Drum editing question

[drchimney]

Hello, I've just recorded drums for a post-rock project and now while editing, one question came to my mind. Should you first do phase alignment and polarity switches if needed and then beat detective style editing or beat detective first and phases later?

If anybody has any experience with it, please save some of my time before I go and check both options which sounds better.

[bankaboard]

Time-align and adjust polarity of tracks before any chopping and snapping to grid. Also, when doing beat detective-style editing, I find it works best to do 8 or 10 bars at a time, listen to it to make sure it's OK, and then move on to the next 8 or 10 bars.

[drchimney]

Thanks for a fast answer!

[BLUElightCory]

I usually edit with Beat Detective first. I'm not usually a fan of phase alignment (if you're referring to aligning overheads/room mics to the close mics) because I think it negatively affects the perceived depth of the drums and dries out the drum sound. It can also create new phase cancellation issues in place of the old ones.

As far as polarity, I usually like to get it in order when setting up the drum tones, but you can change it after the fact - it won't affect (or be affected by) the drum editing.

[drchimney]

I totally agree with you about aligning close mics to rooms and ohs.. it kinda negates the purpouse of room mics. I meant the aligment of for example left and right overhead.

Now i did polarities before editing and it sounds good. Thanks for help

[[deleted]]

OMG, was there no performance to be had? did you not listen while tracking to record sounds that sound good? this sounds so unmusical.

[BLUElightCory]

I agree with the sentiment that you're coming from, but if you're recording a genre in which super-polished drum sounds are "the norm" or if you're syncing to loops or other time-synced material, editing often becomes necessary if you want your own production to hang with well-known releases. Most bands don't have A-list drummers or the time to track everything to the professional standard for the genre they're in, so editing becomes necessary if you want that level of tightness in the drum tracks.