MY drum processing chain.

[Pre Studio Productions]

Ok. So this is what I follow almost everyone I'm doing drum tracks. Let me know what u think.

Kick (mono) (slate kick 10 Z1)
-EQ (cut 200, cut 400, and add some 3000)
-waves maxxbass mono (add some at 60-80hz)
-waves transx multi mono (for thump)
-Post EQ

Snare (mono) (11a, or 12a, blended with snare)
-EQ
-Waves SSL E-Channel
-Dominion Transient Designer
-reverb (very small amount because I layer the snare with Z4 to sound "beefier"

Toms (stereo) (black and gold kit)
-EQ
-waves maxxbass
-UAD La2a compressor
-dominion transient designer
-light reverb
-Post EQ

I also set up other tracks for FX and the Z4 sample that I layer my snare with.

All of those tracks get fed into my drum group channel.

Drum group Channel
-waves API 2500 comp (around 4-6 Gain reduction)
-EQ (very lightly)
-Limiter (either Ozone or L1)

And that's what my drums usually go to. Any recommendations? What do u think about it?

What do u guys do?

 

[Teddyboy]

Post a clip so we can give a listen

 

[Pre Studio Productions]

Ok I will ASAP!

 

[Pre Studio Productions]

As far as setup, how is it? Is this sort of how ur drums are set up? What do u do to your drum buss?

 

[AndrewB]

It really depends on how the drums sound to begin with.

If your drums sound good, then don't change it based on what other people use in their chain.

 

[Pre Studio Productions]

It really depends on how the drums sound to begin with.

If your drums sound good, then don't change it based on what other people use in their chain.

I hear ya man. Im just curious about the different methods people use to get their drum sounds. I'm still learning and It would be great for me to experiment with a lot of different methods/ideas.

 

[tempe]

Doesn't seem to have anything wrong with it, I'd try compressing the kick a little bit. I know its Sturgis forum trend to not over process Slate samples, but if you do it carefully and with the right tools it can sound pretty rad.

Something that I've been using and that has been working pretty well for me on snares is

Slate VCC set to 4k
Subtractive EQ
Transient designer adding heaps of snap
Soundtoys Decapitator driving pretty hard
Compression with say a 10 - 15ms attack, 100 ms release
Additive-EQ
Clip the hell out of it.

The trick with this is that the saturation and the compression round out the effects of the transient designer and you can get way more snap in the snare without it sounding brittle. Also tape saturation on snares is a amazing, but can round out the attack to much, hence the transient designer before the saturation. Give it a shot!

Gets you into Will Putney territory, I'll post a clip up when I'm done on this mix I'm working on.

 

[Audiosprite]

I've found that low-freq enhancing tom tracks individually rather than on the buss yields more balanced, or at least more tweakable results among each tom. Haven't used maxbass though so it might work differently.

 

[tempe]

Just finished this off, used the technique I mentioned above on the drums. Its not mastered yet so excuse my shitty FGX job lol
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/39073940/Strongbow Premaster 3a.mp3

 

[Habsburgs]

Is it me or the lead vocals are badly recorded or edited? Diggin the snare!

 

[shadowshadow]

you really brought out some beef in that snare!

 

[Pre Studio Productions]

Doesn't seem to have anything wrong with it, I'd try compressing the kick a little bit. I know its Sturgis forum trend to not over process Slate samples, but if you do it carefully and with the right tools it can sound pretty rad.

Something that I've been using and that has been working pretty well for me on snares is

Slate VCC set to 4k
Subtractive EQ
Transient designer adding heaps of snap
Soundtoys Decapitator driving pretty hard
Compression with say a 10 - 15ms attack, 100 ms release
Additive-EQ
Clip the hell out of it.

The trick with this is that the saturation and the compression round out the effects of the transient designer and you can get way more snap in the snare without it sounding brittle. Also tape saturation on snares is a amazing, but can round out the attack to much, hence the transient designer before the saturation. Give it a shot!

Gets you into Will Putney territory, I'll post a clip up when I'm done on this mix I'm working on.

Wow im blown away by that snare dude!!! what sample was that? And also, what is slate VVC? and im guessing the soundtoys decapitator is a saturation plug?

 

[OneDaySky]

Just finished this off, used the technique I mentioned above on the drums. Its not mastered yet so excuse my shitty FGX job lol
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/39073940/Strongbow Premaster 3a.mp3

Love that snare DUDE!!!!

 

[tempe]

Slate VCC is a console saturation and summing emulation plugin, I love the thing it really helps things come together a little bit quicker, and you're right in saying Soundtoys Decapitator was the saturation plugin.

The snare is a blend of a Truth Brass Beauty snare sample, with Slate Snare 17, Slates Snare, one of my own samples and the "sys snare" that Lasse uploaded (one of the free ones). I basically just got a sample I liked for one element of it, the truth snare has a great snare bottom and wire, Snare 17 has an awesome crack, Slates Snare has great body, my snare is REALLY ringy and Lasse's is just generally pretty cool.

And apart from that it's just EQ'ing the rest of the mix so you can have the snare not brutally loud and still cut through, I still really struggle with this so I don't know what advice I can give lol.

I was trying to get a drum sound like this;

 

[tempe]

Is it me or the lead vocals are badly recorded or edited? Diggin the snare!

The vocalist sucks haha. Had to double or quad track most of it to give it some beef and there's probably some Vocalign artifacts in there...