Tips for drumbus ?

[BrettT]

Reaper guys....You can adjust the wet mix of any VST effect by clicking and holding the little "100% Wet" at the top right of the effect. Comes in really handy for parallel compression and saves some routing.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Ok, here's one for you all:

Do you send all drums to 'drumbus', where you have your FX, and leave the raw/original drum tracks alone, without FX? and this is PreFader?

I always find myself adding FX on the raw/original drums as well as sending drums to a bus with verb and EQ, as well as a PComp bus....

 

[noiZefloor]

Hey!!! Was just about to open a similar thread

Well, I used to group all snare(mic and samples) tracks to a bus and the same with kicks and toms. I used compression on the tracks and the busses, on the drumbus and also parallel compression until I realized that my mixes got out of control. You know, when you change something on a track insert you've got to recalibrate almost everything. No I'm just using compression on the tracks (if needed) to get them sound right. I bring up the drumbus compressor (UAD Neve or UAD SSL-Bus) pretty early and use a little bit of parallel compression (UAD 1176LN). I use the drumbus comp for the glue and the parallel comp for the details of sn and some nice attack. On the parallel comp I use "all in" ratio and smash it to hell. Then I bring it up until can slightly hear it in the mix. Then I adjust attack and release until kick and snare sound powerful enough for the song. Very often I only leave out ohs, hh, ride and room from the parallel bus.
On the drumbus I love auto release . On the Neve I use A2 for the fatness or A1 if I need a more clicky sound. Attack on the SSL at 10 or 3 ms. Ratio between 2:1 and 4:1.

 

[darthjujuu]

Ok, here's one for you all:

Do you send all drums to 'drumbus', where you have your FX, and leave the raw/original drum tracks alone, without FX? and this is PreFader?

yes, my preference anyway. i like to have not-so-compressed drums sitting underneath the parallel smashed ones. i also like to have the less-smashed bus (main drum bus) send to the verb track, usually sounds more natural to me. things get weird for me if i try to verb the crushed tracks, but sometimes it works if the material fits it. the verb usually needs some mid-range cuts in that case.

 

[TheUnknown]

SSL Stereo Comp on the drum bus...you'll never look back

For you and anyone else using this on the parallel bus to "Smash an blend back in" what are some typical settings you guys are using? Yes, I know its all situational but just to get an idea where you guys are starting. Would this be a common comp for this practice, or something typically more used? Again I understand its preference, Im just picking brains here guys, so take it easy Im not asking for Presets...LoL!

 

[punkorama]

I recently have been trying a different drum bus technique from my usually way. I'll send all the drums to a drum bus and put an SSL comp and EQ just to shape it a little more. Than create another bus and send just the overheads, natural kick, natural snare, and room mic and call that the natural bus and also put the SSL comp on that. You end up a with a natural and sampled drum buses. Perfect way to make the sampled drums sit in the mix without sounding to processed.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1245739/Swellers Master 5.wav
There is a mix im trying to finish up. Uses that drum bus technique above.


Mike

 

[theforgotten]

How much makeup gain do you add on you SSLComp on drumbus?

 

[OneDaySky]

If you're after a clean modern metal mix, sometimes you're best off with nothing on the drum bus. The bus is where you usually go for smearing/pumping/density related effects. You're essentially stating that you want to sacrifice purity and transparency for a bigger/more glued sound. Which is to say... I slam the shit out of the drums here in parallel all the time, and usually use some kind of saturation, whether it be tape, Decapitator, or whatever.

Greay stuff Ermz

 

[willineutron]

hey punkorama, the song Call "swellers" or is the swellers band?
Cool sound for you mix

 

[mstone564]

yes, my preference anyway. i like to have not-so-compressed drums sitting underneath the parallel smashed ones. i also like to have the less-smashed bus (main drum bus) send to the verb track, usually sounds more natural to me. things get weird for me if i try to verb the crushed tracks, but sometimes it works if the material fits it. the verb usually needs some mid-range cuts in that case.

So, does your parallel drum bus sit at a higher level than your main drum bus?
I've heard having too much paracomp could cause things to get muddy. Then again, this information is probably old.

Also, you stated that you do NOTHING to the main drum bus. Are you talking about not doing anything to the tracks INSIDE the main drum bus or the actual track that recieves all your drums?

 

[BlackwingGabriel]

I was wondering how people handle their drums, specially how they apply their compression.

Do you compress on the drum bus (overheads not included.. atleast in mine) or do you only do parallel compression ?.

What kind of comps do you like and roughly what settings you tend to prefer ?

Hi,

I usually go to pararell processing, but recently I tried a different route. I bus my kick, snare bus, & tom bus and put UAD2 Fairchild on that drum bus. 1-2dB gain reduction usually is enough, because I already processed those individual tracks. I leave the overheads bus & room alone.

Fairchilds seems to bring magic in drum bus. If you don't own UAD2, maybe the BF or T-Racks ones (or even that free Firechainer from Modern plugins) would work. YMMV.

 

[OneDaySky]

i'm all about the parallel/aux bus, leave the main drum bus aloneee. tweak the individual tracks if necessary, "glue-ing" all the shells together does nothing at all for me. bus em together, send to an aux, slam that aux til doesn't even sound like drums anymore, adjust send level. that's what works for me, as always, ymmv

Thx man This advice helps more than you know

 

[OneDaySky]

If you're after a clean modern metal mix, sometimes you're best off with nothing on the drum bus. The bus is where you usually go for smearing/pumping/density related effects. You're essentially stating that you want to sacrifice purity and transparency for a bigger/more glued sound. Which is to say... I slam the shit out of the drums here in parallel all the time, and usually use some kind of saturation, whether it be tape, Decapitator, or whatever.

Does the 'Decapitator' really make much difference?

 

[OneDaySky]

On a mixing desk a group is essentially a channel that you can route other channels to. So for instance a stereo 'Guitar' fader with both your mono rhythm guitar tracks to go to.

An auxiliary is essentially a send that goes out from the desk, is wired to various outboard FX, and then comes back on channels called FX returns.

Many DAWs circumvent this process and simply use the words 'group' and 'aux' interchangeably. In juju's case, he seems to be referring to the aux as an FX track which he sends to.

+1