steve trusty

Using the Piano Roll view (PMV). There is a bunch of piano keys down the left side “the midi notes”. I’d like to rename these respectively with Addictive Drums 2, or name them at all? Their blank and have always been to my knowledge.. Also, essentially if I change “kit pieces” within AD2 they would also follow suit on correct names on the keys? Thanks ahead of time

I agree. I sit down with it some more last night. My genre is metal, which for the most part is that “squashed” sound. I had to back quite a bit of compression off my L2 to get the wlm to act as it “should”. Not very happy with its results. Ended up deleting and turning the compression back up. I dug a bit deeper researching and it seems this plugin is essentially for podcast/tv. Sure it can be used for music but I’d say it’s more so for sound effects/music tracks for broadcast like Matthew suggest. I misinterpreted its use when purchasing. Oops ??‍♂️ While it’s cool to compare or take a look at, it really doesn’t help me much for my application. Appreciate the input guys, hopefully if I’m missing something here someone will chime in. Otherwise another impulse buy just because it was on sale lol Oh and it’s said the EBU presets are industry standard for music. That’s what I used to no avail.

Any one familiar with how to use this? Not many videos go into detail. The one that does is in Portuguese. When I get short and long in the right range using trim and true peak, it gives a check mark on those boxes. But it affects my master output to a very low volume? My master fader stays at 0. The Output before using the plugin is -1.0 db. Use the plugin my output volume drops to -19 ish.. Then turning my master fader up the max 6db, It’s still really low? Should I add a plugin after the loudness meter just to use its output gain to get my master output back to -1.0 for export? Hopefully this makes since. Thanks ahead of time. By the way before applying the plugins trim and true peak my “short” was hitting in the red -10ish.. after applying it sits fine with the check mark, but I loose lots of overall volume. Do I have maybe too much compression maybe? Thanks ahead of time

Some great info in this thread! I appreciate the help/advice. While Like to consider myself a serious solo artist, I don’t make serious solo artist money to afford 3500.00... at the moment.. As I quietly check my shoulder and add it to the wish list lol.. While looking into Neve, I also noticed Steinberg has partnered with Neve on there newer interface for 599.00.. Honestly for the time being I need to stick it out with my Tascam 2x2. It’s been a great budget interface. Planned to get the Roland octa rack mount interface I believe it’s called.. But would rather have usb 3.0 if I’m going to upgrade. Its true I need to work on my guitar signal coming in the interface. That could be playing a huge role in my tone. With all the editing possibilities to “fix” things I never really considered it. I do usually slightly compress/EQ the signal before the amp sim. Recently got the neural amp sim, been through a few of them. While it’s sounds great stand alone, it’s been a task to mix with. I seemed to have found a better tone with all you guys help. Mainly singled out a few things with Multi band eq, realized I had one of my buses muted. Opened a bit of space with slight reverb and panning. I also reconsidered the drums placement, compression and reverb tails. I noticed the issue why it wasn’t collapsing to mono very well. Seemed to have worked most the kinks out. Which basically boiled down to the guitars and cymbals. Was strange cause from my phone it sounded great. Laptop speakers are a different beast. Bluetooth speaker - slightly distorted with max volume, no distortion turned down a notch. Bluetooth in the car sounds a bit bassy still.. and lined in in the car, The search continues for my “go to guitar settings” I’ll never move on from this song if I don’t press forward! Plan to release a single a month once I release this one. So I’m trying to speed my workflow. Thanks again everyone.

Oh.. lol total mis-read

Drum Replacer! Solo the instrument in Ad2 “bounce to track”. Mute the instrument in Ad2 after the bounce. Select the .wav file, “create region effect” select Drum Replacer. Once the DR editor has opened. Click on the first “layers” sound title. Load your own sample. If you click the the drop down icon it’ll only show stock DR sounds. I use this mostly for snare and kick replacement/layering. There are other ways for Ad2 to export all instruments and buses to .wav, or be recorded that way? I’m not too sure, I never needed them all.

Thanks everyone for the input. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and give these ideas a shot! Especially reginald & meeteus, you’ve raised several good points on possibly achieving what I was looking for. Will report back as soon as I’m able to get back to my studio and try some things. I appreciate everyone taking time to respond and/or listen! \m/ Also razor 7, interesting take on that as well. I actually have been using amp sims. Direct in my interface. Usually record 2 different guitars, esp on left, Gibson on right.. eq them differently and try to marry the 2 in stereo. The reference to the moment at 3:04 is an interesting one cause I actually use automation throughout the song a lot, but that part I backed off the volume on the guitar and there’s actually a clean with flanger faded left taking over the space of my left distortion guitar. Although it’s still slightly there, the flange was suppose to hint it’s way forward until the song kicks back in. You say it stays in the same box and your right. Although I did some panning and automation, it’s not very obvious apparently.. will work on that as well! Again, I will report back, just trying to get in front of my desk before I can give these things a shot! Also the breaking down to mono, I use ozone 7 to preview how it would sound in mono and usually comes out ok, but something else I will definitely look in to! Should be good to go for tonight. Thanks again everyone! \m/

Just a heads up that I haven’t been able to get to my computer as I wanted yet. But will refer to this forum soon as I do and try some ideas!! I appreciate everyone’s input!

I’ll have to give that a shot! Just seeing your reply after replying to the last post. Is that h hybrid plugin? Can’t think of the name.. Either way, I have that eq so I’ll definitely give it a shot when I get home. Thanks man! I appreciate it a lot.

Agreed man, it’s a challenge. I bought neural dsp and tonal stl I think it was called.. while neural sounds really good stand alone, it does not translate well to mixing.. so much harshness when you really get down to it.. i appreciate the advice. I just may check into that one as well.. I look at amp sims like pedals these days.. can’t ever have too many. I looked into them a while back and for whatever reason I didn’t get it.. at this point though, frustration in the studio will drive me to spend more money!! Lol I wish someone would chim in! I posted in 2 forums on here. It’s hard to describe the sound I’m getting stuck with without actually hearing it, or comparing it.. Thanks again! \m/

I appreciate that. That’s a bit more copying of their gear than I intend. Although I do play a Ltd ec-1000. I use amp sims for recording, assortment of pedals and digital pedals. Just using those bands for a example cause their studio guitar mix overall is pretty similar to what I’m looking for. Each of them have the same sort of “warmth” ( if that’s a good word) that the mix engineers are scooping, boosting, cutting or all the above, pertaining to EQ. Or even Multiband compression. Basically, amp sims sound great stand alone. Until it’s put in a mix, different story. Same with addictive drums, synths/pianos. Sound amazing until you throw other instruments in to share the frequencies. Ive fought eq for days on this song and can’t seem to find a happy medium. It’ll either sound full and boxy.. or thin and bright.. bring down some of the highs, it disappears in the mix.. turn up the low mids it over takes the mix.

I tried posting in the other category but I feel most traffic on here comes to this forum instead. Hopefully someone can lend their ears and advice. I’ve been mixing/mastering my latest song. One of my biggest struggles these days is getting a solid guitar tone on my albums. When I get it sounding to my likes, I preview it on different systems - car, phone, Bluetooth/aux speakers. It ends up sounding very mid driven and boxy. While the tone isn’t too bad, it’s not... ever the sound I want. So I settle. Im reaching out today in hopes someone will listen to my track and tell me how to basically fix my sound to more of a modern rock/metal guitar sound. I’ve eq’d the “hisses” and useless frequencies, but I end up with a very mid boxy sound. If I fix the boxy-ness it gets thin or too bright.. I’ve tried and tried eqing it out but for the life of me can’t pin point where to scoop or add. Heads up this isn’t the finished product. Merely a rough master. Esp the vocals. Also I say boxy but someone else may describe it differently I’m no beginner and I’ve been through many article/forums on how to fix this or that, just never translates to what I’m shooting for. Hopefully you have google drive. Suppose if need be I can upload to YouTube with a link only. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OR6I4jKeCHgHXb72rH6hsIQsxDvwEBsd/view?usp= Closest off top my head I’m looking to achieve the tone of is “All That Remains”, “Breaking Benjamin” “Godsmack” not an exact copy of their tone obviously but that smoothness and easy listening tone. My opinion on my tone is it’s rigid on the ear. Especially at high volumes. It lacks warmth and sounds........OFF?

I’ve been mixing/mastering my latest song. One of my biggest struggles these days is getting a solid guitar tone on my albums. When I get it sounding to my likes, I preview it on different systems - car, phone, Bluetooth/aux speakers. It ends up sounding very mid driven and boxy. While the tone isn’t too bad, it’s not... ever the sound I want. So I settle. Im reaching out today in hopes someone will listen to my track and tell me how to basically fix my sound to more of a modern rock/metal guitar sound. I’ve eq’d the “hisses” and useless frequencies, but I end up with a very mid boxy sound. If I fix the boxy-ness it gets thin or too bright.. I’ve tried and tried eqing it out but for the life of me can’t pin point where to scoop or add. Heads up this isn’t the finished product. Merely a rough master. Esp the vocals. Also I say boxy but someone else may describe it differently I’m no beginner and I’ve article after article on how to fix this or that, just never translates Hopefully you have google drive. Suppose if need be I can upload to YouTube with a link only. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OR6I4jKeCHgHXb72rH6hsIQsxDvwEBsd/view?usp=drivesdk

Is there an advantage to this? Or a difference besides fader location?

Gotcha, for the most part I understand everything you wrote there, but to do or change about it is what gets me. I can solo a instrument and I get a good idea. It’s just when it’s the whole mix, and funny you say “like a ball of steel wool” now that I can relate to, in that I understand you don’t want the “steel wool imagining, dots” to go outside the L & R angled lines. I can work with that by ear and visual. What gets me is I’m losing the center to the sides, or I’m almost mono. Both extremes. To further update: i also have the Abby roads mastering plugins. Comes with a At Th meter bridge, I believe it’s technically called. After loading that up, I noticed my cymbals are slightly out of phase, Also my guitars were pushing a bit more to one side. And actually after soloing the guitars, they are definitely the culprit. I can solo anything and the phase is good. A Couple times the vocals drift out for a couple seconds, but I have wide vocal backup layering on the chorus, thinking that’s the cause of that and not too worried about it. Other than that, I can easily fix the cymbals phase issue.. Hoping I fix this guitar phase issue and get clarity overall. Thanks for the videos! I will definitely sit down and watch those. Always growing, always learning! \m/

I’ve tried using that with izotope imager, which I’m not sure it’s very good or the same thing. But honestly I don’t know how to read it, what to look for or what exactly it all means. I’ve got a general idea, but in all, looks like I need to check into that more. Thanks for your help!

I’ve had a hard time getting my kick in absolute center of my mixes. Bass guitar also, not as much as the kick though.. sounds good in the daw and on my monitors. In the car or other reference listening, it’s like the kick hits wide and loses punch. I’ve noticed this in my past songs as well. I just settled for the sake of finishing the project at the time. But the center punch a kick has in professional metal mixes is difficult to achieve for some reason? I use addictive drums. But I bounce the kick and snare to audio tracks and edit from there. Obviously keep their pan at 0. The Kick, Snare, Bass, Lead vocal track are basically in the Center. While guitars, layering/backup vocals, drum pieces are spread throughout. I don’t have any imaging tools on my master/drum bus. Just normal panning. If it helps, this is for rock/metal genres. I’m looking for that low end punch with click for the speed... The kick sound from “All That Remains” would be a good example. Any pointers? My kick sounds really good as is, until exported.

Wow, so this weirdly worked out. The first way didn’t work.. actually caused a crash.. I simply started following the second solution. I inserted a audio track, then a midi track. Switched the output of that midi to addictive drums.. At that point I noticed the blank midi track freeze icon was active. I clicked unfreeze on the blank midi track and my original AD2 suddenly unfroze. Still had no audio although I had my midi content back. Quickly copied it just in case. Deleted the blank audio and midi track. In the output I had 2 instances of AD2. One is AD 2-1 and the other AD 2-2.. switched it to the first one and boom, I got drums!! \m/ Appreciate the help!

I haven’t lost Ad2 because it works fine in other projects.. looking at msmcleod’s post. It sounds like this happened when I hooked up my new MOTU 5x5. My Tascam 2x2 is always used for midi. But, strangely the track wasn’t frozen when I hooked that interface up and messed with the in and out settings. I will try the above asap! Thanks guys! Will report back

Help help! A project I’ve been working on has suddenly formed a bug. I have ad2 midi drum track frozen but the freeze button is greyed out. The input echo acts like a monitor input when pushed. I can access the midi notes in the piano roll but not sure if I can copy or cut them out from there? Or how to go about it. The track has been frozen for some time after many saves.. is there somewhere where midi data is stored? Then just delete that midi track and paste the notes back in??

just wanted to say thanks guys! It was easier than I anticipated, especially since the interface was automatically recognized and listed under midi, as well as available out on all tracks. Highly recommended the MOTU 5x5 Midi for midi solutions. Built like a tank too.

Sorry I misspelled and said that kinda wrong. I have a MOTU Micro lite interface. It supports up to 4 midi ins and outs.. just not so sure on how to tell bandlab to recognize both interfaces simultaneously so I can bounce around from each gear

I have a Roland td11kv Edrum Set. Roland spd sx, and a mini nova keyboard. I bought a moto midi interface. I also run a 2x2 Tascam interface. My td11kv on has a midi out option. Whereas the other two have both in and out. I use the spd sx via the midi in and out on the Tascam interface. I’d like to have all the above hooked up and ready to go but available at all time also.. I’d like to possibly use my novation as a control surface. But from everything I’ve read, the moto lite is basically plug and play.. my question is how do I route the moto “with” the Tascam interface where I can basically play any of the gear listed above without jumping through a bunch of hoops?? I run win 10, creation station from sweetwater if it matters. Thanks ahead of time!

I’m a solo rock/metal artist. I recorded, mixed and mastered my latest album using Cakewalk/Bandlab. This song is energetic, I have many styles and genres on my Album if this is “too metal” https://youtu.be/z5qHru-EsaI Link to my album. https://www.pandora.com/artist/the-tri-tones/this-is-the-point-explicit/AL9fzhmttmcJtVP?part=ug&corr=56551332

Perfect! Got it!