I know triggers is strictly off limits but I was thinking about their use the other day and maybe I have something different to bring to the argument of whether they are an aid to 'cheating' at drumming.

Well, basically, triggers act in a similar way to an amp and effects can be added to the drum sound. The main uses are to amplify so that the drummer doesn't have to hit his kit as hard and to even out the sound of a double bass drum set up.

Now, the point that I'm going to make is a comparison between triggers and effect peddles for guitars such as noise gates and compressors. Noise gates eliminate unwanted noise frequencies and compressors can even out the range of frequencies produced in order to attain a more consistent sound throughout. Are guitarists who use these effects cheating in the same way that drummers who use triggers are?

I don't believe so. Afterall by triggers=cheating logic, if a guitarist has to use a noise gate, surely that means he/she is not good enought to eliminate unwanted noise by conventional means such as left and right hand string damping and thus could be considered as cheating.

I'm not really asking for your views on whether triggers are cheating, but I would like to know if I make a fair comparison between these two applications of digital technology. If the comparison is a legitimate one, I would like to know why triggers are often greeted with such vehement hostility whereas noise gates and compressors are accepted as standard practise.

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I think triggers are fuckin sweet for use in the studio.

Ill blend them into the real drum sound during>>>

A.Blast Beats (snare)

Or

B.Superfast DBL Bass stuff.

Theyre nice because they offer a consistent backbone where there might not have been one.

In terms of dynamic consistency,,,,

There are few drummers ive met/recorded that didnt need a little compression and or triggering.

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And my comparison?

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Its fair yes.

Triggers can be looked at like distortion for a guitar.

Identical attack time.

Altered tone.

But with increased presence.

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As Amongst Us said.
Theire a nice "tool" for extreme drumming.
It´s quite impossible to get two bassdrums the same sound (I needed about one hour to get them nearly the same)
And its quite useful for recording and live...
But i´m (what a surprise) too poor for a Module...

There have been many arguements about triggers and how people think they cheat, but you cleared it up for the idiots that think so. Nicely done Mr.John Mansley

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there is one flaw to your argument as far as im concerned. an electric guitar is not designed in any way for an acoustic sound<unless you use a hollowbody which ive never seen at a metal show>, drums are

a guitar amp has a volume nob no matter what pedal is used, not using a distortion pedal cant be equated to drums unless it was an acoustic

as far as "cheating" is concerned ill spare you all from another of my long boring posts,lets just say i dont use triggers, sometimes ill be miked,thats it

Fair enough.

Tell you what...

Go to that link under my name that says amongstus.

On that page ther are three songs.

Number 11 has NO triggers.

Number 12 does.

Which one do you like better?

I dig both the drum sounds quite a bit.

I will say however that Number 11 took a hell of alot longer to get consistent that 12 did.

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personally i think triggers would aid drummers' skills....they definately help with constant bass, but what about just studder shit...u know like a fast galop or something. when you incorperate the toms into it, the triggers just seem unnatural.

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good debate thou...guitarists have their pedals, vocalists have their preamps and shit, and what are the drummers left with....how can you say that's cheating??????

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i am not a drummer but i am very into drums, and all i can say, is triggering kicks ass, i mean the faster you hit a kick drum, the lower the volume and tone is on the hits, and since i play guitar i would say that your argument is fair, not becouse of use of effects pedals but becouse of pickups, triggers are pretty much pickups if you think about it, when an electric guitar is strummed the pickups pickup the vibration of the strings causing a "guitar signal" to occur and travel into your amp, were an acoustic guitar you would have to mic, and the actual guitar sound would go into the mic, and out of the speakers... triggers pick up the vibration from the drum hit, and turn it into a sound, or if you mic the drums the mic picks up the sound of the drum, and out the speaker it goes.. and so on, so if you strum an electric guitar it will obviously be louder than an acoustic guitar, and if the acoustic is miced, you would have to pick harder to make it louder.. and things of that nature, i hope this is making sense..

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I like Triggers because they make what you play clear and punchy, and as for the whole 'a bad drummer uses triggers to cover mistakes' arguement, that is BULLSHIT!!! if anything triggers would highlight sloppy form because the make the sound clearer.

the only time I think using triggers is cheating is say when someone is doing a gravity blast or a Moeller role and triggers so that it sounds as loud as their single stroke rolls and ordinary playing that is the ONLY time one can call using triggers cheating.

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I agree. Saying triggers is cheating is, in most cases, crap. I'd go into further detail, but I think NZBMDrummer has covered it well enough.

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guitar fetus, going by your logic a drummer would not need shells, an electric guitar goes without a resonent body that is hollowed, if drums have "pickups" they sould follow suit

nz, my objection of triggers is that its counterintuitive to a drums fundemental design, the whole "cleaning up mistakes" argument is not really something i hold to, in my opinion triggers, for the most part, incourage bad habits and technique, ill state the most obvious flaw. playing quiet and relying on the PA to provide volume in a live show situation

if anyone has ever seen the phobia drummer, he is a living example of why you dont need triggers, hes loud as hell,foot and hands, also check out the daughters, another equally loud drummer

Mhh by the way Necrophagist is completely miced...and it´s one of the best drum sounds ever...(with chimera from mayhem...but thats triggered)...

I respect the fact that you are a type of purist, and that you'd like everyone else to be too.

However,

Not everyone can be the Phobia drummer.

Now im guessing.....but id fathom that 90% of rock/metal drummers ARE NOT as consistent as the Phobia drummer.

See, heres the thing.

For the most part, triggering takes place in the recording environment.
I cant tell you how many times ive recorded a guy that

A.Hits his snare like a bitch during fast parts.
Guess what happens when you turn that snare up in the mix?
You get a shit ton of hi-hat bleed from the snare microphone.
And in turn, you get a fuckin ghetto drum mix.

Now...with triggers that shit is solved.


Or

B.Double kick.....do i even need to explain that one?


Triggers......solved.

So we are both right dude.

Yes the people need to practice.
But alot of them dont, or some of them just plain dont have the natural ability.

And in this case>>>>>>>>>

ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY TRIGGER

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the first album mp3s sounded to me like triggers, coz the drummer was doing tons of gravity blast, but the second album mp3s sounded alot better than the first and he cut down on the tell tale gravity blasts<as to indicate triggers>. are you sure your source of that info was commentary about both lps or just the second lp?

amoung us, my computer is too old and obsolete to load myspace pages, is there any other source for mp3s of your band? i wouldnt mind listening

Well i assume you can download stuff correct?

If so, just choose the download function underneath the song name on our myspace page.

Example...

Number 12
download/rate/lyrics


just click the download bro.

or better yet here's a direct link

http://www.geomana.com/audio/remastered.mp3

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Guitarists fit pickups to acoustic guitars so I don't see why a drummer cannot attach triggers to his acoustic kit.

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john, if you read guitarfetuses post more carefully you'd see he mentioned that an acoustic pickup is more like a mike than a pickup<pickup the vibration or "guitar signal">, which is true, i have a plug in acoustic, its basically a microphone inside the body,it picks up the sound that result from the vibration not just the vibration transfered as a signal. if an acoustic had an actual pickup like in a electric guitar it would be the most pointless thing this side of titanium plated cymbals, electric guitars are only intonated, they have no real resonent quality to them as to make a direct parrallel with a drumkit,this debate is going way too far into semantics, i apologize for initiating it

amoung us, i cant even begin to explain how bizzare the computer im using is, when i get on a myspace page the whole panel on the top right side does not appear, the whole play.stop,rewind, fastforward a song panel, i went to your site instead,sounds good. ok, i conceed the point, i dont know recording, im beginning to get a hi-fi digital recording setup myself, if triggers helps that, power to you, i'll never do it, hi-hat bleed be damned. i was more critical of triggers in live show situations anyway, thats what matters most in my ears

Well, I re-read his post and I still get the impression that he was talking about physically placing a mic on a stand in front of the guitar. Maybe Mr. Fetus can clear this up.

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pretty much that is what i meant , thats what i was going for, i didnt know how else to explain what i meant without confusing myself, but yea that is pretty much what i meant, and the comment on how triggering makes you sound cleaner, that pretty much a lie, becouse your mistakes show even more, becouse of the clearness of the sounds, the triggered drums arent CLEANER but they are CLEARER

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http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...=20050201115357 here you can try to hear my drummers mistakes on some of our songs, only the bassdrums are triggered, and it might be difficult to hear becouse of the shitty streaming thing, but turn it up a little bit, and you will hear some of his mistakes, all your mistakes show up with triggers. listen to "send me ur fetus" and "feasting upon the retarded" i think those are the ones with the most mistakes.

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well i just looked it up at musicians friend, and those pickups you place in an acoustic vary in range, so i guess its a stalemate. they use both aspects of miking and signal tansfer. the thing is is that they are not a electric guitar pickup, its a little of both. same with drum triggers i guess to complete the parrallel. so what you originally posted would make sense if you ignore the fact that there are drummers,unaided who can be heard over loud fullstacks as opposed to acoustic guitar players.

guitarfetus, id like to listen to your band but, im running an ancient mac from which the OS hasnt been rebooted in a good 8 years, its too wierd to explain, and i used to get the panel on the myspace page and could play songs, now i cant. so if you have another site that does quicktime, thats the only way i can hear it

do you have msn instant messanger, i could send them to you personaly.

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for some reason it loaded, i heard your band and could not distinguish any serious mess ups on the drummers basshits,double bass hits can tend to flam up and stuff, your drummer is probably a little self critical here, it sounds good,the mp3 thing makes it muddy and lo-fi, which is a recording sound i love. i always viewed the 2 bass triggers phenomenon as a why bother, kevlar and an oak head beaters sould suffice, thats what im gonna do when i can afford an all kevlar head drumset,kevlar doesnt exactly provide good tone but i own vistalites anyway, all older drumsets suck at tone, even the acrylic non aging shells of a vista lite, the heads last forever and the bass just needs a little patch for the oak head

triggers just seem unnatural to me. Its not the fact that its "cheating" (i dont play the drums), if it makes it easier go for it, but if there was some way to make the sound natural I htink it would be best in my mind.

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I think that depends on which module youre using...
I think Chimera is recorded with a triggered set, and it sounds very well.
Edit: I read yesterday, that it`s triggered and miced...(whole set).

how can triggers be cheating?
as far as i can see, all they do is to give you a controlable, clear sound.
i am guessing that objections to triggers are based on getting a clearer, more equal sound rather than the fact that you can put effects on them.
you could apply the same objections however to drumsticks, or pedals.
why not use your hands and feet? because drumsticks provide a clearer, louder

also, though i dont play drums, there is nothing you can do to disguise a bad guitarist. you can see the failed attempts, like buying the most expensive guitar, and putting on shitloads of muddy distortion, and turning up so loud it hurts (actually this works to an extent)
i would guess that te better drummers will always stand out even if they are using a chair leg to bang a skip. shakespear would have made a great sci-fi novelist, and yngwie maalmsteen probably would be the fastest penny-whistle player in the world.

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i think the best sound would be to mix the triggers and the mic....so you get a full body sound and a more realistic tone to it.

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I know this is an old thread, but I didn't want to start a new one.
I am thinking about triggering my bass drum, because after 640 BPM I start to loose power.
I still intend to practice and get fuckin awsome and be able to go without triggers, but I'm toying with the idea.
I don't know shit about them, so what would I need to get?
I have a Peavey PA Head, a great mixing board..... Would I need to get a processor, or could I use this stuff I have?
Any help would be appreciated.

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640 bpm?

hmmm I think you are a little confused about what speed you are playing, 640 bpm would be approx twice as fast as the current world record,

unless you mean HITS in a minute, in which case say hits and not beats, because BPM means beats which is measured in crotchets (quarter notes for you merkins)

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I just ordered my tirggers today.
Can't wait.

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uh, yea, you need a drum module to use those triggers, i hope you have one, if not go for an alesis dm5 they are cool and cheaply priced, and can be found all over the place on ebay, and they are perfect if you are only going to trigger bass and maybe snare.

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Yep, that's what I'm looking for, so keep your ears open for me.
I am looking on Ebay as well.

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HAHA! I got one, fuckers!

I just won an Alesis DM5 off Ebay. My triggers are ordered, and, yes, I'm looking forward to it.

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Hy GuitarFetus-

Your band's pretty heavy, for sure.

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hey thanx late response sorry i havnt had internet for a while, yea my drummer got better since those songs.

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So I have a DM5, as I stated above, and I bought some shitty acoustice triggers. I have some excellent Axis triggers on the way for my pedals, but they're not here yet. Anyways, I've been playing with the acoustice triggers, just trying them out, and I can't seem to get my snare to respond they way I want. If there is anyone out there that has experience with the Alesis DM5, let me know please.
Thanks

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i have experience with it. its the only one i know actualy but yea, are you having trouble with the sensetivity or crosstalk or what? its tricky at first, i hate all of those settings but it pay off when you find the right ones.

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Well, Crosstalk isn't really the problem. There is one reason, and one reason only, for why I want to trigger my snare. (Gravity rolls).
So I find that I have to crank the gain to give the lighter hits a good volume, but the roll is so fuckin fast that the trigger is missing a lot of hits. I know that some of the pros trigger their snares successfully, but try finding one to ask about it! Most of those guys don't like talking about it either, because of the stigma that is attached to triggers.
Anyway, if you have experience, feel free to gimmie suggestions for settings that will be a good decay rate without missing snare shots, as well as providing enough volume....
(Geez, I don't ask for too much, eh?)
My friggin Axis Ekit triggers haven't arrived yet....

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Snare triggers are for pussies.
Well unless you have a really shitty drum set and dont want to buy a good one. But that ruins the point of drumming.

Hello all...
I am new to this forum. I've been playing for many years, and am hearing more and more bands come out with extremely fast double bass. I have a question for you veteran double bassers. Are these guys using specific "methods", such as heel-toe? I do not use any such method, but I've never actually clocked my DB. Are these guys using these tricks/methods, or straight up double bass? Anyway, good forum, and thanks in advance for any responses.

Septic

This is my point (for homework, everybody go back and read my first post). Does using a compressor or noise gate make a guitarist a pussy? In my eyes no, because they even out the output and cut out unwanted feedback respectively and thus give a better listening experience to the listener. Same with triggers.

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totaly man the thing with the snare is, for one handed rolling shit i mysellf havnt figures it out, if you crank it up to much you can ge the rolls good but you cant even breath on your snare without it going off. thats why i made my drummer stop triggering the snare. but yea you can get it perfect for regular snare work, and regular rolls but as soon as you try doing a damn gravity blast it sucks ass, and my drummer is just better off doing a roll on his natural snare sound, somehow its loud enough to hear too. but i cant realy help you on the gravity rolls area sorry man.

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I don't think using triggers is cheating(though I don't know much about
drums),but I don't like listening to triggered drums(usually they
sound fake).
Natural drums sound much better and heavier.

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I don`t think that many drummers are using tricks like the heel toe technique.
The most of them are just playing straight singles.
It`s just a "mix" of ankle and leg motion. just training.

the trigger thing.
I think the discussion about triggers is unnecessary because if someone wants to trigger his set, why not?
And if someone cant get his gravity`s loud enough why aint trigger the snare. (well, I thought about it too, because my gravity isnt loud enough. but I cant play it tight enough, so it isnt worth)
Whatever, triggering is definately NOT CHEATING!!!
Because it wont make you faster it just makes it easier to play fast DB or else CLEAN and its easier to get two same sounds out of your bassdrum.
(That`s what I´m trying since a while )

my roomate just set up a drumset thats triggered in the jamroom, entire kit including the hihat, im gonna try these puppies out and see if it confirms my disdain for such things............

I think a good drummer can still be able to play with even volume without triggers. Triggers plays a big role when you doublebass at high bpm, 180/200+
It's real hard/impossible to keep even volume at those speeds.

And when it comes to talks about Necrophagist not triggering etc.
It's all quantization and studiomagic, I doubt Hannes would play live without triggers, and I beg him not to, it would just sound shit when you wont be able to tell a note from another. Triggering helps to that.

That's my opinion on all this, I might not be right on everything (or anything at all)

* Oh, triggers are not cheating at all!

i bet you necrophagist go on the road with thier own sound system , dont know it as a fact but thats what dillinger escape plan does<and probably alot of bands that arent at the arena level>and they<as in dillinger> set thier shit up even tho there is a sound system present at whatever gig. if they tour with a state of the art mic setup,PA etc. for the drums and overall amplification, theres no need to trigger them. they probably have a soundman who travels with them too. this is all assumption but it could be done. bringing triggers to shows, is a way to have a reliable bass sound with the uncertainty of what PA setup your going to encounter while playing out, i almost done blame drummers for doing this anymore since soundmen are such hacks. but overall i believe in playing loud enough to be heard at normal gigs, like clubs and bars and such, just set up in front of the stage and dont even deal with the guy<some asshat soundmen then object and try to get you miked on a the stage, then you agree.......then you get totally drown the fuck out and you have no moniters to hear the guitars......i hate fuggin soundmen> thats where im at. but if your playing a show with over 400 head capacity you need to be miked, hence the trigger and the debate about them, which ive kinda eased up on

You're right. Drummers use triggers in order to keep each bass stroke sounding consistently powerful at extremely high speeds.

People who have a problem with it- too fucking bad.
Almost every drummer you wish you could be like uses triggers.
Tyson Jupin (Vile)
KC Howard (Decrepit birth/Odious Mortem)
James King (Origin)
Flo Mournier (Crptopsy)
Mike Hamilton (Deeds of Flesh)
Roddy (Hate Eternal)
Jon Longstreth (Who knows...)
Those are just a FEW examples.
Nowadays Triggers are an industry standard in Death metal/Grind, and you don't need to be playing a large venue or have a large crowd to use them.
I personally don't leave home without them, and now that I have been using the most kick-ass triggering setup in the world, I will never go back.
All naysayers should try before passing "judgement".....

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yes i notice...all these people who hate triggering have never tried it, ha ha ha. and it pisses me off when people see my band play live and ask if my drummer is realy playing double bass that fast...then they ask the stupidest questions like these " does your drummer trigger?" "yes he does" so he uses that trigger thing to make his double bass faster?; thats lame" then i have to explain what triggers actualy do... also they say" well i was watching his legs and it didnt look like he was going that fast" and i say "its called heel toe dick" ha ha that was funny ...... john longstreath(who knows?) were is that guy? h a ha

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He uses his dick?

ha ha ha yea...... i meant "heel toe.... dick"

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