It sounds good! I have been noticing on my own audio that the MIDI drums were not sounding powerful enough. After looking into it, I found the MIDI drums had a velocity of around 50-80. They were not hitting hard enough to make a good rock / metal drum sound. I used the ‘MIDI Gamma Velocity’ plugin from x42, and I was able to adjust the drums to my liking. I used a setting of 0.33 or so and it really made the drums come alive! Before using the plug-in, at the 50-80 velocity range, it was using samples that were not very aggressive. After using the plug-in, they were in the 100-120 velocity range, and were triggering the heavy hitting samples in the General MIDI Instrument and the AVL Drum Kits. I have not used Drum Gizmo, and I don’t know how it will react.
When I listened to your song, the drums reminded me of what mine were sounding like before I applied the MIDI Gamma Velocity plug in.
I assume that you exported the Drums from MUSE. What was the general MIDI velocity of the drum track ? If it is in the 50-80 range, I would highly suggest using the @x42 MIDI Gamma Velocity plugin to bring those into the hard hitting sample range. It should be already installed with Ardour, but if not, it is free to download and in the ‘MIDI Filter Collection’. It works fantastically!
I hope you find this information helpful. Let me know. And I am curious if your MIDI drums are in the lower range of 50-80 velocity.
Oh, and one other thing, the cymbals were a little harsh on my audio system. What I like to do is use a multi-band compressor on the master track, and compress just the high end , about 12k Hz and up, to my liking. It kinda simulates an analog tape style compression. Maybe give it a try and see what you think ?
Yes, I let MusE “write” the drums into the 15 wave tracks prepared for the CrocellKit.
Then I import these tracks into Ardour for the mix.
What was the general MIDI velocity of the drum track ?
Well, the “main” hits (usually kick on the 1, snare on the 2) are at 110.
Secondary hits (e.g. kick on the 3, snare on the 4) I pull down to a value between 80 and 100.
Same for the toms, hihat, etc.
And I am curious if your MIDI drums are in the lower range of 50-80 velocity.
Actually no.
However, when I want to have additional ghost notes on the snare (not on this song however), I’m usually at a velocity around 20 +/-5 for them.
Oh, and one other thing, the cymbals were a little harsh on my audio system.
Not as harsh as the vocals, before taming them.
But yes, I just like to have the cymbals louder than those on reference tracks I use for comparison.
Anyways, nice metal song!
Thanks. The next one will become similar to “Walking On” again (which I posted ~3 months ago). But so far, I don’t have any idea yet how to play the first solo.
If you dont mind me asking, what did you use for reference tracks ?
For the drum mix I used songs from Dark Tranquillity’s “Fiction” album, because I absolutely love the sound of the snare there.
For this particular song I took “Death in Fire” from Amon Amarth.
However, in both cases my goal never was to achieve the very same sound as the reference. I just use them to quickly (re)calibrate my ears during mixing…
