Question after question, mixing programmed drums

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Member Since: Apr 10, 2006

I've been working on recording and mixing a rockish song for a while, and recently i started programming drums for it. I find it odd that I've got live guitars and bass with programmed drums, so I really don't know what i'm gonna do when it comes time to mix them. They should sound out of place, no? Should I really touch them at all? Maybe some plugins? It's weird to EQ an entire drum set together, are there any suggestable tweaks within Reason's ReDrum? Obviously they have to be leveled well. Thanks in advance.

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Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Jul 22, 2006 08:24 pm

If you can control things like individual drum hits velocity and level you can add some realism to the sound. And if you can swing the timing in and out by tiny bits it as well will add realism to the tracks.

In Sonar and Project 5 I usually will go in and edit the note velocity and such by hand just to insure I dont have a rock solid prgrammed drum sound. though sometimes that doesnt sound all bad either.

Hold 'Em Czar
Member
Since: Dec 30, 2004


Jul 24, 2006 12:52 pm

also, i'm 99% sure you can route each drum sample's output to it's own channel in reason, and even it's own output from reason to your host DAW....just tab over to the back, and connect the single outputs to the mixer at the very top and it'll get it's own channel in your DAW....OR you can mute everything but one drum and bounce it to an audio file and import each one into your DAW....DAW de DAW da DAW DAW...

lemme know if ya need a better explanation.

wyd

Prince CZAR-ming
Member
Since: Apr 08, 2004


Jul 24, 2006 01:18 pm

I tried that once, pushed each track out of FL studio to it's own track in N-Track. Worked itself out to be a huge pain in the butt.

I ended up making a fairly high number of tracks for different percussion (like around 15 or so, maybe more, it's been a while) and didn't tweak anything after creating them, so I didn't see the need to bog down the multitracker.

In my limited experience, the prog drums can be made to sound pretty darn sweet in the program, then export the whole thing as a stereo file, then apply affects to the whole kit.

ALso, you can make changes to the project file in your sequencer, and re-mix down the stereo file, if you need to change anything. FL Studio has a lot of tweakability, and lots of effects options, so I can make all changes in that proggie.

I'd think your sequencer/drum proggie will do the same.

Also, when using samples, in a good tasteful fashion, you shouldn't have any problem mixing live guitars with pre-programmed drums. I'm thinking it's done a lot more than we think. They can sound very realistic (seeing as how they're real - samples).

my .02$us

Frisco's Most Underrated
Member
Since: Jan 28, 2003


Jul 24, 2006 04:15 pm

Quote:
OR you can mute everything but one drum and bounce it to an audio file and import each one into your DAW


this is what i do for every track that I mix. I then apply specific panning and volume and effects for each drum type. General effect I use on drums are mainly just compression and eq and reverb..., sometimese just eq...

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