Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2003
Keeping with the drum theme from the previous two columns, this month's installment of Groundwork
moves forward from beat creation and editing to mixing drum tracks. Specifically, I'll discuss phase
coherence and creating a compressed copy of the drum tracks, and demonstrate adding effects and using
SoundReplacer.
Download this Pro Tools session to see these techniques in action PC | Mac (downloads approx. 8 MB).
These drum tracks were taken from an album I mixed recently, by a band called Grey Star Morning
(www.greystarmorning.com).
The most important thing to consider when trying to add an effected double track is phase coherence
between the original and the copy. In this case, phase coherence means that two identical waveforms (the
original and copied double) are exactly in phase with each other. In other words, the waveforms line up at
exactly the same time so no phase cancellation occurs.
When doubling drums, even a few milliseconds of delay between the two tracks can really cause problems.
Phasing can cancel out the impact of this technique, or even drastically reduce the power of the drum sound
that you are trying to beef up. So getting the proper signal routing in and out of Pro Tools is key. Here's a
good way to do it that will make sure the two signals are in phase with each other.
NOTE: In the Pro Tools session example, I use post-fader sends for the "Drums Submix" bus so that I can
use the faders to ride the volume for those individual tracks. In contrast, I use pre-fader sends for the
"Drums Compress" bus, and set different send volume levels than the track faders. By tweaking these send
levels separately, I can make an entirely different drum mix and get creative with how these tracks hit the
compressor and are EQed. FUN!
Unclear on the differences between pre-fader and post-fader sends? Check out the archived Groundwork
column in the June issue of DigiZine.
Geek Stuff
With a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz, one millisecond is
approximately equal to 44 samples. Thus, when you
see that some of your track delays are off by just a
few samples, it's not really going to cause any major
phasing issues. However, if you instantiate some
plug-ins on a track that seriously delays a specific
track, you might need to nudge that track ahead in
time to compensate for plug-in processing delay. Or Figure 1: Mod Delay I
you can get tricky, use math, and run the other
tracks through a Short Delay DigiRack plug-in to
ensure phase coherence.
Also note that instead of instantiating the same plug-ins on both the compressed and uncompressed aux
tracks as mentioned above, you can use this Short Delay plug-in technique for the uncompressed aux track
to reduce the number of plug-in instantiations.
Geek Stuff Part 2: On my system, this delay time is approximately 6ms at a buffer setting of 128 samples.
(3ms for D/A/D conversion, 3ms for the buffer at a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz.) As buffer settings increase,
delay time increases too, but higher sampling rates decrease the buffer and delay amounts. Check out the
following chart — you can extrapolate the numbers when using higher buffer settings.
In the Pro Tools session, you'll notice that the first four bars are just the raw drum tracks, which sound good
by themselves. I added automation on the plug-ins so that they kick in on the second four measures to
show the difference between the raw and mixed tracks.
Without getting into the other details of this mix in this column, look deeper into the drum tracks in this
session and check out what I did to build this sound. Think about
which techniques you could use in your own mixes, and what you
might do differently.
Don't have any recorded drum tracks handy but want to try out
these techniques? Download a demo multi-tracked Pro Tools
drum session from Naked Drums (www.nakeddrums.com) and go
nuts!
Wrap-Up
This is just one example of some of the techniques and tools that
I use to mix drum tracks. Using these can improve the sound of
your mixes and can make your clients ecstatic that they chose
you to mix their songs. Join me next month for more cool Pro
Tools production techniques. See you soon. Peace.
Like what you see in this column? Check out my book Producing
in the Home Studio with Pro Tools (2nd Edition). You can buy it
online right here through Digidesign's website, or visit
www.protoolsbook.com. Interested in personal instruction on Pro Tools from yours truly? Visit
www.berkleemusic.com and learn about several amazing Pro Tools learning experiences available online
though Berklee College of Music. Interested in hearing my band? Visit www.lipfloater.com. Wanna see my
studio and hear some samples of my work? Visit www.undergroundsun.com and/or www.davidfranz.com.