Black Crowes, Slash, and Joe Satriani in a blender (but less bloody)

Just curious what stands out to you as non-human sounding about the drums?

Ironically, I actually went against the grain and used MIDI loops to construct much of this drum track. I usually just point and click to compose my drums but I thought using a loop played by a real drummer would make it sound more natural. I also used a lot more "room" sound as opposed to the very close mic'd "clicky" sounding drums that are all the rage. I guess it didn't work for you :).

Thanks for listening though.

No yours do sound human , mine never do, you misunderstood, I think the drums in this track sound outstanding

I wish I could get drums to sound this good.
 
No yours do sound human , mine never do, you misunderstood, I think the drums in this track sound outstanding

I wish I could get drums to sound this good.

Oh cool, thanks! Sorry I misunderstood.

These are Steven Slate Drums version 4.0. I created a custom kit. It is a blend of their standard "rock" kit and I added some of the "Zep" snare and "Zep" bass drum as extra layers to blend some more of the vintage tone on top of the more modern kit sound.

In terms of making sure your drums sound human...my biggest advice would be to make sure you vary the dynamics (velocity in MIDI terms) for realism. For example, if I have a 16th note fill I would count each group of 4 notes as "1-ee-and-uh" and I would make sure that the note emphasis is on the "1" and not the "ee". If you are grooving 8th notes ("1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and") on the hi-hat the "1" should be higher velocity than the "and".

Also, every note hit shouldn't land perfectly quantized on the beat. It should push or pull at times depending what's going on with the music.

Finally, I like to run the whole kit through iZotope's Alloy plugin for some fine tuning of EQ and bus compression. The bus compression brings up the "room" sound and the EQ I use to add a little sizzle to the cymbals and oomph to the bass drum.
 
Classic Rock & Cool Drums!

No yours do sound human , mine never do, you misunderstood, I think the drums in this track sound outstanding

I wish I could get drums to sound this good.

That's OK, I understood what you meant, (especially after you said about "...sitting around writing & recording original-music all day" or something like that!) but I could see where the confusion was...I agree about the drums sounding really good too btw!

Bill
 
I got SSD4 recently.

I've had SSD samples for Drumagog for a long time.

The SSD samples are always top notch and SSD4 is incredible.

The only negatives I have are that Slate is a smallish company and you have to live with some issues if you are an early adopter. But well worth it for the samples. I can't get off the "Black" kit :)

Richard
 
Adam, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts as you recreate each of the guitar patches on the video. As you tweak, what settings work and don't work? What parameters were critical to allow the patches to work together in the mix?
 
Adam, this is just awesome! Great tones, great playing, and great recording techniques! Hearing your stuff inspires me to get better and work on all of those areas! Thanks for sharing!
 
Here are the patches I used.

As I mentioned, there are basically just 3 tracks.

Right rhythm track is a Friedman BE. Left rhythm track is a cranked AC30TB. These amps play nicely together! These patches both use factory IR's.

The lead track is a Friedman HBE. This patch does use Red Wirez IR's. To duplicate it precisely you will need "BasketweaveG12M25s-U87-CapEdge-1in" and "Marshall 1960B-V30s-R121-Cap-4in". I stole this cab recipe from Steve Stevens who sent us one of his Axe-FX II patches at one point.

There's one other track in there on the left side during the verses that has an auto-wah sound to it. This is just the AC30TB with a wah tied to the envelope. I didn't save that patch so you're on your own for that one :).

I used my PRS SC245 for all tracks. This guitar rules... so if you don't have one...bummer.
 

Attachments

  • Jammy Rock Friedman BE Rhythm.syx
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  • Jammy Rock Vox TB Rhythm.syx
    6.3 KB · Views: 105
  • Jammy Rock Lead HBE 2.syx
    6.3 KB · Views: 112
Here are the patches I used.

As I mentioned, there are basically just 3 tracks.

Right rhythm track is a Friedman BE. Left rhythm track is a cranked AC30TB. These amps play nicely together! These patches both use factory IR's.

The lead track is a Friedman HBE. This patch does use Red Wirez IR's. To duplicate it precisely you will need "BasketweaveG12M25s-U87-CapEdge-1in" and "Marshall 1960B-V30s-R121-Cap-4in". I stole this cab recipe from Steve Stevens who sent us one of his Axe-FX II patches at one point.

There's one other track in there on the left side during the verses that has an auto-wah sound to it. This is just the AC30TB with a wah tied to the envelope. I didn't save that patch so you're on your own for that one :).

I used my PRS SC245 for all tracks. This guitar rules... so if you don't have one...bummer.

Nice. Amazing close-to-stock settings. And IRs without mic simulation (except the lead). Things sound dark on their own but they fit in the mix very well.

Ah, to hell with all this tone nonsense, it's a great track!

Thanks for sharing.
 
Nice. Amazing close-to-stock settings. And IRs without mic simulation (except the lead). Things sound dark on their own but they fit in the mix very well.

Ah, to hell with all this tone nonsense, it's a great track!

Thanks for sharing.

I've found that the mastering process brings up the highs and presence of a mix. So I dial up a tone, record it, and listen to it back ensuring that the mastering plugin (Ozone 4 in my case) is operating on the master mix track so I hear can what that tone actually will sound like on the final track. The Ozone settings will always vary slightly from when I start to when I finish but the settings are usually close enough to give me a general idea.

So that's probably why the dry tones sound a bit darker than the finished product.
 
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