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Mangle Your Drum Bus – ‘Crusty Bus’ Plugin Chain: StudioRack Unchained

Jul 09, 2020 | 4,834 Views

Sometimes you want to drive your drums to extremes when mixing. Producer Cam Blackwood (George Ezra) takes you under the hood of his Waves StudioRack Crusty Bus chain created for this purpose.

A great way to add interest, vibe and color to a bus is by blending in small layers of saturation. But what if gentle amounts of warmth don't quite cut it for you? Instead, try experimenting with more extreme distortion sounds for adding impact, intensity, grit and edge for more industrial results.

Take your bus mixing skills to new and exciting realms by learning how the pros approach this fundamental mix stage. In this video, producer and songwriter Cam Blackwood (George Ezra, Jack Savoretti, Frank Carter, Tom Walker) takes you under the hood of his unique StudioRack Crust Bus chain preset, included in the free StudioRack plugin chainer.

Plugins used in this chain: EMI TG12345, Renaissance Reverb, J37 Tape.

Cam Blackwood about the ‘Crusty Bus’ StudioRack Chain

“I typically use a lot of programmed instruments and live elements together in my work. What I like to do is make these different elements combine into one sound. If I have a couple of shakers, a tambourine, sequenced hi-hats, sampled snares and some live handclaps, I like to put these into one sound to give the listener the impression of an ensemble of people in a live performance.”

‘Crusty Bus’ Plugin Chain: StudioRack Unchained

“My chain preset Crusty Bus includes EQ and compression elements from within the Waves/Abbey Road EMI TG12345 channel strip, two different short room reverb sounds using Renaissance Reverb within StudioRack’s Parallel split racks, and delay and saturation from the Abbey Road J37 Tape.”

StudioRack Crusty Bus Macros

  1. Crust controls TG12345 dynamics mix value, drive level while attenuating output level
  2. Presence controls gain level +/- of TG12345 presence
  3. Sparkle controls gain level +/- of TG12345 treble
  4. Room 1 controls internal mix level of parallel split rack 1 RVerb
  5. Room 2 controls internal mix level of parallel split rack 1 RVerb
  6. Repeat mix level
  7. Spread controls delay level in J37 tape
  8. Tape Sat controls saturation level in J37 tape
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