So we (Life at Zero) are in the process of recording our second full-length. Unlike last album, we are insisting that our drummer triggers his kick drum like he does live.

So now the fun starts -- we get the thing working properly, then all of a sudden it starts missing kicks, mostly on the fast triplets he does.

Trigger Brain = Roland TD-6
Kick drum head = Super Kick 3
Trigger = Roland acoustic kick drum trigger (can't remember the model)

We have the kick drum head tighter than a nun's va-jay-jay and it is stuffed with pillows to keep the double-signalling down to a dull roar. We have dicked with the brain -- sensitivity, etc. If anyone has any suggestions (besides the obvious), we would be willing to try it.

And yes, I have already tried deleting my system32 folder.

Q: What do you call a drummer with no girlfriend?
A: Homeless.

That above joke would certainly apply to my old band's (Abaroth) drummer. I haven't seen him in almost 3 or so years, and last I heard he was homeless, wandering around from friend's house to friend's house. If someone has an update, let me know. He was my roomate for 2 years and disappeared.

Your first problem. You want the head loose. I know that sounds wierd but you want the vibration to die right away, so that the trigger can tell the difference between hits, and obviously if you have the head tight, it will ring and the trigger will miss close together hits.
Second how high do you have the crosstrigger setting on the processor... does the td-6 have one of those settings, or an equivilent? Maybe raise the gain on the triggers a little.
But definately loosen the hell outta the head. It will help a bunch.
And when nothing else works i duck tape a piece of a sock right next to the trigger so that it only gets the initial attack of each hit making it really easy to track fast hits. (While killing acoustic sound.)

use midi then edit it when it fucks up ... we wont make fun of you.

Haha -- that sounds like alot of work.

Thanks -- I will have him try loosening the head -- I always thought it was the opposite, but we are up for anything. No idea on the crosstrigger setting and gain, but I will bring that up. Also, we are not above duct tape and socks, so I will try that too!

Just out of curiosity -- what do you use for your trigger brain/acoustic triggers?

lol matt oles

haha you know matt??

I interacted with him a few times last summer, He was good friends with the ex-guitar player of Mortalis. He was still homeless, slept at the mortalis drummers house one time haha.

strange. i wonder what he's up to now?
i've heard unconfirmed rumors about him, too.. haha.

actually, now that i think about it that was two years ago.

matt - if you're reading this - give me back my cds and shirts that you left at your dad's house. You took my Blut Aus Nord album the day I bought it and I haven't seen it since. Also, where's my gas money, biotch?

cocaine is a hellova drug

i actually have an Alesis DM5 for my brain and i have the Axis AL2 with the EKIT triggers on it. I did use a Ddrum accoustic bass drum trigger before. Thats how i know about the head. And Almost everyone i know thinks its better to have it tight, until they try it both ways with a trigger. It makes sense when you think about it, while it seems like tighter will make it easier to track a trigger, it also makes the vibration resonate longer so the trigger can't tell the two hits apart.

And dont do the midi/cut and paste thing. It's cheatin. Thats the reason non-trigger drummers hate triggers, cause if used in that way it's cheatin.

Thanks for all the advice -- we will try again on Thursday. And no, we will not consider the cut/paste thing -- my drummer would have a nervous breakdown if we recorded that way.

That EKIT attachment thing is pretty snazzy -- I didn't even know they had those.

yeah they're great. Unfortunately it just makes the already difficult to adjust axis pedal even worse because there are just so many things to adjust. But once you get it, it's well worth it.

The guy at axis even installed to two ekits when i ordered the pedal and he shipped it all assembled for me. Not bad condsidering. I think the one i have with the two ekits was like 770 with shipping. Well worth it in my opinion. I still have the dw900 and i use it for my tool tribute band, although for deathmetal the axis is way better and easier to do anything really fast with accents.

i meant dw9000 woops

i hope this cd is listenable this time, production-wise...

Ooooh, was that a burn?

sounded like it.

I just ditched my DW9000's Also, they were really difficult to deal with for triggers. I'm not sure why. I'm using Pearl Eliminators now. Way better.

Also, I agree about the loose head deal. And I'm not sure what was going on here, but I'll tell you my symptoms and what I observed and you can be the judge...

I had a SuperKick 2 head before and the triggers seemed to be getting shittier and shittier over time. Also, the internal muffler on the head started to fall off. That caused big problems (was it slapping up against the instead of the head? who knows). I tried putting duct tape on the head to muffle it, taping paper towels on, nothing seemed to work. Also, for some reason, the sheet in my drum I used for internal muffling was seemingly causing issues too.

For the fuck of it I did this: Went to the drum shop, got an Evans Emad head and a Remo MUFFL ring, and ditched the sheet inside the drum. Triggers were MUCH better. LOL WUT?

What do you guys use for pedals?

My setup:
Evans EMAD head
Alesis DM5 brain
Roland RT-10K accoustic trigger
Pearl Eliminator double pedal w/ wood Iron Cobra beaters (The Eliot bayless setup)

IT WAS A FARKING THREAT

seriously, you guys deserve good production.

I believe he uses the DW9000. Thanks, dude -- all this info is great -- I'm going to print this thread and bring it to practice tomorrow.

Well, it's a DIY operation. I agree the last album had problems, personally I hated my guitar tone on the album, but I don't think it was totally unlistenable. WE ARE HUGE IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC. This time we are taking our time and not rushing through -- I am going to dick with my tone endlessly until I get what I want. Right now we have the drums sounding excellent (well, better than Nick's shitty kit has ever sounded) so if we can solve the missed hits problem with the kick trigger, we should be in good shape.

dont want to participate in an any of your triggerdom

no, it wasnt unlistenable. i was just being a jerk. just make sure you bring it to someone who can master it right.

Yeah, since we are recording it ourselves, I definitely would like to pay to professionally master it this time. Anyone local who is reasonably priced and does a good job?

whats reasonable priced?

nick z (new alliance east) is solid. for the dysentery full length we are having colin davis (vile) master it. a solid mastering job will run you a few hundred probably.

Why dont you sound replace the kicks? Drumagog works good for me.

A few hundred is reasonable -- just don't want to pay like a grand for it, since most will be coming out of my pocket.

Sounds like cheating, but I will consider it if all else fails.

I think we finally have it -- triggers working great (replaced the SuperKick head with a head that doesn't have a muffling ring and fine tuned the masking settings on the brain) and we tracked 3 songs last night. Hopefully the rest of the drum tracks will be complete by Thursday night. Then, I can ruin everything with my horrible guitar playing. Thanks to you dudes who offered advice -- hopefully we will be able to put out something that doesn't sound like a complete piece of shit!

can't wait to hear it. You should hit me up with a copy of it when you get it. As far as Nick Z goes i like him a lot, Ouch did our 3song with Ethan Dusalt(sp?) at new alliance, and then had nick master em... not really a deathmetal sounding mix, much more of a hard rock mix, but still sounded real good.

Yeah, I will definitely consider contacting him for mastering -- I don't think a typical death metal mix would fit our style, so that might work.

He's real good, and real nice. If you tell em Jim from the South boston Sound Museum sent ya i BELIEVE he will give you a slight deal. (The building New Alliance, and New Alliance East are in is also the cambridge Sound Museum and is owned and managed by my boss Bill Desmond (DES))