digging your content, dude. lots of great tips here, especially for me since i’m always splitting out drum midi to separate tracks for processing and it takes a HOT minute to get them to where i want since i’m working with what they have. i’m always hunting for better drum packs within the brand ecosystem and always wanting to pick and choose but that gets EXPENSIVE. cymbals are always my biggest struggle and find using soothe and true iron to beef them up and de-harsh. any recommendations on cymbal packs aside from M&M?
I'm glad you liked the video! As far as cymbals, I'm actually probably a little less picky about cymbals than the rest of the kit, but I've gotten decent results with M&M and EZ Drummer (I think I've tried the base pack, the pop-punk pack, and the pop/rock pack). But yeah, I do end up having to EQ and Soothe a bit on them. I'll let you know if I come across anything that sounds a little closer to me without the extra processing though! (or if I ever get around to making my own MIDI drum program!)
A combination of 3 and 4: I find it difficult to balance between looking the perfect (or close enough) samples, or settling for ones I'm not super happy about and thinking ahh I can fix it with processing
Yeah, that definitely can be tricky! Part of it is just getting to know your sample library really well so that you know how much you can realistically pull out of them with processing without driving yourself nuts, and then obviously having the right samples in the first place that get you really close to what you're going for is a massive help as well! I usually try to find something that gets me like...one step away. Like "this snare would be perfect with a little more midrange" or "with extra compression" or "with a little saturation" or whatever. But obviously it's not ALWAYS that easy!
As a proud user of this amazing drum samples (I’ve got the whole collection by the way).. Just go get em! You wont be dissapointed guys!! Also, thanks for the amazing tips on the video and the whole series! Cheers my friend! 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻
For the last one, about programming things that can't be played live, it depends on if you will be playing the song live with a real drummer. This applies to all studio work and is why so many bands sound lame live.
Obviously it's a matter of taste, but I'd have to disagree. When I'm producing a band, we're all just trying to make the recording the absolute best that we can. If that means having 10 guitar parts, loads of harmonies, and way too many drum hits, I'm in! If it makes the track better, that's what we're doing. Then when it comes time for the band to rehearse for shows, they should be doing the same, deciding what will make for the best live version of the song, whether that means playing to tracks, or just picking the most important parts from the recording, or playing something entirely different than what's on the recording! Cause if you leave out stuff from the recording so that they can play it exactly the same live, well the live performance will be exactly as exciting or as lame as it would be otherwise, but now the studio version is more lame than it could be.
@@BetterMixes It's nothing personal but that's all typical over-produced justification. For years a producers job was to capture sound, not create it. I get that bands want the best sounding recording they can get but it's false representation. The band is not actually producing the sound. This is why so many bands sound like crap live. It's honestly on the bands for letting it happen. Producers gotta produce. They don't care about the live performance. It's not their problem.
@@redhorsereincarnated5040 I don't think that's true at all. I mean, yes, some producers just captured the sound, but just look at The Beatles or Pink Floyd or going back even further Les Paul and Mary Ford. They were all doing crazy things in the studio that couldn't be replicated live, and they were still fantastic live. Cause they're completely different and unrelated. If a band sucks live, they're still going to suck live regardless of what they do in the studio. They're just completely different, and what makes for a great live show at a club or arena doesn't necessarily make for a great experience for someone sitting on their bedroom floor with headphones on and vice versa. For instance, I worked on a record with Shawn Mendes a handful of years ago. On the record, the songs are fairly mellow with very lightly played drums, lots of acoustic guitar and clean electrics. Then I caught a date of the tour he did for that record. He had massive, hard-hitting drums (playing completely different parts than the recordings), a lot more overdriven guitars, and much more of a high-energy, rock-y kinda thing. And he's an artist that could do anything he wanted live as far as having extra musicians, backing tracks, whatever. Like if they wanted to, they could have made it identical to the record. But they knew that wasn't going to make for the best live show, so they did what would. And I don't think the record would have been nearly as good if we did it more in the rock style from the live show. I think bands should cater to each separately to make them both as good as they can be.
Hi dude! Great video! I have one question: do you completely replace your pop punk dream snare or kic from GGD with Trigger? I've tried that in the past but sounded kind of fake. So now I keep the SD3 kick and snare and use my samples as a reinforcement. Thanks for your videos, bro! Keep them comming!
Hey! I'm glad you liked the video! But yeah, I do completely replace them. I think a big part of making it sound right is 1, using some room samples as well and bussing them to an aux with the midi room track (which for me just has cymbals in it) and compressing/processing them together, and 2, sending all the drums to a drum bus and giving them a little squeeze with a compressor there. Those two things really help to tie it all together for me and make it sound more like one cohesive drum sound. And, obviously, using the right samples for the sound you're going for helps!
But obviously there's nothing wrong with blending with the SD kicks and snares either. I'll sometimes do that if the MIDI sounds are ALMOST what I want, but I just want a little extra crack or beef or ring or whatever.
@@BetterMixes that would be amazing cause I don't know how to route things right. I mean, I can send my snare to am aux track and use a snare room sample but I can send that aux track to my drum room track. I don't know how to do it. Anyway, your help is much appreciated!
If you're going to replace GGD with Slate Trigger anyways, why not just use SSD 5.5 from the start? Aren't they pretty much the same samples as in Trigger?
