how do i mix these drums...

  • Thread starter Thread starter ikijapan
  • Start date Start date
I

ikijapan

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to sound like they did in the first place?

Hi everyone, thanks for looking at my thread. I started a thread in the newbie section here:
https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=231052

The problem I'm trying to deal with is that on my drum set up with my roland kit, the direct outputs for recording with seperate tracks for snare, tom,HH,ride etc do not send any reverb or ambiance effects. If I record by SPDIF it does, but it's all recorded on 1 stereo track, with no option to adjust levels later during mixdown.

So, I have to record with the direct outs so I can adjust levels etc accordingly. And supposedly that is the best way to do it anyways, because that way you can control the reverb according to the mix (that's what the guys over at roland say).

But as I said in my previous post, I am completely clueless how to get the reverb levels right, or how to reproduce ambiance etc. So here's what I've done:

I recorded a drum track. I have one stereo track which is the drum track with effects via SPDIF. And then I have all the seperate tracks. I am hoping someone will take the time to try to get the dry tracks, sounding like the wet tracks, and tell me how they did it, that way I have a basis to start playing around with stuff. Actually the way the wet tracks sound, usually ends up working with the songs I've worked on.

The dry tracks are as follows: snare, kick, HH, ride all in mono, and then toms and crashes in stereo.

I hope that makes sense. This would help me out tremendously. Oh, by the way, I didn't have access to my drummer, so I just had the only guy available (guitar player) play the drums for about 2 or 3 minutes so I could have something to work with. It's not against music or anything, so it's just random beats, mostly not in time thanks to the drumming skills available at the time ;) but it should work for these purposes.

The files are quite large, about 180 MB in total I believe.

Here's the tags to download the seperate parts:

http://www.movedigital.com/go/ikijapan/53222/crashes_in_stereo.wav
http://www.movedigital.com/go/ikijapan/53225/high_hat_only.wav
http://www.movedigital.com/go/ikijapan/53226/kick_only.wav
http://www.movedigital.com/go/ikijapan/53227/ride_only.wav
http://www.movedigital.com/go/ikijapan/53228/snare_only.wav
http://www.movedigital.com/go/ikijapan/53229/toms_in_stereo.wav

And here is the complete drums with effects:
http://www.movedigital.com/go/ikijapan/53223/full_drums_with_effects.wav
 
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I'll give it a shot...But I don't want to have to sign up just to pick up the files. Can you find another place to host??? Or am I doing something wrong?
 
oh crap, sorry guys, I didn't know you had to sign up.

Can someone recommend a place to host these files?
 
Okay everyone! I got a hosting site that doesn't require you to register!

Just right click and save as and should be good to go!!

Thanks for your patience!
 
Ill check this out when I get to the studio tonight.
 
I started messing around with those files, and this is what i came up with. It's probablly not even close to good and something that someone better than me could get but whattha hell here goes nothing:



note: i only had my headphones so i'm not quite sure it'll sound any good at all...
 
So are these drum tracks on a DRUM SET??? Or are hese electronic drum samples???
 
Polska_77 said:
I started messing around with those files, and this is what i came up with. It's probablly not even close to good and something that someone better than me could get but whattha hell here goes nothing:



note: i only had my headphones so i'm not quite sure it'll sound any good at all...
Click to expand...

Polska, the drums sound fine! Oops, but the whole point of my post was, I wanted someone to tell me how they did it. I don't really know how to approach mixing the drums.

I was hoping for a break down like this: I used a plate reverb and set it like this and put x% on the snare and x% on the HH
or something like that.

Please tell me how you did it

Thanks
 
iki,
I 'm playing with them now. But, the thing is, those individual drum tracks DO have reverb on them. They're already processed. They're not dry tracks. Comparing with the stereo track, it seems like maybe there's additional reverb on the entire mix, and maybe EQ'd differently. I'll still play around and see what I come up with.
 
RAMI said:
iki,
I 'm playing with them now. But, the thing is, those individual drum tracks DO have reverb on them. They're already processed. They're not dry tracks. Comparing with the stereo track, it seems like maybe there's additional reverb on the entire mix, and maybe EQ'd differently. I'll still play around and see what I come up with.
Click to expand...

Rami, that's what I thought! I've been arguing with the guys over at Roland for like a year now, and I've been like...uhh the ride sounds like it has some reverb, and they're like "I don't know how to put this more bluntly, there is NO reverb or ambiance effects on the direct outputs. It's not there. The only thing that transfers is compression and EQ."

Wow, I'm confused
 
ikijapan said:
Polska, the drums sound fine! Oops, but the whole point of my post was, I wanted someone to tell me how they did it. I don't really know how to approach mixing the drums.

I was hoping for a break down like this: I used a plate reverb and set it like this and put x% on the snare and x% on the HH
or something like that.

Please tell me how you did it

Thanks
Click to expand...



What i did is took all of the tracks, and did a mix of them with a plugin called room sim (It's part of samplitube), i also used Guitar rig on the kick drum and snare,and eq'ed the whole thing to make it sound sort of like it would with room mics. Then mixed it down, and used that and mixed it with the dry tones. Thats all, i don't know if thats the professional approach but thats the way I've been working my drum machine tones and it seems to work ok i guess.


This is the "mix" with the reverbs and stuff on them:
http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=6823



Oh and i can't wait to hear what RAMI comes up with, bet 100$ it'll be better than mine. :D
 
Polska, what you did sounds fine. Maybe the levels can be adjusted (high hat and ride a bit too loud and need to be eq'd a bit). But there's not much you can do. I played with the EQ on the kik and snare, but they're already EQ'd, processed sounds.

IKI, I'll try to get around to doing something by the end of the week. But, to be honest, other than abit of EQ to tame the cymbals and hats, I'd pretty much do what Polska did and throw a room reverb on them.

As far as Roland is concerned, they might not be wrong when they say "no effects go through the individual outs, etc...". The reverb on the kik and snare and toms, etc...is probably part of the sound of that sample. It was sampled that way. So, they maybe right in the sense that you can't ADD effects, but the sounds already HAVE effects on them. They're EQ'd, compressed, reverbed.

Not much you can do other than what Polska did.
 
RAMI said:
Polska, what you did sounds fine. Maybe the levels can be adjusted (high hat and ride a bit too loud and need to be eq'd a bit). But there's not much you can do. I played with the EQ on the kik and snare, but they're already EQ'd, processed sounds.
Click to expand...

I agree, but

+ the dry tones =


I don't know if i explained it ok, but what i ment is that the link with xxx on it is just the reverb track that is mixed into the other one


Cheers
 
OH!!! I didn't notice there was another link. Yeah, the levels are much better and the overall volume is louder. Did you compress it after? Sounds good whatever you did.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by:
but It's just a part of this one:
Click to expand...
but I'm assuming it's just an updated mix?
 
the one thats louder is the final mix, the one with the screwed up levels is a part of that final mix. If you add the 'dry' tones to the one with the screwed up levels you'll get the final one.

Oh and there is no compression on either thing, jus EQ, room verb, and guitar rig.
 
hey thanks for the help guys, this is helpnig a lot so far!
 
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