Replacement drum samples that sit with the rest of the recording’s ambience aren’t always easy to conjure. We use the right tools to match existing ambience to apply on replacement drum samples, and throw in a second move to seal the deal.
Replace Or Augment?
Using drum samples alongside real drum recordings affords the engineer extra options in certain scenarios. Not only can samples be layered with existing signals to supercharge an existing recording, but also they can replace lacklustre sounds altogether. Whatever the aim, the techniques for placing samples on the timeline or for triggering them are the same.
For augmentation, blending samples with the existing recording can give the mixer some unique challenges. For full-on drum replacement, the engineer must employ a number of techniques to integrate sounds that arrive divorced from the existing ‘real’ recording.
Sitting Samples With The Kit
Once samples have been sourced, one thing that can really make flown-in sounds stick out is a lack of reverb or ambience. Samples can of course by fired into the same audio plugin reverb as existing drum sounds, but often what is needed is a common room character in the overheads, and/or ambient mics. Even the experienced engineer will need to spend time finding the most suitable reverb for this task and indeed to figure out what to dial in.
Accentize Chameleon2
Accentize’s Chameleon2 update landed earlier this month, adding a few strings to the bow of this adaptive reverb that lends itself perfectly to music mixing duties as well as post production. As its name suggests, this remarkable tool lets the user match an existing reverb. Using artificial neural networks to listen to and analyse existing reverb, it creates a matched reverb profile allowing the user to place new sounds in a space that matches the existing real ambience.
Chameleon2 headline features in full:
New Profile Library which lets you easily organise all your reverb profiles in version 2
Newly Refined automation possibilities in version 2
Create unlimited different unique reverbs with a single click
Automatic parameterisation of dry/wet-mixing, stereo-width and pre-delay
The ideal tool for realistic ADR and foley matching
Useful for creative sound-design or music-production
Extract the natural room-impulse-response of any recording and export as a wav-file
Watch in the video as we replace a lacklustre snare drum sound with a more involving sound triggered from a virtual instrument. We use Chameleon2 to replicate and apply the overheads mics’ ambient personality to the new snare, before employing dynamic EQ to help play down the old snare in the overheads. This helps the new drum to settle right in…
Choice Versus Quality
Matching dry drum samples to a roomier recording used to rely heavily on an engineer who knew which tool to use for reverb matching, and crucially, what to do with it. Accentize Chameleon2 is much quicker and more accurate than matching reverbs by ear, which assumes that a suitably matched alternative is even available. Too much choice in the studio has arguably replaced too few options as the enemy of the engineer. Cutting plugin clutter and having a small number of targeted tools such as Chameleon2 will save a lot of time and probably sound better as well.