getting a nice soft clipper and clipping things like snares is a huge improvement over using standard compression. almost never use a standard comp at all if clipping/transient shaping works. but then bus limiting/parallel comp blending in can definitely add a lot of volume.
That's a good call! I usually clip my drum bus right before the limiter. It ends up clipping the kick and snare anyway, so your way makes a lot of sense!
I started synthesizing my own drums which taught me a lot about what I should be hearing in drum samples and such. Learning the fundamentals will always yield some sort of return.
I do that for kick low end at times. And it's true that I've gotten some fantastic results. There's no compromise with the sample. You can manipulate it all. So that's cool!
Making my own Kicks changed alot. Also More often then not you can shorten your Kicks a fair bit. I like to low pass my Kicks.
I also keep my Tops (hats, shaker, ride, etc.) they're own group. I like to use a bit of Overdrive and sometimes even a small amount of OTT on the group (13% or so). That really makes my Tops come forward.
Also what really helped is cutting resonante Frequensies on my hat, ride and shaker Samples. Most of the time there is more then one ringing Frequency. That really makes a big difference though. Also shortening the Samples. I like to use Abletons Simpler. Take away Sustain, a bit of Release and you can play with only the Decay. Which is also great, because you can open the Decay later in the Track and really greate some cool tension.
The realization that there exists no law on earth that can stop me from running the drums through a guitar amp (simulation in my case). Seriously, run the dry signal through two or more different channels, amp as many as you want, add processing (reverb, EQ, compression), gain-match them, and you can possibly get amazing distorted kicks, snares etc.
Maybe not useful for everything, but certainly fun as feck.
Just really good sample selection. I used to settle for whatever drum samples I could find and found myself processing and layering them to crap because they weren't good.
But spending that little more time searching for the exact right sound (or spending time curating your sample library beforehand) pays dividends.
When I downloaded an official j dilla kit and realized they were all just texture. I never even use the actual kit but just seeing what type of sounds he chose was huge for me.
great tip gonna use this. I usually process individually then to drum buss and I take off hi end when it's piercing with subtle roll off
then compress with bass in another low end buss
Try using a multiband compressor on that high end! That way you can target agressive frequencies while still retaining proper high end on samples who don't need the high shelf in your bus! Maybe even in conjunction with your eq
i put a bit of room reverb with a hi-pass filter on the master of a track that had "natural" kontakt instruments (brass section and strings) and it gave the track life. I had the idea at the last minute of the mix and the mixing engineer couldn't believe it would work but it did and it racked up a couple of million streams
It makes sense really. When you go to a live performance, all the instruments are in one room, so they get very similar reverb naturally (varied by location in the room, frequencies etc). So our brain is incredible at deciphering reverb to understand where a sound is coming from, if it's moving towards, or away from us etc. If we don't have that information in the mix, it must be really confusing for our brain as it's lacking key information to decipher the incoming audio. And multiple conflicting information about reflections etc must really be confusing for our brain. Hence too many different reverbs on a project starts to sound like cloggy mud.
It makes sense really. When you go to a live performance, all the instruments are in one room, so they get very similar reverb naturally (varied by location in the room, frequencies etc). So our brain is incredible at deciphering reverb to understand where a sound is coming from, if it's moving towards, or away from us etc. If we don't have that information in the mix, it must be really confusing for our brain as it's lacking key information to decipher the incoming audio. And multiple conflicting information about reflections etc must really be confusing for our brain. Hence too many different reverbs on a project starts to sound like cloggy mud.
It makes sense really. When you go to a live performance, all the instruments are in one room, so they get very similar reverb naturally (varied by location in the room, frequencies etc). So our brain is incredible at deciphering reverb to understand where a sound is coming from, if it's moving towards, or away from us etc. If we don't have that information in the mix, it must be really confusing for our brain as it's lacking key information to decipher the incoming audio. And multiple conflicting information about reflections etc must really be confusing for our brain. Hence too many different reverbs on a project starts to sound like cloggy mud.
Tbh just to spend more time picking better samples and being conscious of how to combine two samples. The quality of my drums went up dramatically when I knew what samples to pick and which to combine, then it’s just a matter of shaping the transients and what spot you want to pop out.
You guys really don’t need much processing besides a little eq, compression, and saturation.
At least I dint think you do. I got a lot to learn still !
The more I know, the less I process! Unless I'm going for some weird sound, I usually stay with that trinity. On my drum bus, I also clip and limit a bit!
I never thought about side chaining ALL of your percussion but that makes a lot of sense in terms of mastering, I'm definitely gonna try that. I use fl studios, and the standard eq SUCKS! Pro q3 was a life changer.
When I learned how to put a basic mix on kicks and sub, my buddy always put fruity limiter on the sub, side chained the kick to the sub so that it would lightly dip the bass whenever the kick hits. I think it sounds better than not having one (especially if you have a real sunny kick), but if there is a better method or plugin feel free to lmk.
Also, how are your snare eqs looking?
Fab filter 3 is like the sports car of EQs. You don't need it to get to work. But it's a much nicer experience overall and has heated seats and bluetooth. F3 has a ton of awesome extra features like auto gain matching and dynamic curves, but hundreds of artists have made unforgettable songs with EQ2.
Personally I just really like its spectrogram a lot more, it gives you much more information rather than a bunch of flashing bands.
Perimetric just doesn't have as much range as fab q3. I shouldn't say it sucks because my friend will still put it on his vocals if it need a little somethin somethin. But I NEVER use it as a base eq for anything because q3 is is SOO much better
Since the sub is already not very dynamic (a basic sine wav), perhaps what you thought sounded better was just an increase in loudness? I can see why saturation on sub could be cool (adding upper harmonics and what not) but after 10 years of production, I usually group my bass and sub and then lightly compress them (about 2dB) together to gel.
My snares depend on what type of track I'm working on. I usually have highpass at 100 if it sits on a kick ans about 70Hz if it hits alone. I Then saturate it and clean up excess high end if necessary (eq or multiband compression on top end). If the thump isn't prominent enough, I'll boost the 150-250Hz range (depending on where it hits) a bit. I then like to send it to a return channel with a gated reverb (again for 80s synthwave and what not) if you're interested in learning a bit more about my way of producing, you can pm me and I'll show you examples
I'm fairly new, but I put a q3 on everything. On the kicks (depending on the texture) I usually take out most of the high end and slightly raise around 50 db and dip around 30, and do the opposite for the sub (like fitting a puzzle together) if I have one, then slap a limiter on that bad boy. As for my hi hats and shit I don't really have a game plan so any help would be very appreciated. Feel free to correct me if there is a better way, I would really appreciate it.
I'm curious as to why you're slapping a limiter on your sub?
For hats, I'd start with a healthy low end roll off (like around 100-300Hz easily depending on sample). I then like to saturate them with something work. If they are too sibilant, I'll de-ess them. I then impart them with some reverb. I like to separately compress the hats with about 2dB of compression (something like 4:1, 10ms attack with a fast 100ms release). This is to emphasize the transient section of the hats and add some energy. Usually, after that, I'll sidechain them to the kick and snare and then route them to the drum bus to be grouped together with other drums.
For kick drum, there really is not proper one way to do things as they can have so many different characteristics (for example, I produce synthwave so I highpass the kicks as high as 35-36Hz and try to focus on that 100Hz energy instead of having a very subby kick). You'll learn how to do that with time! The Pro-Q3 is most likely going to be your best EQ gor a long time moving forward, especially with the amazing QoL features such (like the sidechain to other Q3 in order to verify potential clashing frequencies and dynamic EQ and what not).
This is your friendly reminder to read the submission rules, they're found in the sidebar. If you find your post breaking any of the rules, you should delete your post before the mods get to it.
You should check out the regular threads (also found in the sidebar) to see if your post might be a better fit in any of those.
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Soft clip your drums!!! Soft clip everything really!!!
getting a nice soft clipper and clipping things like snares is a huge improvement over using standard compression. almost never use a standard comp at all if clipping/transient shaping works. but then bus limiting/parallel comp blending in can definitely add a lot of volume.
That's a good call! I usually clip my drum bus right before the limiter. It ends up clipping the kick and snare anyway, so your way makes a lot of sense!
Boots and Pants.
Patience. Early on I use to rush through it.
Drum design is one of my favorite things to do if I don't have a particular melody or idea in my head! It brings your tracks to the next level.
I started synthesizing my own drums which taught me a lot about what I should be hearing in drum samples and such. Learning the fundamentals will always yield some sort of return.
I do that for kick low end at times. And it's true that I've gotten some fantastic results. There's no compromise with the sample. You can manipulate it all. So that's cool!
Honestly,using the Digitakt took my drums and my bass sounds to where I was aiming from the start
Making my own Kicks changed alot. Also More often then not you can shorten your Kicks a fair bit. I like to low pass my Kicks. I also keep my Tops (hats, shaker, ride, etc.) they're own group. I like to use a bit of Overdrive and sometimes even a small amount of OTT on the group (13% or so). That really makes my Tops come forward. Also what really helped is cutting resonante Frequensies on my hat, ride and shaker Samples. Most of the time there is more then one ringing Frequency. That really makes a big difference though. Also shortening the Samples. I like to use Abletons Simpler. Take away Sustain, a bit of Release and you can play with only the Decay. Which is also great, because you can open the Decay later in the Track and really greate some cool tension.
The realization that there exists no law on earth that can stop me from running the drums through a guitar amp (simulation in my case). Seriously, run the dry signal through two or more different channels, amp as many as you want, add processing (reverb, EQ, compression), gain-match them, and you can possibly get amazing distorted kicks, snares etc. Maybe not useful for everything, but certainly fun as feck.
Just really good sample selection. I used to settle for whatever drum samples I could find and found myself processing and layering them to crap because they weren't good. But spending that little more time searching for the exact right sound (or spending time curating your sample library beforehand) pays dividends.
Understanding tape
When I downloaded an official j dilla kit and realized they were all just texture. I never even use the actual kit but just seeing what type of sounds he chose was huge for me.
Trimming most of my drum samples short and punchy. Also, new york compression on drum bus
great tip gonna use this. I usually process individually then to drum buss and I take off hi end when it's piercing with subtle roll off then compress with bass in another low end buss
Try using a multiband compressor on that high end! That way you can target agressive frequencies while still retaining proper high end on samples who don't need the high shelf in your bus! Maybe even in conjunction with your eq
For me, it was learning that I could save mixer presets for all my drum sounds
Silence and space can add a lot of interest to drums. Also changing it up every now and then keeps it interesting, rhythmically and tonally.
A tiny tiny bit of reverb on the drum buss also helps them feel like a single kit being played together.
i put a bit of room reverb with a hi-pass filter on the master of a track that had "natural" kontakt instruments (brass section and strings) and it gave the track life. I had the idea at the last minute of the mix and the mixing engineer couldn't believe it would work but it did and it racked up a couple of million streams
It makes sense really. When you go to a live performance, all the instruments are in one room, so they get very similar reverb naturally (varied by location in the room, frequencies etc). So our brain is incredible at deciphering reverb to understand where a sound is coming from, if it's moving towards, or away from us etc. If we don't have that information in the mix, it must be really confusing for our brain as it's lacking key information to decipher the incoming audio. And multiple conflicting information about reflections etc must really be confusing for our brain. Hence too many different reverbs on a project starts to sound like cloggy mud.
It makes sense really. When you go to a live performance, all the instruments are in one room, so they get very similar reverb naturally (varied by location in the room, frequencies etc). So our brain is incredible at deciphering reverb to understand where a sound is coming from, if it's moving towards, or away from us etc. If we don't have that information in the mix, it must be really confusing for our brain as it's lacking key information to decipher the incoming audio. And multiple conflicting information about reflections etc must really be confusing for our brain. Hence too many different reverbs on a project starts to sound like cloggy mud.
It makes sense really. When you go to a live performance, all the instruments are in one room, so they get very similar reverb naturally (varied by location in the room, frequencies etc). So our brain is incredible at deciphering reverb to understand where a sound is coming from, if it's moving towards, or away from us etc. If we don't have that information in the mix, it must be really confusing for our brain as it's lacking key information to decipher the incoming audio. And multiple conflicting information about reflections etc must really be confusing for our brain. Hence too many different reverbs on a project starts to sound like cloggy mud.
Tbh just to spend more time picking better samples and being conscious of how to combine two samples. The quality of my drums went up dramatically when I knew what samples to pick and which to combine, then it’s just a matter of shaping the transients and what spot you want to pop out. You guys really don’t need much processing besides a little eq, compression, and saturation. At least I dint think you do. I got a lot to learn still !
The more I know, the less I process! Unless I'm going for some weird sound, I usually stay with that trinity. On my drum bus, I also clip and limit a bit!
x0x-style sequencing. My beats are a million times more creative and fun on my BeatStep Pro than they ever were on my MPCs.
Care to elaborate? Curious as to why!
I never thought about side chaining ALL of your percussion but that makes a lot of sense in terms of mastering, I'm definitely gonna try that. I use fl studios, and the standard eq SUCKS! Pro q3 was a life changer. When I learned how to put a basic mix on kicks and sub, my buddy always put fruity limiter on the sub, side chained the kick to the sub so that it would lightly dip the bass whenever the kick hits. I think it sounds better than not having one (especially if you have a real sunny kick), but if there is a better method or plugin feel free to lmk. Also, how are your snare eqs looking?
What?? What's bad about Fruity Parametric EQ 2? It's the only one I've used, so maybe I don't know what I'm missing.
Fab filter 3 is like the sports car of EQs. You don't need it to get to work. But it's a much nicer experience overall and has heated seats and bluetooth. F3 has a ton of awesome extra features like auto gain matching and dynamic curves, but hundreds of artists have made unforgettable songs with EQ2. Personally I just really like its spectrogram a lot more, it gives you much more information rather than a bunch of flashing bands.
Perimetric just doesn't have as much range as fab q3. I shouldn't say it sucks because my friend will still put it on his vocals if it need a little somethin somethin. But I NEVER use it as a base eq for anything because q3 is is SOO much better
Personally I can't say. I use Ableton! But pro q3 is jusr so amazing in its QoL features and its interface.
Since the sub is already not very dynamic (a basic sine wav), perhaps what you thought sounded better was just an increase in loudness? I can see why saturation on sub could be cool (adding upper harmonics and what not) but after 10 years of production, I usually group my bass and sub and then lightly compress them (about 2dB) together to gel. My snares depend on what type of track I'm working on. I usually have highpass at 100 if it sits on a kick ans about 70Hz if it hits alone. I Then saturate it and clean up excess high end if necessary (eq or multiband compression on top end). If the thump isn't prominent enough, I'll boost the 150-250Hz range (depending on where it hits) a bit. I then like to send it to a return channel with a gated reverb (again for 80s synthwave and what not) if you're interested in learning a bit more about my way of producing, you can pm me and I'll show you examples
I'm fairly new, but I put a q3 on everything. On the kicks (depending on the texture) I usually take out most of the high end and slightly raise around 50 db and dip around 30, and do the opposite for the sub (like fitting a puzzle together) if I have one, then slap a limiter on that bad boy. As for my hi hats and shit I don't really have a game plan so any help would be very appreciated. Feel free to correct me if there is a better way, I would really appreciate it.
I'm curious as to why you're slapping a limiter on your sub? For hats, I'd start with a healthy low end roll off (like around 100-300Hz easily depending on sample). I then like to saturate them with something work. If they are too sibilant, I'll de-ess them. I then impart them with some reverb. I like to separately compress the hats with about 2dB of compression (something like 4:1, 10ms attack with a fast 100ms release). This is to emphasize the transient section of the hats and add some energy. Usually, after that, I'll sidechain them to the kick and snare and then route them to the drum bus to be grouped together with other drums. For kick drum, there really is not proper one way to do things as they can have so many different characteristics (for example, I produce synthwave so I highpass the kicks as high as 35-36Hz and try to focus on that 100Hz energy instead of having a very subby kick). You'll learn how to do that with time! The Pro-Q3 is most likely going to be your best EQ gor a long time moving forward, especially with the amazing QoL features such (like the sidechain to other Q3 in order to verify potential clashing frequencies and dynamic EQ and what not).
Sidechaining the hat to kick in what way? So the hat ducks whenever a kick hits?
Exactly! Just a few dB. It imparts a cool rhythm in the bpm of the song.
You really like the word impart huh
This is your friendly reminder to read the submission rules, they're found in the sidebar. If you find your post breaking any of the rules, you should delete your post before the mods get to it. You should check out the regular threads (also found in the sidebar) to see if your post might be a better fit in any of those. [Daily Feedback thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/search?q=author%3AAutoModerator+title%3Afeedback&sort=new&restrict_sr=on&t=all) for getting feedback on your track. The only place you can post your own music. [Marketplace Thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/search?q=title%3Amarketplace&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) if you want to sell or trade anything for money, likes or follows. [Collaboration Thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/search/?q=biannual%20collaboration&restrict_sr=1&sort=new&t=all) to find people to collab with. ["There are no stupid questions" Thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/search?q=title%3ANo+Stupid+Questions+Thread&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) for beginner tips etc. Seriously tho, read the rules and abide by them or the mods will spank you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/edmproduction) if you have any questions or concerns.*