compressed drum aux mix

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fun fun fun

I make sub groups of everything lately
buss asub mix of the kit and compress/eq (like has been said) and bring it back in, and under.

take all of the guitars (been dooing a lot of heavy stuff lately) sub mix them all to a stereo track (not bussing, a group), compress (a little, distortion dosn't really need much compression) and eq uniformly (treat them as individuals first) and they really seem to gell.

i've even been sub mixing the vox (whare thare are enough parts for this to make sense) and aside from compressing the individual tracks, compressing the group (lightly) it helps to get a "together" sound
 
Sounds like a good idea, but what is a sans amp. Sorry for my ignorance in equipment.
 
it's a di box designed to emulate an amp

the bass one is the most common (and what i have) but thare are guitar ones too.

sans amp is a brand by the way.
 
ecktronic said:
No way! thats like a dream of mine. How exactly did you get started in your own studio? Is it in your own house? How long you been going for and is it a success in terms of business?

Me and my buisness partner got a big fat loan and built it in a rental house.

I got started by buying a PT setup and then built geomana around it.

Ive been tracking and mixing for 2 years now, mastering for about a year.

I learned everything on my own.

And have been in buisness for 2 years.

At first i did either free or 10 dollar an hour recordings, my first recordings sucked.

Then as i impoved, and bought nicer gear i jacked up the price.

Im certainly not making it rich here, but im not working a crappy job either.

I also do work for other studios in town as well.

-Finster
 
Thats brilliant Finster. I wish i had the balls to get a big dirty loan and start up a studio. The thing is i live in a small town and there are already two studios there, not very great studios but still studios. My nearest City is Glasgow and it has about 80 studios or something stupid like that so there is to much competition going on. Its a pity cause its my dream to own or atleast work in a studio. Theres a chance i might get a years training at Angel studios in London (lovely studios) but that would mean giving up the band and i aint up for that. Bahhh. Life is shit!
 
ecktronic said:
Thats brilliant Finster. I wish i had the balls to get a big dirty loan and start up a studio. The thing is i live in a small town and there are already two studios there, not very great studios but still studios. My nearest City is Glasgow and it has about 80 studios or something stupid like that so there is to much competition going on. Its a pity cause its my dream to own or atleast work in a studio. Theres a chance i might get a years training at Angel studios in London (lovely studios) but that would mean giving up the band and i aint up for that. Bahhh. Life is shit!

Give up the band.
 
I couldnt. The band is starting to take off and we are all very positive about it. I know there are small chances of making alot of money from a band, but we are going to try and do everything ourselves until an indie or subsiduary label recognise us for what we are. Starting to think about a big silly loan, but it is a big gamble though. :o
 
My fav drum thing to do. Send a sub mix of the drums, minus the overheads to a compressor, step on it hard and bring it back to two channels and push it up under the drum mix. I find that with the over heads in the sub mix, the heavy compression can make the cymbals sound phasy when mixed back in with the dry overheads.
 
oh man, you GOTTA put the 'heads in the aux mix... just at a delicate level. yeah, yuo do want to avoid really obvious pumping, but to get it to rock, they've gotta be in there to some degree... you can actually hear more pumping that I like in a lot of major releases... I was just listening to the refused 'the shape of punk to come' an amazing album for 1997, i gotta say... WAAAAY ahead of it's time.... but anyways, there's a looot of times during that album that the oh's are pumping like crazy. but it sounds HUGE.
 
Track Rat said:
My fav drum thing to do. Send a sub mix of the drums, minus the overheads to a compressor, step on it hard and bring it back to two channels and push it up under the drum mix. I find that with the over heads in the sub mix, the heavy compression can make the cymbals sound phasy when mixed back in with the dry overheads.

Thats basicly what i was saying.
Except i bounce the drum mix to two interleaved (minus the cymbals) and then import it back in and print the effects.
 
Why bother bouncing Finster when you can just buss your drums to two auxiliary channels? Once bounced, you cant change your drum sub mix without re-bouncing. A great part of Pro tools is that you can hide any channels you want, so if there are loads of aux channels you dont want or need to see, just click on the channel list at the left hand side and they disappear.
Suppose if you werent adding any effects when bouncing you could then add different effects to the bounced file, but really you want both the original drum mix and the stereo sub mix to have the same effect settings (except compression ratio/threshold).
 
I've done the aux bus compressor thing but I also, on ocation, trigger a gated bass track with the kick.

To tighten up the botton end, I create 2 distinct channels of bass. First I split the bass track and gate it with a slpit kick track. Send 1 bass track to the main mix and the other to the input of a compressor/gate; output goes to another channel.

Patch a kick track into the inset of the bass compressor/gate. You really only want to trigger the gate so bypass the compressor or set the ration to something like 1:1.

The gated bass track will now open with the kick adding more dynamics and puch.
 
ecktronic said:
Why bother bouncing Finster when you can just buss your drums to two auxiliary channels? (except compression ratio/threshold).

Plug-in latency. Aint it a bitch?

If i do that ill need to use a RTAS plug in to do the squishing on the second drum mix bus.
Which will in turn put the two busses out of sync by a small number of samples.
(this is PT le exclusive)
Which will finally result in phase. And that dosent sound good.
I know what works on my system.
If doin it that way works for you? Hey by all means bro, have at it.

-Finster
 
Yeah plug-in latency does sound like a bit o' a beeatch. Im using Pro tools version 6.1 Im sure. That isnt LE is it?
 
Simman said:
I've done the aux bus compressor thing but I also, on ocation, trigger a gated bass track with the kick.

To tighten up the botton end, I create 2 distinct channels of bass. First I split the bass track and gate it with a slpit kick track. Send 1 bass track to the main mix and the other to the input of a compressor/gate; output goes to another channel.

Patch a kick track into the inset of the bass compressor/gate. You really only want to trigger the gate so bypass the compressor or set the ration to something like 1:1.

The gated bass track will now open with the kick adding more dynamics and puch.

That does sound like a pretty good idea. I might give that a go as im hearing alot of commercial rock songs that have lots of attack and punch that my mixes are lacking. I know some of that is because of the $1000 and $1000 they spend on mastering it, but i knew there were ways of getting punchier mixes before mastering.

I suppose you only use a little amount of the second bass track so it doesnt overpower. And would you use faster attack for the compression or just use the same settings?

Do you have any samples of your tracks that you use this method?
 
ecktronic said:
Yeah plug-in latency does sound like a bit o' a beeatch. Im using Pro tools version 6.1 Im sure. That isnt LE is it?

It is actually.
 
Ohh, so do all LE setups have plug in latency? I am using Pro tools HD digi 192 set up with a Power mac g4. Just looked on the digi website. So i amnt using LE but HD. Heard of any plug in latency with HD systems?
 
ecktronic said:
Ohh, so do all LE setups have plug in latency? I am using Pro tools HD digi 192 set up with a Power mac g4. Just looked on the digi website. So i amnt using LE but HD. Heard of any plug in latency with HD systems?

Youre using HD? :eek:
But asking me if you should use an NTK on a gtr cab?!

God man,,,im speechless.
 
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