Hello everyone!
I'm currently in a rock band, and am actively writing music. For a while now, the drummer has been wanting to experiment with electronic-sounding drums on our recordings. Since I do the majority of the recording, it's my job to figure out the best way to do that. While I use FL Studio, I'm not limited to it, by any means. I simply didn't know where else to present this queston.
This effect has been attempted and, arguably, successfully achieved by several modern rock bands. A few songs, to give you some examples are Red Sky (by Thrice, from the album Vheissu), The Messenger and Digital Sea (also by Thrice, both from the album The Alchemy Index, Vols. I & II),Liar Liar (by The Used, from the album Lies for Liars), When Two Are One (by Atreyu, from the album Lead Sails Paper Anchor), and Dark Star and Flotation Therapy (each by Fightstar, respectively from the album Alternate Endings and the Floods CD single) to name a few. I can't really think of any other ones (I'm sure there are many), but these one shouldn't be too hard to hear on a site like Project Playlist.
My question is: how does one achieve a sound like these? I've had some success in using FL Studio's Multiband Compressor, but that doesn't give me the sound I'm looking for, and performs more like a work around. To summarize some of the sounds, Liar Liar (not a great song, but it serves as an example), features dance-like drums in the bridge, which could be fun to work with. Red Sky features more ambient drums in the verses, while the Messenger and Flotation Therapy feature very sporatic, seemingly random drums in both the intro and verses (this is the sound I'd really like to go for). Digital Sea, When Two Are One, and Dark Star seem to feature well thought out drums (less sporatic) with a similar sound to the previously mentioned ones. Either way, these are all sounds that I'd like to learn to compose.
For drums, I primarily record our drummer live, but have also used Toontrack's DFH (Drumkit From Hell) and Native Instrument's Battery 3 for drums. I prefer DFH because Battery sounds muddy to me, but I wanted to mention that it's in my arsenal. Or, perhaps I am aproaching it from the wrong direction, and modifying acoustic drums is not the way to go. Either way, I was hoping someone could steer me in the right direction by, possibly, being able to provide a link to a tutorial (I haven't been able to find any, and I've looked on multiple occasions!) or a video that I could purchase, or by providing some of their own, helpful information! Thanks a lot for the help. I apologize for the long post, but I felt like it was all pertinent information. Thanks again!