Now that the mix bus is in place, Jacquire turns his attention to the rhythm section to get the perfect tone and balance between the bass guitar and drums.
See how Jacquire King:
Dials in the Distressor on the bass guitar to control the peaks on the bass guitar
Shapes the sound going into the Distressor
Adds a short delay to the bass to spread the image out, giving a tiled room effect
Adds his drum bus eq with a Neve 1081
Builds a parallel compression drum bus with a Distressor set to Nuke
Blends in the Kick Sample
Auditions an API 550A and SSL E Channel Strip for eq on the snare drum
Listens to the EQ difference between the SSL E series and G series on snare, then explains his preference
Adds additional parallel compression paths including a Drum Crush bus and Kick/Snare parallel
Adjusts tom ringing to be a part of the overall tone of the kit
Watch Jacquire King, mix "Leave The Light On" from Oak & Ash. Only on pureMix.net
00:00:22 Now it's time
to look at getting my
rhythm section,
drums and bass stuff, together.
00:00:31 I'm gonna turn off my vocals,
and keyboards,
and guitars just a little bit here.
00:00:37 I'm gonna first just work
on the bass a little bit.
00:00:39 I changed the balance
a little bit from the way
we've been listening to it
last couple days,
I turned up the amp a little bit.
00:00:46 I'm just kind of make
sure that I've got it
at a volume where I was getting
the desired sound and compression up here
with my Distressor
and then sort of balance
it in with the drums.
00:01:37 I'm just looking for, I've got a kind of
a higher ratio that's gonna
control some of the
peakier dynamic things about it.
00:01:43 I've got a pretty fairly slow attack time,
I'm not trying to stomp
on the transients too much,
I want the articulation to stay.
00:01:50 The release is pretty fast.
00:01:51 The second order
harmonic distortion was on,
it's already a pretty aggressive sound
and there's distortion on the amp.
00:01:58 That was just making it
sound a little weak and cloudy.
00:02:00 This stuff is all related
to the detector circuit,
I explained it a little bit,
when we were tracking,
about how having the link function in
for the detector threshold
has an influence on the way
that the detection circuit sees
this incoming signal.
00:02:14 What it's doing is looking for a
companion unit to be doing stereo,
obviously I don't have anything
linked to it.
00:02:19 It kind of creates a little bit
of extra distortion and grit,
when you have this in.
00:02:23 We can see with
the distortion,
the 1% THD distortion indicator,
that with it in and out,
you have the effect of this link function.
00:02:57 I made it a bit extreme so we can
kind of hear the color change on it.
00:03:00 I just like the way that sounds.
00:03:01 I'm just gonna listen
a little bit further.
00:03:11 I'm noticing that our clap overdubs,
they're clipping, which is fine
but I'm just gonna go
ahead and turn them down.
00:03:38 I have a little bit of EQ
for the combined sound,
before and after compression.
00:03:43 I'm gonna do a little
bit of shaping to the low-end
before it goes into the compressor.
00:03:46 I'll probably give it a little bit of
the upper mid-range boost as well.
00:04:16 I turned up a little bit of
the low frequency stuff,
getting rid of a little bit of where
it's balled up, the low mid-range.
00:04:22 More presence around 2 kHz,
where we're getting a little bit
more of the fingers, and articulation.
00:04:27 I'll just take it in and out.
00:04:39 It helps clarify the tone.
00:04:41 I don't really feel like we're gonna need
this FX at all
so we'll just bail on this.
00:04:46 Let's just try so you
can hear what it sounds like.
00:04:48 Who knows?
Maybe I'll change my mind.
00:04:50 It's Echoboy.
00:04:52 I'm gonna use it for a
very short quick delay.
00:04:56 Let's solo the bass up.
00:05:03 A 'Binsonette' is a very lo-fi delay,
it doesn't have a lot of low-end or top-end
but I may get rid
of even more.
00:05:09 I have it on a 64th note
and at this tempo that's like 27 ms.
00:05:14 It's very quick, it's just to
help widen it out a little bit,
thicken the bass a bit.
00:05:19 It's still kind of keeping it mono
but it's not just
very narrow, I'm kind of giving it
a little bit of
space and texture.
00:05:28 Let me balance it in here.
00:06:00 I like it.
00:06:01 I'm not surprised because
it's something I like,
that's why it's in my template.
00:06:05 It just kind of fills the
sound out a little bit.
00:06:07 It makes it a little bit
wider there in the middle.
00:06:09 It just gives it
a little bit of an ambient presence.
00:06:13 Kind of almost like you were listening
to it in a room
just because the delays are so short.
00:06:18 Also, one thing to kind of point out,
that as I showed you,
the delay time is 27 ms,
there's a little bit of
an offset left to right
so it's not 27 ms on both sides
and it has a 'width', it's widened out.
00:06:33 It's not all the way in 'max'
but it helps spread out the frequencies
like a little tiled room kind of thing.
00:06:44 So, we've got some work to do on the drum,
let's get to that.
00:06:47 The first thing I wanna
do is work on my drum bus.
00:06:51 I have two paths,
I'm using the Neve 1081
as an EQ on both paths.
00:06:56 The Distressor is gonna be my parallel
compression path for the whole drum-kit.
00:07:01 I'm gonna work on the
overall drum sound EQ.
00:07:04 So that I can hear the EQ change
a little bit better I'm gonna mute
the parallel path.
00:07:14 So I'm gonna go ahead
and turn up some of that
low frequency
thump on the kick drum
that I was liking earlier,
the way that the
Curve Bender was sounding.
00:07:32 Cleaning up a little bit
of the boxy mid-range.
00:07:49 Just boosting a little bit of 5.6 to give
just all the drum transients
a little bit more energy.
00:07:55 Bringing that stuff forward, so I'm
not having to do so much individual EQ.
00:07:58 And then I opened the top end up
for this cymbal, say, 15 kHz.
00:08:02 So now, I will
take this EQ in and out.
00:08:22 Very simple move but it helps
the drum-kit feel more finished to me.
00:08:27 The kick is a little thumper,
it clears out some of the boxy mid-range.
00:08:30 I have copied that EQ
over to the parallel path,
let me turn this back on.
00:08:35 I wanna an identical EQ on both,
let's listen to that.
00:08:41 Of course we've gotten louder.
00:08:43 Let's look what the Distressor is doing.
00:08:45 I like to be pretty aggressive
with this parallel path.
00:08:47 It's on the 'Nuke' setting.
00:08:48 The detector circuit is set
up the way I pretty much
commonly like to use it,
a reoccurring theme.
00:08:54 Let's see how much
compression we're getting,
I generally like to go for
something like anywhere from
10 to 14 dB of compression
and then the most
important thing about
the way this parallel
drum compression sounds
is how I adjust the attack and release,
that's gonna be
dependent on the part, the tempo
and the sound of the room and
what I wanna draw out in the sound.
00:09:14 And then I'll use the output
to mix in how much the parallel
compression I wanna hear.
00:09:20 As opposed to using the mix
knob between dry and wet,
full compression,
I just like doing it this way
because I actually automate
some of the return
it's easier for me to do it on a fader.
00:09:32 And for whatever reason,
I prefer the way it sounds combined
this way,
as opposed to use this mix knob.
00:09:40 This doesn't quite do
it for me in the same way,
I prefer it this way.
00:09:55 You can hear where I
sped up the attack time,
grabbing a little bit
more of the transients
and making the sustain of the tones
sit a little bit more,
responding a little bit
quicker to the transients.
00:10:15 I just feel the kick and
the snare getting tighter.
00:10:27 At first I slowed down the release
and it just kind of made the whole
picture feel a little bit dull and mushy
and then I sped it up and
you can hear the kind of
the room tone jumping a little bit more.
00:10:37 I'll change it one more time.
00:11:04 I have a pretty fast release.
00:11:06 It's responding fairly
quickly to the transients.
00:11:10 It's letting the transients through,
kind of smashing down the sustain
and tone of the close microphones sound
in the drum balance.
00:11:18 And then letting the
ambiance jump a little bit
by letting the compression
release really fast.
00:11:24 This kind of makes a more exciting sound.
00:11:32 I'm gonna blend it in
to the point of where I feel
like it's really contributing.
00:11:37 Probably a 60-40 blend and
giving me a little bit of excitement.
00:11:40 But,
it's not the dominant sound.
00:12:03 It feels like a nice blend to me.
00:12:05 Time to maybe do a little
bit of specific EQ in here.
00:12:10 I don't really feel like I need a lot of
colorful EQs to help me with the sound.
00:12:14 At least on the kick drum,
I like the kick drum sound a lot.
00:12:51 I just pulled down a
little bit of the mid-range,
to give it just a little
bit more punch and articulation.
00:12:57 I was playing around with adding some
low frequency,
it just feels like it
doesn't really need it.
00:13:02 I have that kind of turned
up already on the bus,
compensated on the mixbus
for where that kick
drum is really working.
00:13:09 Plus we have the sample
which I think actually
that's what I'll do
I'll just turn that
stuff up a little bit.
00:13:24 I feel a little bit more of that
low frequency energy,
because that's...
I'll just remind you...
00:13:33 It has a lot of that deep low end.
00:13:34 The snare drum
feels like I need an EQ with
a little bit of a character on it.
00:13:39 I'm gonna pull up and API EQ.
00:13:57 Right away,
just by putting the plug-in on
it just gets a little bit thicker,
more tonal, more aggressive.
00:14:02 Something that's common with
almost all plug-ins
but that I'm certainly noticing right now
is that it gets a little bit
louder going through it.
00:14:12 So, sometimes louder
makes you think it's better
but I'm not saying it's a bad thing
it's just something to think about.
00:14:18 I'm not really doing
anything with the EQ,
it has a sound so,
there's a difference between
if I pulled up
an SSL E channel strip.
00:14:28 We're just gonna go between the two.
00:14:29 And there's nothing really going on,
there's barely anything engaged on this.
00:14:34 But let's just hear the
difference of nothing.
00:14:56 In doing that little comparison I was
actually digging the SSL a little bit more.
00:15:00 So, we're gonna get rid of our API.
00:15:02 So, we're gonna engage the EQ,
that means the circuit is in.
00:15:05 There's the brown knobs
and the black knobs,
this is the E series,
this is the G series.
00:15:10 A very distinct and different sound.
00:15:12 So let's just sort of
see what's that about.
00:15:23 I like the G series
on this particular thing,
it's adding a little bit of weight
that I'm missing on the snare drum.
00:15:28 The E just sounded like
it was more of what I already had.
00:15:31 I'm just gonna do a little
quick EQ to the snare drum.
00:16:06 Great, I'm gonna turn
this temporary reverb off..
00:16:12 I don't really feel like this reverb
is doing a tremendous amount,
it's not really necessarily
what I wanna use.
00:16:19 So, I'm gonna eliminate it
from the picture for right now.
00:16:23 A couple things that I wanna put in place
as we get into the drums.
00:16:27 On my kick and snare
I'm gonna put 'K/S Bus',
I'm going to put the
'K/S/Bass Bus'.
00:16:39 On the rest of the kit
I will put 'Drum Crush Bus'.
00:16:46 And on the snares
and the toms
I will put the drum reverb
as an option.
00:16:58 Their default is
all the way down into infinity.
00:17:02 I'm gonna go and sort of cut out
the information on the toms
where they're not being played.
So I'm gonna take this out of the group.
00:17:13 We'll get in here and be a little
bit more specific about where this
are stopping and starting.
00:17:19 And I'm doing this
instead of using a gate.
00:17:22 Let's just make sure that
I'm not losing some of the
leakage tone that I was liking.
00:17:54 I am missing a little
bit of the room sound
that's coming through on the toms,
the kick, through the tom mics.
00:18:01 Let's just undo all that muting
and we're gonna take a different approach.
00:18:06 Right now
where I'm liking that ambiance spill
from the toms is -9.5.
00:18:13 I'm gonna turn the toms up
to where I wanna hear
them balanced in the song.
00:19:12 So, I ended up turning them up 4 dB.
00:19:15 So, that's cool.
What I'm gonna do now is turn
the parts of the file down
like maybe -6 dB from what
I was going to mute before.
00:19:26 And we just...
I'm gonna be very careful about
where I'm making these transitions.
00:19:43 I'm obviously getting a little bit of
the ringing and resonance of the toms.
00:19:48 They're making the other
drums sound a little fatter.
00:19:51 Specially the kick drum when it's hitting
because it's making
those resonate a little bit.
00:19:55 And it's not an absolute because
sometimes drums don't have
some sort of as much note tonality.
00:20:02 Sometimes you can have a drum
that doesn't really feel like
it's sitting on a specific note.
00:20:07 But specially with toms,
there's resonance
and so that's why it's kind of important
to often consider tuning
them to the key of the song.
00:20:15 When I turned off the tom tracks
I just lost a little bit of
bass and feeling
of the kick drum having
a little bit of weight.
00:20:27 Because those mics are kind of close,
like I said, the toms are ringing
sympathetically
with the kick drum
and a little bit with the snare.
Just by turning off
what we've been listening to
as part of the drums sound
and how we also sort of
evaluated
what the kick drum should sound
like in the context of the kick drum
that was influenced a little bit by
what the spill coming in
from the rack toms was giving us.
00:20:52 I'm gonna play the verse
and bring them in and out
and you'll see how the kick drum,
specially, changes.
00:21:24 With them gone,
the kick drum is not a bad sound
but I'm missing a little bit of that
100 cycle kind of feeling of punch.
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Award-winning Producer, Engineer, and Mixer, Jacquire King, has worked with some of the world’s most influential artists in every role you can imagine in a recording studio. From being an acclaimed recordist to mixing and producing multi-platinum records (9X in the case of Kings Of Leon) by superstars like Kaleo, Modest Mouse, Kings of Leon, Tom Waits, Norah Jones, Buddy Guy, Cold War Kids, MuteMath, Melissa Etheridge, and James Bay.
To date, Jacquire has received several awards for his meticulous attention to detail and unique approach to creating records that withstand the test of time.
His discography is well-known for the variety of music encompassed from the past 20 years. When you see Jacquire’s tutorials on pureMix, you will have the chance to sit next to a true master at work, who strives to enhance the artist's vision and serve the songs he helps deliver to the masses.
Excellent tutorial. To gate or not to gate on drums is so important. I gate and rely on that stereo room mic for ambience on toms..All depends on leakage from these close tom mics.. Great approach, love your work.
