Good tips, Rhys. One thing I recommend people do when assigning all these parallel busses, is to check the polarity on each of the busses after all the processing. I use attack, smash and sometimes even a snare and kick fundamental boost bus, and there are occasions where I have to flip the phase on a bus to keep things in sync.
@@dougleydoritethey do, but some plugins can still cause issues. For example, that waves LL3 limiter creates phase issues if you try to blend a parallel bus if they are all routed to the mix bus (not fed into the drum bus with the limiter - hopefully that makes sense, hard to explain in text lol).
@@spinlightstudiosyes, if I understand correctly, this seems like one of the reasons you bring the parallel channels to through the main drum bus and limit there vs sending to the mix bus separately?
Really helpful info... I have previously never thought to have saturation, excitors, etc on parallel buses and then blend them back into the drum bus, looking forward to giving that a go 🤓👍
I think i saw your all videos, but this is more detailed and well-explained, so thanks again for whole channel and your hard-work man 🎉 devilloc is beast 😂
Purchased Your Tama Birch Bubinga Sample Pack - Sounds amazing and thank you for all that you do! I love your tutorials... Must be the Accent....Just saying...LOL!
This was epic. Your drum mixes are absolutely my favorite. I'm going to watch this again......and again. Lol !!! That Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter was a cool addition - but I can see how a little would go a long way. I'm a bit more than two years into learning mixing. It's probably the hardest thing I've ever taken on. Progress is slower than I initially thought it'd be - but it's happening. I'd love to get my drums sounding like yours. I so appreciate the time you put into your channel, Rhys. Your videos are an inspiration. Thank you for another great video.
Really appreciate that man! I don’t think the journey ever ends… I still get imposter syndrome and feel like I have loads to learn too. That’s also part of the beauty of it, there’s not really one way to do things and the skies the limit really!
Man you’ve crushed it (quite literally). Idk how many times I’ve said “oh that’s bigger and brighter” during this, it’s so funny how quickly our ears can adapt
Interesting with all those parallel buses.. I almost never had a luck with parallel anything because I just get my sound on the individual tracks (eq, compression, saturation and sometimes upward compression with C1) + some processing on the bus (drum bus) like a bus compressor and a clipper (I really like Kotelnikov for my drum bus and a new softube clipper). This seems like a completely different method of achieving the sound, cool!
Hey Rhys, Happy New Year to you! Thank you so much for this amazing video! This is my sound. I love your Drum Buss Elements! My plugin for extra punch on a crush bus is MBSI by Metric Halo. Cheers✌️
That’s interesting about the bus routing at the end of your video. I never considered that. I do it the way you mentioned where I have my main drum bus going to the main stereo out, & the parallel drum crush also going to the stereo out. The parallel drum crush volume is lower in volume, blended in underneath the main drum bus & the heavy compression is not allowing it to peak out. The main drum bus has the BSA Clipper on it keeping everything under -2.0db, & the parallel drum bus channel is at -5.0db so it’s only hitting at most at -9.0db. So I think I’m all good. “If it sounds good, it’s good”. Lol. But I’m definitely open to trying your method with routing the parallel bus back into the main drum bus, just to see how it sounds. Great suggestion! Thanks for the idea & your channel giving great tips for mixing! Much appreciated! 🤘🏻
If you have a clipper on the drum bus, and the compression you are applying is smashing the transient - you probably won’t get much extra peaks - mostly if you do the “attack” compressor would cause problems as it’s adding transient. Absolutely, if it sounds good, it’s good haha the waves limiter cause phase issues too if blended with parallel being routed to the mix bus which is also why I feed it back into the drum bus.
Yeah, I don’t have a limiter on the parallel bus. Just the Universal Audio 1176AE compressor plugin, SSL X-Saturator, & Baby Audio Smooth Operator to tame the high end. No limiter. Do you think there might still be a phase issue? I don’t think there is, everything sounds ok to me. I suppose I could send the main drum bus & parallel bus to another bus & use Logic Correlation Meter to check for phase issues? Or is that an incorrect assumption?
@@21stCenturySinI think you would know if you had phase issues as you would lose a bunch of frequency or it would sound like a phaser on the drums 😂 I think you’re all good!
Thanks man! We used a mesaboogie into an orange 2x12 closed back cab - 57 and a 121 style ribbon mic blended together. Tom delonge strat and star caster for guitars :)
Great video. Your drums sound great! Quick question, it looks like you have your reverbs going through the drum buss as well. Is that accurate? Thanks!
Amazing video! So much information packed in a single video. Please correct me if I'm wrong but it seems you're sending (or would send) from your drum buss to your attack/sustain or reverb buss and then those would return back to the drum buss. Wouldn't that create feedback? Again, I might be wrong :) but I'd love to know how you're handling that. Cheers!
Thanks! I’m sending from the individual channels/submixes of the drums (before they go to the drum bus) into parallel sends, and then all signals go to the drum bus - so nothing is looping back around.
A lot of us are guitarists working with Superior Drummer or EZ Drummer - not recording live kits at all. Would love to see a vid specifically on working with Toontrack.
The methods are the same :) you just might not needs as much processing depending how preprocessed the midi is. I don’t own/use superior, but have done a vid with SSD5. Probably going to do a Getgood drums vid at some point. Realistically it’s all the same, just different sounds.
@@spinlightstudios I think there is some difference because the sounds are very different. I mean, with Sd3/Toontrack you can start your kit with very raw drums, or you can start with more processed sounds, so your processing is going to be quite different between the two. I've got all those drum softwares, bought them all over the years, Slate, GGD, and Superior Drummer 3. Superior Drummer is just so far ahead of the others, I'm actually a little surprised you're not using that and using stuff like GGD instead. Especially GGD, it's not even in the same league, there is so little it can do and the dynamics and realism are no way near as good as Superior Drummer, not even close. Even Slate as good as it was back in the day is very dated and well behind, but I guess you're recording real drums more often, so I spose I get it ;)
@@SenseiKreesesuperior drummer is awesome no doubt, I used sd2 for years - but I’m working with live drums 99% of the time so no real reason for me to invest in it at the moment! But I understand why lots of people use midi drums though!
@@spinlightstudios Yeh I figured since you're a session drummer as well. My band recently recorded some music for Spotify and we used an ekit and SD3 just because it was a huuuuge money saver over recording a live kit... Sure, the preference is to record real drums, but that's way more expensive for a band. We're already buying so much gear, I just dropped nearly a grand on a wireless system for guitar, it's endless and adds up, so the ekit saved a lot of cash, and we got a real drummer playing, not just programmed drums, and I don't think anyone can tell because SD3 just sounds so good and realistic. Win win, I'm all about exploiting the tech haha.
Great vid @spinlightstudios! On this vid you use a snare specific reverb bus and on your template you use a drum verb bus for the whole kit. Do you find an individual bus is better than a whole kit verb bus? Would it be set to pull the snare out of the whole kit verb bus and do it individually? I wold assume toms would be best alone as well and this makes me wonder why not just put verb on the individual tracks if clarity comes form keeping them separate?
Thanks. It just depends what I’m trying to achieve. A little bit of reverb on the whole kit - a send from the drum bus adds a natural sense of space to the kit. Reverb in individual drums is more for individualized effect - making it sound thicker or having a long decay etc that you may not want to apply to all drums. It just depends on the song and the sound trying to be created!
@@spinlightstudios Hey man I want you to know how much the time you put into this, not just the videos but taking the time to actually respond to comments, is sincerely appreciated. Wishing you the success you deserve my friend.
Again great video!!!! :) I can see that your drum-bus is at 0. What do you do, if you think the drums is to high. Do you turn the drumbus down or the single tracks?
Usually if the overall drums are too loud just bring the bus down, or individual channels if it’s particular drums that are too hot. But the limiter/clipper stops anything getting through regardless.
Great tips! Why do you have 2 of each drum triggers? 2 kick, snare and tom trigger tracks. Are you using them for suppression into trigger2 or are you triggering 2 different samples on each? Picked up your sample pack also to check out.
fun stuff :) I have idea for a video what i would like to see. Do same this kind of sound and quantization. Then do the same mix with no quantizaton and aggressive peak management and so for. The more "natural" human music if you will. Every year i feel like "something" is missing in modern production, probably music nowdays it just way more shit, with couple of exception, but still its fun experiment, maybe do a poll, which version your audience likes more after.
Love your stuff Rhys! Would love to see you work without a drummer (i know tough) but use say logic drummer and then make it human (lol i know). In fact you probably already have a video for that!!! I do lots but often don't access to a good drummer so playing with logic fills a gap. Would be great to separate out each to individual tracks... then compress on the side!
I think more midi drum videos is on the horizon! Although I do mostly work with live drums (and prefer it that way!) - helps that I am a drummer and can play on artists projects too when they come to the studio… so my day to day need to use midi drums is pretty low haha but I see people asking and I’m keen to provide some more content on the subject! Thanks!
Thanks Rhys! Love your channel. Have you ever tried using the Slate FG-116 as your “smash” or “sustain” compressor? I compared it to other 1176 models and found that it offered even more sustain than other emulations from Waves and the stock FET compressor in Logic. Thanks for another great video!
Thanks mate! Yeah the slate 116 is great! I use it a lot too :) I don’t really love the waves 1176 compressors or the stock logic. UAD and slate do a great job
@@spinlightstudiosThanks for the reply! I guess I should have specified that the compressor I was talking about was the black version of the FG-116. I forgot that they use that number for all of their FET style compressors. The black version seems very aggressive to me and really crushes the transients when the attack is at its fastest setting. Thanks again!
@@spinlightstudios Mate for this session, just to confirm, only the snare goes into the attack and sustain buss? While the all shells go into the distortion buss?
@ I had kick snare and Tom’s going into all parallels and a little bit of cymbals/room, and then everything going into the exciter. Of course you can feed each process as you please :)
I am loving this....😊😊 Found your channel Today and i am starting to follow you 😊
Thanks so much mate!
These drums sound absolutely MASSIVE! Great work Rhys!
Thanks mate!
Good tips, Rhys. One thing I recommend people do when assigning all these parallel busses, is to check the polarity on each of the busses after all the processing. I use attack, smash and sometimes even a snare and kick fundamental boost bus, and there are occasions where I have to flip the phase on a bus to keep things in sync.
For sure, good tip. I think it depends on the processing/plugins if it messes with the phase or creates latency.
Don’t DAW’s have delay compensation for this reason?
@@dougleydoritethey do, but some plugins can still cause issues. For example, that waves LL3 limiter creates phase issues if you try to blend a parallel bus if they are all routed to the mix bus (not fed into the drum bus with the limiter - hopefully that makes sense, hard to explain in text lol).
@@spinlightstudiosyes, if I understand correctly, this seems like one of the reasons you bring the parallel channels to through the main drum bus and limit there vs sending to the mix bus separately?
@ yes 👍🏻
Really helpful info... I have previously never thought to have saturation, excitors, etc on parallel buses and then blend them back into the drum bus, looking forward to giving that a go 🤓👍
Awesome! Hope it helps you get some nice big drum sounds!
Thank you so much brother. Respect 🖤
Thanks legend!
I think i saw your all videos, but this is more detailed and well-explained, so thanks again for whole channel and your hard-work man 🎉 devilloc is beast 😂
Thanks mate! Haha yes it’s absolutely insane 😂
Purchased Your Tama Birch Bubinga Sample Pack - Sounds amazing and thank you for all that you do! I love your tutorials... Must be the Accent....Just saying...LOL!
Thanks so much mate! 🇦🇺
This was epic. Your drum mixes are absolutely my favorite. I'm going to watch this again......and again. Lol !!! That Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter was a cool addition - but I can see how a little would go a long way.
I'm a bit more than two years into learning mixing. It's probably the hardest thing I've ever taken on. Progress is slower than I initially thought it'd be - but it's happening. I'd love to get my drums sounding like yours.
I so appreciate the time you put into your channel, Rhys. Your videos are an inspiration. Thank you for another great video.
Really appreciate that man! I don’t think the journey ever ends… I still get imposter syndrome and feel like I have loads to learn too. That’s also part of the beauty of it, there’s not really one way to do things and the skies the limit really!
Really looking forward to trying the attack bus as well as a crush/smash bus. I learn something cool from every one of your videos - thanks!
Thanks man! Hope it helps you get some
huge drums!
@ I know it will! Cheers from across the ditch
Absolute legend, these have improved my mixes heaps. Cheers from Perth mate
Thanks, That’s great to hear man! 🇦🇺
Fantastic!!! Thank you. The multiple parallel processing is gold!
@@beforethesun5173 thanks legend!
The dual parallel compression technique was nice 👍
Oh yeah!
Awesome video, thank you for the great content. Always learn something new here.
Thanks 🙏🏼
Man you’ve crushed it (quite literally). Idk how many times I’ve said “oh that’s bigger and brighter” during this, it’s so funny how quickly our ears can adapt
It’s so true. Our ears adapt very quickly! I think that’s why references can be a big help to keep us in check too!
@ absolutely spot on can’t go a day without opening a reference plugin. Once you get one there’s no turning back
These tips work great !! Thanks for sharing. :)
Thanks mate!
Happy new year Rhys! Drums sound great man, some good tips there
Back at you man! Thanks 🙏🏼
Great video mate! Smashing it!
Cheers legend!
Grabbin the sample pack going to try all of this thank you again. :-).
Thanks man! Appreciate the support!
Great job sir and interesting
Thanks for watching!
Very well put my friend ⚡️
Thanks man!
Interesting with all those parallel buses.. I almost never had a luck with parallel anything because I just get my sound on the individual tracks (eq, compression, saturation and sometimes upward compression with C1) + some processing on the bus (drum bus) like a bus compressor and a clipper (I really like Kotelnikov for my drum bus and a new softube clipper). This seems like a completely different method of achieving the sound, cool!
Totally man, many ways to do it 🙂 might be worth a try, or if what you’re doing works for you, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it 😂
Awesome technique =) Thanks for this.
No problem!
Hope this helps Legends! If you want to show some support to this channel consider picking up a sample pack here: spinlightstudio.com/shop/
Done! Thanks!
@ thanks legend! Hope you enjoy them!
Hey Rhys, Happy New Year to you! Thank you so much for this amazing video! This is my sound. I love your Drum Buss Elements! My plugin for extra punch on a crush bus is MBSI by Metric Halo. Cheers✌️
@@guidomartin1017happy new year to you too! I’ll have to check that one out!
That’s interesting about the bus routing at the end of your video. I never considered that. I do it the way you mentioned where I have my main drum bus going to the main stereo out, & the parallel drum crush also going to the stereo out. The parallel drum crush volume is lower in volume, blended in underneath the main drum bus & the heavy compression is not allowing it to peak out. The main drum bus has the BSA Clipper on it keeping everything under -2.0db, & the parallel drum bus channel is at -5.0db so it’s only hitting at most at -9.0db. So I think I’m all good. “If it sounds good, it’s good”. Lol. But I’m definitely open to trying your method with routing the parallel bus back into the main drum bus, just to see how it sounds. Great suggestion! Thanks for the idea & your channel giving great tips for mixing! Much appreciated! 🤘🏻
If you have a clipper on the drum bus, and the compression you are applying is smashing the transient - you probably won’t get much extra peaks - mostly if you do the “attack” compressor would cause problems as it’s adding transient. Absolutely, if it sounds good, it’s good haha the waves limiter cause phase issues too if blended with parallel being routed to the mix bus which is also why I feed it back into the drum bus.
Yeah, I don’t have a limiter on the parallel bus. Just the Universal Audio 1176AE compressor plugin, SSL X-Saturator, & Baby Audio Smooth Operator to tame the high end. No limiter. Do you think there might still be a phase issue? I don’t think there is, everything sounds ok to me. I suppose I could send the main drum bus & parallel bus to another bus & use Logic Correlation Meter to check for phase issues? Or is that an incorrect assumption?
@@21stCenturySinI think you would know if you had phase issues as you would lose a bunch of frequency or it would sound like a phaser on the drums 😂 I think you’re all good!
Could you do a similar video on how you got those guitar tones and mixed for that same song? Love how they sound!
Thanks man! We used a mesaboogie into an orange 2x12 closed back cab - 57 and a 121 style ribbon mic blended together. Tom delonge strat and star caster for guitars :)
I am at 2:50, so maybe you'll talk about this later, but why do you EQ the sample channel before the actual triggering of the sample?
It’s just a more intensive way to filter out the “junk” and avoid retriggers.
Awesome video Rhys.
Thanks mate!
the biggest difference is really your parallel compression 🤩 crazy
Totally! But all the steps add up in the end :)
Great video. Your drums sound great! Quick question, it looks like you have your reverbs going through the drum buss as well. Is that accurate? Thanks!
Thanks! Just the snare reverb! I have a reverb send from the drum bus to a reverb that is on its own.
I guess I can say this video saved my mix
Great to hear! 💪🏻
Amazing video! So much information packed in a single video. Please correct me if I'm wrong but it seems you're sending (or would send) from your drum buss to your attack/sustain or reverb buss and then those would return back to the drum buss. Wouldn't that create feedback? Again, I might be wrong :) but I'd love to know how you're handling that. Cheers!
Thanks! I’m sending from the individual channels/submixes of the drums (before they go to the drum bus) into parallel sends, and then all signals go to the drum bus - so nothing is looping back around.
@ gotcha! Thanks mate!
Love it! Great job.
Thanks legend! 🙏🏼
Thank you so much sir
No problem!
A lot of us are guitarists working with Superior Drummer or EZ Drummer - not recording live kits at all. Would love to see a vid specifically on working with Toontrack.
The methods are the same :) you just might not needs as much processing depending how preprocessed the midi is. I don’t own/use superior, but have done a vid with SSD5. Probably going to do a Getgood drums vid at some point. Realistically it’s all the same, just different sounds.
@@spinlightstudios I think there is some difference because the sounds are very different. I mean, with Sd3/Toontrack you can start your kit with very raw drums, or you can start with more processed sounds, so your processing is going to be quite different between the two.
I've got all those drum softwares, bought them all over the years, Slate, GGD, and Superior Drummer 3. Superior Drummer is just so far ahead of the others, I'm actually a little surprised you're not using that and using stuff like GGD instead. Especially GGD, it's not even in the same league, there is so little it can do and the dynamics and realism are no way near as good as Superior Drummer, not even close. Even Slate as good as it was back in the day is very dated and well behind, but I guess you're recording real drums more often, so I spose I get it ;)
@@SenseiKreesesuperior drummer is awesome no doubt, I used sd2 for years - but I’m working with live drums 99% of the time so no real reason for me to invest in it at the moment! But I understand why lots of people use midi drums though!
@@spinlightstudios Yeh I figured since you're a session drummer as well. My band recently recorded some music for Spotify and we used an ekit and SD3 just because it was a huuuuge money saver over recording a live kit... Sure, the preference is to record real drums, but that's way more expensive for a band. We're already buying so much gear, I just dropped nearly a grand on a wireless system for guitar, it's endless and adds up, so the ekit saved a lot of cash, and we got a real drummer playing, not just programmed drums, and I don't think anyone can tell because SD3 just sounds so good and realistic. Win win, I'm all about exploiting the tech haha.
Great vid @spinlightstudios! On this vid you use a snare specific reverb bus and on your template you use a drum verb bus for the whole kit. Do you find an individual bus is better than a whole kit verb bus? Would it be set to pull the snare out of the whole kit verb bus and do it individually? I wold assume toms would be best alone as well and this makes me wonder why not just put verb on the individual tracks if clarity comes form keeping them separate?
Thanks. It just depends what I’m trying to achieve. A little bit of reverb on the whole kit - a send from the drum bus adds a natural sense of space to the kit. Reverb in individual drums is more for individualized effect - making it sound thicker or having a long decay etc that you may not want to apply to all drums. It just depends on the song and the sound trying to be created!
@@spinlightstudios Hey man I want you to know how much the time you put into this, not just the videos but taking the time to actually respond to comments, is sincerely appreciated. Wishing you the success you deserve my friend.
@@anandadyes4152 thanks so much 🙏🏼
you should make a video about gain staging, idk but it seems to be more complex in metal mixes. And thanks for the info!
I’ve touched on gain staging before, but definitely something to consider! Thanks
Do you have a video on what do you usually do on the mix bus?
I do, might be called mix bus magic or something like that lol. I usually use some hardware in my mixes on the mix bus.
so good!
Thanks mate!
Again great video!!!! :) I can see that your drum-bus is at 0. What do you do, if you think the drums is to high. Do you turn the drumbus down or the single tracks?
Usually if the overall drums are too loud just bring the bus down, or individual channels if it’s particular drums that are too hot. But the limiter/clipper stops anything getting through regardless.
Drummer perspective, good call! The listener can air drum.
Of course!
Great tips! Why do you have 2 of each drum triggers? 2 kick, snare and tom trigger tracks. Are you using them for suppression into trigger2 or are you triggering 2 different samples on each? Picked up your sample pack also to check out.
Just blending samples together :)
Nice one👊🏻
Thanks!
fun stuff :) I have idea for a video what i would like to see. Do same this kind of sound and quantization. Then do the same mix with no quantizaton and aggressive peak management and so for. The more "natural" human music if you will. Every year i feel like "something" is missing in modern production, probably music nowdays it just way more shit, with couple of exception, but still its fun experiment, maybe do a poll, which version your audience likes more after.
That Devil-Loc is crazy good! Is there some other plug ins that do similar? Sans amp, crane song phoenix?
Devil loc is a monster! Hmm I’m not sure sorry!
Love your stuff Rhys! Would love to see you work without a drummer (i know tough) but use say logic drummer and then make it human (lol i know). In fact you probably already have a video for that!!! I do lots but often don't access to a good drummer so playing with logic fills a gap. Would be great to separate out each to individual tracks... then compress on the side!
I think more midi drum videos is on the horizon! Although I do mostly work with live drums (and prefer it that way!) - helps that I am a drummer and can play on artists projects too when they come to the studio… so my day to day need to use midi drums is pretty low haha but I see people asking and I’m keen to provide some more content on the subject! Thanks!
Thanks Rhys! Love your channel. Have you ever tried using the Slate FG-116 as your “smash” or “sustain” compressor? I compared it to other 1176 models and found that it offered even more sustain than other emulations from Waves and the stock FET compressor in Logic. Thanks for another great video!
Thanks mate! Yeah the slate 116 is great! I use it a lot too :) I don’t really love the waves 1176 compressors or the stock logic. UAD and slate do a great job
@@spinlightstudiosThanks for the reply! I guess I should have specified that the compressor I was talking about was the black version of the FG-116. I forgot that they use that number for all of their FET style compressors. The black version seems very aggressive to me and really crushes the transients when the attack is at its fastest setting. Thanks again!
Yeah I think all of the 1176 are pretty good in the VMR - I like the blue “modern” one the most personally!
The parallel 1176AE and Devil Loc are both disgustingly beautiful 😝
Haha yes 🙌🏻
@@spinlightstudios Mate for this session, just to confirm, only the snare goes into the attack and sustain buss? While the all shells go into the distortion buss?
@ I had kick snare and Tom’s going into all parallels and a little bit of cymbals/room, and then everything going into the exciter. Of course you can feed each process as you please :)
If I were a rock drum set, I would want to sound exactly like this!
Haha love it 🤘🏻
🙈
🤔