Mixing Drums with Intelligent Plugins Explained
Join studio guru instructor Eli Krantzberg for an in-depth video course on using intelligent plugins to mix drums quickly and effectively! In this mix course, you'll learn a plethora of techniques for handling all kinds of drum mixing duties, from correcting phase issues and reducing bleed to using adaptive EQ and compression, smart limiting, and more. The skills learned in this drum mixing course will pay big dividends as well because they can be adapted to other instruments as well!
Videos
• Introduction (03:45) - Learn about which plug-ins will be used in this series and hear some short before/after examples contrasting the unprocessed drums with the processed sound.
• Alignment (06:16) - See how Auto Align 2 from Sound Radix is used to automatically correct for phase and timing discrepancies between the different microphone positions on a multi-tracked drum kit.
• De-Bleeding (06:01) - Here, Drum Leveler from Sound Radix and Oxford Drum Gate from Sonnox are put to work in a variety of scenarios to reduce bleed and spill between various drum mics.
• Spectral Shaping (06:32) - We use Sculptor from iZotope on each drum track to enhance the natural tone using a sonic profile that adaptively optimizes the resonances and spectral balance of each drum.
• Adaptive EQ (05:30) - See how Surfer EQ 2 from Sound Radix is used to intelligently zero in on the most important frequencies that need to be either attenuated or boosted. The harmonic filter with built-in gain compensation is used to affect the harmonics of the selected frequencies, and the built-in spectral gate allows the changes to react only when the signal crosses a user-defined level threshold.
• Reverb & Adaptive Unmasking (06:13) - Discover the unique adaptive unmasking feature in iZotope?s Aurora reverb plug-in, where the unmask processor dynamically carves space for the main signal so the drum mix remains clear and present, while still adding rich, three-dimensional depth.
• Adaptive Compression (07:36) - Hear how Powair from Sound Radix adaptively adjusts the input to the compressor signal in real time while compensating at the output of the compression at the same time. The result is smooth, transparent, smart compression that maintains consistent level while preserving the internal dynamics and the performance and adding weight, tone, and punch to the various drum tracks.
• Smart Saturation & Parallel Processing (04:14) - Follow along as a parallel processing bus is set up using Plasma from iZotope to add some smart saturation to the sustain portion of the drum mix only: Surfer EQ 2 for some fast ?smiley face? EQ surfing and Powair to add the finishing touches in mid/side mode.
• Smart Limiting (04:03) - See how external side-chain processing works in Sound Surfer EQ and Powair on a bass track and hear how the Smart Limit plug-in from Sonible intelligently analyzes your music and sets optimal limiting to meet user target levels needed for various streaming services.