I adjust bleed in the SD02 mixer (specially hi hats on the OHs and room) but somehow it's there after I bounce. Relatively simple and quick, compared to others (NI Abbery Road, Studio Drummer, SSD kontakt) where you have to spend time routing audio to subs etc. It's actually the best drum library for bouncing drum tracks. Overall though I prefer to bounce to disk before I mix the drums but after I have finalised the sequences.I bounce too. The trouble comes in where you want to change something in the drum sequence then you gotta bounce it all again and import, which is a PITA. I find that I can get drum tracks finished very quickly this way and they always end up being mixed much better. I have ultimate control over the drums mix in this way. I can then import the audio into the DAW and mix the drums. Right now I bounce to disk with everything switched on and everything separated bypassing the SD2 mixer.

Here's a song my band just released mixed this way. If I want a super crisp closed hat I may layer in 808 hats as well.

Sometimes I'll also add some 808 to the snare. Here I will often add a layer of 909 to the kick from Gold Baby's tape drums. Then these all go to a drum bus and I start sifting through samples to really match the music. There's just so much more to choose from here.

Overheads: This is where the real cymbals and room mics go, or on occasion it will be an instance of S2. I start with 5 instrument tracks and split the original midi over those tracks. When I have my guitars, bass and keys finished I'll really go in and tweak the drum sounds. Once the drums are 90% done, I leave them and finish the rest of the music. The close mics are only triggers for Superior/Slate etc.įor the times when I don't have a real drum performance I usually sequence the drums with a single instance using a goto S2 kit. In that case I almost always only use the overheads, cymbals, room etc.

Now, most of the time I'm working with a real drum kit and replacing with samples. Luckily my Retina MBP can handle as many instances as I need. But I can't be limited to the internal mixer either. I don't like to bounce because I will often change the performance or samples at the last second. But I need a separate instance for each category of the kit. For me mixing and recording/producing happen at the same time.

Superior drummer 2.0