Metal Machine

[bryan_kilco]

Our bassist has a copy of EZDrummer and Metal Machine. Luckily, you're able to activate these on 2 machines, and he hooked me up.

First impression: Pretty sweet sounds straight out of the box. Snares seem a bit thin but maybe I just need to get used to it.

I wish it would let you stack multiple samples like Slate does, but I can always trigger other samples in Reaper.

Any tips/tricks/presets anyone wants to share? I've heard some demos of this that sounds fairly better than what I'm hearing right out of the box.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

If you get the crossgrade to Superior you can stack snares, both within and across expansions. But I find that even just using the snares from MM and boosting a medium-width bell at around 125 gets you the snappy bottom end that you find in a lot of mixes.

Other than that I'd recommend a transient designer on the kicks, since they can be a little flat at times, and the toms need a bit of de-booming, but nothing out of the ordinary really.

 

[bryan_kilco]

I was playing around with this again the other night and noticed something I never had an issue with using Slate.

I solo'd out the kick track and realized that the humanization I did (un-checked the button in MM for Humanization and did all humanization in the Reaper midi editor) was causing serious problems. There was an insanely noticeable difference between a hit that was, say, veloctiy of 95 and a hit that was 100. So the kick track sounded all funny with different pitched hits all over. This doesn't seem right at all.

For humanization, I opened midi editor and selected all, and did a velocity difference of about 10% and timing of 3%.

I guess, TL;DR: Do you humanize kick tracks or leave them all the same velocity? I've never had such a problem like this using Slate......

 

[EOC]

i may be wrong, but the humanization algo in toontrack has nothing to do with changing the velocities. You should leave it always on

 

[Trevoire520]

I think the humanization in EZD messes with velocities a bit, so if you've already humanized I'd switch it off.

I love MM for cracky snares (Sneaps signature) but I do find myself wishing for a bit more depth and fatness, just blend a fatter lower tuned sample in there somewhere and you'll be sorted.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

I was playing around with this again the other night and noticed something I never had an issue with using Slate.

I solo'd out the kick track and realized that the humanization I did (un-checked the button in MM for Humanization and did all humanization in the Reaper midi editor) was causing serious problems. There was an insanely noticeable difference between a hit that was, say, veloctiy of 95 and a hit that was 100. So the kick track sounded all funny with different pitched hits all over. This doesn't seem right at all.

For humanization, I opened midi editor and selected all, and did a velocity difference of about 10% and timing of 3%.

I guess, TL;DR: Do you humanize kick tracks or leave them all the same velocity? I've never had such a problem like this using Slate......

I'm not sure assigning a velocity of anything below about 120 in a conventional metal song with Metal Machine is a good idea. I rarely let the kick go below 125 or so as it is. Also, I don't think the EZDrummer humanizing function has anything to do with velocities; I think it has to do with the number of samples utilized in the mix. Turning it off gives you the "machine gun effect."

 

[Old Man Doom]

I'm not sure assigning a velocity of anything below about 120 in a conventional metal song with Metal Machine is a good idea. I rarely let the kick go below 125 or so as it is. Also, I don't think the EZDrummer humanizing function has anything to do with velocities; I think it has to do with the number of samples utilized in the mix. Turning it off gives you the "machine gun effect."

I totally agree with this. I rarely program velocities on the MM kick below 120-115 for my aggressive stuff.

I'd leave out the reaper humanization and keep the ezdrummer one on all the time.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Reaper velocity humanization is great for fills, but even then I'd be inclined to manually edit in a gradually declining volume to simulate an actual drummer getting a little tired/sloppy. But I never use it on kicks, and only rarely on snares. You can get a realistic, powerful sound by using 125-127 velocity and alternating between left/center/right hits. I do use the timing humanization on the whole drum track, but I typically do 6-8%.

 

[Skadsson]

Interesting, I pretty much never go over 110 velocity on any of the drums. I really don't enjoy the sound of maxed out velocity drumhits, but maybe I should give it another go, seeing as so many people in this thread do it that way.

 

[Sethis]

^For more laid-back stuff this is just fine. I often go around 100-115, especially for the snare. But for agressive stuff I never go below 120-123.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

I didn't even know EZD has a humanizing function, lol.
where do I find that?

 

[indecizo]

 

[Erik Monsonis]

Kick 127
Snare 120-127
Toms 120-127
Hats 70-100
Cymbals 100-127

That's more or less what I do, with Reaper's humanization function for about 10% velocity variation, no tempo swing.

Loving it!

 

[crillemannen]

I usually just go 127 on every hit except for fills. It sounds good to my ears, atleast for metal.

 

[Alphanumeric]

I usually just go 127 on every hit except for fills. It sounds good to my ears, atleast for metal.

Really? I always though it was an unwritten law to NOT have everything at 127 at the time, at least, for the snare, it sounds just way too silly, especially with ezx just between 126 to 127 there's a ridiculous WAMP/PING added haha

I have the Kick at 124/125 always, don't really ever vary it, people often talk about the left/right foot thing but in the end those recordings become so sample replaced and hard edited so the foot distinction of hits is gone ..

Snare 124/125 for accents, 121-123 for constant
Toms 121 to 123
Riding the crashes 90-105, big crash accents 105-115
China 110-115
Hats, depends on how open it is.

 

[crillemannen]

Really? I always though it was an unwritten law to NOT have everything at 127 at the time, at least, for the snare, it sounds just way too silly, especially with ezx just between 126 to 127 there's a ridiculous WAMP/PING added haha

I have the Kick at 124/125 always, don't really ever vary it, people often talk about the left/right foot thing but in the end those recordings become so sample replaced and hard edited so the foot distinction of hits is gone ..

Snare 124/125 for accents, 121-123 for constant
Toms 121 to 123
Riding the crashes 90-105, big crash accents 105-115
China 110-115
Hats, depends on how open it is.

I don't hear that much velocity change except for fills on the big name releases such as Andy and Colin etc. Its pretty much 127 all the time haha. And in the best of worlds the drummer will hit the cymbals equally hard between hits, humanized yes but not like going from 127 to 115, if you know what i mean.

If you play the HH, maybe you want to accentuate some of the hits like a normal drummer etc, but still again not to go all crazy with velocity.

 

[JeffTD]

You guys are insane. 120+ on everything is going to sound awful and SUPER fake.

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

You guys are insane. 120+ on everything is going to sound awful and SUPER fake.

Even on Toontrack products? I'm happy to be wrong, but surprised Whenever I load in the midi packs from the EZX's, they usually hover around 120 in my experience, at least for most of the hits on the beat.

 

[JeffTD]

Even on TT stuff. For instance my crash hits are 120 on downbeats, 80-90 on upbeats. GOTTA make it sound like the cymbal is swinging and there's some movement to his hits; the notion that a good drummer will hit cymbals equally hard every time is just weird and unnatural. Downbeats get hit harder, airdrum and imagine hitting 120-120-120-120 vs 120-80-120-90 etc.

 

[crillemannen]

You guys are insane. 120+ on everything is going to sound awful and SUPER fake.

I disagree