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Constructing a Metal Drum Kit Part 2

Lesson 15 from: Advanced Drum Production

Eyal Levi

Constructing a Metal Drum Kit Part 2

Lesson 15 from: Advanced Drum Production

Eyal Levi

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Lesson Info

15. Constructing a Metal Drum Kit Part 2

Lessons

Class Trailer

Day 1

1

Class Introduction

21:53
2

The Tone Pie and Process Overview

13:35
3

Getting the Lay of the Land and Q&A

32:58
4

Assemble Your Gear

14:34
5

Drum Tuning Part 1

33:56
6

Drum Tuning Part 2

39:49
7

Fine Tuning Tones Part 1

35:29
8

Fine Tuning Tones Part 2

54:24
9

General Guidelines of Tracking Drums

32:27
10

Tracking with Sean Reinert

32:50
11

Pop Quiz

17:57
12

Basics of Superior Drummer

30:00
13

EZDrummer vs Superior Drummer

25:32
14

Constructing a Metal Drum Kit Part 1

41:09
15

Constructing a Metal Drum Kit Part 2

26:14
16

Constructing a Rock Drum Kit

38:03
17

Grooves and Programming

14:33
18

General Q&A

18:31
19

Prepping Virtual Drums for the Mix

37:16
20

Superior Review with Q&A

22:01
21

Intro to Mixing and Drum Clean Up

33:13
22

Interview with John Douglass

25:00
23

Intro to Drum Editing

21:32
24

Manual Editing Approach

15:30
25

Editing with Beat Detective

16:46
26

Editing with Elastic Audio

29:16
27

Sample Layering

20:14
28

Replacements

23:13
29

Gain Staging and Bussing

15:45
30

Mixing Essentials

32:06
31

Compression and Parallel Compression

13:22
32

Reverb and Automation

28:18
33

Mixing Tips and Tricks

26:53

Day 2

Day 3

34

Bonus: EZDrummer - Introduction

17:38
35

Bonus: EZDrummer - Intro to EZDrummer

14:47
36

Bonus: EZDrummer - EZDrummer Foundations

29:30
37

Bonus: EZDrummer - How a Drummer Plays

19:51
38

Bonus: EZDrummer - Part Writing Part 1

32:54
39

Bonus: EZDrummer - Part Writing Part 2

29:35
40

Bonus: EZDrummer - Part Writing Q&A

10:21
41

Bonus: EZDrummer - Intro to Grooves

13:48
42

Bonus: EZDrummer - Writing from Scratch

26:49
43

Bonus: EZDrummer - Intro to Fills

20:51
44

Bonus: EZDrummer - Writing Fills

27:20
45

Bonus: EZDrummer - Mixing in Your DAW

14:13
46

Bonus: EZDrummer - Bussing and EQ

25:36
47

Bonus: EZDrummer - Compression and Reverb

18:26
48

Bonus: EZDrummer - Conclusion with Q&A

12:30
49

Bonus Video: Editing

1:07:00
50

Bonus Video: Toms and Cymbals

29:02
51

Bonus Video: Snare Midi

32:26
52

Bonus Video: Kick Midi

20:35

Lesson Info

Constructing a Metal Drum Kit Part 2

So let's talk about bleed control this is pretty important and pretty misunderstood and go to the overheads what I just did was this is you can see this liner here's a bleed control I hit at it and it brought up this little it's like a sub mixer and every track that's yellow you know, if I'm understanding this wrong feel free to correct me every track that's yellow is what's going on what's bleeding into the overhead tracks so you got kick snare hats and the toms all coming into the overhead mike's I would see the overheads aren't bleeding into the overheads, so reason that you're not hearing the kick is because I removed that kick from the set. The reason you're not hearing hats because there's no hats playing this part will be moved to another part where the crashes aren't the dominant symbol way perfect! I had part I should loop is enabled okay, I just soloed the overhead, check it out this is the overhead without the hi hat bleed drowns and kick drum. Why is that important? Well sa...

y you thought the hat was overbearing got enough high hat right there on the high hat channel where you might even want to turn it down one thing that's big and real recordings that the high hat gets into everything is that what you're about to say if there's anything to sell superior drummer it's the fact that you don't have to fight the high at because the hi hat is devil incarnate oh yeah china's too china's too but yeah hats on when you're making up a drum set hats get into everything there's and there's very few ways to get rid of them they're just tough to deal with and there's no way to mix them out without affecting the overall sound of the overheads in real life. So in virtual life though, which israel life at this point for me uh in virtual life just go to the bleed control and he turned on the hats it's amazing it really is now there's no hats in the overhead maybe I want a little now is the reason why you're not hearing any kick drum in the overheads because you brought it from outside of the kit yes ok correct because the year still uh correct me if I'm wrong what you're still hearing is what the other mike's picked up originally, okay? But you're not hearing the actual kick channel because there is no kick here. Yeah, I know we're talking virtual those but in real life when recording it a drum and you bring another drummond you're still keeping the integrity of that room? Yes correct so if you're bringing in a different drum for a different room wouldn't make sense to include the roommate came from in addition to the room you're working with yeah, that was weird you know that's what you get, you know, sound issues and phase issues and people also that's that's why it's not happening because remember it's all these bleeds are really samples they're not impulses or river bs it's a simulated simulation I mean there it's the real the real deal so that's the thing forget is that these are real actual samples from like real beats recorded by real drummers so when you and he's in and out in actual amazing drum rooms that you guys will probably never be able to afford that or go to because they don't exist anymore in some cases like sad trend in huge recording studio world is that a lot of the big classic studios air closing down so some of these rooms are captured forever in superior, which is really, really cool so there's that too just a little side note but anyways, are you out of the room? Mike close see now the hi hat doesn't sound nearly so devastatingly overbearing we go to a section with some pills to demonstrate this next part okay, so now what we're hearing or hearing is a room like the ambient close what if I want a compress the hell out of this out of this room and try compressing it, see what happens just turned into a mess, right? Because those symbols air getting compressed like crazy. And what can you do in real life? Nothing. So yet to be really careful with that, but in virtual life control the bleed. So here I am in the room, mike. And, uh and this is something you can't do with acoustic drums turned these symbols off completely. Just see later or I can have them super quiet. I haven't decided yet, but definitely going to start with off and see what happens a cz way cooler now, the hyper compression over the moon setting that I just put on the room way cooler think. And now let me show you that before or after this is with all the bleed full on in the room, mike compressed to helen back like it would be in real life. It's almost hard to listen to, almost hard to listen to. Almost e I feel like that maurine line with something I could work with now it's compressions not exactly right at this point. What now? And a lot of that ring I don't know if you guys just notice, but the snare is now a lot ring here, okay, a lot of that ring that you guys dig so much comes from the room mike's, actually not from the direct mike you saw it now that I pulled the cymbals out of that room and compressed the hell out of it really brought the ring out of the snares wearing your them before that's what the room muted room on and everyone understand how bleed control works any questions in the internet about that okay so we're going we're doing it alright cool what's up um just a real quick question the the inputs for the individual bleed tracks those air pre fader for many of the tracts that you're dealing with within superior drummer right in the mix er like the inputs into like the kick in the snare and the hats there that's a good question and I'm not sure do you know those air pre feeder I think they've got to be because it's just a bleed that the that's coming off of the microphones so yeah got to be okay I think that if you want to start getting into busing stuff then that's what this is for and the bus send menus here and I will show you how that works real quick take this room like bus it say bus seven and eight right here you can control how much of the bleed you want busing over and how much of the direct I just want it full on for now going to seven and eight come up right there do whatever you want to it yeah sign and output though so anyways that describes that show you guys another cool trick that you can do with the superior mixer and with velocity players on the subject of velocity mapping there's one thing that I think you guys should know let me pull up metal foundry I grabbed one more snare all right this is going to be this is going to be for like the section where everything stops and you just want that massive reverb to take place and what's cool about this this has to do with yes exactly this ah the reason that I'm showing this is because you should have certain velocity layers that air for specific events that's a really really cool thing to do because you have way more options that way way more things that can take place and why not just program it to happen within superior rather than all kinds of weird routing stuff so let's make a new eckstrom and going to go to metal foundry the instrument is gonna be snare and I was like the microphones I want is the chamber and the snare top we'll see what's going on in the mixer make sure that I didn't mess up there is your chamber there's your new snare now I am going to map this to the snare drum center hit to the stair again joining if I hit replace you get rid of everything joining it all right humors to me too so not at this point do slam drums ever sound like real drums I think the point is to not sound like real drums actually think the point of slam drums is tio sound like trash cans right? They are really drums you guys definitely don't have the money to you know to dio to do anything fancy in the studio so they somehow or another I managed to do it with the real thing yeah yeah but he still is superior to that on the next example I'm going to show you guys how to get like a really big sounding rocket so we're just having some fun making this sound like a slam kit this a new one that I'm about to take care of on ly happens at one twenty seven let me solo this out sorry, I want that to go to a uh bus not to go to a bus phil what else do I need to pull in right now you got to get the idea for the chamber am I missing something? Yeah voila just put that back to wanting to follow and let me just say that I don't know if like any of you guys out in the internet, I've never read a manual in my life so well I mean, I don't know I actually know may my my assistant john's read a lot of manuals and that's one of the reasons we work well together because he knows what I don't know and but I know a lot of producers who don't read manuals and at the same time while I get it that if muir too read them or at least have them on hand you would know a lot more about the software used but one reason to have them on hand is cause bill might not always be in the room with you so always consult the manual anyways I don't know if you guys understand what's happening what I did was I pulled in a river chamber from metal foundry and the snare from metal foundry which is an s t x right there I added it as an extra um right here to the snares and then I mapped it to the snares as well right here now I said I only want this to happen at one twenty seven so s so what you can do is you can have all your drum hits have all your normal hits take place up until one twenty six and then right when you want that huge sound that huge reverb then hit one twenty seven in the snare on the way that you would do that here is through the velocities so let's find a spot where that would be appropriate and not totally dumb you can hear it's totally done put going the whole time so you'll find that spot I thought was cool for it and I'm grabbing grabbing these to make sure that there's nothing nothing else happening at one twenty seven so grabbing all these hits up here and I'm just pulling them down just a little bit now the one hit I do want to be a one twenty seven we find it okay okay muting attorney anyways that's a uh quick example of how that works I would mess with that reverb and make e q it and stuff but that's how the those were at one twenty seven you don't have any questions about what I just did I think we've pretty much covered everything you know I guess the the the one question that came up a few times is about routing which we will get into maur when we talk about prepping for mixing stuff so yeah and once we like this sound once we're happy with what we have in superior what do we do next and that's what? We're going to talk about the end of the day? Yeah, absolutely we're going to cover in detail the different ways that you prepare your tracks to go to a mix session absolutely so let's summarize what I just did is I constructed a kit and uh let me just say that I would definitely keep on constructing in real life but in the interest of time this is all we got for now it's a hybrid I've got avatar symbols avatar thom's in an avatar sneer I didn't really want the kick drum for this application so I made an extra um kick so it came from metal machine which is an easy acts so I made a hybrid kit of some easy exes and some sd exes that kick that andy sneaked made that already was pretty cute and pre whatever he did to it that sounded pretty cool I just added a little bit more e q and was good to go with it I had to do a lot of work to the snare though because this narrows and stx and it was completely raw so that's with some stuff done to it um I layered the snare up with some extra arms did that one toe add ring added a river chamber for those dramatic hits that just need all that reverb and then I showed you guys that you can control the bleed and that basically affect everything that's one thing that you cannot do on a real drum set with a in an acoustic environment you get lots of situations where the symbols are way too loud in the room and lots of miking techniques actually have been invented tio teo counter for that I don't know if you've seen a lot of guys will mike on the floor or well mike from the chest down and that's because symbols are so annoying and the problem with that is that sometimes making up high is good. You get a certain type of picture of the kid that you can't get from the ground. Sometimes you want to get an overhead like an overhead a room like and you don't want your symbols blasting you to hell and back. So in superior drummer you can take the cymbals out of that. You have basically endless options as far as that's concerned. Once again, I used the bleed control to make that happen. So all of you out there, an internet ville, please get comfortable with the bleed control. I'm just finding, uh, which room like I did that too. Here we go and being close we also went to the overheads took the kick and hats down in the overhead because we had a section with a section where it was basically on the hat and it was just really overbearing was just destroying us, and that was coming through the overheads that way, I just play you guys that part one more time. Before I do that, let me make sure that we don't have any velocities of one twenty seven that are going to kill us or just meet the rear of chamber see there's eight different ways to do this much more listening, so get to know your extra arms. Get to know your envelope. We also messed with envelope to make the snare drum ring. Mohr that's. What I did on this was, you can see there's, no attack, all sustained. Get to know your envelope, get to know your extra mes get to know your bleed functions. That basically is everything. Not everything, but close to it.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Day One Presentation.pdf
Day Three Presentation.pdf
Day Two Presentation.pdf
Johns QuicKeys Shortcuts.qkmx
Sample Input List.docx

Ratings and Reviews

El Bulbo Studio
 

This class will give you confidence when tracking drums. Eyal's interaction with the drummer will help you communicate better with the artist to get the best performance and tone. The added bonus on drum replacement is very valuable and will improve your mixes.

a Creativelive Student
 

My drum sound has improved by 150% and counting. I'm grateful that Eyal would share this information with us. Not every technique is for every situation, but they all work. It's up to you to have the vision and to use the right tools for the job. Thank you guys!!

Michael Nolasco
 

To the guy that said buyer beware: this is an advanced production class, it's not meant for beginners who are learning to mic up a kit. I'm a beginner, but i'm using superior drummer, so this class was perfect for me to learn how to process drums post recording. I refer to it constantly. The editing videos are also prime information.

Student Work

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