How do you set your cymbal swells?

Hello guys,

I wanted to know if you had any tips on programming the cymbal swells ?
I’m not sure about what I’m doing. Seems like I have too much swelling and when I hit the same crash two times it loses too much attack.

Any presets to advice ? I think I’m using “short swells” between 75-80% on the mix tweak.

Do you advice to use it on the ride, too ?
I remember that using the ride presets I lost lot of velocity layers…

Thanks a lot, people !
Cheers.

Eh, it’s a tweak by ear situation for me.

I can be using it in all cymbals of the kit at once, or not at all. It all depends on the material.

I start from the most relevant preset. E.g. Ride for rides, splash for splashes, etc… I tweak the swell knob, weight, and then evaluate. If I get too much wash I dial it back a bit. If I can’t get what I’m after, I swap presets and try again. Most of the times I find it useful to settle on the sound early on, as it’s easier to adapt to a sound and then play/program accordingly than trying to dial in a sound to an already convincing performance.

Well, that’s what I’m doing at least. It would be interesting to hear how others do it! :slightly_smiling_face:

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Thanks for the answer.

You said you used the ride presets so I check. Seems that the “Subtle ride” is okay but the “washy ride” cuts the velocity layers and almost every hit is hard. But I guess that’s the purpose…

Do you use any swell on the hi-hat ? I’m curious about that !

Well, that’s why I will also tweak the weight parameter in the groove for the ride, or trim the articulation gain. If a ride becomes too easy to “load”, it’s probably played too hard.

Again, this hugely depends on the kit piece. Some rides are washy by themselves and I need to damp them. Others are very dry, so this swell modelling might give them some tail. Another factor is sticks or mallets? Again that’s a completely different setup.

I can’t say I’m using any. I would consider it under special circumstances (i.e. a roll on the high hat with mallets for some reason if the “swell: off” version didn’t sit well with me.

The thing is, it’s tough to do subtle changes with just the swell knobs alone. I have to modify the hits as well, add or subtract weight, add or subtract hits. (even just to keep feeding energy to the cymbal/or letting it lose energy)

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