Question: Is it possible to line 3 toms stereo out of one line-out?

[WrongHouseGuitarist]

Hi! My 2Box kit was shipped today and hopefully I'll have it this friday.

I'm building a studio at home and for practical reasons I choose the DrumIt Five.
My idea is to buy an 8 in firewire sound interface and use a real hi-hat recorded with a Shure Sm57 via a gated channel. Which would get me one step closer to an acoustic kit and save an extra line out from the 2Box-brain.

And then I would use the 2Box hi-hat pad as an additional crash or splash.

So far so good I hope.

I want to have the possibility to stereo-pan the toms inside my musicprogram(I'm using Reason Essentials) and at the same time use as few line-outs as I can for the toms.

Can I pan the toms stereo and volume settings relative to each other inside the brain and send them out through the same channel? Same question goes for the two crash-cymbals.

Would I need at least two channels or is it even possible at all?

Here is my idea for lining the drums:

3 Toms - 1
2 Crashes - 1
Ride - 1
Kick - 1
Snare - 1
Odd sounding stuff - 1

I'd be greatfull for any tips!

[edtc]

     It s a good idea to use a real hihat ... I do the same and love it !!

   SM57 should be allright ... but why using a gate  ? IMO it s better to record it as is , and make the cleaning after on the wave forms ... With a gate , you could miss some quiet hits or have some strange "pumping effects ...

you will need   stereo output busses  to be able to pan the toms and cymbals ...

so:

1 for kick
2 for ride
3+4 for snare ( it s better to record it in stereo )
5+6  mix of toms
7+8  mix of cymbals 

The way to assign instruments to OUT busses is explained in the manual , and detailed in some threads on this forum ...

   What you could also do is recording the drum via the MIDI out ...

then it s possible to re-record every sounds separatly ... With 2 passes , you can have up to 16 discrete outs ! 


Even if you dont need so many outputs , i ll recommend to record midi as well as audio : This way you could  even make some fixing on the midi track before bouncing them to audio , or replace a sound later if you change your mind ...

In your case , you could record kick ,ride and snare + Hihat via the mic , +a stereo mix of all the rest ( toms cyms and percs ) as a "draft"  , and then bounce the rest  on a second pass via midi

For the hihat , i m not sure that you can use it as a crash cymbal without any modification as there is a controller board inside , it dont behave exactly like a 2box cymbal : search the forum , i remember someone asked this some month ago ...

Have fun with tour kit and welcome here ...

[WrongHouseGuitarist]

Thank you!

I have some further questions.

1 for kick
2 for ride
3+4 for snare ( it s better to record it in stereo )
5+6  mix of toms
7+8  mix of cymbals 

Do I misunderstand completely or are you talking about the mono outputs from the 2Box-brain?
As I understood there are just six of them?

What diffrence in quality does it make to stereo-record the snare?

And so for the midi recordings. Correct me if I'm wrong:

1 I will record the drumtrack in midi.

2 Then assign the kick(1), snare(2), crash1(1) and ride(1) to the outputs.

3 Play the midi-track (from the computer) in to the "midi in" port on the 2Box-Brain whilst recording the outputs from the brain. Do this untill the whole session is over.

4 Then assign crash2(1),tom1(1),tom2(1) and tom3(1) to the outputs, create additional tracks in Reason and then play the midi track again through the "midi in" port, recording the outputs.

5 When this is done I should have every drum on a separate track ready to be ever so panned?

[edtc]

Do I misunderstand completely or are you talking about the mono outputs from the 2Box-brain?
As I understood there are just six of them?

there are six discrete outs you are right ,but the headphone out can be used as out 7-8 ,so that makes 8 ..

What diffrence in quality does it make to stereo-record the snare?

It sounds more realistic IMO ( for Dsounds recorded in stereo ...)   try by yourself , you ll feel the difference...

And so for the midi recordings. Correct me if I'm wrong:

1 I will record the drumtrack in midi.

2 Then assign the kick(1), snare(2), crash1(1) and ride(1) to the outputs.

3 Play the midi-track (from the computer) in to the "midi in" port on the 2Box-Brain whilst recording the outputs from the brain. Do this untill the whole session is over.

4 Then assign crash2(1),tom1(1),tom2(1) and tom3(1) to the outputs, create additional tracks in Reason and then play the midi track again through the "midi in" port, recording the outputs.

5 When this is done I should have every drum on a separate track ready to be ever so panned?

yes , that s it !

as i said , you can also record he first set of outs directly during the performance , and then do the midi replay for the others instruments .

But doing it only in midi can be ok too , as you wont have to erase a lot of wav files after a bad take ...


woaw ,  here s my 666st post  !!   time's running fast 

[WrongHouseGuitarist]

Thank you man! That's great info!

And congratulations on your post! I'm close behind.

So I should be able to, after have recorded the midi-track, change the settings on the drumkit. Say I'd want to use a different floor tom?

Would you recommend doing stereo recordings of every drum in the kit or is it pointless for toms and crashes?