ezDrummer - Rough guidelines

[Sidious]

Hey all

So i got cubase and ezDrummer + DFH up and running (finally, been laying around for some time).

I was doing some recording yesterday just to fiddle around with things and checking out the features. Its pretty easy creating drums with ezDrummer (the name kinda gives it away. :Smug.

But the sound is a whole different world ofc. Im pretty novice in these things, and never dabbled with sound engineering before. And my drums sounded dull and lifeless. They completely drowned in the mix. Flat. Dull. Transparent. Lifeless. That might be inherent with ezDrummer, i dont know. But i heard some people getting great results with this never the less. Good enough for my own homerecording anyway.

I could use some rought guidelines. Not a complete and detailed guide, but just some pointers to get me started in the right direction.

Something like, when you create your drums (being ezDrummer or RL drums or something), what is the first thing you do? You know the thing you ALWAYS do because it is more or less mandatory to get a nice drums sound? Slapping on compressors? Adding that special VST to make everything glow?

And maybe a rough guideline to EQ'ing... Which frequencies do you definately want out of there first and foremost?

As i said it doesnt have to be a mighty bible of drum engineering, just some pointers to send me off in the right direction. I don't have anything against experimenting myself, but i like putting my effort in where it counts.

 

[cloy26]

Parallel Compression, it will be your new best friend.

There are a TON of threads that deal with eq here, and all over the web. There is an acoustic drums for metal guide as a sticky on these forums, so check that out for some great tips. But, learn what Parallel (side chain or New York, all the same) compression is. It will breathe new life into dull and flat drums.

 

[Sidious]

Parallel Compression, it will be your new best friend.

There are a TON of threads that deal with eq here, and all over the web. There is an acoustic drums for metal guide as a sticky on these forums, so check that out for some great tips. But, learn what Parallel (side chain or New York, all the same) compression is. It will breathe new life into dull and flat drums.

Thanks alot. I found an article covering this:
http://www.hometracked.com/2007/03/31/parallel-compression-for-fatter-drum-tones/

I will definately try that.

 

[mr.L.]

When I used EZ drummer alot I always changed the snare for the picollo or sometimes one of the damped version of the other snares (the default snare never worked for me). In addition I always compressed the kick quite a bit because it sounds to uneven for metal most of the times and yes parallel compression and hard compression of the room mics can also help a lot.

 

[darthjujuu]

surprised no one has flamed yet ... o_0

the biggest thing you need to understand is that ezD is already TOTALLY processed to all fuckery and back. you shouldn't really need to eq/compress much of anything at all. notice the default kick drum? it's called (dampened - extreme EQ)

one thing you'll want to do is bring the ambience down a tad, if you're going for a more extreme metal sound. i remember back when i was a noob doing exactly what you're doing i made this with ezD about a hundred gazillion years ago:

http://www.atomicballroomcalamity.com/metal.mp3

there's no processing at all on the drums except bringing the ambient room mics down (not all the way down) in the ezD mixer.

don't forget to hardpan / hipass / lopass your guitars to sit them in with the mix.

 

[Sidious]

surprised no one has flamed yet ... o_0

the biggest thing you need to understand is that ezD is already TOTALLY processed to all fuckery and back. you shouldn't really need to eq/compress much of anything at all. notice the default kick drum? it's called (dampened - extreme EQ)

one thing you'll want to do is bring the ambience down a tad, if you're going for a more extreme metal sound. i remember back when i was a noob doing exactly what you're doing i made this with ezD about a hundred gazillion years ago:

http://www.atomicballroomcalamity.com/metal.mp3

there's no processing at all on the drums except bringing the ambient room mics down (not all the way down) in the ezD mixer.

don't forget to hardpan / hipass / lopass your guitars to sit them in with the mix.

Hmm interesting... Mine does not sound like that in the mix at all. But it might be due to the guitars cluttering up the drums space? Cause i dont have any limiters going on the G-tracks... only 75% panning.

At which frequencies would i start out with limiting the G-tracks?

 

[mick thompson]

Parallel Compression, it will be your new best friend.

There are a TON of threads that deal with eq here, and all over the web. There is an acoustic drums for metal guide as a sticky on these forums, so check that out for some great tips. But, learn what Parallel (side chain or New York, all the same) compression is. It will breathe new life into dull and flat drums.

yes and no to that - it can be a great trick on rock, dance etc but when it comes to metal you dont really want you tracks to "pump" example between the kick and the guitar espcially if your kick is going double time a high tempo. your mix will start to jump far too much

i never use scc/pc when working in metal.

if you want to do the nyc trick dont forget to eq on your bus to bring in some clarity to get the nyc effect but keep the pumping as low as possible

 

[egan.]

I always bus out ezd to seperate aux's and compress and eq. To a certain extent I undo the processing they've done. For example IMO there is too much high end on much of the DKFH kit. You can of course also add verb to just the snare and toms when you do this.

 

[cloy26]

yes and no to that - it can be a great trick on rock, dance etc but when it comes to metal you dont really want you tracks to "pump" example between the kick and the guitar espcially if your kick is going double time a high tempo. your mix will start to jump far too much

i never use scc/pc when working in metal.

if you want to do the nyc trick dont forget to eq on your bus to bring in some clarity to get the nyc effect but keep the pumping as low as possible

Really? I understand your logic completely. But then again, I don't do technically "true" metal. I've been doing a few stupid pop rock bands for the past few months. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Mago]

Hey all

So i got cubase and ezDrummer + DFH up and running (finally, been laying around for some time).

I was doing some recording yesterday just to fiddle around with things and checking out the features. Its pretty easy creating drums with ezDrummer (the name kinda gives it away. :Smug.

But the sound is a whole different world ofc. Im pretty novice in these things, and never dabbled with sound engineering before. And my drums sounded dull and lifeless. They completely drowned in the mix. Flat. Dull. Transparent. Lifeless. That might be inherent with ezDrummer, i dont know. But i heard some people getting great results with this never the less. Good enough for my own homerecording anyway.

I could use some rought guidelines. Not a complete and detailed guide, but just some pointers to get me started in the right direction.

Something like, when you create your drums (being ezDrummer or RL drums or something), what is the first thing you do? You know the thing you ALWAYS do because it is more or less mandatory to get a nice drums sound? Slapping on compressors? Adding that special VST to make everything glow?

And maybe a rough guideline to EQ'ing... Which frequencies do you definately want out of there first and foremost?

As i said it doesnt have to be a mighty bible of drum engineering, just some pointers to send me off in the right direction. I don't have anything against experimenting myself, but i like putting my effort in where it counts.

get SD2.0 ; )

 

[Sidious]

Update:

ahh i reached a new milestone yesterday. Thanks all for the input. I found out what was bugging my drums. In the EZD mixer, i had chosen the "Roomy" Preset. That made the drums sound... distant. And only way i could control the output was to lower the output of the drums, which just made them sound even more distant. I changed the mixer to default and its much much better now.

As darthjujuu they are pretty much already processed and sound engineered as is, all i have to do is add a little color.

 

[mrbean667]

To me the only good sounding DKFH samples are the Tomas Haake snares, but if you decide to use EzDrummer, don't EQ or compress too much because everything has already got the fuck smashed out of it.

 

[Jind]

If you want to add another great kit to your arsenal, get the Nashville EZX - it's probably my favorite kit in the EZX line. It's not as country as the name implies. While much of the MIDI files that come with it are indeed geared towards country and pop, the sound of this EZX is extremely versatile. To my ears it is the best of the EZX packages as far as sound goes - it was recorded at The Sound Kitchen, one of the few EZX packs recorded outside Toontrack's own studios (DKFH was recorded at The Dug Out studios) and I find myself going to it quite often regardless of the type of music I'm making. I keep saying I'm going to buy Superior one of these days, but for my needs EZDrummer works.

I do however use Steven Slate Drums quite frequently and I'm in the process of finding so great uses for the various drums I got in the Sonic Reality Ultimate Studio Drums group buy - it contained a bunch of stuff from Ocean Way Drums and Drum Masters 2 - the Ocean Way stuff sounds great and have been using that mostly as of late.

 

[mick thompson]

Really? I understand your logic completely. But then again, I don't do technically "true" metal. I've been doing a few stupid pop rock bands for the past few months. Thanks for the heads up.

i only use a side chain comp in dance pop kind of productions. once i hit hard rock to metal i lay off it because it creates far too much pumping.

i only use it in metal if say i have a slow breakdown where the kick is going very slow. at that time i would side chain it to example either my guitars or any synth going to create some grooving in the track.

but imagine: you have a double kick going seriously fast and on every kick hit imagine it cuts your guitar tone. thats a serious amount of guitar being brought up and down in volume. it just sounds very bad to me

if its dancy and needs a pump side chain it but only with a slow moving kick. its what i learned and what i do, i dont know though - maybe others side chain their kicks in metal. from what i heard most tracks dont