perhaps some give me some pointers?

I use a pretty expensive kit, and it gets good sound. But the issue is when EQing the drums won't sound as big as I'd like, because my cymbals tend to over power them. I've been learning to hit my cymbals much lighter over time - for the purpose of shows, and recording. But I still want to get a nice full sound, without doing the typical post recording studio 'magic' - without sacrificing a full bodied cymbal sound.

And so far I think this is the best option available.

I'm also trying to find a good quality but an inexpensive drum module, and I'm hoping someone can give me a good recommendation?

This is a very complex and debatable situation but here we go. I personally reccoment not triggering your kit, unless you stuff your toms you most likely will have double triggering and things of that sort. Personally the only thing I trigger is my bass drums and I use Axis pedals so I use the Axis E kit triggers that do not mount up on the head but on the pedals themselves so its wayyyy less likely to double trigger or have any trigger problems. I also run those triggers into my yamaha DTXplorer module. It isnt the best module but it does the job and I was able to get the sound I want outta it. I reccomend the Alesis DM5 pretty affordable now and has good samples. I dont know what genre you play but I play death metal and we pretty much HAVE to trigger our kicks otherwise you wont hear em or if you mic em theyll just sound like a glob of rolling notes. If your having bleeding through your micing for your toms then maybe move your cymbals away from them more. But personally I never had any issues like that. I wouldnt trigger a expensive great sounding kit for a show though, also if your micing them AND triggering itll sound weird too cause you now have the sample sound coming outta the PA and your natural drum sound coming out too from the PA too, I they sound will not match up. All in all I think the only thing you should trigger IF your playing death metal or metal is your bass drum, other then that just mic everything, if you know how to tune your drums they will sound beautiful.

 

[Bretton]

as long as you've got decent enough isolation on each drum, triggers are not necessary for recording. You can use drum sound replacement software to add the triggered sound after the fact, and you can blend the triggered sound with the original as well.

If you're recording LIVE, that's a different story, then you'd need the triggers and module. I looked around and found good deals on an Alesis DM5 and a full set of Ddrum triggers. I'd recommend these.

I ended up ditching my snare and tom triggers due to the aforementioned double triggering on the toms, and being unable to get ghost notes working on the snares (it's supposed to be programmable to be able to detect soft hits and play a soft sound, while also playing loud sounds on loud hits).

To solve your problem of too much cymbal, I would try everything you can to get more isolation between them. Mount the cymbals as far away from the drums as you can and play around with foam shields, I just did a quick search and found these: Primacoustic Acoustic Solutions you should be able to make something yourself out of foam.

if you can get less cymbal bleed in the tom mics, you can turn them up more. And wail on those toms as hard as you can.

 

[AxeHappy]

Buy an electric kit and just run it through SD man! .

 

[StewartEhoff]

Triggers are indeed not necessary. Parallel compression is what will get you that beefy sound. You can even parallel compress with "beefier" samples from superior or alternatively, sample your own kit.

 

[Sinborn]

Sampling your own kit is IMO the best way to get that huge sampled boom but retain your unique sound. I've fought my 16"x24" kick for years, trying to get a good mic sound. Most people like it acoustically so there has to be a good sound in it somewhere. I recently did a track for my band and hated the kick. So I tried moving the mic some and recording a few good hits solo. Trimmed up and normalized a good hit, sent it to drumagog, and for the first time I like my kick tone.