Metal Drums Routing and Balancing | Metal Recording Basics in Cubase

In the first of two metal recording basics videos about producing metal drums, Mendel Bij De Leij discusses routing and balancing the sounds of drums for heavy metal. The sound of metal drums is very subjective, Mendel is a fan of modern fat punchy drum sounds and so his approach to recording metal drums and mixing them in Cubase takes that into account. He starts by routing all the snare, bass drum, toms, cymbals and ambient mics to different groups, then discussing compression, balancing the different groups and panning the sounds. Once his routing and balancing metal drums is complete, he will move on to mixing them.
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[@Film-Macher]

Amazing. Your tutorials get better and better. Love it. Thank you for this In Depth Explaining!

[@majesticpbjcat7707]

This is off topic, so sorry about that, but I'm curious about that pen mouse setup you have there. I'd love to switch to that method for navigating the daw. What brand is that one and where might one purchase it?

[@Mendelian]

Hey Majestic, i’ll give you some info: So that thing is a pen tablet from Wacom, basically the world leader in tablets. Type is Wacom Intuos Pro S; I started to get pains in my arm and index finger after using a mouse for years. Switched to a Trackball (from Kensington) and it made it even worse. When i switched to the Wacom tablet basically all that pain reduced by 90%. I can highly recommend it :)!

[@majesticpbjcat7707]

Thank you! I'll be switching to that method immediately. Cheers!

[@Jonathan01ukk]

Not into "Metal" but a lot of what is said transfers to other genres - nice tutorial.

[@DaronFanDren]

Hi Mendel, Hope you can help me out a bit here... I have SD3 myself, but no matter how much I try to mix and tricks with the default kit that comes with it I can not get it too sound like a "real drumset" or make it "metal enough". I see that Toontrack offers alott of different add on packs, for changing the drum sound like the Metal Foundry and Metal Machinery and so on and on - but too be honest there is too much too choose from, and without being able too try these how does one know which one too choose :o and its actually a bit of little investment too do as well nowdays in these uncertain covid days... I really like the starting point you have in your drums here, as they sound more natural and very close too a well recorded real drumset. And deffinetley workable too get some nice metal drums from! I am guessing this is an add on pack you use on SD3? Would you mind sharing which add on pack you are using here? Or maybe recommend add on packs which would bring us closer too this kind of ballgame? Thanks in advance, and keep up these awsome learning tutorials - we are all learning alott! :-)

[@Gladicuss]

GET ROOMS OF HANZA, ops caps, death and darkness, progressive foundry , metal machinery, fields of rock, the metal foundry, hitmaker, area 33. With all those you'll have everything you need and then some. And yes, they are worth the money and amazing. I would by them all over again. To have so many snares, kicks, toms etc' to choose from is just sd3 beast mode, you'd be set.

[@RudalPL]

Hi Mendel. Great video, thank You. I always struggle with mixing drums but oddly enough I found out that I struggle more with mixing my SD3 samples (even raw) than with the live drums. Do you do anything different while mixing live drums or is the process exactly the same in both cases? An off topic question if I may - When you record your albums, do you play all the bass lines or do you program it (EZBass ?) or do you get a bass player to record it for you? Thanks

[@Mendelian]

Mainly the same, but it depends on the source. Do you route your SD3 to seperate outputs? Regarding bass: Programming everything by hand.

[@RudalPL]

@@Mendelian I play the basic parts on my little electronic kit (kick, snare, couple of toms and hi hats) and record MIDI. Load it into SD3 and expand/fix to full kit then bounce what I need to wave files from within SD3. Then import the files into Cubase.

[@Mendelian]

@@RudalPL You could just route all outputs of SD3 to Cubase in real time. By pressing F11 you see an “out” arrow next to the rack instrument name: activate all outputs. Then use the SD3 mixer to route all the outputs.

[@paritonmangang6116]

Pleasw teach about how to record metal vocal both clean and scream.. Tricks, mastering.

[@Mendelian]

I try to aim my mixes as loud as possible without going into the red. 3 db above 0

[@joanesinu]

Very good video, didn't know the purpose of an effects channel until now. To be able to send different amounts of signal level to it changes everything. Thanks!

[@michaelhurst354]

Hi - another useful video, thank you. In the last video I asked how you would work with the single drum channel containing all the drum patterns that was the end result of your Programming Extreme Metal Drums video. Going from this video, is the answer that you would create separate audio files for each drum type by routing to separate outputs, and say that the rhythms are then fixed and go on to route and mix them as though they'd come in as audio files from a real drum recording session?

[@Mendelian]

Very good question! When it comes to programmed drums sometimes i received them in WAV files from the client and sometimes a MIDI file. I don’t personally have a preference, though in here where it’s wave files it sometimes quicker to manipulate the clip gain for plugins input gains.

[@thesoundresidence]

Sad times for drum-productions...

[@eranddroory9987]

With so much routing you might wanna spend more time going through that too much talk and too little schematics on the routing. Disappointing. ..

[@Mendelian]

Thank you so much for your feedback, i’ll dig into more clarification with schematics next time. Kind regards, Mendel

[@eranddroory9987]

@@Mendelian Awesome thanks..

[@MaximShelkov]

Great tutorial I really like how you explain concepts.

[@stellarlay517]

Hi, Mendel! Tell me please, Are the drums from the video live or rendered from some kind of sampler?

[@hars1ad]

Hey , really helpful video. 🙌🏻🙌🏻 Just wanted to know, is there limiter ON ? What headroom you are leaving for mastering purpose? Thanks.

[@blackpantera5140]

Hi Mendel. Are the Groups Stereo or Mono?

[@scentia_est]

That content is gold!

[@abishekravichandran2328]

Can I crack cubase😅

[@RudalPL]

It comes bundled with a lot of stuff, YAMAHA mainly. I had 3 keys. One came with my THR10X amp, another with my YAMAHA interface and one with my ZOOM mobile microphone. Next time when you need any gear see if it has Cubase bundled with it.