Cymbal Killer by Low Wave Studios: The Cymbal Killer for Your Drums
As a professional musician and sound engineer, I fully understand the challenges of working with live drum tracks. One of the biggest problems is unwanted cymbal bleed into close drum microphones. This can ruin the mix. Fortunately, there are tools to deal with this. One of them is Cymbal Killer by Low Wave Studios.
This is a unique 2-band gate, created specifically for drums. Its key feature is the ability to apply different envelope settings to different frequency ranges of the drum sound. This allows you to control the sustain (low frequencies) and attack (high frequencies) separately.
How does Cymbal Killer work?
You want the snare drum hit to be tight and short, without a long tail from the cymbal? Cymbal Killer allows it! You can shorten the attack (high frequencies), where the cymbal sound usually is, while preserving the natural sustain of the drum (low frequencies). This allows the drums to “breathe”, preserving their sound, but eliminating cymbal “bleed”. Hence the name!
This plugin becomes indispensable when standard gates are not precise enough. Instead of simply opening/closing the signal, Cymbal Killer gives surgical control over the dynamics, allowing you to isolate the desired elements and remove the excess noise.
Key Features:
- 2-band gate optimized for drum processing.
- Independent envelope settings for low (sustain) and high (attack) frequencies.
- Effective removal of cymbal bleed and other noise while preserving the main sound.
- Side-chain input.
- Built-in filters (HPF, LPF, parametric) in the detector circuit, common to both bands.
- “Lookahead” function to pass the full transient (adds a small delay).
- Two visualizers for monitoring the gate operation.
- “Mix” control for mixing the processed and original signal.
Why use Cymbal Killer?
If you want to get a clean, controlled and professionally mixed drum sound, Cymbal Killer is the tool for you. It is ideal for processing individual drum tracks (snare drum, toms) or even overheads if you need to remove the extra cymbal ringing while preserving air. This plugin allows you to achieve the density, punch, and clarity that is often lost due to excessive “bleed”.
It is a great solution for both studio work and live performances. The ease of use combined with powerful functionality makes it a valuable addition to the arsenal of any producer, sound engineer, or musician who records live drums. Cymbal Killer will help you solve one of the most common drum recording problems.
Compatibility:
The Cymbal Killer plugin is available in VST and AU formats. It is compatible with most modern DAWs. Supports 64-bit Windows (Win64) and MacOS (OSX) operating systems, ensuring stable operation.
