Gabe Fry and his mixing workflow on modern production

hey what’s up everybody
this is Gabe Fry with Kimora Recordings uh
we’re gonna do a mix
breakdown of a track called entropy
that I just wrote to showcase the new Hertz Drums
drum sample libraries
uh I think they sound pretty killer
I’m excited to show you guys let’s check it out
alright y’all so
the best place probably
to start is with just listening to the full mix
just for a moment and then
we’ll check out some
of the individual elements of the mix
and go through the samples and see how they sound
and what not so we’ll go ahead and jump in here
alright cool
so uh let’s go ahead and start with the kick drum here
um I’m not doing a ton of processing across the board
here really on any of the instruments
which is a testament to you know
how good these drums sound already
um but yeah let’s go ahead and sell this kick
and check out how it sounds
yeah
sounds really good
yeah it’s um probably my favorite part of this uh
of this uh sampler here is the kick sounds
I mean they just sounds so so good
uh
one of the coolest things about this library as well is
is um you can change the mics
so there’s three different mics that uh
each individual a piece of the um
of the kit were recorded with and you can go uh
go through you would
each one sounds like here sounds cool
yeah a lot of different options here
um
let’s check out some of the processing that I did here
um so this is pretty much on everything
all the drums I this is doing the heavy lifting really
um this is the new tube culture plug in from Arteria
it’s um based on the culture vulture uh from thermionic
uh and it’s a great saturation box and uh yeah
this plug ins killer I think it sounds really good
takes a little bit of time to get used to
it’s definitely unique um
there’s different uh
modes here for I believe different tubes
they are uh you know
have a different interaction with the source material
so definitely take some time to play with it and
and get used to it but um
we’ll go ahead and play with the processing
on and off here
so definitely more attack when it’s on
uh it’s a little brighter
um but yeah not a not a whole lot going on there
not a lot of processing really
and then I’m ending pretty much every signal chain
with the uh
Matlin Pro dithering plug in
um I’m going into some hardware
so I wanna make sure I did there before I do that
um I’m running into a dangerous 2 bus
which is going into an SSL Fusion uh
which is then going into a better maker
mastering compressor into an API 50
500 and then back into my links Aurora in um
so full disclosure
this is all going through some hardware
um but yeah
let’s go ahead and check out the snare now here
that’s nice
it’s you know got a nice woody tone to it um
you know lots of punch nice transient on it um
let’s see what I’m doing here
so using the Khrushoff EQ little bump up at uh
4.6 hertz using the uh SSLG
um curves there what else we doing
going back to the tube culture E2
that’s my go to for snares uh
run the bias of higher
gives a nice low end and I’ve been loving that on
on my snares
so uh we’re using the uh Drum Forge transient tube
um this is adding some nice attack as well uh
not always necessary uh with how well the
um the tube culture handles transients
a lot of times
when I wanted a little bit more smack here
so um run it running it through the transient 2
and then of course ending with the Matlin Pro
um let’s see what else we got here
let’s go to some symbols now
they they took a little bit of a different approach
with the uh
with the symbols here
the crashes all um are basically spot mics
they’re not in in the overheads
um so you’ve got individual crashes here
and I read it
routed all these to just one crash channel
um you know
not a ton of resident frequencies that were causing
you know really any compromise when um uh
we’re notching out frequency so I think I just yeah
I just did one little notch here at uh 2.4 and uh
that was I was satisfied with that so um
definitely some solid sounding symbols uh
let’s go ahead and play just the uh the symbols here
and again
really all that’s going on is new culture and on the
on the actual crashes channel here
little bit of a dip at 2.4
ending of course with the uh Matlin prodither uh
let’s check out the room
nice sounding room
snare sounds super explosive in there
so that’s a great um you know uh uh element to have uh
with these uh with these samples here
just doing the tube culture again um
doing a little bit of a um
enciant enhancement here with a drum forge transient 2
again um
a little bit of EQ with Kershoff
one off some lows
a little bit of high end and then one off or a little
little dip in the high mids there at 3.2
yeah out of energy in there
um I’m gonna do uh
I’m gonna I didn’t uh bypass the
the processing on the crashes
so I’ll do that real quick quick as well
obviously a level difference there but yeah
just a little bit brighter
um Toms let’s check out the Toms here
find a section with Bill
yeah the sun killer um
these are all from the uh the red pack here
um
and let’s see there is blue pack kick is the blue pack
so reference for uh
for anyone looking to maybe pick these up
there’s there’s three packs we’ve got blue
red and white and they all have different
you know characters and sounds
but they all do play well together
which is really nice um
so if you pick up all three um
you’re truly gonna have three sets of mix and match
symbols um
shells uh and and yeah
it’s great it’s all in the same room and everything
so they all play really well together um
see let’s go and check out some guitars
but I recently fell in love with the uh STL tones uh
amp up here
this this is probably in my opinion
this is the best digital sounding um
and software out there I think this sounds the best uh
in terms of the mix and um
you know just feels really good to play
and it sounds like a real lamp
it really does I’m I’m very picky uh
when it comes to amp Sims
I haven’t used them for a long time um
I’ve been using um uh
makes a Boogie Triple Crown and um uh a victory um
B ONE THIRTY Super Countess and um
nothing’s rival that for me
up until this point when I came across the ampop
so really digging the sound uh
we used a uh
Promise Dragon here with a leave it to orange 4
12 might with a 57 and an angle um
or 12 might with a royal 1
22 so I got these chunks here
and it’s got a nice growl to it um
did a little bit of ecuing uh
cutting out some resonant frequencies here
nothing crazy though um yeah
just it sounds really good um
sounds great um base low end
I’m you know
one of those guys that splits the
the base into a low end track and a high end track
and uh
let’s see what we got here from the base low end
okay so we’re using a tone hub instead of the ampub uh
we’ll put these bass back to me
sounded really good of this uh uh smooth preset here
I don’t think
I don’t think I really touched anything on it um
doing a bunch of compression on that low into uh uh
even out the the peaks there uh
now doing that certainly made
you know the the the low
the low end um you know fairly thin
lost a lot of that energy and so I uh
I injected some low end again
with the unfiltered audio basement
which is like a subharmonic
um cider to the best of my knowledge but um
this thing’s pretty awesome
it can be easily too much in in many cases
but with how much low end I ended up um
killing with that compressor
I was able to be pretty aggressive here
and add in some low end and um
with some experimentation lately
I found it really complements the guitars
especially
especially on the runs like this you know
where it’s more melodic and you don’t um
you know you have
you have to make the choice of are you gonna make the
the bass follow the guitar riff
or just hold down the low end
and play something more simple
this allows me to not have to really compromise
with this base setup um
you know it
it’s got plenty of low end
it stays tight still and and fills out runs like this
um really well so
basically just sounds like an extension of the guitars
which always what I’m looking for um
and then we’ll check out the um
base distortion track here
which is uh 250 hertz and above basically
probably the thing I cut off probably about 4K
3.4 okay so uh what do we use here
uh we’ll put this base pack again the squishy preset
and with my base with the high end anyway
the high end distorted track
I I keep it fairly subtle um
my whole goal with it is just to try to keep it um
not poking up too much mono uh
I just can’t stand that when you hear majority of
of the base distortion track uh
poking through there
so you know adds a little bit of of um you know
body to the guitars again
trying to go for like you know
more of an extension of the guitars
and something like this
go and play the guitars along with it
awesome so yeah
that’s basically a a breakdown of the mix
really appreciate you guys checking this out
uh check out Hertz Instruments
uh if you want to learn more about these
awesome drum samples here
and if you wanna hear more from me
check out Kimora recordings.com
and yeah we’ll see you guys in another video