Distorting the drum buses

In order to make mixing quick and painless, Alex groups his sounds by frequency range, starting with high-frequency drum elements like hi-hats and cymbals. He routes these to a new audio track in Live and adds Waves’ Manny Marroquin Distortion, selecting the Michael Brauner » Cymbal OH Dirt preset as a starting point. Alex adjusts the Drive and Distortion Level parameters to get the slightly harsher sound he’s after, then dials in the Direct Level fader to taste. He follows the distortion with an EQ Eight and attenuates the sub-170Hz frequencies with a four-pole high-pass filter.

Next he routes the claps and snares to their own channel, drives them into another instance of the Manny Marroquin Distortion, then creates a new channel just for the rim shot so it can be distorted separately.