Spicing Up Your Mixes With Replaced Sounds

In order to benefit from this tip you need a good audio program like Cubase, Logic, ProTools or anything similar. Since most artists have something like that in their studios these days, I think this tip might prove useful.

Sound replacement can be a pretty laborious process, but if done well it will be well worth the hassle. It can be used by bands as well as solo performers who record everything by themselves. If done well, it can completely transform your mix, making it sound "the business!"

In order to explain how this works I'll use a band as an example. This technique is very well known to professional producers, so if you're one of them it will be old news to you. But if you're not, have fun:
Once a band records a satisfactory performance, captured in your audio sequencer, you will presumably have every instrument on its own, separate track. Ideally, you'll also have the drums split into channels (one for hats, one for the kick, one for the snare, etc, etc). Analogically, each additional instrumental and vocal performance will have its own separate track(s) as well.

So let's focus our example on drums. And let's assume that your drum kit is like most "indie" drum kits, meaning that you can easily imagine it sounding a wee bit better...! Or perhaps you just weren't able to capture its live sound dynamically enough. So, what do you do to add some life and power to your drum mix?

Enter "sound replacement." This is particularly easy if your drum tracks have already been split. If not, I'd advise you to split them manually, although this too can be quite time-consuming (unless you have a good tool like ReCycle or similar).

Okay. So you open up your drum track, say, your kick drum. This is the original, recorded sound and you're not happy with it.

Look through your sound library (or go on the web or... indeed go through your records and CDs) until you hear exactly the kind of sound you like. Ideally it should be a stand-alone sound (as opposed to a kick mixed with other sounds, as in when you sample it from a record!). Isolate the sample in a separate sound file. Label it so you don't forget what it is!

Now, using your sequencer you can paste in your replacement sound underneath your existing sound (on a separate track of course). You can align the two visually, or some sequencers can actually place it in perfect alignment with your existing part. Often manual placement works better than automated.

You can now listen to how the new kick sounds together with the rest of the drum kit, by muting the old one and listening only to the new one. You can also experiment and see what happens if you leave both in! Sometimes sound layering works great and you might even develop a sound everybody else will want to sample from you!

Using sound replacement does NOT relieve you of the responsibility of EQ'ing your bass-drum track, although some producers might argue that the sampled sound already has the "perfect" EQ. In reality, while the EQ might have been perfect for the original recording from which it came, it might be inadequate for yours! But - who knows.

Still, if you made the right choice, chances are that your replaced sound will vastly improve the sound of the whole original drum performance. Note that using sound replacement in this manner you will not affect the feel of the original drum part, but only optimize the way it comes across! Just be sure to reflect the DYNAMICS correctly, i.e. don't place max-volume kick sample on top of EACH original kick part. Unless your drummer is an automaton, his kick dynamics will vary!
Naturally, you can do the same with a one-man band, where you can take each sound and look for alternative samples. You can then either replay them with your sampler or paste them in one-by-one from WAV or AIFF files.

And what about OTHER instruments...?

Well, drums are the easiest ones to tackle with the above sound replacement technique. Other instruments need different approaches which often come down to EQ, special effects and other such things. You can always overdub overly thin or uninteresting sounds if you can't find any other way to deal with them. But that might be a separate subject for another day!

LISTEN TO: 225-Q/Wednesday Jun 03, 2009