If I crank up the decay and volume on the AMP page, and frequency on the FILTER page, i get this really long and brutal bass drum that causes all other drum tracks’ volumes to die. For example, if I play the demo sequence, and hit my BD, it’s like the BD circuit just saps the juice out of all my other tracks; the rest of the kit is just obliterated until we get through the tail end of the BD wherein the volumes would all return to regular levels.
Is this normal? I understand some synths share the same circuits and would cut eachtother out when triggered on top of eachother, but this I wasn’t expecting.
Did my BD use up all 8 voices or something? Could the AMP not handle that much sonic destruction? Or should I be getting my machine serviced?
If I crank up the decay and volume on the AMP page, and frequency on the FILTER page, i get this really long and brutal bass drum that causes all other drum tracks’ volumes to die. For example, if I play the demo sequence, and hit my BD, it’s like the BD circuit just saps the juice out of all my other tracks; the rest of the kit is just obliterated until we get through the tail end of the BD wherein the volumes would all return to regular levels.
Is this normal? I understand some synths share the same circuits and would cut eachtother out when triggered on top of eachother, but this I wasn’t expecting.
Did my BD use up all 8 voices or something? Could the AMP not handle that much sonic destruction? Or should I be getting my machine serviced?
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I’m only guessing here but it sounds like your bass drum is hitting the compressor way to hard. So turn down the compressor and get a good mix of the levels between the individual sounds going before setting up the compressor.
Mixing and gain staging is about how individual sounds in a mix interact and that depends on the frequencies each sound uses, their levels and if they are playing at the same time.Like getting a bass drum and hihats to sound good is pretty easy since they are not competing in the same frequency range. But getting bass drum, low toms and a bass synth to sound good together is another story.
Yep sounds like you are hitting the comp too hard, getting everything staged correctly is key and can effect your over all sound. How you hit the bus comp, as it were, can be used as a good effect, just ask techno he will tell you!
But even without the compressor on, a much louder signal would “take over” the quieter ones since the signal chain is mostly analog, right? Correct me if I’m wrong. Just thinking of how analog signals usually mix.
it’s not relative of ANALOG RYTM, have you used a DAW before this machine, did you never notice the same effect on Breakdown or something ? That’s why sound engineer made volume automation. Of course, the compressor can take a part in this behavior. (and volume automation is not the only fix to apply to compensate this loud issue)
Fixing this really depend about what you’re doing. STUDIO ? LIVE ? Have you got a mixer ? What kind of mixer ? Etc…
But the problem is Mixing issue, it’s difficult to Mixing nicely right in the box, but it’s not impossible. You definitively need to check this problem with someone who can show how to deal with that …
From my personal experience, i didn’t like compressor because it tend to augmented this kind of effect. I prefer apply a pourcentage (See New York Compression) I like to have the Kick as a separate output and the other things could send to Master to Glue. I also get out Low Tom on its own individual output too. Low frequencies is the most hardest frequencies to mix because this part on the full frequency spectrum is very small with a lot of sounds to fit… (so they fight and you need to now how to mixing. Sometimes you need to choose your sounds in order to mixing them)
This problem is relative to speakers/headphones, loudness perception accordingly to the other frequency. we all have this issue if we not mixing and PLAY sounds as they are…
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]To get a good kit is mix faster on the AR I’ve just started to use my iPad to control the individual track levels with Lemur. It’s a simple 12 fader Lemur template where I can set the track level and mute/solo tracks and get a overview of all level settings of a kit.
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]The good old trick to set the kick to about -6db and then adjust all the other track levels to match works really well on the AR in my humble opinion. After that I use the AR compressor and the global overdrive to crank up the volume of the entire kit.
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]Rookie mistake is to max the kick (or any other sound) and then have no headroom and/or options to balance the other tracks to each other within a kit.
[color=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]If I’m recording individual tracks (multiple takes with only one track active) I use the AR compressor very lightly and the global overdrive to boost the signal to get a good loud output from the AR into my DAW. Then I normalize the individual audio tracks in my DAW and mix using my DAW mixer. This gives me WAY more options for individual sounds having specific channel compressors, eq and what not.
This definitely happens even without hitting the compressor. At least for me. Even if I gain stage correctly, sometimes the kick just pulls energy out of other tracks.
If a sample is too quiet (i.e. has dynamic headroom and not normalized to f*ck), even the slightest amplitude of the synth engine on the same sound will totally overpower it.
I have tried many times to avoid this - reducing AR comp and dist to 0, turning off all comp in PC. I can’t explain it…
Might be a good idea to run the BD/BT out separately in that case? I’ve been wondering if one could just use a balanced TRS cable into a balanced mono input to route both sounds to a single indiv. channel… Obviously one cannot use both sounds at the same time without running into phasing issues in such a scenario, but otherwise, could it work?
If a sample is too quiet (i.e. has dynamic headroom and not normalized to f*ck), even the slightest amplitude of the synth engine on the same sound will totally overpower it.
I have tried many times to avoid this - reducing AR comp and dist to 0, turning off all comp in PC. I can’t explain it…[/quote]
Sorry, but this just sounds like wrong gain staging to me or wrong combinations of sounds. Samples should always be normalised to use the full dynamic range, or at least normalised to -3db. I don’t know what “normalising to f***” means. Normalising just means making sure the loudest sample hits the max and everything else is scaled accordingly. It doesn’t mess with the internal dynamics of a sample at all. Sometimes there’s crazy peaks inside a sample so even after normalising they turn out pretty quiet or sometimes the spectral content of a sample just doesn’t cut through the mix well. Some samples mix well with certain other sounds, others don’t. It’s your job to pick out the ones that work and mix it right, no hard or software can do that for you.
[quote=“alfred”]Some samples mix well with certain other sounds, others don’t. It’s your job to pick out the ones that work and mix it right, no hard or software can do that for you.
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Oh gee - thanks.
After 10 years using all manner of samplers from my EPS to me Emulator 3, I guess I never picked that one up.
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Sounds like a bug then. Anyone submitted a ticket to Elektron?
Perhaps it is something that is velocity sensitive working against you, or LFO.
EG: if the synth engine is set to be velocity sensitive with volume or perhaps overdrive and the sample engine doesn’t have the same settings then that’d cause something similar to what you guys have been describing here.