Meldaproduction MDrumLeveler €15

[ralfrobert]

https://www.meldaproduction.com/MDrumLeveler

For the next 6 days. 

Edited July 22 by ralfrobert

[reginaldStjohn]

Great price. 

[cclarry]

Use the Xmas code XMASJULY10  and some KVR Points and get it even cheaper

https://www.kvraudio.com/marketplace/mdrumleveler-by-meldaproduction

Edited July 22 by cclarry

[GTsongwriter]

That's pretty much a FET compression tool, right?

[Starship Krupa]

On 7/22/2024 at 10:03 PM, El Diablo said:

That's pretty much a FET compression tool, right?

Not at all. While it does control dynamics, it's nothing like a compressor emulation.

I used to have a whole chain worked out for my live drum tracks, using Boz' Gatey Watey, elysia mpressor, etc.

Then I got MDrumLeveler in one of my Melda bundles and....whoa. It replaced all of the track-level dynamics processing I had been using. It takes care of everything but EQ.

If you're mixing live drums, run, don't walk. Unequivocal recommendation from this drummer.

Makes it so easy that it almost takes the fun out of it.?

[Pat Osterday]

I just bought smart:gate.  Any comparison?

[PavlovsCat]

Reading. Watching. Doing my best to learn from Starship Krupa's posts.  Just thought I'd share so that you're aware that these conversations are useful to those lurking,  even though most don't post comments. @Starship Krupa I'm going to research the plugin based on your comment. Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts. 

[Starship Krupa]

28 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

I'm going to research the plugin based on your comment.

I'm interested to hear what you think of it.

[Brian Walton]

4 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Not at all. While it does control dynamics, it's nothing like a compressor emulation.

I used to have a whole chain worked out for my live drum tracks, using Boz' Gatey Watey, elysia mpressor, etc.

Then I got MDrumLeveler in one of my Melda bundles and....whoa. It replaced all of the track-level dynamics processing I had been using. It takes care of everything but EQ.

If you're mixing live drums, run, don't walk. Unequivocal recommendation from this drummer.

Makes it so easy that it almost takes the fun out of it.?

Have you used it a single time after getting MDrumStrip?   ?

For those that don't have complete or want future bundle upgrades certainly worth looking at for the price.  

[mibby]

4 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

Have you used it a single time after getting MDrumStrip?   ?

For those that don't have complete or want future bundle upgrades certainly worth looking at for the price.  

Last time I tried it, I found MDrumStrip to pretty pretty CPU intensive.  That was a while ago, maybe it's gotten better?

[Starship Krupa]

2 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

Have you used it a single time after getting MDrumStrip?

Actually, I haven't used MDrumStrip at all except to just try it out. ?. Mostly because I haven't been recording live drums, but also because I have a hard time cozying up to channel strip plug-ins. Which is what MDrumStrip is: it's a collection of drum-specific channel strips.

It's a completely different concept and function from MDrumLeveler and they're intended for different workflows. MDrumLeveler takes a unique approach to dynamics, and dynamics only. It levels out the sound of your drum hits and separates them from the rest of the kit. My drum kit mic'ing is simple, just 4 mics in my interpretation of the "Recorderman" setup. A mic each for kick and snare, and overheads set up asymmetrically.

Each of MDrumStrip's channel strip devices gives you EQ, compression, reverb, saturation, and limiting. It's like MTurboEQ in that there's no "edit" mode where you have under-the-hood access to the individual elements. What you get is 9 channel strips, each for a different piece of the drum kit, plus bus and master.

My mixing flow for live drums is MDrumLeveler on kick, MDrumLeveler on snare, EQ as needed on each, compression and EQ on the overheads, and then one last compressor on the whole drum bus. MDrumStrip could sub for whatever compressor and EQ I use on the overheads. That's about all it could do for me.

MeldaProduction's plug-ins aren't necessarily designed to complement each other, many of them are aimed at dissimilar workflows. That's the case with these two.

MDrumStrip is part of the initiative he's taken in latter years to also accommodate tastes outside his original philosophy. Doing the "devices" was the first step, then the skeuomorphic devices was the second step and then making plug-ins that were only devices, with no "edit" mode was the most recent step. I clicked with MeldaProduction's original utility-overkill design philosophy. And I don't care so much for their take on skeuomorphic. A lot of them look like what you'd get if you asked an AI to do a skeuomorphic plug-in UI, except I think they're actually done by humans who haven't necessarily actually seen the physical devices they're trying to imitate.

Here's my candidate for the worst example, from MDynamics:

A de-esser in the body of a Marshall practice amp (complete with handle and reinforced corners). Someone who had never seen an actual de-esser might come up with this.

Fortunately, even for the "devices only" ones there's a toggle setting for "enable custom GUI for devices" that will banish this sort of thing and get you to a more utilitarian UI if you prefer.

Anyway, MDrumStrip is part of their attempt to cater to people who are put off by the standard MeldaProduction UI. I'm not one of those people, and when it comes to channel strips, I usually end up choosing individual discrete processors.

[Brian Walton]

7 minutes ago, mibby said:

Last time I tried it, I found MDrumStrip to pretty pretty CPU intensive.  That was a while ago, maybe it's gotten better?

True it might be.  I seem to only use it during the mixdown where I can have high latency.  Need to try via tracking.

[Brian Walton]

11 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Actually, I haven't used MDrumStrip at all except to just try it out. ?. Mostly because I haven't been recording live drums, but also because I have a hard time cozying up to channel strip plug-ins. Which is what MDrumStrip is: it's a collection of drum-specific channel strips.

It's a completely different concept and function from MDrumLeveler and they're intended for different workflows. MDrumLeveler takes a unique approach to dynamics, and dynamics only. It levels out the sound of your drum hits and separates them from the rest of the kit. My drum kit mic'ing is simple, just 4 mics in my interpretation of the "Recorderman" setup. A mic each for kick and snare, and overheads set up asymmetrically.

Each of MDrumStrip's channel strip devices gives you EQ, compression, reverb, saturation, and limiting. It's like MTurboEQ in that there's no "edit" mode where you have under-the-hood access to the individual elements. What you get is 9 channel strips, each for a different piece of the drum kit, plus bus and master.

My mixing flow for live drums is MDrumLeveler on kick, MDrumLeveler on snare, EQ as needed on each, compression and EQ on the overheads, and then one last compressor on the whole drum bus. MDrumStrip could sub for whatever compressor and EQ I use on the overheads. That's about all it could do for me.

MeldaProduction's plug-ins aren't necessarily designed to complement each other, many of them are aimed at dissimilar workflows. That's the case with these two.

MDrumStrip is part of the initiative he's taken in latter years to also accommodate tastes outside his original philosophy. Doing the "devices" was the first step, then the skeuomorphic devices was the second step and then making plug-ins that were only devices, with no "edit" mode was the most recent step. I clicked with MeldaProduction's original utility-overkill design philosophy. And I don't care so much for their take on skeuomorphic. A lot of them look like what you'd get if you asked an AI to do a skeuomorphic plug-in UI, except I think they're actually done by humans who haven't necessarily actually seen the physical devices they're trying to imitate.

Here's my candidate for the worst example, from MDynamics:

A de-esser in the body of a Marshall practice amp (complete with handle and reinforced corners). Someone who had never seen an actual de-esser might come up with this.

Fortunately, even for the "devices only" ones there's a toggle setting for "enable custom GUI for devices" that will banish this sort of thing and get you to a more utilitarian UI if you prefer.

Anyway, MDrumStrip is part of their attempt to cater to people who are put off by the standard MeldaProduction UI. I'm not one of those people, and when it comes to channel strips, I usually end up choosing individual discrete processors.

With the strip you can also send the drums to a bus and just used it as a master effect on all of it.  Just messing around with it a bit I felt like I could get some pretty good drum sounds that way as long as each piece was reasonably well recorded.  

I also work with a 3-4 mic drum setup most of the time and find that achieves what I'm looking for better than a "mic everything" approach.

[Starship Krupa]

3 hours ago, Brian Walton said:

I also work with a 3-4 mic drum setup most of the time and find that achieves what I'm looking for better than a "mic everything" approach.

My goal is "drums in a room." I want to capture what it sounds like for me or another drummer to be playing the kit in the room, rather than trying to get the best possible capture of each individual piece of the kit. Snare and kick getting their own mics is fine.

Do you put that 3rd mic on the bass drum?

I'd expect MDrumStrip to be good, the founder/chief engineer of MeldaProduction is a drummer. I'll surely give it a try when I start recording drums again.

[Brian Walton]

5 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

My goal is "drums in a room." I want to capture what it sounds like for me or another drummer to be playing the kit in the room, rather than trying to get the best possible capture of each individual piece of the kit. Snare and kick getting their own mics is fine.

Do you put that 3rd mic on the bass drum?

I'd expect MDrumStrip to be good, the founder/chief engineer of MeldaProduction is a drummer. I'll surely give it a try when I start recording drums again.

Yes one LD overhead and bass drum as the core.  Then add snare, and if going to 4 mics add the side overhead condenser on the "ride" side of the set.

Edited July 25 by Brian Walton