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chapter 12 MIXING AND EFFECTS USAGE Overview The aim of this chapter is to help you approach mixing with BFD2, covering everything from use of mic channels to the built-in FX suite. Mixing advice These sections give you pointers on mixing – from using BFD2’s built-in control over mic channels, bleed and panning to routing functions, external processing and understanding how to mix each part of the kit. Please take the advice for what it is: a useful starting point if you’re inexperienced with mixing drums. It’s not intended as gospel or a set of rules. There are no rules – if you have your own ideas about your sound, we encourage you to experiment and be creative. 12:1 Mixing basics How to approach mic channels, panning, gain, EQ and compression. 12:6 Mixing each part of the kit Some helpful pointers on using EQ and other processing on various parts of the kit. 12:7 Routing scenarios A guide to using BFD2’s routing functions for three common scenarios: creating a sub-mix, achieving mic channel separation over separate outputs and creating a send to an external reverb. 12:8 External processing More creative advice on using external processing to take your drum sounds even further. BFD2 FX guide The BFD2 FX all contain a number of common controls, located at the top of each effect’s interface. See section 3:7 for more details about these controls, as well as for information on launching and managing effects in your mixes. The guide in this chapter contains suggested uses for common controls where particularly applicable, such as when using the Mix control for quick parallel compression effects. Note that it is beyond the scope of this guide to provide a full explanation of each effect and how it works – some familiarity with these types of processors is assumed. 12:2 EQ and filtering A guide to BFD2’s EQ, Filter and FilterMod FX. 12:3 Dynamics processing A guide to using BFD2’s dynamics processors: CompChan, CompBus and NoiseGate. 12:4 Distortion A guide to the Drive and BitCrusher FX. 12:5 Other effects A guide to the rest of the processors in BFD2: Gain, Delay, Flanger, Chorus, RingMod, FreqShift, TinCanVerb D.CAM FX FX labelled with the D.CAM logo are painstaking models of real-world analog circuits and components, including their non-linearities. These advanced modelling techniques bring you as close as possible to manipulating your sounds with real analog hardware. The fully D.CAM-modelled FX are the Comp Chan, Comp Bus, Filter Mod and Drive processors. The filters used in the EQ are also D.CAM modelled, as are filtering and drive elements of most of the other FX. 1
12:1 Mixing basics Mic channel usage Using ambience It’s important to remember you do NOT need all mic channels at maximum levels in the mix. In most normal mixing situations, drum ambience is turned down to quite subtle levels. You wouldn’t normally have three wet reverb signals turned up as loud as the dry sound, so why do it with real ambience? The ambience in BFD2 is there if you need it. If you don’t, turn it down and work with the direct signals. Room and PZM signals tend to be the biggest-sounding channels, which really give a heavy impression of space and increased sustain. If you want a dry, intimate sound, turn these down. The Overhead channels still provide a lush sense of ambience without sounding too huge. You can adjust ambience levels for each Kit-piece, using the Kit-piece Trim controls (as opposed to the Direct Trim). Therefore, if you need a tight kick but a huge snare, turn down the Kit-piece Trim on the kick and leave it up on the snare. These controls act like reverb sends, while the OH, Room and PZM faders are effectively like return levels for 3 different reverb algorithms. Mic channel selection There are all kinds of ways of using BFD2’s mic channels. Many recording sessions are conducted with just a set of stereo overheads, perhaps with some kick reinforcement with a dedicated direct kick mic. There’s nothing wrong with just using one mic bus such as the directs or overheads. It is entirely up to you and depends upon the sound you want to achieve. You can recreate virtually every mic-ing technique in BFD2, so be creative! A good technique for an all-purpose drum sound is to use the direct mic channels for punch, a touch of overheads for a sense of space and a mono room dialled in to taste. Mono rooms are great because they sound very punchy and thick, and since it’s virtually impossible to get a symmetrical response that follows the stereo placement of a kick, this is a very common technique so as not to interfere with a kit’s panning. To bleed or not to bleed In practical terms, using bleed gives a more natural recorded drum sound, as it always exists in real-world recordings. However, artificial separation is an ideal situation: mix engineers often use gates to eradicate bleed as much as possible. You may find that bleed is more problematic on some kit-pieces rather than others. Therefore the possibility of controlling bleed for one or more kit-pieces is provided in the Kit-Piece Inspector. If you’re not interested in bleed at all, and are only concerned with achieving separation of the different kit-pieces, you can eradicate it completely by turning down the master kick and snare bleed controls in the Mic Tools panel in the BFD2 Mixer page. Panning Don’t be afraid to use mono when it comes to the ambient channels or panning the directs - it can help the mix to sound bigger. It’s quite common to use a mono room signal with heavy compression for example. Although the directs are panned by default in BFD2 to reflect the layout of the kit, it can be a good idea to put the kick, snare and hat in the centre of the stereo field - this can give the drums more weight, presence and impact. It’s also wise not to go overboard on panning toms and cymbals. The default pan positions in BFD2 are to match up with the positions in the overheads. However, you don’t necessarily have to stick to these. Again, ambience channels can be good in mono, and reducing the stereo spread can give the drums more impact. When dealing with stereo ambience channels, remember that the position of the different parts of the kit are ‘hard-coded’ into the stereo image of the ambience channels. This is an unavoidable limitation of having stereo ambience channels. However, the ambience channels for any Kit-Piece can be flipped: for example, if you move the direct cymbal signal to the other side of the stereo image, you can flip the ambience to match. Crash cymbals tend to positioned on the right of the kit, rides to the left, and splashes towards the centre. The ‘Drummer perspective’ setting in the BFD2 preferences flips all pan settings globally to reflect the drummer’s perspective sitting at the kit, or back to the engineer’s perspective in the control room, watching from the other side. Which perspective you use is entirely up to you. Gain levels When mixing drums (or anything else for that matter) in the digital domain, it’s a good idea to keep all individual channel gains at sensible levels peaking between -12 to -15 dB. This means that even when you sum a lot of channels together you still have a decent amount of headroom on the master outputs, meaning that any clipping is unlikely. Pulling your host mixer’s master fader down to compensate for excessive levels of individual channels is bad practice, as is slapping a brick-wall limiter across the master outputs. Running your individual channels at sensible levels also means that any EQ and other processing that is applied is less likely to clip its channels. 1
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1:2 BFD2 Architecture How BFD2 work
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Direct mic channels (mono) Kick In
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1:3 Recording notes BFD2’s sounds
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1:4 Introduction to the BFD2 interf
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Load menu Clicking the Load button
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Controller learn The controller lea
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1:7 Loading BFD2 Presets BFD2 Prese
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Photo & Rating The large photo of t
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When moving a control I like to dra
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2:2 Kit Size You can choose between
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2:3 Loading and saving in the Kit p
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Sorting With this drop-down menu yo
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2:5 Kit display and kit-piece slot
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2:6 Loading Kit-Pieces Overview To
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Import Clicking this button opens t
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2:7 Importing your own sounds into
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2:8 Kit page toolbar The toolbar on
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Next/Previous buttons Clicking thes
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Kit-piece bleed controls In BFD2, b
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2:10 Mini-mixer The mini-mixer allo
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Next slot mode If this mode is enab
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3:2 Loading and Saving in the Mixer
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Saving Mixer presets Using the Save
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Unused direct channels A kit-piece
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3:4 Mixer toolbar and utility panel
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3:5 Mixer channel controls and indi
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Controls/indicators available in Re
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3:6 Using the mixer Selecting chann
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Signal Routing indicators In order
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FX Preset browser The preset browse
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Using sends for parallel processing
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3:10 Mixer preset panel The Mixer p
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Export Sync mode Free The Free Expo
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4:2 Grooves page interface 1. Palet
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4:4 Undo function Every operation p
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chapter 05 GROOVES PAGE part 1 pale
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Audition Preview buttons When a Pal
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5:3 Loading Grooves Using the Groov
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5:4 Playing Grooves in the Palette
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5:5 Working with Grooves in the Pal
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5:6 Groove Actions The Palette area
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End Actions for Grooves Random Groo
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Importing MIDI files into the Palet
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Palette Info inspector The followin
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Using drag & drop to export Grooves
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chapter 06 GROOVES PAGE part 2 edit
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6:2 Editor Grid View controls Kit-p
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Velocity lane The velocity lane und
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6:3 Grooves toolbar To the left of
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6:4 Other Editor functions A number
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6:5 Combining elements of other Gro
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6:7 Groove FX panel Power Quantize
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Swing effect The Swing effect appli
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Page 115 and 116: 7:3 Drum Track display Scrollbar Lo
Page 117 and 118: Moving selected Parts To move Parts
Page 119 and 120: 7:7 Using BFD2’s MIDI Out In comp
Page 121 and 122: 8:2 Loading in the Mapping page Loa
Page 123 and 124: Loading Automation maps To load an
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Page 131 and 132: 8:7 Introduction to BFD2 automation
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Page 137 and 138: chapter 09 ELECTRONIC DRUMS AND BFD
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Page 143 and 144: Hihat choke fade settings The hihat
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Page 157 and 158: Special concerns for hihats Hihats
Page 159 and 160: Mixer GUI Options Show mixer signal
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Page 167 and 168: 12:2 EQ and filtering EQ BFD2’s E
Page 169 and 170: SC Enabling the SC button results i
Page 171 and 172: Noise Gate A noise gate is a type o
Page 173 and 174: Dirty & Clean The Dirty control set
Page 175 and 176: Flanger The Flanger effect is a sho
Page 177 and 178: 12:6 Mixing each part of the kit Ki
Page 179 and 180: 12:7 Routing scenarios Creating sub
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