Mixing down individual tracks, kitpieces vs. mixer channels, please help

[LeanderL]

Hi! How should I mix down individual tracks from the...

Hi!

How should I mix down individual tracks from the my song in midi format inside the Superior Drummer VSTi to audio so I reduce RAM usage and can finetune everything later?

I would like to have one audio track for the kickdrum(s), one for snare, one for toms, one for crashes, one for hihat, one for other cymbals…should I click the “drums” view of SD and solo the kitpiece, e.g. the snare or all toms, then export my song/bounce it so get the first track? Then repeat for all other kitpieces… OR should I leave the “drums” view untouched, but go to “mixer” and solo the channels there?

The problem is that I would normally go for the first approach with kitpieces, BUT there is bleed and there are ambience channels…I don’t know if soloing the e.g. snare will automatically get the individual bleed and ambience signals as well, from all channels with the snare… or if my kitpiece approach will lead to losing the broad sound because bleed and ambience are lost?

What do you recommend? Mixing the song with one kitpiece per track is easier…I can e.g. raise certain parts or lower the volume per track and not having the complete drums in the playback.

SeelenPuls ~ Poetic metal from Austria: SeelenPuls.at
Grummelgnom ~ Sociocritical metal from the forest: Grummelgnom.at

Hi!

How should I mix down individual tracks from the my song in midi format inside the Superior Drummer VSTi to audio so I reduce RAM usage and can finetune everything later?

I would like to have one audio track for the kickdrum(s), one for snare, one for toms, one for crashes, one for hihat, one for other cymbals…should I click the “drums” view of SD and solo the kitpiece, e.g. the snare or all toms, then export my song/bounce it so get the first track? Then repeat for all other kitpieces… OR should I leave the “drums” view untouched, but go to “mixer” and solo the channels there?

The problem is that I would normally go for the first approach with kitpieces, BUT there is bleed and there are ambience channels…I don’t know if soloing the e.g. snare will automatically get the individual bleed and ambience signals as well, from all channels with the snare… or if my kitpiece approach will lead to losing the broad sound because bleed and ambience are lost?

What do you recommend? Mixing the song with one kitpiece per track is easier…I can e.g. raise certain parts or lower the volume per track and not having the complete drums in the playback.

SeelenPuls ~ Poetic metal from Austria: SeelenPuls.at
Grummelgnom ~ Sociocritical metal from the forest: Grummelgnom.at

Topic

[Bear-Faced Cow]

Exactly! Whatever enables us to make music best!

jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

[Andrew Payne]

Always good to hear how others do things as there are many ways to achieve similar outcomes. Everyone brings something slightly different to the table. I actually use more effects in SD3 than I do in my DAW but I play and record drums only (e-kit) so not the same as many others. Unfortunately I cannot play any other instrument !

Operating system: Windows 10

Dell Precision 7730, i7 6 Core 2.6 GHz, 128GB RAM, 1TB SSD and 3 x 2TB SSD, Windows 11, Cubase Pro 14, SD3 plus a variety of SDX's and EZX's, Orchestral Percussion, EZBASS, RME BabyFace Pro FS and KRK V4 monitors. Modified Yamaha DTX900, DTXPRESS4 and Edrumin10 triggering SD3. Yamaha pads/cymbals and Roland VH-10 HiHat. PDP Maple acoustic kit for live playing.

[LeanderL]

I’m back…I had to take a break because of illness.

Last time I thought I had used the wrong export setting in Cakewalk by Bandlab…but now I used the “entire mix” preset with all effects, buses etc. -> everything enabled.
I again got kit piece tracks that are different from the “real” sound in Superior Drummer 3 and I don’t know why.

1) I mute all tracks but the track with Superior Drummer 3 as the virtual instrument.
2) I go to the drum section in Superior Drummer 3, then solo both kickdrums.
3) I export the entire mix with Cakewalk by Bandlab. As only Superior Drummer 3 is soloed and only the kicksdrums, the exported wave file only has my kickdrums.
4) I click the solo icons of the kickdrums again…then solo the snaredrum…and export it.
5) I unsolo the snare, click all six toms in the drum section, then export them.
6) I unsolo the toms, click my two hihats in the drum section, then export them.
etc. etc.

BUT: When I load all exported wave files in a new project, the playback is different from the playback in my project where Superior Drummer is active as a VSTi synth/plugin….and it is driving me nuts.

I don’t want to mix everything within one project…as all the many VSTis (drums, bass, strings, flutes, synths etc.) are very RAM-heavy…I want to export everything as wave files, then use a new project to mix the song.

The file sounds as if not all SD3 mixer settings were used/enabled when exporting the wave files. This can be especially heard with the hihat…I use an xdrum hihat in this example. Maybe it is a bug?

First, the real sound within SD3, then the exported wave files played back in the new project. The hihat is different…something is missing.

SeelenPuls ~ Poetic metal from Austria: SeelenPuls.at
Grummelgnom ~ Sociocritical metal from the forest: Grummelgnom.at

[LeanderL]

This is driving me crazy! Please listen to this sample:

First, SD3 with muted kickdrums (muted in the drum section), then exported audio tracks. They sound the same!

Then nothing muted in the drum section vs. nothing muted in the audio tracks version…but the hihat does NOT sound the same! Maybe it is bleed or whatever…the hihat in the non-muted version with kickdrums is more suble while the second version has a louder/more dry hihat.

What does clicking the solo icon of a drum component do in the drum section? When I keep the kickdrums active, but only mute the actual, I hear the bleeding…

Anyway, maybe my question should be how I should mix down kickdrums, snare, toms, crashes & chinas, hihats, rides and splashes so I have individual audio files to mix in a different project and also send them to a professional mixer later. How should I do that? How do you send files to a professional mixer if some channels have bleeding etc.?

SeelenPuls ~ Poetic metal from Austria: SeelenPuls.at
Grummelgnom ~ Sociocritical metal from the forest: Grummelgnom.at

• This post was modified 4 months ago by LeanderL.

[Bear-Faced Cow]

If you exported a kick drum that was soloed, you’re silencing the bleed to the other channels. You need to think of drums holistically and export the entire kit either through bus outputs or as a complete mix.

jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

[drumjack52]

Bear-Faced Cow wrote:

If you exported a kick drum that was soloed, you’re silencing the bleed to the other channels. You need to think of drums holistically and export the entire kit either through bus outputs or as a complete mix.

jord

Exactly. Use multichannel out in SD3 with each kit piece either to an individual output or bussed together inside SD3 and then to the daw. I buss the rack toms together in SD3 and then to an audio track in ProTools. Ditto for the floor toms, cymbals (where I can), etc. That way I get the bleed that SD3 is famous for and what makes it sound like a real drum kit. And PT will have individual audio tracks from SD3 so I can mix as wanted/needed.

Of course you can also turn down/off the bleed in SD3. But you never want to make mix decisions based on a solo’d track. Any mixer would have all the drum track faders up in a console anyways and make his/her decisions that way. There was an article in a recent Recording Magazine wherein it was talked about mixing drums and the person said he treats drums as an instrument on it’s own and not a collection of individual pieces. For example you don’t treat a guitar as 6 separate strings but as an instrument as a whole – drums are the same thing.

Jack
aka musicman691 on other forums
Superior Drummer 3.4.0
Area 33 1.0.0
Death and Darkness 1.0.1
PT 2021.6
OSX 10.13.6
3.46 GHz hex core 2012 MacPro 48 gig ram

• This post was modified 4 months ago by drumjack52.

[LeanderL]

Thank you, but how do I do that? When I want to send the exported files to a professional mixer.

Is it correct that I should NOT worry about all the mics here as they are routed to a bus…

BUT export the buses here to individual tracks? How? By soloing every single one of the 8 buses, one by one, resulting in 8 audio files -> kick, snare, toms, hh, oh, amb, reverb, comp?
Or is the sum “out 1/2”, far right, needed, too?

If so, how do I make e.g. a certain hihat part louder? Working with velocities is too tedious and does not work well…but if I want to increase the volume of a certain hihat groove in an audio file, which file should I make louder? Just the HH bus? Or also amb, reverb, comp? But as these channels contain bleed, increasing the hihat is not possible as everything else will be made louder as well.

SeelenPuls ~ Poetic metal from Austria: SeelenPuls.at
Grummelgnom ~ Sociocritical metal from the forest: Grummelgnom.at

• The post has been modified 2 times, last modified 4 months ago by LeanderL.

[LeanderL]

Like this? I have 8 buses to record…I click on the S to solo the kick bus, then export an audio file with just the kick bus. Then I remove the S from the kick bus and solo the snare bus, then export the audio file…then I unsolo the snare and solo the toms…and continue with HH, OH, Amb, Reverb and Comp….so I have 8 audio tracks.
Will they have all sound, bleed, effects etc.? Or will soloing them miss anything?

If this is correct and I can do it that way, the question remains how to fix certain parts, e.g. making a hihat part louder because other channels with the hihat signal in there as well.

BTW, the screenshot “mixer3” is not correct…it displayed the correct preview, but actual screenshot of another user…seems to be a forum problem. I renamed my file and reuploaded it.

Oh, and exporting the 8 channels is not enough as there are some effects on the sum…EQ, Classic Compressor and Exciter…so I need to solo a channel AND the sum…then solo the next channel AND the sum…so the effects will be applied…but I think the effects are enabled anyway…when everything is routed to Out 1&2…so soloing Out 1&2 does not change anything.

PPS Is it important that the out 1&2 levels are below 0? When the slider is at 0, the peak is +4.3…so there is digital distortion…but I checked some Toontrack presets and none of them was maxed out at 0…they all were too loud.

SeelenPuls ~ Poetic metal from Austria: SeelenPuls.at
Grummelgnom ~ Sociocritical metal from the forest: Grummelgnom.at

• The post has been modified 5 times, last modified 4 months ago by LeanderL.

[drumjack52]

No No No. You are overthinking this. Use multichannel outputs in SD3 and route each one to a track in your daw. Wish I knew how to post a screenshot. But as I mentioned you should treat drums as a single instrument and not as individual pieces.

Jack
aka musicman691 on other forums
Superior Drummer 3.4.0
Area 33 1.0.0
Death and Darkness 1.0.1
PT 2021.6
OSX 10.13.6
3.46 GHz hex core 2012 MacPro 48 gig ram

• The post has been modified 5 times, last modified 4 months ago by drumjack52.

[Korken]

Indeed!!

Multichannel output is THE way for that what you are trying to achieve. Don’t waste your time with the workflow you detail above. If you mentioned the DAW you are using, I missed it and can’t find it in a fast search through your posts, but you can search in Youtube for “superior drummer multichannel output ” or “”superior drummer multi output ” and you will find for sure some videos explaining how to set it up.

[drumjack52]

Korken wrote:

Indeed!!

Multichannel output is THE way for that what you are trying to achieve. Don’t waste your time with the workflow you detail above. If you mentioned the DAW you are using, I missed it and can’t find it in a fast search through your posts, but you can search in Youtube for “superior drummer multichannel output ” or “”superior drummer multi output ” and you will find for sure some videos explaining how to set it up.

The OP is using Cakewalk by Bandlab.

Here’s a screenshot of a part of my SD3 mixer showing multichannel output https://ibb.co/WNFTgp0p

Jack
aka musicman691 on other forums
Superior Drummer 3.4.0
Area 33 1.0.0
Death and Darkness 1.0.1
PT 2021.6
OSX 10.13.6
3.46 GHz hex core 2012 MacPro 48 gig ram

• The post has been modified 2 times, last modified 4 months ago by drumjack52.

[Korken]

drumjack52 wrote:

Korken wrote:

Indeed!!

Multichannel output is THE way for that what you are trying to achieve. Don’t waste your time with the workflow you detail above. If you mentioned the DAW you are using, I missed it and can’t find it in a fast search through your posts, but you can search in Youtube for “superior drummer multichannel output ” or “”superior drummer multi output ” and you will find for sure some videos explaining how to set it up.

The OP is using Cakewalk by Bandlab.

Here’s a screenshot of a part of my SD3 mixer showing multichannel output https://ibb.co/WNFTgp0p

• The post has been modified 4 months ago by drumjack52"> 2 times, last modified 4 months ago by drumjack52.

Very nice choice of groups! Now OP must learn how to route those SD outputs to Cakewalk and the experience will be better, for sure .

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Thanked by: drumjack52

[Andrew Payne]

Jack has the right set up. I’m just going to go a bit further and screenshot all of my channels as it might help the OP in working out for himself. Hope it helps – see attached from start (mic channels) through to busses and final outputs. For max flexibility (I am an e-drummer so probably more particular than most would need) I route each instrument to its own channel and also to OH (and ambient sometimes as well).

Operating system: Windows 10

Dell Precision 7730, i7 6 Core 2.6 GHz, 128GB RAM, 1TB SSD and 3 x 2TB SSD, Windows 11, Cubase Pro 14, SD3 plus a variety of SDX's and EZX's, Orchestral Percussion, EZBASS, RME BabyFace Pro FS and KRK V4 monitors. Modified Yamaha DTX900, DTXPRESS4 and Edrumin10 triggering SD3. Yamaha pads/cymbals and Roland VH-10 HiHat. PDP Maple acoustic kit for live playing.

[LeanderL]

Thanks, but multiout does not solve my problem…I want to bounce all VSTis before mixing…I cannot have EZ Bass, Superior Drummer and a ton of orchestral libraries all active in the RAM.

Moreover, multiout does not let me manually increase the volume of the e.g. hihat at 2 minute 2 seconds to 2 minute 8 seconds…I can do that with audio files and volume envelopes.

SeelenPuls ~ Poetic metal from Austria: SeelenPuls.at
Grummelgnom ~ Sociocritical metal from the forest: Grummelgnom.at

[Bear-Faced Cow]

Moreover, multiout does not let me manually increase the volume of the e.g. hihat at 2 minute 2 seconds to 2 minute 8 seconds…I can do that with audio files and volume envelopes.

Not true at all. Anything channel wise that you can do with audio, you can do with multi-out.

Sounds like you need more RAM.

jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

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Thanked by: drumjack52

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