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How to record nice drums on ios

cuscolimacuscolima
in General App Discussion

I have tried all kind of apps, methods and effects but my drums still sucks...

Can anyone give me a (complete) procedure or best practices specifically for iOS to help with this ?

Thanks!

Comments

  • BroCoastBroCoast

    Have you tried Patterning 2?

    Garageband drums are pretty good too if you tweak them (move midi notes around and adjust velocity until it sounds good.)

    Drums take some patience to get great results.

  • MeatWalrusMeatWalrus

    Hi ,
    DrumPerfect Pro has awesome drum capability .
    Or any of the LumBeat apps are good and there are many more good drum apps available.

  • cuscolimacuscolima

    Thanks for the suggestion. I have no doubt that these are very good drums generators (and I have all of them) but I would like to know how to best make them “sound” in a mix

  • schsch

    Fundamentally, the best thing to do is to make sure the individual drums are on separate channels for individual processing to equalize/compress/add fx to each of them. Then sum them to a bus for overall processing.

  • Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredrWrlds2ndBstGeoshredr

    FAC Maxima can help a lot. But it depends on what’s lacking, which you haven’t stated.

  • cuscolimacuscolima

    @sch said:
    Fundamentally, the best thing to do is to make sure the individual drums are on separate channels for individual processing to equalize/compress/add fx to each of them. Then sum them to a bus for overall processing.

    Great thanks. That’s a good start. So I need apps that are able to have multiple output. I know I can do that with the following (integrated but IAA)

    • SeekBeats
    • DrumPerfect Pro
    • Patterning

    Or via AU

    • Vatanator
    • Ruismaker (the whole family)
    • Etc

    Then...what should I do with the snares, the hi-hats, the drums, etc. I imagine there is a special treatment for each one of them?

    Thanks again for the tricks!

  • schsch
    edited May 2019

    Multiple outputs are best, but you can also use multiple instances of the same source to yield individual tracks for mixing. For example, in Cubasis, use several instances of the Classic Drum Machine(s), one for the snare, one for the kick, one for the ...

    WRT the individual processing, you want to EQ each track to use (wherever possible) its own set of frequencies. This way, the tracks are not overlapping one another in the frequency spectrum, which will help keep them from getting buried in the mix.

  • wimwim
    edited May 2019

    You could write a book on the subject (actually, there probably are several). But a few basic shortcuts for the lazy and/or unskilled (I fall into both categories) while building up skills:

    • Beat Former is a really great and free app that can do wonders when you have no choice but to work on a full mix. With just three knobs and very little knowledge of what they do, you can: dial up or down the “boom” factor of the kick, tune the kick to certain notes, make things crisper or less so, add or subtract high-end, etc. etc. etc. Really, you can just get in and tweak those knobs to taste without even knowing what you’re doing.
    • FAC Transient is terrific for punching up drums.
    • FAC Maxima is probably the best and easiest to use compressor I’ve used for drums.
    • When compressing drums, I have better luck with a relatively long attack time to avoid squashing the transients.
    • Reverb is usually only useful on snares, claps, and hats, not kicks or toms. (There are exceptions to every rule, though.)
    • Kicks and bass parts often overlap the same frequency space as bass parts, so both get mushed together. Solo the drums and find the range that most boosts the kick. Do the same for the Bass. Where those ranges overlap is a good area to focus. If you need more kick, boost in that area and cut the bass in the same area. Opposite if you need more bass.
    • Sidechain compression on the bass can bring out the kick. Send the kick to the sidechain input of the compressor on the bass. This will briefly reduce the bass volume when the kick sounds.
    • Panning is your friend. It’s amazing what simply panning the snare and hats a little bit to opposite sides of center can do.
    • Varying hi-hat velocities can make a big difference. For 1/16 hats, I usually start by lowering the 3rd 1/16th note of each beat by about 25%, the 2nd and 4th by about 40%. Sometimes I’ll boost the 2nd and 4th beat, or the 1st and 2nd beat depending on the feel. Then randomize everything up or down by a bit.

    Those are all easy shortcuts that have helped me.

  • mrufino1mrufino1

    Make sure your arrangement allows the space for your drums that you envision.

  • cuscolimacuscolima

    Thanks all of you. I have to put this into practice. Does it help to do a parallel compression on the drums ?

  • RichtownsRichtowns
    edited May 2019

    FWIW The best kick sound Ive ever got is Ruismaker FM default kit through Roughrider2. Just a smidge of RR2s compression goes a long way.

  • mrufino1mrufino1

    @cuscolima said:
    Thanks all of you. I have to put this into practice. Does it help to do a parallel compression on the drums ?

    When parallel compression is needed, yes. Try it, see if it works for the song you are mixing.

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