Hi

So i've been mostly using drum machines, but eventually moved on to real drumsets (as real as i can get from a computer at least)

I've been dabbling with addictive drums for a couple months but i feel like i'm not doing some things right.

First of all, i feel like they don't fit my guitars, no matter how many drumsets i create and tweak i feel like they don't match, am i in the wrong key or something ? Because detuning on addictive drums is just horrible sounding. I hate having to even do that.

Also the mixing i just feel like some things are too loud but then later aren't, at the moment i hate my snare's position and gain even though it seemed fine a couple hours ago.

How do you even settle and know what's right ? I listen to a lot of tracks and there are no rules from what i can gather, sometimes a snare will be almost in the background and others a main actor, sometimes the whole drumset will be completely dipped in reverb and others it'll be dry and shiny.

Maybe i'm just too confused and can't be objective today.

I'm not promoting anything, i do music for fun and never publish anything, but could you just tell me if something with the drums feels wrong in this 10sec tidbits i took from my current project ? That'll help immensely.

I tried to go for bare drums, i like to reserve the stereo field for the other instruments and later addings of samples and textures.

https://clyp.it/iqlh4xea

Thank you.

 

The drums actually don't sound that bad to me, but it does sound like they're all crack, no low-end, and they're dry, which is making them stand out even more. I assume you're just mixing Addictive Drums right out of the VI outputs and not recording each part of the kit as its own audio track? Try putting a "vintage" compressor plug on the VI track, one that might add some girth to the drums. Or, you could dial in a little dark reverb or plate.

 

Ouch so that means that sonarworks isnt doing a good job on my headphones for the low end, the kick is really present when i have it on, i don't know..

Actually i do have a separate channel for each track, i feel like addictive drums isn't that great at compression, eqing and effects so i have everything stripped out to the bare samples and do the rest on their own audio tracks in ableton live.

Yeah i don't know i had this weird idea of being as dry as possible, i had a sort of effects overdose recently and to be honest i feel like i'm two-dimensional with reverb and placement, i can't really quite nail the feeling of "they are all in a room, the drums are behind, the bassist is on its leftside but a bit closer to me and the guitarist is doing his thing somewhere on the right of the room in the corner while keys awkwardly play in front of the drummer" i feel like i screw it up, turning down the gain and taking out a bit of high frequencies doesn't make me feel like something is a bit further for example, you know what i mean ?

 

Drums... drums were the reason that for 60 years you had to go to a "real" studio. You needed a room, you needed those mics, you needed the outboard gear; eventually you could make good recordings at home on 4-tracks and 8-tracks, and later ADATS and DAWS but you couldn't do the damn drums. They're tough... it just takes time; you have to watch a lot of tutorials, read a lot of stuff and most important don't stop with trial and error until you get it. That's honestly all I know to say...

 

Also "dry" is deceptive when it comes to drums. Drums can sound super dry in a mix but still have quite a lot of room ambiance in them. Truly dry close mic drums will almost never sound good unless you have a very specific kind of thin mix going on around them. If you want the effect of "everyone is in the same space I would try literally doing that- process everything through the same room reverb. Except maybe the bass; play with that. But you'll probably still want the drums to have their own ambiance just like the guitars would probably have their own reverb.

 

They don’t sound bad. Reading your post, I expected to hear something much worse. Lower the volume a bit on the drums and add a plate reverb on the snare.

 

use reference tracks to guide you and remind you how it should sound

 

They don't sound bad.
There is plenty of low end.

It does need some EQing and even a dry mix has some compression either by overloading the pre-amp and setting the levels when it comes in or even second overload on tape (back when that was common.) The samples in your drum arranger of choice is meant to be multipurpose and as such was recorded for fidelity. You are going to have to trim those transient peaks with a compressor, or some analogy emu in order to not have those drums take over your mix.

Also, a little bit of room and reverb is still a requirement on a dry mix as human hearing will try to place those drums in space. Outside of drummers wearing hearing protection nobody really knows what a dry kit actually sounds like.

 

My 2 cents: The kick drum is plenty present over here. Too present, even – it's overthrowing the bass by a lot. In this particular case I'd bring them closer together: turn the kick down and the bass up, and then do EQ moves accordingly. Act like you're SET on the 'gainstaging' of those elements and EQ from that perspective. Or, just in general, focus on the relationships between elements. Maybe look up an isolated drum track from a mix that you like, cause THEN you're gonna be reverse-engineering this relationship thing and that might help you get familiar with how an isolated elements sounds vs how it sounds in context.

Other than that, I feel like you could just be suffering from tired ears. Have you listened to some of your older stuff, recently? Try and do that and focus on the spacial aspect of things. You're prooobably gonna find that you are, indeed, able to put things in a space, but you're just too stressed with the current project(s) that the fatigue is blurring out your interpretation. Do a quick research on headphones etiquette – it's important!

 

Nothing wrong with a dry sounding drum kit for that genre of music. The only thing I can see wrong is the snare is between 1 and 2 db too loud.

 

I agree with most of the others, they aren't that bad.
BD and bass are clashing at certain bass notes, the snare is too loud.
I think the snare's root freq is a bit too loud (should be easy to find with an analyzer).

I have a bunch of experience with AAD1 and 2 and doing most of the treatment within ADD.
My top recommemdation would be, use the Room in the top row. So far I haven't found a single reverb plugin which fits as good as this.
Narrow it down to 30 - 40%, maybe for the BD more than for the snare and turn it up until they sound more organic while you listen to the complete song.
You probably need more Room on the snare than on the BD.
Funnily, in some cases even for electronic drums the Overhead can come in handy.
If you're using ADD2 I can recommend the Tape section (of Tape & Shape). Use the Bottom parameter to find the appropriate bottom freq (left = low, right = high).
You can also use the Distortion section to add some dirt.

As a quick rough guide line:
See the top row as the instrument itself and the recording room. Overhead and room mics, the basic tuning and dampening (Volume Env and Cut).
The second row is your console. Compressor, distortion, EQ, tape, transients.
The last row is just send fx, pan and fader.

 

@Boosire That's a smooth groove, right there! I'm feeling it.

Definitely hitting lows with that kick. Even one of the quiet off-beat/ghost notes on the kick has a lot of sub here.
And maybe just take the snare down by 1 or 2db.
Even with Sonarworks, on cans it's always hard. Just remember that cans will usually over emphasize the low-end.

Would love to hear this when it's finished, man.

 

Something that I like to tie things together with is to strap the same reverb across the whole mix or to each subgroup. Just something short and tuned in that puts everything in the same room (unless everything was recorded in the same room, which in the case of (edit; additionally) using canned drums is certainly not the case). It helps give all the recorded tracks a sense of place and like personality.

Or not.

 

Last edited: Apr 23, 2020

Really? Which libraries do you use?

 

I was vague in my reply. Of course drum libraries are recorded in the same room, but I wished to imply that the other instruments such as guitars, bass, live percussion, etc of course weren't. Also, any soft synths, vocals or other libraries might in conglomeration give a disjointed vibe for the overall personality of a track. That's where a commonality reverb can help bind it all together in addition to say, a gooey compressor like some SSL variety.

Sorry for my lapse.

 

The drums sounding super-dry isn't the problem. You may need to run them to an auxiliary bus with a (light) compressor or something. If you have a room sound for that kit on AD, I would record that on its own audio track, maybe even run the room track through your drum bus compressor ... at the very least, bring up the room track until the kit sounds a little more evened out.

 

Long time AD user here.
I´ve changed to SSD.
Sound & Workflow-wise (for me) it´s much better!
And the price!!!!

 

Thank you everyone for the answers that was really informative and i feel like i'm on a good path because of it.
There are too many to respond individually, most of it being cosntructive advice i have no other thing to say but a big thank you so i'm doing it here.

I'd like to ask further questions for a couple of them though.

 

The thing that bugs me is (maybe i totally missed it) that i don't have any control over the room or overheads in AD ? I usually don't like the way they sound, i recognize the quality but without control over it i'd rather try to create my own version of it in the daw. Is there something i missed ?
\THank you for the advices

 

Oh, yes, you have.
Firstly, in the top row left and right of the icon you can set the amount of Room and OH, their pan and width individually for each piece of the kit.
Secondly, in the second row you have the complete channel strip like for the kit pieces and a distance control for Room.
Thirdly, you can send them to the Bus and the FX and can use the individual outs to treat them further in your DAW.

 

Last edited: May 1, 2020