Ballad kit

[Brett Rosenberg]

Would love some assistance getting a good ballad sound. I have Avatar kit, after a classic pop ballad sound, David Foster/Walter Afanasieff. Any advice gratefully accepted.
Brett

DP 7.1, SD 2.21, Mac Pro 2.8 early 2008, 10GB RAM, OS 10.5.8

Topic

[Whitten]

Use quite soft velocities (low numbers) even for a loud-ish song.
Add reverb.

[Brett Rosenberg]

thanks, at least you made an effort. I will add reverb.

DP 7.1, SD 2.21, Mac Pro 2.8 early 2008, 10GB RAM, OS 10.5.8

[Platinum Samples]

Plate with about 80ms of predelay.. or a 480L set to “Large Wood Room”… RT=2secs or so depending on tempo.

Rail

Professionally Recorded Multitrack Drum Samples
http://tinyurl.com/26k2xjo
www.platinumsamples.com

[Mark Williams]

and don’t be afraid to use brushes instead of sticks if it’s not a power ballad.

MBP 2.4 GHz | 4GB RAM | OSX 10.6.8 Logic Pro 9.1.5 | Metric Halo LIO-8/4P | Apogee ONE SD 2.3.0 | EZP 1.1.0 | Drumtracker 1.0.2

[Brett Rosenberg]

Terrific, thanks for the ideas.

DP 7.1, SD 2.21, Mac Pro 2.8 early 2008, 10GB RAM, OS 10.5.8

[Whitten]

Just for clarity, my velocity comment was about bringing the fatness and warmth out of the drums. This resides mostly in the medium to lower velocity samples.
You can still have the drums blasting, you just need to use the mixer and microphone channels, not the midi.

[Brett Rosenberg]

so I should use a lower tuned kit?

DP 7.1, SD 2.21, Mac Pro 2.8 early 2008, 10GB RAM, OS 10.5.8

[Whitten]

Might be a good idea, but at some point it really comes down to personal taste and what you decide works.
I imagine David Foster has used many different sounding drums for ballads in his long recording history

[Author]

Replies