Approx 4 weeks after taking delivery of a 32 input ARM MegaDRUM, I spent last weekend in a recording studio as part of a five piece band (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards and drums) along with my converted acoustic kit, MD, Addictive Drums 2 and a Windows 8 laptop. The slightly ambitious aim was to record 13 songs over the course of two days. To stand any chance of achieving that, I needed everything to work reliably. In a recording studio, time is money!
A couple of weeks previous I'd called the sound engineer to tell him my plans drum-wise. He sounded sceptical, making it clear he'd prefer to record an acoustic kit. Having spent numerous long nights over the past month configuring MegaDRUM to produce what I felt was a natural sounding and responsive kit, plus countless hours scouring the MD forum for info, I wasn't prepared to give up on using my A2E kit that easily.
On the day, the first issue that arose was down to my lack of knowledge regarding audio interfaces. My external soundcard (Focusrite Scarlett 2i2) only has two outputs. This effectively prevents control of individual kit pieces during post production. We decided to substitute my triggered bass drum and snare drum for acoustic versions, therefore allowing total control over their individual volumes when it comes to the final mix. The rest of the kit, 2 x toms, hi-hat, ride and 2 x crash cymbals were being taken care of by MegaDRUM, via Addictive Drums 2. We spent some time adjusting individual volumes, EQ and panning in AD2 so they sat correctly with the acoustic kick and snare. I was now playing an acoustic/electric hybrid.
Day 1: the recording session started at 11am and ran through to midnight. Day 2 was a shorter session - approx 6 hours. Both MegaDrum, AD2 and Win8 were rock solid throughout. No freezes, no lockups, no glitches. As for latency, I never gave it a thought until I was on the way home. The kit felt very natural to play and at no point was I conscious of the fact I wasn't playing a fully acoustic drum set. For a couple of songs I was able to very quickly switch from playing 13x9 and 14x14(low) toms to 12x8 and 14x14(high). I was using a slightly tweaked version of the AD2 Fairfax preset. Also overdubbed some AD2 handclaps to one track by temporarily assigning a 3 person handclap sample to the top tom. Very quick and very easy!
The only problem I can report (apart from not having more outputs on the soundcard) was one of my DIY cymbal trigger project boxes breaking at both mounting flanges, leaving it dangling by its cable. A couple of minutes later I was up and running again having reattached it with gaffa tape!
The final mix has yet to be done but based on playback in the control room, everyone was impressed with the drum, hi-hat and cymbal sounds, even the (no longer) sceptical engineer
Lessons learned: next time I'll have an audio interface with a lot more outputs. Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 looks like a good choice. That would allow me to use a 100% A2E kit while giving the engineer total control over all the individual kit pieces.
Need to find or design a bulletproof cymbal trigger mounting system if I'm to continue with my self converted acoustic cymbals.
The hall effect sensor hi-hat worked perfectly, except on one take where I lost the open hh sound due to partially unplugging the audio cable by catching it with my foot when walking around the kit. Not used to having so many cables about the place!
Aside from those minor issues, I'm pleased to say all those sleepless nights working with MDManager were well worth the effort.
I'll post some pics soon.
Post some of the rawmixes or the final results if you can.