Advice - Mixing drums out of riffs.

[Jamolah Profile]

Hey breakcore-haters!

Lets say I extract a few bars of a tune, cos I like the riff, and think it would sound sweet with some nastiness under it. Now lets say I want rid of the drums under the riff, so that things don't get mushy and I can fuck around with the beat as much as I like. How best to go about this? Compress? Cut certain EQ? Hire some muso's to come and re-record the bastard? Any advice, suggestions or thinly-veiled insults highly appreciated.

Cheers,
JP

[xTxRxAxVxIxSx Profile Website]

Well, I don't know a lot about frequency ranges and stuff like that, but I assume a lot of metal guitar and drums are within the same range. I'm sure you could isolate it to some degree, but I don't see it turning out as well as isolating vocals...

I say either get someone to play it for you and record it or find a badass guitar VST and do it yourself.

[producer_snafu Profile Website]

side chaining

[Jamolah Profile]

side chaining

Care to elaborate? How does this work/how will it help?

Cheers,
JP

[producer_snafu Profile Website]

wiki explains side chaining as

Side-chaining uses the signal level of another input or an equalized version of the original input to control the compression level of the original signal. For sidechains that key off of external inputs, when the external signal is stronger, the compressor acts more strongly to reduce output gain. This is used by disc jockeys to lower the music volume automatically when speaking; in this example, the DJ's microphone signal is converted to line level signal and routed to a stereo compressor's sidechain input. The music level is routed through the stereo compressor so that whenever the DJ speaks, the compressor reduces the volume of the music, a process called ducking. The sidechain of a compressor that has EQ controls can be used to reduce the volume of signals that have a strong spectral content within the frequency range of interest. Such a compressor can be used as a de-esser, reducing the level of annoying vocal sibilance in the range of 6-9 kHz. A frequency-specific compressor can be assembled from a standard compressor and an equalizer by feeding a 6-9 kHz-boosted copy of the original signal into the side-chain input of the compressor. A de-esser helps reduce high frequencies that tend to overdrive preemphasized media (such as phonograph records and FM radio). Another use of the side-chain in music production serves to maintain a loud bass track, while still keeping the bass out of the way of the drum when the drum hits.

A stereo compressor without a sidechain can be used as a mono compressor with a sidechain. The key or sidechain signal is sent to the first (main) input of the stereo compressor while the signal that is to be compressed is routed into and out of the second channel of the compressor.

[Havok Profile WebsiteYIM]

how the fuck is sidechaining going to remove the drums from a sample?? it'll just affect the volume of the whole sample. even if you use a multiband compressor the frequencies of the drums and guitar will be overlapping so it still wouldnt work.

back to the question...youre best off re-recording it, or if you dont have the facilities etc. use a VST to simulate a guitar. If youre distorting it anyway it shouldnt matter too much.

You could try using this program..
Knockout
but I cant guarantee results.

[HVK]

[producer_snafu Profile Website]

how the fuck is sidechaining going to remove the drums from a sample?? it'll just affect the volume of the whole sample. even if you use a multiband compressor the frequencies of the drums and guitar will be overlapping so it still wouldnt work.

ahh i read his comment wrong then, my mistake,

try panning left or right to see if either side has no drums, if it does not have no drums then you can just copy that pan and then silence the other side and paste it on the sillenced side.


if you are lucky you can extract the drums from your audio file by inverting one side of your sound wave and then mixing it to mono.

if that doesn't work then i really don't know what to suggest, but hope you figure out a way

[Havok Profile WebsiteYIM]

heh, just read that last comment n sorry if I came over a bit aggressive

The phase inversion technique is pretty much what that knockout program does. Ive managed to make an accapella of "killer" by bug & rootsman using it

EZ

[HVK]

[another Profile]

interesting question! i learned quite a bit about sidechaining that i never knew before (and will try using it soon).

is there any programs for OS X that are like Knockout??

[MarkyPoo Profile Website]

There Is Definitely Programs Like For OS x Just Google It Or Check Audacity(I Don't Remember If It Works With OS x?) But Yeah Phase Inversion Isn't That Uncommon.

[Warpsmasher Profile WebsiteYIM]

A technique I use in Soundforge is to edit the track you want to change the drum sounds of and do them one hit at a time. Let's say you just want to change a snare hit to a kick...select the bulk of the snare hit, which can be anywhere from .100 to .350 seconds in length, and click process>fade>in to do a fade in, and you can repeat this 2 or 3 times if it's necessary. Now you have silence where most of the snare's attack was. Leave the area selected, then open the kick you want to replace it with, select the whole thing, right-click and hit 'copy' to put it on your clipboard, then go back to the original track and and hit edit>paste special>mix to mix it into the selected area where you just did the fade. A cool side-effect of this trick is that you can get a drum sound that starts with a kick attack and ends with a snare tail, if you do the fade just right, but it's usually not even noticeable, especially when you're doing it to a track that has all the other sounds going on besides just drums. It can also create a unique and very distinctive sidechain-like effect, because each drum hit you do this to will start out on complete silence and not have any other sounds interfering with it until the fade-in comes back up to its original volume. The trick to making it sound natural and unnotieceable is to never fade too much...just enough to drown out the attack of the hit you want to change, but not so much that you notice the volume of the rest of the track dropping in and out.