Songs and Sonics

“So how do you record drums?”

That’s one question that inevitably arises when talking with a fellow home studio DIYer.

The question isn’t pointed at microphone selection and placement, but at something much more fundamental: How do you tell the computer to start and stop recording?

There’s a lot of hassles involved in recording real drums. And if you’re recording yourself, chances are you’ve got an additional headache: It’s not easy to press a key on the computer to start recording, run to the drum set, gain composure, and play a winning drum take.

In recent years, products like the $200 Tranzport have entered the market, which diminish the need for basement relay races.

I needed the Tranzport a few years before it existed, so I came up with a $40 homebrew solution using a wireless joypad and free software. It doesn’t have all the features of the Tranzport, but it might be good enough for your needs. It’s been good enough for mine — I’ve recorded almost all of The Simple Carnival’s tracks this way. I haven’t been (pardon the pun) remotely tempted to upgrade to something better.

The Logitech Cordless RumblePad 2 is a standard wireless gamepad, and, as you can see from the picture above, I’ve put stickers on its buttons to represent the Pro Tools LE functions I use most often when tracking. Here’s a more detailed view.

The right joystick doesn’t do anything — maybe I’ll come up with a use for it one day. The gamepad handles rewind and fast forward. The up and down directions are not used.

Here’s a diagram showing the buttons on the back of the gamepad.

JoyToKey, a free Windows application, maps — you guessed it — joystick functions to keyboard buttons. Here’s what my JoyToKey setup looks like.

And this is how I record drums! And flute, marimba, vocals, organ, piano, congas, guitar, bass, Fender Rhodes, Clavinet, synthesizers — anything where I’m not standing directly in front of the computer keyboard.

Yes, sometimes I have to squint if I’m moving the mouse pointer with the joystick on the other side of the room. It’s just something you get used to after a while. On the other hand, most of these functions don’t require you to look at the screen anyway. After you arm your tracks, just about everything else can be done with your eyes closed.

There’s a nice bonus when using this technique with a guitar, or any instrument with pickups: Since you’re not performing in front of your computer monitor, you won’t pick up any interference from it.

Have fun on the other side of the room.