Drum Editing Techniques

By David Franz

The dog days of summer are here. With my air conditioner on the fritz, I'm trying the sweat lodge approach to writing about Pro Tools. So, please pardon me if I go off into a dream-like state. I'll try to keep the Simpsons episode-like hallucinations to a minimum.

As a follow-up to last month's column on drum loops, this time we'll cover various editing techniques for "real" drum tracks, including good edit locations, playlists, and crossfades.

It's All About Location
In teaching online Pro Tools courses, I've found that many folks don't understand how and where to make good edits on drum tracks. Even in a professional setting, many of the Pro Tools sessions that I'm asked to mix have botched drum edits that need to be fixed. In my opinion, editing in Pro Tools is an art form, particularly when is comes to drums. Without good edits, drum tracks can inadvertently lose power and feel, as well as create some nasty pops and clicks that you definitely don't want in the final mix.

	Figure 1: A kick drum track with an edit right before the attack transient.

In most situations, the best place to edit a drum track is right before a large transient. What's a transient? In this case, it's the initial attack in the sound wave when the drummer strikes the drum. Transients in drum tracks are easy to find. In Figure 1, you'll see an edit placed right before a transient.

The reason to put the edit here is twofold. First, the decay from the last drumbeat on that track is usually as small as it's going to get. With so little digital information at that point, you might not even need to create a crossfade between the two regions. (We'll talk about crossfades later.)

Second, when editing multiple drum tracks, placing edits across all tracks at one spot before a transient will often make the entire drum kit edit less obvious. Often I'll put an edit right before the downbeat of a measure, or at a place where either the kick drum or the snare has an accented note. Even better, place your edit right before a big cymbal crash. Figure 2 demonstrates an edit placed right before the beginning of a new measure.

Figure 2: All drum tracks edited right before a big downbeat.

Speaking of cymbal crashes, sometimes you'll want to place an edit on a downbeat, but sounds between the two edited regions don't quite match up. For instance, the drummer played a different cymbal, or a different tom is resonating from the previous region. When editing across all drum tracks at once, you need to listen closely for these nuances. To avoid problems like this, you can extend the cymbal tracks (usually the overhead mic tracks) or tom tracks into the next measure to allow the previous sound to fully decay. Figure 3 shows an example of this.

Figure 3: All drum tracks are edited right before a big downbeat, but the overhead mic tracks are extended into the next measure to allow the cymbal crash to decay.

Editing Between Playlists on Multiple Drum Tracks
In my opinion, one of the coolest functions in Pro Tools is the playlist. I often record multiple takes of the drum part on separate playlists, literally right on top of each other, so that it's REALLY easy to edit the drum part by pulling pieces from each take into a master take on a new playlist. This works particularly well when recording with a click track. If the drummer can actually stay with the click (which isn't always a sure thing), you can copy and paste regions between playlists in Grid mode in seconds, and create the master drum track in just a few minutes.

	Figure 4. Creating a new playlist for one track in a group automatically makes new playlists for every track in the group. Very handy!

To set this up in your next drum kit recording session, first create and label all your drum tracks. Then, group the drum tracks by selecting all of them and pressing Command + G (Mac) or Control + G (PC). Name the group. Set up your click track, if desired. After recording the first take of the song, create a new playlist on one of the drum tracks by pressing the playlist button by the track name and selecting "New…" as in Figure 4. When the drums are grouped, this creates a new playlist for every drum track — and the playlists will all be labeled with the same number (for example, Snare.02) to help you keep them straight.

Ideally, the drummer you're recording has one perfect take that requires no editing. (A man can dream, can't he?) If editing is desired, start with the best take and duplicate it onto another playlist. To do that, press the playlist button on one of the grouped drum tracks and select "Duplicate…" from the menu. All drum tracks will follow suit.

After determining where you want to edit the tracks, evaluate the other takes in those spots by switching between playlists and listening. Then simply cut and paste replacement sections from other takes onto the master take. To do this quickly, use Grid mode (if you recorded with a click).

After making the big picture edits using Grid mode, switch to Slip mode and use the Trimmer tool to drag the regions at an edit point forward or backward to the proper position, right before a large transient. If your tracks are still grouped, dragging one region will move all the tracks at the same time. After you've positioned your edits correctly, draw crossfades at the edit point across all the tracks.

Smooth It Out with Crossfades
The key to making your drum edits sound natural is to use crossfades. Crossfading is the process of fading two regions of audio together to prevent pops, clicks, or sudden changes in sound. Pro Tools gives you three main options for creating crossfades — equal power, equal gain, or your own customized settings (by choosing "None" as the Link parameter in the Fades dialog). Let's look at the equal power and equal gain crossfades first.

Figure 5: The Fades window provides you with the power to create your own fade and
crossfade curves.

Equal power crossfades are recommended in instances where you're crossfading between different types of musical material. Equal gain crossfades are better when crossfading between regions of similar musical material, like when editing drums. If you're not satisfied with the results of the equal power or equal gain settings, unlink the fade in and fade out parameters of your crossfades by choosing "None" as the Link parameter, and then create your own crossfade shape.

I usually set my default fade to the equal gain setting when editing drums. How do you do that? Select it in the Default Fade Setting in the Editing Preferences (see Figure 6). That way, you can use the Smart Tool to draw crossfades across all the drum tracks without having to alter the settings in the Fades dialog with every crossfade.

Figure 6: In the Editing Preferences, you can set the default Fade in, Crossfade,
and Fade out curves.

Don't like using the Smart Tool for crossfades? Try using the Selector tool to select the area for your crossfade, then use a simple key command to draw the crossfades… without opening the Fades dialog, Command + Control + F (Mac) creates crossfades using the default fade shape, and Control + Start + F (PC) creates crossfades using the last selected fade shape.

Wrap-Up
These are just some of the basic techniques and tools that I use to edit drum tracks. Using these can increase your editing efficiency, and give you more time to get rid of your studio tan. Join me next month for more cool Pro Tools production techniques. See you soon. Peace.

Like what you see in this column? Check out my book Producing in the Home Studio with Pro Tools (2nd Edition). You can buy it online right here through Digidesign's web site, or visit www.protoolsbook.com. Interested in personal instruction on Pro Tools from yours truly? Visit www.berkleemusic.com and learn about several amazing Pro Tools learning experiences available online though Berklee College of Music. Interested in hearing my band? Visit www.lipfloater.com. Wanna see my studio and hear some samples of my work? Visit www.undergroundsun.com and/or www.davidfranz.com.

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