Hi, thought I’d do a quick tutorial for Toontracks Drumtracker. This is a great piece of standalone software that detects transients of drums, then replaces them with midi notes. It is a great alternative to drum triggers, and a great way to replace or reinforce drums. Logic 9 has a similar thing built in, and there are many pieces of real-time drum replacement software out there, but after using most of them, I find this to be the most accurate, and you can really get in there and make sure every note is correct.
Step 1- Find audio The first thing you need is an audio file of the drum you want to replace. For this example I am using the kick drum from a track I am currently working on, where the kick drum did not have near enough umph, so I decided to replace it. The easiest way is to export just the kick drum from the session you are working on, with everything zeroed. I am using Logic 9, so I simply level everything on the kick drum INCLUDING the bus and output effects, if you are using them, and solo it, then set my locators to the start of the track (01:00:00:00.00) and after the final hit. It is important to get the audio file as clean as possible, as the software is going to be reading this, so if you have compressed it to hell, and destroyed at the transients, Drumtracker is going to find it hard to detect hits. As you can see below, I have only got the kick drum soloed, with the selection bar selecting the whole song. You can also see on the left, my channel strip, with everything bypassed or zeroed.
Toontrack has released Drumtracker, an audio to MIDI converter that converts drum tracks to MIDI files.
You can then bounce this to disk as a WAV. Step 2- Drumtracker When you open Drumtracker, you will be asked to add an ‘Input’, or you can select from the bottom left. This is asking for the audio file you are going to replace from. Browse for the appropriate file, then press ‘Done’.
Drum tracker will then ask you to select the area you would like to analyze. You do this by clicking and dragging untill the green bar selects everything you would like to be detected. In this case, it is the whole audio file. And should look something like this- The aim of the game is to make sure that the red bar is below each transient.
Press ‘Render’ on the top left to quickly run through the audio and detect transients. You will notice each hit, if the red bar is within a transient, will have a green bar indicating a midi note should be placed here. Click and drag the red bar up and down to change the threshold of the detection.
You can select just a section to drag up or down by clicking command and dragging. When you play through the track, past a transient, it will detect if it has been triggered or not automatically, so no need to press render each time you make an edit, just play that section by pressing space bar, or the play button.
You can change the sound of the auditioned instrument by selecting the drop-down menu at the bottom, under ‘preview’. In this case, I am going to use KICK, as I am replacing a kick drum, and this is going to give me an idea of what it will sound like. You should have something that looks like this section for your whole song. Step 3- Export Now you have detected each transient in the track, you can export this as a MIDI track, to put back in your DAW. To do this, tick the ‘Convert’ box in the bottom box, then click ‘CONVERT’ in the bottom right. Select where you would like to save the MIDI track, and with what name.
Drumtracker
You can also select the tempo of the track, or if you have a tempo track, browse for it here, and click ‘Enable Tempo Map’. Note- The easiest way to get a tempo track is to make a midi track within your DAW project, select the area you bounced the audio from, draw in any MIDI data, and then export this as a MIDI file. After the conversion, you are left with a MIDI file with each hit as a MIDI note. Step 4- Inserting into your DAW To insert into your DAW, simply drag from the finder into a MIDI track on your DAW.
Drumtracker From Toontrack
You MAY have to manually zoom into the kick drums first transient, and match it with the first midi note, as sometimes if there is silence at the start, it might not see it, so it is best to match it up manually, but the tempo changes should still be in place. Below is an image of matching up the hits- You can insert an instrument track, in my case I was using Toontracks Superior Drummer 2.0. If you are using Superior Drummer, or something similar, remember to turn off all other drums apart from the one you are using, to save CPU. Make sure you select the right note (kick usually being C1) for your instrument, and edit the velocity in the ‘Lists’ tab (in Logic 9) if needed for quieter or louder hits. Step 5- There we are! So now you should have MIDI hits on top of your audio file, which can be muted if necessary.
Don’t forget to turn on your bypassed effects you turned off at the start, and enjoy your new reinforced drums! I'm Jonny Duddle! I am currently studying at Salford University doing Professional Sound and Video Technology, so soon I should know EVERYTHING about microphones, cameras and media. I left The Manchester College with a Foundation Degree in Popular Music and Production.
I love music and film, so check out my music website www.blueaxismusic.co.uk for some of my stuff. And check out my Facebook and Twitter links in my contact info. Hopefully I'll entertain you, and educate you and show you what I'm about! Follow me on these other things.
Toontrack Drumtracker Torrent
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Drumtracker is a stand alone, host independent, multi-track audio to MIDI converter. Specifically designed to convert drum session audio recordings to MIDI files for drum replacement purposes, Drumtracker will grant your drums a new lease on life. FEED CONVERT REPLACE, three easy steps to bring your drum tracks into the 21st Century. The built-in filters in Drumtracker allow you to quickly detect the most common instruments and specify the velocity threshold for each section of your song. In addition, you may, of course, save your own filter presets to gain valuable time when sound replacing. Best of all, Drumtracker lets you select which part or parts of a drum audio track to convert, down to each single hit. You can change the velocity, delete, add or move trigger points to your requirements, giving you manual control of tracking and converting audio to MIDI, to supplement automatic detection.
Audition the triggered parts using Drumtracker's built-in sample library, then, when you are happy with the result, convert the MIDI rendered by Drumtracker to the mapping system of your favorite drum sampler.