Superior 2.0 Users!

[DeadNight Warrior]

Use yer fecking ambient mics!

 

A little clip from a song in a piece of {censored} project I recorded for someone else. Just the drums coz I don't really wanna put their {censored} up before it's released... but I did all the drums, so they can get {censored}ed on that.

 

First pass is no amb mics at all, just close mics. Second pass, parts of the close, mid, and far ambient mics come on. Only thing with no amb at all is the kick drum. Makes a huge feckin' difference to the whole kit sound.

 

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7891782

 

I'm sick of hearing sweet ass clips all over the internet using S2.0, but the drums sound dry as {censored} and completely out of place with the rest of the mix.

[Thurston]

Overall in the second clip sounds much better for sure.

Toms, snare, crash, china all sound great by comparison

 

I'm not too big on the sound of the high hats though (in either clip), and the ride rings a bit too much in the second clip. I'm sure it probably sounds better in the mix though.

 

I'm just getting into recording, superior drummer, MIDI, etc myself. Thanks for the comparison!

[HKSblade1]

how about a pic of the mixer settings

[DeadNight Warrior]

Overall in the second clip sounds much better for sure. Toms, snare, crash, china all sound great by comparison I'm not too big on the sound of the high hats though (in either clip), and the ride rings a bit too much in the second clip. I'm sure it probably sounds better in the mix though. I'm just getting into recording, superior drummer, MIDI, etc myself. Thanks for the comparison!

 

The ride does definitely change once its in a mix. I've actually got it bumped up a few dB in S2.0 so it comes through better.

 

Really everything sounds different once you put it in a mix. With a wall of high gain guitars, distorted bass, and a screaming cockhead in there too, it's a lot less of a "{censored} that's roomy" kinda thing. But when you're listening to the full mix and then you mute those AMB channels... the difference is huge. Without the AMB mics, the kit sounds utterly dead and pissweak in the mix IMO.

[KCTigerChief]

wow that does sound great...gonna mess with that tonight

[DeadNight Warrior]

how about a pic of the mixer settings

 

How about you get {censored}ed?

 

 

Nah, just kidding. In a strange mood.

 

 

Copied and pasted from the Fractal forum:

 

For now, essentially the way it's set up though is:

-Snare mics all go to one group to be comp'd and EQ'd.

-Kick mics (except sub) go to a group for comp and EQ. Kick sub is treated separately, which involves low passing the {censored} out of it with the filter and compressing it.

-Tom mics go to two separate groups, rack and floor.

-OHs get high passed quite heavily from memory, as well as some more comp and EQ.

-AMB mics wise... the close set is just the cymbals, the mid set is just the toms, and the far set is just the snare. No kick in any of them. Levels-wise you'd have to wait until I can get to the preset as I don't quite remember. As you can hear though, there's a fair amount of each AMB channel in there. Each one gets its own compression and EQ.

 

The reason I actually started splitting the AMB mics like that is because of compression. I wanted certain things to get that nice compression chunk, but I found in the OHs and the close AMB mics (the only set I was using at the time), the ride would get crushed whenever the snare hit. So I moved the snare to the far mic to keep them separate at least in the AMBs, which definitely helped. From there, I decided I wasn't happy with the tom sounds and experimented a bit, which lead me to using them separately in the mid set too. The AMB mics do a lot more than just add some reverberation to the sound... they've got their own sound that can really add to the huge-ness of the kit. A lot of people don't seem to think of it that way and just ignore the AMB mics.

 

The only thing I did outside of S2.0 from memory was a bit of volume automation on the snare, for going between blast beats and otherwise.

 

 

Anything more specific than that will have to wait until I'm back at the computer where I can write some {censored} down or take pics or whatever. I'm getting the preset for this other guy too, so if you want to see that I'm sure it won't be a problem.

[DeadNight Warrior]

wow that does sound great...gonna mess with that tonight

 

 

Good to see people are interested.

 

Read through what I just posted for a bit more info on what I did. It wasn't just a case of bringing the AMB mics up, there's a bit of dodgy trickery involved in what goes where. Of course, you don't necessarily have to do it exactly the same way. Depends on what you want to achieve really.

 

As you said you'd do... mess around with it. See what works for you.

[KCTigerChief]

Deadnight, I'd love to peak at your preset if you don't mind

[DeadNight Warrior]

Deadnight, I'd love to peak at your preset if you don't mind

 

Oh you.

 

 

Yeah no problem. When I get a chance, hopefully tomorrow night, I'll shoot it over to you.

 

Or actually, maybe I'll just zip it up and post it here, and that way anyone interested can just grab it.

 

There are a couple of Superior cymbals in there (one china and one splash), so I'll probably just pull those out for compatibility's sake, in which case it will be 100% Avatar.

[mparsons]

The ambience mics make a HUGE difference in how real/big the kit sounds. For more tight recordings I usually leave them off but for anything that requires more atmosphere the room mics are there, all the way.

[::fred::]

I'm a total noob at this.. I did love the second part, but with all the ambient reverb.. would that actually sound good in a mix?

 

Anyway, I've just installed 35 Gigs of Metal Foundry and realized that my 3Ghz/3Gb P4 is a disfunctional worthless piece of {censored}

[Unstrung]

I'm like, a goddamn n00b with this program still. By default on mine it looks like far mics are switched off or something, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to turn them on.

[KCTigerChief]

Oh you. Yeah no problem. When I get a chance, hopefully tomorrow night, I'll shoot it over to you. Or actually, maybe I'll just zip it up and post it here, and that way anyone interested can just grab it. There are a couple of Superior cymbals in there (one china and one splash), so I'll probably just pull those out for compatibility's sake, in which case it will be 100% Avatar.

 

Thanks brother...Don't worry though, i've already got a kit that I've customized and such in superior, so i won't be stealing your setup, i just want to see how you've got the mics setup and routed and what not And possibly look at your eq/comp settings

 

Thanks man, shoot me a PM if you want my email address, if you decide not to post it up

[FastRedPonyCar]

I'm a total noob at this.. I did love the second part, but with all the ambient reverb.. would that actually sound good in a mix? Anyway, I've just installed 35 Gigs of Metal Foundry and realized that my 3Ghz/3Gb P4 is a disfunctional worthless piece of {censored}

 

does metal foundry come with new grooves or is it just nothing but new drum sound recordings? I need more grooves

[thinkpad20]

I'm like, a goddamn n00b with this program still. By default on mine it looks like far mics are switched off or something, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to turn them on.

 

I couldn't figure it out either, but someone told me. You have to click the "edit" button in the bleed control (see picture), and then you can control what is and isn't picked up by the ambient mics. By default it's only the close mic, while Far, Mid, Mono and Bullet are off.

 

[DeadNight Warrior]

I'm a total noob at this.. I did love the second part, but with all the ambient reverb.. would that actually sound good in a mix? Anyway, I've just installed 35 Gigs of Metal Foundry and realized that my 3Ghz/3Gb P4 is a disfunctional worthless piece of {censored}

 

It sounds brilliant in the mix IMO. The first pass sounds just pissweak and wrong when you put it in the mix. Mind you, it's EQd and whatnot to be used with the AMB mics, but still. With the huge guitars and whatnot going on, the perfectly dry kit just sounds dead and out of place. Sure you could add some reverb, but IMO reverb just doesn't sound as nice (unless you're going for a particular effect for something). The AMB mics also add a different sound to the mix, which helps make the kit sound bigger.

 

Of course, once you add those other instruments, it really changes everything. So it's not like you hear every bit of that drum ambience coming through the mix all the time. The rides sound quite "ringy", but a lot of that tends to disappear amidst the distorted guitars and whatnot. This was really more just an indication of how big a difference those mics can make, but of course you'll have to play with it yourself in a mix to really get an idea of what kind of differences it can make.

 

And upgrade to a new damn computer. The CPU usage from Superior in this project is pretty huge, largely coz of all the plugins 'n' {censored} goin' on.

[DeadNight Warrior]

I'm like, a goddamn n00b with this program still. By default on mine it looks like far mics are switched off or something, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to turn them on.

 

RTFM!

 

 

No seriously. There's quite possibly a whole bunch of {censored} you're missing out on if you haven't read it.

[TomCTC]

Use yer fecking ambient mics!

 

I do.

[DeadNight Warrior]

I do.

 

Good!

[::fred::]

does metal foundry come with new grooves or is it just nothing but new drum sound recordings? I need more grooves

 

PM'd you the grooves

[Santuzzo]

Very nice !

 

Thanks for posting this.

 

I myself am still trying to learn how to actually use SD2, so far I have only used presets that sounded good.

 

Just got Metal Foundry a few days ago, sounds awesome, too, but it had my Cubase and Toontrack solo crahs a few times.

One problem (probably related to the crashed) is that some presets use a lot of RAM (cloase to 2GB)

[DeadNight Warrior]

Very nice ! Thanks for posting this. I myself am still trying to learn how to actually use SD2, so far I have only used presets that sounded good. Just got Metal Foundry a few days ago, sounds awesome, too, but it had my Cubase and Toontrack solo crahs a few times. One problem (probably related to the crashed) is that some presets use a lot of RAM (cloase to 2GB)

 

Try the 16-bit and cached modes. They'll both reduce your RAM requirements significantly. Also, if you take a look at the S2.0 project I'll post up in a few minutes, you'll notice in each AMB channel there are a lot of things turned off. Because AMB samples are so long, they require quite a bit of RAM. So between cached mode, 16-bit mode, and trimming down things you don't want to hear, you should be able to get the kits right down in size. The one I'm putting up is only 855mb, and that's without cached or 16-bit modes on. 16-bit drops it straight down to 535mb, and cached means it'll only load the samples actually required by the project.

[DeadNight Warrior]

File attached to first post!

[Santuzzo]

 

Try the 16-bit and cached modes. They'll both reduce your RAM requirements significantly. Also, if you take a look at the S2.0 project I'll post up in a few minutes, you'll notice in each AMB channel there are a lot of things turned off. Because AMB samples are so long, they require quite a bit of RAM. So between cached mode, 16-bit mode, and trimming down things you don't want to hear, you should be able to get the kits right down in size. The one I'm putting up is only 855mb, and that's without cached or 16-bit modes on. 16-bit drops it straight down to 535mb, and cached means it'll only load the samples actually required by the project.

 

 

Thanks, mate !

 

I never tried the 16-bit, but I did use the cached mode.

Would the 16-bit result in a noticeable sound difference?

 

I actually have 6GB of RAM, but since I only have WinXP32, only 3GB is recognized and only 2GB is allowed for applications (if I recall correctly). When I built the PC I was aware of it, I thought, who knows maybe one day I want a 64bit OS, and the RAM sticks with 2GB where not that much more than the 1GB sticks ....

[Santuzzo]

File attached to first post!

 

Awesome ! Thank you very much !!!