Addd]ing warmth to drum tracks

[serox]

Its hardly any work at all just mixdown your kick drum to an audio channel fade it in slightly and play that audio channel instead of the original kick channel when the snare is playing. It is used for buildups so the drum has a bit more weight

Sorry I don't think I follow

Do you mean for a build up instead of playing your kick you have another kick+snare side chained and use this for a buildup/drop?

Could someone post an audio example so I get what you mean.

[the dub lemon]

I've gotten into the habbit of varying my velocitys across all the drums

using sidechain with the kick+snare and the percussion

using small amounts of delay on the percussion

automating things like pitch, tone etc

why would you want to side chain a snare and kick? they are never on the same beat.

When I read that I read it as though he meant use the kick & snare as sidechain inputs to compress the rest of the percussion causing the cymbals, shakers and other perc put pump in inbetween the dominant hits from the kicks and snare, it also give the kicks and snares more space to make an impact...it's a nice effect and has nothing to do with using the kick to compress the snare or vise versa.

[rob sparx]

Its hardly any work at all just mixdown your kick drum to an audio channel fade it in slightly and play that audio channel instead of the original kick channel when the snare is playing. It is used for buildups so the drum has a bit more weight

Sorry I don't think I follow

Do you mean for a build up instead of playing your kick you have another kick+snare side chained and use this for a buildup/drop?

Could someone post an audio example so I get what you mean.

Say u have a breakdown with just hats and snares but you want the last snare before the next drop to have a bit more weight/bass than the other snares you could add a kick at the same time as the snare as long as you faded in the volume on the kick for that 1 hit

[serox]

When I read that I read it as though he meant use the kick & snare as sidechain inputs to compress the rest of the percussion causing the cymbals, shakers and other perc put pump in inbetween the dominant hits from the kicks and snare, it also give the kicks and snares more space to make an impact...it's a nice effect and has nothing to do with using the kick to compress the snare or vise versa.

So who understood it right, you or me?:)

[serox]

Say u have a breakdown with just hats and snares but you want the last snare before the next drop to have a bit more weight/bass than the other snares you could add a kick at the same time as the snare as long as you faded in the volume on the kick for that 1 hit

So why use sidechain compression for this? why not just have a single kick at the desired volumn?

[rob sparx]

Say u have a breakdown with just hats and snares but you want the last snare before the next drop to have a bit more weight/bass than the other snares you could add a kick at the same time as the snare as long as you faded in the volume on the kick for that 1 hit

So why use sidechain compression for this? why not just have a single kick at the desired volumn?

lol your hard work! You would have to reduce the volume of the kick to do that without distorting the mix and it would sound shit so better to kill the transient on the kick so that it can sit in the mix at the same volume without distroting the mix

[macc]

Why does it have to be anywhere near clipping?

[serox]

Why does it have to be anywhere near clipping?

What I was thinking.

I still do not understand this process of sidechaining the snare and kick

You mention distortion, why not just have the drum at the desired volumn instead?!

[lowpass]

just to clairfy what I meant before, I did mean sending the kick and snare to a bus then using the output to sidechain the percussion, I'd use this just to give some movement to the hihats and make the sound more alive as opposed to trying to make things "sit properly in teh mix"

@Rob when you say you would choose automation of the volume over sidechaining. Did you really mean what you said about it being easier? because imo it would be more of a hassle but useful due to it sounding more natural compared to compressing?

[the dub lemon]

So who understood it right, you or me?:)

Me apparently

[serox]

just to clairfy what I meant before, I did mean sending the kick and snare to a bus then using the output to sidechain the percussion, I'd use this just to give some movement to the hihats and make the sound more alive as opposed to trying to make things "sit properly in teh mix"

I would love to hear an audio sample of this if possible mate.

[slothrop]

To backpedal a bit, does anyone have any pointers on subtly varying or humanizing your drum sounds to get more 'feel' and 'flow' to them and make them sound a bit less identical? I mean, yeah, become a badman drummer and play everything live, but I'm sure there should be more I can do than just making velocities slightly random... any good ways of slightly tweaking the timbre? Any good starting points on how to make things flow through a bar?

Thanks

(Classic example of this from the world of live drumming is Miles Davis - In A Silent Way (or was it Shh / Peaceful, can't remember). The drums are just a straight ride cymbal, four to the bar, which if you just programmed it in fruityloops would sound, er, like a straight ride, four to the bar. But somehow when it's Tony Williams it just seems to ebb and flow with the music and sound fanfuckingtastic.)

[Sharmaji]

^ use a bunch of different samples and layer them based on velocity-- or just use battery, etc for things like this.

having a background in an instrument will help... like, if i wanted to make my ride sound like philly joe jones, i'd have a very strong, almost metronomic pulse on the ride, the hihat w/ foot ever so slightly ahead of 2 & 4, and have the 2nd note of the 3-note swing pattern on the ride be the quietest.

if i wanted to do danny richmond, i'd put the 2 swung notes of the ride cymbal really close together, and constrain the dynamics.

for the OP, it honestly just sounds like you're looking for some reverb on the higher-pitched instruments.

[legend4ry]

if you want some warmth in your drums its all about the samples and using the space you have wisely in my opinion - while the kick and snare are obviously most important to carry the general groove of the tune.. the hats and other percussion are key to making the drums warm and interesting.

No plugin will instantly get you this effect (from my experience)

It also depends on the tune too - some tunes need sparse drums, some need busy drums - Not saying I am a expert at creating nice warm drums - but I have learned what a tune needs drum wise - now time to work on everything else

[the dub lemon]

So who understood it right, you or me?:)

Me apparently

Actually, no.

Erm...please see Lowpass's response below...that is exactly what I said I thought he had said, thank you very much

just to clairfy what I meant before, I did mean sending the kick and snare to a bus then using the output to sidechain the percussion, I'd use this just to give some movement to the hihats and make the sound more alive as opposed to trying to make things "sit properly in teh mix"

----

I would love to hear an audio sample of this if possible mate.

heres a quick example i knocked up...you can hear it the most with the tails from the rides being back in after each kick/snare

http://www.zshare.net/download/62749511839eb52a/

[JFK]

Thanks for all the input guys, some really good stuff here....

Oh and thanks for not saying anything about the bizarre spelling mistake I made with the title.....Not quite sure how I managed that but still.

Peace

[rob sparx]

@Rob when you say you would choose automation of the volume over sidechaining. Did you really mean what you said about it being easier? because imo it would be more of a hassle but useful due to it sounding more natural compared to compressing?

I just bounce down to an audio channel and do a quick volume fade easy to do in cubase much easier than setting up group channels for sidechaining it does sound slightly different to compressing the sound to make it quieter its a bit cleaner I often use that technique on the bass as well