Achieving a drum core sound from single snare recording

[Prime Mover]

The short of it is:
Got any ensemble chorus/delay effects for realistically turning a single snare recording into a full marching band?

Longer explanation:
Got an interesting situation to try to figure out. I just did a boatload of tracking with my drummer. For one song I wanted a marching band snare line on a separate set of drum tracks. I had him improvise a bunch of marching rudiments, starting with obvious stuff and moving onto more complex patterns with nice hemiolas and whatnot. I’ll probably do quite a bit of comping to build complexity over time.

The issue is it’s only a single stare drum, and I want it to sound like a full drum core ensemble. The way I see it, I have 3 options:

- meticulously create 3+ instances of him playing every rudiment, and duplicate them out (close mic, OHs, and Room mics). Painstaking and complex
- use an ensemble delay/chorus to simulate many drummers from single drum
- augment his playing with MIDI samples of a drum core.

I’d rather not splice together multiple duplicates of his tracking, that would be a huge time sink, messy, and very CPU intensive. So, any recommendations for a good ensemble delay for turning a single snare into a drum line? Or, would it just be best to record myself playing MIDI drums and overlay them? And if so, any good libraries that won’t break the bank?

[stubbsonic]

Marching snares are tuned stupidly high/tight. So pitching it up would be a good start; perhaps running a few different pitches.

To get that outdoor vibe, you could send it to a convolution reverb. I had relatively good luck getting an "outdoor" ambience sound by using a gunshot that was recorded outside. But maybe a "stadium" type ambience used sparingly would work.

The issue with using delays is that it will be very regular-- and ensemble drummers are super precise. I suppose you could make a copy of the track, strip silence, then add some randomness to the quantizing of the slices (?)

[Prime Mover]

We already tuned the drum stupid high, as is my drummer’s preference (it sounds great).

I’ve got reverb covered, I’m pretty well-versed in simulating outdoor reverb. My day job I edit nature sounds, I regularly mix in studio sources and having to march.

If I go the delay route, I’d want to use a moving delay so it’s not always the same.

[stubbsonic]

... I’m pretty well-versed in simulating outdoor reverb. My day job I edit nature sounds, I regularly mix in studio sources and having to march.

Oh right!! I remember! "That raindrop at 1:34:21 is a little loud."

If I go the delay route, I’d want to use a moving delay so it’s not always the same.

The trick with moving the delay is that if it sounds "modulated" it will bend the pitch around as at moves. That's why I suggested the strip silence and randomize the slice locations. Not ideal, either way.

[Prime Mover]

I’ll play around with some effects (granular moving delay might be an interesting experiment, but I’m leaning toward plotting in MIDI drums to layer into his. I figure it might actually be faster and more effective than trying to strip silence and re-plot. Ideally, you want to hear slightly different drum hits on each one, not just the same exact one delayed.

Speaking of which, anyone got a good granular moving delay plugin to try?

[mikehalloran]

A few things to try:

There must be a field drum soundfont sFz or sf2 somewhere. The ARIA player is good for these and can be downloaded from MakeMusic (Garritan libraries are sound fonts).
https://makemusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/ ... con-Native


I would look at AVOX Choir—adds voices and timing irregularities to samples. It and the other AVOX effects used to be available separately and as a bundle (My license is still good). Unfortunately, they are now part of Autotune Unlimited only. Good news is that there's a 14 day free trial.

https://www.antarestech.com/products/su ... /unlimited


SOUNDIRON has a $31 library, High School Drum Corps — full version of Kontakt required.

https://soundiron.com/products/high-school-drum-corps


There's Garritan Concert & Marching Band 2 — $149.95. I don't believe there's a trial available. Anyway, you could use it with Melodyne ARA2 in DP 11.2 and later to create a drumcore track that tracks the original.

https://www.garritan.com/products/conce ... ng-band-2/

or $399.95 when included with Anthology. If you have any Garritan libraries, an upgrade to Anthology is available.

https://www.garritan.com/products/


Of course, if you find the perfect sample somewhere, you can roll your own using Kontakt, Kontakt Player or SampleTank 4 CS (free).

[HCMarkus]

Audio to MIDI, then mix in some samples below (level) and around (early/late) the original audio?

[stubbsonic]

Good idea. DP's audio to MIDI (called "Trigger") is pretty useable.

[Jim]

I'm a little late to this, but I have an idea.

Kilohearts Snapheap ($29) is a plug-in that hosts 33 of their free "Essential" plug ins. One very nice feature is the ability to modulate effects parameters with LFOs, etc.

So, you could set up a delay effect and use the random modulator to randomize the delay parameter in a range of your choice.

That might give you more of a human slop factor you'd get with delays that don't offer random delay settings.