How to Get Drums to Hit Harder: Pitch and Attack

Watch how Grammy-winning mixer Dave Darlington (Avicii, Sting) beefs up his drum mixes by fine-tuning drum pitch using the Torque plugin and shaping transients with precision using Smack Attack. Learn more: Smack Attack waves.com/smackattack, Torque waves.com/torque
Music: “Latin Waves” by Alberto Barrero
From the album Dibujos En El Camino
albertobarrero.bandcamp.com

[@kayokk-]

Dave Darlington speaks to the point and is the best at instructionals. Well-done Dave!

[@Juliano_DJOL]

I LOVE TORQUE! If nothing else it makes me confident my tracks/drums are in the best tune possible! It's that key piece to getting a GREAT sounding mix!

[@kxngbishop]

smack attack is actually frighteningly useful for trap music. i literally pull the sustain down to -100 and it makes hi hats sound super tight and something like a 8th-16th note roll sounds beautiful at 80bpm.

[@yeshuasweapon4384]

Men y gat knowledge

[@seancphygital]

good tip, appreciate the nugget!

[@Mutt83GC]

Thank You for showing me how to really utilize this plug-in that has been basically dorment for about a year and a half. I souldnt figure how to get it quite figured out, Mixing down old songs and the whole "It's just DISTORTION" thought hut to see it being used and the actual impact is a great thing I invested into it when I did. Great tutorial by the way and great job Waves!

[@ProdByTimDuncan]

Can't go wrong with Dave Darlington! I see a new Video with Dave Darlington, i click like. It's that simple.

[@Yo-Bruh]

It's been a minute Dave Darlington.. Great seeing you again

[@wafflestoast5228]

Good ol waves. They may not make the "bestest most analog" sounding plugs, but they make out of the ordinary tools that let you mangle things like the pitch of the sub OF the kick. This is cool man. Pair these specialty waves tools with slate digital for "analogness"/great color & you're set for life.

[@Glow0110]

what do you like form Slate Digital? I'm not that familiar with their plugins. Cheers

[@IamProfessorO]

@@Glow0110 I have the same question

[@TheSideProject]

@@IamProfessorO Slate digital gives like a more analog sound but still artificial... However i agree, they make really good plugins

[@IamProfessorO]

@@TheSideProject appreciate the insight! However I meant like specifically what plug-ins do people use that are known to work well from Slate?

[@TheSideProject]

FG- S, FG-N, Revival, Brainworx, A.O.M invisible limiter, etc

[@drummerjeroensimons]

Thanks Waves and Dave!!!!

[@kaveiros75]

Nice video to show off these 2 products, but it is impressive: a) how well EQ-ed the drums are, right out off the box and b) how clean and without any leakage the kick, toms and even hihat "recordings" are! Smells like EZDrummer or Addictive Drums here....

[@tc5315]

Ksus Susk junkie xl Best!

[@tc5315]

kaveiros75 it's samples.

[@ronlaury6388]

Thank You Dave Darlington!

[@Newjudahgospel]

Really enjoyed this

[@DonaldWaughmusic]

Thanks very much. I am going to try this right now on a snare. Yay!

[@christiannilsen2835]

I love the congas! It is used way to seldom! Yay! Good plugins , reminds me of a more advanced Transient Designer.

[@wasabib3269]

Informative and to the point! thank you

[@richardrackley2430]

Lol key to great sounding anything is good micing skills and dialing everything in upon pressing the record button. The raw recording sounds fantastic already. Add in some good mixing techniques like he did here and it's just icing on the cake

[@A_Class216]

Time to start using these.

[@ProduNETAudio]

Great job!!

[@Novalight]

you can't compare dry and wet kick signal, when your wet signal is 4db louder (4:31 and 4:48)

[@SigTekka]

i dont get the whole idea of this... i only take kick what is already in key/tune and got some bass (in FL there is a plugin (newtone) where you can check the root note of basically everything) and i guess in every daw your drum synth/sampler got some ADSR ... whats the matter of this whole video?

[@pogchamp7983]

@@SigTekka This might come as a shock to you, but some people actually record live drums.

[@Akreem]

I use Smack Attack for Trap Beats ,amazing plugin from waves

[@Ianlive9]

Parameters only for serve Emotion and sensations very nice!

[@AveMcree]

I'm glad I got these. Great video btw

[@CrysisVN]

hey there mcree lol

[@dannyharvey8470]

works well on isolated/triggered drums - didn't work too well on my snare with all the high hat bleed and bass drum bleed! but a good video all the same

[@JhonnyPets]

Awesome 👍👍

[@Cliffybyro81]

"A pretty good drum recording"...LOL. It is an AWESOME drum recording.

[@tonschalestudio5791]

its a programmed and fired out by a toontrack sampler (ez or superior drummer)

[@ederolima]

It's the avatar kit from superior

[@SaniTait]

Cliffybeardo right lol drums are incredible before he even touched them lol 😂

[@DubsMood]

Yeah, 3/4 of those sounds were trigger sounds....

[@scotchfillet]

Yes plus 5db always sounds better. Faders are good at that.

[@dawnpoint]

What if I want to lower the pitch of the attacks, either with or without changing the pitch of the drum?

[@TerenceKearns]

Could tune each instrument in the drum kit to fall on the notes in the key of the song. Just an idea - might somehow just sound more satisfying. EDM producers are always tuning the kicks to be in key. Could apply the same to rock and pop or whatever.

[@da-el8547]

Great video. I see that you have panned all drum kits L+R wide. don't they take eah other's space in the stereo spectrum ?

[@leandrosinich2214]

how that tweaks on individual tracks affects phase correlation with the oh?

[@rockboy360]

I haven't found a single tutorial that teaches me HOW to actually use Torque, how to find the fundamental and how to change it and how to know when it's finally in the right spot, all of these dudes just do it like "yeath, the tuning was not right so we used torque and tuned it right and now sounds great"

[@gerarddaurella9471]

Super!

[@fonzflex5608]

Dave Darlington #1

[@hotep000]

ça swiing !

[@anitaabbi4984]

Holly Smokes 🔥🔥😍

[@fdschuler7863]

Drums sound programmed with Superior Drummer or something similar. Kick it too isolated, so are other drums. And why is every track in stereo?

[@tonschalestudio5791]

Absolutely. Hope I'm not the only one who is questioning this guys competency and expertise due to the fact, that he did not realize this?

[@monkeyrobotsinc.9875]

lmao yup. its Toontrack

[@matthewclaiborne229]

Tonschale Studio this guy is one of the greatest engineers out there. I used to work in his studio (not for him) and people would give up a kidney to to work with him

[@EpicMrEric]

Recording engineers and mixing engineers can often be different people. He may just be handed some stems to mix and as such he wouldn't know where the drums come from. Nonetheless it's still correct to treat and talk about the drums like they're live recorded because even with Superior Drummer it's still just a set of samples recorded with a mic.

[@InfamousAWJ]

Matthew Claiborne This is my friends father and he’s legendary idk why people are questioning him. He’s one of the greatest ever! Working with and wrote for one of the greatest musicians the world has ever seen. MJ, Sting, Whitney Houston and more. They don’t understand why he does things and they question his talent? Gtfo

[@eddielottomr.killswitch9248]

Nice video I got em as well. Thinking bout going with aud plugins!!!!! What youll think waves or aud!!!

[@eduardojvivas]

What ever tools make it easy for you to paint your sonic picture blindfolded.

[@selCIKO84]

If my kick hits at 90 hz??

[@nusense808]

nice plug but how do you use this to tune your drums to the key of you track? or are you just tuning the note within the band that you isolate?

[@EpicMrEric]

It does pitch just that single band, but if you just find the fundamental frequency of the kick and then figure out how many cents it needs to go up or down to be in tune, you can use it to match your tracks key. The overtones do not need to be changed to sound in key, only the fundamental.

[@xyz-yq1ix]

did i use smack attack on buss of drum

[@selCIKO84]

what if the kick hits around 70hz??

[@rockboy360]

It is always better to make the kick go with the key of the song, whatever it is

[@bradw2k]

Honest question: can't you do much of the same thing with compression that smackattack is doing?

[@watergraffiti]

See, thats what i reckon too... these enhancers are just presets of eq and compression. But i suppose they are instant and effortless and well adjusted. if you wanted a certain sound for a certain source to fix or compliment, you may have to pull out your own comp and eq. which is what most pros do.

[@EpicMrEric]

Correct. Transient editors are faster and easy than normal compressors though - and that's where their value comes from.

[@Juliano_DJOL]

I would say more like the ADSR settings on a drum machine or I guess if they were live recorded drums then yeah like a eq and comp.

[@danmillward7358]

You can bring out the transients with a compressor by letting the transient through using a slower attack time and longer release time and you can bring out the sustain of a sound by kind of doing the opposite....what if you want to bring out the sustain and the transient...can you do that with one compressor? Nah....so what are you going to do? copying the signal have one compressor doing one thing the other compressor doing the other....now you have to watch out for phase between the two signals etc....just use a transient designer lol

[@KennyLauderdale]

I came for parallel compression... I'll stick around. Maybe I'll learn something.

[@megap2m]

Tom's . They are from addetive drums I now it.

[@saschakuhn2660]

"nice and isolated" :-)

[@lukessoundhouse9903]

holy shit that's a lot of plugins to use on a 2gb ram pc

[@alexxschiller7115]

Your voice sounds little more louder,than music. Could you reduce volume in the future?

[@TroutmanRoger]

You should show him how to do vocal equalization hahaha

[@TXLzetage]

I mean, this video is for explanation and a demostration on how to use the plugin, is very important what he says, not really the music. But you can hear it too, is nice like that.

[@ZummoSausages]

Waves is good but the updates are so wrong

[@iOWNyouFOOLaskYOmama]

Why would someone dislike this vid?

[@watergraffiti]

cause i hate myself. lol.

[@electricroom3000]

My path in mixing ... I started to realise these things after getting high. I'm not a bad composer ... but I couldn't understand why my music couldn't have this power here. Don't get me wrong I know what mixing is ... but there was something missing still. I realised what it was but couldn't describe it. It's here. The answer is here. I would load eq's and compressors and automate them! To get the same results. But that's a lot of work with that tiny pen ...

[@glhfsport4682]

what daw is this

[@epicterry6706]

pro tools

[@Enice43]

thats a great tool....but you can do the same with a good E.Q

[@mikewallace1270]

If you are an ableton user, the ableton transient designer is probably better than smack attack.

[@monkeyrobotsinc.9875]

that kick is identical to Toontrack's Basic kick drum "sounds like a good recording and play through" lol really

[@johnboybliss680]

hehehe plus 6 db of level

[@joeambly6807]

Pitch shifted kick sounds worse. Just add some damn eq!

[@Jadion]

WTF is a TRANGENT? It is transient.

[@geroiavin8199]

Programmed drums Dave cmon..

[@celiahogan4178]

Hello darling

[@petarmujovic1396]

before 00:32 after 8:34

[@claytonlevibrown]

it amazes me you can't get your drums loud enough; when I record my drumset it's plenty loud so loud I can never turn the levels all the way up on the mixer b/c it needs a buffer zone. oh you mean drum machines well that's crazy too what are you guys deaf you turned your drum machine all the way up and it's still not too loud maybe try turning up your monitors then.

[@andrewrosene7732]

Clayton Brown Have you ever heard of gain staging dumb ass... You set all of your faders to unity, metering to pre-fader, and use clip gain to set the individual tracks to anywhere between -18dBs and -3dBs.