Original subtitles

Oh

so I'll do this very often when on pop

records especially where you know

there's a pretty big blend between

what's happening organically with live

drums and then what's happening with you

know in the box electronic drums but I

as a drummer I want to you know I want

to play as much live drums as possible

so I'll typically go in after we get our

main track

I'll hit record and I'll try to play

things that aren't necessarily hitting

any accents that anything else are so

there's a great drum groove and if I was

in Steely Dan that would make it but for

a pop record the way this is it would

not so that paired with a ream Atrix

reverb let's see what the reverb is

doing cool so we got a lot of early

reflections and we're kind of making it

seem like it's in the back a little

further but with some weight to it so

that beat turned in Reverse here it is

forward again all right now in Reverse

here's that beat

and we're back to making a pop record

okay so this is something I do a lot

especially on these songs that have live

drums electronic drums I want to give

flavors of that live kit before the real

drums actually kick in this is a great

way to do it and it keeps things ambient

and really interesting drummers the

trick the trick is do not sit down at

that kit and think the same way you were

thinking when you played the real parts

otherwise you're just gonna end up with

a lot of accents that are landing on

existing things as you'll notice here

let's get rid of this because we don't

need it anymore when you listen to these

reverse drums they're working with

everything that's going on around them

and they're not fighting at all

got a little fancy there at the end with

some automation throws to help the

transition because now we're moving into

the next section our chorus so here's

our full kit bounced to a stereo file

okay cool so it's definitely got a John

Bonham feel and I almost Lenny Kravitz

has a song that I love and see you again

that one you know which one I'm talking

about it almost sounds like that exact

beat which is cool

props Lenny props anyway here's how we

got this drum sound so this is a live

drum kit in the room all miked up here's

our kick

obviously super gated and or triggered

totally fine we got a little bit of tape

delay on there with a sixteenth note

variation just a tad what's that doing

so right away it's giving us that John

Bonham cashmere feel nothing wrong with

that top snare clean great snare sound

in my opinion aside from the fact that

there's so much hi-hat in there that I

probably triggered it completely wet

almost completely wet here's our snare

with quite a few samples on it we got a

black beauty direct a black beauty and

our G mic I don't know what that means

and then we have a group stack of

collapse

so we're using this sample at a 95% mix

so we are definitely hearing the ring

coming from our black beauty samples

we're hearing the collapse more than

anything but we do we're also still

hearing the original snare so any kind

of ghost notes or anything like that

they will be preserved and if you see

here I also tuned the samples to the

drum I cannot stand when anybody uses

drum samples and they don't try to at

least get it somewhat close to what

we're hearing in our overheads if you're

doing it stylistically and you're

dropping something down really low or

something really high that's different

but if you're just trying to make a you

know a regular snare sound a little

beefier get the right sample and tune it

to the real drum all right and then I

can't believe it's taken us this long to

get here this is one of my favorite

presets ever in plugin world slate

Steven excellent job on this one

classic snare one since VMR came out it

goes on every snare that i work on i

tweaked a little bit here and there not

very much

so what I like so much about this preset

and we can see what it's doing here on

our 1073 emulation you know we're

cutting out some lows and we're

increasing some highs and we're dropping

out some mids so we're kind of doing

that Munson curve kind of thing right

and to anybody's ear scientifically

that's pleasing and it works for me and

then I find that revival helps it does

the same thing by enhancing the low end

in a really cool way and the top end in

a really cool way together

simultaneously creates dis curve in the

snare where the mid-range attack and the

stuff that kind of makes you go ouch

goes away nice job

let's speed up this process a little bit

bottom snare nothing going on here

except for a little compression and

we're taking out frequencies that don't

need to be there everyone should know

how to do that on our Tom's I've EMR on

them again and I know I'm not doing much

because I never do too much to Tom's

there's also not many Tom's playing

here's our overheads let's solo those

dry cool so the cymbals sound great but

I'm also not using these overheads as

just cymbal mics we're getting a really

nice sounding spectrum the kit in there

here's what we're doing on VM are a

little bit of SSL styled EQ not too much

possibly because I was going through SSL

hardware when we were tracking it and a

little bit of compression here we go so

take a look at our compressor and watch

how all it's really doing is being

affected by the kick and the snare so

it's softening our kick and snare which

is exactly what we need because we

already have a closed mic to kick and

snare with samples all right on to what

makes this the room mics no plugins

on there that means they were tracked

with the right

spread in the room at that point in time

they were either Cascade Fatheads

or the full Magilla coals for t-38s the

holy grail of ribbon room microphones in

my opinion and here's what these here's

what the room mics sound like and that

doesn't sound like we tracked it through

a de-stressor that sounds like we're

attracting through one of my SSL dynamic

compressors so that with the whole kit

where we're basically at right now

without that room like I would have went

directly to more compression and

probably even more with some parallel

compression didn't need to do that

that's giving me that vibe before we go

to our crash right and crash left which

I'm going to give you a little tip on

let's go to our hi-hat and solo that for

a second this might be the first mix

I've ever done where I'm not mixing it

in drummers perspective pretty cool

what's going on here we have a VM R we

have a tape delay which again is gonna

give us that cashmere thing and let's

let's pay attention to the wet/dry ratio

here it's all wet why is it all wet it's

all wet because I said before that

hi-hat was so loud it was bleeding into

everything so we have enough hi-hat

here's what it sounds like all right we

just got real Led Zeppelin cashmere we

got a phaser on there with a super high

rate and intensity followed by a Leslie

cabinet emulation here's without

here's with okay cool

and then we have an EQ after that which

nine times out of ten when we see an EQ

after a good amount of effects I'm using

it because it was an afterthought in

this case the afterthought must have

been we don't need any of that kick and

snare we just need the sizzle of the

hi-hat so here's what the whole kit

sounds like now

cool all right now here is another tip

for you I tracked the crash cymbals

separately

alright now a lot of people have heard

that Dave Grohl does this and I've read

that everyone from the Arctic Monkeys to

the Black Keys and you know that they're

hip to that too I do it in scenarios

where I know I'm gonna crush the living

hell out of the drums because second you

start hitting cymbals especially in my

room which is not the biggest you're

never gonna get that beefy compressed

drum sound so the crash for the record

separate with a little VMR probably with

yeah same setting as the overheads

here's what that sounds like

okay cool

and like I said before my theory is when

it's good it's good

bounce it get rid of it hide it we no

longer need it so now we have our live

drums on a stereo track and we've also

added a tambourine which has a little

bit of EQ on there knocking out some

lows and we're also sending that

tambourine to our plate emt that's

giving us a little motion it's got a

good space and you'll notice it's

actually on the opposite side of our

hi-hat too so those two things don't

compete we also added what I call big

Tom's

and again a little bit of EQ on there

but most importantly we have this ssl

stereo buss compressor so we're not

squashing it that much they already

sound pretty awful which is exactly what

I was going for and they work with the

live kit in this way

cool let's put our bass back in

I want you to pay attention to the live

drums with the bass because before I was

talking about using the de-stresser

compressor like an instrument really

playing with that relief so that we have

a MM doom now there's a reason I went

for that I really wanted to emphasize

the downbeat of this pocket on the drums

especially the kick drum so if you pay

attention to just the kick and the bass

you'll see that we have kick bass kick

bass and it's creating this movement

with the low-end check it out bass and

drums cool a little bit of side tracking

there but I just wanted to make sure if

you didn't hear that movement before

when we weren't so much in context that

you hear it now okay cool so now that I

have my drums on a stereo track instead

of 9 channels and start bussing

everything out to different compressors

and all that stuff I can just work with

it as one instrument first thing we have

going on there is a pretty wacky looking

EQ so this is one of my favorite things

about fab filters pro-q 2 is that I'm

using this in mid/side mode right now so

out of the middle I'm taking out the

nasty frequency that's in that kick drum

let's hear that and I will solo it for

you

we don't need that the interesting thing

though is that we're only taking it out

of the middle and why is that we don't

want it competing with the base that's

in the middle so let me go through the

rest of these and then I'll put the

basin and you'll see exactly for

yourself okay we have another thing

going on here we have a notch on the

sides and that's just knocking out

almost close to 200 there was probably

something in there that was just gross

notched it out and then we have another

band over here which is in mid mode

again so in the middle now we're taking

out everything from 5k to almost 20k at

like minus 60 B minus 5 dB we're taking

out all that stuff that makes us go in

the hi-hats

there was a lot of high hats in here we

tried to fix that so here it is without

here it is with

so we just smooth it out the entire drum

kit now that we probably bounced it down

and have it in context for something

else now that we controlled all of that

high-end information that was really

gross I'm able to compress it and I

would hope that I'm smashing it let's

see

all right so very obvious with what's

what that's doing

ruch making those drums huge great let's

go back to the fabfilter pro-q and put

the bass on and I will take that EQ

that's going on on the entire drum kit

on and off and watch how the bass kind

of finds its own place and still

contains its unique character

I think the very obvious thing that the

pro q2 is doing in mid/side mode is

getting rid of the harshness of all

those high hats all the bleed of the

high hat but you definitely heard it

right right away that the base is now

competing for that low-end space with

the EQ on there it's really all about

carving out things to make space for

others all right the final piece of our

drum kit here is this big kick which is

just one single kick drum hit with slate

trigger on there and I'm basically

triggering a thunder strike a stupid

hard big hit and a timpani and it sounds

like this so the reason why I put this

in there and I took out a lot of lis

low-end - if we look at the EQ and

what's going on I pretty much just

brought out the point and then I cut

some lows and some highs and then with

our SPL transient designer I'm really

making sure that it hits hard and the

sustain is not crazy but mixed in with

the kit it really emphasizes the

downbeat which is how I want the chorus

to explode so here's everything we just

spoke about from the verse into the

chorus