What Is Metal Foundry Really Capable Of?

[brandondrury]

As you may know, we've been running the Toontrack Mixing Wars: Metal Contest through December 2009 where we will be giving away Superior Drummer 2.0, Metal Foundry, and Drum Kit From Hell to the winner of our mixing contest. (There is still some time left to enter. Check it out. Prizes and Rules

The initial tracks included utilized the stock Metal Foundry drum samples with no processing. This does show what Metal Foundry can do in it's most minimal form, but it's kinda sorta misleading as it doesn't show you what Metal Foundry can do when you pull up some of their ultra mega presets.

I Thought You Hated Presets
Yes, you are right. I generally am not a fan of presets. Much of this is because I usually don't find them that good. I also generally don't like presets when it comes to audio plugins because they don't take into account the audio that is to be processed in the first place. Maybe a metal guitar emulator has enough gain to turn a Tele into an industrial guitar sound. However, we don't need that much gain when using an EMG 81 equipped guitar, however. That's an easy one to fix. There are worse examples.

We don't have this problem with The Metal Foundry. When you pull up the mixer presets (which is a BRILLIANT) idea, you get exactly what the robo mixer intended when he came up with the mix. It's amazing being able to see exactly how they use EQ, compression, Transient Designer, reverb, etc to create some OUTSTANDINGLY powerful metal drum sounds.

Hear It In Real Context
It's one thing to hear some bad ass drum samples. Most sample library manufacturers have impressive audio clips on their websites. It's another thing to hear it in a song YOU have mixed. When you know the ins/outs/in-betweens of a mix, you have a great respect for the guys that really make them slam. You know the hoops that had to be taken to jump through each sound.

So, I've taken my entry for Toontrack Mixing Wars: Metal and I've ditched my drum mixing to illustrate what comes right out of the box with Toontrack's Metal Foundry. I think this is a killer product, but the default setting utilizes no processing. I suspect this could be intimidating to a person new to recording and mixing. So here's what you get with no effort at all.

Download 8 Examples of Metal Foundry Presets

Note: I altered nothing in my mix. Some of these examples have big, sustaining kick drums that take up more room (leaving less for bass guitar). So if I would have ultimately used in any of these presets in my mix, I would have definitely had to adjust things a bit on other instruments. Just keep that in mind.

Brandon

[Jeremyk23]

These are all awesome and with some tweaking I could see how these can be some extremely powerful drum samples within the context of a mix. With this mix I think Fredrick Thorendal's Metal! preset sits the best, but I can see most of these working really well with some messing with the parameters. Ha, that Breather preset is strange!

Were these all using the same snare drum?

[brandondrury]

Were these all using the same snare drum?

Good question. Let me get back to you. (I'm aware from the recording rig right now.)

I simply hit the preset and rendered the file down.

These are all awesome and with some tweaking I could see how these can be some extremely powerful drum samples within the context of a mix.

Yeah. I think everyone of them did need a little adjustment for context, but I can't think of a drum sound that doesn't.

Brandon

[jer]

does 001 represent a completely dry mix?

No preset, just how the samples would be if you loaded the kit and hit play?

[brandondrury]

No, 001 is Superior Drummer 2.0 (not Metal Foundry).

Brandon

[jer]

so all of them are using the presets?

(I was looking for a preset vs no preset comparison)

I didnt know there were even presets available. I've only used the raw unprocessed kit.

[brandondrury]

I didn't really think of that. Everyone who entered the contest got to hear the raw clips so that was who I had in mind on this one.

I just removed this one from my computer so I guess that option is out. Sorry dude.

Brandon

[jer]

no prob. I'll run some midi through it on my own and compare raw vs the presets.



I'm just happy to hear it HAS presets!

[brandondrury]

Yeah, the built in mixer is an EXTREMELY powerful function.

Brandon

[jer]

I've used the mixer. Just no presets or any EQ.

Load a kit, use the mixer for panning and levels...

Thats it.