Tips & Tricks

BFD in Pro Tools: Recording Tips

Check out these useful tips from Paul at FXpansion about recording with BFD.

Eq: Always try to cut an area, rather than boost. So if your kick could do with more room or a bit of a boost, try to cut the snare a bit instead of boosting the kick. Another classic trick is to stick a notch filter in to the bass at the kick's fundamental frequency to give it room in the mix.

Compression: I always try to be sparing with compressors. Use too much and you will squash the life out of your sound. I would generally put a gentle compressor over a sub group of the kick and snare drum and then a slightly more aggressive one over the cymbal lines (to bring out the 'fizzy' top end).

Reverb: Remember that the BFD sounds have 'built in' reverb (the sound of the room they were recorded in at Eldorado studios). So adding more reverb will just give your drums a washed out sound. Try to keep the reverb levels low, adding just a touch to give some life and movement to the drum sounds. A touch of EQ here can help too (cut the bass, put a notch around the hi hat frequency).

Distortion: A little frequency specific distortion can help massively. Try putting just the top end though a subtle tube distortion. It will act like a compresssor, bringing the high end up and flattening it a bit.

Bass drums: (This is aimed at dance / urban producers, but can work nicely in rock / metal too - for an example listen to the new Korn album). A classic trick with kick drums is to put a short sine wave under each kick drum, then heavily compress this sub bass. This gives the kick the puch they require (from the original accoustic sound) and then adds a nice subtle sub bass tail to them (courtesy of the sine wave).

Snare drums: Try to add a little bit of low cut to all snares. To be honest, I usually put a band pass filter accross all snares, to tighten them up and to free up room in the central frequency range of a tune. This gives you lots of extra space for things like lead lines...

Hi-Hats/Cymbals - Try adding a (small amount) of flange or phasing to your cymbals. It gives them a lovely warm feeling, and with very slow modulation rates gives much more movement to the sound, making it sound less like a drum machine and more natural.

To round up: Band limit most sounds to their essential ranges to give more space in the mix. Don't over compress, and try experimenting with effects on certain key parts to add movement.