Masters Program - Lesson 3 - Posted on 2014-03-26 by Collin McCombs

Lesson three was about SoundReplacer. SoundReplacer is a plug-in that allows you to change the characterisic sound of drum instruments by blending the original signal with a new sampled signal. Aaron said that he has used this alot and assure me he would have no problem teaching it. To demonstrate this he pulled up a session with lots of drums. We listened to it and decided to change the sound of the kick and snare. To begin we pulled up the plug-in and soloed the kick drum. After that he created a new track right below the kick and called it "kick replace". Once this was done he selected a small region of the waveform the hit the "Update" button on the SoundReplacer interface. Suddenly the region he selected appeared on the plug-ins interface. Aaron explained that SoundReplacer is more effective and accurate when smaller regions are selected for processing. After that he showed me how upload a sample for the new kick sound. To do that you must click on the floppy disk icon for the desired threshold then pick a sample that is a good match. Once we picked the sample Aaron then showed me how the thresholds worked. There are three thresholds and each of them control different intensities. From what Aaron told me he usually only uses the first and lowest intensity. He then began to pull down the threshold until it was in a suitable position. He then hit the "Preview" button to see what the new kick sounds like. There was some bleed from the snare on the kick track so we increased the threshold until just the hits from the kick were heard. You can also adjust the dynamics of the sample to get the sound you're looking for. He then selected the "kick replace" track at the top of the interface so when we process the audio it will appear on that track. Once that was done we could process the signal. The last thing you have to do is blend the original and new signals. To do this you adjust the levels of both tracks until the desired sound is achieved. We then did the same thing for the snare drum. Towards the end of the lesson I was able to experiment with the same kick and snare tracks, but also the hi-hat. I enjoyed this lesson alot and can't wait to utilize what I've learned in the future.