Lessons

Lesson Info

Routing and Automation

Let's just take a look at the session really quick so I can kind of explain what's going on here said everybody understands we have our instance of easy drummer loaded here and in this particular instance of easy drummer too we are using one of my favorite kits which is from the expansion pack the classic so this is a great sounding sort of all purpose kit and then what I've done is I've gone the mixer like we discussed earlier where you can route in your dog you can rob the channels out and I've created a channel for the kick drum the snare drum and the high hats that I have the tom's on a stereo channel I have the ambiance microphones routed to a stereo channel the percussion and then the drum verb because on this particular preset if we go into the mixture we see that there's some drum verb now there's some really cool things that we're going to talk about that a little more advanced which is weird for easy drummer too but again the first thing is you come out of the mixer you can s...

ee how the routing works right? I've got the channel assignments going out this is telling me what channel it's coming out ofthe so for instance my kick drums they're going to feed out of channel two and then the input on my kick drum azizi drum or two left channel now what's interesting is in our panning our mixer panting if you take it hard left or hard right you can get a stereo signal out of what would seem to be a model channel. So for instance, if I wanted all of the toms to come out of one model channel, I could just paint everything to one side and they would come out of that model channel, but I've got it set up pretty basic here on dh then there's an interesting cool feature that we haven't talked about yet in easy drummer too in the mixer section because it's it's it's dependent on your dog you really need to understand your digital audio work station, but we're going to show you that these knobs here down at the bottom all of these knobs are actually automata ble you can go into your dog and create automation passes that control how these knobs work during a performance. So for instance, we know that we have this plate reverb here we can automate this knob to turn the reverb up during certain parts of the track or turn it down certain parts of the track which is pretty cool feature tohave so the first thing I want to do it sort of just preview through the song I haven't transferred the many from easy drummer too to the song track this is my template and I actually saved this template because I told you earlier, you could just save template is you created them since I work in a certain style all the time. This is what I call my standard ballard one template so I could load this template in any particular point time and start to swap out drum parts and patterns and just work in a very comfortable environment for may. So we've got the drum is being multi outed. I've got a couple of versions from instances excuse me of easy mix like I have some easy mix on the toms and some easy mix on the grand piano. I also I'm running the electric grand piano behind it to kind of give it some some beefs, which is kind of nice. This is the m k one, and then I've got beat station playing the bass, which we just showed you is awesome because it's got different skins and great sounds and again, weii joke about the station because it's, a really new instrument, were literally scratching the surface this much of what beat station khun do? That could be a whole other six hour tutorial in and of itself, because it is the only tune track instrument that handles base lead loops, rex files sounds. It's really a complex kind of thing, so if you haven't checked beat station out, I encourage you to do so now I think going to be very pleasantly surprised so let's, just listen to the track we're going to kind of balance in and out of it because I don't necessarily know that everyone wants to sit through a massive track, but we'll kind of give you just some some some preview of the sounds where we're at and again, this is all many, so this is all to track instruments, all tuned tracked effects, some simple stuff I'm going to take it through the course and then we'll kind of break it down and I'll show you how we've used the multi alisyn easy drummer too, and some of the other effects to kind of get that sound it's kind of a seventies ballot he kinda tune I kind of dig it so turn your lava lamps on maybe get a velvet poster of a tiger turn on some laverne and shirley put that on the background it's kind of ease into it you know I mean it's been that kind of a day we all deserve this break so let's let's take a listen you kind of hear some of the different textures going on cake crumbs, it's homes up a little really elegant feel just basic stuff but again there's not a live player happening here, there's not a live performance happened. The's air all derivatives that started from a performance and easy drummer too. So is that newt this other stuff? And you just listened? Easy drummer too. You see, obviously now I have a different level of control over my individual instruments because I have routed out so there's really two levels of good three if you want to get technical, obviously we have the mixer where we can control. But remember, if we come back in the instruments properties menu, we have control of the instrument even before it gets to the mixer, how loud it is in the mix, which allows you these three levels of control, which is really nice. When you're producing music, you can go to the instrument, you go to the instruments, makes her or you can count on your dog's mixer and that's that's, flexibility it's kind of nice. Now we've got our effects here, we've got this preset retro rock sort of up and running. So what you're going to see in a minute as we're listening to this groove, you could see where I'm at in my groove here and this green section here is a bridge that I've created and something that I wanted in the bridge. Was for the reverb time to increase and I'm going to show you if you watch during the bridge when we get there, this knob is going to turn itself up automatically, which is nice because it's going to bring that river functioning so this isn't something that's unique to easy drummer two effects automation in your plug ins is something a lot of plug ins have, but I'm going to show you how to do it in these drummer too in a second here, so we're just gonna take our slow groove get our roads on lights or low lava lamps lit it's good case and I watched this not your time now, so the river is now kicked in doing more and it's gonna function like that until we get to the end of the bridge. So this green section here is our bridge and then it's going to go back to where it was a little settle in the mix that's a pretty cool feature kind of learn how to do and it's really easy as well. So again, we'll work on that second here comes it's going to go back down on, then you'll see when we get to this intro we'd get some other things that go up, so that comes back tampering hats, very simple stuff we can close this track, we could bring everything back in really cool, yeah I don't mean the track I know the track is really cool I mean easy drummer too so let's let's just talk about some of the things we were discussing so again to this end I also just want to point out we're using one two three just for virtual instance instruments and three instances of easy mix in this plug in and this dog and it sounds pretty full I mean, it sounds better than a demo you would but even again just months ago because we have everything it's just got a real live in its organic so we really sort of gonna mute he's gone to town with easy drummer to here so one of the things that you have to understand and let's just discuss the automation function we were just talking about is that's not a function of easy drummer too it's a function of your dog or digital audio work station now what is a function of easy drummer too is the ability to automate those parameters. So for instance when we get to that part let me come over here to the bridge when we were there in that part let's just go too easy drummer too again and we'll just watch the knob kind of go up so it's already up and then after this it's going to go down so what I'm doing is turning touch this this reverb time so if I was the startup dial that in more you can hear that I'm going to get more so I've left myself some headroom so simply put every single one of these knobs in all of the mixer presets where these number two presets is automated ble and we're working and pro tools someone to talk specifically about pro tools and it's really simple so the first thing that you need to do is you need to come into your actual plugging we know here, so we've got them and we go toe auto where to go? It is really simple normally, but I'm not going to show you have decided it's not that important so thanks for tuning in it's been great have a great day it's important understand that what you're sending his control information tio the existing many so what we've got is there's a function in your dog once you load a plug in and once the plug in is available that allows you to select whether or not the parameters that can be automated and that's really important can be or won't be and there's a different. So for instance, the only things that can be automated in easy drummer too are these knobs here so there are at any given particular point time between one at the minimum and ten maximum knobs in these effects preset chains, so you would simply enable the automation controls for knobs one through ten would be the opt out of the dialogue in your dog and then they they always are numbered the same way you would read so this would be one, two, three and you can go in then and you can work in your tracks so if you come into a different track here, so for instance, on the ambiance channel when they make the track height a little bigger so we can see what's going on, you can go in and you can view a number of things you can see how things lay out, you can see where things actually are and again, I apologize to people that don't use pro tools because it's different right it's different in every dollar, every dog has their own process for going in and working with the automation. So we come here and you could see down here that I've got control one through control ten so that last knob was my river madoff's fire control ten what you see are sort of these lanes. Obviously my track is playing there and you can't see it. Maybe it wasn't the last night of let me open easy drummer again, make sure that we've got the right now now the plate reverb so yeah, the last knob you khun select to see control ten and as you zoom in you'll be able to see the peaks and the valleys depending on how big your automation is or how you've drawn it in its extreme, so these lines represent where your actual where you've drawn the automation and it's ultimately again a function of the dog. So what I don't want people to think is well, I could just do that easy drummer too and standalone er it has nothing really to do with our plug and accept that we've been able to that feature but it's kind of a handy feature tohave and a lot of people kind of equate that to more of a high end feature again that that you can automate things in a plug in the troy designed for song writing but what I really wanted to take away from aside from that cool trick with the automation is just this is what the routing would look like and a pro tools session so for instance, we would open easy drummer you see again as I showed you, that guy kick grounded to channel two so you would come in and select under in put the plug in easy drummer and it would give you all of the available mixer channels that were available to be routed in so it's not complicated at all it's actually just a matter of making sure you understand where everything is, so we would want let's do it two two left let's play or not play play here playing quit it's not working what's wrong I haven't rewound it is what's wrong I'm not the beginning of the song it's called pilot air it's a common tale happens all the time um so let's go ahead then right so now you can hear the high hats or coming through we've got the drums muted I believe are so low it's still which is a beautiful thing um we'll go back then the grandest playing you see the hats coming through here so if we were to open easy drummer too again you see our kick if we sell our kick here same thing or we could still do it here and again really dysfunctionality just gives you the option in your plug in selection to use more than the available plug ins or processing that attorney's number two if you wanted to throw different instances of very popular favorite plug in that wasn't ours on it you could do that in your dog really simple and then again we've got everything routed you can see that I've got my ambience I've got overheads and miami and routed the same channel in my mixer so really what you're hearing here it's both of these instead of having a set of stereo channels for each I just figured it's all sort of the room it's the overheads I kind of like that sound and I still have the individual mix over both of those things in his number two it's just in pro tools. I've combined into one channel, but you can hear already. Now we've taken a little bit of effects processing on the thompson and change the mix values it's a very organic you could picture this being played by a real drummer as it's happening kind of groove and easy drummer too is one hundred percent responsible it's driving everything again. You've got the groove in the song creator tool. So any point time we can go in and it's something in edit, place style or add something or change. I mean, we literally have a track completed, but we still have all of our edit ability and all of our customizing that we could do to our groove right here in the number two and you know, again, I love this kid, but you can start to scroll through any of your other additional easy ex libraries auditioned for kids and it's the same thing with all of our instruments and same with piano way could go in and weaken changed pianos if we wanted to put a different preset you'd electric dirt. Now seventies just happened that just landed right here I like it weighs slide guitar a couple of hats, that's the end of the movie credits roll sons going up that's happened I wrote that you're welcome so on and I just because I like to blend too you have two different answer than I have again something just playing pads base way so way we've shown you all this to sort of demystify this process that we talk about, so let me just take a step back and just recognize that again there is no right or wrong way to do that. This is the process that we all only outlined a really organic right in the moment process and then me taking a couple of hours to assemble something and whatever way works for you as an artist or a musician or producer or someone that's even really just getting into music maybe you don't consider yourself any of those things and you're just looking for an outlet if you're just creative and you want the tools that help you pursue that creativity, our purpose here is that easier, more to is the foundation of a lot of other things that are kind of cool that we've created as a company that can lend to that creativity and we're really proud of what we do we're really proud of how it turns out we're really pro how did a lot of people use it? So we just want you to see sort of the whole wide spectrum of easy drummer, too? I mean, we've talked about it a lot, and there are a lot of things that might seem redundant, and there are a lot of things that might seem like we don't necessarily need to keep going over and over, but I really can't stress enough how effortless it is to create music with easy drummer too is your foundation and start to work through things. So when we look at this session, the idea isn't to show you the right way to do things. This is just another way we've done something our original session that we recorded in the last segment is awesome and again, it's a really kind of exciting in the moments tool, and what you have now is it is a product like easy drummer, too that's capable and very, very, very usable in both scenarios. It's usable on the fly right now, here we go, let's, everybody jam and it's usable as I took my time, I want it serves all those needs.