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View Single Post Thread: Guide to Reaper and EZDrummer Pt II (56K watch off )

07-29-2008, 12:48 AM #1

Join Date: Sep 2007

Location: Athens, GA
Matt Parsons Posts: 13,944
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Guide to Reaper and EZDrummer Pt II (56K watch off )

Hey everyone. This is Part II of my EZDrummer/Reaper guide. In the first part, I showed you how to set up EZdrummer and Reaper so you could edit the
drums and get a better sound. In this sec tion, I'll show you all the techniques I use to get a better drum sound. In all of my editing and proc essing, I
only ever use these techniques.

Step 1: Routing.

Routing, like I touc hed on in Pt I, is how you tell what audio to go where. Routing is very convenient and it can make mixing and processing VERY easy
and hands on. A very easy and simple use of routing is to make a Folder, and route all the trac ks to go to the folder only, and not the master track. This
way, you c an bring the entire drum sec tion up at the same time without having to individually boost each trac k. Here's how you do it: First, go into the
Routing Matrix, located on the bottom of the Reaper sc reen.

You can pretty easily send audio from one trac k to another with this tool. What we want to do now is take our drum tracks, and route them to the Drum
folder, and NOT to the Master Bus. This way we get c omplete control over the drum sound through the drum folder, and nothing gets through to the
master bus. To do that, clic k on stuff until it looks like this:

Step 2: EQ

This is perhaps the easiest to to learn, and the most difficult to master. This is where you will train your ear, and this is where you will get endlessly
frustrated. Here's the built in EQ in Reaper. I like it a lot.
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That's a general EQ curve for a kic k drum I might use. Boost at 60Hz, cut at 400Hz, boost at 3KHz, and boost at 10KHz.

Some other general EQ suggestions:

Snare- High pass at 100Hz ( gets rid of any mud ), boost at 250Hz ( adds body, punch ), c ut at 800Hz ( gets out of the way of the guitar ), boost at
3KHz ( adds attack ), boost at 8-15KHz ( adds life, air )
Toms- Same as bass drum, but boost at 110Hz instead of 50, and highpass at 70Hz
Cymbals- Highpass at 500Hz

Step 3: Reverb

Since we killed all of the nic e room sound we had to begin with, its time to add some reverb after the fac t. A very good free plug in is Anwida Soft's DX
Reverb Lite. Totally free and it sounds good. It doesn't have many features, but hey, c an't c omplain for free, right?

You can add the Reverb plug in to eac h track individually. However, that can get c umbersome and annoying, as well as wasting valuable PC resourc es.
What I do is set up a "Reverb" trac k. Add the track to the Drum folder, and set the routing up like so:

That's what I send to the reverb bus. You c an only send snare if you want, or nothing at all. Or you can add the kic k drum. It's your choice, do what
sounds best to you.

Set up the reverb effec t like this:

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Mix needs to be 100%. You c an set everything else however you want it. Now you c an c ontrol the reverb level for all the drums with the handy "Reverb"
trac k.

Step 4: Parallel Compression

This is a VERY powerful effect. This is where the HUGE attack c omes from ( aside from great samples of c ourse ). Parallel c ompression is where you have
a dry track and a c ompressed trac k running side by side. Like reverb, you c an set a compressor on eac h track and adjust the Wet/Dry in there, OR you
can just c reate a c ompressor bus. Some people make a compressor bus for the entire drum set. I prefer to make a c ompressor bus for eac h individual
drum groups. I NEVER EVER EVER EVER compress cymbals. I HATE how that sounds.

Here's how I set up a kick drum parallel compressor:

The routing is in place, sweet. Now I add the ReaComp effect.

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ReaComp is a NICE compressor. I enjoy it quite a bit. Now, to get it set up, you'll want to put these settings in plac e:

Set the threshold to where you want it. The lower the threshold, the more exaggerated the effec t will be. I set the ratio to 8:1, the attack slow, and
the release fast. The fast attac k allows only the attac k to c ome through, and then the compressor kicks in and makes the rest of the hit quieter. This
allows you to control how loud the initial attac k is, while using the original trac ks to control the actual body and sustain of the note.

This is what my parallel compressor track looks like while its running:

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This is only for the kic k trac k. I do a separate track for snare and toms as well. Another cool benefit of this, depending on how you set the release, is
that this can be used to automatic ally bac k the kick drum out of the mix a little bit for extremely fast double bass, or quiet the snare drum for blast
beats, making it sound a little more realistic.

Step 5: Sample Replac ement

Sample replacement is great. Unfortunately, EZdrummer doesn't provide a ton samples for you to use. If you want a sound that isn't available with the
stoc k sounds, well, you're out of luck... unless you have a sample replac ement plug in. Luckily for us Reaper has a sample replac ement plug in c alled
"ReaSamplomatic 5000". Cute name. But it works pretty well, for a free plug in.

First you set the routing up. You want to get the MIDI signal from the "MIDI Drums" plug in. And you want to send the audio to the Drums folder.

The important thing here is that the MIDI is sending.

Now we'll set up the effect.

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In EZdrummer, the kick drum is note 35 and 36. So I set it up to read from notes 35 to 36. For snare, its 38. If you're programming the other drums I'm
sure you know the MIDI number c odes. I have the whole kit memorized.

A little trick with EZDrummer to get a more c onsistent kick sound is to set up two instanc es of the VSTi. Use one for the kick drum, and one for
everything else. Turn humanizer off on the kick drum, but turn it on for everything else. It looks like this:

If you don't, the bass drum sounds like a tire or a spattering noise when you do anything decently fast on it.

Annnnnd that's my guide! Everything I do with drum processing involves one of these tec hniques.

For comparison, here is totally raw EZdrummer: http://www.soundc lic k.com/bands/page...songID=6761111

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And here is my proc essed version: http://www.soundc lick.com/bands/page...songID=6746055

Enjoy!

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