The American Dream Trilogy

  • Thread starter Thread starter K-dub
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guitar zero said:
Really good stuff. Love the piano. Nice job. Has a real nice sheen to it that sounds professional. The drums are really tight and clear. Are they real drums recorded? They sound very real. If they are fake, I'd love to know how you accomplished that sound.
Click to expand...

They're Superior Drummer 2, GZ ... and the whole sound heard here is straight out of the program using the included effects and mixer.

I normally send that mix to a drum sub bus. Across the drum sub bus, I first lay some compression, followed by a brick limiter set high to just trim any transient tops. Once the mix starts to gel, I'll play between the compressor and the limiter in order to get the right push in the mix.

I've got a large library of midi clips I've collected over the years, but if memory serves me right, these patterns were included w/ SD2.

I was forced into an experiment recently where ... and I don't know why, my SD2 stopped loading. It had worked previously, but suddenly I couldn't get the sounds to load. (Updating to the 64 bit version fixed it)

Anyways, in order to play the drum track I'd assemble for the piece I was working on, I had to load Session Drummer instead of SD2 (while I was figuring things out).

I like Session Drummer, and I've used it before ... but oh my, there was a vast WORLD of difference. SD2 just has an incredible amount of velocity layers that when heard side by side w/ Session Drummer, blew Session Drummer out of the water like a Pro basketball team taking on an 8th grade squad. I couldn't believe how SD2 just opened up the sound and nuance of the performance. I simply made things sound real versus ever so slightly canned.

In any case, it was an eye opener for me.

I probably over answered your question. I hope that helped anyways :)

Kev-
 
K-dub said:
They're Superior Drummer 2, GZ ... and the whole sound heard here is straight out of the program using the included effects and mixer.

I normally send that mix to a drum sub bus. Across the drum sub bus, I first lay some compression, followed by a brick limiter set high to just trim any transient tops. Once the mix starts to gel, I'll play between the compressor and the limiter in order to get the right push in the mix.

I've got a large library of midi clips I've collected over the years, but if memory serves me right, these patterns were included w/ SD2.

I was forced into an experiment recently where ... and I don't know why, my SD2 stopped loading. It had worked previously, but suddenly I couldn't get the sounds to load. (Updating to the 64 bit version fixed it)

Anyways, in order to play the drum track I'd assemble for the piece I was working on, I had to load Session Drummer instead of SD2 (while I was figuring things out).

I like Session Drummer, and I've used it before ... but oh my, there was a vast WORLD of difference. SD2 just has an incredible amount of velocity layers that when heard side by side w/ Session Drummer, blew Session Drummer out of the water like a Pro basketball team taking on an 8th grade squad. I couldn't believe how SD2 just opened up the sound and nuance of the performance. I simply made things sound real versus ever so slightly canned.

In any case, it was an eye opener for me.

I probably over answered your question. I hope that helped anyways :)

Kev-
Click to expand...
Kev,

Thanks for the reply. No you didn't over answer. So are these midi triggered drums, or loops that you drag in?
 
They're clip patterns, GZ. Set the tempo grid, drag and drop in place and done.
 
Absolutely. Superior comes w/ EZ Player Pro ... which if you wanted, could be a drum track construction tool as a stand alone.

But what I do is set it all up in Sonar, record the scratch track of just me playing rhythm guitar or piano to a click track ... then open EZ Player and drag and drop the drums in behind the basic track ... they don't have to be exactly in time, as the initial track is expected to be thrown away as the arrangement develops. It's there for framing purposes only.

Anyways ... once the drums are built behind ... then the frame is left roughly in place so that the chords can be followed (to the true drum beat), and layered upon. Once the layering begins, I eliminate the original track and re-perform dependent on where the various players have determined the direction should be taken.

Then I add the rest.

Again ... probably TMI ... but ... :)

K-
 
btw ...

"How did you do that?" is probably the biggest benefit derived from any review room anywhere. That's what makes review rooms the most important area of any forum.

One HEARS what is done.

That's HOW I learned.

K-
 
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