ON DRUM TRIGGERING IN METAL
Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 1:00pm by Vince Neilstein
Whenever people talk about modern metal production, the conversation inevitably turns to drum triggering. People always tell me that they think it’s bullshit and that they hate drum triggering, that they think it’s cheating. They’re wrong, and I’m going to tell you why.
If you argue that drum triggering is “cheating” because it isn’t the sound the drummer is making, you would also have to argue that using distorted electric guitars is cheating. There is nothing in an electric guitar signal that is the actual acoustic sound of the string vibrating — it’s an electric signal that’s converted using a magnet (the pickup) and run through a device where it’s amplified and then altered (the amplifier). In many cases it’s also run through a series of pedals on the way to the amp, a series of sound-modifying circuits inside the amp, and/or outboard gear in the mixing process. There is NOTHING organic about this process whatsoever. The same is true for keyboards; the guy is still there playing it but there’s no acoustic sound, just the input underneath the keyboard key that measures a) whether the key was played, and b) how hard it was played.
The same thing is happening when drums are triggered. The drummer is still there playing the part, but the signal is converted into a different sound. If you want to argue that the triggered sounds drummers/mixers are choosing suck and don’t sound real, that’s a whole different argument… but let me tell you folks, 99% of the metal record you hear have triggered drums even if you don’t notice. It IS possible — nay, easy — to choose triggered drum sounds that sound like real drums, and drummers do this all the time. When you hear drum sounds that don’t sound real, this is a conscious decision that’s been made for aesthetic reasons, i.e. they like the way it sounds, they like the power, or they feel it adds to the overall feeling of the music.
What got me thinking about this today was the below interview with Mike Portnoy in which he touches on this very subject. Portnoy’s a smart dude, and he knows when triggered drums have their place and when they do not.
So, in conclusion: stop bitching about triggered drums, you ninnies.
-VN
The reason they call it cheating is because to ‘trigger’ the sound that is replaced by the trigger, it takes a much lighter hit on the drum to make a huge sound. So people say that the drummer is lightly hitting the notes and the trigger takes over and makes it really loud, so it’s almost ‘cheating’
I dont think it is, just saying,
Matt is right on the money – it’s cheating because a guy can be flying on the kicks, but if the triggers weren’t there, the sound would often be uneven and sloppy. Drumming is a much different beast than guitar playing due to the sheer physicality of the instrument.
The same can be true of a guitar that’s run through a compressor. It levels everything out.
Well a compressor doesn’t have anything to do with the playing Vince, its just there so you don’t clip or ‘pop’ during the recording, its a way of keeping the signal down. A compressor doesn’t have any affect on the guitarists skill or playing, it just pushes his dynamics down below a set threshold level.
Triggering isn’t cheating, the drummer is still there making the music himself. It is a part of him, it’s only for tighter sounds. I’ll pick having a better tighter sounding recording as opposed to a shitty one any day of the week, and if a triggered kick grants me a better sounding recording then I’ll take it any day of the week.
You’re right, except that most non-triggered stuff sounds consistent because of compression, different method to achieve the same effect.
Compression doesn’t make non triggered stuff sound consistent, compression lowers the dynamic range of the item being compressed as a WHOLE not indavidual notes or beats. In the case of a kick drum, when you compress the kicks it isn’t making ONE beat out of the flurry of notes sound in time with the others, it’s lowering the level of EVERYTHING THAT COMES OUT OF THE KICK equally according to the set ratio on the compressor.
So no, using a compressor doesn’t make a kick sound consistent, it just lowers the level of the kick as a whole.
“it isn’t making ONE beat out of the flurry of notes sound in time with the others”
ment to say it isn’t makine one beat out of the flurry of notes sound dynamically equal to the others.
sorry :P
While compression doesn’t have the same dramatic effect as triggering/sound replacement does, evening out the dynamics of a performance IS one of the primary reasons, beyond the simple necessity of constraining dynamic range in order to avoid clipping, that an engineer will employ a compressor during recording.
Additionally, engineers will use bus compression (a compressor applied to groups of tracks while they’re being mixed down to stereo or mono) to make the band as a whole sound tighter. Bypass the bus compressor the next time you’re sitting at the console in a mixing session and you’ll definitely notice the difference.
No, It’s not the same as guitar. With a guitar the vibration of the string is the sound wave. A trigger is a momentary switch that signals a sampler to play. The sample is not the waveform created by the drum head. The trigger is activated by the drum head but the sound is not created by the drum head. If you plug the trigger into an input and use that for your drum sound, then it would be the same.
Yes, by lowering the dynamic range, you reduce the possible difference in volume of each hit, therefore more consistent.
eh, I’d argue that fasshole, it would still sound noticeably out of level with the other flurries if it was a sloppy drummer…
Please forgive my ignorance on this but is this something that can only be done in studio or can it be used in a live performance also?
Whatever makes the metal sound heavy is ok by me ;-)
that statement refers to the drum triggers made in 1990. Newer drum triggers [newer, meaning ANY fucking ddrum trigger made since 1996] have built in velocity technology that trigger a sound as hard as you hit your drum. so, you hit the bass drum soft, it plays a softer trigger. and vice versa.
Noel’s right. Anyways it goes with the genre nowadays. I’m indifferent mostly, but I do love me some tastefully mixed triggers combined with acoustic drums, that’s my ultimate metal drum sound.
Agreed!
“it takes a much lighter hit on the drum to make a huge sound.”
In theory, yes. In practice, you’re waaaay the fuck off. Have any of you ever used a drum trigger? Do you even know how it works? Vibration sets it off. Yes, you can set it so that it’s very sensitive, and a slight vibration variance will set it off. BUT, what do you think happens when you hit it harder than the sensitivity it’s set to? I double-triggers all over the place and sounds like shit. One kick sounds like 4 all out of tempo.
A drummer has to adjust the sensitivity to his play style, the same way a guitarist sets his gain/distortion, etc. Trying to just hit “lightly” continuously is almost friggin impossible if you’re doing anything remotely fast or difficult. One overly hard kick and it sounds like shit. I dare say there’s MORE precision and talent in using triggers properly than without.
Awesome article, never really thought about triggers this way.
Good stuff.
agreed.
it has alot to do about stamina too. how long do u think a drummer can actually pound on the bass drum as hard as he can? after a while its not as easy so when that happens everything can come out with the same sound instead of the band sounding weaker towards the end of their set
“There is nothing in an electric guitar signal that is the actual acoustic sound of the string vibrating”
I’m not sure I totally agree with this statement. There is an actual acoustic sound of the string vibrating on an electric guitar if you aren’t plugged in. Shitty strings can lead to shitty sounding distortion, regardless of set up. Improper tecnique can lead to shitty sounding distortion.
Just saying maybe this should be worded differently *shrug*.
This being said, I don’t think using triggers is cheating.
And one other point I think you missed, Vinnie, is that live, you still have to play mic’d drums. And I’m not really about to start disagreeing with Portnoy re: drums.
You can trigger mic’ed drums too. It just happens inside the mixing board. I should’ve specified that in general I’m talking about sound replacing, not just triggering.
I was just going to ask if this “Triggered Drum” could be played LIVE. I saw Gojira a while back and honestly can’t believe that Mario could hold the double base down the way he did. just curious
That’s a good question. I’m guessing with today’s technology it’s possible. I’ve seen vocalists live with awesome background vocals…when no one else is singing. Mick Mars admits to playing to backing tracks on some songs because he’s the single guitarist in a band with multiple rhythm guitar tracks on their recordings.
However, the drummers for Darkest Hour, Whitechapel and Trivium at the show I saw last week played lightning fast, tight double kicks all night, and in the fairly small venue, it was clear to see that their feet were getting a hell of a workout.
Triggers can definitely be used live. A lot of metal bands will at least trigger the kick drum in a live setting (including Gojira). It doesn’t mean they’re not really playing — it’s more about creating a sound that will cut through the other noise on stage.
thanks for the insight bro
Saw that show two weeks ago. Darkest Hour had a few good guitar solos, Whitechapel is fucking terrible, and Trivium kicked ass. Those guys can play really well live, especially the guitar solos
Whitechapel kind of all sounded the same, but their sound is pummeling! And I didn’t mention opener, Dirge Within, who I thought brought it like it was the last show they’d ever play. I bought their CD from the singer, who is a tiny little guy, and I’ve played it about four times back to back since.
I think we actually missed Dirge Within. Was too busy getting baked before the show. Sounds like I might have missed something worth checking out.
not to sound like a dough, but metal bands have been playing live with drum triggers for over 20 years. shit, vinnie pual triggered his whole kit.
Thats actually incorrect. at first he did, but then somewhere along the line he discovered that if you cut a hole in your kick head where the beater hits the head, and tape a quarter in that hole, it gives you a triggered kick sound. this allowed him to have dynamics and have a powerful kick at the same time before ddrum made their multi-layer triggers.
also, as a drummer, i sometimes use triggers on my kicks, again depending on which song im playing, because if i have to play any behemoth or Nile esk song, triggers just sound better, because at high speeds, its hard to get that crisp-ness out of a mic.
What i consider cheating is Axis pedals. they allow you to hit your kicks with minimal force, so little force that if you tried to mic it it would barely show up on the board at full volume. which means that you can play blindingly fast without moving your feet much at all, Hellhammer does this, which is why i do not rank him with George Kolius and Inferno on speed. But i use DW 8000 pedals, and i can still get the speed of both Inferno and Kolius, with full movement and power. so its really up to preference.
[yes, i know kolius and inferno both use axis, but if you watch the videos of them playing, the pedal has full movement, hellhammer's pedals only move half an inch because that how far they are from the kick. while kolius and inferno's are about 2 or 3 depending on exact settings]
well, the point is that prominent metal drummers use triggers, but still have talent, so they can go hand in hand. also, yea, i was never a big fan of the axis pedals. thery seem so light, that it defeats the purpose- to deliver a heavy hard hitting slam to the bass drum…agreed.
the true demons of modern production are QUANTIZING, Auto-TUNING and SOUND REPLACING..quantizing’s what enables your drummer to play tight and in time when he’s actually out of time and off rhythm, auto-tune is what enables your shitty emo singer to hit notes that he is actually unable to hit in the studio, and sound replacing enables entire parts of patterns, riffs or what have you to be re-constructed to be perfect, when in actuality they are poorly played.
triggers just make u sound better, and help the kids at the back of the club make out your playing…u still gotta play the parts, and ya u may be able to hit lighter and increase velocity, but yer still playing.
true story
THANK YOU!!!!!! quantinizing ruins rthe recording process, and makes everything sound like complete fake shit. i had to deal with that crap in the studio, and told him mto stop fucking with my sound. finally, someone who knows what the FUCK im talkin about!
yeah quantizing is bullshit, if you cant stay on time, either slow down or gtfo the drums…
Its not cheating but its like a woman with alot of makeup on once shes taken the makeup off she not that great, great drummers like the dude from cannibal corpse , ben from converge all play really fast but they are awesome and don’t need triggers
hate to tell you but they do use triggers in the studio, both of those bands.
They use triggers.
Drummers set their triggers to “cheat” all the time..I can care less becuase I am not a drum nerd..if it sounds good, i’m in. I however can play that hard, that fast without the aid of triggers it’s kind of like watching a porn where the dude has a smaller peen than I do. I just feel like alright if she’s down with that, wait ’till she gets a load of me…heh…heh….heh…ehh.eh.fd.afdakfjda;
FUCK YOU!
using triggers to compensate for low stamina
to be able to set the beater angle real low just so you can play real fast
to make double strokes rolls sound like even single strokes (the double stroke was meant to be a different sound, not as a replacement for your slow hands or lazy practice routine)
THOSE are cheating.
but using triggers to complement acoustic drums’ live sound
to boost the bass drum sound/EQ
THOSE are good reasons.
i say, if you’re not george kollias, don’t pretend to be.
that said, guys like vinnie paul, flo mounier, etc. can use triggers whenever the hell they want because they can still PLAY even without triggers– triggers just augment their sound.
I don’t think “cheating” is the right word. It can definitely help and I understand why a lot of people use it, but I wouldn’t. I also don’t play 320 bpm for 3 minutes at a time, you know. I always thought triggers should be used for stuff like if you wanted your snare drum to sound like a dog barking.
You want to trigger live especially, because it cuts down feedback. If I were a drummer I’d mic in studio but trigger live.
IMO, you can trigger shit in the studio all you want, but if you can’t play live shows without the trigger, you suck. and guitars ARE different
Talking to our drummer (as I have only an external view and philosophy with regards to drum triggers) he states that he doesn’t use them live, but does in the studio to a) save time and money (as we don’t have much) and b) because (like me) he likes things to sound perfect. He also brought up the fact that triggered kicks can often expose a sloppy drummer as they cut through more and can therefore demonstrate when he’s kicking out of time, etc.
Also, in terms of in-studio sound, apparently it’s a good idea to trigger the core of your kick sound but also mic up and record the ambient “real” kick sound so as to maintain the feel of what he’s playing and cut down any incidence of robotic playing.
I don’t like excessively triggered drums, but have no problem with the use of them per se, I just dislike them when they are used as a crutch.
Oh yeah, and I saw Soilwork several years ago and ended up with a copy of their kit set-up list… and I swear that Dirk Verbeuren had his snare triggered and not his kicks. Odd.
My problem isn’t with triggered drums, its with drums that are matched to a grid and then all of the sounds replaced so that they sound like a fruity loops drumkit. That shit is stupid.
Stupid indeed.
Yeah, I think what a lot of people are agreeing on but saying in different ways is that using triggers in and of itself is not cheating. It all depends on the application of them. Using them to hide poor technique could definitely be considered cheating. Using them in ways that allow a drummer’s technique to show when it otherwise wouldn’t for one reason or another, not cheating.
anyone ever listened to a matter of life and death by Maiden?
That’s a mix of both trigger and naturally mic’d up drums.
The blend of the two to make the drums sound how they want it, great.
that’s not cheating.
however, if you just plain suck and need quantizing, with super lightly wound pedals?
that’s cheating in my book.
Bonham had his pedal cranked super tight, and he hit the shit out of his kick drum.
no if you used a trigger and a mic on that? perfection
I think its cheating if you rely on it, I would say the same thing about a guitar player who plays through pedals all the time. I apply this to myself when Im writing music. If it doesn’t sound good acoustic or at least normal i.e. regular distortion or clean how the fuck do you expect it to sound rad through all these “accents”?
The trigger is really just like a mic. It reads the individual hits a drummer makes and processes it through the board. Now from a drummers point of view, triggers are great for live sound. They take away the hassle of EQing mics and getting the right sound levels. HOWEVER, you cannot be dynamic with triggers, especially on bass drums. They just register the hit. You could want a hit on a bass drum to sound soft, but the trigger will register it the same as if you were to hit it hard. The other bad thing about triggers is how they are overused in studio recordings. I HATE over processed drums! It sounds like a fuckin drum machine rather then a real drummer. So instead of triggering everything, LEARN TO TURN YOUR DRUMS BEFORE YOU RECORD!!! Then the sound your drum makes will be the same sound you hear in the recording. Other then that, triggers aren’t a bad thing.
Holy comment shit storm!
I do agree that triggering is lame, even though it does make things sound tighter. I play guitar and I think that active pickups are very similar, and I’m surprised that no one has made the argument yet.
Active pickups make it much easier to just graze a string and have it ring full as opposed to passive pickups where you have to hit the string more correctly.
Either way, if you shred you shred, if you don’t you don’t.
HOWEVER, technology should never make you a better player, just a different sounding one!
WTF? Active pickups just provide more gain. I have EMG-81/EMGS/EMGS in my jackson. Active pickups are great for metal which is why I use them in my guitar. Your argument that it’s the same as using a drum trigger/cheating is fucking retarded.
Awww, you are so cute with your Jackson that your mom bought you.
Since your clearly mentally handicapped let me break this down for you.
Active pick ups DO NOT JUST PROVIDE MORE GAIN YOU FUCK. Is that why most, if not all, bass guitars have active pickups? Because it provides more gain? NO NO NO. Man, retards are retarded.
I even went to the dictionary for a little definition. gain: the amount of increase in signal power or voltage or current expressed as the ratio of output to input.
So, you have to hit the strings less hard to achieve the same output. JUST LIKE TRIGGERED DRUMS, YOU JUST TAP THE BASS DRUM AND BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
Here is a little example, I know YOU ARE to…queer? to understand, but maybe it will help someone else. Passive guitar, pinch harmonic, the active guitar. You have to be much MORE accurate on a passive guitar to get a solid harmonic. Then try it on an active guitar, you can totally fuck up the harmonic and still get a pretty decent squeal.
I use active and passive pickups in my guitars. I don’t play differently. I don’t “strum lighter” on my active pickups, and I don’t notice much difference at all. How about actually playing guitar instead of reading about it on Wiki.
Exactly, thank you Josh.
I get a much heavier “crunch” sound when I palm mute on my active pickups, but I don’t pick lighter for the same effect I would have on my passives. I can hit pinch harmonics just fine either way.
And WTF is wrong with a Jackson? They make plenty of models in all price ranges, where did that “mommy bought you” comment come from. Are you 12? Any technical credence your argument may have carried was buried under your junior-high social skills.
Well anyone with a brain could see we agree with each other Josh and that built for sin is a complete fucking idiot.
Thats pretty funny how you go into this big long rant and do insult after insult and don’t even know me. Nice work troll.
First of all, no one buys my musical equipment. I’m 27 years old and have a job and buy anything that has to do with my music.
Second: You just restated exactly what I said in my post. That the active pickups provide more gain in your signal. You even gave the definition of gain. Thanks. I appreciate you helping to prove my point.
Third, fucking up a harmonic or teqnique (active pickups or not) still results in a fuck up. Active pickups give you more sustain and clearer sounding of notes (based on the type of pickup) and crunchier ruller sounding distorted riffs, which is why they are popular in metal and rock music.
I’d argue that a fuck up on active pickups actually sounds worse then a fuckup on a passive pickup up because it’s clearer and sustains longer.
Some of the great players you probably love most likely use active pickups.
I think it’s funny how messed up and out of order the responses are, shit-slinging going in every which direction lol
My opinion in a nutshell: Triggers are awful
My longer rant of an opinion:
Firstly, triggers make sense for a lot of metal bands. Many don’t have the financing to really spend a lot of time in the studio to perfect the drum parts. Triggering and quantizing certainly make the process of recording drums much easier, and thus reduce the overall cost needed to produce an album. That’s a very good thing.
But this cost reduction just kills the sound. What is hinted at, but not really developed on in the post, is that bands/drummers can choose realistic sounding triggers, or crappy fake ones. Yes, that is certainly the case. But do the realistic sounding triggers cost a significant amount more than the crappy ones? I don’t know the answer to this question, so if someone does, please do answer it. If there is a huge difference in price, than the logical option for financial reasons is the BS fake sounding triggers.
Just listen to Into Eternity’s “The Scattering of Ashes,” or The Faceless’ “Planetary Duality,” or Jeff Loomis’ “Zero Order Phase.” Those are just 3 random album that, in my mind, are absolutely ruined by awful triggering. Do these seem like artists with lots of funding? Anyone who read Arthur’s excellent column last week knows that funding is simply not there.
The only option, it seems, for a realistic sound is to record the drums with crappy triggering.
Wrong.
Speaking of Arthur, look at Cormorant as an example. They self-funded and self-released Metazoa on a tight budget. Arthur stated that they directly sampled the drum kit and used those hits as “triggers” on the album, but that they also recorded the drums organically in the first place. This method produced great results. The album sounds very natural, clean, but the drums are also loud enough in the mix. This was an economically efficient method that created a great and natural sound.
Now, for Cormorant’s very organic-sounding music, this worked wonders. But would this work for tech-death like Arsis? Their last album (which I hated anyway because I hate **weedily** **weedily** tech death) was horrendously plagued by drum triggering. This brought the album from “awful” onto a new level of being “unlistenable.”
Would the realistic sounding triggers really make that much of a difference on the overall sound? Someone please list me an album (or albums) that make use of “realistic drum triggering.” Does it really make that much of a difference, or will the drumming itself still sound lifeless? I think that it will still sound lifeless, and that is the major problem with modern drumming. It is not the strive for a perfect sound that is the problem, but that the outcome is so perfect that it’s artificial and takes away any soul that the drumming had in the first place.
Of course, in rare occasions, triggering works well. One of my favorites is Dream Theater’s “Images and Words.” The snare on that album is so triggered that it isn’t even funny. Yet it fits the retro/80s sound and production of it (even though it was released in 1991). Another favorite of mine is Meshuggah, but they are a different situation entirely, since their music (especially on “Nothing”) basically strives for a robotic, lifeless sound (and they succeed at that, so the triggering fits, but they’re certainly an anomaly).
CONCLUSION:
Yes, it may be the most cost efficient method, but since bands don’t seem to make money in metal anyway, in the end they’re just compromising the sound of their music for the sake of money that they’ll never make anyway. If they put in a bit more effort like Cormorant or other bands that implement that method, the sound will be better regardless of the style of metal for the most part.
Triggers are awful.
Ziltoid, it still doesn’t change the fact that the concept of triggers is exactly the same as the concept of using an electric guitar. Your distorting the original sound through your pedals/amplifier, and the pickups in order to enhance the sound. You obviously are ok with electric instruments. What’s the difference?
The difference is that triggered drums usually are so annoying to listen to mainly because they sound lifeless. But I think Zilty covered (as well as others) covered that already.
Damn I double covered it hehe!!
The difference between distorted guitars and triggered drums is that distorting a guitar just creates a different sound and nothing more. Triggered drums, on the other hand, not only create a different sound, but also perfect that sound. They literally take the soul out of drumming, and it’s sickening to say the least.
actually, distorting your guitar makes it much easier to play in some regards. you can hide little fuck ups like improperly fretted notes & chords behind distortion quite well which would normally be as clear as day on the clean channel.
Yeah, that is true. Distortion certainly can hide a lot of minor mistakes. Another example is the wah wah pedal most people don’t know how to use it, they just use it to hide their fuck ups during solos.
As far as I know, triggers doesn’t have ANY own sound – they’re sort of MIDI controller after all. They’re just used to send MIDI control messages, which can control an instrument (drum module obviously) or be saved as a MIDI track. It’s up to the producer how they’ll be used – they can be just used to give freedom with drum production (you know – if the drum performance is ok but you don’t like the sound you can replace the sounds of drums with something more to your liking – while performance still stays the same, with original timing and hit velocity) or they can be used to record the performance, edit and quantize the shit out of it – which I must agree here, totally shit and pretty much makes drummers work pointless, because none of his _real_ performance ends up on recording. Oh and of course there’s that live aspect that people already covered I think.
CONCLUSION: It’s just a tool that can be used in many ways, stop be so anal about it. Blame the producer’s ethics, not the technology.
so do you think lars chose that trash can sound for st. anger through triggering?
i wouldnt think the snare sounded that way, but i guess there are some that do. i dont play the drums by the way. i have no clue.
No. In an interview with Bob Rock, that trash can lid sound came from using only one microphone for the whole drum kit. And it was some very old, vintage mic they found in the studio. It was meant to give it a garage-y sound. I think they did accomplish that, but at what cost?
The cost of creating their worst album EVER (not to date, EVER).
But we don’t talk much about those times so we’re all good. :D
1. Ok, if any of you are a fan of lamb of god, gojira, pantera, metallica, behemoth, nile, job for a gayboy, trivum, suicide gatlence, god frobid, fear factory, or ANY FUCKING SIGNED METAL BAND you can be sure that 99.999999 percent of the time , your listening to TRIGGERED DRUMMMMMMMSSSSSSSS!!! its the truth, if you do not believe, call up roadrunner, nuclear blast, century media etc and ask theirs producers.
2. Yes, triggers are used live.
3. triggers are NOT cheating. they sense a vibration from you hitting the drum, and send the signal to a machine holding programed sounds[ like the alesis dm5] and THAT sound comes out the PA.
4. I am not a trigger maniac. I use them on my bass drum, cuz live, miced double bass becomes very messy. In my opinion, I woud never trigger my snare because triggering woud rarely pick up ghost notes, softer hits, etcetc. BUT most triggers CAn in fact pick up smaller hits on the bass drum, and louder hits, depending on how hard you hit the drum. so ITS NOOOOT CHEATING. its just a way, for me at least, to get a cleaner, crisper sound live.
The ddrum triggers I use live have a special trigger for the snare that will pick up and differentiate between side-stick and rim shots as well as normal skin hits and ghost notes. The sensitivity range is very broad but if your ghost notes are to soft to be detected than you shouldn’t be using triggers in the first place because the volume of the acoustic drums will be loud enough on their own. I use a trigger and a mic on my bass drum and mix them about even through the P.A. It’s the best of both worlds because I get the attack and clarity from the trigger and depth and decay from the mic. Similarly with my toms because the overheads pick up some of the toms and snare.
by the way, Vince, thank you for bring up this topic so I could spew my rage at peoples uninformed opinions on the subject.
Did Keith Moon use triggers? No? That’s good enough for me.
Right Elly, and Melvin Purvis didn’t use cell phones, the internet and GPS to find and kill John Dillinger. Because they didn’t exist at the time.
Not to mention, how do you know Moon wouldn’t use modern technology if he’d had the chance. Also not to mention, the type of music we’re talking about also didn’t exist at the time.
What I mean is I fail to see how music, drumming included, has improved since The Who’s heyday with expanded technology.
I’d be willing to bet that Nile could cover a Who song, and that The Who couldn’t cover a Nile song. It’s not a comment on the quality of songwriting, but from a completely technical standpoint, one could call it improvement….
Also, a lot of you are getting triggering and drum production confused. Producers commonly change the part by using triggers to make the sound, but physically altering the drums and rhythms
Thank fuck I’m a guitarist, and can afford to just sit around on my lazy arse, drink beer, be really fussy and just generally be a cock. Drummers can trigger all they want, for all that I care; where would modern guitar music be without revolutionary technology like this? playing a Lute, that’s where!
if you guys really want to see a scary use of technology and ‘cheating’ in music, check out the new Melodyne.
Sorry I’m an audio engineer and this shit gets me randy :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zeLKMHxbN8
holy crap. that’s either the worst or most amazing thing i’ve ever seen. i don’t know whether to jizz in my pants or run screaming to the hills.
There’s a bunch of explanations that are half right, a couple that are close, and a bunch that are WAY off.
Quantizing, yeah it’s stupid. But that’s not what we’re talking about.
In terms of bass drums, triggering is useful for a number of reasons:
a)Your studio drum room is not optimal for recording the bass drum sound you’d like. (Tomas Haake of Meshuggah mentioned this in an interview somewhere…I think sickdrummer.com has it.)
b.)You have shit drums and your kick sounds like shit no matter what room you’re in. That Westbury kit isn’t the only drumset you’ll have in your lifetime if you take drumming seriously.
c.)You’re in a live setting and some factor, be it the room, mic issues, whatever it is, does not allow your kick to be heard properly through the music. A trigger gives you a guaranteed sound, and can even make up for a shitty sound man. I’ve long since lost count of how many club sound men I’ve dealt with that don’t have a clue about mixing drums.
Derek Roddy performs on the 2008 Modern Drummer Festival DVD. An audience member asks him a question about triggering and he gives a very informed answer. I tried to find the clip on youtube but no luck. I’ll try to paraphrase. Basically Derek tells you to think of the bass drum as a big cylinder (which it is). When you kick your pedal, you produce a sound due to the impact, and the resonance of the drum head causes air to move (99% of bass drum heads have holes in the front, used for mic placement, so air is moving past the mic, and also affects the sound you get). Now play double kick really really fast, and the playing and the air movement begins to blend together, as the spaces between the notes becomes smaller and smaller as speed increases, until it all blends together into a constant sound. Triggering in a live situation provides a constant short, staccato sound and ignores the acoustic signal from the drumhead. Maybe your sound guy mixes both sounds live, I don’t know, but regardless, it cleans up the sound and allows faster playing to still be heard clearly and concisely.
Triggering can also be used to make up for a sound produced by a technique that may normally not be heard well. I’m referring now to the Freehand technique, most commonly referred to in the metal world as the Gravity Blast. Johnny Rabb is by far the most advanced drummer on the subject, and has written extensively on the subject.
Shown here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw4vMV3EnRw
Anyways, it’s a technique built primarily around achieving amazing one handed speed, but is limited in that it can’t produce much power. Gravity blasting in a live setting *requires* triggering, in order for it to be heard through the rest of the band.
Ridiculous myths about triggering:
-Triggering turns bad performances into good performances. FALSE. If anything, it can make certain performances more honest, as shitty acoustic double kick playing is more likely to blend into the background and be forgotten about rather than shitty triggered playing that’s clear and easy to hear.
-Triggering is playing notes for the drummer. FALSE. Triggering inserts a different sound for you, you still have to play the notes. Axis makes addons for their kick pedals that attaches a small spring hammer that hits another small metal plate which is connected to the rest of your triggering system, and inserts the sound for you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szxyQtmxz2o (the first 20 seconds gives you a good look at it) A lot of drummers prefer these e-kits over triggering at the drum head because then you eliminate factors like double-triggering due to the kick head resonating too much, and instead it’s really just triggering as your pedals make strokes. Sorry, I have a habit about digressing on this topic, but it’s NOT playing notes for the musician.
But the fact of the matter is, just about everyone triggers sometimes. Forgive me for mentioning NIckelback, but even they do. That snare sound in “Something in your mouth” is completely triggered. It comes down to taste, and the sound you’re after. As much as I like plain jane acoustic drums, electronic tools can help achieve goals in songs, and for that reason I’m in favor of using them where applicable.
Anyways I could keep going, but I’ll shut up now. I think most of you get the drift.
Good explanation. Thanks!
I dunno…if space between beats and clarity of the sound is a big issue, why not just play 2 bass drums, mic ‘em, and pan each one Hard Left and Hard Right in the stereo mix?
I mean, yeah…maybe if yer playing extreme pig destroyer speeds maybe you need a trigger. Otherwise, it just sound kinda like another technology shortcut.
Panning hard left and hard right would affect the listener experience pretty negatively, I would imagine. Also keep in mind that during parts of songs where double kick is NOT used, drummers obviously favor one limb for single kick. So at that point, if you got into a section of single kick stuff, it’s all separated on one channel. The kick drum is a pretty crucial instrument for providing musical pulse so it’s pretty much always mixed into the center.
I’m mostly with Mike on this one. Sound processing (to include triggering, sound replacement, quantizing, effects, autotune, etc) is, like an instrument, just a tool. There’s nothing inherently good or bad about it; it’s all about how it’s used. Triggering and quantization creates a tight, mechanical sound, which, if taken too far, can sound dull and lifeless. Minimal processing tends to create a groovier, more natural sound emphasizing technique and style. That’s my preference, but it doesn’t work for everything. I don’t think Despised Icon or the Faceless would work as well without heavy processing. I don’t think Iron Maiden or Wolves in the Throne Room would work as well with heavy processing. I think part of the reason the last several Dream Theater albums haven’t worked so well is because they’re over processed.
There’s no such thing as “cheating” in music. It’s not a contest. You don’t win anything if you play faster and tighter than anyone else, though if you bring that to a jazz or punk band you might very well lose the gig. Does it or does it not serve the music? That is the _only_ thing that need be considered.
Keith Moon did not use triggers, but he wasn’t playing for Psycroptic, and Dave Haley never played for the Who.
I hate it when drummers hit their drums really weak and triggers allow some drummers to play like they’re using a pair of #2 pencils for drumsticks and still get a powerful sound. I like a drummer who beats the ever-living shit out of his heads, John Stanier-style. I agree about triggers adding clarity to the kick in alive setting, but there are A LOT of drummers who use this as a crutch, not an enhancement.
I’ve always been sort of on the fence about drum triggers. You put forth a very sound argument and I must agree with you. It’s no different than any electric version of acoustic instrument.
Gold jacket, green jacket, who gives a shit?
“So, in conclusion: stop bitching about triggered drums, you ninnies.”
This is the internet. We will bitch all we want, about whatever we want, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
:)
Seriously though, I don’t see the comparison with distortion pedals and triggers. Triggers replace something that can be reproduced physically, with nothing digital. So to me, it IS cheating, kinda. I can’t hate on it completely, or else I’d have to throw out 75% of my metal collection….
[IMG]http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii140/tonytits2008/0477203378_l.jpg[/IMG] Big drum soud fo SURE! Fed Through the Teeth Machine OUT Oct. 27
Buddy Rich slayed Animal’s butt all over the place on the Muppet Show (watch the YouTube) and he NEVER USED A TRIGGER IN HIS LIFE. So there. Pretend you’re as good as Buddy Rich.
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii140/tonytits2008/0477203378_l.jpg
THE RED CHORD! Fickeisen is Frickin the drum frickin fricker!
Nerd rage is hilarious. As long as I like the sound coming out of the speakers I don’t give a rat’s fucking ass how it gets there.
That would be a very valid comment if 90% of the triggered drum sounds weren’t then taken and edited via midi editing software to be exactly on time.
Drum triggering is cheating because it allows lightweight featherdusters to sound as if they can hit the drums harder than a 12 year old girl. You can defend it all you want, you aren’t going to change the minds of anyone who’s known the pleasure of playing with a good, hard hitting drummer, and it doesn’t change the fact that everyone knows drum triggers are for limp-wristed, talentless hacks. Also, your argument that drum triggering is the same as using amps with distortion is completely spurious, amps and distortion augment the sound that is actually made by the guitar, triggers completely replace the sound made by the drummer. The best way to put it is that triggering is the same as it would be if a guitarist sampled the guitar sounds from his favorite album, and whenever he hit a note or chord, his guitar tone was replaced by a sample of his favorite guitarist playing the chord instead of using his actual guitar tone. Which would be totally lame and cheating.
I’m sure someone has said this, but I’m not gonna bother reading through the Moby Dick-length arguments, so I’m just giving my two cents. You can’t say triggering is or isn’t cheating. It depends on how the triggers are used. They can absolutely be used to make a weak drummer sound more powerful, by playing the exact same dynamic, namely “cannon blast”, no matter how hard he hits the drums. However, only a few crappy bands do this, and there are plenty of bands who use triggers that are sensitive to force instead of just set to kill. Also, triggers CANNOT make someone sound in time. That’s what quantizing in the studio does. If the drummer can’t play in time, which is what drumming is all about, then they will trigger the notes off-time and it will sound off-time. So there is definitely an element of electronic replacement to triggering, but it can be used to enhance the music rather than the musician. Plenty of drummers kick just as much ass without triggers, but use them anyway to create a specific sound that has its place in music. Plenty of drummers also use triggers to mask the fact that they’re pussies. So basically, you’re all right and you’re all wrong.
I’ve been playing drums in bands since the 80’s. What the fuck are you kids bitching about? Before all this popular drum triggering shit! I tore apart my Simmons SDS9 pads and taped the triggers to my dual 18×24 kicks. Because, any opening working drummer will tell you that, club FOH guys suck in setting up mics on a kit. Your tone and sound suffers so your kit sounds like acoustical shit! Even if you are using a $3000 DW kit.
If your mic levels are not placed, you have no compression, limiter and gates, your $3000 DW will sound like a $200 CB700 garage kit in a club or hall! Just like most guitar players carry racks and pedal boards and they sound like Godzilla when they plug in because, they are anal about their tone. . . (IT’S ALL ABOUT TONE).
Now with technology, Drummers are no longer considered boneheads beating on shit! Drummers also have a certain tone that reflects their playing style and skill (Alex Van Halen’s snare or Lars Kick tone on Justice for All). We now have racks and have control of our sound & tone.
I rigged my kit with internal mics and triggers, dial in my level, EQ, trigger blend, dynamic & effect processing in my rack.
I just tell the FOH guy give me two dry channels, pan 10 & 2 turn me up and I will stomp motherfuckers. I can sound the same every night, so it is all music. . . As long as you feel the effect in the crowd it does the job. The real problem here is lack of education, when the common public hears about triggers, samplers, auto tune and Pro tools and really, do not know the history or the proper use. It becomes a problem. I have seen this industry change and what you should be concerned about is the band recordings that are using BFD plug in drums for pro tools, tracked via a keyboard controller and not a real drummer. Ohhhh Shit!
So after reading this I’m thinking Gojira must use triggered drumming. Either that or Mario is an amazing robot. Anyone know?
i’d say about 90% of metal recordings are done with triggers nowadays. sometimes live too, depends on the situation and the drummer.
Drummers are naturally inconsistent. If youve ever recorded any drummer anywhere at anytime, you would know that there always inconsistent. Wether it be how hard they hit each take, or how many times they change the fills on each take. You ears are the final judge, not the lines on Pro Tools. If using triggers achieves a desired sound for the album then so be it. see a band live before you degrade them for what they used to record the album. some bands are shitty live, and great on albums for a reason.
*some drummers are phenomenal and play consistently and play the same thing every time. if the guitarist decided to change the riff every take, it would be shit. those drummers make names for themselves, ask a engineer for the name of a good drummer, not your friends opinion. everyone knows a “sick drummer”, and someone else knows there shit.
I read every post.
Triggers are cheating in this way, you don’t have to know how to tune your drums.
Go so a band with a drummer using triggers for every drum sometime.
95% of the time, the drums themselves are absolutely horrid.
Sound through the P.A. is completely different.
So if you don’t know how to at least tune your kick drum, fuck you.
Put down the sticks.
If Vinny Paul and Charlie Benante can have acoustic kick drum sound, you can too.
(although I have seen Charlie with triggered toms, but he’s got a handle on how to work his kit)
vinnie paul doesnt use acoustic. at least not all the time. theres pictures og him on stage with drum triggers on his bass drum, snare, and toms. and who led you to assume that drummers who trigger cant tune their drums?
it’s only cheating if you can’t actually play the speeds acoustically that you can with triggers. if you have to pussy foot it to play fast, then it’s kinda cheating. i remember seeing morbid angel’s drummer warming up on stage before they had him plugged in. dude was playing like 200 bpm 16th notes nonstop on the kick and we could hear it. and it was NOT plugged in. he was pounding the shit outta the kick drum. if you’re using it to get an even, consistent tone, then it’s not cheating.
well, regardless of whether or not it’s cheating, triggered drums sound like shit. i mean, if you’re going to trigger the fuck out of your drums to the point where it sounds like a drum machine, why not just use one instead?
Thats like saying 90% of the bands you listen to have drums that sound like shit.
i realize that comment you responded to was 10 days ago, but whatever.
there are good ways to trigger and bad ways to trigger. most modern metal bands have this thing where the drums are triggered to the point where it doesn’t even sound like a fucking drum. it just goes “click clack” at 300 bpm and that’s really fucking annoying.
LOMBARDO DOESNT USE EM!
If people are making the argument that it’s “inorganic”, that’s a terrible argument. Your rebuttal makes sense to that argument but the original is missing a very key point that it’s not the “inorganic” part that makes a difference, it’s the “I couldn’t play this part or play this fast without these triggers making it so I barely touch my drum”
Listen to some fuckin jazz fucktard!! Dynamics is whew its at! Now hit me with some Fear Factory!!
W = re, internet logic.
My band uses drum triggers merely to save time and have it sound more professional. If you ever been in to record you must understand that nothing can be done in one attempt (save for 90s grunge bands). If you can do it flawlessly in one attempt either a)you are not pushing yourself as a musician or b) you do not have the ear to hear very minor problems with the recording (especially those that come while recording on an electric drum set). However, if drummers are using triggers and editing to fix drum parts that they just CANNOT play, than yes, that is cheating. I would like to see what Vince and others at Metalsucks feel about hardcore quantizing though.
If it weren’t for triggers lamb of gods albums would all sound like new american gospel……which has to be honestly the most god awful drum sound i have ever experienced in my life
If I can’t tell, who the fuck cares. Do people really use triggers on recordings? Have they not heard of SoundReplacer. Seems like a no-brainer to to add the samples as an edit rather than on the fly.
Triggering, sound replacement, Drumagog, autotune, etc., are all simply tools. They’re used when they’re needed. The question isn’t whether using them is somehow “tr00″ or not (or “moral”), the question is: what do you want your record to sound like?
Do you want to sound ultra-laser precise and machinelike? Then you’ll be doing a lot of drum editing and using samples/triggers. Do you want a more human sound with soul and maybe a little slop? Then you’ll keep your usage of all of these tools to a minimum. There’s no reason to make some sort of blanket value judgement against any of them; like everything else musical it’s about aesthetic choices and employing the methods necessary to achieve your sonic goals.