Clicks & Pops from "Kick" in Nashville Slam Preset

[Skyko]

Hi,

I was having a problem getting very light “Clicks” that happen about 2-3 seconds after the kick triggers (only in the Pop/Rock > Nashville Slam Preset).  It was only after a couple days of going crazy that honed in and found the problematic track to be the “Noc” track in the mixer. (Between Mega & Meat).

I am new to SD3 – can someone please tell me what this track is and why there are slight clicks coming from it?  I currently have it muted, but I’m guessing that it is there for a reason…

Thanks for any insight in advance!

Skyko

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.4
Operating system: OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Topic

[Erik]

Hey Skyko,

All the blue channels in the mixer tab indicate actual microphones that were used when recording the kit. In addition to that, the user may choose to make up their own microphone recordings with instrument routing, which are the grey user channels, and they are typically used to isolate instruments, and to create additional microphone channels for stacked drums. In this case, the preset maker wanted to add additional kick drums to the kick drum sounds, and created the Noc and Meat channels to mix the sounds of those.

Clicks and pops usually turn up when you have your buffer setting too low. Increasing the buffer size could solve this issue. You could also remove the stacked drum from the Drums view to free up some performance, if you don’t think it adds anything to your mix. With that said…

Sseeing as the stacked drum sample used for the Noc channel is quite long (it rings out completely in the mixer), you could apply an envelope to prevent issues stemming from that. To do this:

1. Go into the Drums view, and select the kick drum. On the right hand side, a column with the kicks applied to that drum will appear.
2. Select the middle kick in that column. If you hover over the drum, it is called “Nocturnal Phoenix Kick”
3. In the properties sidebar you have a tab called “Envelope and Offset”. Enable it and dial the Release and Decay to your liking.

I set the Decay to 200 ms and Release to 300 ms (you can edit the numbers manually after selecting either in the diagram), and think it didn’t seem to take too much away from the original sound, since the main kick sound rings out fully too.

If you want to learn more about instrument routing in Superior 3, make sure you have a grasp on Chapter 5 in the manual and then delve into 9.4.1 Route Instrument Microphones. You can learn more about instrument stacking in 3.4 Drums Tab Header Bar.

Erik Berglund — Toontrack

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Thanked by: Skyko

[Skyko]

Wow Erik,

What a GREAT answer!!!  Thank you for taking your time to give such a detailed and friendly response!  I am going to deep dive into the manual to fully understand how to use this amazing tool but the temptation to use it immediately was just too great…

Thanks Again!

Skyko

[Erik]

Hey, same here! It’s easy getting lost in the moment when it sounds so good.

Superior is an advanced tool if you want it to be, so don’t worry about learning the ins and outs right away. The online manual is searchable, but if you don’t find something you want to do, we’re right here.

Erik Berglund — Toontrack

[Author]

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