[Geno Plitt]

Sinister 7 – I hear you about the 25ms attack. But if you are already clipping (which he said in his post) it’s a different problem. A fast attack and a low threshold it IS a tone killer – if you squash the snare with a low threshold. My threshold is barely down at all, in fact I use very little compression. I’m using the compressor kind of like a limiter to stop clipping. So – I agree with you – if you set your threshold low with a fast attack it will kill the tone, and then you might want to set the attack higher to allow the transient to come through. It’s a personal choice on how much you squash the snare with compression. My personal choice is not to. Again check my example – the settings I describe produce the snare you hear. You can play with all these parameters to come up with your own tone.

[Geno Plitt]

I’m also using stereo default. I haven’t checked the mono feature. If you bring in Mono outputs, for example Overhead Left and Overhead Right, I would assume your DAW would devote two independant tracks – one left and one right, while bringing in the Overhead Stereo would let you handle it with one stereo track. Some people may want independant control? Maybe a throw back to the days of Tape when channels were all mono? I’m only guessing here. I would think most people just bring in the Stereo tracks.

[Geno Plitt]

First of all I like your material. Very nice guitar textures. Mixing drums is a big subject. Here’s what I would do –

EQ – Find the “thud” frequency in the snare – somewhere around 250 or so – it changes with the snare – Bring this frequency up a little with a narrow band until is sounds good. Do a high pass right underneath that frequency to kill any muddy low frequencies that may come from the snare. Find the “Crack” frequency – somewhere up around 3k. Boost this frequency to taste. (to find these frequencies you have to set up a narrow peak filter, boost it high and search around to find the thud and crack frequencies)

Compressor – Use about a ratio of 4, drop the threshold just below where the signal is peaking, if you need to adjust the makeup gain, bring up the signal so that it’s peak is maybe -3 or -6. Attack – 1ms, Release 200ms.

Here is an example of my approach. I’m not using any makeup gain on the snare.
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=7127861

[Geno Plitt]

Thanks for your feedback Scott. I know what you mean. I was just wondering for those that are E-drummers what level most matches the feel of a “real” kit. I originally thought the default of -11.2 was too low so I bumped it up to -7. However, after I incorporated Superior Drummer in about a dozen of my projects I found that that level just doesn’t sound right. I put it back down to -11.2 and am going into all of my projects and adjusting all the velocities of the Hats accordingly and the hats sound much more natural.

Of course Velocities and Mix Volume on the Hats aren’t interchangeable. For example a velocity of 80 when mix is -11 may acheive the same loudness as a Velocity of 100 when mix is -7. But the two hits don’t sound the same. I’m finding that -11 sounds more natural. Going through and adjusting all my projects is a very tedious task and I wanted to get other peoples opinions.

[Geno Plitt]

Thanks guys! I’m going to try out that existing HHX. I knew about the edit articularion – I’ve got the ride and bell + 10 db. Sounds like you’ve given me some nice options!

[Author]

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