Part 2: How To Correct a Full Drum Kit with Beat Detective in ProTools LE

[dogeatsock]

I I am editing a pop song, and numerous times in my song I have a crash hit with the beat coming in right after. There are timing issues in the kick, snare and highhat tracks immediately following this crash hit. How do I fix these timings in the kick, snare and highhat without altering the sound of that residual crash hit? When I do beat detective on all the tracks, that residual crash hit has a ton of little cross fades in it and sounds strange. How do you get around this??

[randomgong]

@dogeatsock I don't quite understand the situation - probably one of those "you have to see/hear it" things I suppose. But from my understanding, what I would do is just edit it with beat detective or by hand, and then add a sampled crash on top of what's already there to make the "real" crash / crash bleed sound smoother.

[askerp2007]

great tutorial men, you explain things very well, keep up the videos

[romakid]

Great tutorial. Just what I needed. Thanks.

[Ashsdrumming]

I have a question maybe someone can help :D

If you want to mix live drums with programmed midi, do you think it's best to record the drums first then add the midi or the other way around- i.e play along to the programmed midi? Thanks...

[soundmachinevids]

I can edit an entire drum track by hand in REAPER in less time than it took to play this entire tutorial, including all tom hits and cymbal hits.

[MartinEugeneHarp]

@soundmachinevids Because you're awesome. I can edit an entire drum track by hand in PT in less time than it took to play the first half of this. Am I awesome too, please? It's a tutorial. It is going to take longer to get through because he's trying to explain what to do, how to do it and what the each option does. I'm sure if you made a "How to correct a Full Drum Kit in Reaper" it would be a 1 min. video but Stephen did his with the user in mind that is probably following along in PT.

[rockjpk]

Thanx for the great tutorial!! i just have one question,if you use beat detective on the drums wont the other instruments get out of beat,if you have recorded an entire band?

[drmrfk16]

@rockjpk i dont think they'd be perfect with the drums but def unnoticable, as long as the tempo that the instruments were recorded too didnt change, just the drums.

[alshick68]

Great tutorial!!! Just curious, wouldn't it be easier to listen back for any mistakes before you edit smoothing?

[randomgong]

@alshick68 Maybe. It doesn't make a big difference either way :) Thanks for watching.

[drmrfk16]

@randomgong just trimming the regions.

[drmrfk16]

I was just wondering, if you have the time I'd really appreciate the help...

When I'm editing my drums after I've made everything conform to the grid.. i get the pinwheel for like 30 sec after every little region stretch i make. I got my hw buffer size pretty high and i have a lot of room on my drive. When i'm just editing the kick/snare track its not nearly as long as when I'm editing all the drums. Any ideas?

[randomgong]

@drmrfk16 Are you stretching it with TCE or are you just trimming the regions?

[drmrfk16]

You are the man. thanks for your time.

[MrHelljus]

Thanks you :)

[eRealist]

Great video and cool track. You rock

[granglepuss]

hey man thankyou very much.. beats reading the pro-tools reference guide by way way weya weya FAR!!!

[Thermodynamite]

Stephen,

I have been playing in bands since 1985, and working in DAW's (Cubase LE, PTLE 7.4) since 2005. As primarily a hardcore hobbyist, this video has helped me immensely in dealing with drum track issues, long after my drummer has flown back to LA.

I just want to say thanks for taking the time to produce this video. It has saved me an immense amount of time. It is clear, concise and lucid.

(extends fist)

RESPECT!

-Will

[randomgong]

@Thermodynamite Thanks so much for the kind words. I'm glad it helped. -Stephen

[Audiowithalex]

great video!

[mchunter7]

after I quantize every thing to the Kick Snare track it all sounds perfectly in time but it kind of jacks with the overall sound of the kit and it makes my overheads really choppy (even with the crossfades)...solutions?

[randomgong]

@mchunter7 Have you used Trigger Pad? If not, you should mess around with that.

[mchunter7]

@randomgong I haven't messed with it yet. Should I just use it on the Overheads track or on everything? Any suggestions?

[mchunter7]

@randomgong I haven't messed with it yet. Should I just use it on the Overheads track or on everything? Any suggestions?

[randomgong]

@mchunter7 Follow the instructions in the video and make sure to use a trigger pad. Start off with 10ms or so then use a 5ms fade in the fill/crossfade portion.  The choppiness is from beat detective cutting right at the transient of the hit instead of a little before. The trigger pad lines up the transient at the correct point, but makes the actual cut early to make it smoother.

[Okiss711]

AWesome vid thanks alot

[Emmoland]

thx.

[mattfender]

hi, great video! just getting my head around BD still, after finishing with the kick and snare track, when I highlight the kick drum track to edit that, the lines dont line up with the kick and snare track, i did exactly what you did so I dunno whats happening? Hope ya can help!

[noeortizruiz]

What's the name of the song & band, where can i find it, i've searched a lot with the lyrics in there and found nothing.. i liked the song

[ben241187]

I want to use beat detective to edit, fade and aline multiple drums tracks but i don't understand how taking just impulses from the kick and the snare can in a sense quantize the hi-hats for example, because surely they are in a more regular pattern??

[randomgong]

If you have a decent drummer, the hi-hats will pretty much line up, too. If you want to line up the hi-hats too, and mic'd them separate, send that channel to the same bus as the kick and snare.

The point is to make one track for beat detective to analyze, because the LE version will only work with one track at a time.

[IAmSippycup]

@ben241187 I think it's also important that before you do any Beat Detective stuff, you time align your drums so they are all in phase.

[felipearroyo]

Thank you So Much!

[randomgong]

I'm glad it helped. Take care.

[iamnotryanray]

Nice Vid. Something that I noticed will get you around a little faster. You can change all the outputs for selected tracks, by selecting the tracks you want to change, then hold option-shift while changing the outputs to what you want them to be. A little useful shortcut :) Works for other stuff like solo, mute, etc.

[randomgong]

Thanks for watching and thanks for the comment. I am quite familiar with that shortcut. I tried to slow down everything in this video to make it as easy as possible to learn. I hope you find the video useful.

[lanarituba]

wonderful video my friend, thanks a bunch

[tbazani]

First thanks for your video explanation. It's great.

Second... i have a question about the hi hat edit in this process.

my session have many hi hats tricks... many triplets and swing hits. not all of those hats are tight do the grid. so, if i execute your tutorial, will them get tight and fit to the grid? do i need to separate edit them?

note: i have OH and AMB track which contains hat bleeding.

thanks in advance!

[randomgong]

There are many ways to go about it. First, you could separate those measures like you suggested. And like this tutorial, you would have to correct all the drums to take care of any bleeding.

Another way would be to change the grid. In this video, I conform the drums to 1/16 notes. You could make the grid 1/8 triplet or something (select 1/8 note, then check the "3" box right above "tap end B|B). You could also add some swing, like at 0:11 in the video. Let me know if this helps.

[Proutt]

Hi, im pretty sure it's only the fatigue, but I watched the videos and I still have no clue what you achieved there.

It seems to me you sliced all the tracks for only correcting one bad kick. What am I missing?

[randomgong]

I used Beat Detective to correct all the drums, but sometimes Beat Detective doesn't make all the right corrections. In this case there was one small mess-up that I had to manually correct. Because the drums bleed through all the mics, you have to slice all the tracks. Make any more sense?

[Proutt]

Oh haha I didn't even think about the bleeding. Knew it was the fatigue :)

[borquois]

Thanks for the tutorial!

I'm curious how you treated any overhead or room mics. It looks like there's a stereo track that you didn't alter (purple just above the kick/snare). Won't weird timing or phase issues be created when you move the individual mics and not the overhead/room tracks?

[randomgong]

Thanks for watching! The purple stereo track at the top is actually the guitar, bass, vocal etc. I didn't want separate instrument tracks and their plugins hogging any cpu power. I had separate OHL, OHR, and Room tracks for this session.

Generally I try to nudge the OH/Room tracks around before I use beat detective, but sometimes I forget and nudge them after lining them up, which is not ideal, but it still helps.

[borquois]

Are there any tricks to slicing up OH and Room mic audio? I've never found a good balance there. If I apply all the cuts Beat Detective creates to the OH/Room mic audio it makes the cymbals sound very unnatural. On the other hand, when I move the close mics and only make slight adjustments to the OH/Room, then they're out of phase.

Thanks again for the tips!

[randomgong]

I don't quite understand what you mean, but if you don't use a trigger pad, the overheads can especially sound weird.

When I nudge my OH/Room audio around, I line them up with the snare. After that, I use the Trim plugin to invert the phase on certain tracks, and see what sounds good. I start with OHL/OHR. Then add in SN. Then Room - inverting different tracks along the way.

There will always be phase issues when using multiple mics.

Let me know if this helps or correct me if Im offbase.

[jjtantillo]

Excellent video. Thanks.

Something I don't get:

You conform the the kick/snare guide track before you separate regions on the keeper drum tracks. Shouldn't that cause Beat Detective to separate the keeper tracks in the wrong place? Well, it doesn't, but I can't figure out why. Am I making any sense?

In other words, why not separate the guide track and then immediately separate the rest of the tracks prior to conforming?

[randomgong]

I do it that way so I get a preview of what beat detective is going to do to the keeper tracks. As long as the Beat Detective window is open, B.D. keeps the last used settings in memory, so I can tweak the settings on the guide track, then go back and apply all three steps (separate, conform, smooth) to the keeper tracks. Make sense? Thanks for watching and commenting!

[moronthannot]

Great tutorial. I've been meaning to sit down with beat detective but just never really made the time. This was exactly what I needed. Very precise and to the point. The world needs more straight shooters! Thanks a ton!

[texdaddy123]

great stuff, i actually searched all over in desperation. i'm working with a metalcore band at dallas sound labs and they're one of those bands that literally changes tempo every 4 bars (just how the genre is). we tried to program a click track and 4 hours later we had 30 seconds of drums recorded haha. so we decided to forget the click and basically now im in a little dilemma. can i use beat detective to remotely work with this song in any way with all of its tempo changes???

[randomgong]

I've never had to use that, but I know it's a feature - It's been so long since my Pro Tools certification; I can't remember.

I believe the Bar | Beat Marker Generation section of beat detective is for that. The old way to do it would be to use Edit -> Identify beat, and I've used that before. If I've got some extra time today, I'll look it up. Thanks for watching.

[texdaddy123]

thanks for the tips. i'll be doing some mixing tomorrow so i'll see what works best.

[itsumdude]

good vid, wouldn't it be faster to use new playlists instead of save as

[randomgong]

maybe. thanks for watching!

[Mikkysixx]

Great video! VERY helpful :) A big thank you from Norway :)

[randomgong]

Hey how's Norway? Do you make music for a living or just a hobby?

[Mikkysixx]

Great. Way too warm though. 30 Celcius the whole summer...Sitting in the studio with no shirt on becouse of the heat:)

I make music for a living:)

I see you've got quite the track there. Have any plans of releasing it?

[grandmastersteez]

Thanks a lot. Great help. Would be awesome if you could include more keyboard shortcuts?

[randomgong]

Maybe I'll add some in the annotations someday. Also, I use a Pro Tools keyboard, which is super helpful. With command focus (az) engaged, most of the shortcuts I use during this video are:

Cmd + 8 = Beat Detective Menu

P = Move selection up a track

; = Move selection down a track.

Tab = Tab to transient (with tab to transient option selected)

T / R = Zoom In / Zoom Out

B = Separate

F5 thru F10 = Editing tools

Search google images for "Pro Tools Keyboard" to find the layout. Hope this helps.

[ShootieHG]

Nice tutorial production as well.

[randomgong]

Thanks for watching (:

[UrukHai999]

great work man! really hlepful and interesting, thanks

[UrukHai999]

really interesting 'n helpful, amazing video!

[theychosen1]

Thank you. Very helpful

[randomgong]

You're very welcome!

[chris20002000]

Great video, just what i've been after, thanks