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In this video, Chris shows you how to create perfect drum triggers from a live drum recording using Massey DRT in Pro Tools.

For the next video, we will be taking your requests! If you have tricks, tips or techniques that you want Chris to go through please leave a comment on YouTube.

In this series, we take a look at the mix for the track Curtains by Arcane Roots. This is the final part of 4 where we take a look at the vocals and the mix bus.

If you haven’t already, please visit our previous posts where we looked at the Drums, Bass & Guitar, and Synths & Strings.

Curtains was the first single from their second album ‘Melancholia Hymns’. The album was released in September 2017 and got to number 6 in the UK Rock and Metal Charts.

The album was produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Chris Coulter at www.decimalstudios.co.uk

You can view the incredible video for the single on YouTube.

Please support our channel by sharing and commenting!

In this series, we take a look at the mix for the track Curtains by Arcane Roots.

This is part 3 of 4 where we look at the Synths, Keys & Strings.

'Curtains' was the first single from their second album ‘Melancholia Hymns’. The album was released in September 2017 and got to number 6 in the UK Rock and Metal Charts.

The album was produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Chris Coulter at www.decimalstudios.co.uk

Arcane Roots - Curtains full track: https://youtu.be/4U-WoT9IAuU

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In this series, we take a look at the mix for the track Curtains by Arcane Roots. This is part 2 of 4 where we take a look at the bass and guitars.

If you haven’t already, please visit our previous post where we focused on mixing the drums.

Curtains was the first single from their second album ‘Melancholia Hymns’. The album was released in September 2017 and got to number 6 in the UK Rock and Metal Charts.

The album was produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Chris Coulter at www.decimalstudios.co.uk

You can view the incredible video for the single on YouTube.

Please support our channel by sharing and commenting! Thanks

How To Reduce Cymbal Bleed

How to reduce cymbal bleed in your tom spot mics.
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Excessive cymbal bleed can happen for a number of reasons. The drummer could have the cymbals really close the toms or they could be hitting the cymbals really hard which is very common in rock music!⁠
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Gates don't always work as they should so here's how I manually trim them to reduce cymbal bleed.
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There are actually two methods of trimming that I use to deal with this issue:⁠
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Method 1:⁠
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Manually navigating to each tom then slicing and deleting audio that isn't needed. This can be done in pro tools with either strip silence or manually with tab to transient. Once the unwanted spill has been removed the remaining tom audio needs fade-outs applied.⁠
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Method 2: ⁠
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The second method is like the first but instead of fading out the ends of the toms I use a tom sample (taken from the actual drum kit) and replace the last hit of each tom section. The benefit of this method is that you don't lose the natural decay of the toms.⁠
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View our Arcane Roots mix breakdown video on YouTube where Chris uses this method: https://youtu.be/yJ83v2sRLYc

In this series, we take a look at the mix for the track Curtains by Arcane Roots. This is part 1 of 4 which focuses on the drums.

Curtains was the first single from their second album ‘Melancholia Hymns’. The album was released in September 2017 and got to number 6 in the UK Rock and Metal Charts.

The album was produced, engineered, mixed and mastered by Chris Coulter at Decimal Studios.

You can view the incredible video for the single here.

This is one of the biggest mistakes that people are still making when then send me tracks to mix. Not properly placing their microphones on their guitar cabinets! I get so many tracks to mix with guitar mics that sound dull and lifeless.

Sometimes the simplest solution is the best option! This is the only guitar cabinet mic placement you will ever need and it only uses 2 microphones! Here is how it works:

1. Place one microphone on the edge of the speaker CAP

2. Place the other microphone on the edge of the speakers CONE

The first microphone position is a favourite amongst producers and engineers and gives a bright tone. The second mic which is placed further off to the edge of the cone is much darker and has a bit more weight.

The beauty of this technique is that you can blend the two microphones in your mix to create a well balanced but rich guitar tone. You can even use them as a sort of EQ, if you need more brightness you would reduce the volume of the second microphone and vice versa, to get a darker more vintage tone you would reduce the volume of the first microphone.

Pro tips:

- Place the microphones directly on the grill cloth or 1-2 cms away.

- If you use 2 microphones that are the same all you will need to do is make sure they are the same distance from the grill cloth and they will be in phase!

- If you use 2 different microphones you will need to make sure that you phase align them correctly.

So you probably already record the direct (DI) signal from your bass guitar but have you tried recording the direct signal after all of your pedals? or even after your amp head?

In my productions, this is the most useful signal for me to record especially with heavier music or music with a lot of synth elements. A speaker on a bass amplifier rolls off at around 4kHz so by using a direct (DI) signal after the pedals you can bring back some of the higher frequencies that the speaker can't reproduce. Some pedals sound crazy good with just a DI!

My normal bass track setup looks something like this:

- Bass Pre DI
- Bass Post DI
- Bass Amp Mic A (Audix D6 or AKG D112)
- Bass Amp Mic B (Shure SM57 or similar)
- Bass Sans Amp

All these tracks are blended in parallel to create the perfect tone!