# Anyone else hate triggers?



## DaveCarter

***DISCLAIMER***

Ok, since I originally posted this I've actually learnt what triggers are, and what they can be used for. As such I completely agree with them being used in metal, and Ive recently ended up explaining to a lot of other people who think they are 'cheating' what they are and why they're used. I even get quite annoyed sometimes now when Im watching an extreme metal band who AREN'T using triggers so I cant hear the definition of the kicks properly. Fact is there's a time n a place for trigs, and its only a minority of bad drummers who set their beaters too close to the skin to try n twitch out blasts. Anyway, as much as I was tempted to delete it, here's the post that started it all!!



Original Post:

This may well be a personal thing, but I want to get some more opinions from people who know what's what in the world of METAL. I absolutely hate people using drum triggers, I think its basically cheating, and they often sound completely artificial. There we go, I said it.

I totally understand why people use them for high speed double bass, but I think being able to hit consistently with full power at speed is just part of being a good drummer. Im not saying I can do it, but there are guys I know of who dont use triggers, so its evidently possible. I see it as: dont put something on the album if you cant deliver it live. This goes for doing double bass blast beats then having to fall back on triggers live, as much as it goes for dragonforce and their shred-tastic live failings. Am I on my own on this, or does anyone else dislike triggers?


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## JJ Rodriguez

i dislike triggers for everything but bass and snare. For bass, it IS possible to play high speed without them, but it's a lot easier to get note separation with triggers. Snare is okay, it doesn't sound TOO bad, but toms/cymbals sound like ass triggered. I say cymbals triggered but I mean electronic cymbals. This is from someone who owns/plays electronic drums too. As for the "cheating" thing, sure, there are some guys out there who use triggers to feather hits at a billion bpm, then there are guys who use it for convenience in micing their drums. Instead of fucking with mics, and getting 2 bass drums to sound the same, and muffling the head, you just run a cord to the mixing board, and boom, you've got your bass drum sound.


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## 7 Dying Trees

Actually, triggers are good. There's a lot of weird techniques and jazzy things when done at speed that you just can't pick up, and just won't punch through, and for those sounds when it dips, you need triggers.

However, snare+kick only really, nothing else, AND you should always have the natural sound mixed with the trigger sound, so when it does go quieter (at speed) the trigger is more dominant, but when hitting like a mofo the natural sound is more dominant.

Also, triggering isn't cheating, you still have to hit it at the right time, otherwise it'll be out, there's no correction, and it is still played. But for some things, you just need triggers if you are playing extreme fast stuff.

But you need that blend to be right, fully triggered kits are just a bit, well, meh sounding.


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## halsinden

to be honest i've found that badly played / poorly chosen triggers (ie. most mayhem live work, i'm sorry to say) can make a band sound awful, not just the use of triggers themselves.

people like nick barker should be canonised for what he's done for that sort of sound. 

as james says, it's really down to whether you can play them or not. most drummers thinking they'll have an easier ride playing warp-speed kicks because they can twitch-flex against their grandmother's spare bed frame with their newly bought iron cobras are in for a horrible surprise when they hear their shoddy, uncontrolled and out of time spatterings cutting through a live mix louder than they've ever heard the rest of their kit.

H


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## stuh84

How many times you been to a live venue and have not been able to hear the kick drum?

Nearly every time I've been able to hear it, its either an AMAZING sound guy, or its triggered.

Personally I couldn't even care in the slightest as long as it sounds good, and hearing ALL the kit is essential for me to hear a good sound. If that involves having to trigger things, so what?


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## Thrashmanzac

yes...


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## halsinden

stuh84 said:


> How many times you been to a live venue and have not been able to hear the kick drum?
> 
> Nearly every time I've been able to hear it, its either an AMAZING sound guy, or its triggered.
> 
> Personally I couldn't even care in the slightest as long as it sounds good, and hearing ALL the kit is essential for me to hear a good sound. If that involves having to trigger things, so what?



i absolutely agree. and / but it's normally those sorts of situations that are finishing schools for most up and coming metal drummers. triggers can really bring out the worst (and best) in drummers.

triggered plectrums however, are my choice of kings.

H


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## All_¥our_Bass

I don't hate them, but I dislike when triggering is abused and/or mixed with the original sound poorly.


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## zimbloth

Triggers are absolutely fucking crucial for metal in my opinion. If it's cheating, so are electric guitar amplifiers. I could list a thousand reasons why they're awesome, but I won't. I think the posters above have summed it up well enough.

Now, obviously if every venue we went to, we could be ensured the entire kit would be mic'd up with state of the art shit and then put in the hands of a competent engineer, maybe they wouldn't be necessary. But since we live in the real world, trigger modules allow my drummer to pre-mix things the way he wants, and all we need from the sound guy is to plug in the xlr cable and do some basic shit and he's done.

Triggers = my best friend.


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## kristallin

zimbloth said:


> Triggers are absolutely fucking crucial for metal in my opinion. If it's cheating, so are electric guitar amplifiers. I could list a thousand reasons why they're awesome, but I won't. I think the posters above have summed it up well enough.
> 
> Now, obviously if every venue we went to, we could be ensured the entire kit would be mic'd up with state of the art shit and then put in the hands of a competent engineer, maybe they wouldn't be necessary. But since we live in the real world, trigger modules allow my drummer to pre-mix things the way he wants, and all we need from the sound guy is to plug in the xlr cable and do some basic shit and he's done.
> 
> Triggers = my best friend.



A-fucking-men, brother. When I was still a touring drummer triggers were my insurance policy that I'd be heard loud and clear - not just that, by having my own mixer I'd give the sound bloke a stereo lead and say "crank it, my good fellow." Triggers aren't cheating, they're just another form of amplification.


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## Desecrated

If it is done like meshuggah did it on the new album I'm down for it, mixing both triggered and untriggered signals.


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## Uber Mega

chavhunter said:


> This may well be a personal thing, but I want to get some more opinions from people who know what's what in the world of METAL. I absolutely hate people using drum triggers, I think its basically cheating, and they often sound completely artificial. There we go, I said it.
> 
> I totally understand why people use them for high speed double bass, but I think being able to hit consistently with full power at speed is just part of being a good drummer. Im not saying I can do it, but there are guys I know of who dont use triggers, so its evidently possible. I see it as: dont put something on the album if you cant deliver it live. This goes for doing double bass blast beats then having to fall back on triggers live, as much as it goes for dragonforce and their shred-tastic live failings. Am I on my own on this, or does anyone else dislike triggers?



I agree on some points, but triggers aren't cheating at all, is a guitar tuner cheating? It's technology, and as long as its used naturally and tastefully, and it sounds good, i'm all for it.


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## DaveCarter

Having read up a bit more and seeing that triggers are often mixed with a miced signal, thats not so bad. But the whole reason I say its ''cheating'' is when guys use JUST the triggers, as rather than changing the sound (like an amp (which cant really be called cheating since you cant hear your guitar without one!) or pedals) they totally replace it, allowing 'feather-hits' as some people have mentioned. Also, its a fair point about the sound engineers. From the sort of gigs I play a lot of, Ive come to expect a high level of proficiency from the sound crew in micing a kit. As a result of this I know a good double kick sound is perfectly acheivable with the right EQ, compresison, gating etc., but I can appreciate that in smaller venues this isnt always an option. Fair one.


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## JJ Rodriguez

Yeah, people will always find a way to abuse something. You can't fault guys who use triggers as a tool just because some people use them as a crutch.


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## SevenDeadly

I don't like them because our drummer always has techincal problems with them live. We'd never know before a show if they were going to work so he'd always be stressed.


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## kristallin

SevenDeadly said:


> I don't like them because our drummer always has techincal problems with them live. We'd never know before a show if they were going to work so he'd always be stressed.



Sounds like he needs to upgrade his triggers to something more reliable. Ddrum triggers will do the trick, and have him replace his cables while he's at it.


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## Oogadee Boogadee

I see the need for them (as all have listed the reasons already), and definitely respect how hard they are to play with.... but sometimes the sounds don't fit when it comes to a dynamic band.

with arsis, they were a necessity.... nonstop brutality
with maybe, say... opeth... they would suck the shit out of the ballad parts.


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## Nick

chavhunter said:


> This may well be a personal thing, but I want to get some more opinions from people who know what's what in the world of METAL. I absolutely hate people using drum triggers, I think its basically cheating, and they often sound completely artificial. There we go, I said it.
> 
> I totally understand why people use them for high speed double bass, but I think being able to hit consistently with full power at speed is just part of being a good drummer. Im not saying I can do it, but there are guys I know of who dont use triggers, so its evidently possible. I see it as: dont put something on the album if you cant deliver it live. This goes for doing double bass blast beats then having to fall back on triggers live, as much as it goes for dragonforce and their shred-tastic live failings. Am I on my own on this, or does anyone else dislike triggers?




go play 16's on double kick at 240bpm with no triggers and see if you like that sound better


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## kristallin

Oogadee Boogadee said:


> I see the need for them (as all have listed the reasons already), and definitely respect how hard they are to play with.... but sometimes the sounds don't fit when it comes to a dynamic band.
> 
> with arsis, they were a necessity.... nonstop brutality
> with maybe, say... opeth... they would suck the shit out of the ballad parts.



The beauty of triggers is that you can switch sounds in your e-drum brain, no issue with ballads, you just change the sounds.


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## DaveCarter

Nick said:


> go play 16's on double kick at 240bpm with no triggers and see if you like that sound better



depends on the gear used, if its a decent set-up and proper production then yeah I do prefer the sound to triggers


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## JBroll

And, yet again, musicians fail at understanding basic recording principles...

First off, not because I need to be a dick but because there are important things at stake, lets get a couple of things clear. You don't hate triggers, you hate sound replacement. Long story short, even a fully natural kit benefits from TRIGGERS (Edit... meant triggers, sorry) because they allow for more automation in compressors, EQ, gates, and volume controls in other tracks. 

Essentially, gating drums is a must. There's simply too much noise - and before anyone starts, that ISN'T where the 'vibe' comes from, that's where mushy messes come from. Gating toms isn't fun when cymbals and snares are constantly popping up, gating snares is next to bloody impossible with some setups, and triggers allow gates to be activated not by the sound around a drum (the mic) but by the drum actually getting hit (and then sending mechanical energy to the trigger, which then sends the essential electrical signal to a DAW through a 'brain' of some kind) and then there's no need for risky 'lookahead' mishaps because the trigger can open - and fade in, for a more natural sound - before the actual hit. Then, the gate can close again after a given time or when the noise goes back down to the point where the surrounding environment is causing the sound and not the drum in question, so the sound can then be ducked back down partially or completely to allow for more room for things that are actually being played.

(And before anyone says it, you do, in fact, have to compress drums. You also need to gate some things, and duck parts of the overhead response if you don't want a gigantic snarey mess dominating everything.)

Second, samples aren't cheating any more than reamping, amp sims, in-DAW processing, or recording devices more complex than single-track tape decks. What's more, you probably hear sampled drums in 99% of what you listen to, and only can detect a small part of it. The reason is that when a kit is sampled RIGHT, different attacks do give different samples, so an inconsistent hitter can still sound inconsistent and a consistent hitter still sound consistent. Sadly, most people are morons. Further, overheads and the snare (and often the kick) don't get along well. For this reason a lot of people have to use snare and kick pads so that they can actually get cymbals in the overhead at a reasonable volume without killing the listener with snare. 

Consider this, though... when you play your guitar through a distorted amp, you're benefiting from MASSIVE compression because of all the clipping your signal is going through. YOU don't have to be consistent so much as able to mute properly. Your drummer, however... 

As for live, have you EVER done the bulk of the work for a drumkit's sound on stage? That kick is dealing with tons of noise, a horrible floor, and usually a total idiot placing and EQing things. Plenty of drummers who can deliver live go triggers because it's the only way to have definition on even second-rate stages on such short notices as bands have. Plus, in a studio, drums can be dealt with more easily because of trial and error. Screw up a compressor live, though, and nobody's hearing the rest of the set. Not even the neighbors.

Finally, bands can 'lie' a lot of ways. The band lying is the problem, not the technique. You don't blame computers when a certain 'modern glam' band uses a computer to play half their parts for them, you don't blame noise gates when someone's stop-starts aren't tight enough, you don't blame microphones when a singer isn't loud enough. It's all hip and cool and trendy to hate triggers because you're a 'purist' or you think it's anti-cheating/pro-musician, but few people on guitar forums can be expected to know donkeycock about triggers. Blame the carpenter, not the tools.

Jeff


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## DaveCarter

You obviously know your stuff, but I still disagree on a few points. As it happens Im frequently at the desk for sound check usually every week, and I always sort out the drums. Its because of this I know that through proper EQ, mixing, compression, gating, panning etc you CAN get a kit sounding damn fine without triggers, it just takes time, so Im aware that trigs can be a faster option when you have limited time to set up.

As for 'blaming equipment', I dont think that the general rule applies. I hate singers who mime/autotune-live because they should dman well be able to perform properly. Similarly, I dislike the use of triggers and I suppose you could say 'purist', but its because I know that it can be done without triggers, which Id much rather see than feather-hits with trigs which Ive seen a lot of bands (usually smaller metal bands locally) do.

Something like a noise gate however, I think thats different. If the stops and starts arent tight because the gate isnt up high enough then yeah, Id blame the gate. Even the best players couldnt do perfect stops and starts at high gain without any gate because its just not possible, thats why you wont find any metal player who dont use gates (unless anyone knows of any who do, if you did Id be very suprised). So you use a gate because thats what you need to get the right sound. But having triggered samples for kicks isnt the ONLY way to pla fast double bass, which is why not everyone uses them.

At the end of the day its all a bit opinionated, no-one is really 'wrong' or 'right'. It was good to see some different opinions cropping up. Cheers guys


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## Oogadee Boogadee

kristallin said:


> The beauty of triggers is that you can switch sounds in your e-drum brain, no issue with ballads, you just change the sounds.



like, mid song? that's nuts. last thing i want to do as a drummer mid song, is push buttons for an upcoming clean passage.


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## JJ Rodriguez

Oogadee Boogadee said:


> like, mid song? that's nuts. last thing i want to do as a drummer mid song, is push buttons for an upcoming clean passage.



Could always use a MIDI control signal and set up a pad or something to hit. I'm pretty sure I can set something like that up on my TD-12 brain.


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## nordhauser06

chavhunter said:


> its basically cheating.


+1 to that. 
Learn to play.


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## JBroll

chavhunter said:


> You obviously know your stuff, but I still disagree on a few points. As it happens Im frequently at the desk for sound check usually every week, and I always sort out the drums. Its because of this I know that through proper EQ, mixing, compression, gating, panning etc you CAN get a kit sounding damn fine without triggers, it just takes time, so Im aware that trigs can be a faster option when you have limited time to set up.



CAN and WILL are rarely the same in live settings, and while I do agree that in general a natural sound can be done well, it's not always a possibility given time constraints or shit venues. Come check out the Red 7 in Austin sometime...



chavhunter said:


> As for 'blaming equipment', I dont think that the general rule applies. I hate singers who mime/autotune-live because they should dman well be able to perform properly. Similarly, I dislike the use of triggers and I suppose you could say 'purist', but its because I know that it can be done without triggers, which Id much rather see than feather-hits with trigs which Ive seen a lot of bands (usually smaller metal bands locally) do.



You didn't touch the guitar amp though. You're compressed to fuck and back through that high-gain amp head and cranked speakers, you don't get to judge others. How hard do you pick your strings? How consistent is *your* attack? And how loud are those pinch harmonics when they aren't squished and squeezed and dragged kicking and screaming out to the front by massive distortion? It looks like a double standard from someone who hasn't toured the shittiest of venues and faced new problems every day as a drum tech, and sounds like a double standard from someone who expects more from a pair of legs than even the most obnoxious of soccer coaches, and smells like a double standard from someone who doesn't play drums much... seriously, you can be consistent, we have women for when we want to be held to different sets of expectations.



chavhunter said:


> Something like a noise gate however, I think thats different. If the stops and starts arent tight because the gate isnt up high enough then yeah, Id blame the gate. Even the best players couldnt do perfect stops and starts at high gain without any gate because its just not possible, thats why you wont find any metal player who dont use gates (unless anyone knows of any who do, if you did Id be very suprised). So you use a gate because thats what you need to get the right sound. But having triggered samples for kicks isnt the ONLY way to pla fast double bass, which is why not everyone uses them.



Try going into a studio and seeing how much easier it is to use kick and snare pads to clear overheads up, or dealing with drummers who thwack snare mics... I'd like to agree, but sadly it seems that I live in a less happy place than you do as far as kick sounds.



Oogadee Boogadee said:


> like, mid song? that's nuts. last thing i want to do as a drummer mid song, is push buttons for an upcoming clean passage.



You can change samples midsong, and you don't need to fiddle around buttons... see, there are these nifty inventions called computers that can automate tons of things. All it takes is knowing how to either use them or find people who know how to use them.



nordhauser06 said:


> +1 to that.
> 
> If you're going to play 32n notes, learn to actually play them.



Apart from setting up multiple hits for one actual kickstroke, for fuck's sake you can't play things with triggers that you can't play without them. Yes, that first thing is cheating; no, that's not very often done. And until you all send out clean clips showing that you hit your strings as hard as I do, nobody gets to complain about hard and consistent hits from drummers and then turn around and use gainalicious guitar sounds.

Jeff


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## Desecrated

jeff, I do agree in somewhat with you, but please lighten up the tone a little, you don't have to be so god damm offensive in everything you write.


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## Durero

Jeff's right on 

Music is not a competitive sport, there are no rules to be broken and no such thing as cheating. Triggers are just another sound tool to be used and abused like all the other tools.

As Jeff has pointed out, you can lie in music by pretending to perform something you're not, as in lip-syncing, air-guitaring and just about every promotional music video which portrays musicians pretend-playing when they actually aren't.

If the goal of someone's performance is to impress others with their technique, and they're afraid people won't be impressed if they use triggers, then they can choose not to use them.

But if the priority is playing music instead of impressing people, then it's simply an aesthetic choice - if you like the sound pallet that triggers provide then use them, and if not then don't.



And Jeff's comment about double standards regarding drums vs. electric guitars is also right on imo (except for the stupid comment about women at the end  )


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## Zepp88

Desecrated said:


> jeff, I do agree in somewhat with you, but please lighten up the tone a little, you don't have to be so god damm offensive in everything you write.



I find it absolutely hillarious and entertaining  What makes it even better is that he's right. 

Getting live drums to sound perfect is a bitch.


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## neon_black88

Can someone kindly point me towards these supposed metal drummers who play upwards of 200bpm without triggers and sound good? Or as someone said, "better" than with triggers?


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## kristallin

Oogadee Boogadee said:


> like, mid song? that's nuts. last thing i want to do as a drummer mid song, is push buttons for an upcoming clean passage.



I always assigned two pads next to my hi-hat as patch up/patch down, simple MIDI program changes, reach over, smack the pad, and you advance down the chain. You could also have a footswitch next to the kick pedal, move the foot slightly and change it that way.



neon_black88 said:


> Can someone kindly point me towards these supposed metal drummers who play upwards of 200bpm without triggers and sound good? Or as someone said, "better" than with triggers?



They are like metal guitarists who play all their riffs only on a clean acoustic guitar - they don't exist.


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## Crucified

zimbloth said:


> Triggers are absolutely fucking crucial for metal in my opinion. If it's cheating, so are electric guitar amplifiers. I could list a thousand reasons why they're awesome, but I won't. I think the posters above have summed it up well enough.
> 
> Now, obviously if every venue we went to, we could be ensured the entire kit would be mic'd up with state of the art shit and then put in the hands of a competent engineer, maybe they wouldn't be necessary. But since we live in the real world, trigger modules allow my drummer to pre-mix things the way he wants, and all we need from the sound guy is to plug in the xlr cable and do some basic shit and he's done.
> 
> Triggers = my best friend.



truth


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## JBroll

I don't think 'offensive' really fits my intent. Sarcastic, yes. Mildly annoyed and sarcastic, probably. Offensive... I have not yet begun to offend!

Jeff


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## 7 Dying Trees

Desecrated said:


> jeff, I do agree in somewhat with you, but please lighten up the tone a little, you don't have to be so god damm offensive in everything you write.


Actually, i didn't see anything offensive, moreso hitting the nail on the head.


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## 7 Dying Trees

JBroll said:


> CAN and WILL are rarely the same in live settings, and while I do agree that in general a natural sound can be done well, it's not always a possibility given time constraints or shit venues. Come check out the Red 7 in Austin sometime...
> 
> 
> 
> You didn't touch the guitar amp though. You're compressed to fuck and back through that high-gain amp head and cranked speakers, you don't get to judge others. How hard do you pick your strings? How consistent is *your* attack? And how loud are those pinch harmonics when they aren't squished and squeezed and dragged kicking and screaming out to the front by massive distortion? It looks like a double standard from someone who hasn't toured the shittiest of venues and faced new problems every day as a drum tech, and sounds like a double standard from someone who expects more from a pair of legs than even the most obnoxious of soccer coaches, and smells like a double standard from someone who doesn't play drums much... seriously, you can be consistent, we have women for when we want to be held to different sets of expectations.
> 
> 
> 
> Try going into a studio and seeing how much easier it is to use kick and snare pads to clear overheads up, or dealing with drummers who thwack snare mics... I'd like to agree, but sadly it seems that I live in a less happy place than you do as far as kick sounds.
> 
> 
> 
> You can change samples midsong, and you don't need to fiddle around buttons... see, there are these nifty inventions called computers that can automate tons of things. All it takes is knowing how to either use them or find people who know how to use them.
> 
> 
> 
> Apart from setting up multiple hits for one actual kickstroke, for fuck's sake you can't play things with triggers that you can't play without them. Yes, that first thing is cheating; no, that's not very often done. And until you all send out clean clips showing that you hit your strings as hard as I do, nobody gets to complain about hard and consistent hits from drummers and then turn around and use gainalicious guitar sounds.
> 
> Jeff


+1



chavhunter said:


> Something like a noise gate however, I think thats different. If the stops and starts arent tight because the gate isnt up high enough then yeah, Id blame the gate. Even the best players couldnt do perfect stops and starts at high gain without any gate because its just not possible, thats why you wont find any metal player who dont use gates (unless anyone knows of any who do, if you did Id be very suprised). So you use a gate because thats what you need to get the right sound. But having triggered samples for kicks isnt the ONLY way to pla fast double bass, which is why not everyone uses them.


Depends how fast the stops and starts are, and how much gain you use, but, having done enough shows with just a guitar and an amp and no gate, if you're fast enough with the volume pot, or a killswitch, then you don't need a gate. A gate is nice, but, you should be able to do it without it.

However, if you have so much gain that the amp instantaneously feeds back, well, then you should be klearning to play with the gain just above crunch, and let the main saturation come from how hard you pick rather than have the gain compensate for not picking very hard.

Thye only reason to have a gate is to get rid of amp noise, and as a nicety that helps stacato, but otherwise, you can actually mute fast enough for staccato riffing to be honest, if you practice.


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## Nick

neon_black88 said:


> Can someone kindly point me towards these supposed metal drummers who play upwards of 200bpm without triggers and sound good? Or as someone said, "better" than with triggers?



im pretty keen to hear who these guys are aswell

George Kollias who's probably my favourite drummer (i dont play drums btw)

did an interview where he said triggers are essential for metal drummers. if you dont use them and you are playing the type of stuff we do (Nile) how can you expect your guitarists to hear the kick live and keep a beat?

I agree with everything Jbroll said and i also agree that music isnt something you can 'cheat' at. if you like the sound of it its cool whether you typed it into a sound module or played it by hand.



7 Dying Trees said:


> Thye only reason to have a gate is to get rid of amp noise, and as a nicety that helps stacato, but otherwise, you can actually mute fast enough for staccato riffing to be honest, if you practice.





if youv got a decent amp, its set up right and your pickups arent fucked for want of a better word. You really shouldnt have issues with feedback unless you are getting some sort of crazy interferance or something.


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## DaveCarter

Nick said:


> ...and i also agree that music isnt something you can 'cheat' at.



so running auto-tune live isnt cheating? or paying professional songwriters to write song for you? or miming on stage? they're all things i count as cheating and wouldnt be part of any band that did any of them.

new thoughts on triggers: ive decided i dont exactly hate triggers, more that i dislike the sound of pure triggers (less/no mix) in comparison to a PROPERLY mic'd-up bass drum, but I can understand the convenience of triggers since proper sound check time and P.A. equipment isnt always available.


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## JBroll

Gaah! Sound replacement! You don't hear triggers! I know you're a guitarist, but that doesn't mean you can't know *anything* about drums...

EDIT: Regarding Nick's post...

Music can be about performance, songwriting, and a gazillion other things. If your songs are what you want heard, autotune simply allows them to be performed better and if it suits the song it's understandable. If your performance is to be what you're showing off, playing others' songs is acceptable. It's like how women dress when they're out 'marketing'... if their ass is great but they don't like their tits, they 'reconfigure' their upper half to make it look more prominent while trying to draw attention to the waist and down. It's about figuring out what's important, and making sure what's not important doesn't detract from it.

END EDIT

Jeff


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## Oogadee Boogadee

jeezus. could we split hairs anymore? JBroll - all your points are good, and right. I'm actually happy to see somebody address exactly how hard being a decent drummer is (i find it by FAR harder than playing guitar... but I can only speak for myself of course). 

Anyway, sure, you're hearing 'sound replacement'. But 99% of people out there refer to the drumbrain sounds that are entering their ears as "triggers". It's much easier to say that, rather than seek and pronounce the exact terminology, like, "I hate the soundwaves that are coming from that drummers drumbrain, which is being activated by his triggered acoustic drums, and are too dominant in his soundreplacement-wave/acoustic tone mix ratio". I'm sure we all know that little wired-up piezo magnets aren't bouncing off our ear drums.


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## JBroll

Try explaining to some arrogant 'purist' wannabe that triggers do more than replace sound while you're trying to help set up a rig and you'll see why I'm trying to clear that up. It's not to be an asshole, as I stated in my first post. 

Try "I hate DiMarzios because distortion is for n00bs..."

Jeff


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## Cancer

I hate triggers, get a REAL electronic kit if you're going to do that.....


(Just read the rest of the posts)....

Jeff, thank you. You posts have been on the back of my mind for some time now, it's nice to see it in print, and with some clarity. To it I'd like to add the following....

These same type of arguments also appeared when the first electric guitars came about, when players were first experimenting with distortion. You had acoustic guys going "oh well , thats cheating, try doing without sustain". Well, we can see where that argument got them, as I am quite thankful that the Hendrixes, Becks, and Van Halens of the world didn't listen. As with the guitar, blending an old instrument with new technologies gave us new forms of music, the same happened when the piano was upgraded to a synthesizer, and the same thing will happen to drums.

I've said it here many times, and I'll keep doing so until someone listens. The first person (especially in metal) who really uses the potential of an electronic kit (excellent note definition, changeable kits on the fly, the ability to control to other gear), the first person who allows themselves to filter themselves (and thus create) through a machine, will go down in history. They will be the Eddie Van Halen of a new age in rock/metal drumming, and like Eddie V, cause ripples in the music industry that will redefine it for decades. My gut is, it'll happen REALSOONNOW, because ultimately, the only people who even BOTHER with this question of "is it cheating or isn't it??" are other musicians. Musicians who have so forgotten how to be fans that they can only enjoy music as some sort of perverse sporting event. Meanwhile, real music fans are too busy being taken away by new music to care.


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## JJ Rodriguez

I think you skipped the bit about mixing acoustic and the triggered samples


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## Cancer

JJ Rodriguez said:


> I think you skipped the bit about mixing acoustic and the triggered samples




This, to me, is more "cheating" than using a PURELY electronic kit. It's also analogious (spelling?!?!??) to putting a Invader pickup in your Taylor dreadnought. Most musicians can (more or less) know when a drummer is using triggers (especially if its on a partial kit) but the rest of the audience doesn't they just go "wow, how is he getting that sound from his bass drum" and that's if they even care at all......


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## JBroll

Now, can you tell anything at all in the studio? H

How many 'acoustic' sounds have really been all that great, and who had them?

How is one more 'cheating' than the other, and why is it cheating at all?

Jeff


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## newamerikangospel

Everyone is shitting all over themselves with sound replacement in todays recording. Sound replaced=audio triggering. Record, gate, drumagog and then you have a midi map of what you just played, which is exactly what a good set of electronic pads/triggers do.

Most sound replacement samples are from real kits.

Erik Ruetan sampled Derrik's actual kick drum for the samples.

You can hate the idea of triggering, but I think it is a good example of letting technology with us (some people let it work for them though).


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## bostjan

The thing with drum triggering being compared with lip synch is that the average person does not go to a concert and get pissed that the drummer is using triggers.

I truly don't see how it could be described as "cheating."

I'm a terrible drummer, though, so what do I know?


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## JJ Rodriguez

Cancer said:


> This, to me, is more "cheating" than using a PURELY electronic kit. It's also analogious (spelling?!?!??) to putting a Invader pickup in your Taylor dreadnought. Most musicians can (more or less) know when a drummer is using triggers (especially if its on a partial kit) but the rest of the audience doesn't they just go "wow, how is he getting that sound from his bass drum" and that's if they even care at all......



Then throw away your Pod XT, buy a Marshall, plug into the clean channel, and if you want distortion, turn it up to 11 and pick as hard as you can.

EDIT: Just went back and read your ninja edited post.

If using triggers is cheating so much, I challenge ANY guitarist to sit down, and play anything on a triggered kit. When you realize that you STILL can't play drums, then maybe you'll think less of the whole "cheating" thing. You STILL have to play drums, and when the clock is ticking in the studio, and you can replace a few hits with a decent sounding sample instead of paying a shit ton of money to go back and lay down the entire track again, why not? Live, instead of spending a retarded amount of time micing everything for the perfect sound, and with an incompetent sound guy, why not just pass him a cable to plug into the sound board? It's a TOOL, like anything else. If you want to be a purist, go right ahead, but a lot of kick ass bands use them, and I don't think any less of a drummer for using them, unless you watch them and it's quite obvious they're just using them to twitch out blast beats at a billion bpm, which isn't what all drummers use them for.

Edit again: And even if they ARE using it to twitch out a million notes per minute, look at The Berzerker, it just fits since it's SUPPOSED to be electronic sounding. It's music, and if it works in that band why not? And are you using modelling on your Pod? It's cheating that you didn't go out and buy the tube amps you're using [/asshole]


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## neon_black88

Lets make a list of drummers that cheat:

Anyone who had played in necrophagist
Thomas Haake
Derrek Roddy
Gene Hoglan
Danny Carrey
Tim Yeung
George Kollias
x1000

Man no wonder these guys are so ill-regarded in the drumming community, these noobs should learn2play. Bloody cheating sonsofbitches lets see how they fair on a "real" kit.


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## JJ Rodriguez

neon_black88 said:


> Lets make a list of drummers that cheat:
> 
> Anyone who had played in necrophagist
> Thomas Haake
> Derrek Roddy
> Gene Hoglan
> Danny Carrey
> Tim Yeung
> George Kollias
> x1000
> 
> Man no wonder these guys are so ill-regarded in the drumming community, these noobs should learn2play. Bloody cheating sonsofbitches lets see how they fair on a "real" kit.


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## DaveCarter

Just coz they use triggered kicks doesnt mean that they are 'cheating' (feater hits), i was saying that SOME drummer do, and that was my main issue, along with the actual sound of some of them (ok, the sound generated by the drum brain). 

As for drummers that dont use triggers, Im 99% sure that these guys dont:

Mike Portnoy
Jason Bittner
Chris Adler
Dave Lombardo

I might not be a great drummer (though I do play, have played drums for a couple of bands and some sessions) but Im fairly sure these guys are equally "ill-regarded in the drumming community, learn2play etc etc". Plus guys ive worked with in bands and at university, some of which were seriously anti-triggers.


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## JJ Rodriguez

Those guys don't play like 250 bpm though. Compare the bands those guys play in to extreme metal.


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## Ror3h

chavhunter said:


> Just coz they use triggered kicks doesnt mean that they are 'cheating' (feater hits), i was saying that SOME drummer do, and that was my main issue, along with the actual sound of some of them (ok, the sound generated by the drum brain).
> 
> As for drummers that dont use triggers, Im 99% sure that these guys dont:
> 
> Mike Portnoy
> Jason Bittner
> Chris Adler
> Dave Lombardo
> 
> I might not be a great drummer (though I do play, have played drums for a couple of bands and some sessions) but Im fairly sure these guys are equally "ill-regarded in the drumming community, learn2play etc etc". Plus guys ive worked with in bands and at university, some of which were seriously anti-triggers.



Maybe not live, but in the studio I'm pretty sure all those drummers have had their kicks at least soundreplaced, and in the case of Bittner and Adler, maybe even most of the kit.



At the end of the day though, it's not the triggers people hate, it's bad drummers.


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## DaveCarter

lol true. ive done a hell of a lot more looking in to it and it seems all the 'extreme metal' drummers do use triggers, and I can see that if you're constantly playing double bass at 240bpm+ then you're gonna need triggered kicks unless you're lucky with the sound engineer/soundcheck. does this really apply with snare though? surely with different snares you have a hell of a lot more flexibility in what sound you get i.e. decay. is triggered snare as cmmon as triggered kicks?


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## JJ Rodriguez

chavhunter said:


> lol true. ive done a hell of a lot more looking in to it and it seems all the 'extreme metal' drummers do use triggers, and I can see that if you're constantly playing double bass at 240bpm+ then you're gonna need triggered kicks unless you're lucky with the sound engineer/soundcheck. does this really apply with snare though? surely with different snares you have a hell of a lot more flexibility in what sound you get i.e. decay. is triggered snare as cmmon as triggered kicks?



Not quite as common I don't think, but I'd say almost probably with blast beats, and especially more now with more guys doing gravity blasts.


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## Oogadee Boogadee

This topic was (more like 'is always') discussed on roddy forums a couple of years ago; Derek basically shed some light on the no-so-often-talked-about history of this method.... [according to derek (and I believe him)] sound replacement has been going on for a looong time. He cited Hoglans kicks on the Death albums - kicks all replaced with samples. Of course, he played the beats... but the acoustic playing was replaced with acoustic samples.


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## stuh84

Didn't Portnoy use a triggered snare on Awake? I know the producer had a hand in it at the time, but still, he has used them


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## bostjan

I don't know for sure, and I cannot prove anything, but I'd be willing to bet that every big name drummer since 1990 has used triggers in the studio. It'd be kind of  not to do so these days.

The engineer's job in the studio is to make the album sound as clean as possible without spending too much money. Try telling a project manager to build a bridge without using any power tools and see what kind of bridge you end up with.


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## stuh84

The Answer Lies Within

There we go, Images and Words, apparently the entire kit was pretty much replaced, and he's using some snare doubing on Systematic Chaos too. Portnoy isn't bereft of sound replacement, so I guess thats another on the list that does use them.


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## kristallin

chavhunter said:


> Just coz they use triggered kicks doesnt mean that they are 'cheating' (feater hits), i was saying that SOME drummer do, and that was my main issue, along with the actual sound of some of them (ok, the sound generated by the drum brain).
> 
> As for drummers that dont use triggers, Im 99% sure that these guys dont:
> 
> Mike Portnoy
> Jason Bittner
> Chris Adler
> Dave Lombardo
> 
> I might not be a great drummer (though I do play, have played drums for a couple of bands and some sessions) but Im fairly sure these guys are equally "ill-regarded in the drumming community, learn2play etc etc". Plus guys ive worked with in bands and at university, some of which were seriously anti-triggers.



I've done backline for all four of those drummers you mention, and all four of them use triggers in some form or another.


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## DaveCarter

All with triggered kicks? Thats suprising, as Ive found people on plenty of forums arguing that those drummers didnt use any kind of triggering. Apparently so! Cheers for that


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## JBroll

chavhunter said:


> Just coz they use triggered kicks doesnt mean that they are 'cheating' (feater hits), i was saying that SOME drummer do, and that was my main issue, along with the actual sound of some of them (ok, the sound generated by the drum brain).
> 
> As for drummers that dont use triggers, Im 99% sure that these guys dont:
> 
> Mike Portnoy
> Jason Bittner
> Chris Adler
> Dave Lombardo
> 
> I might not be a great drummer (though I do play, have played drums for a couple of bands and some sessions) but Im fairly sure these guys are equally "ill-regarded in the drumming community, learn2play etc etc". Plus guys ive worked with in bands and at university, some of which were seriously anti-triggers.



Yeah, you're batting .000 there. On top of that, just looking at the vast majority of audio engineers in metal you get a nice list that uses triggers, if not for sound replacement then for other uses... 

Jeff


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## kristallin

chavhunter said:


> All with triggered kicks? Thats suprising, as Ive found people on plenty of forums arguing that those drummers didnt use any kind of triggering. Apparently so! Cheers for that



The secret behind the sound of about 99% of all touring bands out there is the DDrum 3 brain. It's an ill-kept secret in pro drumming circles, and the reason why those brains are rare and, when you do find one, still in the $2500+ range, even though it's 15 year old technology.


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## bulb

if anything i would say that because triggers allow such present and consistant and fast attack, that they are almost harder to play on, sure you can play fast double bass without hitting hard, but they will be way more revealing than natural drums because of the way your kick drums will cut through.
its a stamina issue really, not all drummers have the ability to play a whole 250 bpm set at full velocity with mikes, its just inhuman to expect that, and triggers have shaped the sound of the extreme metal genre and allowed for that music to exist.


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## DaveCarter

Bulb speaks, I listen!! Im guessing Mr. Orb triggers his kit?



> On top of that, just looking at the vast majority of audio engineers in metal you get a nice list that uses triggers, if not for sound replacement then for other uses...



What other uses of triggers are there? :s


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## JBroll

Jesus God, did you not read any of my other posts at all?

Opening gates - allows a track to be active only a given time after a drum has only been hit - say you have tom mics going bonkers because they're surrounded by the snare and cymbals, and you want to only have them active when the toms are in use... triggers can open gates.

Adjusting plugin/effect parameters and ducking or raising any volumes temporarily - same situation - perhaps you don't want to kill the toms, but ducking them when the snare is hit is necessary... 

Activating other media onstage... if you want a sequence of lights to go off at a certain time, and you know exactly how many snare hits (or whatever) there should be, you can have them set off automatically after a given number of trigger 'clicks' and not have to worry about playing anything differently. Or perhaps you want to change sounds when the trigger registers soft hits, to integrate a wide range of sounds more easily... set a threshold and when the intensity drops there's a reliable way of having a different sound with a different style.

Go back and read what I said earlier... it doesn't seem that you have yet. I posted for a reason. Asking a question and not following through with a discussion, only to come back later and show off ignorance of what happened in your own bloody thread, is very annoying.

Jeff


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## Nick

chavhunter said:


> lol true. ive done a hell of a lot more looking in to it and it seems all the 'extreme metal' drummers do use triggers, and I can see that if you're constantly playing double bass at 240bpm+ then you're gonna need triggered kicks unless you're lucky with the sound engineer/soundcheck. does this really apply with snare though? surely with different snares you have a hell of a lot more flexibility in what sound you get i.e. decay. is triggered snare as cmmon as triggered kicks?




this is just one example but to be fair you dont seem to actually know much about drumming on the whole. I think you based your origional post on a pretty narrow base of musical styles.

saying 'iv done more looking into it' about extreme metal drumming needing triggers is pretty daft as the use of triggers in drumming should instantly make you think of extreme metal drumming because thats where its most common?!?!


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## JBroll

He also hasn't looked into this thread very well, apparently.

Jeff


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## Scarpie

i have always been fond of triggers. before i learned to play any instruent, i thought you could buy a drumset and have it sound like lars ulrichs drum set right there in your bedroom. (not claiming ulrich's uses triggers or not,, just saying) but i honestly am more impressed with the sound of the modules. cause ray herrera always had a budget sounding kick drum to me taste, where as vinnie paul always had a thick ass kick sound. so it depends on what is sampling the sounds. at least for me.


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## DaveCarter

Nick said:


> this is just one example but to be fair you dont seem to actually know much about drumming on the whole. I think you based your origional post on a pretty narrow base of musical styles.


 
well yeah, drumming isnt my main instrument and when i do play its more groove based as I dont have the time/patience/dedication to learn death metal drumming. this is why i was asking for other people's opinions on the subject...



Nick said:


> saying 'iv done more looking into it' about extreme metal drumming needing triggers is pretty daft as the use of triggers in drumming should instantly make you think of extreme metal drumming because thats where its most common?!?!



...though apparently i should have known this already without asking any questions 


And Jeff yes I did read your reply about gating, parameters, but i thought that still came under sound replacement as its still the idea of having a sample played. unless you mean you have JUST the signal from the mics being gated in response to the triggers...? thinking about that, that's a really clever way of using triggers, and i can totally see why guys like portnoy would use triggers. basically when i started the thread i thought 'triggers' meant sound replacement with samples on the kicks, as that was the ONLY context in which id heard people mention triggers. but now that i understand about triggers being able to gate the signal from tom mics (this is what you mean, right?) etc., i can totally respect what you said earlier about "you dont dislike triggers, you dislike sound replacement". so do a lot of drummers outside of metal use triggers in this way? thanks for you help btw.


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## stuh84

chavhunter said:


> ...though apparently i should have known this already without asking any questions



Thats what Googles for 

Just being a dick, ignore me, I couldn't help it


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## DaveCarter

I did use google, and most of what I found was lots of chat forum with people arguing for and against triggers, but no-one mentioning anything apart from sound replacement on the kicks (and sometimes snare). Now I know about the toms/cymbals gating idea I think triggers are awesome!! Anything that can stop one thing bleeding into another thing's mic is well worth doing in my opinion.


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## JJ Rodriguez

I personally use triggers to make every drum I hit sound like I'm hitting a baby with a hammer, but different sized babies.


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## JBroll

chavhunter said:


> And Jeff yes I did read your reply about gating, parameters, but i thought that still came under sound replacement as its still the idea of having a sample played. unless you mean you have JUST the signal from the mics being gated in response to the triggers...? thinking about that, that's a really clever way of using triggers, and i can totally see why guys like portnoy would use triggers. basically when i started the thread i thought 'triggers' meant sound replacement with samples on the kicks, as that was the ONLY context in which id heard people mention triggers. but now that i understand about triggers being able to gate the signal from tom mics (this is what you mean, right?) etc., i can totally respect what you said earlier about "you dont dislike triggers, you dislike sound replacement". so do a lot of drummers outside of metal use triggers in this way? thanks for you help btw.



I know of a lot of people who use triggers for gates, for parameter adjustments, et cetera... in fact, the only people I know who actively refuse to use triggers are completely oblivious to what they actually are.

Basically, the 'normal' way a gate works is by waiting for a signal's volume to increase past a given threshold, then opening (letting sound through), and then closing after a given time period has passed, the signal has gone below some threshold, or a time period after the signal has gone below some threshold. This creates problems for analog circuits that need to either 'look ahead' somehow (which is never perfect) or just accept the need to lose a few milliseconds or so from the front of the signal. Further, if other things in the area are loud - like snares in tom mics, or kick in the snare's mics - the gate settings are very hard to get right, if usability is even possible... but when a trigger is used, it can be set back a few milliseconds in the DAW, or the audio can be shifted forward slightly, and then the trigger's signal used to open the gate instead of relying on the miced signal to do so, and then after the signal from the hit is gone the gate closes back up. In no way is a sample brought into the picture, it's just like having a 'scout' (trigger noise) look outside city walls (noise gate) to determine when to open the gigantic doors for people who should be allowed to enter. This does not make the kit any less natural... if anything, it makes gating easier, more precise, and more faithful to the original sound.

It can also be used to tell things like compressors to duck a signal, or adjust EQ stages, or other things along those lines. 

Jeff


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## DaveCarter

JBroll said:


> I know of a lot of people who use triggers for gates, for parameter adjustments, et cetera... in fact, the only people I know who actively refuse to use triggers are completely oblivious to what they actually are.
> 
> Basically, the 'normal' way a gate works is by waiting for a signal's volume to increase past a given threshold, then opening (letting sound through), and then closing after a given time period has passed, the signal has gone below some threshold, or a time period after the signal has gone below some threshold. This creates problems for analog circuits that need to either 'look ahead' somehow (which is never perfect) or just accept the need to lose a few milliseconds or so from the front of the signal. Further, if other things in the area are loud - like snares in tom mics, or kick in the snare's mics - the gate settings are very hard to get right, if usability is even possible... but when a trigger is used, it can be set back a few milliseconds in the DAW, or the audio can be shifted forward slightly, and then the trigger's signal used to open the gate instead of relying on the miced signal to do so, and then after the signal from the hit is gone the gate closes back up. In no way is a sample brought into the picture, it's just like having a 'scout' (trigger noise) look outside city walls (noise gate) to determine when to open the gigantic doors for people who should be allowed to enter. This does not make the kit any less natural... if anything, it makes gating easier, more precise, and more faithful to the original sound.
> 
> It can also be used to tell things like compressors to duck a signal, or adjust EQ stages, or other things along those lines.
> 
> Jeff



thats awesome, im totally for triggers now that i actually know what they're capable of. cheers for helping me out with that! i'll be sure to correct anyone else i hear slating triggers who doesnt have all their facts straight.


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## MerlinTKD

Well... I don't hate triggers... but I understand why some folks do.

It's exactly the same as when drum machines came on the scene in the 80's; folks used them to replace the sound of real drums (and real drummers), and it sounded like absolute ass. After a number of years, as the technology got better, and sounds got better, electronically produced drums became incorporated into the tool kit, as it were.

Same thing with triggers. I don't hate triggers... but I _do_ detest what a lot of drummers (or perhaps producers/engineers) do with them. It's accepted that the soulless, lifeless sound of the early drum machines were horrible even granted that the crap was primarily due to lack of technology and lack of creativity in using them. Again, same with triggers: I don't want to hear 16th and 32nd notes from the bass drum with each exactly the same, no variation, no _life_. Imperfection is what brings perfection. Unimaginative use of triggers and sound sources, as if the tech will make everything better, will always fail.

Now, on the other hand... I was reading Tomas Haake's interview in Modern Drummer just today, and it got me to thinking of the incredible possibilities of triggers; with the right programming, you can make your kit sound like _anything_; better yet, you can _blend_ any sound in _with_ the sound of your kit!

In fact, Morgan Rose does this already live, if in a limited way; it's exactly what Tipton and Downing did on Turbo with their midi'd guitars, back in the day. I remember Akira Jimbo doing something like that about 10 years ago too, now that I think about it, triggering melodies via the drums and cymbals, creating a solo piece that had both melody and rhythm.

So, triggers aren't evil... but some of the people that use them are.


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## DaveCarter

exactly, the responses here made me realise that i dont dislike triggers, i just dislike what some people do with them.


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## 7 Dying Trees

Actually, the best way to have a guitar analogy is to record a DI signal of your guitar, and then see how much guitarists rely on high gain amps compressing their playing for them, it's an eye opener, it really is!


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## JBroll

Exactly what I was saying earlier. Consistent, my ass.

Jeff


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## eaeolian

7 Dying Trees said:


> Actually, the best way to have a guitar analogy is to record a DI signal of your guitar, and then see how much guitarists rely on high gain amps compressing their playing for them, it's an eye opener, it really is!



Indeed. One of the reasons I practice without an amp is because of an eye-opening experience with that many years ago. Playing through a high-gain amp is much, much easier. 

(There's a whole thread to be had here about my opinion on one of the reasons a lot of people hate Mesas is that they don't completely destroy the dynamics of your playing while giving you a crapload of preamp clipping, but that's off this topic.)

Truth be told, the physical aspect of being a Roddy-esque drummer is completely insane. I don't bag on anyone who plays that fast consistently and replaces sounds (especially kick drums, which need the bejeezus smashed out of them to really sound like more than a wet fish being slapped on a piece of paper), because it's an insane physical achievement to drum that fast in the first place with any sort of consistency.

As JBroll does mention repeatedly, there's a lot you can do with the technology other than simple sound replacement - but replacement is what people are bitching about. You know what? I'll bet you can't name a metal disc that doesn't sound like total ass (and even a huge number that do) that does not have at least the kicks replaced, if not the kicks and snare or the whole kit. Drum sounds are *hard* to get right in the studio, and the price of those tones generally exceeds the meager budgets of metal bands. Hell, even Nashville artists are replacing with samples (at least in the live area, which I've seen personally) because it saves money, and the technology is there to do it with destroying the performance.


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## MerlinTKD

eaeolian said:


> ...and the technology is there to do it with*out* destroying the performance.



I'm assuming that's what you meant. 


I like the comparison to guitar amps... it really is the same thing (whereas mic'ing drums is like mic'ing an acoustic guitar). I agree that anyone who can play that fast needs to be recognized for that achievement, but guitarists know well that playing fast is a lot different than playing fast _well_. Just like the amps and setups eaeolian was mentioning, triggers make things easy, and make it easy to be sloppy and lazy.

Kick drums do _NOT_ have to sound like a wet fish, played softly; if they do,it's because someone (be it the drummer, or an engineer) doesn't know how to select drums, heads, and/or how to tune and muffle. It's exactly the same as a guitar: if it sounds like crap acoustically, you might be able to cover it up with technology, but if it sounds _good_ acoustically, it's going to sound _awesome_ with tech. Can you imagine going in to record a guitar part without intonating your guitar, and just tuning it _close_? Of course not... but so many drummers do, and so many people encourage them to because learning how to do it right is "too hard." (No digs at present company intended )

It's really not _that_ hard to get a good drum sound, it just takes practice and experience ( and money, ike everything else in life ). If a drummer isn't willing to take the time to try and figure out (or learn) what's going to make his or her drums sound the best, I don't have much use for them.

Same goes all around... if a musician can't play acoustically, at low volume, as well as they can with all the gear, they need to take the time to learn, or hang it up and leave room for _real_ musicians. 


All that being said... meant to mention before: Jbroll, I hadn't heard of using triggers silently the way you mentioned, I _love_ that idea! I'll remember that trick!


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## JBroll

The only really good 'natural' albums I've heard (that I know of) came out of Tue Madsen's place, Sneap might have done a few without (he tends to sample the band's drums if I'm not mistaken), but it's no fun to have to deal with that stuff. Noone I play things for tends to think Akercocke has all-sampled kick, but then they see the pair of kick pads on the making-of...

Jeff


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## Oogadee Boogadee

MerlinTKD said:


> Kick drums do _NOT_ have to sound like a wet fish, played softly; if they do,it's because someone (be it the drummer, or an engineer) doesn't know how to select drums, heads, and/or how to tune and muffle.
> 
> It's really not _that_ hard to get a good drum sound, it just takes practice and experience ( and money, ike everything else in life ). If a drummer isn't willing to take the time to try and figure out (or learn) what's going to make his or her drums sound the best, I don't have much use for them.



don't dismiss too quickly.... 

while it should always be the goal to extract the fullest rich tone possible from a drum, there's always the balance.....

sound vs playability

do a medium tempo but fast drum roll with your feet... hard hits. sounds good. now do one as fast as you can. did you strokes get much smaller? Did you have to exert a little more muscular force to initiate things, since you had a smaller sweep to gather the momentum necessary to get the same loud tone as before? Can you keep that up for a whole song? Would you tune the drum a little tighter to increase rebound, and sacrifice tone a little bit, so that you can continue the tempo w/o tensing up and tiring out, since the song actually does call for this drum drum roll?

That's probably one of the major dilemmas with instruments. Not always does the best set-up for tone = the best set-up for playability. String action, string gauge, 2-ply vs single ply heads, etc etc. I'm sure you knew all this from guitar / amp set-ups already; however, remember to apply the logic to other instruments as well.

btw, Arsis' Darren Cesca blew me away a month ago. his drums sounded huge, and it was a rickety piece of shit. with that, and seeing their blistering non-stop of set of easly 240/250+ bpm music, the use of triggers was obvious. he was so tight, precise, and relentless, that you'd have to tune for max playability and not sound, and the strokes would have to be smaller (a beater is only going to swing back so fast.... so less distance = less turn-around time).....

i chatted with him after their set... and he proceeded to blast beat for be while i watched behind the kit. no triggers (the PA was off). Small strokes, crappy acoustic sound, super fast, super precise. Just what the songs call for. A phat low-tuned kit wouldn't let him do that for a whole song, let alone a whole night. And as already stated by others... if he was twitching away for me behind the kit, all crappy and uneven-like, the triggers would have soooo exposed that, it would have been laughable. He's amazing. 

if anybody wants to rant, kill the guitar players that are writing these insanely fast songs, thinking these super-hero drummers live on every block, and thinking that these performances can be achieved on a loosely-tuned cannonshell kit.

/tangent.


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## JBroll

I'm still waiting on a guitarist to post clean DI tracks from one of his progressive technical blackened brutal death masterpieces...

Jef


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## Ancestor

In a perfect world, the kicks would be miked. But the reality is that triggers eliminate a lot of potential problems. It's a quick way to get a good solid sound.

It's the same as a going direct from a modeling environment versus miking a cab.


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## Oogadee Boogadee

that's a incomplete statement. You shoulda said.....



Ancestor said:


> In a perfect world, the kicks (,properly tuned by a competant tech who can achieve the best tuning (a combo of pitch, attack, decay, volume, etc) for the band's music) would be miked (and eq'd... properly, by a competant soundman) (and played by a super human drummer who doesn't depend on batter head playabiltiy) (and greatly appreciated by gracious folks in the audience)


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## skinhead

Live is sometimes difficult to get a cool drum sound, and with the help of triggers, you can achieve better tones on the bass and the snare. You need cool tones and a nice year also, cause if you set it wrong, its the same shit.


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## JBroll

And even after another page and a half, something very important is still missed...

Has it crossed anyone's mind that the song is still somewhat important in this whole thing? Perhaps maybe the 'triggered' sound suits the music? What happens if maybe a 'live, natural, accurate, warts-and-all, inhuman, cold, technical, CHEATING' performance actually fits and gives a better representation of the song? Is that a possibility? Is there any remote possibility that self-righteous, elitist, borderline-Luddite judgmental bullshit just doesn't apply everywhere, and that maybe it's possible to create something without technique being the most important thing? 

Maybe I'm just a little sick of musicianship, maybe actually hearing a great fucking concert screwed my head over the little extra bit necessary to start venting, maybe the Great Dice on High have rolled a wakeup call and chosen me to start calling bullshit on this kind of thread... I don't know. But I guess that if being subtle and expecting people to read between the lines doesn't work, I should let loose and put everything out on the table.

Not everyone needs to be the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to expect that. Devin Townsend programmed the Ziltoid drums... so the fuck what? You guitarists get a quarter of a billion takes to record something so compressed and squished that it doesn't fucking matter how consistent you are in your picking, and it's never the guitarist who turns the gain knob on the amp down first. Vocalists are put through a heavy compressor, bassists get squashed into half a corner if they're lucky, and recorded drums are beat to hell as it is. Deal with it. It's the sound that suits the music. 

If you think you know better, do better... but at the end of the day the song will be important. Heavier, more brutal, grimmer sounding shit will always be around, with kicks so vicious the best of today's samples will sound like slapping fish or whatthefuckever. If the sound doesn't suit the song, like a natural drumkit might very well not, it's only going to suck later on, no matter how pious and devoted you were to representing the performance. 

Maybe, instead of bitching about how this and that is cheating or lying or whatever, different sounds and techniques can be seen as that and not necessarily half-assed ripoffs of other things? With all the whining about digital/SS amps and triggers and voice synths and this-and-that has nobody seen that maybe different things have different places, and that they wouldn't exist with any popularity if they didn't have very good uses somewhere? 

I'm just waiting for drummers to come in and tell guitarists how to dial their amps... 
"No, no, Metallica used these Mesas, you have to use them too!" 

"Zakk Wylde plays LPs, quit bitching and solo..." "

"Why the fuck do you have seven strings? What the fuck are you, a Korn ripoff or something?"

If you don't want drummers killing your image of what you're trying to create by fucking with things they don't understand, show them the same courtesy.

Jeff


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## bostjan

Maybe we should all go back to playing unmic'ed acoustic guitars. Then we'd be wishing drummers would just play electronic kits so that we could still be heard.


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## JBroll

If it sounds good, do it.

Jeff


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## kristallin

JBroll said:


> If it sounds good, do it.
> 
> Jeff



A-fucking-men!


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## MerlinTKD

Er, dude... I *am* a drummer. For 20 years now. A gigging musician for half that time. My opinions are coming from personal experience, not BS based on preconceived notions.

My opinions on _guitar_ stuff is, but not drums and drumming. 


Having said that, I'm in full agreement that the song determines the sound. I seem to hear so many bands and recordings that _don't_ follow that logic, and use sounds and techniques just because it's the current rage, because, as you said, so-and-so use them so you HAVE to. 

While I love the sound of acoustic drums, I'm no anti-technologist. Trent Reznor uses all sorts of replacement sounds for rhythm, no one can say it would sound better with an acoustic kit instead. On the other hand, I always thought Burton Bell's voice was too organic for the industrial guitar and drum sound of Fear Factory (just an example using my opinion). Scott Rockenfield's drums still sound perfect on Queensryche's Rage for Order, I'd love to know how they were recorded.

I've been using a Toneport GX to write and record, using a Zendrum and Alesis D4 for drums, so I obviously have no problem with digital sound sources. When my band Kavish recorded, our guitarist (who had always used a digital system) set it aside and started using pedals and an amp - it made a huuuge difference. The right tool for right job. I just can't stand all the folks using the same tool, over and over, whether it's appropriate or not.

I don't think the ubiquitous use of triggers is cheating; I do think they're overused and allow too many drummers to use speed and technique as a replacement for creativity. But then, that problem isn't restricted to drummers. 


One thing I've never understood... for those drummers who use triggered sounds exclusively, why use acoustic drums at all? The latest pads I've seen have great cushion and rebound, including kicks... a person could make a killer looking kit with some of the current electronic setups. So... I wonder why not?


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## kristallin

MerlinTKD said:


> Scott Rockenfield's drums still sound perfect on Queensryche's Rage for Order, I'd love to know how they were recorded.



Drums were miked up, the signal split and sent to a PA rig set up in a concrete-floored warehouse, the ambient sound was mic'ed and mixed with the close-mic'ed sounds - pretty much standard production for 80s rock productions. 

BTW, on the subject of sound replacement - Steely Dan were pioneers in this field on their late 70s early 80s productions. Steve Gadd has said that his snares snapped during a take, but he kept on playing, they simply used a Wendel drum sampler to replace the subsequent hits with snare hits from the beginning of the take.


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## MerlinTKD

Nice! Thanks for the info!


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## Justin Bailey

almost thought this thread title said something else (anyone else hate triggers... think about it)  I think that means it's time for some sleep!


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## JBroll

MerlinTKD said:


> Er, dude... I *am* a drummer. For 20 years now. A gigging musician for half that time. My opinions are coming from personal experience, not BS based on preconceived notions.
> 
> My opinions on _guitar_ stuff is, but not drums and drumming.
> 
> Having said that, I'm in full agreement that the song determines the sound. I seem to hear so many bands and recordings that _don't_ follow that logic, and use sounds and techniques just because it's the current rage, because, as you said, so-and-so use them so you HAVE to.
> 
> While I love the sound of acoustic drums, I'm no anti-technologist. Trent Reznor uses all sorts of replacement sounds for rhythm, no one can say it would sound better with an acoustic kit instead. On the other hand, I always thought Burton Bell's voice was too organic for the industrial guitar and drum sound of Fear Factory (just an example using my opinion). Scott Rockenfield's drums still sound perfect on Queensryche's Rage for Order, I'd love to know how they were recorded.
> 
> I've been using a Toneport GX to write and record, using a Zendrum and Alesis D4 for drums, so I obviously have no problem with digital sound sources. When my band Kavish recorded, our guitarist (who had always used a digital system) set it aside and started using pedals and an amp - it made a huuuge difference. The right tool for right job. I just can't stand all the folks using the same tool, over and over, whether it's appropriate or not.
> 
> I don't think the ubiquitous use of triggers is cheating; I do think they're overused and allow too many drummers to use speed and technique as a replacement for creativity. But then, that problem isn't restricted to drummers.
> 
> One thing I've never understood... for those drummers who use triggered sounds exclusively, why use acoustic drums at all? The latest pads I've seen have great cushion and rebound, including kicks... a person could make a killer looking kit with some of the current electronic setups. So... I wonder why not?



We both know I wasn't referring to you on that first part, though...

As for the acoustic drums thing, I've heard a number of answers... one is that they still like the feel better, another is that the band didn't want to look stupid with a bunch of black pancakes on stage, another is that they liked hearing what they were playing out of their own drumkit and not through headphones or monitors.

Year Zero is fucking cool, and I also have to hand it to Ministry for just being general all-around badasses at the Austin show. They more than made up for the obnoxious 13-year-olds who wanted to be goth sluts but couldn't because their dads or older brothers had to chaperone them and the surprising number of moron frat boys who thought they could scream and really just sounded like annoyed cicada-pig crossbreeds. Those aren't scenarios where natural sounds fit.

Jeff


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## guitarplayerone

drummers still need to practice accuracy with a triggered set... if the bass drum is off, then it's off, and sound replacement won't do anything to that.

the best triggered drummers I have known can play everything acoustic that they play triggered, they just prefer some mix of triggers to improve the 'cut' in the music.

this is coming from a metal perspective of course.


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## JBroll

I'd approach triggered drums in practice like I would approach high-gain guitar in practice... play a lot of clean and play some more dirty than normal also. Consistency is always going to be a trait that's good to have, and most people aren't going to set their MIDI brains up to use different samples at different velocities so they might not notice that - much like how guitarists may not notice that their picking is inconsistent and wimpy if they always crank the pre gain.

Jeff


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## kristallin

guitarplayerone said:


> drummers still need to practice accuracy with a triggered set... if the bass drum is off, then it's off, and sound replacement won't do anything to that.
> 
> the best triggered drummers I have known can play everything acoustic that they play triggered, they just prefer some mix of triggers to improve the 'cut' in the music.
> 
> this is coming from a metal perspective of course.



Also, coming from New York you know that in some nights you have about 2 seconds to do a line check and you're on. Sound check? "Uhhh, no, but I can get you a pizza..."


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## Ancestor

JBroll said:


> An
> Not everyone needs to be the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to expect that.



Perfect example. And Billy Cobham said explicitly in his clinic that he was all about single-ply heads miked and the resulting signal amplified as needed relevant to the drummer's touch.


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## drawnQ

i'm not exactly certain how a trigger is used. is it placed inside the drum and sends a signal whenever the attack hits?

i understand the concept of triggers but do not understand their application on the drumset. or are they even used on the drumseT?


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## auxioluck

drawnQ said:


> i'm not exactly certain how a trigger is used. is it placed inside the drum and sends a signal whenever the attack hits?
> 
> i understand the concept of triggers but do not understand their application on the drumset. or are they even used on the drumseT?



Triggers are simply pads that clamp onto drums and have a pad that rest on the head of the drum. Every time the drum head feels a vibration, the trigger creates the sound. On the trigger modules, you can set the sensitivity to be kinda touchy to get more dynamics, or what some metal guys do is set the sensitivity (velocity on some modules) all the way up, so no matter how hard they hit the drum, they get the full volume every time. It allows for quicker, softer playing while maintaining a consistent mix out every hit.


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## DaveCarter

...and can also be used to control noise gates so you dont get the cymbals bleeding in to the tom mics, which I think is coooool. Plus loads of other stuff, check out the earlier posts by JB.


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## JJ Rodriguez

auxioluck said:


> Triggers are simply pads that clamp onto drums and have a pad that rest on the head of the drum. Every time the drum head feels a vibration, the trigger creates the sound. On the trigger modules, you can set the sensitivity to be kinda touchy to get more dynamics, or what some metal guys do is set the sensitivity (velocity on some modules) all the way up, so no matter how hard they hit the drum, they get the full volume every time. It allows for quicker, softer playing while maintaining a consistent mix out every hit.



Well, the trigger doesn't really make the sound. It just sends a signal saying "Hey, this asshole fucking hit me!". The module is what makes the sound (if you're doing sound replacement *This statement is here to appease Jeff*)


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## JBroll

That's much better, JJ. (JJ want a pair of panties from the vending machine? JJ want a pair of panties from the vending machine? Good pervert...)

Basically, think of a trigger track as just a pad on a drum machine - it can do gazillions of different things, from setting off samples to cutting off or changing sounds or whatever. You can essentially get the flexibility of a drum pad out of a full kit, and I posted on the applications earlier.

Jeff


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## JJ Rodriguez

JBroll said:


> That's much better, JJ. (JJ want a pair of panties from the vending machine? JJ want a pair of panties from the vending machine? Good pervert...)



You're fucking right I do.


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## John_Strychnine

i like triggered kick sound through monitors live.
If the stage sound is shit (such as festivals etc) its REALLY Helpful to hear what you're doing with this.


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## Baphomet_Reich

7 Dying Trees said:


> Actually, triggers are good. There's a lot of weird techniques and jazzy things when done at speed that you just can't pick up, and just won't punch through, and for those sounds when it dips, you need triggers.
> 
> However, snare+kick only really, nothing else, AND you should always have the natural sound mixed with the trigger sound, so when it does go quieter (at speed) the trigger is more dominant, but when hitting like a mofo the natural sound is more dominant.
> 
> Also, triggering isn't cheating, you still have to hit it at the right time, otherwise it'll be out, there's no correction, and it is still played. But for some things, you just need triggers if you are playing extreme fast stuff.
> 
> But you need that blend to be right, fully triggered kits are just a bit, well, meh sounding.



Pretty much how I feel about them. The only time a trigger annoys me, is when the bass drums sound all clicky.


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## JBroll

That happens just as easily with a natural drum. Boosting between 1-4K makes anything sound like a typewriter. It has little to do with triggers.

Jeff


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## DaveCarter

How would you recommend EQing kick drums (and since Im asking, toms) to get closer to this sort of sound? YouTube - Arch Enemy Drum Solo...Live!...(Daniel Erlandsson) Definitely one of my favourite drummers.


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## Ror3h

chavhunter said:


> How would you recommend EQing kick drums (and since Im asking, toms) to get closer to this sort of sound? YouTube - Arch Enemy Drum Solo...Live!...(Daniel Erlandsson) Definitely one of my favourite drummers.



Lots of clicky treble and get rid of all the low mids basically, I'm not gonna start throwing numbers around because the best way is to use your ears, and learn how to use them to identify frequencies. Then using eq is pretty simple.


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## JBroll

The 'thump' is there, but the dominant part (as with a lot of live kicks) is the click - find the fundamental of the kick and keep that, get rid of a lot of mids, and then add a good bit of high mids and treble where the click you want lies.

Jeff


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## DaveCarter

Cheers mate  Ive now recently found myself getting very annoyed at people who post comments on youtube saying how "OMG triggerz r shit!!1!" etc., Ive directed a few of them to a page of this thread so they can learn what trigs can actually do.


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## Naren

People who hate triggers just want to hate random things. They probably hate most things in their life, hate their parents, hate their school or job, hate all their music albums, hate all politicians and celebrities, hate all acquaintances, hate sports and entertainment, and hate being alive.


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## JBroll

It seems to be more along the lines of 'purer-than-thou' elitism, the same shit behind t00b snobs and half-grand boutique pedals. 

Jeff


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## Naren

JBroll said:


> It seems to be more along the lines of 'purer-than-thou' elitism, the same shit behind t00b snobs and half-grand boutique pedals.
> 
> Jeff



I really don't get the logic behind it and I doubt anyone could reasonably argue their way through that idea (by "reasonably," I mean "not using youtube style baseless statements").


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## JBroll

That's why I make gigantic-assed posts like I did up there.

Jeff


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## swayman

chavhunter said:


> This may well be a personal thing, but I want to get some more opinions from people who know what's what in the world of METAL. I absolutely hate people using drum triggers, I think its basically cheating, and they often sound completely artificial. There we go, I said it.
> 
> I totally understand why people use them for high speed double bass, but I think being able to hit consistently with full power at speed is just part of being a good drummer. Im not saying I can do it, but there are guys I know of who dont use triggers, so its evidently possible. I see it as: dont put something on the album if you cant deliver it live. This goes for doing double bass blast beats then having to fall back on triggers live, as much as it goes for dragonforce and their shred-tastic live failings. Am I on my own on this, or does anyone else dislike triggers?


 
I respectfully disagree wholeheartedly mate.

A compressor is a way of acheiving a consistant sound of the same level, as are triggers.

There is A LOT more "cheating" when it comes to guitars, feedback destroyers being one example. A drummer could argue a good guitarist shouldn't need a feedback eliminator unit because they should be able to control the feedback (betcha didn't think of that! ).

I personally prefer drummers that beat the shit out of their drums. My drummer is able to kick all the bass drum stuff with great dexterity without triggers, but also plays with triggers live.


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## petereanima

i used to hate triggers but meanwhile i love the fact that our drummer uses them (for bassdurm and snare) - simply because his live-sound is great on every gig, also on those where we have to play over crappy backline.


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## Brendan G

I don't think that triggers are cheating just by having them, my guitarist told me of ways you can cheat with them, like the triggers registering one kick as two kicks if that makes sense. Triggers in many ways are beneficial, they pickup the hits much better than a microphone would. Also you can make triggers not sound like a click, it just takes some patience.


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## kristallin

Brendan G said:


> my guitarist told me of ways you can cheat with them, like the triggers registering one kick as two kicks if that makes sense.



 Tell your guitarist he's an idiot. You _could _ trigger a sample of two kick drum hits, *but* by the time you've created a sample like that in all tempos you could possibly imagine ever needing, and learned to play with such precision that it doesn't sound uneven anymore you might as well have learned to just play the pattern at the right speed.


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## SplinteredSoul

chavhunter said:


> This may well be a personal thing, but I want to get some more opinions from people who know what's what in the world of METAL. I absolutely hate people using drum triggers, I think its basically cheating, and they often sound completely artificial. There we go, I said it.
> 
> I totally understand why people use them for high speed double bass, but I think being able to hit consistently with full power at speed is just part of being a good drummer. Im not saying I can do it, but there are guys I know of who dont use triggers, so its evidently possible. I see it as: dont put something on the album if you cant deliver it live. This goes for doing double bass blast beats then having to fall back on triggers live, as much as it goes for dragonforce and their shred-tastic live failings. Am I on my own on this, or does anyone else dislike triggers?


 

I dunno mate, I think whatever delivers a good song is fine by me. Of course if a drummer CAN do it without loops, all the better, but if it's OK to use a sampler for synths and vox, why not drums? To be honest, most triggers aren't always loops, but processed kick drum sounds that come out of a PA with more clarity than just mic'ing up the drum alone. They'll still be using the kick pedal on the skin, but a mic inside the bass drum will send a trigger to the sample to play the processed sample in a millisecond, much like playing a set of V-Drums. So I wouldn't say triggers are any more cheating than an eBow/Sustainer/Pitch Shifter etc.,! You can't do any of that live without tools either


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## JJ Rodriguez

kristallin said:


> Tell your guitarist he's an idiot. You _could _ trigger a sample of two kick drum hits, *but* by the time you've created a sample like that in all tempos you could possibly imagine ever needing, and learned to play with such precision that it doesn't sound uneven anymore you might as well have learned to just play the pattern at the right speed.



Well, you COULD track the drums using triggers, and then double up on the kicks in a drum editor in Cubase or whatever you're using.


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## ibznorange

I dont mind the use of triggers, but its the tone that people use for alot of triggered beats that i cant stand. In alot of songs, particularly with fast double bass, its too clacky, almost like its half snare and half bass drum. Honestly, that issue is what keeps me from 2/3 of the metal suggestions people make for me. the drumming itself is fine, its just the tone of the bass drum irritates me so badly that i cant fucking listen to the music


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## JBroll

That's a problem with drums that haven't been sampled too - uberscooped clicketyclack is a fairly widespread problem and it's not really related to triggers.

Jeff


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## kristallin

JJ Rodriguez said:


> Well, you COULD track the drums using triggers, and then double up on the kicks in a drum editor in Cubase or whatever you're using.



Studio it's no issue, but when it comes to live any mistake is going to be a glaring mistake of the "LOL, loser on teh drums" kind.


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## JJ Rodriguez

kristallin said:


> Studio it's no issue, but when it comes to live any mistake is going to be a glaring mistake of the "LOL, loser on teh drums" kind.




Pretty much.


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## turmoil

i have no problem with triggers. it's only when the drum has a god-awful annoying sample for a kick drum for example.


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## Espaul

In my band when we record, we trigger a drumset, and use the drumsounds from ezdrummer  but one can also use dfh superior too, but we don't have it. 

The reason we do it in recordings is because then we don't have to record with mics, and that is nice  This is of course only when we do rough recordings, not for cd.

But those samples are pretty good IMO


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## Jason

What people fail to realize is that its not the triggers its the samples most people don't like WHICH you can make regular mic'd drums sound like "triggered" drums


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## drmosh

Jason said:


> What people fail to realize is that its not the triggers its the samples most people don't like WHICH you can make regular mic'd drums sound like "triggered" drums



exactly. Anyone that says they hate triggers, doesn't actually properly understand what they do.


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## DaveCarter

Exactly right, Ive been explaining that to a lot of people recenty. Infact I think its time for a lil disclaimer in the original post to try and reduce future flaming...


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## Stephen

Yep, its the samples used...

I use triggers when recording bands. If something doesn't sound right, then you can always replace it without having to re-record the drums.

I can understand how people could think it is cheating though. Velocity and midi... Meaning you can hit the drum a lot softer but it will still sound like you are hitting it hard. Especially for kick drums for speed but i don't care really. If it sounds good and it does the job then what's the problem.


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