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The finer points of mixing…
BFD also allows much more in-depth mixing possibilities than those detailed
above. The Kit-Piece and Direct mixer areas allow detailed control over levels of
individual Kit-Pieces.
Let’s say, for instance, that you wanted to reduce the amount of ambience on the
kick drum, to get a tighter, more focused bottom-end. Firstly, you can tighten the
kick with the Kick In/Out control. By default, the Direct kick signal is an equal mix
of two mics, one placed inside, and one outside, the kick drum. If you turn the Kick
In/ Out control to the left (towards the inside mic position), you will begin to hear
the kick get less boomy and more focused in the Direct bus.
You may also want to reduce the level of the kick signal in the ambient mic buses,
in order to tighten it up further. To do this, turn down the Kit-Piece Trim parameter
for the kick (located immediately to the right of the Solo and Mute buttons). With
the control to the extreme left, you will only hear a kick signal in the Direct section.
To verify this, turn down the Direct Master fader: all the ambient buses will be free
from the kick. Now turn up the Direct Master fader again (the kick should return).
To do the inverse of this, turn up the Kit-Piece Trim control again, and decrease the
Direct Trim. Now, you should hear a more roomy kick, rather than the fatter direct
version earlier. This is an extreme way of using the mixing controls: by carefully
tweaking the mixer section, you can get an infinite variety of killer drum sounds
between the extremes. Many of BFD’s mixing functions are not necessarily
‘realistic’: for example, the ability to turn down the amount of a certain Kit-Piece
in the ambient mics. However, we decided to include this type of functionality for
maximum flexibility.
It might be a good idea to cover some of the special mixing functions. The Kick In/
Out control was explained earlier. Meanwhile, the Snare Bot/Top parameter works
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