Froggy Goes A' Surround Mixing

[Frogmort]

Hi everybody!

I've been playing drums since I was about 10 (51 now), and interested in audio mixing/recording for a while too, but just recently got back into playing and recording. I'm using Reaper and it's been a struggle to figure it out because it's so infinitely able to do almost anything, which is awesome once you start to figure out what you can do.

I recorded myself playing the drums first just cause that's what I do, but then I had my friend Marshall play the bass and we recorded 3 takes for his part. I went back and recorded a conga part and then put on a keyboard arpeggio. I ended up leaving the drums in stereo in the front, and I thought about making 1 bass track from the best bits of the 3 takes, but for now, I decided to put 1 in the left front, 2 in the right front, and 3 in the center. All 3 parts are a bit loose and sloppy, but with some auto-wah and amp sim, it gives it an almost "Jeff Beck on the Bass" kind of sound. I put the Conga part in the back with each of 4 drums spread as evenly as I could estimate, and also threw the arpeggiated synth back there too in stereo.

It's in 6 channel with one of the basses exclusively in the center channel and an empty LFE .1 track. This is my first try at recording/surround mixing in this new awesome age of doing this stuff at home, and I'm having a whole lot of fun!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wzdoEqMcLGriJWT3kRCJ04plpz5sRVIn/view?usp=sharing

 

[The56Kid]

Hi everybody!

I've been playing drums since I was about 10 (51 now), and interested in audio mixing/recording for a while too, but just recently got back into playing and recording. I'm using Reaper and it's been a struggle to figure it out because it's so infinitely able to do almost anything, which is awesome once you start to figure out what you can do.

I recorded myself playing the drums first just cause that's what I do, but then I had my friend Marshall play the bass and we recorded 3 takes for his part. I went back and recorded a conga part and then put on a keyboard arpeggio. I ended up leaving the drums in stereo in the front, and I thought about making 1 bass track from the best bits of the 3 takes, but for now, I decided to put 1 in the left front, 2 in the right front, and 3 in the center. All 3 parts are a bit loose and sloppy, but with some auto-wah and amp sim, it gives it an almost "Jeff Beck on the Bass" kind of sound. I put the Conga part in the back with each of 4 drums spread as evenly as I could estimate, and also threw the arpeggiated synth back there too in stereo.

It's in 6 channel with one of the basses exclusively in the center channel and an empty LFE .1 track. This is my first try at recording/surround mixing in this new awesome age of doing this stuff at home, and I'm having a whole lot of fun!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wzdoEqMcLGriJWT3kRCJ04plpz5sRVIn/view?usp=sharing

Wasn’t aware you’d done this, Frog. I’m going to check it out this weekend!

 

[Frogmort]

Wasn’t aware you’d done this, Frog. I’m going to check it out this weekend!

It's really just a test drive to see if I could figure out how to mix in surround. It's pretty much just the same thing over and over and not really a song. I honestly wish that I had waited until I had something a little more substantial before sharing, but I was excited to have finally figured out how to pan stuff in surround (and a little too buzzed when I uploaded it and started this thread too).

The silly title is just where I kept updating the file in Reaper while keeping the older versions just in case. At first it was just 'Drums', then became 'Drums & Conga', 'Cleaned Up' is where I balanced each conga a bit better and reduced some mid-bass on them and the drums, 'Bass' is obviously where I added the bass guitars, 'Explode' is where I took the three bass takes and exploded them out to their own separate tracks, 'Synth' was when I added the keyboard arpeggio, 'Total Overhaul' is where I re-balanced and eq'ed everything, 'New' is where I re-redid that again, and '2' is where I re-re-redid it some more.

I guess I should've just called it 'Groovin' or something before uploading it.