Recording electronic drums

For general questions or discussion of Auria.

Moderators: Corey W, Rim

strhessed
Member
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri May 06, 2016 6:40 pm

Recording electronic drums

Post by strhessed » Sat May 21, 2016 8:02 am

I have an Alesis Crimson kit and am trying to figure out the best way to record them to Auria Pro. I have a Steinberg UR22 interface which has midi in and midi out. The Crimson module also has the midi in and out as well as 1/4 in outs that you can go mono (with just one side) or stereo by using both. I'm using a 12.9 iPad Pro. Thanks in advance. Also, I have no midi experience.

Corey W
Expert
Posts: 568
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:58 am

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by Corey W » Sat May 21, 2016 8:24 am

Your best bet would be to record both the MIDI and audio out of your Alesis interface.
-Using a MIDI cable, connect from the MIDI Out of your Alesis to the MIDI In of your Interface.
-Use two 1/4" audio cables to connect both the Left and Right audio output from the Alesis to your interface.
-In Auria Pro, create 1 new MIDI track and 1 new Stereo audio track.
-On the MIDI track set the Instrument input to 'Off', for the Port settings, set Channel to 'All', Input to 'All' and Output to 'Off'.
-Record arm the MIDI track to confirm you are getting signal from your Alesis drums. If you are not seeing signal from the above settings, let me know.
-On the stereo audio track set the inputs to 1/2, record arm the track and set your gain.
-Now you should be able to record arm both the Stereo audio track and MIDI track and record to both simultaneously.

Corey W
Expert
Posts: 568
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:58 am

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by Corey W » Sat May 21, 2016 8:28 am

When you record the stereo audio from your Alesis, there is very little you can do with it mixing wise so make sure the individual drum levels are good before recording.

Having drums tracked in MIDI gives you incredible flexibility for using different sounds, mixing and editing.

User avatar
Anthony Alves
Expert
Posts: 1444
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2012 9:52 am

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by Anthony Alves » Sat May 21, 2016 8:42 am

Good luck with your tracking.

rickwaugh
Expert
Posts: 677
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2014 3:25 pm

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by rickwaugh » Mon May 23, 2016 2:34 pm

Corey W wrote:When you record the stereo audio from your Alesis, there is very little you can do with it mixing wise so make sure the individual drum levels are good before recording.

Having drums tracked in MIDI gives you incredible flexibility for using different sounds, mixing and editing.
This is where Midiflow helps a bunch. With Midiflow, you can set up tracking so that it can redirect particular notes out to different midi channels. This allows you to split your drums, which generally come in on one channel, into multiple channels, so you can worry about your Mixdown later.

strhessed
Member
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri May 06, 2016 6:40 pm

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by strhessed » Mon May 23, 2016 6:36 pm

Wow! I have A LOT to learn!! Thanks for the help, guys. I just ordered MIDI cables and I'll post back once I have a chance to figure it all out :)

Funjunkie27
Expert
Posts: 88
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2015 5:58 pm

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by Funjunkie27 » Tue May 24, 2016 8:39 am

@Corey W - why would you recommend recording both audio and midi? I'm sure it could be interesting to layer the sounds but not sure what other benefits there might be.

@strhessed - I have an Alesis DM5 and I do multi-track midi recording of the drums fairly often. I've used Midi Flow to split it out to multiple tracks, as was suggested, and that works rather well. I've also recorded the whole lot into a single track and copied/pasted notes across different tracks for the same effect. A bit of a poor man's solution, but it works.

Corey W
Expert
Posts: 568
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:58 am

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by Corey W » Tue May 24, 2016 12:19 pm

I like to record the audio for not only possible layering when mixing but for reference during tracking and mixing as well.

Funjunkie27
Expert
Posts: 88
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2015 5:58 pm

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by Funjunkie27 » Tue May 24, 2016 12:26 pm

Makes sense....thanks Corey. I'd probably need a DI for my setup though, since the head is pretty far from the audio interface.

strhessed
Member
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri May 06, 2016 6:40 pm

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by strhessed » Wed May 25, 2016 12:32 pm

Anyone know of a tutorial (video or otherwise) on how to use Midi Flow? I really have no midi knowledge. Thanks in advance.

Funjunkie27
Expert
Posts: 88
Joined: Thu Sep 10, 2015 5:58 pm

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by Funjunkie27 » Wed May 25, 2016 3:09 pm

I don't know of any videos related to splitting drums specifically, but if you just search for videos on midiflow, there are a few out there. I attached an image that shows how I'm set up.
Split_Drums.jpg

strhessed
Member
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri May 06, 2016 6:40 pm

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by strhessed » Sun May 29, 2016 4:57 pm

So I finally got my MIDI cable. I have been experimenting a bit. Am I able to use the sounds within my drum kits module? Thus far I've only been able to use the 3 drum kits included with Auria Pro. My ultimate goal is to be able to record my drum tracks using a kit I constructed in the Alesis module and then be able to adjust levels and what not for each drum and cymbal post recording.

rickwaugh
Expert
Posts: 677
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2014 3:25 pm

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by rickwaugh » Sun May 29, 2016 11:22 pm

You could do that, but I don't know how you would break it down into seperate tracks, because at that point, it's no longer midi. It's audio. When midi is sent, it's not the actual sound. It's just what note it is, duration, attack, fade, velocity of strike, etc. You then on the target platform pick what sample you want to use. But you're selecting the sample on the drum set, and sending that, so you no longer have a midi note to select and change, so something like Midiflow won't help. You would have to be able to send out individual outputs from your drums, into some kind of interfaced that accepts enough different inputs to cover your drum set.

strhessed
Member
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri May 06, 2016 6:40 pm

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by strhessed » Mon May 30, 2016 9:21 am

Ok, so then I would need to use something like Drums XD? I have that, but my only issue is the cymbals sound strange. Almost like a warble effect. Very inconsistent. Anyone know if it's possibly a setting issue? Thanks for the advice and help everyone! Great and helpful community here.

User avatar
Anthony Alves
Expert
Posts: 1444
Joined: Sat Mar 10, 2012 9:52 am

Re: Recording electronic drums

Post by Anthony Alves » Mon May 30, 2016 10:15 am

You will have to record the midi notes of your drum kit then if your Alesis has midi input you can send the midi data to your Alesis module and output the audio one track at a time through the audio interface. Simply mute the parts that you don't want to send and record the one that you do send. Ex. I record the entire midi drum part to one midi track in Auria Pro. Then take the midi cable out of your midi interface back into your Alesis drum module. Then in the Alesis drum module turn down the level of every drum piece except say the kick drum. Now take an audio output of the Alesis into your audio interface and create a mono track called KICK. Hit play in Auria Pro and the midi track will send the midi data to the Alesis drum module and the drum module will output the kick which you have isolated through muting the other parts into the audio interface and recorded onto the newly created mono audio track. Once you have recorded all the drum parts into their own audio track you now have all the drum parts in Auria Pro as audio files. don't forget to do all your midi editing before you commit to this process. Also don't delete the original midi track in case you need to go back and edit the midi some more.Remember that this only will work if your Alesis drum module has midi input. Some drum controllers don't like my Roland TD4 kit which means I can't do this and I often wish I could. My way around this is to record my drums directly as a mono audio track ,then I manually separate all the audio parts from the track and use the audio quantize feature in Auria Pro to correct timing issues or I manually snap the drum sound to the grid. This is very tedious and laborious so I often only do a pattern or two to make the job smaller. So I literally split every drum hit and then put that hit on a separate mono audio track. Cheers and hope this helps.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 144 guests