Importance of seperate drum outs

zfigz · Post by **zfigz** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 8:32 am

Just how significant is it to have seperate outs for different drum shots? All the tracks I've ever made I always had the drums in either batter or kontakt and had them in one track in Live...

So should I start making seperate tracks for my drum shots? Also, if I do have seperate outs for the drums would I have all the seperate outs come to a final out to mix all the drum parts?

thanks.

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 8:54 am

Yeah I think for ultimate flexibility with level/eq/compression/stereo placement/fx you should do separate outs and then bring them all together in a drums sub mix to control their overall level.

zfigz · Post by **zfigz** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 8:57 am

What do you mean by drums submix...you mean have all of my individual outs come right back together to add effects etc to all the drums sounds as a whole?

thanks

HD1 · Post by **HD1** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 9:34 am

I think he means fine tune the individual drum tracks with effects etc, then when you're happy consolidate them into one track. I suppose at this stage any tweaks would only be made to 'fine tune' the sound and integrate it with the rest of the track. Any effects stuff you might want to do, might be best to do whilst all the drum shots are divided.

also, sometimes I dont know where I'm going when I start a new piece, So I would be less inclined to start outputting individual drums here and there....until I knew where the track was going. Or am I stating the obvious ? anyways I definately think its good practice, but for aimlessly jamming might not be so necessary

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 10:47 am

zfigz wrote:What do you mean by drums submix...you mean have all of my individual outs come right back together to add effects etc to all the drums sounds as a whole?

thanks

Yeah, what I'm saying is you get the individual drums set at the right levels relative to each other, also allows you to say add a little compression to just the kick etc - maximum control and flexibility with the individual parts.

Then you bring em all back together in a drums sub mix so you can set the level of the drums relative to other elements of the track, or do something like add a touch of ambience to the entire kit.

Make sense?

zfigz · Post by **zfigz** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 10:49 am

yeah, it makes sense, but doesn't it really bog a system down if you use so many tracks for drums? Also could I also have my instrument routed directly out of kontakt as an instrument so that I wouldn't have to have another instance of kontakt that would take precious resources away..

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 11:07 am

zfigz wrote:yeah, it makes sense, but doesn't it really bog a system down if you use so many tracks for drums? Also could I also have my instrument routed directly out of kontakt as an instrument so that I wouldn't have to have another instance of kontakt that would take precious resources away..

If I understand your question, you can do this with one instance of a multi-out instrument. You don't need to load 5 instances of Kontakt to get separate tracks for hats, kick, snare, and 2 toms, so it's not so much a drain on cpu from the plugin side but maybe a bit of a drain from the daw side as you'll have extra channels running, possibly with things like eq, compression and fx on them.

ILTK · Post by **ILTK** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:57 pm

Sometimes you may need to eq something to make it sit better in the mix, I useually try to find a better sample instead, but sometimes some drum sample is just perfect and there's nothing else to do so extra outs is handy, I only hook up the extra outs if absolutely nessesary because they clutter up session view, I realy want folding tracks so you could group a whole bunch of tracks into one track, I hate scrolling back and forth when I have a lot of tracks going.

Kenfen · Post by **Kenfen** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 1:58 pm

I like the way they do it here:

http://www.ableton.com/index.php?main=t ... b=tips0904

Regards,

Kenfen

HD1 · Post by **HD1** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 7:03 pm

zfigz....you could always render your drum hits with the effects you like, and load them up as new drum samples...freeing up cpu, and obviously saving the live-set you used prior to rendering, should you wish to make any eq changes to the samples later

djshiva · Post by **djshiva** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 9:09 pm

my setup is pretty simple. i use the impulse for my drums and route each individual impulse channel to its own audio channel. i can then add fx, then route all channels back into one audio channel. there i can either just use final effects to gel the drum mix while freezing individual channels, OR i can resample drum loops into new clips to save cpu.

this is the setup i have found that allows me the most control over my drums. and it's easy as pie. yet another reason why i *heart* live.

jbible · Post by **jbible** » Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:03 pm

Personally, I dont think you should route ALL of your drums back to a single track. Your drums should go to one track and your percussion should go to another.

All my sounds are routed to one of 4 tracks which I then use to record my final 4 track stem master in the end.

drums, perc, bass, other

Then I render from the four track master and listen to it in different situations. Then the four track master makes it easier to go back and eq a bit on just the bass or just the kick or just the lead, pads, fx or so on.

I personally use battery set to 12 mono outs each routed to a stereo channel in live. Sometimes its more than I need but it gives me the most flexibility to process individual sounds to come up some odd percussion...or to get that kick or snare sounding perfect in the mix.