There is a lot more to the drum sounds you hear on the radio than meets the ear. The problem is that it can be very hard to figure out how they sound that way just by listening to the finished product, so we thought we'd help.
In this video Fab Dupont shares ways to make acoustic drums sound clearer, punchier, vibier and able compete better with electronic drums. In this 22:37 Minutes video Fab shares how to augment drums with samples, both manually and with plugins, and how to fatten a bass drum with a triggered tone all the while insisting on the background info you need to make the enhancements sound natural and real.
If you have tried everything to make your acoustic drums sound pro but are still struggling, this video is bound to help you.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
00:00:07 Good morning children!
Today, we're going to talk about
acoustic drums enhancements,
because drums are people too,
and just like people,
they need love and enhancements.
00:00:16 If you've ever been mixing
your acoustic drums,
and after 2 hours of working
really hard,
your session looks
a little bit like this...
00:00:24 then I would say
you most likely have this problem:
what you're looking for
is not there.
00:00:28 All you're doing is over-compressing,
over-EQ'ing,
over-processing something
you just don't like.
00:00:34 So what I'd like to do today
is show you a couple of tricks
on how to create a base sound
you like, out of something you don't,
so that you can after over-compress
to your heart's content.
00:00:43 Say someone hands you a drum recording
that sounds like this...
00:01:02 It's not horrible,
it's a professional recording.
00:01:05 The fact that I recorded it is
a little bit embarrassing,
but we're gonna glaze over that
and move on.
00:01:09 Let's listen to the bass drum,
snare drum, and overhead separately,
and figure out where I failed.
So first, bass drum.
00:01:32 I probably should have watched
the Puremix video
How to record bass drum
with 1 microphone, before I did this.
00:01:37 Because honestly,
I don't have any bottom,
I don't have any attack, it feels
far away, it's stubby,
I hear the barrel of the drum go
"Mmm... Mmmm..."
Overall, not happening.
00:01:48 I can process this for the next
20 hours,
it's still not gonna sound right.
Let's move on to the snare drum!
That's better!
That's a pretty good recording.
00:02:13 But I think here I failed as a producer
by choosing the wrong snare.
00:02:16 It's really thumpy, and has no air,
it's pretty dead.
00:02:20 Actually, what happened is I probably
let the drummer pick his favorite snare,
which usually is the wrong snare.
Let's listen to the overheads.
00:02:44 This is actually a good overhead
recording.
00:02:46 It's even, it's balanced,
nothing is in the way.
00:02:49 I like the snare and bass drum sounds
better in the overhead,
than in their respective
close mics.
00:02:54 Unfortunately, I want an In your face,
thumpy, aggressive modern sound,
and I can't use the overheads so much,
because the point of the overhead
is it gives you the room and space.
00:03:05 So it's counterproductive.
00:03:07 What I should have done
is I should have made this: Cymbal mics,
so I could have a lot of cymbals,
not a lot of drums,
and I could have used them more.
00:03:15 But I can fix that!
I'm gonna show you how.
00:03:17 Since our problem is
we don't like the original sounds,
in the bass drum case,
we don't like the recording,
in the snare drum case,
we don't like the instrument,
the idea is to find samples
that fill the void,
and layer them
with the original sounds.
00:03:31 Why not replace everything?
I think that's silly, because
A, if you replace everything,
you lose the air, you lose
the vibe of the drummer,
and you lose the bleed
in between the instruments,
and the bleed in between
the instruments is actually
the soul of a live drum recording.
00:03:48 What I like to do
is find the right samples,
and that's where the key is, educate
your taste as to which sample is good.
00:03:55 Layer it, and make sure
it sounds natural.
00:03:58 Let me show you with the snare.
00:03:59 As a reminder,
this is how it sounds.
00:04:06 First thing I'm gonna do is duplicate
the track... Shift+Option+D...
00:04:12 Boom!
Let's name that second track
right away...
00:04:17 Snare Sample 1.
00:04:19 I'm gonna show you a couple of
drum replacement plug-ins today.
00:04:23 The first one I'm gonna use
is this one: it's called apTrigga.
00:04:26 I'm using it in Pro Tools
with a VST wrapper.
00:04:29 It's really simple, it's really cheap,
it's like $34 or something,
and it works awesome.
00:04:34 The original sound is really thumpy,
and close, and dead.
00:04:37 So we're looking for something that's
a little further away, and open,
and more natural sounding.
00:04:42 I'm gonna go into the folder where
I keep my basic run-of-the-mill samples.
00:04:46 apTrigga is kinda cool, because it lets
you have some dry mix, and some wet mix.
00:04:49 Let's listen to just the replacement.
00:04:53 Just the wet.
00:04:56 Ok...
00:04:58 Not super enthralling...
00:05:02 That's not gonna work!
If you recognize this sample,
send me a postcard.
00:05:10 Next...
00:05:12 Ah!
This is cool, because it sounds
far away, it's a bottom snare.
00:05:18 I think that's a good characteristic.
So now...
00:05:20 let's turn the original back on,
and listen to both of them together.
00:05:24 This is the original...
00:05:28 This is the sample...
00:05:33 And this is the two of them together.
00:05:43 I like that it gives a little bit
of a room vibe to it.
00:05:46 It's nice, it sounds real.
It's not enough though.
00:05:49 So what I would do here is
I would probably...
00:05:51 duplicate that,
keep apTrigga on...
00:05:55 and then look for another sample.
00:05:57 So now, we're gonna have a source,
a first sample,
and a second sample,
which I'm gonna call Sample 2.
00:06:06 Then, we've already looked at those
samples, we know we don't like them.
00:06:09 Let's go into the pureDrums
sample library... Snare Drums...
00:06:13 Ah! That GMS Blue Snare's awesome!
I'm gonna take this...
00:06:18 and check it out...
So this is the new sample.
00:06:22 Yeah!
The first sample...
00:06:32 The original...
00:06:35 The three of them together.
00:06:40 Nice!
I can lower the second sample,
it's got a lot of character,
but it gives me that "haaa" thing.
I like that, so I'm gonna lower that...
00:06:52 a few dBs, and listen to it again.
00:07:00 In the context of the whole set...
00:07:10 As opposed to where we started,
which was here.
00:07:25 Actually, in the context of the set,
you can raise the second sample
a little bit, it doesn't hurt.
00:07:31 To summarize,
I had the original recording,
which was thumpy and in your face,
and a little lifeless.
00:07:36 Then I added the first sample,
which is a bottom snare mic.
00:07:39 That gave me some distance,
and a little bit of "fff..." thing to it.
00:07:43 Then I added the second sample,
that gave me the ring,
that I usually hear on these kinds of
recordings, but I did not on the original.
00:07:49 Another benefit of working this way
is for space.
00:07:53 Check out what happens if I try and put
some reverb on the original recording.
00:07:58 So we're gonna create a new track...
00:08:02 Stereo Aux Input,
call it Snare Verb...
00:08:07 Boom!
Move it to the right.
Put my trusty Oxford Reverb on it.
00:08:15 So this is my Oxford Reverb,
this is my Send.
00:08:19 Let's add some reverb gradually.
00:08:30 Because of the bleed,
everything goes into the reverb:
the snare, but also the bass drum,
the hi-hat,
and the cymbals, and the toms
when they show up.
00:08:38 So it can be complicated.
00:08:39 It's nice to be able to have
just the snare.
00:08:42 I'm not interested in gating this,
it's too much work.
00:08:44 I'm gonna use one of my samples
as the source for the reverb.
00:08:47 Check it out.
00:08:49 If you listen to all three together,
with the snare reverb on...
00:08:58 Same thing, but I move the Send
to the first sample, for example.
00:09:08 It's a lot cleaner, it keeps
your kit dry and in your face,
and allows you to do wacky stuff
with the reverb,
without making a mess of the whole set.
I like that.
00:09:16 For entertainment sake, we should
listen to what it sounds like again,
with the first sample being
the source for the reverb,
and then with the second sample
being the source for the reverb,
and see how different it can be, and
what kind of a cool tool it can be.
00:09:28 First sample
as the source for the reverb...
00:09:35 Second sample...
00:09:45 I think I'd rather use the first sample
as the source for the reverb.
00:09:48 I like it better,
it talks to me better.
00:09:50 Let's move on to the bass drum.
00:09:52 As a reminder, the original
bass drum sounds like this.
00:10:02 Yuck!
So, why don't I duplicate the track?
Rename the second one Kick Sample...
00:10:14 1, you never know...
00:10:16 In this case, I'm gonna use
Slate Digital's Trigger.
00:10:24 So I'm looking for
an acoustic bass drum
that has the same kind of characteristics
with a long decay,
has a lot of punch,
and a lot of bottom.
00:10:35 As much bottom as possible
for that kind of drum.
00:10:38 So let's look!
I know that their Deluxe thing
is pretty cool,
they have a couple of bass drums here.
Let's try this one.
00:10:48 The good thing about Trigger is that
they have several slots,
so you can have several samples.
apTrigga only has one sample.
00:10:55 This one has several samples,
it could be useful.
00:10:58 For example in this case, I load
a preset, I have a Direct sound,
an Overhead sound, I have a far-away
sound, and really, really far-away sound.
00:11:05 Right now, it sounds like this.
Just the sample.
00:11:16 I'm going to lenghten the Retrigger,
which is gonna make
the plug-in wait before it listens
to another hit,
and I'm gonna lower the Sensitivity,
so I can catch the ghost notes.
00:11:35 That sounds perfect!
Here's the sound, I think
it's too far away.
00:11:39 Let's mute...
00:11:42 everything but the Direct sound.
00:11:46 That's fat!
Layered with the original...
00:12:00 I really like this.
00:12:02 Let's listen to something else.
Let's see the Soft Beater one.
00:12:06 Load...
00:12:07 I'm gonna mute the far-away sounds.
00:12:12 and listen to that.
Just the new sample.
00:12:19 Layered.
00:12:28 I like the Hard Beater one better.
00:12:30 Let's go back to Hard Beater...
00:12:32 Reload that...
00:12:34 I'm gonna just lower
the far-away sounds,
and I'm gonna slowly
bring them back in
to try and create the tone
I'm looking for.
00:12:43 This is just the Direct sound,
and the original recording.
00:12:53 Cool!
Now, I'm going to add a little bit
of the overhead
to see if I can get some distance.
00:12:58 I already have my punch,
and I already have my "Mmm!"
I would like to have a little bit
of this going on.
00:13:05 Play.
00:13:13 It's pretty amazing!
You can actually design a room.
00:13:15 Since it's clean, and there's no bleed,
you can actually design the size of the room.
00:13:19 but the soul of the sound comes
from the original. Check it out!
If I play just the sample...
00:13:29 It does nothing for me. If I play
the sample and the original...
00:13:39 I like this.
In the context of the whole set,
with the snare and the snare samples,
it sounds like this.
00:13:53 As a reminder, we started here.
00:14:06 And now we're here.
00:14:17 Big difference!
Let me point something out to you.
Take a look at the mixer.
00:14:21 Not one EQ...
Not one compressor.
00:14:24 You can now take this base sounds
and turn them into whatever you want.
00:14:28 You have a good basis.
00:14:30 There's another trick I'd like
to show you
that a lot of people usually
don't know how to achieve.
00:14:35 It's that tone trick,
with the gating stuff. Let me show you.
00:14:39 Create an Aux track...
Shift+Command+N...
00:14:43 Boom!
Call it... What shall we call it?
Tone. There you go.
00:14:50 Install the signal generator on it.
00:14:53 Digi is nice enough to give us
a signal generator. That works.
00:14:58 Send it to the same output
as the rest.
00:15:02 Don't forget to mute the track,
so you don't go crazy.
00:15:05 Lower the frequency in the 50 range,
then we're gonna tune it later.
00:15:09 So...
Oh yeah, I just type it in: 55.
00:15:12 I don't know, I'm guessing.
00:15:14 It sounds like this now.
00:15:16 If you're listening on a laptop,
you're out of luck!
And then... use a gate.
00:15:23 I like the standard Expander/Gate
from Digi, it's very practical and fast.
00:15:27 What I'm gonna do is set up a Send
from my triggered drum,
because it's clean,
and not a lot of bleed...
00:15:32 and send it to the Key input
of my gate.
00:15:37 Name it... Kick Key.
00:15:41 So now you know what it is.
What's gonna happen now
is whenever the bass drum plays,
it's gonna send the signal to the gate,
it's gonna say: Yo! Open up!
And everytime the gate opens,
you're gonna hear the "Mmm" come on.
00:15:53 Let me show you.
00:15:55 I'm gonna do it in solo
so you can hear exactly
what's going on.
00:15:59 Turn it on. Don't forget
to set up the key for the side-chain,
otherwise it's just gonna
keep playing.
00:16:04 You have to force the gate to listen
to the bass drum. That's what's going on.
00:16:08 The gate is listening to the bass drum,
and it sounds like this.
00:16:13 Notice?
Every time the bass drum plays,
the gate opens.
00:16:20 It could stand being louder.
00:16:26 Cool.
00:16:28 You may notice a little bit of a click.
00:16:30 If you get a click, you need to play
with the Release and the Attack
until you no longer get that click.
What's the click?
The click is when the gate opens
really fast
and there's a little artefact at the
opening moment of the gate, on the tone.
00:16:44 You can play with the Attack and the
Release to try and get rid of that click.
00:16:52 I like that!
With the rest of the kick...
00:17:06 That's great!
Think of it as a shine,
more than a special effect.
00:17:11 If you wanna do a special effect,
that's cool.
00:17:13 But in the context of what we're doing
today, it's really a shine.
00:17:16 It's a great way to extend
the super bottom of the bass drum,
without having any mud, because
all you're doing is adding a sine wave
just when you need it to be there.
00:17:25 So listen to it. I'm gonna play
one bar with, and one bar without.
00:17:29 Try and feel
the difference in extension,
the bottom extension of the bass drum.
Check it out.
00:17:47 The key here is you can tune it.
And that's the beauty.
00:17:51 Say your song is in a key
of whatever E,
you can make the note be an E.
It's gonna make it sound so fat!
If it modulates, you can automate
the note and modulate with the song.
00:18:00 It's really kind of cool.
00:18:01 In this case,
if I wanna change the pitch,
maybe I'll go down to 50 for example.
00:18:13 That's even better.
00:18:15 Without.
00:18:24 With.
00:18:32 Really nice, and very discreet.
00:18:35 Let's listen to the whole kit now,
with all this stuff.
00:18:46 Without the enhancements...
00:18:55 Night and day!
If feels really lackluster
without the enhancements,
but don't forget that if all you play
is the samples, it sounds like this.
00:19:11 Very little music in there...
The beauty is the whole thing together.
00:19:23 One more thing.
00:19:24 It's really hard to enhance cymbals,
because they're hard to trigger.
00:19:28 There's no plug-in that really does
that well. So you have to do it by hand.
00:19:31 I'm gonna show you how.
00:19:34 Create a Stereo Track.
00:19:36 Boom!
Call it something original,
like, say... Cymbal.
00:19:41 Then switch to the Arrange window.
00:19:44 This is my Cymbal track right here.
00:19:46 I'm gonna drag and drop a sample
from my desktop onto that track.
00:19:49 I'm gonna use a pureDrums sample.
Let's say the LeftCrash, for example.
00:19:56 So how do you layer a cymbal?
Well, you can just eyeball it.
00:19:59 You can go here, and just go...
where's my original cymbal?
Apparently somewhere here...
00:20:06 And you can just...
00:20:09 do your best...
00:20:12 better than me, possibly,
to aim for...
00:20:19 by zooming on the waveform,
aim for the downbeat.
00:20:21 That's one way.
It sounds like this.
00:20:27 That works.
00:20:28 But it's not practical, and what happens
if you have a 4-minute song,
with 20 cymbal hits?
Difficult.
00:20:35 So there's a cool trick here
you can use.
00:20:38 I'm gonna make...
00:20:40 absolutely sure that the top
of my region here
is exactly at the top
of the transient of the cymbal.
00:20:48 And then, I'm gonna cut that
out of my session. Command+X.
00:20:52 The next thing I'm gonna do is switch
the Tab to Transient Mode on.
00:20:56 That's a mode that Pro Tools has.
00:20:58 When you hit Tab, it looks for
the next transient, the next attack.
00:21:04 It's here.
00:21:05 Perfect!
What do you do then?
You go down to the next track,
and paste your cymbal.
00:21:11 And now, it's perfect.
00:21:16 That's a quick and easy way
to have a sample of the color you like,
in this case, bright and lush,
and have it exactly, accurately down
right here with the original.
00:21:26 We enhanced the bass drum,
we enhanced the snare drum,
we put some reverb on the snare drum,
we enhanced the cymbals.
00:21:32 Still no compression, still no EQ.
Let's listen to the whole track.
00:21:48 We started here.
00:21:59 You may disagree with the tone
and samples I chose, and that's great!
There's not one proper solution here,
otherwise we'd all be bankers.
00:22:06 But the philosophy is sound.
00:22:09 Keep the drummer original tones
for the bleed, for the air, for the vibe,
and add the samples to fill the void.
00:22:16 So now that we have great tones,
let the fun begin, and go back
to our compression obsession.
00:22:20 Et voilà!
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Fab Dupont is an award-winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has received many accolades around the world, including wins at the Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards, US independent music awards. He also has received Latin Grammy nominations and has worked on many Latin Grammy and Grammy-nominated albums.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
I’ve only had this PUREMIX PRO Subscription for only a short and have only watched a few tutorials. I’m learning so much about sound and how to listen and I have two degrees and 20 + years in music. These guys are The Real Deal! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!!
soundspace2001
2016 Dec 01
got a minute (or 2 or 3 ;-) - luckely there's a 15sec back button) till I got it - but that thing with the tone trick and the gate is really cool! gives great sub-bass with the kick! very helpful!
robertgmartin
2016 Jul 06
Thanks Fab. I am really enjoying the tutorials. I have learned a lot in the last week and I have been mixing for quite some time. Most of my experience in with FOH, but I have mixed a couple of CD's. I am looking forward to adding some of these things to my bag of tricks to get the best sound and mix possible.
Spudmuffin
2015 Oct 05
To be fair, the original bass head sounds pretty good on my laptop speakers! All the flab is gone. Headphones? Well, that's another deal, isn't it. GREAT tutorial!
Spudmuffin
2015 Oct 01
Beauty! Thank you for this elegant tutorial.
PeteZayas
2014 Dec 01
Very Nice Viedo
TRUN
2014 Sep 30
Awesome video Fab! I know the Yellow Tools samples are no longer available..can you point me in the direction of some good acoustic drum sample libraries that are available...
AdRi__Forn
2014 Jul 19
"Compression obsession"
unorthodoxsounds
2014 Jun 29
Bravo Fab! That's the kind of things is mostly needed as the majority of the times we, people that dont't work in facilities like Flux Studios, have to deal with poorly recorded tracks.
You should do more of that like for instance: how to make a harsh and thin vocal track sound great (or at least acceptable), how to manage a particularly unruly bass performance or even how to properly reamp a guitar track by using plugins.
Adieu ;)
sunshed1
2014 Mar 20
Et merci !!
crash
2014 Jan 11
very useful ! big badaboom tab transient mode "ON"
Edge985
2013 Dec 10
very useful video Fab. Thanks you :) any way you could tell us where can we find the sample library you used in this tutorial? I searched for pureDrums, but had no luck with it. Can you post the exact name please? thanks in advance!! :)
edsonstudio
2013 Dec 02
Thanks Again, great tutorial keep it coming!
cisbell
2013 Dec 01
Hey YettiBrad
The tone thing is set up pretty much the same way in Studio one. You create an Aux track and put your tone/signal generator and gate on it. Enable side chaining on the gate. Then create a send from the kick track to the gates side chain and finally adjust the settings on the gate as needed
yettibrad
2013 Nov 30
Anyone know how to do the tone trick with Presonus Studio One?
fde101
2013 Nov 30
Just wanted to point out there is a much easier way to do the majority of this if you happen to have version 9 of Ableton Live. I pulled the four audio tracks into Live, and in the Arrangement (horizontal) view, right-clicked on the left overhead region and selected "Convert Drums to New MIDI Track". This detected the kick, snare, and overhead and gave me a new MIDI track with the beats already positioned for all three (it did miss the cymbal hit). This picked out default samples for me, but I just dragged out Addictive Drums onto the track and mixed the added drums within the plugin.
criz
2013 Nov 27
15:45 - "Yo! open up!" just fabulous ;)
Great video Fab, keep it up. Cheers, Christian
juancopro-flow
2013 Nov 26
Like always making things look so easy. Thanks Fabuloso.
toledobrintrup
2013 Nov 26
Please kindly ask you to make the effort to put captions on all videos, because those who do not speak English we are losing many good, thanks!
whereismymind
2013 Nov 25
Dawn i knew it i knew it !!!!!!
Fabulous Fab
2013 Nov 25
100 points for Le.mario. Nice ears and musical culture.
solomonothniel
2013 Nov 25
GREAT VIDEO. love it.
Le.mario
2013 Nov 24
It's No Doubt's Hella Good Snare Sample !! Love that snare sound! Oh damn you said to send a post card !! :/ .. where to exactly??
whereismymind
2013 Nov 24
Very useful as always Fab ! I just need that tab to transient function in Logic !!
