DRUM TECHNIQUES 4 DA MPC

Menco wrote:
Oh yes. And when only focusing on 4 aspects one becomes very good at those, making a hope other techniques obselete.

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."

If the music is composed well, the mix is easy.

Danoc wrote:Peace Lev and CD for continuing the convo, thank you.

Lev thanks for putting up the track.
As you said its not mixed so can't hold you for that. I noticed your main snare is panned. That shouldn't be. Sonically it's throwing the track off. If it was a secondary snare that has rapid playing then ok.

That snare shouldn't be that far panned. The technique of the snare , kick and bass should be up the middle and tweaked to find balance with them in the stereo field. Those are the first three sounds to work on fisrt.

The question is: What is really happen to the snare in this track? The PAN knob is set slightly! to the right. The meter also doesn't reflect what we hear (snare panned nearly 'hard right'). There is something else goin on.

CharlesRandolph wrote:
If the music is composed well, the mix is easy.

I once worked as 'helping hand' in a studio mostly recoding and mixing metal. If you're not into this genre you won't get something good mixing 8 layers of distorted/overdriven guitar

peace

peterpiper wrote:
I once worked as 'helping hand' in a studio mostly recoding and mixing metal. If you're not into this genre you won't get something good mixing 8 layers of distorted/overdriven guitar

peace

I've mixed lots of metal as well. The only issue with using so many layers, is that it doesn't translate in the live performance. Unless, the band has multi guitarist plus a case of effect pedals. I'm still a firm believer that the record, should be able to be reproduced live. Compositions is the important element, no matter what genre.

Things bands wants to hear when playing live:

1. You sound just like your song.
2. You sound better than your records.

Things they don't want to hear:
1. How come you do don't sound like your song.

here is my update, I did the best I could with the mix. and by best I could, I mean the best I CAN do with the ears,headphones and knowledge I have! lol

also danoc, thanks for that pic about the kick and bass. now I know what your talking about, its more of a finesse thing and not so much knife cutting a slot for the kick. which is what I was trying to do because that's what I thought it meant lol

I never understood especially now in this time why people do so much to get a track sonics to sound good.

Compression l stopped using it. No need for it from where l stand. I remember a pro saying compression is the worse thing made and he doesn't use it. My point for my track is to give a person a wonderful experience when they hear my music and no distortion.

1. I gain stage
2. Make sure my kick and bass coexist in the same space.
3. EQ
4. MIX
5. And bussing. This technique glues the track together beautifully.
6. Effects

I barely use automation. In the quiet parts of the track l go to the Event/Clup and decrease the volume to my liking. I have seen mix engineers use the faders for automation and use the gain sliders to actually mix. Dealing with the bass ducking the kick Waves hass the bass rider. l didn't want to get into that. Now l have developed a way it saved me money and time. I have studied Chris Lord Algie, Bob Powers and Mike Pensada's techniques just to understand EQing.

I already have a template to make tracks and have all l need in the 8 effect sends. Thats why l love Reason's SSL mixer.

Im efficient and quick, its to easy lol

peterpiper wrote:The question is: What is really happen to the snare in this track? The PAN knob is set slightly! to the right. The meter also doesn't reflect what we hear (snare panned nearly 'hard right'). There is something else goin on.

Well the snare should never be panned hard right or left. Should be set to the CENTER with the kick and bass. If a petson does pan a snare it should only be between 11 and 12 O'clock in the stereo field. In a drum set the snare is slightly offset to the left.

The snare, kick and bass is the backbone of a track and adds strength to a track. Lev's track sounds weird sonically due to the displacement of the snare. You get your drums right everything esle will fall in place.

CharlesRandolph wrote:
Things they don't want to hear:
1. How come you do don't sound like your song.

Fell the hell out lol

Yo Lev oh sh** it sounds better Sonically than before. You did a better job for real.

What vesion of Reason are you on? It looks like and older version. Im on 11.2 which is seriously dope.

That's why l showed the illustration so you could see to understand. Both the kick and bass occupy the lower region. On the biggest hump for the kick if l boost say, +1.48db for the bass l decrease the bass hump -1.48db. That's balanced. So what l did was made it perceived to be DUCKING without having to buy another plugin just to do this. As time goes on you will increase and decrease to help shape the sound the way you want it.

I roll off more high frequencies and lows fir the bass because its character has more strength than the kick. I roll off on the kick too but not as much. The key is not to take the natural characteristics of the kick and bass but to blend them. I want that bass to be the bed and the kick lay on top.

Levulz2it wrote:here is my update, I did the best I could with the mix. and by best I could, I mean the best I CAN do with the ears,headphones and knowledge I have! lol

also danoc, thanks for that pic about the kick and bass. now I know what your talking about, its more of a finesse thing and not so much knife cutting a slot for the kick. which is what I was trying to do because that's what I thought it meant lol

im on 11.2. but its the "lite" version, so it doesn't have all the ish the full version has. I can upgrade to full version for 299 but meh..where im at right now, still learning I think im good where im at. plus i need some dang headphones! lol

yeah before i was hard cutting the kick and bass trying to get them to be individual but now after seeing that and playing around with it i can see its more of a finesse thing like i said before.

im going to look up some videos on EQing and mixing, probably going to try and google the names you dropped too. lol see if i can find something worthwhile.

as far as the beat, its coming along much better than my others! lol still needs a little something though, I took out the korg in the first 4 bars as it sounded good when I made it but after a couple hour break I just listened to it again it just comes in too hard in the beginning like that.

Danoc wrote::shock: Yo Lev oh sh** it sounds better Sonically than before. You did a better job for real.

What vesion of Reason are you on? It looks like and older version. Im on 11.2 which is seriously dope.

That's why l showed the illustration so you could see to understand. Both the kick and bass occupy the lower region. On the biggest hump for the kick if l boost say, +1.48db for the bass l decrease the bass hump -1.48db. That's balanced. So what l did was made it perceived to be DUCKING without having to buy another plugin just to do this. As time goes on you will increase and decrease to help shape the sound the way you want it.

I roll off more high frequencies and lows fir the bass because its character has more strength than the kick. I roll off on the kick too but not as much. The key is not to take the natural characteristics of the kick and bass but to blend them. I want that bass to be the bed and the kick lay on top.

Levulz2it wrote:here is my update, I did the best I could with the mix. and by best I could, I mean the best I CAN do with the ears,headphones and knowledge I have! lol

also danoc, thanks for that pic about the kick and bass. now I know what your talking about, its more of a finesse thing and not so much knife cutting a slot for the kick. which is what I was trying to do because that's what I thought it meant lol

Ok Lev l hear ya.

Danoc wrote:

peterpiper wrote:The question is: What is really happen to the snare in this track? The PAN knob is set slightly! to the right. The meter also doesn't reflect what we hear (snare panned nearly 'hard right'). There is something else goin on.

Well the snare should never be panned hard right or left. Should be set to the CENTER with the kick and bass. If a petson does pan a snare it should only be between 11 and 12 O'clock in the stereo field. In a drum set the snare is slightly offset to the left.

The snare, kick and bass is the backbone of a track and adds strength to a track. Lev's track sounds weird sonically due to the displacement of the snare. You get your drums right everything esle will fall in place.

Is my post so bad? I mean your reply seem to me that you misunderstood something. I know the things you mentioned about 'how it usually should be' (ok, that 'rule' has the power to open a completly different discussion. A turntable is made to simply play a vinyl record right? Guitar Amplifiers are made to simply amplify the guitar signal as clean as possible right? ).

My point is that the visual (Levs first video) and the audio of this video doesn't fit cause the PAN knob in the snare channel is NOT set to hard right but the audio plays the snare (nearly) hard right.

My first thought: 'aaah the snare audioclip in the arrangeview is stereo so it's probably an audio clip that already has the snare on the right and the 'woodblock kind of sound' on the left but.....no the woodblock has its own channel and is probably comming from the Kong....... Next thought:Ok then what about the WIDTH knob? It's set to zero so the stereo snare clip is mono in the channel but that shouldn't affect the absolute position of the snare (but I don't use Reason so IDK how the program handle this).
Ok.....so something is wrong with the routing or so and since I'm curious I would like to know what happen
So Lev can you explain please?
BTW the new mix DOES sound much better IMO. I recommend working on harmony but the sound is nice.

peace


peace

Ok

Peace

You saw and heard what it was, there were no effects or cable re-routes. I had the mixdown snare from my mpc panned slightly right, and the kong "woodblocky" type snare panned left. There was no funny business in any way, i didn't out any effect in the mpc either. I record raw tracks ( raw meaning no filters or effects) then mixdown each individual sound to its own track and import to reason for mixing/processing. It couldn't of been something I did before I imported into reason so I have no idea why it sounded like that lol

Lmao no problem. l do my drums in Reason and in S1v4. I do my music loops in S1v4 and Reason. Everything is inside the box. Do my mixing in Reason and master in S1v4.

I don't know what you did though.

Levulz2it wrote:You saw and heard what it was, there were no effects or cable re-routes. I had the mixdown snare from my mpc panned slightly right, and the kong "woodblocky" type snare panned left. There was no funny business in any way, i didn't out any effect in the mpc either. I record raw tracks ( raw meaning no filters or effects) then mixdown each individual sound to its own track and import to reason for mixing/processing. It couldn't of been something I did before I imported into reason so I have no idea why it sounded like that lol