Hi there!
In this blog post I’m going to explain a gating technique using the Waves C1 Compressor and C1 Gate plugins in ProTools that takes typical tom-gating a step further by adding even more dynamic control via side-chain compression.
I have a ?uestlove Breakbeats kit that I record with a lot, and it has a rack tom that’s mounted onto the kick so whenever I hit the kick, it tends to ring. You don’t necessarily want that low ringing sound lingering around and eating up your headroom, so typically you would gate the tom track to only let the tom hits through.
This can be tricky finding just the right sweet spot for the threshold on the gate though, especially when you dig into the snare as much as I do - so what I’ve started doing to gain even more dynamic control is adding a compressor before the gate on the tom track, and having the compression sidechain being triggered off of a kick & snare bus.
Now whenever I hit the kick or snare, the tom track is being lowered automatically by the compressor, which helps me find a more suitable threshold level for the gate that doesn't cut off any tom hits that happen to be lower in volume.
Using the Waves C1 Compressor and the C1 Gate in tandem like this in ProTools has proven to be a SUPER effective way to tighten up the sound of the overall drum kit. You’re going to probably want to switch your kick & snare bus sends to pre-fader level so when you’re dialing in your C1 settings, you can solo the tom track and still be able to hear the effect of the sidechain compression.
I plan on making a video for this soon (I’m a little short on time right now) but I figured this could be useful for some people to read through.
Happy mixing! 🔊🤘 AND be sure to click the following link to take advantage of Waves Tax Day Sale going on right now! https://bit.ly/3eQcJmL 💸⏳ #wavesftw #wavesaudio #wavesplugins #wavesinfluencer #McKeezyProductions
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