Multiband drum break processing

A touch of multiband processing can tighten up the sound of a drum break nicely, adding that low-end punch alongside some high frequency smoothness…

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Multiband processing opens possibilities for processing sounds surgically, letting us deal with issues that are hard to fix with typical wideband processing. We have a drum loop that suffers from an overly sharp hi-hat, knocky snare and less-than-tight kick drum, so let’s use multiband compression to fix this. Add iZotope’s Ozone 9 Dynamics to the drum channel, with a second band created at 6kHz.

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Each band in Ozone’s dynamics module has default settings dialled in, and you can hear the compressor taking sharpness from our hi-hat. But we won’t compress the problem area, but clip it so that none of the excess attack passes through. Reduce compression to 1:1, so the compressor doesn’t act, before reducing the limiter attack to 0ms, so it clamps down on the peaks instantly.

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Reducing the limiter’s threshold to -8dB limits the peaks above 6kHz, clipping peaks and giving high frequencies a rounder feel. Adjusting the release time lets us change the tone of the high frequency limiting, with slower times duller and faster times brighter. Reduce release to around 30ms, so hi-hats still sound bright, minus the excessive attack and sharpness that the dry sound had.

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Next, tighten the kick by compressing the low frequencies. Add a new band at 100Hz, then set compression ratio to 4:1. Dial in an attack of 25ms to let the kick’s transient pass, with a fast release of 80ms for a punchier sound. Lower the threshold to -18dB, then add 4dB of makeup gain. When you bypass the band, you’ll hear the kick’s low frequencies sound less punchy and direct in comparison.

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Bypass the mid band, so just the low and high frequencies are processed. Turn to the snare, which has a knocky kind of sound, with an excess buildup of low-mid frequencies around 2-300Hz making it sound wooden. Use Fabfilter Saturn to rein this in. Load Saturn, and set up a band between 150 and 450Hz to focus on the problem before disabling high/low bands.

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Set drive amount to 30% to apply a little tape saturation to the problem area, smoothing the snare’s knock. Increase dynamics control to 0.8, to reduce the dynamic range of the band processed, further clamping down on the clunky frequencies found in the drum break. Enable the high band and set saturation to Clean Tube. A drive amount of 15%