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MDrumEnhancer in Melda Eternal Madness Sale


mibby

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I know the Eternal Madness sales are every week -  and they are a great way to pick up a Melda plugin for 1/2 off.  We all know the drill by now.

https://www.meldaproduction.com/

But of particular note this week is MDrumEnhancer - at least to me.  There are lots of drum replacement plugins out there, but I never see this one talked about for some reason.  It's one of the pricier plugins, so I've never  really looked at it either until recently.  I got to tried it out during the 3 month Covid Subscription of the MCompleteBundle  that Melda did.  And I must say, I really liked it!  I'm also pretty certain, as with most Melda plugins, that I've barely scratched the surface on what this thing can do.

https://www.meldaproduction.com/MDrumEnhancer

As an example, here's a mix from my SoundCloud page where I used it. These tracks have been around for a long time, but I finally got around to mixing them.  (Not trying to push my mixing, but I am trying to push MDrumEnhancer because I really liked how the drums came out on this one.  🙂  )  

Tiptoe Through the Crypto by Turkuaz

It's certainly worth demoing if you're in the market for a drum replacement/enhancing plugin., and it's 1/2 off right now for $88. (Still kind of steep!)

I'd also be REAL interested to hear from anyone with experience with MDrumEnhancer vs (the other options).  i.e. Slate Trigger, PA's SPL DrumXchanger (meh IMHO), or UVI's new Drum Replacer to name a few.

Here's the shameless salesy stuff:

  • First time buyers can get 20% off whatever they're buying if they use someone's referral code.*  The "referrer" gets a 10% credit on their account.
  • You can sign up for the Newsletter for a 10 EU credit too.

* (Just in case you don't have a Melda buddy, my Melda Referral Code is "MELDA5158432")  :)

Edited by mibby
added links!
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3 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

Have you noticed that since the weekly half-off sales began, Melda pricing has been slowly creeping upward? Today the 50% price is sometimes higher than the list price was a couple years ago. I'm still a fan, but Vojtech's stuff ain't the bargain it used to be.

Very true. I wish I had jumped on the complete bundle years ago. In hind-sight, what a total no-brainer bargain that was!  Still, I'm slowly chipping away at my collection.

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14 hours ago, mibby said:

But of particular note this week is MDrumEnhancer - at least to me.  There are lots of drum replacement plugins out there, but I never see this one talked about for some reason.  It's one of the pricier plugins, so I've never  really looked at it either until recently. 

Yeah, it looked interesting but there is exactly one YouTube video (the teaser one from Melda) that shows it in action (there are a couple more, but they're junk). Normally I don't go to the hassle of downloading trial versions unless I already have a pretty good idea of what it can do from demos and reviews, but I think of all the time I've spent trying to get a good drum sound, and figured it was worth a shot.

I tried it on a track with live drums we recorded in a studio, and it took less than 10 minutes for me to decide to buy it. Actually, it took all of 10 seconds, if that, to turn the thin kick drum into something much more solid and meaty, but not at all in a fake way. It just sounds good! It took a bit longer with the snare, which already sounded pretty good, but I was able to alter its character in rather subtle ways. Again, it sounded good, but very natural. What started as live drums ended up sounding like ... live drums! But sounding much better. 

The clincher was how much easier and quicker it was to get good results vs. fiddling with EQ, compression, etc., etc.

Very glad I found this, and that it's on sale! And thanks for sharing your referral code ... between that and the 10 credits for newsletter signup it came in at $59, which normally I would be hesitant about for this type of effect, but ... it will save me so much time, and it sounds so good ... I talked myself into it!

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That's great to hear Roger, and thank you! Yours was exactly my impression too when I first tried it.  Melda plugins can be a bit "fiddly", but once you get used to the user interface, they are pretty amazing and feature rich plugins. 

Another indispensible plugin in my workflow is MAutoAlign. It's the first plugin on my drums - even if they're not live.  I've also started using it on my bass and other tracks to align the low end frequencies. You just pop it on there, analyze the tracks, toggle the "bypass all" on and off to see which you like better, then move on.  Really a great plugin!  But keep an eye out for that one on the Eternal Madness sale - it's not too expensive and really great. Black Friday is coming up too - Melda usually puts everything on 1/2 price then as well.  :)

Edited by mibby
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I posted a fun trick a couple years ago on the old forum using MDrumEnhancer by tapping a condensor mic with fingers, then replacing it with a snare.

The other thing about about MDrumEnhancer is it has no latency, so you can do drum replacement real time (the dry and wet tracks in that post were recorded in one pass).

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22 minutes ago, mettelus said:

I posted a fun trick a couple years ago on the old forum using MDrumEnhancer by tapping a condensor mic with fingers, then replacing it with a snare.

Haha! That's awesome! 

Got any tips/tricks you wouldn't mind sharing with us? As Roger pointed out there is very little online about this plugin.  We need a good video tutorial  from @Chandler🙂

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11 hours ago, mibby said:

Haha! That's awesome! 

Got any tips/tricks you wouldn't mind sharing with us? As Roger pointed out there is very little online about this plugin.  We need a good video tutorial  from @Chandler🙂

No promises, but I'll try to do a video on it. I don't do live drums often, but I think I have some live drum tracks I recorded badly a few years ago on my old computer. I'll see if I can cook up a tutorial. 

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Sweet!  I've been doing some reading over on KVR, but most of the threads are from a couple of years ago when the plugin came out. I'd love to see how a smart guy uses this plugin.  🙃  

As I'm sure you know, there are plenty of tracks over on the Cambridge site.

https://cambridge-mt.com/ms/mtk/

Happy to help any way I can, just let me know...  Thanks Chandler!

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7 hours ago, Max Arwood said:

I have used Drumagog 5 for years.  Don't know how it compares with Melda.

I'm not familiar with Drumagog.  I'd definitely like to hear what you think if you give MDrumEnhancer a try, especially from the perspective of someone who uses a replacement plugin.  From digging the the Melda KVR forum yesterday, this plugin is really NOT a drum replacement plugin (although some have used it that way with moderate success) so it may be apples and oranges.

I've done drum replacement manually, and it's a pain.  But the end goal is simply to get better sounding drums, right?  Who cares how you get there?  What I really like about MDrumEnhancer is that is bypasses the usual problems associated with replacement like velocity and missed hits etc., and highlights the drummer's performance by simply making his drums sound better. Plus, Vojtech (the dev) is a drummer, so this plugin has that going for it as well.   B|

https://bitosti.bandcamp.com/releases

 

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mibby-I am demoing the Melda MDrumEnhancer.  I thought is was a drum replacer.  It is not like & not like Drumagog which is a  drum replacer.  I really like the MDrumEnhancer.  I think it is a little pricey but It is very deep.  I use roland pads and SD3 for most of my drums.  MDrumEnhancerdoes allow me to get even closer/faster to what I want than any other method. Still debating it.

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Thanks Max for the feedback.  I think where this will really shine is mixing someone's recorded drums with the REAL benefit of preserving the nuances of the drummer's performance.  Not so sure how useful this would be for sampled drums - still, it could be interesting to play with.  Anyway, I took the plunge. I can check another Melda plugin off my list.  :)

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