SP Studio Systems SP-12 - Manual (Page 80)

MIXING AND PROCESSING
© E-mu Systems, Inc. 1985 Page 80
Enhanced by The Emulator Archive 2002 www.emulatorarchive.com
So far, that’s one channel of ambience. You could add a second channel, but another
approach is to split the mono ambient signal into two feeds. One of’ these would be
panned left, while the other would be delayed by about 15 to 80 ms and be panned
right. This gives a uniform ambient sound, yet one that covers the full stereo field.
Connecting more time delay effects (chorusing, flanging, pitch transposers, etc.) in
parallel with the drum sounds adds very pleasing subliminal effects, assuming that
you mix any of these effects in at a relatively low level.
Another popular ambience effect involves noise gating the ambient signal, and
triggering this noise gate from the snare drum and toms. Thus, every time you hit the
snare or a tom, the ambience cuts in; but when the snare and toms aren’t happening,
there’s no spillover or noise from the ambient signal.
7D USING SPECIAL EFFECTS IN THE STUDIO
Here are some special effects that are very useful with electronic drums:
Reverb is a common special effect. Unfortunately, spring reverbs (which are
common in smaller studios) have some limitations, one of which is an inability to
handle sharp bursts of energy -- like drum beats. To minimize this problem, try
limiting the drums before going into the reverb unit. A better choice is to use plate or
digital reverbs.
Splashing is a technique used with reverb. If you want to reverb specific beats,
advance the reverb send control just before the beat, then turn it down after the beat.
That one beat will be sent to the reverb and reverberated.
Echo units, when synched as closely as possible to the tempo of the song, can add
interesting synchro-sonic effects. For example, try feeding the SP-12’s snare output
into an echo unit whose echo time equals a quarter or half note, and whose
regeneration (feedback) is up part way. You can also add double time effects easily
by setting the echo time equal to an eighth
Equalization can perk up the sound of individual drums. Actually, the quality of the
SP-12 sounds is superb, so in practice little equalization is needed. However, a little
extra bottom on the bass drum, some extra sheen on the high hats, and an upper
midrange boost on the snare drum can do for a SP-12 what a little tasteful make-up
can do for a face.
Noise gates, in addition to enhancing ambient effects as described above, can also
clip the decay of drums for a more percussive, clipped sound.
Ring modulators give great outer space and gong-like effects.
Pitch transposers can fatten up a drum sound by adding harmonics or sub-
harmonics to the drum sound. They are especially effective with handclaps.
Chorus units can really enhance handclaps. Drum unit handclaps tend to sound
unrealistic, since after all, no group of humans are going to clap their hands in exactly
the same way every time. One way around this is to set the chorus for maximum
delay (usually around 20 ins), and use modulation to vary the width. As the amount of
delay changes, the handclaps tend to sound thinner or thicker.