I grabbed BFD Crush from Mr. Arkadin who was selling off his expansions a few weeks ago. I wanted to create a mix template in Pro Tools for Crush, get all the routing and my plugin chains set up, so I wound up putting a short Metal jam together. It’s little heavier than I normally write and was definitely a little tricky trying to play this style with a Fender Strat, but I thought overall it turned out pretty cool.
I honestly didn’t think I’d dig Crush this much, but it’s really quite an exceptional sounding kit with a lot of variety. Even the toms grew on me after a while. I really liked the Stainless Steel snare and linked the two dampened versions and the cymbals are great (the main reason I got Crush).
While I am here, a project I started work on with a friend, during the covid era, we recorded an entire album using BFD for the drums, it’s busy being mixed right now at Belville Studios in Cape Town. The first single was release yesterday:
Thanks man. Yeah the guitars came out pretty good. I used a Rivera TBR-1 SL (TH-U rig library) for most of it. It was used on the Saigon Kick album from the early 90’s.
Wow, that track sounds badass! What kit did you use?
Thanks bro, I dig that Saigon album a lot. That rig sounds great, I have THU, will check it. Very cool guitars and leads on your track, the kit is very bold, I dig it.
I used the black album expansion, never thought I would but we ended up using it on the entire album, Theo Crous at Belville Studios has done a superb job on the mix, really dig what he did with the drums.
A short one, but the first track I’ve produced in many months, after being away from my music rig. Using BFD Crush again. Everything mixed inside Pro Tools. It’s kinda become my go-to metal kit for now.
Thank you brother. This year has definitely sucked. We lost another family member on my Dad’s side too. I did get a way better bass sound on this project with Crush. Same bass sounds that I used on my last upload, but I swapped which tracks (DI+amp) handle the lows only and the midrange. When in doubt, let the DI bass handle the lows and HPF the mids out and conversely, HPF the lows from the amp track. I sent my session of this track to Jordan Valeriote and he roasted it on his YT channel. That’s what that YT comment was referring to about the gazillion plugins.
[quote=“Fender_Bender, post:131, topic:1324”]
Jordan Valeriote and he roasted it on his YT channel.
[/quote] hahah, he made some good points, interesting comparison between the mixes, what did you think of his doings?
Harsh on your families losses, not easy. Strength to all of you bro.
I mean he’s a pro engineer, so it’s no surprise what he was able to do. For sure there were some things about his that sounded way better. I tried to explain that a lot of those plugins are just optional placeholders and not necessarily all being used. Like on my Master, I have a few different saturators, clippers, comps, limiters that are my go-to’s, but which ones I choose depend on the needs of the track.
Also, some plugins are just basic tape and console emulators for color, but they take up a slot. Some plugins are bypassed and automated to only come in on the Chorus, etc. Most of the tracks have a Trim plugin last, so when I’ve written volume automation to the track, I can just use the Trim to adjust the overall volume, instead of having to mess with the automation lane. And sometimes I’ve processed a track, but then realize I need to dip something out more. So instead of going back and messing up the signal going into the comp, etc, I just add an eq at the end of the chain. I think I may have to do my own breakdown of this session and explain all of this stuff.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the past couple of years updating my main session template, I/O busses and track presets, so it sucks to have to throw all that work away. Next project I will try and slim it down. FWIW, I sent my mix to a friend of mine who has a very well-known studio out in LA and he said it sounded fine. Nothing really jumped out that needed fixing in his opinion. And not just to be nice… I’ve sent him other mixes in the past and he told me what needed some tweaking. All that said, I love Jordan Valeriote and he is a no-nonsense, great teacher for audio and I respect his philosophies.
Awesome, I agree, good that you’re open to other peoples opinions and suggestions too. I learned this year how way cool it is to work with external engineers and producers. Incredible how much you can learn, even if you know lots already. A fresh set of ears or two, make the world of difference. I thought your mix sounded awesome, then I hear some of his comparisons and yes there was some things that sounded cool, but that doesn’t mean there was anything bad about your mix.
I just opened one up from our last album. 111 tracks, and 109 plugins in total. Which ultimately is around an average of 1 plugin per-track. But I do process on individual channels as well as busses. A practical example of that would be toms; clipping four toms individually sounds different to clipping 4 toms through a buss. Sometimes you want one over the other.
You can see I’ve recorded that in using an X-Touch controller, not programmed it with the mouse. I think things like this are far more important to a mix than an arbitrary limitation on the number of plugins you’re using.
Mixing needs to be a creative pursuit as well, not just the pursuit of dialling away errors. The number one thing I see people doing is not taking risks and listening with their eyes. Do you know how many guitarists leave their amps treble knob at 5 and presence knob at noon because they’re afraid of the high frequencies? Tons!
thanks for sharing Drew, yes not only guitarists, people rely too much on youtube persona’s and take everything for gospel, not saying anyone here has, but the amount of people that follow a trend when it springs up on youtube is insane, and then it snowballs, months or even years later you see a new post completely obliterating that one everyone swore as gospel, (gain staging is a big one) and then they all jump on that wagon.
Well hopefully when BFD4 rolls around, we can ditch our secondary options altogether. Actually, speaking of Slate, I believe there is something new coming maybe this month for SSD5.5. Either a major update, or expansion.
I have no idea why he just left that product in the dust for so long. It had the potential to be the top dog, especially if he had integrated all the SD effects he’s released over the years. Now that he sold that company, I guess it’s no longer possible.
great post, great feedback, but ime it takes quite some time for it all to come together to get that last 10%
+1 for how good the ‘raw’ drums sound, assume BFD3, not sure if you used any BFD FX or not. always route the channels into a DAW for ‘better’ FX (= more familiar) but starting to lean on the BFD FX for kit pieces instead of keeping everything up to date on different PCs.
