When reading reviews of a (usually heavy metal) performance, you often hear the accusation that the drums have been “triggered”. This seems to imply that the percussion was artificially enhanced somehow to make it easier to pull off a more dextrous performance, but what exactly is trigerring?
Using each hit on a drum to cause another sound to happen. Typically it’s used to enhance the sound of the drums (the live sound and the triggered sound are simultaneous and mixed together), not to make the performance to appear to be more complex. You certainly could cause a hit to trigger a delayed sound, making each hit sound like two, but I’ve never seen that actually done–not that I attend a lot of live performances anymore.
I have heard it used in reference to triggering a sample, MIDI sequence, or overdub in order to fill out the mix. Often in order to make the live performance sound more like the recorded performance. For example, a band that doesn’t have a dedicated keyboard player might trigger a pre-recorded keyboard part. Or a band with only one guitarist could trigger the rhythm part while the guitarist plays his solo. In these cases, any of the band members could launch the trigger using a foot pedal.
Triggers operate pretty much as stated above. They cue stored tones and sounds. In a critical sense, trigger don’t make a drummer better or worse.
They can however, cover up sloppyness or lazyness. A drummer must control many elements to achieve the desired tone and dynamics. stick techique, attack , and where you hit the drum are but afew factors. When using triggers all you need to do is make contact(in time, of course) to produce an even tone. Needless to say, you never have to tune your drums again.
This is a “Worse case scenario”. Most drummers worth there salt use triggers sparingly. They blend the triggered sound with the accoustic tone of there drums or use the trigger to produce a sound that would be very hard to make such as shattering glass, unnatural sounds or to simulate very expensive exotic drums. Some triggers are also able to respond differently to varying degrees of pressure.
I admit I don’t really want to venture a plus-minus on the use of triggers here. They have their place.
My one real issue with Neil Peart’s drumming is his lack of compromise for live performances. His drums lines in the studio can be so complex that they are impossible for one man to perform in real-time. Instead of coming up with some sort of rearrangement for concerts he uses triggers to replicate the studio version. I understand the need for perfectionism but he didn’t always do it this way.
[QUOTE=gerb]
Triggers operate pretty much as stated above. They cue stored tones and sounds. In a critical sense, trigger don’t make a drummer better or worse.
They can however, cover up sloppyness or lazyness. A drummer must control many elements to achieve the desired tone and dynamics. stick techique, attack , and where you hit the drum are but afew factors. When using triggers all you need to do is make contact(in time, of course) to produce an even tone. Needless to say, you never have to tune your drums again.
/QUOTE]
I suppose this is more or less what I was trying to get at. 9 times out of 10 when I hear the use of triggers for percussion it’s levelled as a criticism. One album that I ofter hear accused of this is Lars Ulrich’s playing on “…And Justice For All”. I also hear it levelled at bands that use a lot of double bass drumming (Fear Factory is a good example of this type of sound, although I don’t remember hearing anything particular accused of their drummer).
So how does one identify the use of triggers in a recording, specifically for the reason quoted in this message (ie. to cover up sloppiness rather than add sampled sounds)? I assume an absence of percussion sounds varying in intensity would be one sign, and thinking back on it the drums on “…And Justice” do sound pretty uniform throughout. Any other examples?
I doubt it would be possible to identify triggered sounds on a studio recording. With multi-tracking recording technology how would one tell?
Sort of like how a guitarist can play both rythym and lead on a single track. No one thinks less of them because of it.
Playing live, however, triggering becomes necessary when a drummer has committed too much on the song their playing. If the studio version has the drummer needing 6 arms and 4 legs them some sort of assistance (or just rearrangement) become necessary.