Recording guide
How to record and export a drum session for Pocket Crates. You record each microphone as one continuous take; we cut out the hits.
Already have cut one-shots? Use the upload guide instead. Upload guide →
What to send us
One continuous recording per microphone, exported as separate stems. Don't cut the hits into one-shots yourself — the site slices them out.
Always record softest first
Within every articulation, record the softest velocity first, then the next louder one, up to the loudest. If you record loudest first, every layer comes out upside down: the kit plays backwards, with quiet hits sounding loud, and nothing can detect it afterwards.
The record order
You decide the order and tell us what it is. Within the session:
- Pieces, in the order you declare.
- Within each piece, its articulations, in the order you declare.
- Within each articulation, one section per velocity — softest first.
- Within each section, that velocity's round robins.
So: all the round robins at velocity 1 (the softest), then all the round robins at velocity 2, and so on.
Gaps
Within a section, let each hit decay naturally, then leave about 1.5–2 seconds before the next. Don't choke cymbals — let them ring out fully.
Between sections, leave at least 3 seconds of silence after the sound has died away.
If you flub a hit
Just play it again. Extra hits get marked and discarded in the editor later. Don't re-record the section.
Keep it consistent
Leave the kit set up and the gains unchanged for the whole session. Moving a mic or changing gain partway makes the kit sound inconsistent, and it can't be fixed afterwards.
Name your tracks after your microphones
These names become the mic labels in the plugin. For example:
SnareTopOverheadLSideRibbonRoomMono
Common spellings get tidied to standard names, so MonoRoom shows up as Room Mono. Default DAW names like Audio 1 or Track 12 can't be matched to a microphone, so you'd have to name every one by hand.
Exporting
One continuous mono file per mic track — a mic is one channel, and stereo stems double the size for nothing. 24-bit WAV, with the same sample rate on every track.
- Microphone tracks only: no sends, no returns, no buses, no master.
- Name tracks for the mic, not the channel number: Kick In, Snare Top, OH L, not Track 3.
- Mono is preferred. A stereo file with the same signal on both sides is folded to one mic automatically, and a true stereo pair is split into two mics.
- In Ableton: File → Export Audio/Video, with Rendered Track set to All Individual Tracks. That also writes group tracks, return tracks and the main track, so leave those files out of your upload.
The export is post-fader, not the raw recording: what the track does to the signal ends up in the file. A kick at −6 dB exports 6 dB down, and the velocity layers move with it. So no normalising, and on every track, check:
- Faders at 0 dB.
- Pan centred. A panned mic arrives with unequal sides, and a hard-panned one with one side silent.
- Track effects bypassed or removed. EQ, compression and saturation on a track end up in its file.
- In Ableton, Include Return and Main Effects left off. With it on, reverb and main-bus processing bleed into every individual track.
No polarity flips, including on bottom mics. The plugin has a polarity switch on each mic.
Limits
Up to 16 microphones, 30 minutes and 10 GB per session.
A worked example
A small session, written out the way you'd declare it:
1What you declare
| Piece | Type | Articulations, in order |
|---|---|---|
| Kick | Kick | Normal |
| Snare | Snare | Normal, Rimshot |
| Hi-Hat | Hi-Hat | Closed, Open |
2 velocities × 2 round robins for every articulation,
on 8 microphones:
KickIn SnareTop SnareBottom HiHat OverheadL OverheadR RoomL RoomR.
The Hi-Hat's main articulation is Closed, not Normal — every Hi-Hat needs a Closed section. Kicks, snares, toms, floor toms, rides, crashes and stacks need Normal.
2The sections, in recording order
| # | Piece | Articulation | Velocity | Hits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kick | Normal | 1 · softest | 2 round robins |
| 2 | 2 · loudest | 2 round robins | ||
| 3 | Snare | Normal | 1 · softest | 2 round robins |
| 4 | 2 · loudest | 2 round robins | ||
| 5 | Rimshot | 1 · softest | 2 round robins | |
| 6 | 2 · loudest | 2 round robins | ||
| 7 | Hi-Hat | Closed | 1 · softest | 2 round robins |
| 8 | 2 · loudest | 2 round robins | ||
| 9 | Open | 1 · softest | 2 round robins | |
| 10 | 2 · loudest | 2 round robins |
3The count
- 5 articulations × 2 velocities = 10 sections
- 10 sections × 2 round robins = 20 hits on every microphone
- 20 hits × 8 microphones = 160 samples, cut from your 8 stems
This is the count we check after you upload: if a stem holds more or fewer hits than your declared order adds up to, we stop and show you.
What we check after upload
After you upload, we work out how many hits your declared order implies and compare that with what's in your stems. If they disagree, we stop and show you the difference rather than guess — a guess would label hits as the wrong drum or the wrong velocity.
Common mistakes
- Recording loudest first. The kit plays backwards and nothing catches it.
- Changing gain or moving a mic mid-session.
- Leaving less than 3 seconds of silence between sections.
- Leaving default DAW track names (Audio 1, Track 12).
- Sending pre-cut one-shots instead of continuous stems.