Lessons

Lesson Info

Why Quantize Drums?

I've gone through and you know this segments like a minute and a half whatever we're going through that and done the last like minute just so we can have the quantities drums tio track guitars to and so what? I'm going through the first thirty seconds to kind of demonstrate my process on how high quantities drones and pro tools and beat detective and soon is this the thing is doing processing I'll kind of go over that so what's it processing right now right now I'm doing the quanta izing this is actually the feeling cross fade would you put everything in time? Sometimes it leaves little gaps of audio you do this it doesn't pop exactly fills in the gaps and this is one of the reasons I think pro tools is a standard for from kwon ties ing and I highly recommend pro tools over most other platforms that I know of anyway because it be detective filling cross fade is more of a copy and paste type algorithm is opposed teo, you know with with the other platforms and with pro tools elastic time...

. Sure, some of you guys are familiar with that it actually does a stretch and compress audio feature which to me doesn't sound as good because you actually you know it can degrade the audio quality make it sound a little different and because the you know the feeling cross fade feature of be detective doesn't stretch and compress the audio and it sounds more natural it's actually, you know it's copying peso it it preserves the new say for instance I usually record twenty four bit innit stays twenty four bit you know it doesn't it doesn't stretch it down, you know? And you know to some other you know, you know, smaller size or anything like that so well but it just finished here I'm going to consolidate this just so we'll have it and then we'll start from the very beginning so you guys can see what I normally do from scratch, but this is typically done before I personally believe it's best done before um uh before the guitars and everything are tries that just it's because that way you will have perfectly in time drums to track guitars too it saves time on the back end and you know that you know, if the drummer particularly tommy didn't do tio like any drastic pushing pool, but some drummers are quite ahead or behind the click and you know that if the drummer is ahead or behind the click when he's playing obviously all the guitars, all the vocals, the base and everything will be ahead or behind the click also um and you know that you're just going to have tea just all that to once you once you adjust the drums were perfect, the drones more so um um subdivision wise and tip a wise you're gonna have to do that same thing to the guitars and the vocals and everything like a lot of times the guitars if you've got a solid guitar player, solid base player, good solid rhythm vocal vocalist you can the you know you will have to kwan has a lot of stuff you know they'll they'll they'll have it closer because they've actually recorded with more perfected drums you know? So it just saves time but yeah, I'll start from the top here drum drum kwan tai zing you know you can take a little bit of time we even with be detective usually takes me about an hour for two minutes of audio particular with technical music now this you know this is a straight for rock songs you know a knocked it, you know you can knock it out pretty quick, but when stuff when you have, like, you know, crazy metal stuff with like, you know, thirty second no subdivisions like more than more hits, the more time it takes more if they do a lot of progress over dynamic stuff like a lot of ghost noting or a lot of intricate high hat reid work, things like that it's going to take more time but use a good rule of thumb is about an hour for two minutes of audio now before getting into aa actually using beat detective or any of the tools to help you kwan ties they a lot of people need to understand what qantas ing is and be able to do it manually and this is how it started because you know start in two thousand one you know you don't even have access to the full version of the detective a tw that time whatever so I had to actually manually cut up each hit and put it on time so I'm going to show you how to do that real quick it's very simple when it's basically the complete it would be to take this with the computer is doing for us figured out the subdivision so what is bi detective sometimes too accurate where it sounds unnatural yeah absolutely I was going to talk about that I'm glad you bring it up you have beat the take of like said usually you know for certain styles it's it's cool to make the drums khanna mechanical you know, obviously we're going form or produced futuristic sounding metal type of production you know you can you can you quantify is it pretty pretty hard you can get it right on the beat right on the perfect subdivision and it kind of concerned cool you know sounds in human you know it's kind of part of the goal with some projects but obviously for this project or whatever you know we want to preserve some natural some natural viable whatever some nets just a little bit of push and pull so it's not completely gritted out mechanical sanding and there's a couple different ways to go about that obviously I will start off with the main well said I will show I'll show you how you can do this when pro tools but I'll also show you how you do this with the manual approach also, but I'll start with the manual, but as you notice here ok, you know, I've got one thing I always do, you know, if people are home notice I'm not I'm not actually working in grid moat I'm working it slip mode, which and I do that for a number reasons like a like, you know, as I mentioned before, I believe that I record everything in one session um soto work ingrid mode in one session and to have a rigid tipo for the entire album can get, you know, there's a lot to keep up with and a lot tio really this only one. The one on ly drawback for recording entire record one session is that the if you move anything all the tempos after what you move kind of get messed up and I'm not sure why the tempo doesn't follow exactly it when you move things what everybody just doesn't put up, but then you have to it's not a big problem you can go back and just move the clicks to the appropriate locations and get it back to where you need to be but you know it's just, you know, conceivably cost a little bit of time for me that but like said usually like, you don't have to have original, you know, pro tools doesn't have to know a rigid um ah internal click or whatever and lists unless you're using a lot of, you know, program sequence material in the computer, whatever, um and what else, what bans have that they usually you know, when kate tommy's case, whatever he comes in with the stuff you know, already programmed out like the backs tracking stuff that he's not actually going to perform and he wants just in the mix of whatever's layers, he'll have it programmed all the tempos will be determined and all that kind of stuff, and we could just drag it in already kwan ties and everything so it's usually not an issue, what are some of those elements for you that you well, there's a lot of electronic elements, especially with this project like the subtle things well, there's, some songs or strictly elektronik songs, you know, no live instruments, so obviously you take that approach a little differently than the live setting of recording but there's a lot of different you and even there's a lot of rock elements with, you know, sequence keyboards, stuff over it or even elektronik drum beat behind a live drum b you know, so everything has to be right on like he said if you don't quantifies that, a lot of that can get messi and certain things won't show up in the mix that you want and you know, that's that's what I really become too, really enjoys, you know, finding ways to make things pop in the mix with electronics and you can make up a whole part sound completely different just about realizing that's cool, you know? So it's ah, yeah like said, I mean it's, you know quantities is one of those things like said it's become standard we're accustomed to here and there's lots of production reasons like tommy mentioned for having a certain bands I mean, obviously I still think the live room setting works for a lot of rock, especially if you don't have any hard sequence stuff that you need to do and you know, you're just in the everybody solid its players, you can just work really hard and I think a lot of people for get like, I mean, you'll see you'll be a progressive metal band that's saying and you want to do the live setting thing um which is it's hard with technical music and music that needs to be very jagged and very everything on point, and you know it can unless you have a huge budget and you can record for six months it's our it takes a lot more time and work a zit, there's, there's pros and cons for all using these tools like said, you know, I wanna point and also I don't try to use I don't want to use these tools to cheat, you know, I like to use these tools to save time and money and budget and, you know, and but, you know, I like there's I think there's a responsible way to use all these these modern tools and some people were abusing things, you know, doing the whole, you know, slow, you know, recording slow and speeding up and things like that, you know, you could get you can get what sounds like a performance that is, you know, beyond human ability, you know, or beyond the person you know, the actual engineers, billy, I don't I don't I don't personally engaged in that kind of production at this point, you know, things like with kwon ties, you know, I don't want to quantify something. That just you know the performance not going to be able to ever do would never be able to do I want it to be you know, representative what what's possible you know, like, you know what they could you know, do so I tried to you know, as a producer I try to you know, you know, make that a point when I'm talking to clients but I get some clients who have written stuff beyond their ability you know, and it's pretty obvious they've written about beyond if I feel like they can go home and practice it and be able to do it just ok you can't do it you can't do it right now but that's fine, we'll fix it just go home and practice because you don't have to play this live and I always ask people like you're going I want to touch on that tomorrow and I talk about kind of the the writing and writing it is like you really need to know your strengths or weaknesses yeah, I mean I'm not going in and doing what you can yeah don't I don't think you're invincible yeah nobody's good at everything well, they would tell me beatty bam like said, I mean they if they can't do something at the moment they just practicing even before they come to studio they get it down before they come in, a lot of people go there they don't do that, just like, hey, this is cool living, writing, guitar pro and all around a point later in the right way. But I can't play this. You know, it's become a problem. But anyway, back to the quantities in real quick.