Recording - January 2016 - 44

PLUG-IN OUTLET
Sound Radix Drum Leveler
by Giles Reaves

Drum Leveler is a plug-in for drums/percussion level processing, using a new
approach for dynamics control. Using a dual-threshold design and both upwards
and downwards compression, working on each drum hit individually, you can now
do things previously unimaginable. Drum Leveler works well on individual drum
channels and on pre-mixed drum tracks/loops.
One interesting thing about this plug-in is that it deals more with the overall level
of each note or drum hit, rather than the envelope of each note, as a traditional
compressor does. It won't increase the sustain of each drum hit like a traditional
compressor can, but it can do things a traditional compressor simply can't do. By
applying gain change to each individual hit or beat, Drum Leveler achieves a level
of control only previously possible via painstaking manual automation.

Learning your way around
Basic operation is quite simple, once you get your head around the concept. If
you have used Beat Detective or Strip Silence-type processes or created REX files,
you will be familiar with this approach. For the most part you make these settings
from the main display window, which is a scrolling and zoomable display.
The display shows low and high Thresholds, which determine the events (beats)
that are going to be affected. There is ample visual feedback, allowing you to
quickly and accurately set the threshold levels. You also have a Target control,
which determines the output level of the selected events, as scaled by the
Compression control. With the Compression control at 100%, each selected event
will be scaled to hit the target level, but it would be more typical to use settings in
the 50% range, which nudges events toward that level without forcing them to hit it.
In some cases, reaching the target level takes positive gain (displayed in
orange), in others negative (displayed in blue). The Compression control can also
be set to negative levels, which will have the effect of moving each detected event
further from the target!
You have a few different overall processing modes to choose from, though you'll
mainly be using the default stereo mode for most work. In addition to the stereo
mode, there are dual mono and Mid/Side modes. You can choose to view each
channel separately when in either of these modes. There are also controls for input
sensitivity, minimum retrigger (masking), overall gain range (for restricting the effect
to a smaller range), and the more common Hold time, Recovery time, and Gate
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RECORDING January 2016

Range (which sets the reduction amount
for signals below the low threshold). Along
the bottom of the display is the sidechain
filter control section.
In use
There are two applications where this
plug-in really shines for me. One is on multimiked drum tracks, using it on individual
drums as a pre-compression leveler and
gate (and I'm really not that big a fan of
gates on drum tracks!). The built-in side
chain filters make quick work of reducing
bleed and isolating each drum. This is especially helpful if you are compressing your
drums, since this type of pre-processing can
reduce side affects of compression, such as
increasing bleed from other drums and
irregular compression from overly dynamic
performances.
The other main application is
for pre-mixed drum loops/
tracks, where you don't have
independent control over each
drum sound. These can include
drum submixes, drum loops like
REX files or Apple Loops, and
Logic's Drummer tracks. Drum
Leveler can be very handy for
adjusting the level of each drum
in a pre-mixed loop. It won't
give total flexibility when things
like cymbal crashes are
involved, but in general use I
found it to provide an impressive level of control. In fact, I
was able to effectively isolate
the kick and snare from a simple drum loop by duplicating
the track and isolating the kick
on one copy and the snare on
the other (with careful use of the
Side Chain Filter and Gate
Range controls).
Sidechaining and pre-compression
leveling/gating
Drum Leveler relies heavily on its
sidechain filters. These babies are steep,
which makes them useful for the intended
purpose of isolating drums. I measured their
slopes to be around 80-90 dB/octave with
a very flat pass band. The Band Stop mode
can produce very steep notches/cuts from
60 to 90 dB deep (depending on settings)!
All in all, these filters are great for isolating
the desired frequency range, and the Solo
button allows quicker workflow by letting
you hear what the filters are doing.
Drum Leveler can operate as a sophisticated type of gate, which is especially useful for the multi-miked drum recordings I
mentioned above. By combining the dual
thresholds with the sidechain filters, you can
isolate each drum much more effectively
than with other devices, while also leveling
them in the process. The advantage here is

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - January 2016