Addictive Drums includes all the tools you need to get a great drum sound for your tracks, but there are some cases in which your drum mixing can benefit from using the separate outputs method. This means sending the individual channels in Addictive Drums to separate tracks in your DAW. Separate outputs lets you:
- Use a third-party effect on a single drum or channel from Addictive Drums. Perhaps you want to apply your favorite compressor to only the snare, use a cool flanger effect on the Overhead channel during part of your song, or use another third-party effect on only part of the drum kit.
- Apply the same reverb to your drums that you have already used for other tracks, like vocals and guitar
- Use one of the channels from Addictive Drums, for instance the Kick, as a side chain source in your arrangement
- Export the different channels from Addictive Drums to separate audio files so that the drums can be mixed by someone who does not own Addictive Drums
- Send the different channels from Addictive Drums, via an audio interface with multiple outputs into a mixing desk - for instance when using an e-drum kit to trigger Addictive Drums in a live situation
It’s worth noting that when you route a channel from Addictive Drums to a separate channel in your DAW, it will no longer go through the Master channel in Addictive Drums. This means that it’s not possible to get the exact same sound as you had before the routing (unless there are no effects on the Master channel at all).
Enabling Separate Outputs in Addictive Drums 2
To route the Addictive Drums 2 channels to separate outputs in your DAW/host you must first enable the outputs in Addictive Drums 2. Load Addictive Drums 2 in your DAW/host and go to the Kit page. By clicking on the arrow [↓] next to each fader you can enable a separate output and select how you want to route the separate output for that channel. Holding down the [Cmd] key on Mac or [Alt] key on Windows lets you set the output for all mono channels.
The rest of this guide contains instructions on how to continue routing the outputs in your host software. This guide may not be up to date when you read this, so please refer to your host manual if you have any questions.
Select your DAW:
Ableton Live:
1. Load Addictive Drums 2 on a MIDI track.
2. Open the Addictive Drums 2 interface, go to the Kit page and click on the arrow [↓] for every channel you want to route to a separate output (see Enabling Separate Outputs in Addictive Drums 2 in the beginning of this guide for more info).
3. Create Audio tracks in Ableton for each channel you want to route to a separate output. In total that's 13 tracks if you want to route each channel, 10 mono tracks and 3 stereo tracks.
4. In the “Audio From” input dropdown on the first audio track, select “Addictive Drums 2”.
5. In the dropdown box directly below (it says Post Mixer in the screenshot), select the Addictive Drums 2 bus you want to send to this channel, for example "Snare-Addictive Drums 2".
6. One step below, click the Monitor [In] button to let sound through the channel.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 for the rest of the tracks until all channels are routed.
Cakewalk:
1. Click on Insert in the top menu, select Soft Synth and load Addictive Drums 2 into your project. When you do this make sure to select Instrument Track Per Output and Mono Audio Outputs. This will route the audio outputs of Addictive Drums 2 to separate tracks in Cakewalk.
2. Open the Addictive Drums 2 interface, go to the Kit page and click on the arrow [↓] for every channel you want to route to a separate output (see Enabling Separate Outputs in Addictive Drums 2 in the beginning of this guide for more info).
3. All channels in AD2 are sent to mono channels in Cakewalk. This means that the stereo channels are split into left and right channels. You need to pan the L and R channels 100% respectively left and right to get the proper stereo image. The channels that need to be panned will be named something like this:
Addictive Drums 2 1 Master L
Addictive Drums 2 1 Master R
Addictive Drums 2 1 Overhead L
Addictive Drums 2 1 Overhead R
Addictive Drums 2 1 Room L
Addictive Drums 2 1 Room R
Addictive Drums 2 1 Bus L
Addictive Drums 2 1 Bus R
Cubase:
1. Load Addictive Drums 2 on an Instrument track.
2. Open the Addictive Drums 2 interface, go to the Kit page and click on the arrow [↓] for every channel you want to route to a separate output (see Enabling Separate Outputs in Addictive Drums 2 in the beginning of this guide for more info).
3. In the Inspector view for the Addictive Drums 2 track you can activate the separate outputs. In Cubase 13 there's a multi-out return channel instrument dropdown (named Addictive Drums 2 01 in the screenshot). Clicking on this will reveal the outputs available from Addictive Drums 2. Click to select the ones you want to activate and you should see new bus tracks created in Cubase in the mix console. In Cubase 12 Addictive Drums 2 is listed in the Inspector with a small arrow coming out of a box, clicking the arrow reveals the outputs available.
FL Studio:
1. Load Addictive Drums 2 on a track. Note that the AU version unfortunately doesn't work correctly with separate outputs.
2. Open the Addictive Drums 2 interface, go to the Kit page and click on the arrow [↓] for every channel you want to route to a separate output (see Enabling Separate Outputs in Addictive Drums 2 in the beginning of this guide for more info).
3. Open the Wrapper Settings for the Addictive Drums 2 plug-in, then click the tab labeled Processing.
4. In the Connections tab, individual outputs from Addictive Drums 2 can be sent to different channel strips in the FL Studio Mixer. Clicking the "Auto map outputs" should automatically set this up. Make sure the tracks are enabled, if not click on the circle in front of them (in the screenshot only the Kick and Snare channel are enabled).
Logic:
1. Create a new Software Instrument track and load a Multi-Output (4x Stereo, 10x Mono) version of Addictive Drums 2.
2. Open the Addictive Drums 2 interface, go to the Kit page and click on the arrow [↓] for every channel you want to route to a separate output (see Enabling Separate Outputs in Addictive Drums 2 in the beginning of this guide for more info).
3. Go to the Mixer in Logic and look at the track with Addictive Drums 2, there’s a plus sign near the bottom if you loaded Addictive Drums 2 as a Multi-Output plugin. Clicking on that plus sign a number of times creates the Aux channels for the separate outputs in Addictive Drums 2.
Another way to do this is to go to the Mixer in Logic and click Options > Create New Auxiliary Channel Strip (or press Ctrl + N). Do this for every channel you want to route. Click the input box for the these Aux channel, go to Inst 1 (or whatever the name of the Addictive Drums 2 track is) and select the input. Addict3 is the Kick channel in Addictive Drums, Addict4 is Snare and so forth.
Don’t forget to raise the volume for the Aux tracks as they are on zero by default.
Pro Tools:
1. In a new Session create a stereo Instrument Track. Next add Addictive Drums 2 to that channel as a multichannel plugin.
2. Open the Addictive Drums 2 interface, go to the Kit page and click on the arrow [↓] for every channel you want to route to a separate output (see Enabling Separate Outputs in Addictive Drums 2 in the beginning of this guide for more info).
3. Create Audio tracks for each channel you want to route. That’s 10 mono- and 3 stereo tracks if you want to route all channels from Addictive Drums 2 into Pro Tools.
4. Assign the individual Addictive Drums 2 channels as inputs to each track in the Mix View of Pro Tools. Select an audio channel, click on "no input" under I/O and select plug-in > Addictive Drums 2 inst X - Insert X and you should see a list of the channels from Addictive Drums 2. Repeat this step on all Audio channels until you've assigned all your inputs.
Reaper:
1. Go to Insert > "Virtual Instrument On New Track...”
2. Select XLN Audio: Addictive Drums 2 and click OK.
3. A “Build Routing Confirmation” dialogue should now pop up, prompting you to add
tracks for this effect. Click Yes.
4. Open the Addictive Drums 2 interface, go to the Kit page and click on the arrow [↓] for every channel you want to route to a separate output (see Enabling Separate Outputs in Addictive Drums 2 in the beginning of this guide for more info).
Reason:
1. Load Addictive Drums 2 into your project.
2. Open the Addictive Drums 2 interface, go to the Kit page and click on the arrow [↓] for every channel you want to route to a separate output (see Enabling Separate Outputs in Addictive Drums 2 in the beginning of this guide for more info).
3. Toggle to rack rear (shortcut: ⇥).
4. Click on "Optional Inputs & Outputs) at the bottom of the back of the Addictive Drums 2 module.
5. Right click on Optional Audio Output 3 and select "Route to new Mix Channel". This connects Optional Audio Output 3 (the kick drum) to the input of a new mix channel.
6. Right click on Optional Audio Output 5 and select "Route to new Mix Channel", and repeat the process for channel 5, 7, 9 and so on. Since Addictive Drums 2 has 10 mono channels and 3 stereo channels (OH, Room and Bus) optional audio outputs 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19 and 21 will be connected in mono and outputs 23-24, 25-26 and 27-28 will be connected in Stereo.