Eyal Levi: Crafting drum samples, creative workflow, and getting sounds at the source

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Apex High quality analog gear for the recording studio. For over 40 years, the patented Apex Exciter circuit has been audio engineer, secret weapon for signal enhancement, adding depth and punch to the lows, and clarity and sparkle to the highs. Visit apex.com for more information. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:28):

Hey, hey, hey. It's Joey Sturgis Forum podcast. We're going to be talking to one of our hosts, Eyal Levi. He just mixed an awesome drum pack for drum forge called the Eyal Levi expansion, and we're going to be talking to him a little bit about how he did that and also some general tips and tricks for drum mixing and such.

Speaker 3 (00:48):

Why can't we do tricks and tips instead of tips and tricks?

Speaker 2 (00:51):

Oh, that's what we're doing. We're going to flip the script and do some tricks and tips.

Speaker 3 (00:56):

Let's just trick people like L one on everything.

Speaker 2 (00:59):

Well, hopefully you're not using L one on drums because I'll give you a tip and a trick right now. It sucks.

Speaker 3 (01:06):

Now hold on a second. It fricking slays on symbols.

Speaker 2 (01:10):

Yeah, it's great for symbols if you want to completely destroy the snare in the process. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (01:14):

Well, no one cares about snare. I mean, it's like vocalists or bass players.

Speaker 2 (01:20):

Let's jump into this pack. So cool thing about the pack is you've got three completely different kick sounds, three different snare sounds, three tom sets and a set of symbols. But this is not your typical drum library. So there's a lot of different mixing techniques that are being used on the various different drums, and for those of you that aren't familiar with the drum forge libraries more catered to each instrument. So the way that the kick is all micd up is completely different than how you would, for example, mic up a snare. Lots of different engineering techniques are being used in each case. So the cool thing is that you take that and then you combine it with the different mixing techniques that al used on his instruments and you get a really awesome end product. So to kind of explain more what I'm talking about here, I'll let you a, I'll try and explain how you put it together, but I know, did you use a lot of outboard gear to do this?

Speaker 4 (02:19):

Yeah, I definitely ran these drums through my stressors through an 1176 through a stereo SSL plus 4,000 copy and all kinds of cool stuff, a DBX one 60, just whatever I had laying around, I tried to utilize somehow because it always sounds better when it's baked through some cool gear in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (02:43):

So here's an interesting thought because I think a lot of people when they do a drum session, they approach it from the fact that, okay, I've got to capture this entire drum, but if your goal was okay, I've got to capture a kick, you kind of approach it a lot differently. There's a lot of different angles that you can go at with the mics that would make sense in a full drunk hit scenario. So did you find having that many options really interesting for your mixing approach?

Speaker 4 (03:12):

Well, I see it two ways. Normally when I'm mix, I end up with various tracks that bring in different, I guess, frequency ranges or parallel processing or stuff that the main microphone doesn't have. For instance, if I'm mixing and I want a little bit more sub on a kick, rather than automate an EQ to bring it up, I cut out the kicks where I want more sub and I paste them down to a track beneath that that has a whole different EQ setting. And so it just is a whole different kick sound to begin with, just even though it's the same kick, it's processed differently, making it a different kick sound. So with the drum forge pack, I wanted to include those little things that I do when I'm mixing drums as options on the faders so that when someone would eventually route it out to their DAW, they wouldn't then have to go through yet another extra layer of cutting things up, adding automations, all this stuff. I mean, granted people still are going to do their own processing and automation to it, but I think that this will minimize the need for too much, and in reality, you can just play with the faders within drum forge and be good to go.

Speaker 3 (04:35):

Well, I think that's awesome because the main focus of drum forge was really to be a creative mixing tool when we had started this and being able to do a lot of different sounds, get a lot of cool effects. And one of the things I really enjoyed, because I've been using this a lot recently and mixing a lot with it as we've been putting it through the paces and stuff like that, I love the absolute crazy diversity of sounds. When I mixed drum forge one originally I went for different engineering setup, sort of like, here's a more vintage kind of sound, or here's a more modern kind of sound. So you could transcend genres when you were working in a session depending on what kind of sound you want. But I really like in this product how you came in and just created a whole different soundscape and approach. There's all these crazy mics like Long Air and thud and some other interesting type sounds that do crazy sounds that are really, when I heard 'em the first time I was like, wow, that's really cool. And I kind of had to play with it and find uses for it. But as I did, I really began to love some of them. So I mean, when you were approaching the mixing of this, what was your thought process?

Speaker 4 (05:43):

Well, one thing that I do like about drum forge is the fact that you get tons of different microphone options, but in all reality, I would never use all those options on a real mix. I just wouldn't. I typically am the kind of guy who finds what he likes and then goes with it. But the thing that I did think could be a cool take on it would be to add options that would normally come up throughout mixing. So for instance, one of the kicks has a 80 bump, 80 hertz bump or a 60 hertz bump. Now that's an automation move that I frequently have to do on heavy music throughout a song many, many times.

Speaker 3 (06:24):

Why don't you break down an example of where you would use that for the listener?

Speaker 4 (06:28):

Yeah, so say you have a song where there's a blast beat section or a double base section going into say a single kick thrash beat going into maybe a breakdown. Well, on the double base section or the blast section, I would actually probably lower the 60 hertz and bump the 80, just a little bit lower the 60 to kind of get that out of the way because of the rumble that would be caused, but raise the 80 so that you get that much more punch going the whole time. And then when it switches to a halftime part, that would be when I would lower the 80 and raise the 60 a little more so that there's a little bit more of that sub goodness happening to the kick. And so rather than having to play with bypassing EQs and all kinds of annoying automations, there you go.

(07:25):

There it is on two faders. Or for instance with snares, sometimes you think you have a really good snare sound, but you just want a little bit more snap on the sound and you're not really sure how to get it. You start messing with the eq, but then you make the snare too pointy or you try to mess with maybe bringing it through the bottom snare, but then it just all starts to sound all garbagey because you're hearing the rattle, the snare of the bottom snare going through all your dynamics processing. So I figured, well, why not just put that exact thing super filtered just to the frequencies that I would call crack and have them on a fader so that someone can turn them up when they need to say on a fill or on the hard hits or what, bring it back down on ghost note style parts. So there's all kinds of options like that throughout the entire product. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (08:21):

That's awesome. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (08:22):

So you've got your kicks, your snares, but the thing that's interesting is that you put in some different reverbs on the Toms and the snares, and I'm curious which ones did you use? Because I pretty much just use one type of reverb. I don't get very crafty with reverb. I usually rely on drum room sounds and stuff, but I've noticed anytime that I add reverb to my drums, I don't get too crafty with the type. But what's cool about your instrument is that you've gone in there and you've created some very interesting sort of reverb oriented tails and they're baked in there. So starting first, what kind of reverb units did you use? Maybe it's plugins, maybe it's hardware, and what made you decide to make the choices that you made?

Speaker 3 (09:12):

Can I piggyback on that real quick? Because that was one of the first things I noticed that was really cool when I opened the pack the first time is the way I approach reverb is kind of jelly where I'll take a hall or a room or something in a reverb and I'll be like, that's the one I'm using. But what really kind of was a surprise to me is how every single reverb was totally different sounding. It was either a different unit or a completely different setting, and I was like, whoa, those are some really wild and far out creative reverbs. I would've never have thought to use something like that, but once I put them into the mix, then I kind of discovered where you would use those sounds and it was kind of like an eyeopener because I've never really been, I would say a very creative reverb user, if that makes sense. So I'm definitely curious to hear,

Speaker 4 (09:55):

Let's put it this way, and let's have one little clarification, which is they are baked in, but they are on their own faders, so they're not baked into the main sounds. So you're not stuck with reverb if you don't want it. Just wanted to get that out of the way so that people don't think that there's reverbing hits everywhere and you can't control it, so you can control the amount every time. Basically. I look at reverb a few different ways, but when working with drums, have you ever noticed that you'll get some super sick fills going on and then when you listen back to the mix, they just sound really, really dry, but then you want to add some reverb and it just starts swimming because it's so long of a reverb that the hits start compiling all over each other and it just turns into a gigantic mess.

(10:50):

So I wanted to have some very short, almost gated style reverbs on some of the drums that would allow you to just add a little bit, not too much. If you turn these up too loud, you'll notice they don't sound too good, but just add a little bit so that when you're playing these super fast parts, you can still get them to sound really, really wet and nice and somewhat alive in a room. And then I also added longer reverbs for those snares that you want reverbing off into eternity, for instance, or big Toms that you want traveling on into the ether. So I try to give both options. I've noticed when I'm mixing that oftentimes I will mix reverbs on drums. Sometimes it'll be a slap back in a gated or a slap back and some sort of a hall setting or whatever. So I used a few different ones that I really, really like. I used Valhalla Room, Valhalla Vintage and Valhalla Shimmer. I also use Trust, the old D Verb and then Wave R Verb.

Speaker 2 (11:57):

Yeah, I heard a D verb is like a Andy Sneak favorite.

Speaker 4 (12:00):

I think that that's a favorite of lots and lots of people. I think the trick with D verb though is to not be able to spot the trademark D verb tone. So if it's in there, you probably won't be able to notice it. And again, these reverbs for the most part are meant to be super quiet. They're just there to bring just a little bit more three dimensionality to your drums, especially when they're going super fast. You'll notice the ones on the snares, for instance, have multiple options, and that's why, because different styles of reverbs will not work at certain tempos, and sometimes you just want a little bit of an extra length, and that's the way you go about it. There are other ones literally called length, and that's just there to do exactly what it says. Just make the drum sound longer and then that's it. Sometimes you can get samples that just sound like a stick hitting a potato just like those are my

Speaker 3 (13:00):

Favorite,

Speaker 4 (13:00):

Just like an impulse. I don't mean an impulse like an ir, just like a smack. So I wanted to be able to give a little bit more length when needed to the samples without the user having to resort to a bunch of different tricks.

Speaker 3 (13:15):

Sweet. Well, do you want to get technical and get into some gear? Nerded? Let's talk about mixing snares first and what kind of compressors and attack and release settings and stuff you like on different types of mics and configurations.

Speaker 4 (13:29):

Okay. Well, basically in real life I tend to use three or four different mics on snares. I'll always put a 57 on there just because it's one of those microphones that the majority of the time you're going to get something useful out of it. But I like to sometimes check it against an I five because I also feel like the I five gives you in some cases what you're trying to get out of the F 57 with some eq. So

Speaker 3 (13:59):

Yeah, it's like an I five has, I can equate it like this after having mixed a lot of that, the 50 sevens got more kind of spratty, cracky, rock, and I five to me has the frequency moves, say less from the two to three K punch more to the five and up. It's a little bit more like high fi and snappy sounding, if that makes sense.

Speaker 4 (14:21):

Yeah, it's like a more expensive 57.

Speaker 3 (14:23):

Yeah,

Speaker 4 (14:24):

But sometimes you want that 57 sound, so I'm not going to say that I'm married to an I five. I know some guys like to never use an F 57 because they found an I five, and that's not me. I think it just depends on the source material. So I like to try both of those out. Another favorite that I have is a KM 84, maybe a foot off of the snare. It gives it a nice top that you can't get from the dynamics. The problem with that is that you get a lot of bleeds, so you need to be real crafty with where you place it. And another favorite of mine is to use an SM seven B, kind of like, it's kind of like a room mic, but it's not really, it's literally suspended over the drum set pointed right down at the snare, maybe six feet up. It's out of the range of where the drummer can smack it, but it's just really a nice sound.

Speaker 3 (15:21):

I like that a lot too. We did that on drum forge one with the recorder mans. I had I think a large diaphragm tube condenser or something like that up there, and it kind of blended in. It gives it a really nice body and just smack, and you don't get that sound. You just kind of got to hear it with a direct mic. You know what I mean? It gives it more life and realism. Totally.

Speaker 4 (15:42):

It's not the main mic for sure, but one thing that I've noticed about miking snares is that typically you're not going to get the sound you want with one mic. I mean, it might happen, but all in all, I'm not used to that happening. I'm used to it being some sort of a blend of a few different things and then some samples as well. So I picked my preamps based on what I'm going for in that session. Do I want the drums punchier or do I want them more warm? And that really just depends on program material. So typically with the faster heavier stuff, I'm going to be going with my APIs because you can drive them real hard and they just get super, super punchy and get this nice distortion once you get them running hot enough. But sometimes I use the Vintech Neve style ones when we're going for a more roomy warm type sound, like something has a lot more ghost notes and is more vibe oriented, but that's how I decide on that.

(16:48):

Then honestly, when I'm getting drum sounds, I use no processing at all. I like to do it 100% plugin free until the drum themselves sound great with the microphones. I don't like to be tricked. I don't want to be throwing some awesome plugin that I know the settings on that I know will basically make the snare sound like it's just in your face the whole time, and then you turn it off and it sounds like a limp bag. I don't like to do that to myself. I like to get the drums sounding as awesome as can be with just microphones and tuning. And so it can take a little while and I'll just go ahead and say that that's not always a possibility. So if I am in a situation where I need to move fast and can't experiment all day, you'll see me start throwing plugins on while getting drum sounds. So basically the sooner I start adding plugins means the more the clock is ticking on me. I've got to get the show on the road and time has been called. I can't be getting sounds any longer.

Speaker 3 (17:58):

Hope none of your clients are listening to this.

Speaker 4 (18:01):

No, hey, they've been there too. I tell them in advance as well that the best drum sounds take a little while. I mean they don't have to, but they can. And my best drum sounds have generally happened by doing the no training Wheels method. Do it with microphone placement, tuning and hitting, because at that point, if you get it really good like that, then you're just enhancing it. You're not fixing anything. You're just enhancing it from that point on. So from that point on, then it's all about balancing, in my opinion. Once you have some decent signal on the drums, then I start to find a decent balance of the shells and listen to them together, and then you kind of decide are these shells worth keeping or not? And this is not something that you should wait very long to figure out either. So get them micd, get them tuned, get all that out of the way, make sure they don't sound bad in the room.

(19:00):

Bring some signal in and does it sound like garbage or are you 70% there, 90% there, 50% of the way there, and if it's not 70% of the way there or better, then you have to start looking at the source. Is it the drums, is it the heads? Is it the drummer? If it's 70% of the way there, you still ask yourself the same questions but with a little less scrutiny because say it's under 70%, if it's the heads, it means do we need to replace them? But if it's better than 70%, if it's the heads, the question is do they need to be retuned? If it's the drum themselves, is it a question of we just need to pick a different size from the same drum set, or we need just different drums altogether. So you don't want to go too far into getting tones before you start making these types of decisions. Let's just say that we've got all the drums selected up. It all sounds good. It's coming through pro tools without any plugins. It sounds really good. Then I start adding plugins and processing. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (20:09):

Absolutely. So what kind of processing do you like to do? Let me draw back to that original question. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (20:14):

Well, to get to that point processing, I like to start cutting things that I don't like eqi. That is going to be my first thing to do because

Speaker 3 (20:24):

Mid,

Speaker 4 (20:25):

Yeah, especially on Toms and stuff, because I find that Toms, no matter what, always sound kind of weird through a microphone. It's just one of those instruments that just presents you with something that has to be drastically cut. And some people who know me know that I'll sometimes use a D six on Toms, and that's not a hard and fast rule. But the reason I do that is because the curve, that microphone already naturally has mimics what I would want to kind of do to the drum EQ wise, which is cut the mids, but I'll be looking for those paper bag frequencies, which is in the 400 ish range, and just get rid of them and also look for something nice in the highs with the Toms that would be above the guitars, so above eight K to kind of bring out. And then I'm also going to be looking for what's happening in the low end.

(21:22):

So start by getting rid of the garbage and then highlight what's really, really nice about particular Toms and boost it in areas that it won't interfere with the guitars. Then in a lot of ways, I do the same things on the other drums as well, is just go around and look for what's nasty. I mean, this is all basic stuff, but the reason that I gave such a lead into that is because if you take the time to get all the tuning straight and the micing straight and you've got the right player, you have to do a lot less of this. Or when you go to do this subtractive eq, it's very, very much more in the forefront what the problem is because you're not guessing or you don't have to try to figure out is it the head, is it the drummer, is it the stick? Is it the microphone placement? Is it what it's like? No, all those things are right and I'm still hearing this God awful ring. Okay, isolate it, notch it, boom, you're done. So yeah, I'll try. I'll do that overheads as well. Look for any annoying room resonance frequencies. My room is really nice, but oftentimes I get symbols from rooms that come from other places that suck and oh

Speaker 3 (22:33):

My God, yeah,

Speaker 4 (22:34):

Symbols

Speaker 3 (22:34):

Are the worst. They

Speaker 4 (22:35):

Are, and typically that's where a lot of the room resonances will show up. Typically, if you're hearing them in one place, you should go looking in other drums as well for if those room resonances are there. Sometimes they'll be offensive, sometimes they won't be. But as a general practice, once I discover, let's say I discover that in the 3.2 region, there's just something super annoying in the symbols. Well, I'm going to go look each single symbol and look for that resonance. I'm going to look at all the room mics for that resonance, and I'm going to look at the shells as well because Oz are, if it's in all recorded in the same room, everything in that room is going to be doing that thing. So once I've cleaned it up that I've gotten rid of all the garbage, I've boosted a few of the nice things, then I start looking at compression. But man, I really don't even bother with that too much until mixing time.

Speaker 3 (23:32):

That's sweet. So let's talk about compression. What are you using on, what do you like? For example, I love stressors on snare direct. There's something about two to one and just burying the input with no added distortion modes that I really like. I was doing a mix this morning.

Speaker 4 (23:47):

That's actually exactly what I like on snares too.

Speaker 3 (23:50):

Yeah, that's awesome. Thank

Speaker 4 (23:51):

You.

Speaker 3 (23:51):

I was doing a kick this morning and I had a really cool nineties space rock mix going with really aggressive drums, kind of like nickelback where they're super punchy and just thunderous, and I was using a stressor on kick and going in really hard, but it was more like four to one, but I was using the high pass on it and one of the distortion modes, and I just really liked how it focused the kick and made it super aggressive really in your face. And that's one of the things I really love about that compressor. It's just you can dig in with it and you don't have to be nice and you can really hear what you're doing. Some compressors like an 1176, sometimes the attack and release isn't so audible, but on a distress, you move it a little bit, you know what you're getting yourself into. And it's really, really awesome for direct mics, at least in my opinion. I mean, there are many

Speaker 4 (24:39):

Compressors that

Speaker 3 (24:40):

Work great on it, but distress, it always works, and it's just a great utility knife compressor,

Speaker 4 (24:48):

Not just on drums. That's just a great compressor on almost everything. But another compressor that I love in hardware and some of the plugin versions are, okay, UAD has a version that it's not too bad is the DBX one 60, especially on snares and that I'll put at a four to one ratio and there's no attack and release controls, so you just put it at the four to one ratio and you set your threshold, and I don't like it to get more than six on the can reduction, and it just does something magical to snares, is it just punch a lot harder. I also like to run samples through the DBX one 60 a lot. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (25:33):

I've never tried it. I've always wanted to, but I've never purchased one or the only time I've heard it is when I was at your room and it seems like it's pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (25:41):

It is very cool. It's one of those inexpensive but super cool hardware compressors that I don't know, I just haven't heard it recreated properly. Another hardware unit, and I've said this before that I really, really like is the SPL transient designer, but I do not.

Speaker 3 (25:57):

Yeah, I agree with you on that.

Speaker 4 (25:58):

I don't like the plugin versions though. I do not like the plugin SPL transient designer. I'll go with Sify any day over the SPL mods, but the hardware version of the SPL Transient designer is killer. I used to have eight channels. I was copying Andy sleep, I sold them. I don't know why I generally don't regret selling gear, but that's something I do regret because the hardware SPL transient designers are phenomenal.

Speaker 3 (26:27):

I bought it like a two channel version of it. I'm like, this is awesome. So I sold it. Then I bought next week the four channel version, and then I sold it. I don't know why. I don't even remember. This was many years ago, and now I'm kicking myself in the butt because that box really does have some magic in it.

Speaker 2 (26:41):

There's

Speaker 3 (26:42):

Something about it that just works.

Speaker 2 (26:43):

I typically like to use the transient designer on kicks or I'll use a compressor and a transient designer on a snare, but I won't use a compressor on a kick. Is that something that you experience?

Speaker 4 (26:55):

Okay, so when I use a compressor on a kick and it's very sparingly and are we talking about real kick or are we talking a sample?

Speaker 2 (27:04):

Well, how about both?

Speaker 4 (27:05):

Okay. On a real kick, I'm more likely to use it because the dynamics and the performance are going to be way more all over the place. So I'll try to use a compressor on the kicks just to kind of even it out. But in general, I'm not a huge fan of it though. Sometimes I will do the trick on samples where I'll just cut it from 5K and up and just distort and compress the shit out of that with an API compressor, or maybe even send it to the distressor on nuke mode, just obliterate it and then bury it as a parallel track. But in general, no, I'm not a huge fan of compressing kicks. I find that it gets into pumpy V very, very easily and doesn't quite do the right thing.

Speaker 3 (27:52):

I like it on rock, but I really don't like it very much on metal or if I'm just baking a hard sample. For example, the song I was doing today, the kick was like boom, clap, boom clap. So I mean, it was really easy to dig in, but if it was like it gets really dangerous. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (28:09):

Absolutely. Another compressor I like on snare, and this is going to sound simple, but I just like it, and Joey, I know you like it too, is on the SSL channel strip plugin.

Speaker 3 (28:17):

Yeah, that is good.

Speaker 4 (28:18):

Yeah, I just like it. I do not put it on fast attack generally sometimes get the gain reduction right between three and six on it. I don't actually know if those meters are perfectly accurate. I just know that when the lights, the gain reduction light goes to three or six, that's kind of where I like it to be with a very fast release. And yeah, sometimes that's all the compression I find I need on the snare. Maybe a little bit of limiting or clipping afterwards, but sometimes that's all I need. I tried to go simple first and add stuff as needed just on the thought that adding plugins in my experience is typically a symptom of a shitty source. If you have to do a whole lot of processing and then a whole lot more and then a whole lot more and then a whole lot more, you probably got a problem at the source. Well,

Speaker 2 (29:10):

I think you should get the source as close to your ideal sound as possible. It shouldn't sound like it's a mile away.

Speaker 4 (29:19):

No, absolutely not. Now, of course, there are some instruments that do need a long chain like bass guitar or vocals. Sometimes that's the way it goes, but I find that with a lot of drums, you typically don't need a mile long chain. Typically, if you're starting with a good source, you can get away with two or three things on there and just be good to go. And also the reason that I don't go crazy on the compression on the individual channels is because I like to do stuff in layers. I like to then say that I have four snares going, a snare top, snare bottom, and then a couple samples. I then will put them into a snare group that I'll be compressing a little, but then they'll all go to a drum bus, which will have a little more compression. And so I don't want to go insane at any one point knowing that there's going to be even more compression later, if that makes sense. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (30:16):

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (30:16):

Do you guys go nuts at all?

Speaker 3 (30:18):

No, not at all. I like stage compression very much.

Speaker 2 (30:21):

Yeah, a lot of stage compression. And for me, I do like to use the fast attack on the SSL for example, but I'll bring that attack back with a transient designer. Ah,

Speaker 4 (30:32):

Okay, got it. I should try that sometime.

Speaker 2 (30:35):

It's like I can never get the combination of all the settings to do exactly what I want unless it's on fast attack. And then I'm like, well, now I need more attacks. So I just use a transient designer and it seems to work pretty well. But I would say if it's a typical metal core snare sound, 99% of the time that's going to be the way that I get the sound, but that wouldn't work on everything.

Speaker 3 (30:59):

Yeah. One thing you turned me onto Joey is staged clipping. I never was much of a clipper because I mixed OTBA lot, and in the last year and a half I've done a lot more clipping on my drums, and I really do a lot of different stages of clipping on the individuals, the buses, and just stacked on top of each other. And that's something that I think is pretty cool to experiment with because it yields different sounds.

Speaker 4 (31:23):

Same here. You opened me up to that as well.

Speaker 2 (31:26):

Well, the thing I liked about when we started this, you were talking about the 60 versus the 80 hertz on the cake.

Speaker 4 (31:32):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (31:32):

And the thing I really like about that is it kind of coincides with my philosophy on mixing, which is a lot of little moves make one big result.

Speaker 4 (31:40):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (31:40):

And just doing that tiny little bit of attention to detail, moving the 60 and the 80 up and down throughout the song, that's exactly what it takes, I think, to get the perfect drum sound because the perfect drum sound is not static.

Speaker 4 (31:57):

No, it's definitely not a static thing.

(31:59):

It's changes per part. So that's why, for instance, on some of the Toms, I added the snap action, I mean the snap fader for instance, because who here has been mixing really fast? Toms, that sound really good, but then a fast section goes on with a lot of stuff going on, and no matter how much you automate stuff like automate the kicks down and automate the guitars, the Toms just kind of lose their place. They just kind of get buried. So rather than do massive EQ changes to the Toms, you have this little fader that gives you just a little bit more snap or say that you're done with a blast beat section. You've gone into a breakdown where you just need the big snare that's really long and so has a lot more crack than on the blast beat. That's why I had, for instance, the thud fader. You don't just add a little bit more of that. That way you don't have to do these super drastic things just to get the drums to work right as the song changes. So the idea behind the faders is to give you the ability to basically sculpt the tone of the drums to the part in the song

Speaker 2 (33:07):

Without

Speaker 4 (33:08):

Having to do all these drastic mix things that will get real complicated in terms of bypassing plugins, automating more EQs than you have to, and all this stuff that you can at least minimize it that much more by keeping it within the plugin.

Speaker 5 (33:23):

Hey, a l Levy here, I just want to tell you about a great deal that we have for you on my drum forge ELE expansion pack. I want to thank you for listening to this episode, and if it sounds like you want my drum forge pack, just go to drum forge.com/e, that's drum forge.com/el and use code U-R-M-E-L-E 20 at checkout. That's U-R-M-E-L-E 20. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 3 (33:57):

Well, you know what the real beauty of that is though? It speeds up the entire workflow. You might not even realize this, but not having to deal with a bunch of EQ and compression automation and bus automation and et cetera, and just being able to do one thing really quick and easy means you can mix faster and more accurately, which means you make more money, which again, I'll reiterate, which I always hammer on, is a huge thing in my world. When you're kicking out a bajillion songs every month, speed is everything in consistency. So anything that simplifies the process is a direct impact and injection into my wallet, which is nice because you got to pay the bills. So it's great,

Speaker 4 (34:34):

And let's take money out of the equation for a second. Let's just say from a pure artistic perspective of someone who just wants to have a really good time mixing something or writing something, one of the number one inspiration killers is having to deal with routing and technical stuff and little details that are not creative. So the more you can get those out of the way, the more free your mind is to actually do the fun part.

Speaker 3 (35:04):

Absolutely. You

Speaker 4 (35:05):

Could just focus on being creative. So yeah, the benefit is not only financial, but also artistic.

Speaker 2 (35:11):

Absolutely. Yeah. If you guys want to check out the expansion pack, you can check it [email protected] slash el, and if you guys have any questions about this expansion pack or anything about drum forge or even drum mixing in general, just go to the Facebook group that we have set up for you and ask away, and I'm sure one of us will see it. Thanks for listening. The

Speaker 1 (35:33):

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