http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13184331/Graphite_Programming.mp3

Proof of concept. Used the Ludwig Black Beauty snare and 24" kick to mostly approximate the giantass Pearl custom kick and snare my drummer uses. I went a bit too far in the velocity programming on the 16th note hats and need to find a tighter half-open hat sound for the verses; I asked my drummer how he's playing the parts (and have the raw realdrum tracks to reference against) but I digress. For whatever it's worth.

This is a really raw rough mix I did in like an hour. Minimal EQ and compression on anything that isn't a drum. No fun panning automation, no effects, no vocals.

Snare sounds good.

The high end on everything else (drumly) is kind of OTT. Mainly that hi-hat you mention i guess. Distractingly repetitive, but you know that.

I still don't know why your drummer wants this, given the (fine-ass) state that the last mix was at, but that is obviously beside the point.

This? Beats me.

Well, now that you have it programmed, you could try it with 8-bit nintendo drumsounds. That is always a good time.

I'm not very fond of the hi-hat being panned so hard left. I think the snare could use just a touch more crack... it sounds kind of muffly.


Apart from that, this sounds very good. A bunch of very ugly noises combine to make a very pretty sound. That's the goal, eh?

The hat is overly left, now that you mention it. Like I said, it's pretty much a bullshit mix done as proof-of-concept. I should bounce it down with the GMS Hasch Maple snare too; I like that one. I used different hats there as well, the 13"s, I think.

Re: a bunch of ugly sounds, yes. Most of the dirt on the guitars here is from bitcrusher and synth pedals. I'm almost disappointed in how conventional the rhythm guitar sound is, because the soloed tracks sound really awful.

...and Chris, now that you mention it, this would actually work really well with Nintendo sounds. I could see that being an awesome B-side/bonus track.

You definitely should. I really like that snare.

It's my usual go-to, even for my Garda preset I made, but the Black Beauty sound more, I think, like his real snare in where it's tuned. I just went over and hit the thing to make sure.

I'm a sucker for the double handed ride and hi hat rhythms.

The ride one- he's actually riding on the bell of the hats!- alternating with the snare in the bridge was one of those moments where it's just something random as an experiment and we're all like "keep doing that!" and bring it back in the outro, because it rules.