Award winning producer / engineer Mick Glossop is known for his work with legends such as Frank Zappa, John Lee Hooker, The Ruts, Van Morrison and many others. Our friends at Sound Radix caught up with Mick at his London studio to talk about sound and his 'go to' production tools.
If you would like to know more about Drum Leveler from Sound Radix then carry on down this article for a tutorial from own James Ivey. If you would like to know more about the other plug-ins from Sound Radix we also have a review from Dan Cooper on the different Sound Radix plug-ins thitherto go to make up their Radical 2 Bundle.
Free Tutorial On using Drum Leveler From Sound Radix
Watch this 'getting started' tutorial from our own James Ivey to learn how to start using this amazing plug-in. Drum Leveler is a very clever beat detection-based downward and upward compressor/expander from our friends at Sound Radix. By selectively applying gain to single drum beats, Drum Leveler easily achieves the desired target level for each beat, without affecting bleed noise or beats that are out of the user-defined processing range.
More About Sound Radix Plug-ins
In the video our own Dan Cooper takes a look at the four great plug-ins from Sound Radix that make up the Radical 2 Bundle. The Sound Radix Radical Bundle 2 is all four powerful sound-processing plug-ins from Sound Radix, Auto-Align, Pi, Drum Leveler, and SurferEQ. The Auto-Align and Pi plug-ins give you the tools to make sure your tracks are completely phase coherent for rock-solid mixes. Use Drum Leveler to even out the dynamics of your drum tracks without over-compressing. Then Surfer EQ gives you powerful equalisation that you can match to the key of your song for ultra-musical results.
Auto-Align: sample-accurate time and phase alignment
Sound Radix Auto-Align is the cure for your multi-mic blues. When you record an instrument with more than one microphone, sound reaches each mic at a slightly different time, causing certain frequencies to cancel out while others build up. The dreaded the comb filter effect. Enter Auto-Align. This plug-in "listens" to your multi-mic recording and automatically compensates for the delay between mics - instantly, and more efficiently than you could ever do manually. When you use distant mics and actually want a delay, Auto-Align can time-place mics to better match the source. This is also great for post applications where you need to time align the 'lab' and boom mics. To learn even more about Auto-Align then you can watch Russ' Show and Tell review.
Pi: multi-channel phase interactions mixer plug-in
An innovative, multi-channel phase interactions mixer plug-in engine, Pi improves the summing of your DAW or mixer, dynamically minimizing frequency cancellations between instruments within your mix. Pi also juices mono compatibility and gives you back the depth and focus you lost when overlapping frequencies collided inside your mix. Can't understand why your mixes sound so ineffectual? Pi to the rescue! Good phase relationships between tracks are a key to awesome-sounding mixes. Optimize them with Sound Radix Pi.
Drum Leveler: tame dynamics without over-compressing
Drum Leveler is one on its own. Apply it to a full drum mix, and Drum Leveler processes each drum hit individually, giving you full dynamic control over each element in the mix. Its combination of compression and expansion lets you add punch to certain hits while reducing the level of unwanted noise and signal bleed. And with mono, stereo, dual mono, and mid-side processing modes, you've got impressive dynamics processing potential with the Sound Radix Drum Leveler plug-in. If you would like to learn more about Drum Leveler then you can watch a tutorial from our own James Ivey.
SurferEQ: pitch-tracking equaliser with real-time pitch-detection engine
Traditional equalizers are set to fixed frequency ranges, but in practice, fundamentals and the harmonic series change along with the pitch of an instrument or vocal. SurferEQ tracks the pitch of your instrument or a vocal track - and can change the EQ frequency accordingly in real time, giving you incredibly natural-sounding results. Simply set any of the bands to a desired harmonic and SurferEQ's real-time pitch-detection engine flawlessly does its thing, always relevant to the music.