i like the 1178, too, on drums, especially on the rooms and the overheads, where the attack is not as sharp, so there's no initial tick if you clamp it down. a manley compressor is also great for bringing in more punch and focus on a gooey track, but it doesn't tame a spiky click too much. the ssl channel compressor is one of my favorite compressors in the world, not just for drums, but the same thing, if the attack is too spiky, there's only so much it can do, without pushing the release and bringing in mud. i like the ssl cause with the right release it makes things move, and pulsate, and that's great - not many compressors to that. harrison's leveler is also great to get a rounded, smooth punch. to tame a spiky attack (everybody records drums - and everything else - overly bright these days) an altec is great, it imparts a beautiful roundness, and sheen. last - and maybe least - i like what a dbx 160 does to the attacks, the brilliance, and the cohesion, but sometimes it can be too dirty, and reduce the stereo image - so it depends on whether i want that or not. but it sounds very organic. in terms of transient shapers, i like analog obsession's latest, trax, i believe it's their emulation of the spl, and it works great for taming down that initial, thin, spiky tick, which i properly dislike, but in an unintuitive way: if you increase the transient, it will act on the second, more meaty part of the attack, and bring it over the the initial tick, which will sound proportionally decreased in the overall hit. you will get a punchier, but more rounded attack, which is exactly what you want to hear. smack attack from waves is more complex and tweakable, but that's the last resort, exactly because it's a lot more complex to use. i always use tape, not just on drums, but on everything, and softube's is just great for taming the attack on drums, and emphasizing a beautiful brilliance - as opposed to brightness, which to me means harsh, and gives me the hibbie jibbies. a good room/hall reverb on the snare close mics - i process them together - and it's just what the doctor ordered. before hitting the ssl channel, i may run the overall kit through a pultec, with the gains on 0, but the frequencies dialed a specific way, just to suck in some mud and make the overall sound smoother, i find the line preamps on the ssl aren't that great for that, and the mic pres can be a bit too dirty. it took me a while to figure out it's not for the pres that people choose an ssl console. i always thought stuff didn't sound the way it should it because i was doing something wrong, not because i needed to bring in some external preamps, which is something i started to look into, once i decided i needed some, and i was relieved to discover apparently it is the way the pros do it, too. the marketing with the "legendary sound" can give you blind spots on some things, sometimes. and i'm starting to understand why everybody in videos might have an ssl console, and the stack of neves or apis in the rack, on the side. if the drums sound too diffuse, and lacking a mid focus in the body, i like to blend in a little chorus on the bus - maybe an ensemble or something - unheard, to round them and beef them up. it also works well on adding spark while cutting down the harshness. since i work with virtual drummers and programmed midi tracks, i like to import the whole track in either ez drummer 3 or addictive drums, for the humanization algorithm, which i then adjust manually. it saves a lot of time vs having to humanize it in programming. some daws might have a humanization algorithm in the stock options, but i found those more comprehensive. so there it is. everything i know :p.
Andrew Scheps's Omni Channel has some really magnificent presets for drums that pull in all the best parts of compression, limiting, EQ, gate, and coloring/harmonic distortion. It's a great all-around channel strip but really stands out for slapping onto the drum bus or individual percussion instruments in the rock genre.
Best trigger plugin that CAN HOST OTHER INSTRUMENT PLUGINS, layer your own samples, etc: UVI DRUM REPLACER. You can load any drum library inside it. Great gating and AI drum element detection options.
SSL's LMC+ is a very useful plugin when mixing drums. You don't even have to get too involved in the presets, the default setting when it appears in your insert channel is enough to add the magic sauce. The LMC+ obviously isnt the only compressor to do this but it does this task really well...
Marc is - by far - the most calm and interesting and relaxing guy out there to listen to. There are others you fall in love with after hearing one setence out of their mouth. Like Warren himself. Incredible people. You can even hear all the love and passion in their voices. It's not like with MixbusTV or other youtubers, that always try to sell you everything just to push their fame and income at any cost. Marc could sell me different sorts of beans and I'd still want to her what he has to say about them, although I hate beans. Because I feel he's 100% honest and stays real to himself. As German I'd like to mention: "Warren und Marc: Ihr habt das Herz am rechten Fleck. Bleibt so wie ihr seid."
I've learned more in this 11 and a half min (or so) video than in probably 4 years of using VST Drums, that there is no way that such a beautiful sound is possible without a real drum kit too. Thank you for confirming what I have suspected all along.
GUYS, what's the word on mix quality using a laptop and DAW vs a pro studio? I'm sure a pro studio would/could produce a better mix but it would largely come down to the engineer and (for the DAW) plugins. I can't find any videos on RU-vid about it - unless I'm searching incorrectly. :)
Wonderful video! Thank you so much Marc for sharing your wisdom and experience with us. I’m learning from all of your amazing videos all the time! It’s always great to see you on this wonderful channel! Thank you so much for this video! It’s really great ! 😀👍🔥🔥🔥
Marc you never cease to amaze, If I didn't have you or Warren Huart to learn from I can't imagine how much farther behind I would, thanks for all your hard work.
Hey! It's not released yet, but I'm working on a release plan and hopefully it'll be soon! Thanks for your interest. You can follow @Jongreig or @theanalogdream on instagram to keep up with when it's released, if you're interested. Thanks again!
I use drums from DrumsOnDemand which are single track drum loops, great sounding drum loops played by real drummers....until you start to really care about how your drums sound compared to commercial mixes. Up til now I've been manually adding/augmenting snare and kick samples, a real pain the arse when its a 12 or so track album. I didnt realise trigger plugins were free, this video has made my life SO much better knowing I can use software to speed up the process, thanks!
As a drummer for 35 something years I’ve always embraced digital along with analog. Yes im 55 and Devo, The Cars, Thomas Dolby, and anything else with synth I grew up on. Even Bill Bruford adding electronic drums and can’t forget Alex VH himself! Great vid PLAP! You always keeps it fresh my man. (Btw the Dog on the couch! Haaa! Priceless!)
You're very kind, Kkidzz. Thank you!! I'm hoping to release the song and the rest of the album shortly once I can get the music videos done. The moniker I use for the music is The Analog Dream. Thanks again!
Marc dude.. This was some serious ER surgical session for the ticks and bombs on our tracks! Thanks for sharing this here on PLAP! And like what others have mentioned - you explained the why and how so easily for us to understand. AMAZING!
Sir you are an inspiration for me .... Thank you for everything sir.... Need a help from you sir .... I wants to record a acoustic guitar song only acoustic guitar instrument.... But it's seems very poor when I mixing .... Plese suggest something
A month ago I had this great band come in with a good drummer who was a little inexperienced, and so hit the cymbals harder than the drums. Even adding some distance from the overheads didn't seem to help. Unfortunately there wasn't anything I could do except try to automate it as best I could. I've got a couple of things like soothe, but nothing that seemed to tame the harsh, crunchy frequencies just enough for my liking. I may look into playing with "tape" to see what it might be able to do.
This is all great and all but why not print the samples and use something like auto align or slip the sample to the original then adjust? Also “detail” isn’t what you’re after in trigger2, it’s velocity or the dynamic tracking would probably speed up your workflow? Either way cool tips definitely gonna try the transient tip even after aligning my drums Soothe2 is absolutely black magic fuckery!
So weird… I had been doing the same thing this afternoon with snare and kick samples using the same Softube transient designer. And I just spent 20 mins explaining to my buddy what exactly I was accomplishing. Now here’s Marc talking about the exactly same process. We are both using very similar sample too. I’m using those Circle Drums TAPE samples with that dry saturation/distortion.
I love the little details that Marc adds to his mixes that end up making a big difference. Truly, a mixing engineer that cares about the music. You can just see/hear it! Right on! Glad he’s part of the PLAP team! Good stuff!
It’s a 1st… I actually did not like the Pulsar 1178 on the low end at the end of this video. I felt that it was taking out too much of the low end for me. Yes, it got it under control, but this song is just slow enough and just sparse enough that the extra low end wasn’t making things muddy, it was making it all big and rich and like big arms hugging you. Or like a big giant couch you plop down into and it feels like it’s almost wrapping itself around you. That’s a kind of low end that is hard to create. I always think it’s a shame to lose it. I have the Pulsar 1178, so maybe I need to explore it further and see if I’m missing something.
Marc, thank you again for sharing your passion and knowledge. Thank you to Warren and his crew for introducing us to Marc. I can't tell you how much these videos have helped me! MArc, you mention the 5% rule during this video. Can you give us an explanation of the 5% rule?
What cool tricks.. What a Great track.. and those drums sound sooooo good dude omg. Are there multitracks of this song cuz id pay a lot of money for them haha
Thanks, Rajiv!! Just working on a release plan for this song- if you're on instagram you can follow @jongreig or @theanalogdream to get updates on it's release! Thanks again!
I did practically the same technique with a poor kick in a recent project, I used the SPL Transient designer for it, and a compressor, gives the same result, the snare was compressed, but with a long attack setting, so the transients together Kick/ snare were just perfect. I'm not sure anyone knows that you actually get transients out of a compressor.
Watching greatness work from a front row seat. Thank you Marc! At the end of the day, instead of watching tv, I will sit down and watch one of your tutorials.
Hi @@taks359! The song is not released yet, but it's by The Analog Dream, which is my music! @jongreig and @theanalogdream accounts on instagram are for the music. Stay tuned as I'm just putting together some music and a release plan for the whole album. Thanks for the kind words!
Hi @@_gregvalencia! The @jongreig and @theanalogdream accounts on instagram are for the music. Stay tuned as I'm just putting together some music and a release plan for the whole album. Thanks for the kind words! Hope you can listen when it's out soon!
Your dog during the expose of spiff with snare was very very cute. That’s one beautiful pooch Marc … love the process you go through with the snare as well!😊
I really love Marc’s explanations and great to see his dog fits the role as ghost producer very well, my dog is always in the studio with me which is a great thing when working ❤
