Original subtitles

So Toms.

SansAmp again.

Let's see what I've got going on here.

Let's see what I had.

Okay. Again, it's like SansAmp.

Distortion for me, when I started using it, I liked it.

It was a replacement for a room sound or a reverb.

Instead of having any ambiance, even a live ambiance.

It brought the live ambiance up in whatever I'd put it on.

So if it's a snare drum, just like with a guitar,

it'd bring up all the noise that you don't want sometimes.

With drums, the SansAmp, or any distortion will,

I just prefer the SansAmp.

And Decapitator is a good one too, but this is what I've always used

from the days of the guitar pedal.

And the plug-in is just... it's another animal, but it's equally as good.

It tends to bring up...

You can hear that there's some resonances, you can hear some dirt on that,

and you can sometimes smooth those things out or get rid of them

or make it desirable in there.

If it's a cymbal and you have really ratty top end, it'll often

smooth that out because it allowed distortion to other frequencies around it.

And it'll just make it sound sort of intentional.

See that.

That rattiness is now down lower, I don't know, 1K now.

And I think that noise sounds good at that frequency.

Let's see what I did with the EQ.

I'm actually trying to add some of it back in.

I'm taking a bit of 10K off.

I'm trying to maybe bring that noise out now here.

I mean, bring it up.

And with this too, with this 900.

You can hear that.

It's a necessary component of the rhythm to my ear,

but that's distracting to my ear.

I want it in there, but I want it to be subversive.

Cooler. I mean, sort of...

You know what, it sounds the.... all this guitar stuff,

it all sounds a bit sneaky and mysterious to me...

as a vibe.

But those sounds didn't.

So I think I was just trying to make it more...

Actually, like a guy sneaking around in an alleyway trying not to be seen.

And also, it gave a little bit of length in between those Toms.

So you could hear that they were there even though they didn't have that top end.

Cymbals.

Did nothing to them except what's happening on the drum bus,

which, of course, is going to be quite big.

First huge thing.

It's often, like with the Devil-Loc, this is a model of the Shure Level Loc.

The interesting thing about a Level Loc, the way I started using it,

which I don't think anybody's done is, that it was a mic-level compressor.

I wasn't sending it off a desk.

I ended up doing that with pads

because I blew my first one up immediately when I tried to do it off the desk.

I didn't realize it was mic-level.

And the TV repair man who fixed it said, "What did you do?"

And I told him. He says mic-level.

I started using it mic-level, just plug a mic into it

and then that into a mic pre.

And it used to be out with the drummer in the studio.

I'd have to go out there and set it or if it was Jerry Morada [SP] or Pete Thomas,

they got into setting it themselves because it changes the way you play.

And I love the sound of it. Just snuck in a little bit.

You can see that my...

It's doing a lot at a very low setting.

Although the setting's quite high.

I don't normally get up into that number five region.

It's also quite high.

I will often just sneak it in in such a small degree, but it's enough

for it to give you an excitement factor.

I know this isn't a clean sound, but I'm not going to rewrite it.

I'm just going to leave it and just say...

so I can get back to it and I can show you.

If I do take everything out here.

Okay, that's a good bypass. Right?

I mean, that's pretty...

I often use it just like that.

Just the tiniest little bit of pushing up.

You can hear the snare get a little bit crunchier.

Does another thing again.

Hear the length on the snare?

And that's without starting to use the parameters they give you to build a sound.

So, I, usually...like I said, my starting point is probably here.

You can see how subtle that...

But it definitely gives the snare drum way more energy.

You hear the room reacting.

Whatever that is on that snare drum, whatever that...

I mean, what you can do with this, especially not using it as a sledgehammer,

but as just a contour or energy machine.

Just a little bit snuck in there.

It's usually what I've done with SansAmp additions

and my crunchy compressor additions.

The Omnipressor, sometimes I use that on cymbals to mimic a Level Loc

or a Spectra Sonic 610.

it's not like the sledgehammer comes...

It's really just to give it a little more length and a little extra oomph.

And the minute I bring it up and I hear it,

and then I usually back it off a couple of dB.

And then start muting it to see what difference it's making.

And it's usually making the difference that it's doing what I want it to do

at that level.

So what it ends up meaning a lot of the times...

especially with live drums, I don't usually then compress it afterwards.

I am here, we'll get to that.

Which this is a compressor over the whole drum kit.

Often, with live drums, I never get a compressor.

I don't have any compression.

If I record the drums, I don't compress them.

And I don't compress them in the mix.

It's all done with additive or parallel.

Until the stereo bus.

And then I smash the fucking shit out of it.

Let's see what some of these other things are doing.

Maybe I should... Let me take everything out for a second.

So I don't remember exactly, but I probably would've done this

to a lesser degree like I showed you, where the mix control was lower.

And then I probably would've put...

This, I wouldn't have had out.

But that's...

99 times out of 100, I don't use any compression or limiting in this thing.

That will not be happening.

I thought it needed more in this case.

Oh, well, there we go. Okay.

So I might have had this in from the get.

Because that looks more like what I would have.

That's normal for me.

And I just use this for extra EQ, no other reason.

I can just quickly EQ a section of the...

And I have another EQ here, but I just really like this

for the top end, but I'm not using it on this.

What did I do here? Anything?

No, I didn't use that either.

But something like the drum bus, I have all this stuff on except for the Trans-X.

Because even just turning that on can switch the phase relationship

between my sample, which is going to the Mix Bux,

which maybe I should have started saying that like these sounds.

I have in the Mix Bux because I don't want that sub affecting the Devil-Loc

and squishing things for the rest of the kit.

So I, most often, keep my samples in the Mix Bux

and then I have the kit going here.

This usually, I have in because if it's deactivated and then I activate it,

I got to go through and figure out what it's done to my phase.

But it also changes a relationship when it's there.

Just not as much it seems.

And when I turn it on, let's see.

I hear something but it's probably just what I was trying to get out of it.

You can see, I shortened the release here a bit.

It's got a little curve to it, but it's pushing those transients a bit.

But I think the main thing...

...is just cleaning up the tail end, the release of it a little bit.

That makes it sound more aggressive to me.

Let's hear here without the samples.

I think I'm hearing that.

It's just another component in there.

I hear the pitch drop a little bit in that midrange, which I prefer over the clicky.

And then when this comes in.

There's that thing where...

That sounds like glue to me, it just...

I just thought of this the other day and I was mentioning it to some people,

the early home cinema speaker systems that you could buy for practically nothing,

they were $100 or something.

And you'd get these little cubes.

And I don't think there's anything below one K on them.

They're just mid-range and top end.

And not all there even in that range.

It's like some real scoops and real peaks and valleys.

And then you had a subwoofer, which may be incorporated 120 down,

150 down, maybe 100 down. I'm not sure.

But I could never tell because the room plays such a...

your living room plays such a big deal in those things.

But I never could understand why it sounded all right when you had both,

but if the speakers weren't on and you heard the subwoofer...

And then if you just listened to the little speakers,

it sounded like a transistor radio with nothing below 1K.

But then you put them both together, it's like, oh yeah,

I hear all the dialogue, 500 hertz, 800 hertz.

And all that stuff above that sounded really notched sounds smooth.

What is that?

I don't know enough to tell you.

But I hear that here. This is...

There is a mid-range component in.

But I don't know.

Phase relationships and adding it all together,

I hear the pitch of that drop a little bit when it's with the supplied kit.

Because when I solo that, it sounds a little higher

than I would've thought.

Put it together, whatever phase, I might have flopped the phase to do that,

or maybe it came up.

What often happens with me is when I don't have the Trans-X in,

I do have to flip the phase of my sample.

Let's see.

You know what, I can't tell what I'm hearing there actually,

but I'll explain to you.

I mean, what does happen, I'll often put that in and my sub will go away.

And I'll just come up and flip the phase. But I also use phase.

I've explained this before, but maybe it's good just to quickly go over it again.

I don't look at phase like a maintenance tool, a correction tool,

it's just is an extra button on your EQ, and it is EQ.

It's almost like an algorithm switch or something where you have all this stuff

on your EQ that you can play with and do your sounds.

But if you flip the phase, then it's like it's using a different algorithm.

It sounds completely different.

But then you can go through and EQ it like it's a whole different EQ.

It's a whole nother set of sounds.

So there's really maybe in wires, in the electronic world,

there's reasons to think about it in a technical fashion.

But I don't see any reason to think about it in... like listening

and the sound of the mix.

There's been so many times I've flopped the phase and all the low end went away,

but the sound sounded better.

So I think most people, if the low end goes away,

"Nope, nope, that's out of phase, boom."

Flop the phase and you take a big fat snare and you might...

if you have the two mics, relative sound, you can make a snare sound like

it's a Piccolo snare, which may be desirable

with the kick drum and SansAmp,

and then playing with high pass filters, which also alters phase relationships.

It's a whole nother pallet of sound to listen to your EQ and then flip the phase.

And then try listening to your EQ again, doing different stuff,

because it may be that you want it out of phase and then EQ it to fit the track.

So it's just another button that doubles up the power of your EQ.

All the EQs, by the way. That's why I just...

I don't like using EQs that don't have a phase button.

Because I don't want to have that as a plug-in on...you know.

I just want to put on an EQ, start messing with it,

and then flip the phase, mess with it, now flip the phase back.

If I have to do two plug-ins, it's a big deal when you have to do that

over and over when you're mixing.

It's a convenience factor having to put either two plug-ins or one.

I'll go for the one that has the phase button.

So that's why if you see API EQs here.

There's other APIs I like.

But this one was the first one that had a phase button that actually gave you

your line-in pre-channel with the EQ, instead of just giving you the EQ.

Because on an API, the EQ didn't have a phase button.