I’m quite new here and so I apologies if I’m going over old ground.
I am producing a Jazz track using all VST samples triggered by midi. The drum sections uses a selection of drums ranging from a Korg Vst to Cubase’s Groove Agent (this is multiple instances of G.A for each drum sound). The version of Cubase I am using is Artist 11.
I have learned so far that it may not be necessary to route all of these drum tracks to a drum bus because they were not acoustically recorded, but instead, try to make my balancing as transparent as possible from the ground up on each track setting velocity, panning, and slider position etc.
But as a starting point after setting all the levels to the best of my ability using my ears, I have just applied an EQ and Reverb to my snare drum, trying not to alter the true nature of the sound. I’m not sure if it matters, but I am using the Fab Filter reverb plug-in for this. I have found however, that in the full mix when all the elements of the piece are playing, I can’t here anything of the snare reverb, it’s like it totally disappears. And I can only here it in less dense parts of the track, or if I solo the snare altogether. I don’t want to go wild and totally mess this track (or subsequent ones) up.
I am so inexperienced at this that all the YouTube videos scare me, they are so complex when it comes to teaching drum processing in general. Could anyone here give me a few newbie pointers if possible on how to solve this please? or any information which might help me to improve the overall sound of my drum section.
What kind of sound are you looking for? Can you give a few commercial artistes’ examples?
Otherwise you’ll get a million and one different answers, none of which are what you want.
EG, I smash the GA snares to smithereens using a Waves TG1234 compressor, it really brings out the ringing and the snares. I use an Omnipressor on the crash and ride cymbals to create a 1960s The Who style whoosh sound.
Others tread more lightly.
Yes, this is key. Especially, are you going for a realistic ‘audio photograph’ sound or a more sculpted sound? Since you mention jazz, I’d guess you are leaning more towards the former. But even that gets tricky. For example on Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue the drums sound great really clear, distinct & realistic. But if you think about it, they actually don’t sound like what you’d hear in a small club where the drums would be at some distance and not right up in your face (ears?) like the record. The point being things can read as being realistic, even when they aren’t - and vice-versa.
The truth is, I have not routed any of the drum tracks yet, because I am not sure it is necessary. I did create a drum bus, and then I deleted it. So far, I only know that I want the snare reverb provided by an insert on the snare track to poke through the mix more when everything is playing quite full-on, and it doesn’t. If routing everything to a drum bus will fix this, then I will try to explore the process.
I guess that is why I have asked the question of you guys first?
Hi Googly_Smythe and raino,
Thank you both so much for your input.
I never considered that the actual sound I am trying to achieve should inform how I treat each drum track. I guess I just want each sound to be distinct in the overall mix but nothing sounding too outlandish and wild. I think of artisits like Bob James, Boney james and Rick Braun (collaboration), whose album Shake It Up I am using as a reference track.
I don’t want the Snare drum to crash through everything really hard hitting like some you may hear in Hard Rock pieces. It is quite subtle in the mix, but I imagined with complexities of engineering and all the tools available that it might be possible to augment the snare enough in the mix to have the reverb tail be more audible without cranking up the snare volume above everything else?
I do appreciate however what both of you have said, and I think I get it!. It has more to do with the sound picture I am trying to create in the drums section and all the tracks as a whole, because different genres require different things in terms of volume, texture and effects treatment when necessary.
But, do you think in any case, that putting all the drums through a group bus with EQ, Compression and reverb applied would help any in terms of getting the snare reverb to show through more, even though these are all VST drums triggered via midi and already somewhat balanced?
I would say No.
This is how I do it. Ahem.
Snares, kicks, toms, hats, rides and crashes, each have their own channel. (They’re usually GrooveAgent, so are all on one track. I use 9 GA outputs.)
I route the whole lot to two groups, one for drums, the other for cymbals.
The channels have TG12345 for the drums, Omnipressors for the cymbals. I high pass the cymbals because there is a surprising amount of low-mid frequency hum present.
I handle reverb in two different way. Presently, I just use the one for the whole mix. But I used to use as many as 6. So I would route the snare to it’s own reverb, and you can handle the rest how you want. The snare reverb should have quite a highpass EQ before it. Because the snare is the only input to the reverb, you should be able to balance as you wish, especially with a bit of automation - turn it up for the loud bits, turn it down for the quiet.
This way (or a variant!) should give you enough flexibility to achieve your goal.
Bottom line is to separate the drum sounds and treat them individually, then route them to a group with a bus compressor
This is awesome!
I posted this query in Discord also, and I got a response today which in many ways you have just echoed here.
In selecting my drums I gave no thought to the use of a pre-made kit such as those offered in GA, where in you can apply various techniques in one interface including the use of overhead mics and mixing. This is totally new to me and I have no knowledge of the process involved.
Therefore in my ignorance, I never used GA in this way, selecting a premade kit, then splitting it into multi midi output channels, and treating each sound/track individually. I just did a random mix and match selection for all my drum sounds, in some cases using multiple instances of GA for my snare, toms, and percussion. Plus some sounds from a Korg VST.
I think it is too late for me to go right back to the start and use one instance of GA for all my drums, as it will be too steep a learning curve. (I am beginning to study the process now). But if it’s okay, I will follow your last pointer which is to treat all the sounds separately and then route them to a bus with a compressor? I might also just select a different snare which has a longer transient tail.
