Drumagog crash cymbal waveform question

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BlackCircle
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Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2014 10:14 pm

Drumagog crash cymbal waveform question

Post by BlackCircle »

Drumagog detects that the transients of my mic’d crash cymbals occur before the peak of the waveform (picture #1). So it’s triggering samples that output at about the same volume, despite the fact that the original recorded hits have peaks that vary quite a bit in volume. As a result, Drumagog pretty much only triggers samples from the same dynamic group. Is there any way to get Drumagog to more accurately reflect the volume of the peaks (and thus trigger samples from different dynamic groups)?

It doesn’t matter if I use Transient Mode or not.

Picture #2 shows the original mic’d cymbal in green on top, that same cymbal part bounced with Drumagog in blue underneath it, and that same Drumagog-bounced region normalized on the bottom. The Drumagog-bounced regions don’t accurately reflect the dynamics of the original mic’d cymbals.
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original (green), Dgog samples (blue).png
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Corey W
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Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 1:29 pm

Re: Drumagog crash cymbal waveform question

Post by Corey W »

Hello,
When viewing your samples in the Drumagog 5 plug-in window, you can change each individual sample's dynamic group assignment by single-clicking on the sample and then in the grid below, 'Dynamic Groups', use the left/right arrows to change the group assignment. (See the attached screen shot)

Crash cymbals are one of the most difficult elements to replace because of the inherent bleed from over head microphones and generally wide frequency range, depending on the cymbals you are using.

You may also find it helpful to use the 'Trigger Filter' on the bottom right of the 'Main' tab. Here you can tweak essentially what Drumagog is "hearing". By clicking the 'Audition' button, you will hear what Drumagog hears and then you can try to narrow the frequency range and squeeze out some of the excess bleed coming through. This is very easy to do on something like a kick drum where you can turn on the low pass filter and trim everything above 150Hz, but depending on your cymbals, you may be able to run a high pass filter and get much more accurate triggering just as simply.

Hope this helps.

-Corey
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BlackCircle
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Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2014 10:14 pm

Re: Drumagog crash cymbal waveform question

Post by BlackCircle »

Corey, thanks for the reply.

I’ve been able to isolate the crash cymbals pretty well so far and Drumagog is able to detect them, so that’s not really the issue.

In the example above I wanted the first 4 hits to trigger samples from the middle dynamic group, then the last hit (which was hit harder and peaks 3 dB or so higher than the ones before) to trigger a sample from the higher dynamic group.

I don’t think changing the individual sample’s dynamic group will matter because the issue is that all my hits output at about the same level (as you can see by the height of the circles drawn on the waveform in the Visual Triggering Window). I want my mic’d crashes to trigger samples from different dynamic groups that correspond to their volume level. If I move a sample into the next dynamic group, Drumagog just won’t trigger that sample, because the threshold of that sample is now above where Drumagog is outputting for any of those hits (i.e. it still reads all my hits at about the same level).

I’m guessing Drumagog is just looking at the transient and not the entire waveform when it picks the dynamic group. It looks like part of the issue is the nature of my crash cymbal waveforms. Unlike a snare, for example, it looks like the transient isn’t necessarily the loudest part of the crash hit.

Is there some other way to get what I want? My workaround plan is to insert MIDI pulses on a separate track where the crash transients are located. I’ll go through each crash hit and insert a pulse of the same volume, then get Drumagog to read the pulse track instead of the mic’d crash track. I don’t really want to have to do it this way though, since it’s time-intensive.
Corey W
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Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 1:29 pm

Re: Drumagog crash cymbal waveform question

Post by Corey W »

The troubles you are running into are very common with crash cymbals, as I mentioned before.
You can try to approach it by using Drumagog 5's MIDI output and record MIDI data of the cymbal hits to a new MIDI track, and then trigger Drumagog from that track using the new MIDI data. You can then adjust the individual MIDI note velocities so the desired cymbal samples get triggered when you want them to be triggered.

-Corey
BlackCircle
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Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2014 10:14 pm

Re: Drumagog crash cymbal waveform question

Post by BlackCircle »

Ok thanks. Do I need Platinum to try that? I have Pro.

It’s not a huge deal. Most of the time the cymbals are played at one volume – loud! It’s just occasionally I’ve got some cymbals that run the gamut of softly-hit to very loud.
Corey W
Expert
Posts: 55
Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 1:29 pm

Re: Drumagog crash cymbal waveform question

Post by Corey W »

You can output MIDI with the Pro version.
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