I should have looked away

[KuruPrionz]

I kept sniffing around the Eventide Physion plug in because the ability to seperate the transients from tonal aspects of the same sounds. There are two seperate sets of tools for modifying either or both from mild to insane. Plus it's 70% off right now and $50 is more than I usually spend on a plug in but this is more than a usual plug in.

 

https://www.eventideaudio.com/products/effects/structural-effect/physion

 

I went for it, it is installed and running. All I've done so far is listen to a bass line I'm working on and surf the presets.

There is much that can be done with these tools, I will get plenty of use out of this one.

[Greg Mein]

So currently I'm spending my precious free time creating backing tracks for our duo gig. The tried and true method for me is DP (currently Ver9) on MBP w/ MOTU interface (828x). As a terrible drummer the most difficult part for me is getting drum beats as close as possible and to that end I'm willing to cheat in any manner available. At this point I've decided to use Superior Drummer 3 for my drum tracks. Great sound and behaves well as a plug in.

 

Sometimes I may be satisfied with midi files I find and cannibalize. Other times the SD3 midi packs provide what I need (I just bought a new 6 pack of those) but there is also a feature in SD3 for pasting in audio drum tracks and having the software "convert" them to midi, I haven't found that very helpful up to this point but have only tried it on one stereo drum isolated track I was able to find. This software almost looks like it could be helpful but I can't really determine from what I've seen so far, any thoughts on that?

[KuruPrionz]

Physion allows you to modify the sound of an instrument in subtle and profound ways. Adjusting the balance between the transient and the tonal can reduce vocal sibilence, make a snare drum more or less "snappy" or even make it impossible to identfy it as a snare drum.

 

It doesn't help with moving the position of notes in the timeline, it sounds like that's what you want/need to do?

 

 

OT but...

SD3 would be nice to have, I mostly use Native Instruments Studio Drummer. It sounds good, real drums recorded in a good studio and converted to respond to MIDI.

I've found that you really need the kick and snare to be placed correctly so the bass line and rhythm parts that define the song fall into place.

Sometimes the kick is correct on one loop but not the snare. You could probably make a track with just the correct kick and sync another track with just the correct snare and get the beat done that way.

 

I am a somewhat less than terrible drummer so I've been trying to do it myself. Getting much better at it.

As I've gone down the studio rabbit hole I've realized how un-natural it sounds to have the same precise tempo through the entire song. Real music played by real musicians usually has tempo shifts, mostly subtle but they matter. Sometimes the changes are extreme and REALLY matter, search for "Rollng Stones Midnight Rambler Live" and listen to the version from Get Your Ya Yas Out, a masterpiece of tempo changes.

 

So, I've driven myself insane. I encourage this!!!! Cheers, Kuru

[Anderton]

As a terrible drummer the most difficult part for me is getting drum beats as close as possible and to that end I'm willing to cheat in any manner available. At this point I've decided to use Superior Drummer 3 for my drum tracks. Great sound and behaves well as a plug in.

 

This would make a cool thread of its own, so let's get back to transient control, and I'll start the thread.

[Anderton]

Speaking of Physion, it does indeed sound like it's worth checking out. I often use compression for transient control, here's a tip I wrote for the Presonus blog on using compressors to do transient control on kick and snare.

 

And here's another article on transient shaping, this one is about how to do it with zero latency. It's a more complicated than using a plug-in and less versatile, but it can be remarkably effective.

[KuruPrionz]

Those are good tricks Craig, thanks for posting them.

I recently figured out how to use my RNC as sort of a "de-esser" but it only works on mics that are bass heavy and/or affected by proximity. Being closer is exactly what's needed to improve signal to noise ratio, it takes the freeway noise down to inaudiblle. I can always adjust the bass frequencies later.

 

I want to try it for removing plosives, the ribbon mic is happy to produce those (I also recently learned that some folks tilt their ribbons slightly on both the vertical and horizonal plane so no gust of air hits the entire ribbon at the same time, gonna try that too).

 

Anyway, where Physion stands out is that it allows you to completely seperated the transients and tonal content into their own tracks and then can rejoin them smoothly once you've tweaked.

 

Here is the user guide - WARNING - this is what pushed me over the edge!!!

https://downloads.eventide.com/audio/manuals/plug-ins/Physion+User+Guide.pdf

 

I realized this could be used on many things in subtle ways to improve a mix as well as over the top production madness. I like both of those things.

The tools are well selected for each purpoose and as we would expect from Eventide, it sounds clean. Not glitchy unless you dial up something intentionally hideous.

The "Snare Body Fatness" preset sounded really good on my bass line, it smoothed the attack and fattened the bass without getting boomy.

Plenty of room for a kick below and "around" it.

 

I noted that but did not tweak it. Someday soon I'll make my own preset with that as a starting point.