Superior Drummer 2 mixing questions ! :)

Hey all!

Bellow is a copy and paste from my post on the toontrack forum to see what everyones thoughts are ?

I am interested to know how you all go about mixing your Superior drummer 2 / Metal foundry or NY addons

Sometimes I like to send everything out to Sonar and mix from scratch useing my own plugs or now my new and fav plug EZMIX!

Other times I will forinstance use Metal Foundry and a preset from the list ( if it has the sounds I am looking for) I can then just tweek it a little to get it to sound exactly how I want it.( The pre sets are awesome IMO but I dont always use them)

Ok so with all that said it gets me to this question for you all with any pre set and Superior drummer sent to any track in the DAW it will then be in the red and start cliping.

This could get in to a discusion about useing the ears and not looking at the level but I just see red cliping as a big NO NO and I am sure I am not the only one so I always try and stop that

I dont mind the track going in to the red by any meens but not actualy cliping right to the top even if it sounds fine.

So

What I do is make a drum Bus then send it to there and put for instance boost 11 on the bus and limit it just so it cant clip but not alter the sound.

I then mix everthing else up to that level on the other busses or master fader till it all blends

So what do you guys do if you are useing a preset ? What are every ones different ways :)

I would like to know if there is a better way of doing things or perhaps I am doing things wrong ? I guess there is no right or wrong in mixing aslong as its good in the end but each to there own....

I am interested to hear what you guys all do from start to finish if useing a preset :)

Thanks guys

Norrie

i do the same thing as bitflipper...


i may bring up a preset as a starting point, but after i've tweaked it, it's nothing like what i started with, and i'll save it for that specific purpose.

i've got individual piece presets, and i've got group presets.

but i'm mixing the drums with the superior mixer, i see no advantage to outputting to individual faders in the sonar mixer.

i DO have 2 buss outputs tho, overheads are seperated from the rest of the kit.

bapu

i see no advantage to outputting to individual faders in the sonar mixer.

To apply a 3rd party FX?


Or is there a way to do that in Superior (that I'm too lazy to find out)?

That is the main advantage for outputting to individual faders.  There is no way to apply a third party plugin within Superior.
 
It's a matter of preference but it's easy enough to send a particular Superior Mic channel out to SONAR for processing by your favorite plug in.  I used to always send out to individual SONAR channels but I'm changing my ways of working to do most of my tweaking plugins within Superior.  This is more about how I prefer to work than it is whether it is the proper thing to do.

batsbrew


i do the same thing as bitflipper...


i may bring up a preset as a starting point, but after i've tweaked it, it's nothing like what i started with, and i'll save it for that specific purpose.

i've got individual piece presets, and i've got group presets.

but i'm mixing the drums with the superior mixer, i see no advantage to outputting to individual faders in the sonar mixer.

i DO have 2 buss outputs tho, overheads are seperated from the rest of the kit.

BatsBrew - have you been successful in creating a SD2 preset that is as loud and punchy as EZD?  I bought some of the 3rd party presets relatively cheap off their website, but even these presets aren't close to the aggressiveness of EZD.
 
At this point my system is too slow for SD2 so I'm waiting until I get a 64bit machine with a lot of ram.

guitartrek

Norrie


Hey guys

Thanks for all the replys:)

My main question though was why do all the presets in SD2 clip automaticaly ?

Norrie

I noticed that too Norrie.  They clip even though they don't sound as loud as EZD or AD.  Seems to me you've got to use a heavy amount of compression and maybe some parallel processing.

Hey there Guitartreck

Thats what I cant understand

Why are all there pre sets doing that

I am the same as every one else here and would only use the pre set to get me part of the way that is why Iwont buy any of the extra "producer presets"

I dont mix very often in SD2 anymore. I just send it all out to tracks in sonar and mix from there.

I am going to ask the question at toontrack why there "presets" are like this.

Dont get me wrong threre ok...... But theres something not right about it.

Norrie

bapu-
what mod said....

i find that the superior FX are so good now, that i don't feel i need to use anything else....

guitartrek-
short answer:
no.



but i'm still learning, and on a real slow learning curve, i'm sure i'll get it.
the EZ sound IS aggressive! and i still like it for certain things.....
but it's really just a matter of getting the compression, eq, filters and transients dialed in.


norrie-
i leave the mixer set hot, like it is at the start of some of the presets, but lower the main volume ouput on the main front page....
til i get the levels i want going into my drum sub-buss.....

the superior guys really dig the parallel compression, and a lot of the presets lend themselves to it...
i think THAT is what they intended for folks to use, to get that aggressive thing going on....

meanwhile, the 24 bit files are so much cleaner and distinct than the stock EZd sounds, to my ears, i can see how it would appeal to more people across the board.

me, i like slamming drums, but that sound natural.
big difference, to a lot of the modern drum sounds out there right now, that i REALLY don't care for.

bitflipper


The very first thing I do in any project that has SD2 in it: dial back SD2's master volume to -10 to -12db. Otherwise, the whole project will end up being too hot. Clipping should never be an issue with any drum sampler.

Would you do this in side SD2 or would you do that on the track its going to in Sonar ?

Norrie

bitflipper


I usually make all my initial adjustments within SD2 and only use the track volume for automation. It just seems silly to have redundant volume adjustments in SD2's mixer, on the track's trim control, and maybe on the drum bus. I like to only adjust any source's level in just one place whenever possible.

How do you expect to some serious mangling with an approach like that Dave?