Lessons

Lesson Info

Printing Kick and Snare Drums with Q&A

Next part is let's bust these out and let's print these and let's get rid of this trigger jack so theoretically, although this is a different session because I pop it up with all the things set theoretically everything is in phase we've already done a lot check everything's totally cool. There might be a few miss face hits on this because I did this the other day but let's do that someone make one you track it's a model track because I'm using a mano kids handle so we're gonna call this kick print seems simple enough, right? The next thing I would do is I want to make sure that I moved this plug in and I put it over here cool. So now that that's there that way when we go back into I drove us here this will sound great. Okay, so we're basically going toe record enable this we're going to send this kick track out sixteen and were to bring this input here on bus sixteen. Next thing is, that is five decibels way too loud, so I'm gonna turn this down. Five decibels there are six I'm actuall...

y just gonna go and put the number five let's go ahead and let's bust this out on the track record this way coming in at almost negative ten look at us proper ample level so let's do this now ideally, when you listen when you play back you listen you double check, we're just gonna print the only reason why I never listen back hasn't during this because there's on it there's automatically late and see happening and the kid would just sound really off time and you're like what's going on. So, um well, let's, just take it back from here, okay? So now that we have the understanding in theory of what that does it's going to just set up our snare their way, we could just go ahead and record both simultaneously, but ideally, I was trying to demonstrate there you go through and you listen to it by itself again because you're doing your sixth check to make sure that you have not messed up in any way, shape or form. Otherwise I would be pretty embarrassing. Senior sample arms can also print a great son that out of seventeen. All right, this guy's negative five so I'm gonna go ahead and do this put this one in five it's going to bust this back to the drum bus. That way, it'll work. Okay, great let's, go ahead and set it up for recording. Well, my room I trying plug in because I'm a smart guy like that I didn't put my bus on seventeen on this now, obviously right negative ten this was originally a negative five, so I'm gonna go ahead and put this up plus five that when we listen to it in the mix again is going to sound cool. Now the really long, boring part let's, play the song back and let's, print this cake answer and just tio confirm and understand exactly why we print and we kicks in there. It's the process of committing the sounds and being like this is what sounds good, and I'm going to move on because I need to finish my job at some point, so might as well be you right now, you feel what I mean? Cool. Let me just select this here. Oh, gosh. So I guess, uh, just chill for a second. Otherwise, if you have questions, I'm happy to do it. I got the chaos there. Sounds great. Yeah. So I'm just gonna let it go to the end because I'm theoretically might still have some tail on one your samples, because I did make some of these cool. That is done. So now we go over here, we just consolidate both of our files. Sick. Now, there's. Two ways we could do this when I could just get rid of my I'll just hide to make him an active because everyone we call that sound I know what samples I used I got all that just in the background it's not active that way it's not eating up the cpu power and now I have my kick sample on a track so let's go ahead and let's listen to this thiscause I'm smart guys here when they add this new kick to my group sounds like a real snap that we're listening to. It is a real scare but is augmented and it has a little bit of the sample that's adding some thickness our main tone is the sound is the snare itself adding more impact that's exactly what we want to do again like these entire drum sounds that I have in this this is now a key this is no compression I'm not unhappy with this drum sound in any way, shape or form that I really like the drum sound and I don't want to use it to you but I don't want to use compression because I really like now what we have instead all I need to do is make my kick and snare more consistent and that's why we have gravitated to a snare and a kid from sample as opposed to any other things so let's just listen to it in the mix and let's make sure we're stoked on this you get it thumb so at that point I'm ready record guitar and they profiles basically concludes my the sample thing at this point we've got a drum sounding good sounding getting our mix that sounds massive sounds much better than before obviously again I'll just do a quick thing a bm yeah I'll just show you the kick with or without you all right kid again so I can examine you get it thes one of the biggest things to notice is how when a knute this notice that the snare town doesn't really change other than it just doesn't feel as big like the sound of the snare is the exact same if anything that's the most biggest that's the really big example of we're using the snare sample just to add consistency the kick has the most obvious consistent bottom that we have now but we're relying a little bit more on that sample purposely because we don't have a lot we don't have allowed base right now we don't we don't have anything fighting with that low and eventually when we do maybe it'll be a little bit more of the regular one or whatever but I'll just muted on those again pay really close attention this doesn't I think the kick is adding more bottom and impact like we want and the snare is getting more decay and consistency in our mix where are real sound is just coming from our clothes max and our roommates are obviously all their necks so boom, that kind of includes everything I need to dio we now have perfectly enough time producing your name yeah, totally we had one question from michael just on mano you ever mix in mono do you ever take it tomorrow the time my controller that I haven't home it's a dangerous remote and I hit that model but all the time ok? I also have three sets of speakers I've something dine audio's I've understands which are usually my go to you I'm always rocking the scans I got some new really crappy speakers called baritones, which are the parent your version of our towns and god salesman you fair monitors ever they sound terrible and everyone who walked in my studio is like, what are you listening to? That sounds terrible I'm like I love it because I can make sure that all of my mid range cuts I really welcome on a lot to be honest, I find that, uh the only thing that like starts getting weird and you can't really rock amounted to much when you've got a lot of guitars and spread going on because you'll make sure that it's loud and in your mind you and then all of a sudden you'll you'll kick out the guitars were slammed in the face but that's kind of the point that it was you want to make sure but it's it's it feels a little weird at first, but I definitely rock model all the time I try to check everything amano oh, usually when I'm tracking I'm rocking the there's hounds and is it not and it's just a question somebody in the chat room tuned in late wanted toe kind of get like a recap of everything that we talked about today, so for anybody that tuned in late actually for watching this, we had an amazing day of creating drum profiles, recording, reinforcing the drugs and not just replacing, which is something that's fairly new to me, and it was really cool to see your process in the way that you do that give us like a thirty second recap I mean, this stuff we covered it. The best thirty second recap is that when you listen to his drums on the radio and you listen to any big record, you need to be aware that they're probably using samples inside of there and that what you perceive as a real snare drum and has a real kick term probably isn't really rial and that's that discovery, when I learned that in life I was I was maybe I was like, what do you mean my favorite people been cheating this whole time? I've done it doesn't make sense, but it's not like that at all in fact, they're just adding their own signature to it and they're helping these things work right? So I mean, going as far back as I remember when I met steve ross peterson, who worked in sony I was making this bread with this past rat out there, and he was rich cost is assistant rich cost is a very big next engineer, one of my favorite mix engineers out of new york, very classic new york sounding drum guy, but he mixed the first mars volta record next first three and at when I was a kid, I never being like this mars volta record is the best drum sound I've ever heard in my life and to this day, it's still a big a big reference trump's son of mine, it sounds so well, sounds unnatural, it's perfect it's just like man, this is really and I found out that it's, extremely heavily sampled with chicken snack, so much so that they do crazy things like they'll use the snare sample and we'll send it to a guitar amp and actually blend a guitar in up in it or put a speaker on top of the snare that is playing the snare so that it sounds more organic and there mike in the bottom of the stairs that it really, really, really cool, unique stuff with it to make it sound so natural, so it just is what I want over today is that aspect of mixing and working with samples, not running away from the towns that you record and that's not saying I don't like these I need to rely on tools to fix it instead of saying there's another tool which is kevin scenario samples it's the oldest trick in the book from the seventies and it's what some of your favorite mix engineers and biggest favorite records have going on it and you have no idea of it so it's a really cool thing and I think it's something that lives on a lot of my mixes I mean, I I will be honest, I a very big purist I really tried to get the most natural drum sound possible and I really I don't want to rely on samples, but I do want to use samples to create more impact if I'm using a big like this for example, this mix thiss pop punk mix I'm working out right now it's like an l a sound it's a glossy it's too good to be true it's trying to reference like blink when eighty teams have the stuff it wants to sit on that same shelf so one of those records heavily kicking snare sampled so how do we compete with it? We have to use a kicking sand sample if we want to even talk about the same thing otherwise I need to reinvent the recording game of recording drums and brings something new into the table that these guys aren't going to make that sound happen so that's the gist of what today was about understanding samples howto work with samples howto actually capture really good natural drum sounds and make your natural drum sounds into samples that you will use in your mix is for the rest of your career awesome was a great summary of the day james wants no maybe one more question james wants to know if you feel the kick and sarah are lacking later on the process and maybe you get to this point and you realize like man it's still just not that maybe the initial sample wasn't there and you don't have a good sample library to draw from do use additive e q or tough words strip frequencies outlet at that point in the process make it sound the way you want as well give a quick theory on my cue and my compression theories when I using cue on a booster I do not cut when I do cut its dipping somewhere in amid that is being weird and I'm trying to open up a little bit space usually every time I'm making I'm cranky bottom and I'm cranking top but one of the two issues that we're introducing mohr low and from the other aspects of the drama and more symbols from the top so what I will do at this point is now, like now these drums are prepped, we're ready to, like, make our album and then when he's going to mix, what will happen is through the top snare and the bottom stair they'll get bus together, I'll probably compress that a little bit, probably e q that a little bit, and I'll do the exact same thing with the snare like the printed snare, I'll probably put some u q on the sample, maybe I'll put a little bit of compression and then maybe I will blend those too together and put more in q and compression on at the end, I really try to save my human compression until the end. I used to be a guy that, like, tracked through compression and track three q and as I've gone on and trying in the pursuit of the best purest signal flow in town, I've eliminated those things because I know that I can rely on them later and if I don't have to rely on them, I actually will have much more. I will have an easier time working with my mix. It might sound crazy, but the eleven years that I've been doing this, I've discovered my best mixing and my best work is what I do next to nothing. And I mean that in terms of it's, very easy to overmix eyes, very easy when you're young and naive to just go to every single channel, strip plug and cranky q clinton crane compression, thinking that that's what it needs. But realistically, it needs you to be attentive, and you have to ask yourself questions. Why did I not hear my kick? Isn't the velocity, is that this? You can't just be supernatural about going for it, otherwise you can really you can get running downhill way too fast, and you will never get you will fall. They are doing it, and so you got to be really controlled about, and you've got to be really smart about it, and I think lots of times less is so much more.