Rayzoon Technologies LLC

[jam_fan]

I'm just looking for a basic solid "pop" drum sound. I know there are infinite ways to tweak drums, but I would be happy with any kind of decent radio-ready drum sound as a starting point.

I use drumpak #2 with the close-stereo configuration. I have kick, snare and everything else in three separate outputs. I don't use toms much or I would probably separate them too.

I send the kick and snare through dedicated compression (Voxengo marquis compressor) to add punch, I EQ the snare to add some snap around 150 Hz, and EQ the kick to add some oomph around 80 Hz. Probably 3-6 dB of both.

I send the drums through a very low amount of hall reverb (at least 12 db down for the wet reverb) and have experimented with a plate to add some depth to the drums.

I have a limiter with a 3dB boost on the master bus to bring up the overall volume of the mix.

Tips on other recipes that work well?

[ProfRhino]

Hi jam_fan,
won't post any specific settings since they wouldn't be transferable anyway (I'm using UAD), but here is a quick rundown of my approach. As you said, there are many ...
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-- I use 8 stereo outs in the following config :
1. Everything else
2. Toms
3. Crashes
4. Ambience (check in JS mixer)
5. Kick
6. Snare
7. Hats
8. Ride
This config is quite convenient and has partly practical reasons, partly historical reasons (Battery).
I want to have individual control in the SX mixer.
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-- Next thing I do is solo each instrument together with the Amb channel and adjust the few often overlooked sliders on the mapping page. Pure genius, these alone get me very close to what I want to hear already.
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-- I don't use JS compression. A nice add-on, but it's easier for me to "centralise" jobs, so it's the SX mixer where I do the drummix. Ymmv.
-- Kick : little or no compression
-- Snare : Call me crazy, but I'm a big fan of that little plug "DaTube" coming with SX. Don't be subtle with it, a lot goes a long way !
Or else I like the 1176 on snare, a fast compressor with lots of dirt and character when pushed.
Then a little bit of room in the insert, anything from a rockabilly slapback or small room to a hall or even gate reverb depending on song
Btw, 70 % of the right snare sound is the snare itself, get SnarePak asap if you don't already have it !
-- Toms need compression, too. I love the Fairchild for that, kind of slower, "swampy" compression, rolling off the low end a little, just perfect.
-- Everything else goes uncompressed
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-- EQ : The kick can't be isolated, you have to EQ it to suit the bass and vice versa. I tend to "make a hole" in the low mids of the kick for the bass to be heard better without being too loud. If that makes any sense ...
The toms sometimes sit better in the mix if you roll off the bass a bit or do some HP filtering, which can be a good thing for all cymbals, too (again depending on how busy your mix is)
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-- Subgroups : For convenience I set up groups as follows :
- Drums, NY Comp, Drums Complete
- all drums go to - you guessed it !
The Drums group is then routed to Drums Complete.
- all cymbals and percussion go directly to Drums Complete.
- a little bit of a drum room / ambience / reverb plugin fed from the individual channel sends goes to Drums Complete, too. Mix in the plugin 100 % wet !!
CSR is very nice for drum reverb, as are all 3 UAD reverbs.
- the NY group goes to Drums Complete, too.
- Drums Complete has a high quality limiter inserted, NOT to squash the signal, only to catch the occasional peak.
- Drums Complete goes directly to the main mix.
- More about the NY Compression thing later, gotta get me a pizza now.
For the time being you might as well ignore it.
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Hope this helps a bit, it's only one way out of many different approaches, but it's the one I use most with JS.
And while it looks complicated in writing, it's actually dead simple and very fast once you get the hang of it.

Have fun experimenting,
Rhino

[ProfRhino]

Update - NY Compression
Also called parallel compression
The NY group is fed either by a send from the Drums group or by individual sends from the channels.Most of the time I turn up the sends to full and if needed reduce them later.
The NY group has a compressor inserted which is set to really squash the signal in an extreme way. What compressor to use is up to you, I like the Fairchild or LA2A for that job.
Depending on taste you can add an EQ after the comp with a smilie curve to boost bass and treble a bit.
The NY group will sound really ugly on it's own !
The idea is to first get your drum mix right without too much compression on the kick and toms.
Then you slowly add the NY group to the mix.
The normal submix gives you more of the attack and the NY group adds punch.
It's not that hard to hear when it's enough, but still it can be addictive, so doublecheck the next day with fresh ears !
Since JS sounds so fine out of the virtual box already, I tend to rely more on this NY thing than go overboard with individual processing. Ymmv.
Cheers, Rhino

Btw, some people even use separate NY channels for every single drum. The sky is the limit, I guess. I never needed that yet, though it's nice to try out when you've got some spare time

[ProfRhino]

Update - Freeware

If you need some plugins to get the job done, it wouldn't hurt to collect some of these (all free)
:
http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/classic-series.php
http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=1
especially the FishFillets are great
http://www.voxengo.com/group/freevst/
http://www.geocities.jp/webmaster_of_sss/vst/
don't be put off by the extraterrestrial writings on the site (japanese?), the plugins have an english GUI and are rather cool

Kjaerhus & Voxengo have some nice, affordable commercial stuff, too.

for those who are into convolution reverb:
http://www.knufinke.de/sir/index_en.html
get impulses here :
http://noisevault.com/index.php
http://www.echochamber.ch/responses/index.html

And finally, the Sonitus plugins included in Sonar are easily on par with the older Waves plugins (NPP), in some cases even better.
For those without Sonar, they are still available new from Cakewalk as VST plugins, or do like I did and track down a used copy.
The old Ultrafunk Sonitus plugins are identical to the version Cakewalk sells now.
Great quality and no PACE or WUP crap.

Cheers, Rhino