I use both of these but use each just a little differently. For Drumatom, I set up separate groups for: Kick, snare top & bottom, low toms, and floor toms. In each of those groups I place that type of drum & the overhead track. I find I get better results if I have the separate groups for each category of drum track. I have never used it on my ride or hi hat tracks - never thought of doing that - but may give that a try on my next mix. For Auto Align, I set the input & sidechain levels a lot higher - to where only the sound you are trying to align is the one being reached in the meter. So, let's say I was aligning your 2nd kick track with the overhead. Based on your video (at 14:20), I would set the input slider at about -5 to make sure it is set where only the actual kick hit is being used for the alignment. That means no false positives in the processing. For toms or drum tracks with infrequent hits, I will loop a fill including that drum & it works great (a loop works just as well as an uninterrupted track for this processing). But anyway, this was a very good video & I'm sure a lot of people have learned just how powerful these tools are in helping get a great drum sound. Nice job!
Watched several videos about AutoAlign and this where my thoughts also. A lot of times in the videos on youtube, the input and sidechain sliders are not even used and left all the way at the bottom by people who explain the plugin - which is a problem for detection or is it not? Also, what are your thoughts about aligning the left and right channels of two overhead mics? Im thinking you only should do it if you use overheads placed freely above the kit (like focusing them on the Cymbals). If you have a stereo overhead setup i would destroy the stereo field with aligning (delaying) the left channel to the right channel... so I'd rather not align them to each other?
Hi Greg, Excellent tutorial on this subject with Drumatom and Auto Align. I have the Drumatom but you really opened up my eyes on this A. A. I definitely will get that for my tracks, just have to find where. Great job.
Thank you Greg.... I just picked this up and as usual, your tutorials are consistantly precise and easily understood. I'd love to learn some of your techniques using the H3000 or even better the H910. Thank you for all you do!
Amazing Greg ! UAD Little Labs IBP can do this phase alignment in a different way as well. In PT 12.4 you can commit or even freeze that phase alignment tracks easier ! Gorgeous job bro ! Cheers !
+Mano Giba I'm still on OSX 10.8.5 running PT 11. Not jumping into 12 until I absolutely have to get a new computer. Thanks for the tip on the IBP, I've used it and it works great!
Seriously man, you explained the process so well in comparison to about 15 other youtube tutorial type files Ive watched today..you are the first person to explain how Auto Align works simply and effectively...and theDrumatom prog..wow...amazing..Ive not heard of it before. THANX MATE! What a great programme..I have a question. If you are using pre recorded sampled drum tracks like prodrummer or BFD etc, would you set up the process the same...?This might be a silly question but Im not a drummer. Ive had a studio but lost everything in a scenario I wont go into. Ive recorded kits heaps years ago but I now rely on sampled kits because I dont have the mics and Hardware anymore. I will have to download the plugin and have a go at tuning some kits up that I use and see what happens?? ;-)
Mark Morton thanks a bunch!! As for using these on samples kits you'd have to just try it to see if it improves it or not. Let me know how it turns out
SoundRadix's Auto Align is another nice one. i demo'd it about a year ago i think. really love the alignment factor (i fight with Melda's MAutoAlign) but as with all polarity detection... it is kinda hit and miss. to me anyways... but sound being so subjective and no two ears are a like... maybe it is JUST me lol. but i love the idea of having the plug do both jobs... real time saver (although you STILL might have to adjust polarity by taste)
Since not everybody is Buddy Rich, this is what I'm doing. Group drums, elastic audio, rhythmic, just a few warps moved, VERY few , most of the track NO warps (he was on), rendered it and now ready for Drum atom and Auto Align. Thats it. In the process of finishing it. If Im doing it wrong, let me know. When I finish, will post results. Purchased Drum atom and Auto Align cause of you. Ask them for a cut. You are their best salesman. Thanks Greg.
Excelent Video Greg!! A question for the alignment , do you need to play all the song for align each mic or just with one part like you are showing in the video? Thanks Greg!!
You can loop the whole song if you want but auto align usually only needs a shorter loop section to do its job. If you notice in the video some tracks take longer to analyze than others
Is the bounce option a HD thing only? I don't think I can bounce multiple tracks at the same time. Also you're the first to make good sounding example of drumatom. I tried it and I thought it was impressive on hihat but too dull on snare + not stable as it crashed the first time I exported audio.
Drumatom can make tracks sound dull if you run too much which requires need to dial it back to taste. I'm not sure the difference in non HD but PT 11 will definitely allow offline bounce just not sure if it allows multiple busses at once. Thanks for watching !
+Greg Wurth Offfline definitely and it's more stable on my native system than real time. I wish I could bounce all the stems at once. You're on 11 or 12? Thank you for your answer and for the videos!
At the time of this video my version of Pro tools didn't have the commit feature. Now with version 2019.6 the workflow has evolved quite a bit but still the same basic concept. Thanks for your question.
Thanks for the great video. I'm a Plugin Alliance fan and have bought quite a number of their products and instead of buying more. Never thought about the drumatom but now thanks to you, I'll have that on my list to buy. Very useful tool, to combine that with Auto Align [which I already have]. Hopefully I can win one of the cool giveways lol. Btw, what's your take on the Sound Radix Pi-Phase Interactions? I've seen a few ppl use that and Auto Align together. Pi is a CPU heavy plug though...I'll love your take on that. Thanks.
Hey Greg. Great vid! 2 questions on Auto-align : - Why do you split your overheads into two tracks? Couldn't you use a stereo instance of Auto-align on your overheads as a reference point for time aligning the rest of the kit? - Soundradix recommands using the top snare mic as the reference point. It doesn't make much sense to me, but have you tried it?
+MusiqueProdVid Great Questions. I split the overheads so that Auto Align can actually analyze and phase align the overheads together as well as the rest of the kit. I've tried several variations of Auto Align and what works best for me is what I have shown in this video. One thing I mentioned but didn't show was that after I analyze the kit, I then move onto analyzing the top / bottom snare together in a second pass. Russ Hughes may be able to give you some better insight on this but I am very pleased with the workflow that I used. Take Care!
+Greg Wurth Yes I do the same thing (snare top and bottom) and also kick in and out if used. Room mics: I don't know, something it works, sometimes not. A matter of mic positions and song context I suppose.Thanks Greg.
Because I work between 3 studios (the other two don't have ravens) The trackball keeps my workflow consistent between all 3 room. I use the Raven mostly for when I mixing and dialing in plug in settings.
Hi ! Great tuto Greg ! one question though, since auto align is an added delay treatment (+ or -) to the track through the plugin, why not to take this delay once done, and put it in the user offset delay section of Pro Tools tracks ? this would be much faster and easier rather than bouncing tracks isn't it ? Thanks a lot ! Greg
Hi thank for replying ;) By this I mean that once the values are found in auto-align, copy this values and paste them in the delay compensation of the track (user offset field) => hpics.li/e11792d
UltraSteaKME I understand what you mean, but I believe there is more to it than simply adjusting DC. I welcome you to create an example and share with us the results.
good tutorial, but frankly, it is much quicker to check phase and align manually. Just take overhead track zoom in, align kick snares, toms and hat to it, check that all tracks are in phase (especially kick vs OH) and your good to go.
So I tried both. Don't do it before. Weird phase stuff. After, excellent. once again, in moderation. So, Drumatom, Auto Align then fix some timing issues. I did not do elastic audio. Just some manual moving of some hits. And if way of time, get the drummer to do it again. Or, get another drummer.Ha! If need be, auto align again. It will not hurt. Remember, some leaking is good. Their drums for heaven sakes! Good luck . Another note, Greg, whats that board you have there? Thanks
Having just started using Auto Align, I can honestly say that it feels like cheating. I had no idea how huge a difference good phase coherence in a multi-mic drum recording really makes until now. Sound Radix blows for tethering their software to iLok, but this plugin is simply outstanding.
I would have thought that after the Auto Align had done its initial brain work, all it would be doing is applying a fixed sample offset, which would be using a minuscule amount of processing power and not require a bounce.
Maybe so but the idea is to do this as part of prepping your session for a mix with the intention to process the files once the desired result is achieve. This video should be updated though because now with track freeze and commit it's possible to do this much faster and more efficient.
@@gregormarini I hate it on toms, manual automation, key spike gating, or Gatey Watey by BOZ Digital really are the best options for me at least. Drumatom I find really kills the high end for me most times even on the lowest focus settings, by the time I fine tune it out the bleed is only marginally reduced and I find myself going and making Key spikes anyway. I will say in conjunction with conventional methods of gating it's nice, but I can live without it
I use both of these but use each just a little differently. For Drumatom, I set up separate groups for: Kick, snare top & bottom, low toms, and floor toms. In each of those groups I place that type of drum & the overhead track. I find I get better results if I have the separate groups for each category of drum track. I have never used it on my ride or hi hat tracks - never thought of doing that - but may give that a try on my next mix.
For Auto Align, I set the input & sidechain levels a lot higher - to where only the sound you are trying to align is the one being reached in the meter. So, let's say I was aligning your 2nd kick track with the overhead. Based on your video (at 14:20), I would set the input slider at about -5 to make sure it is set where only the actual kick hit is being used for the alignment. That means no false positives in the processing. For toms or drum tracks with infrequent hits, I will loop a fill including that drum & it works great (a loop works just as well as an uninterrupted track for this processing).
But anyway, this was a very good video & I'm sure a lot of people have learned just how powerful these tools are in helping get a great drum sound. Nice job!
Watched several videos about AutoAlign and this where my thoughts also.
A lot of times in the videos on youtube, the input and sidechain sliders are not even used and left all the way at the bottom by people who explain the plugin - which is a problem for detection or is it not?
Also, what are your thoughts about aligning the left and right channels of two overhead mics?
Im thinking you only should do it if you use overheads placed freely above the kit (like focusing them on the Cymbals).
If you have a stereo overhead setup i would destroy the stereo field with aligning (delaying) the left channel to the right channel... so I'd rather not align them to each other?
Cheers mate. I've just got auto align. Can't wait to use it... hope it's nice to me in reaper
Hi Greg, Excellent tutorial on this subject with Drumatom and Auto Align. I have the Drumatom but you really opened up my eyes on this A. A. I definitely will get that for my tracks, just have to find where. Great job.
+Jack Pursian I'm glad this video was helpful. Thanks for watching!
Thank you Greg.... I just picked this up and as usual, your tutorials are consistantly precise and easily understood. I'd love to learn some of your techniques using the H3000 or even better the H910. Thank you for all you do!
Thanks for that! Sounded so much fuller and natural!
I'm glad you liked the video. Thanks for watching.
Thanks for your No nonsense approach ...Keep up the good work AMDG
James Saldana thanks for watching
James Saldana thanks for watching
Drumatom is so sick! Thanks for the videos Greg
+Chris Hummel I agree! I absolutely love it. Thanks for taking the time to watch.
Awesome video Greg! Glad I went with MAutoAlign.
+kainhatton thanks a ton!
Amazing Greg ! UAD Little Labs IBP can do this phase alignment in a different way as well.
In PT 12.4 you can commit or even freeze that phase alignment tracks easier ! Gorgeous job bro !
Cheers !
+Mano Giba I'm still on OSX 10.8.5 running PT 11. Not jumping into 12 until I absolutely have to get a new computer. Thanks for the tip on the IBP, I've used it and it works great!
+Greg Wurth Thanks Buddy, Love your vids and your work man ! And your hybrid studio is owesome !
Big hug from Brasil !
+Mano Giba Thank you!
Thanks Greg... AA is a must have!
yes indeed!
Great demo....thank you for sharing. I really like your channel & vids BTW. Please keep posting.
+Brian McLendon Thank you. I will keep them coming!
Hey greg, thanks for your videos! Could you maybe do one on your workflow with the Raven?
Thanks. It's possible in the future
Great plugins, great video.
thanks!
Greg ! This is awesome man! Thanks for sharing, It just made my day! :D Keep Rocking !
+Thiago Trinsi I'm glad to hear that! Have a great weekend.
Thank you. Great presentation.
I appreciate that thank you!
Seriously man, you explained the process so well in comparison to about 15 other youtube tutorial type files Ive watched today..you are the first person to explain how Auto Align works simply and effectively...and theDrumatom prog..wow...amazing..Ive not heard of it before.
THANX MATE! What a great programme..I have a question.
If you are using pre recorded sampled drum tracks like prodrummer or BFD etc, would you set up the process the same...?This might be a silly question but Im not a drummer. Ive had a studio but lost everything in a scenario I wont go into. Ive recorded kits heaps years ago but I now rely on sampled kits because I dont have the mics and Hardware anymore.
I will have to download the plugin and have a go at tuning some kits up that I use and see what happens?? ;-)
Mark Morton thanks a bunch!! As for using these on samples kits you'd have to just try it to see if it improves it or not. Let me know how it turns out
hm....pretty amazing..!! great presentation again..!!
Thanks
very good.. thank you...
SoundRadix's Auto Align is another nice one. i demo'd it about a year ago i think. really love the alignment factor (i fight with Melda's MAutoAlign) but as with all polarity detection... it is kinda hit and miss. to me anyways... but sound being so subjective and no two ears are a like... maybe it is JUST me lol. but i love the idea of having the plug do both jobs... real time saver (although you STILL might have to adjust polarity by taste)
+Knot Hardly 'knot' knocking (j/k) Melda's stuff... some of it is pretty nice... it is just that their interface and menu gives my ADDHD fits. lol
Nice Auto Align tutorial!
Thank you!
nice job !
this is gold👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌
This is cool thanks
Great work Greg. If I would have to align drum hits manually, would I do that before or after Drumatom and Auto Align?
Thanks
Peter Last that's a tricky one. I assume you'll move the drums as a group right? I'd probably align them first.
Since not everybody is Buddy Rich, this is what I'm doing. Group drums, elastic audio, rhythmic, just a few warps moved, VERY few , most of the track NO warps (he was on), rendered it and now ready for Drum atom and Auto Align. Thats it. In the process of finishing it. If Im doing it wrong, let me know. When I finish, will post results. Purchased Drum atom and Auto Align cause of you. Ask them for a cut. You are their best salesman. Thanks Greg.
Peter Last thanks I appreciate that. If you're doing elastic audio it probably makes sense to process it afterwards.
Excelent Video Greg!! A question for the alignment , do you need to play all the song for align each mic or just with one part like you are showing in the video?
Thanks Greg!!
You can loop the whole song if you want but auto align usually only needs a shorter loop section to do its job. If you notice in the video some tracks take longer to analyze than others
+Greg Wurth
Thank You Greg!!! You Are Awesome!!!
+Omar Rosales A short burst will do as the phase is out the same thought the entire track
+Russ Hughes thanks Russ!!!👍🏼🙏🏼
Is the bounce option a HD thing only? I don't think I can bounce multiple tracks at the same time.
Also you're the first to make good sounding example of drumatom. I tried it and I thought it was impressive on hihat but too dull on snare + not stable as it crashed the first time I exported audio.
Drumatom can make tracks sound dull if you run too much which requires need to dial it back to taste. I'm not sure the difference in non HD but PT 11 will definitely allow offline bounce just not sure if it allows multiple busses at once. Thanks for watching !
+Greg Wurth Offfline definitely and it's more stable on my native system than real time. I wish I could bounce all the stems at once. You're on 11 or 12?
Thank you for your answer and for the videos!
Hi Greg! At the end, why not commit the tracks? Wouldn't be easier?
Cheers from Portugal!
I didn't have Pro Tools 12 for this video demo but if I did of course commit or freeze would be the way to go. Take care
At the time of this video my version of Pro tools didn't have the commit feature. Now with version 2019.6 the workflow has evolved quite a bit but still the same basic concept. Thanks for your question.
Thanks for the great video. I'm a Plugin Alliance fan and have bought quite a number of their products and instead of buying more. Never thought about the drumatom but now thanks to you, I'll have that on my list to buy. Very useful tool, to combine that with Auto Align [which I already have].
Hopefully I can win one of the cool giveways lol. Btw, what's your take on the Sound Radix Pi-Phase Interactions? I've seen a few ppl use that and Auto Align together. Pi is a CPU heavy plug though...I'll love your take on that.
Thanks.
I'm glad I was able to turn you onto that. I have pi phase but I've not spent enough time with it yet to advise in its use
+Greg Wurth can you show how you use the vertigo vsm 3? And also the vsc 2?.Thanks
sure thats a good idea for a video!
Hey Greg. Great vid!
2 questions on Auto-align :
- Why do you split your overheads into two tracks? Couldn't you use a stereo instance of Auto-align on your overheads as a reference point for time aligning the rest of the kit?
- Soundradix recommands using the top snare mic as the reference point. It doesn't make much sense to me, but have you tried it?
+MusiqueProdVid Great Questions. I split the overheads so that Auto Align can actually analyze and phase align the overheads together as well as the rest of the kit. I've tried several variations of Auto Align and what works best for me is what I have shown in this video. One thing I mentioned but didn't show was that after I analyze the kit, I then move onto analyzing the top / bottom snare together in a second pass. Russ Hughes may be able to give you some better insight on this but I am very pleased with the workflow that I used. Take Care!
+Greg Wurth Yes I do the same thing (snare top and bottom) and also kick in and out if used. Room mics: I don't know, something it works, sometimes not. A matter of mic positions and song context I suppose.Thanks Greg.
You are spot on! Have a great day.
Autoalign is very usefull!
Just curious... What´s the point of the Raven if you´re using a trackball?
Because I work between 3 studios (the other two don't have ravens) The trackball keeps my workflow consistent between all 3 room. I use the Raven mostly for when I mixing and dialing in plug in settings.
I honestly think the raven is garbage. I prefer using my keyboard and trackpad
Yawn.
What monitors do you uses in this vídeo model please?
They are Eve Audio & Unity Audio speakers
Is there any advantage to processing with Drumatom before using Auto Align? Would there be any adverse affects doing it the other way round?
Hi !
Great tuto Greg !
one question though, since auto align is an added delay treatment (+ or -) to the track through the plugin, why not to take this delay once done, and put it in the user offset delay section of Pro Tools tracks ?
this would be much faster and easier rather than bouncing tracks isn't it ?
Thanks a lot !
Greg
UltraSteaKME make an example of what you mean and let's see
Hi
thank for replying ;)
By this I mean that once the values are found in auto-align, copy this values and paste them in the delay compensation of the track (user offset field) => hpics.li/e11792d
UltraSteaKME I understand what you mean, but I believe there is more to it than simply adjusting DC. I welcome you to create an example and share with us the results.
Sure I will after my shift ;)
Just bought auto align yesterday so I did not test it yet that way...
Auto Aline on the "Processed" Drumatom tracks? Or is it use one or the other Plugin? Thanks so much...
good tutorial, but frankly, it is much quicker to check phase and align manually. Just take overhead track zoom in, align kick snares, toms and hat to it, check that all tracks are in phase (especially kick vs OH) and your good to go.
whatever works for you
Night and day!
So I tried both. Don't do it before. Weird phase stuff. After, excellent. once again, in moderation. So, Drumatom, Auto Align then fix some timing issues. I did not do elastic audio. Just some manual moving of some hits. And if way of time, get the drummer to do it again. Or, get another drummer.Ha!
If need be, auto align again. It will not hurt.
Remember, some leaking is good. Their drums for heaven sakes! Good luck .
Another note, Greg, whats that board you have there? Thanks
thanks for writing. It's a hybrid desk with gear racked into it. 16 vintage 1084's plus some other goodies
Great work Greg :) I was just wondering... Did you compare Auto align to Mautoalign ? Is the Mautoalign just as good ? (it's $100 cheaper ;) )
No I haven't but I should check it out.
Yeah, I would love to know if there is any real difference before buying :)
Having just started using Auto Align, I can honestly say that it feels like cheating. I had no idea how huge a difference good phase coherence in a multi-mic drum recording really makes until now. Sound Radix blows for tethering their software to iLok, but this plugin is simply outstanding.
I would have thought that after the Auto Align had done its initial brain work, all it would be doing is applying a fixed sample offset, which would be using a minuscule amount of processing power and not require a bounce.
that plug in order to do that it must be sample heavy
Maybe so but the idea is to do this as part of prepping your session for a mix with the intention to process the files once the desired result is achieve. This video should be updated though because now with track freeze and commit it's possible to do this much faster and more efficient.
only good for kick snare and toms applying on cymbals kills soul of the drum set.
It's all a matter of preference. Thanks for watching
Great Videos and more needed thank you.
+Alen Konakoglu I would go further and say: Good only for Kick and Toms!! On snares reaches his limits!
Def liked it on kick
@@gregormarini I hate it on toms, manual automation, key spike gating, or Gatey Watey by BOZ Digital really are the best options for me at least. Drumatom I find really kills the high end for me most times even on the lowest focus settings, by the time I fine tune it out the bleed is only marginally reduced and I find myself going and making Key spikes anyway. I will say in conjunction with conventional methods of gating it's nice, but I can live without it