Slate Digital Trigger Platinum

Slate Digital’s debut product is Trigger, a
drum replacement plug-in. You feed drum
parts (ie, from multitrack recordings) into it and
it outputs ‘triggered’ audio, or a blend of the
dry/wet signals. For a fuller explanation of drum
triggering, see Busting Jargon on p13.
Before you can dial in the triggering settings,
you need to load up a sound. We’re reviewing
the Platinum edition of Trigger here, which is
currently the only version (the EX edition should
be out by the time you read this), and it comes
with more than 30 kicks, eight banks of toms
and 45 snares, accessible via the instrument
browser. The samples ofer direct mics, stereo
overheads, room mics, and some reverbed
sounds too. They’re all fantastic quality – we
actually had trouble inding any we didn’t like!
The bundled samples feature ‘articulation
modes’, which can give a harder or softer overall
sound. Up to six sounds can be layered, each
with volume, tune, pan, amplitude envelope, etc.
There are dynamics and velocity response
curves too. Trigger imports WAV/AIFF and can
output MIDI, so you could use it to drive a drum
instrument like Battery, BFD2, etc.
Trigger happy
The upper part of Trigger’s interface shows the
incoming audio level in blue, with orange lags
whenever a trigger point is generated. The
display also houses controls for the high-pass
ilter, Leakage Suppression (see boxout) and
dry/wet mix. Getting Trigger to track the input is
easy. First adjust the input level, then increase
the Detail dial until the line representing it is just
above the ‘noise loor’. The Sensitivity knob is
set according to the playing intricacy, while the
Retrigger control can help alleviate lamming.
Trigger ofers a Live mode with 2ms latency
(potentially for stage use with a laptop, or for
studio monitoring when recording) and
Accurate, at 11ms. Live mode is comparable to a
high-quality hardware drum module (eg,
ddrum), while for mixing, Accurate mode claims
to align the samples to be precisely in phase
with the original audio.
We tested Trigger using a variety of material,
from rock drumming to hard-to-track material
involving double strokes around the entire kit.
We also recorded some deliberately variable,
inconsistent parts – this kind of playing is a
prime candidate for being triggered to MIDI so
that the timing can be corrected, but it can be a
challenge to trigger properly in the irst place.
Amazingly, Trigger handled everything we
threw at it – even soft ghost notes amid busy
tom ills were picked up thanks to the superb
Leakage Suppression feature. Once dialled in
properly, mistriggers were very occasional, and
nothing that a little automation or MIDI editing
couldn’t ix. The Accurate mode really works too,
maximising coherency and tightness when the
samples are blended with the audio.
We have to say that Slate’s ofering beats
anything else we’ve tried, raising the bar
considerably for all would-be competitors.
Contact [e-mail]
Web www.slatedigital.com
Slate Digital
Trigger Platinum
£255
You wait an age for a new drum replacement plug-in, then,
like buses, two have come along at once! Trigger’s up irst…
System requirements
PC Intel/AMD CPU with SSE2, 1GB RAM,
Windows XP/Vista/7 (32/64), 2.4GB HD
space, VST/RTAS host, iLok
Mac G5/Intel CPU, 1GB RAM, OS X 10.4
or later, 2.4GB HD space VST/AU/RTAS
host, iLok
Verdict
For Amazingly accurate triggering
Brilliant Leakage Suppression function
Bundled samples are top class
Phase-accurate replacement
Dead easy to use
Live and Accurate modes
Against Nothing!
Trigger is the new gold standard in drum
replacement software. It’s easy to use,
triggers like a dream, and sounds terriic
10/10
Alternatively
Avid Pro Tools 8
136 >> 9/10 >> £Varies
This DAW’s ‘tab to transient’ feature
has long been used for triggering
WaveMachine Labs
Drumagog 4 Pro
88 >> 8/10 >> £290
Slightly long in the tooth but still
decent, with v5 coming soon
When recording drums, it’s inevitable that
hits from all around the kit will bleed into
every mic to some degree. This can play
havoc with drum replacement, as a loud
tom hit might inadvertently trigger a snare
drum sample, for example.
To combat this, Trigger has an innovative
feature dubbed Leakage Suppression. To
use it, you send the drum channel to be
triggered (eg, snare) to Trigger’s left input,
and the channels that are leaking onto it
(eg, toms, hi-hat) to the right – now trigger
can exclude the leaking hits from the
triggering process. In use, this can vastly
improve tracking, especially on complex
snare parts when there’s a lot going on
elsewhere. Trigger is thus able to track
ghost notes more accurately, ensuring that
the life is not sucked out of a performance.
Setting up the routing can be iddly, but
you only have to do it once per song, and
you can always make a template for it.
Bleeding edge technology
ON THE DVD
Hear Trigger in action,
and read about all its
features in the manual
104 / COMPUTER MUSIC / July 2010
> reviews
/ slate digital trigger platinum
EDITOR’S CHOICE
CMU153.rev_trigger 104 17/5/10 11:36:22 am