doubling up the kick?

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TyphoidHippo said:
Well, I'll be damned! I just skimmed over the wiki, and saw the part where it said:

If 0 dBm is the power level corresponding to a power of one milliwatt, then 1 dBm is one decibel greater (about 1.259 mW).

So I pulled up a calculator and 1.259^3 (3db) does indeed equal 2 (2 milliwatts). So doubling the power will give you an increase of 3 db.

I understand now the confusion - You were talking about db on the spl scale where 0 is the threshold of human hearing, and I was thinking of db on the meters where 0 is electric unity.

And what do you mean about the sine wave? How would you describe the process of having SoundForge synthesize/render what SoundForge calls a "Perfect Sine" waveform, if not as a perfect sine wave?

This seems silly: "I rendered a digitally perfect, but only really theoretically perfect, sine wave in SoundForge." :D
Click to expand...

Man, I have no idea what any of that shit means.
 
I'm not going to get sucked into this vortex of a thread. Let me say though that it is a very common practice to clone or double tracks by copying a track. This is different yet similar to putting more than one mic on a source or recording a part played twice. Yes there is an increase in summing volume with all of these.

In cloning tracks you can treat each track differently (whether it's EQ, Dynamics, panning, effects, etc) and then blend them to achieve a different sound result. In the example of the kick drum, treat one kick track like it actually was a mic placed closer to the beater and boost/cut EQ bands to get more of the click effect and the second track cut/boost to achieve the boomier sound of a mic placed farther in front of the kick. Then blend to taste. It can achieve a completely different result than just boosting/cutting the same frequencies in just one track. Try it yourself and see.

Another similar result is when you have track send to a buss. You blend the buss level with the track level for a different sound or result.

A cool trick you can try with vocals, drums, etc is to clone lets say a vocal track. Treat one track however you want. With the second, compress the hell out of it and then blend it with the other track. This is a great technique for getting some thing to stand out more in a mix. Maybe put reverb on one but not the other. There's a billion options here.

There are limitless tricks you can do cloning a track, treating each track seperately and then blending them to get a totally different sound. The sky and your CPU are the limits. To the poster saying it's a waste of CPU .... there's ways/workarounds to freeup CPU, try bouncing tracks or archiving. Having a lot of processing power is nice though. It's like broadband internet vs. dial up - you can never go back (and you'll always want more!).

Here's an article that supports the whole notion of what's being argued and discussed here and is a cool Motown trick - The Exciting Compressor, check it out .... it's a great technique that can be applied in different ways :

http://www.recordinginstitute.com/R2KREQ/excomp.htm

Remember, in recording there are no rules and if it sounds good ...... it is good! Keep your mind open to new possibilities.

Sometimes when I construct a drum track from just drum loops to get it to sound bigger and have more dimension I will typically have a main track and use track EQ and compression to get a great sound by itself and then a reverb send (and then maybe another send which I EQ and Compress on the buss with different plugins than the first track) and then I'll make 3 clones of this original track (copy the clip(s) but not neccessarily copy the effects) and......

using typically a 4 band EQ (the Neve 1081 EQ plugin is one of my favorites for this) and sometimes compression and multibands - I boost and cut to try to make copy #1- the snare - stand out, more copy #2 -the kick is emphasized, copy #3- a hit hat or ride cymbal, fill, etc is emphasized. Then you can pan each of these three tracks with the original drum track to give some dimension and then blend to suit (i.e. original track is center, copy #1 "snare" is panned 15% right, copy #2 "kick" is center, #3 is panned left hard if it's a hit hat). You end up with some more dimension and a bigger sound (and sometimes it sounds like shit too). Use different compression plugins or whatever on each track. And yeah it's munches CPU so I'll get it balanced how I want in the mix and bounce some tracks to free up CPU if I need to. You can achieve a big drum or whatever doing many variations of the above. Pretty cool what cut and paste and right clicking can achieve. I have saved templates for this which makes it quicker to set up.

There's my $0.02. You were all right (well except for a couple of you).
 
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yaknski said:
I'm not going to get sucked into this vortex of a thread. Let me say thought that it is a very common practice to clone or double tracks by copying a track. This is different yet similar to putting more than one mic on a source or recording a part played twice. Yes there is an increase in summing volume with all of these.

In cloning tracks you can treat each track differently (whether it's EQ, Dynamics, panning, effects, etc) and then blend them to achieve a different sound result. In the example of the kick drum, treat one kick track like it actually was a mic placed closer to the beater end boost/cut EQ bands to get more of the click effect and the second track cut/boost to achieve the boomier sound of a mic placed farther in front of the kick. Then blend to taste. It can a completely different result than just boosting/cutting the same frequencies in just one track. Try it yourself and see.

Another similar result is when you have track send to a buss. You blend the buss level with the track level for a different sound or result.

A cool trick you can try with vocals, drums, etc is to clone lets say a vocal track. Treat one track however you want. With the second, compress the hell out of it and then blend it with the other track. This is a great technique for getting some thing to stand out more in a mix. Maybe put reverb on one but not the other.

There are limitless tricks you can do cloning a track, treating each track seperately and then blending them to get a totally different sound. The sky and your CPU are the limits. To the poster saying it's a waste of CPU .... there's ways/workarounds to freeup CPU, try bouncing tracks or archiving.

Here's an article that supports the whole notion of what's being argued and discussed here:

http://www.recordinginstitute.com/R2KREQ/excomp.htm

Remember, in recording there are no rules and if it sounds good ...... it is good! Keep your mind open to new possibilities.

Sometimes when I construct a drum track from drum loops to get it to sound bigger and have more dimension I will typically have the main track and use track EQ and compression to get a great sound by itself and then a reverb send (and then maybe another send which I EQ and Compress on the buss with different plugins than the first track) and then I'll make 3 clones of this track and......

using typically a 4 band EQ (the Neve 1081 EQ plugin is one of my favorites for this) and sometimes compression and multibands - I boost and cut to try to make 1) the snare stand out more 2)the kick os emphasized 3) a hit hat or ride cymbal, fill, etc is emaphasized. Then you can pan each of these three tracks with the original drum track to give some dimension and then blend to suit. Use different Compression plugins or whatever on each track. And yeah it's munches CPU so I'll get balanced how I want in the mix and bounce some tracks to free up CPU. You can achieve a big drum or whatever doing many variations of the above. Pretty cool what cut and paste and right clicking can achieve.

There's my $0.02.
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The original debate was whether or not just doubling the kick track and EQ made a difference, and it doesn't except for raising volume. When you add in extra processing like compression, then it makes a difference.
 
Greg_L said:
The original debate was whether or not just doubling the kick track and EQ made a difference, and it doesn't except for raising volume. When you add in extra processing like compression, then it makes a difference.
Click to expand...

Well then doesn't that constitute a difference or are we dealing with semantics? Damn, I am getting sucked in.
 
yaknski said:
Well then doesn't that constitute a difference or are we dealing with semantics? Damn, I am getting sucked in.
Click to expand...

No, you obviously didn't read through the whole thread. We were discussing weather it made a difference (other than volume) to clone a track. The answer is no. Then, it was weather changing the EQ on one of the cloned tracks makes a difference. It makes the same difference as EQ'ing one track (other than the volume, which is what makes people think it changes the actual sound, which it does not.)

ADDING compression to one is a different argument. We're well aware of parallel compression and other techniques, but that's not what we're talking about.


The point's already been established in this thread over and over. It's fact, not opinion.
 
RAMI said:
No, you obviously didn't read through the whole thread. We were discussing weather it made a difference (other than volume) to clone a track. The answer is no. Then, it was weather changing the EQ on one of the cloned tracks makes a difference. It makes the same difference as EQ'ing one track (other than the volume, which is what makes people think it changes the actual sound, which it does not.)

ADDING compression to one is a different argument. We're well aware of parallel compression and other techniques, but that's not what we're talking about.


The point's already been established in this thread over and over. It's fact, not opinion.
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I don't see where anything was established in this thread, whether I missed it or not. You sound kinda testy?
 
yaknski said:
I don't see where anything was established in this thread, whether I missed it or not. You sound kinda testy?
Click to expand...

Then maybe you should read a little more thoroughly. I suspect after you've been here a few years and have to try to correct misinformation like this time and time again, you'd end up a little testy.

Thanks for jumping the gun, though.:)
 
TyphoidHippo said:
This seems silly: "I rendered a digitally perfect, but only really theoretically perfect, sine wave in SoundForge." :D
Click to expand...

I was just being an ass. I really don't care what you call it...... perfect sine, as close to perfect as you can get sine, theoretically perfect sine, or just sine, But.......

The thing is digital isn't perfect (and this seems especially true in daws) and even if it was, as soon as you play that supposedly perfect sine wave it becomes imperfect. <-- run on sentence? Probably. I was always bad about that.

Anyway, the reason is like I said before, digital isn't perfect, then d/a conversion, interference, speaker issues, room acoustics.
 
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yaknski said:
Well then doesn't that constitute a difference or are we dealing with semantics? Damn, I am getting sucked in.
Click to expand...

It's not semantics when the original question was simply about doubling a track and EQ. It wasn't till later that everyone started amending their points with parallel compression and other trickery.
 
Greg_L said:
It's not semantics when the original question was simply about doubling a track and EQ. It wasn't till later that everyone started amending their points with parallel compression and other trickery.
Click to expand...

hey its greg L, Bogey recognises youn from audio anarcgy
 
RAMI said:
No, you obviously didn't read through the whole thread. We were discussing weather it made a difference (other than volume) to clone a track. The answer is no. T.
Click to expand...

The way I think about this is there's two differences when you clone a track (in this case a kick) but do nothing else to alter it and those differences are significant as far as the sound experience:

1)Increased volume 2)There's 2 kick drums (sound sources) instead of one. You have two sources (identically matched) pushing air. The way I explain this is imagine you're listening to an actual kick drum. Then another identically matched (timbre, tuning, transients, tempo) kick starts along in. Yes it's louder, but there's two physical entities creating a sound, moving air, possessing mass. You have that sensation too. I maybe out there with this but that's how I see it. It's a big difference - besides just a volume increase - having two cloned kicks instead of one. There's TWO drums, whether virtual or otherwise. It's a different sound experience and sensation than merely turning the volume up on something. I'm interested to see other's comments about this.
 
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yaknski said:
The way I think about this is there's two differences when you clone a track (in this case a kick) but do nothing else to alter it and those differences are significant as far as the sound experience:

1)Increased volume 2)There's 2 kick drums (sound sources) instead of one. You have two sources (identically matched) pushing air. The way I explain this is imagine you're listening to an actual kick drum. Then another identically matched (timbre, tuning, transients, tempo) kick starts along in. Yes it's louder, but there's two physical entities creating a sound, moving air, possessing mass. You have that sensation too. I maybe out there with this but that's how I see it. It's a big difference - besides just a volume increase - having two cloned kicks instead of one. There's TWO drums, whether virtual or otherwise. It's a different sound experience and sensation than merely turning the volume up on something. I'm interested to see other's comments about this.
Click to expand...

No, you are 100% wrong. No matter how you word it. It is one sound louder. End of argument. You are wrong.


And, asshole....don't send me private messages to get your worthless point across. Chase other men around....you're wasting your time with me.
 
RAMI said:
No, you are 100% wrong. No matter how you word it. It is one sound louder. End of argument. You are wrong.


And, asshole....don't send me private messages to get your worthless point across. Chase other men around....you're wasting your time with me.
Click to expand...

Dogma, no argument here, I'm merely discussing and giving my opinion. I thought that's what was going on in this thread. I was trying to make a point (without insulting you or anyone else) for discussion but apparently you can't handle a difference of opinion. I'm not sure what's got you so worked up, but I guess that's not my concern. I know now not to try to discuss anything with you because you get pissed off and start calling people asshole's. WTF is that all about? Block me if it's an issue for you. I think I've got a valid point here, but I guess you can't have it. Sorry the PM got you upset, that wasn't my intention at all. But now I know better. Why don't you log on to the PSW forum and see how far your DOGMA goes there.

RAMI, you're going to tell me that 1 kick drum is the same as 2? C'mon and think about it for a second. It doesn't even make sense.

The answer is YES! You even agree with me but don't realize it. Look what you said above .... "it's one sound louder". That's a significant difference and that's exactly what I'm asserting here. I still think the issue here is semantics.

I can prove it mathematically (RAMI, you'll need a calculator for this): 1 + 1 = 2
 
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Maybe I can help explain this:

waveform_addition.jpg
 
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