Fab Dupont Mixing With Pro Tools

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Good morning, children! Today, we're going to play inside the mouth of a given horse.

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..gonna be ok! Namely we're going to play with Pro Tools 12 Native and the plug-ins that come with Pro Tools 12 Native and the subscription.

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So basically: the mouth is free but you gotta buy the horse. Which is fair because it's hard and expensive to build a horse.

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Let's go! For the sake of transparency and for you to see the workflow I'm actually gonna show you everything I do, so, first thing I do is I create a session.

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So I'm gonna call it say something original like 'Jealousy', probably with a spelling mistake, that's ok, put my name on it, number it, it might take a while..

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Then I'm gonna choose the sample rate.

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I'd like to attract your attention to a potential problem, here.

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If you are being sent files and you're not 100% ironclad positive about the sample rate it will cost you a solid 7 to 8 seconds to check the sample rate of the files and save you hours of grief.

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Here's a couple quick ways to check the sample rate of your files Pro Tools gives you this wonderful thing, called: the Workspace.

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And the Workspace is a wealth of information, The session is sitting on my desktop right now, so I can go there, double click and in the Workspace I get all the information about all the files.

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Iz nice! See? 24bit, 88.2 kHz, I would have made a mistake! Another quick way to check files, sample rates, sounds and other things in the Finder, is to use Snapper.

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Snapper is a 3rd-party tool, it's paid for, it's worth the money in my opinion, it runs in the background at all times.

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You don't know it's there. Until, you click on an audio file in the Finder. Boom.

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And then Snapper comes out, automatically.

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Gives you a window that you can actually click on, so you can browse through the file in the Finder with a waveform and gives you all the information, you can turn it into an MP3 ..it does many things. But what I use it for is to play files in the Finder and find out sample rates at break-neck speeds.

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The reason why I use Snapper to play audio in the Finder is this: I solemnly declare that the MacOS Finder sucks at playing audio files.

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It's really offensive-sounding it's offensive in each and every way. It's just offensive.

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So I use Snapper.

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Let's get back to Pro Tools..

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re-open that, create new..

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we remember because we have wonderful memory: 24/88, I'm gonna select the standard stereo I/O setting, which means, it blanks out all the I/O setup and all the files at the best it can.

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If you don't take that extra step of selecting either one of your templates, or stereo mix.. you will end up with all the names and routing of your previous session, depending on the session that could be really, really annoying.

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So, I always select stereo mix, because I still, for the life of me, can get a template together.

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And then I select Interleaved.

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This will force Pro Tools to work with interleaved stereo files, as opposed to dual mono files.

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Which is healthier in so many different ways that we can discuss over red wine, for example.

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And then, have Pro Tools prompt for location, give it a name..

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so, 'Fabmix 1.0', Create.. and I'm gonna break my rules and put this one on the Desktop to show you something else.

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Boom! So now Pro Tools is creating the session..

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Ok! Let's import some files.

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We could use this window, and.. in the Import File window..

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and go to Desktop and go to my stems and import all the stems like this, that's one possible, very civilised way, we're gonna do the caveman's way. We're gonna open a window in the Finder, find all the files..

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select them all..

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hit them over the head, with a club. Boom.

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This just told us we have 32 tracks! Isn't that wonderful.

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All right, so Pro Tools creates the waveforms, gives me an idea of what's going on.

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I see that there's a bunch of background vocals here, so what I'm gonna do now is organize all these audio files according to my system, and it's boring, so we're gonna skip over right now..

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*manly piano music playing* Sidenote: the reason why I kept the other folder on the desktop is to show you this: these are my source files, that Mick Guzauski sent me, supposedly, and this is my Pro Tools session.

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Notice that in the Pro Tools session there's an 'Audio Files' folder..

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and you'll notice that you have the same exact list of audio files.

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The reason for that is because I have checked in Pro Tools one preference that is life saving, world-changing, world-peace-creating, coffee-making, girlfriend-pleasing, the best in the universe.. let me show you.

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Goes like this: you go to Preferences, and here, in Processing, you have this little nugget, right here.

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'Automatically copy files..' this preference, being enabled, means that, whenever you drop a file in Pro Tools Pro Tools will make a copy of that file and store it in the 'Audio Files' folder in the folder, with the name of the session, on it.

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Think about that for a second! Which means that next time you want to back up this session, you don't have to go over 18 different drives, you don't have to miss the lead vocal because it was on your thumb drive, from your session and the other thing..

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everything is all put into one place.

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*sighs* Life is beautiful! All right, let's listen to the song! We have 2 options: we can listen to the raw tracks, or we can listen to Mick Guzauski's rough mix.

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And while we listen we're gonna drop the markers in.

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Don't skip the markers.

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Well, that's badass! I'm gonna mix this in a very simple way, because the music speaks for itself.

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The playing is ridiculous and the raw takes are amazing so why bother? The first thing I'm gonna do, to be able to keep track of what's going, because I love the rough mix, and I don't wanna have to jump through hoops to check the rough mix, so I'm gonna send everybody to an Aux called 'Sum', well, I am gonna call it 'Sum'.

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Then, I'm gonna assign that sum to the print track.

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And I'm gonna call that ..you guessed it! Print.

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And so now..

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I wanna solo safe the sum and the main track..

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which means that now, when I am on Input I am listening to all my raw tracks and then when I am not on Input I'm playing Mick's rough mix..

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Good inspiration! All right! One more thing, you'll notice here that there are 2 vocal tracks.

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One called 'no tuning' and one called 'tuned'.

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There was one note at the end, since she did this in one take, there was one at the end I didn't like, I tuned it.

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That happened.

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I will hide that.

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And now we're good to go.

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First things first, let's compare where we're starting with where Mick left us off at MSR at the end of the tracking day.

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This is Mick's second verse, and this is what we have.

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Fun afternoon ahead! Now, levels are different, very different obviously, one of the reasons for that is: because..

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Mick was mixing on a console.

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So the levels on a console are completely different from the levels inside a DAW. Also there's a lot of the stereo stuff that's not really stereo.

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Everything is in the middle, so that's gonna raise the level 3dBs because of pan laws, that move stuff down 3dBs when on the sides, so we can probably stereo-ize the background vocals, to start with.

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And make sure everything that's supposed to be in stereo is in stereo.

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These are DI plus..

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the direct sound, so we can't have the DI.

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I don't necessarily want the DI and the amp, I'll only use the DI if there's a problem.

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The overheads are in stereo so that's good.

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Let's put all the kicks together.

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Here, maybe give them a different color.

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It's all about visuals, to be able to find out where you are, at all times.

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Usually I put the snare next to the bass drum, personal fetish..

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then.. there you go..

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..and the two toms, rack tom first.

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Ride, overhead.. life is good! So now every track in the song is going to this one bus, that's a lot of energy, if I go to say, the last chorus, hold on to your ears! I haven't started mixing I'm already clipping.

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Not a good look, considering you know the levels are gonna rise.

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For those of you who mix 100% in the box, and need a little help with gain staging, in Pro Tools you can set up a Master Fader, stereo, because we got used to stereo, stereo is nice..

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and call it, say: 'Sum Master'.

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Assign it to the bus, this way, called 'Sum'.

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So what this Master Object/Fader thing does when it's assigned to your Sum bus, is it allows you to offset the overall level of the Sum bus which, remember: is just a cable, before it hits the actual object that's gonna have processing on it, so you can adjust the amount of energy you send to that object, which means you can prevent it from clipping.

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And because there is a lot of somewhat hidden headroom in Pro Tools, because you know..

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every fader in itself is you can only give it 12dBs of gain and then some more gain with plug-ins, but overall, you're being kept in a certain area, but the addition of all those levels, all the drums and all the vocals and everything.

00:14:09
That's a lot more of 12dBs of extra gain once you put them all together. So, for you to be able to function properly you would have to bring all those faders down, otherwise you're gonna clip, or: you can keep the faders there, be reasonable, and use one sum master, to actually tailor the response of the entire mixer to the final receiver object.

00:14:35
It's legal! For example, if I play the track now: As opposed to: Say no more! Good trick! Also, for your personal education, and enjoyment, Pro Tools.. Avid..

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has had the good taste of giving us actual VU meters, let's rejoice! So now you can have VU meters, on every track, and you can also have VU meters on auxes, busses and stuff.

00:15:09
Which is awesome! Because you can actually force yourself to be reasonable with your levels! If you look at Mick Guzauski's final rough mix, at the end of a long day of work, sometimes pretty loud, and you go to the last chorus, look at his levels right here on the right! And this is now a VU meter, actual VU meter, which I calibrated at in my case -18, I'm gonna show you how you can change that, in this new Pro Tools 10 and after, metering window, you can actually use the kind of meters you're using, and you can choose it on a meter-per-meter basis, For VU meters, my personal favorite for many years, you can actually choose to align to your interface, so that everything can actually make sense.

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I use Lynx and Dangerous Converts and they're at -18 so mine stays at -18, If you use Apollos, enter -16 so now what you're looking at what you're hearing, and what your interface is hearing are in sync. Isn't that wonderful? I'm at -18 here in this particular rig and you can choose when it turns red, when it turns green and all that stuff. It's really, really nice. Boom.

00:16:14
So now if you look at Mick Guzauski's mix on the loudest part of the mix..

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Miraculously hits just about 0. Isn't that wonderful? So our rough mix, right now: a little loud, but there's no compression and there's no processing of any sort.

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So as we start cutting stuff out I think it should hit just about right.

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Let's listen to the whole track for 4 bars.

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Fine..

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I'm assuming you adjusted your volume, listening volume, to something that's comfortable.

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Yeah? No? Yes. Do it. Ok.

00:17:13
So now I'm gonna solo the vocal.

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So now you're at the fork in the road.

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If you adjusted your level for the whole mix this is gonna feel soft.

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And you're not gonna feel like you can do good work doing carving and stuff on this, so what's your option? Well..

00:17:37
turn it up! Yo! No! Adjust your volume.

00:17:42
The idea here is to try and work at constant level at all times, and I know it's difficult because you have to be very conscious of it but when you solo instruments, if you have to solo instruments, and in this case I have to solo instruments to show you how it's done, compensate, so you're always listening more or less at the same level.

00:18:00
And, 8 people playing together and one person singing by herself, is never going to be at the same level. So for this particular exercise turn your level up a little bit while I take care of the vocal.

00:18:11
Just a little bit. I'm doing it, check it out! I raised it 6dBs, because I have a calibrated monitor section that I know exactly how many dBs I raise it and how many dBs I bring it back down because I am geek that way.

00:18:26
I'm gonna use the Channel Strip. By the way, you noticed that Pro Tools gives you the option of having 2 favorite plug-ins up here, you can set that up here in Preferences, Mixing pane, you have a field for default EQ and a field for default Dynamics, the fact of the matter is you can choose whatever you want, a distortion, a delay, nobody cares.. but..

00:18:44
I have the Channelstrip here, and the De-Esser, because most of the time, it's what I use in this particular case Channelstrip.. so you don't have to drill down all the menus, you just have this really quick thing up there, which is cool.

00:19:00
Here is the Channelstrip which is included with Pro Tools, very generously, and is modeled after a Euphonix-kind of channelstrip, it's actually unbelievably powerful and full-featured, very honestly, if you learn to use this very deeply, and you don't need to geek out, you just wanna get some basic, cool tones, this rocks.

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You have your input meter, which is awesome because you can see if you are abusing it already or not, you have your output meter and then you have a bunch of modules, EQ modules, filter, which is different, remember? Dynamics module and then your final volume control..

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So, where you're gonna spend your most amount of time is probably in the comp/limit and filters. You can close these little panes.

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And make everything very efficient, if you need to.

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We're gonna leave them open so that it's easier to see.

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All right, so for this vocal for example, the first thing I would do is high pass, so you can grab this little thing, here or you can switch to the different panes here, this is the number 2 filter, it's a low pass, which we won't need today, so you can grab this or you can go to your pane and use the knobs and there's different kinds of filters here and you can change the slope right here.

00:20:19
In this case I don't need the very bottom of her vocals because she's a female singer so I don't need everything at the bottom and definitely not below 124 or 150 Hz. Let's compare because you never know.

00:20:33
Without.

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Next you have 4 EQ bands.

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Right here, which you can organize in different ways, the high band and low band can be either a peak or a shelf and the 2 mid bands are peak only you have the Q, it's a full-featured parametric EQ be careful when you select pane if you hit this thing you're gonna go: 'what happened?' You're basically soloing the band so you can hear what you're doing, I'll show you in a second.

00:21:09
Clearly we need to open up the top or maybe we need to remove a little mud at the bottom we're gonna use this guy and I'm gonna turn it into a shelf like this, see how much thicker it is? And it feels a little effected, it's better with just a couple dBs.

00:21:43
I like it better with.

00:21:45
I wanna open the high end a little bit.

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Don't forget to switch to a shelf if you want to do something very gentle, like this.

00:22:15
Nice, I can hear the 's' coming out.

00:22:17
That's not gonna be fun but I need the presence in the high end so I'm gonna have to fix it somehow, later when we grow up, if we grow up.

00:22:24
And then I'm gonna add a little bit of compression! Because you can hear in this phrase, check it out.

00:22:35
Hear that? 'You take your knife'.. check it out: It'd be nice to be able to not have that.

00:22:47
So we can have the vocal very anchored, so I'm gonna choose a ratio first.

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From experience and watching a lot of pureMix videos I'm telling myself 2:1 would be wonderful.

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And then I'm gonna lower the threshold and this is like a really classic digital compressor.

00:23:02
Ratio, threshold, then knee.

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And then you can play with attack and release, after.

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So let's see..

00:23:15
I hear it. Why do I hear it, I don't wanna hear it.

00:23:18
I hear it because the attack is 100 micro seconds.

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Which is really, really fast. So I'm gonna open the attack.

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Which is gonna generate less compression so I might have to lower the threshold.

00:23:34
I'm gonna open the attack so I don't eat the transients so I don't hear it go *plpl*..

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then I'm gonna lengthen the release so that it's slower so it stays in compression longer.

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To give more of a centered feel.

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Then I'm gonna have to lower the threshold so that it's compressing earlier into the signal, and so I have more density.

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And of course at this point I'm probably lowering the level by 4-5 dBs.

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The gauge right here tells you how much.

00:24:00
5 indeed, so I'm gonna raise it 5dBs here in gain.

00:24:03
And this is all happening with this simple interface, which is nice.

00:24:09
I'm gonna open the attack a little further.

00:24:16
So now if I bypass the compressor.

00:24:23
With: It's nice, I think I can actually lower the threshold more..

00:24:32
and have a little higher ratio..

00:24:35
The reason for that is I want the compressor to work more often on the lower signals.

00:24:39
As it compresses the lower signals more it's gonna compress the louder signals even more, which is gonna reduce the difference between low and loud or soft and loud, if you're not French.

00:24:50
Now, another way to do that is also to soften the knee, the knee, here allows you to actually force the compressor to start working below the threshold. So we're gonna lower the threshold..

00:25:02
soften the knee, heighten the ratio and make a cup of coffee, and it sounds like this.

00:25:12
Now it's too much but we're getting there, so I'm gonna raise the threshold again..

00:25:27
one more time, so you can really memorize the sound we've gained a lot, is it perfect? No.

00:25:41
But it means nothing since we're listening to it in solo and it has no purpose in solo, we'll see it in the track.

00:25:47
This is actually more compression than I would use I would rather automate than use this much compression.

00:25:53
But, let's see what happens.

00:25:55
Let me tell you about one more parameter on this compressor that could be confusing to some.

00:25:59
It's called 'Depth'.

00:26:00
This is allows you to decide how much compression you will allow the compressor to have.

00:26:06
It's another layer of complication but it can be very useful.

00:26:10
This knob allows you to tell your compressor things like this: 'Yo! Don't you dare applying more than 4dBs of compression no matter what settings I have don't you dare.

00:26:21
Anything over 4dBs and you'll find yourself at the bottom of the East River with concrete shoes.' Useful button.

00:26:29
Before, if I have infinity, or 30dBs, and I have a really low threshold, when she comes on, the compressor goes to town. Now, if I go here and I say 4, all the settings are the same, which means you can start working pretty early on the signal but now you have a stop, a limit..

00:26:54
to what the compressor can do. Which is awesome! So basically you can use this to be in constant compression, without over compressing.

00:27:16
That was wonderful.

00:27:18
Let's apply the de-esser.

00:27:20
The de-esser is conveniently located in my favorites little menu, there. Boom.

00:27:24
This is a knock-off of an old dbx 103, very simple.

00:27:30
You can decide to apply the de-esser to the entire signal or just the high end.

00:27:34
HF only.

00:27:35
And then you have a button to listen to what's going on, so let's go to the beginning of the second verse.

00:27:41
Which is why these markers are awesome.

00:27:48
This is the full signal.

00:27:52
I'm gonna listen to it, find out where the 's' lives.

00:27:55
Maybe lower..

00:27:58
maybe lower..

00:28:00
no, maybe higher..

00:28:03
say there..

00:28:05
ok! Now I know where it is.

00:28:07
I'm gonna listen to the signal, again.

00:28:09
Probably choose hi-end only, so I can hit the vocal sound the least possible amount and choose the range of reduction, there you go! A little better! That's what we needed.

00:28:31
Now I'm putting the de-esser after the channelstrip.

00:28:33
Which is probably not a good idea since I'm compressing quite a bit in the channelstrip.

00:28:37
Which means that the difference between the actual signal and the 's' has already been reduced and it's being compressed. Hence the name..

00:28:44
'compressor'. Wonderful nomenclature! So maybe if we move the de-esser before the channelstrip, we'll get better results.

00:28:51
This is after the channelstrip: Yeah! A little better.

00:29:01
It's subtle, I'll do it again. Check it out.

00:29:13
The 's' are a little darker, less obnoxious and also look at the magical thing it does on 'take', the word after that.

00:29:43
Wonderful! Then I'm gonna create a little bit of space.

00:29:47
And to do so I'm gonna use a plug-in called 'Space'.

00:29:50
I'm gonna create an aux input, and by the way, check this out: you can now, from the actual track you need to apply an FX to, if you're not gonna apply the FX straight on the track, as a insert plug-in, but you wanna use it as a send which is what we're gonna do here, as we're gonna send a lot of those tracks to this one reverb, you can say: 'New track', you can name it, like for example..

00:30:10
'Space', stereo, aux input, boom: it creates the track, it creates the bus which remember: is a cable, correct? And does it all for you it doesn't assign to 'Sum' yet, but maybe later, when he grows up.

00:30:27
I'm gonna make this yellow as per the United Nations standard, and put it right here..

00:30:33
solo safe it, so I can hear it even when something is in solo, and then apply that Space plug-in to it ..Space! Let's pick a plate, because this is kind of an old, R'n'B track and they use a lot of plates.

00:30:51
There you go! I'm going to Command+Click on the left side of the send on my send track so that I can have a view of the send which is a very useful feature if you wanna mix fast.

00:31:16
Not a big fan of the IR so we're gonna tweak it obviously it would be better if it was fatter, right? 10dBs at 100Hz will do magic.

00:31:35
A little less high-end, maybe a little darker.

00:31:41
Let's see what they have for decay.

00:31:44
100%, cool. That sounds cool. Don't need predelay, I'm happy as it is..

00:31:57
Ok! Good enough for jazz. Let's add something like the bass to our equation.

00:32:12
Maybe a little less reverb.

00:32:22
Alright, so a little bit of compression here would be nice because if we go to the chorus...

00:32:28
Here...

00:32:34
It's in the lyric: 'you overpower me'.

00:32:37
Let's add a little bit of compression.

00:32:42
Notice the nice design: I liked it the first time I used it. They have the threshold set by default at -24, the ratio at 1 which means no compression.. so all you have to do is move the ratio to 2:1 to your liking, and if you're a good recordist, like Mick Guzauski..

00:33:01
everything kinda falls into place. It's nicely in tune..

00:33:16
Don't forget now we no longer have just the vocal, so it's a good idea to bring the level back down a little bit.

00:33:22
In a lot of pureMix videos, we actually compensate the monitoring volume for you so you can concentrate on the engineer's or producer's voice and the example and not get knocked out.

00:33:35
So we do that work for you, the reason why I am mentioning it here, is so that you learn to do that work for yourself.

00:33:42
It is important that you should always pay attention to your volume so that you don't blast yourself and you don't work too soft - highly unlikely - or too loud - most likely - and you always work at constant level.

00:33:56
So, where were we? Oh yeah! Bass.

00:34:07
I'm not gonna compensate for gain, because it's loud, so might as well let the compressor do its job..

00:34:12
let's see what happens in the verses.

00:34:22
We could have a little more of the vocal, and then have a little more gain, on this..

00:34:27
I set the gain to 4 on the vocal and because the Depth is also at 4, so I know it's never gonna get compressed more than 4dB, consequently I'll compensate for 4dBs, it's neat.

00:34:37
But we can also just you know.. gain a couple dBs here so we can keep our faders at zero, so it's easier to see where we are.

00:34:44
Maybe 6.

00:34:53
You can hear the bleed, the piano bleed in the back. Awesome.

00:35:10
On the bass I feel that we would need to have a little more fingers.

00:35:15
Now, I'm compressing, quite a bit.

00:35:21
Not that mad.. so I'll take that back. I'm not compressing quite a bit.

00:35:30
Here I am, I'd like to have less of that 90Hz *mmh* and a little more fingers. So I could take 90Hz down, here..

00:35:39
and make sure it's a very narrow curve..

00:35:42
I'm just grabbing the little dot, but you can, you know..

00:35:46
use numbers if you wanna be super precise..

00:35:49
overall, there you go.

00:35:52
90Hz..

00:35:57
there are a few frequencies that work for the devil.

00:36:00
Like 90Hz and 200Hz.

00:36:02
They're not the devil, they work for the devil, it's worse.

00:36:04
'cause at least the devil gets the credits for being the devil but 200Hz is just 200Hz.

00:36:09
But there are some frequencies that are fun, like 60Hz.

00:36:12
30Hz, or 300Hz, especially on bass.

00:36:15
300 helps really hear that fatness, check it out, without the 300.

00:36:31
'but why are you playing the bass with the vocal?!' Because thats how it's gonna get played, so I might as well start listening to instruments in context and it's just the vocal. Stop whining.

00:36:55
A little filter at the bottom would help tightening the whole thing.

00:36:59
As you probably know high-passing sometimes makes low instruments fatter I'll mute the vocal.

00:37:08
This is just the bass.

00:37:16
And then, without the EQ and the filter.

00:37:35
It's already tighter, obviously the cutoff frequency of the filter on the bass being at 50Hz is way below where that resonance was however, you'll find that if you high-pass bass instruments in a smart manner you will get a cleaner slate to start with because things align better and there's more controlled energy.

00:37:53
Then you can EQ stuff out probably less than you would if you didn't high-pass.

00:37:58
Check it out. So, this is with the filter.

00:38:14
The second note is a little too much, still..

00:38:26
A little higher, 100Hz..

00:38:28
There you go! That's nice, let's listen in context. Meaning, with the vocal.

00:00:00
Let's start looking at drums.

00:00:03
Bass drum.

00:00:08
Ok, that sounds like an inside microphone.

00:00:14
That sounds like an outside microphone.

00:00:22
And that sounds like a sub kick. Let's turn all 3 of them on.

00:00:27
So that's really fat. However, it's not really the kind of sound we want for this song at least not in my personal vision of it. So I'm gonna lower the sub kick.

00:00:41
Let's listen with the bass.

00:00:59
I'm gonna treat this as one instrument, make a sub for just that one instrument.

00:01:03
Keep it mono, call it 'BD Sub', don't forget to assign that to the Sum.

00:01:11
And I'm gonna solo safe so I can still play with the level and the solos of the different microphones.

00:01:23
I think I can do something with this.

00:01:25
So I'd like to compress it a little bit, and since in the spirit of consistency, let's do this: Just the bass drum..

00:01:58
The attack is too fast, I'm gonna slow the attack down, let the transient through.

00:02:12
Slower.

00:02:16
It's got that *mh!* thing and lets more bottom through, pretty cool! Nice! Then I'm gonna enhance that by adding some bottom.

00:02:34
Probably a little tighter.

00:02:37
By the way, I mentioned that you can solo so if you're confused as to what frequency you're working on you can hit the solo and then you're back into regular mode..

00:02:54
So that's fatter, it's nice. We started here, by the way: Maybe - in the track - it would be nice to add a little bit of this stuff.

00:03:13
With a narrower Q.

00:03:15
For the *pss pss*.

00:03:26
Iz nice! With the bass..

00:03:33
We know that the bass is still too fat, so I'm gonna widen the Q, because I know that there's a lot of stuff around 100 that is being unpleasant.

00:03:53
I'm not 100% happy with the bass sound we'll get back to it when we grow up.

00:03:58
Now that I'm happy with how my bass drum sounds for now, I'm gonna switch and I'm gonna solo safe the separate tracks and un-solo safe the receiver sub, which allows me to solo the bass drum with one click as opposed to have to click 3 times or make a group.

00:04:23
Ok, this needs to be opened up. I'm just copy-pasting..

00:04:28
All right, so: we're here on default..

00:04:31
the snare is definitely gonna need some compression so let's just raise the ratio.

00:04:38
It doesn't need compression for level things because Graham played this amazing.. it needs compression for tones..

00:04:43
so that it sounds like that snare that was compressed that you heard, before.

00:04:47
In your life. If you've been listening to music if you got to this point.

00:04:55
So now we know that the default attack for the Avid channelstrip doesn't fit my mixing style.

00:05:00
I don't like choking transients. What to do? Good question, thank you for asking. Check this out.

00:05:05
If you're on default and you say: 'this default doesn't work for me'.

00:05:08
Why don't we make sure that the attack is always at 1ms.

00:05:13
And if you want this to come back every time that you launch the channelstrip, it's very easy, so you set up whatever you want, in this case we're just gonna open the attack to 1ms.

00:05:23
And you do a 'Save Setting As' and you call it say: 'Fab Default' You also can call it after your mother's maiden name, that works.

00:05:35
There you go. Channelstrip, boom.. Fab Default.

00:05:38
Then, you go into the Preset menu and say: 'Set as User Default' and then, stay with me: you go to Setting Preferences: 'Set Plug-In default to user setting'.

00:05:49
Wonderful! So now, when you take this channelstrip and put it on anything..

00:05:53
boom! Your attack will be at 1ms. Isn't that wonderful? A'ight. Let's get back to where we were.

00:06:02
Snare sound.

00:06:10
I could have put the high end band to be a shelf in my default - for example - that would have been nice.

00:06:29
It needs body for me! The thing is: I know how Graham plays and I know that a lot of Graham's sound comes from the overhead.

00:06:40
So let's start from that.

00:06:42
This is a very classic player It's not like a kid who's hitting really hard.

00:06:48
He's got real control, so the overheads are unbelievably balanced.

00:06:51
This is gonna allow us to check that my phase is right between my bass drum and my overheads.

00:06:56
That's the bass drum.

00:07:01
Sounds great, we spent hours on this bass drum.

00:07:03
With the overhead.

00:07:17
So there's a phase relationship issue, between the bass drum, they way we have it, and whatever we did to the bass drum it could be what we did here, creating a phase relationship discrepancy with the overhead which means that some of the bottom of the bass drum goes away.

00:07:32
So our solutions here are multiple and the decision we make is going to influence the rest of the mix.

00:07:38
Which is why it's terrifying, isn't it? So, solution number 1: EQ the hell out of the bass drum, to put the bottom back in. Solution number 2: high pass the overheads to see if we can get the overhead's bottom out of the way of the bass drum, without..

00:07:54
getting rid of the amazing bottom of the snare drum.

00:07:57
Solution number 3.. aligning - 3.. three! - aligning the bottom, of..

00:08:03
the record bass drum tracks with the overhead's upper part of the record in a way that they hit at the same time so that there's no phase cancellation.

00:08:12
For entertainment sake we're gonna start with high passing the overheads to see what it does. Because..

00:08:17
you know, it's entertaining.

00:08:18
So, here we go, I'm gonna high pass them at - I don't know - 150Hz, boom.

00:08:24
I won't tell you where number came from.

00:08:31
Just the bass drum.

00:08:36
With the overheads and the high pass.

00:08:42
That's nice.

00:08:44
I'll remind you that this is what it was, before.

00:08:57
What's going on, here? Well, several things are going on.

00:08:59
Clearly we're removing some of the frequencies that are clashing, fair enough.

00:09:03
But also, we're using a high pass filter, which means that we're using a phase rotation of filter ..alters the phase and so the phase rotation is actually helping us in this case..

00:09:11
What happens if we switch from 12dB/octave to 24dB/octave at the same frequency? Check it out.

00:09:28
Not as good.

00:09:40
This is punchier, which means that the phase relationship between bass drum and the overheads is helped by a 12dB/octave high pass filter in this range, and if I move the frequency by 2Hz it will change again.

00:09:55
So that's one option. Another option, which is a lot geekier, hence more fun, is to move the overhead track next to something that has a sharp transient like the kick drum track, the inside kick drum track has the best transient, and look at it..

00:10:12
switch to sample mode here.. boom. Samples.

00:10:17
Now your counter here is in samples.

00:10:19
And then going to that first hit.

00:10:21
This is your overhead, this is your inside bass drum.

00:10:25
Boom. You zoom in.

00:10:27
And with your cursor in slip mode you just go between this attack and this attack.

00:10:31
These are the same 2 attacks but that's the distance between the bass drum microphone and the overheads, which is creating the phase cancellation.

00:10:40
And you read that it's about 300 samples.

00:10:44
So then, armed with this fantastic information you can go back bring this back into the order of things, because you know on the 1st day there was the bass drum, and on the 7th day there was the overhead.. and then, delay one of these 2. Which one? A-ha! Well, the overhead is further away from the drum set, at least from the bass drum, than the bass drum microphone, so you should delay the bass drum, because the bass drum has faster information than the overhead. Right? I'll rewind. *blblbl* The bass drum microphone is next to the bass drum. It gets there very fast.

00:11:15
The overhead is far. It takes longer.

00:11:17
Consequently you delay the bass drum microphone.

00:11:19
Yeah? Yeah.

00:11:21
So, you can use Time Adjuster.

00:11:22
Which lives on the Avid, somewhere..

00:11:24
Hello, Time Adjuster! And put 300 samples, just for woots and a-ahs.

00:11:30
Don't forget to bypass the Channel Strip on the overhead otherwise you're gonna hear 2 corrections and you won't be able to learn anything.. Ready? You gain a little bit on the bottom. I'll do it again.

00:11:55
Listen to the, not the attack, but the punch, the energy below the attack.

00:12:18
See how much more dense it is? What would happen if I also high passed it and a 12dB/octave filtered it? This would happen: It's better without. Now, which is best? Good question! (..thank you for asking..) Let's see. With the Time Adjuster..

00:12:40
or with the channelstrip.

00:12:56
I like the channelstrip better.

00:12:58
But that's just me! You make your own decision.

00:13:00
And also, I know that now that I have the channelstrip I can do other things.

00:13:05
Whereas with the time adjuster there's very little you can do with the Time Adjuster.

00:13:08
So, bye-bye Time Adjuster. Thanks for coming, that was wonderful.

00:13:12
Let's listen to just the overheads, now.

00:13:21
Remember, we were looking for fatness in the snare.

00:13:24
This is without the high pass.

00:13:37
We don't loose too much, we're ok. We could actually add some! Wooo! Not too much, not too much.

00:14:08
Ok, with the bass drum.

00:14:14
Iz nice! Snare? So I'm raising the snare, because I have a nice snare sound that's right for the style in the overheads, but I don't have the presence.

00:14:31
And even though this is kind of a period piece it also, you know, it's happening today.

00:14:35
And so, I don't want to really have, personally as a matter of taste, I don't like period accurate pieces, I like impressions.

00:14:43
So, nothing screams more Motown or 60's R'n'B than a lot of reverb on a tambourine.

00:14:49
Or a lot of reverb on the vocal.

00:14:52
But as much reverb as they did then? I don't know! Not my thing.

00:14:58
But it could be your thing! So we're gonna compress.

00:15:28
I like. Let's see what happens on the bottom.

00:15:33
Bottom snare drums have a love/hate in them.

00:15:35
Or hate and hate them even more. I forgot which one it is..

00:15:38
Let's see.

00:15:47
Let's just do without for now, let's see if anyone complains.

00:15:50
And then we have a ride.

00:16:02
And the waveform tells me that maybe here..

00:16:10
knowing the player very well, maybe on the last chorus all right, we'll get to it if it's important.

00:16:24
But I did hear some nice toms and they sound like the real article.

00:16:29
Actual vintage-sounding toms This looks like a tom.

00:16:40
So let's listen to the overheads to see which was where on which side low tom is over there, so let's put the floor tom over there.

00:17:02
So the question is: aren't you gonna gate it? Mh.. no! I'm actually gonna raise it.

00:17:15
Because that's the sound. Now, Just how much is the tom bleed ruining the rest of the set? Let's find that out. Then we decide what we do.

00:17:21
But I don't remember signing an oath back in the day that said: 'thou shalt not gate toms or thou shalt be sent back to the '80s' and, you know..

00:17:45
who likes the sound better with the toms? Who wants to gate them and go back to the '80s? All right! We'll keep the toms! What we're gonna do is start a cool little trick that will save you a lot of time.

00:17:58
I wanna select all the drums and create a group that I'm gonna call 'drums'.

00:18:05
And if you really wanna be over the top, you can make the letter that turns the group on and off: 'D', for drums.

00:18:12
There you go. And then, I'm gonna turn that off.

00:18:17
And then I'm gonna create a VCA master I'll explain that, that I'm gonna assign to the group Drums, and I'm gonna call it: 'VCA Drum'. There's a method to this madness.

00:18:32
Then, I'm gonna probably make a group for the bass, call it: 'Bass', assign it to 'B'..

00:18:43
Ok, make a VCA and assign it to that group and call it: 'VCA Bass'.

00:19:07
So that happened. Now, why? What I'm gonna do now is, I'm gonna select all my VCAs and put them together and you might be wondering still 'why would he make a group for one track?' For this reason: I now, have to the right of my session, a bunch of VCAs that are actually controlling the entire song.

00:19:35
Everything in the song is slaved to these VCAs.

00:19:38
And..

00:19:40
I have this! Let me show you! I'm gonna switch to the screen..

00:19:45
so you can see what's going on..

00:19:48
what you're seeing right now is what I have on my iPad, you can scroll around, and this is a new free app from Avid and it's actually really useful.

00:19:58
From this screen that's sitting right next to me right here, I don't have to scroll around, so for big sessions this is a good trick.

00:20:05
And also, at the end of a mix, I can massage the entire mix right here with these 8 faders.

00:20:10
Let me show you a couple things on this app that are really great.

00:20:13
I can use the track type selector to say 'I only wanna see VCAs'.

00:20:18
And I only see VCAs.

00:20:19
Which now allows me to, say: listen to just the drums.. and the bass..

00:20:26
or turn the vocal back on..

00:20:30
without having to scroll around, here..

00:20:32
I can focus here, and this is all my VCAs, it's pretty awesome.

00:20:35
Other windows that are really awesome on this app, this is the mixer window, you have the tracks window, right now I'm only watching VCAs, but if I'm watching the whole thing, it's organising all your tracks, by your colors and you can look at what's going on. Which is pretty awesome.

00:20:50
That's great. There's a channel window, so if I select the kick, for example, I can go to the channel and everything related to that channel is now available so Inserts, Inputs, yes, Inserts! For example, if I select the Bass Drum Sub, right here, I can look at the different inserts on it, I can hit the channelstrip and the controls of the channelstrip are here, and a lot of it is actually very useable a lot more useable than any of these apps I've seen before.

00:21:15
And you can change the gain, stuff like that, it's pretty cool, like if we want the high end to be super heavy, I can do it this way. And it works! It works! And it's fast! Crazy fast..

00:21:26
like, that was a little bit bold. Let's go back down to 3dB.

00:21:32
Let me demystify this and show you what I found so far is the most useful.

00:21:37
I showed you the VCA thing, that's awesome.

00:21:40
The other thing it's great for is sends.

00:21:42
Because, when you have 4, 5, 6 sends on a channel it can be really difficult to see what's going on, especially since it's gonna make your mix really tall.

00:21:50
With this, you hit on a channel, you can see all the sends and change the send amount. So if I go to vocal, here..

00:21:57
I have her Space send, right here.

00:21:59
And I can change the amount.

00:22:01
It's really quick and it's nice and I don't have to change my focus.

00:22:03
So that's very nice. And the other thing that's fantastic is the soft keys and MemLock.

00:22:10
Because now you have your entire song, right here: First chorus. Boom! Now, that is so good.

00:22:20
You can actually recall the entire song structure from here, you don't have to have this up.

00:22:25
And you don't have to.. I don't know.. it just feels good! So, let's go back to the mixer and to VCAs and listen to our bass and drum say on verse 2.

00:23:10
The way Mick miked the piano, is..

00:23:14
one mono microphone near the bottom of the strings and 2 microphones at the top. This is the top: nice and mellow, and this is the bottom.

00:23:34
Quite a bit of sub there. Let's high pass this, 'cause I heard that sub and that bothered me.

00:23:45
Hear? It went *pfoom*. I can hear the bass drum bleed.

00:23:52
Get rid of that, there's no interesting piano stuff, all the way down there.

00:23:59
It's a little better, not great but better.

00:24:06
For the sake of entertainment, I'm gonna copy that filter and paste it on the stereo one, that way they're in phase! Let's put some reverb on this piano! Oh, we have one! Boom! Copy-paste is a beautiful thing.

00:25:00
Notice how it gets into the pre-chorus, the quiet, lovely space of the verse kind of falls apart, I'll play the second verse, again.

00:25:07
I wanna do it with the key command 'cause I wanna keep my focus on the VCAs, but I could hit 'Verse 2', right here. It's nice..

00:25:49
See how the piano just takes over? I think it takes over because there's a bit of bunching up in the low mids.

00:25:54
That's what I think. So, let's see..

00:25:57
Let's un-bunch up the low mids.

00:26:00
Pre-chorus..

00:26:10
That's kinda better. Let's probably do this same thing on the other side, more or less..

00:26:48
Better. I don't wanna go further because I will emasculate the piano, which is not the point, here..

00:26:53
so I'm gonna compress the upper range of the piano and leave the bottom alone.

00:27:04
It's too high, I'm gonna lower the threshold.

00:27:11
Further.. it's not catching that one chord..

00:27:47
That's nice. Let's make sure that the opening of the song, the solo piano/voice thing sounds good.

00:28:22
Obviously, it works.

00:28:23
The piano is a little thin, a little far away, perfect.

00:28:26
Because, if I remember well, in those records, the piano was kinda thin and far away.

00:28:31
And it gives you the idea, the impression that you're kinda there, which is fun.

00:28:35
However, the drums are way too dry. So let's add some of that Space on those drums and see if that works.

00:28:43
So the drums come in at the pre-chorus. Here you go.

00:29:36
Let's listen to the organ now.

00:00:00
I'm gonna solo the organ..

00:00:06
Again, the organ we have the bottom part..

00:00:10
That's on the... bass.

00:00:23
Let's see if it's needed.

00:00:27
Not really playing bass. So maybe we need it, maybe we don't. It's not because it's there that we have to use it, and then..

00:00:33
high end..

00:00:50
That's definitely gonna need compression because he's going all over the place as an organ is supposed to do.

00:00:55
He's gonna need some space and a little bit of fat.

00:01:00
But I don't know if this mic is giving the fat, this is just the high end stereo mic, and then this is with the bottom.

00:01:21
It is nicer, I think we can still add some more like this.

00:01:44
Without our corrections in the back, it sounds like this.

00:01:55
Not that pleasant. With.

00:02:01
So you can feel it grabbing, that's nice.

00:02:04
I like.

00:02:06
Let's see how it feels with the piano and the keys.

00:02:09
Gonna mute the other two keys.

00:02:29
Probably gonna make a group of the 2 mics, since I like the balance.

00:02:32
Call it, you know, organ.

00:02:35
Maybe we'll pick an 'o', there you go.

00:02:39
I'm gonna put it a different color from the piano so we can really tell the alternance of instruments.

00:03:27
This is sounding very nice.

00:03:29
Let's see what we have left, we have..

00:03:33
guitars. Right. Let's hear it.

00:03:48
That's just reverb.

00:03:55
A 121, which is a ribbon.

00:04:02
That's a nice 57.

00:04:05
So let's start with the 57, add the 121.

00:04:08
That's another cool thing you can do with the free app..

00:04:11
if you go in the mixer..

00:04:13
and you look at everybody, you can actually go to those microphones, you can play it, you can solo all 3, because the app is multi-touch you can actually you know..

00:04:37
kind of blend like if you had a real console with faders.

00:04:41
I use it all the time, it's really quite..

00:04:43
lovely. We won't need a DI, bye.

00:04:46
And then there's an overdub. Ooh.

00:04:49
What's the overdub doing? Because I created that group for that VCA, when I move a pan, all the pans move, it's silly.

00:05:02
I wanna turn that group off, I'm gonna turn all those groups off.

00:05:07
Ah the piano one's nice.

00:05:09
Keys I don't need, voice and backs I don't need.

00:05:12
Turning the groups off does not disabled the functionality of the VCA.

00:05:16
That's nice.

00:05:17
So now I'm gonna create another group I wanna call it 'Main Guitar' and it has all the attributes I need pan is cool, that's it, so now the main guitar moves by itself this overdub moves by itself, but if I go to my VCAs my VCA is moving all guitars.

00:05:38
Nice! Ok, let's see this one guitar, here.

00:05:46
So we did not record the reverb on that.

00:05:55
Why don't we create a reverb to match the vibe? Let's use that Black Spring because it's quite good! This sounds like a spring..

00:06:13
*pween pween pween* A little darker? Ok that's fun.

00:06:26
And then let's match the tone. I'm gonna high pass it a little.

00:06:37
A little less mix.

00:06:52
This is good. Let's see in the context.

00:06:55
Let's mute the voice and the background or now, and have everybody else.

00:07:46
So clearly we have a problem on the chorus with that guitar.

00:07:49
So what I'm gonna do is change the parameters of the group to include I'm gonna remove the 'Follow Globals'..

00:07:58
let me explain this to you. This is super useful: Pro Tools has 2 group systems.

00:08:04
It has a global group system.

00:08:06
And you decide all your parameters for that global group system, which means that everybody who follows the globals is doing this, and then you have a group-per-group attribute, so I'm gonna remove the Mian guitar from the globals and now I can decide what happens just for that guitar.

00:08:23
So I want them to solo together, I want them to be matched in volume, keeping the offsets, I want them to be muted together I'd like their reverb sends to be the same, let's say Reverb Send A is gonna be the same and then I'm gonna decide that, for example, plug-ins B and C are also gonna follow each other. And then I'm gonna select all 3 and I'm gonna assign a channelstrip to all 3. Now, if I have, because of the group settings I've just set if I change something on one it changes on the other.

00:08:58
So I can make sure that these 3 tracks stay discrete and get their processing according to their own levels with the same settings.

00:09:05
It's different than if you go through an aux.

00:09:08
Think about it If you go through an aux you take that sound and you put it all through an aux so it becomes one sound and the compressor or EQ sees one sound.

00:09:18
With 3 discrete tracks ganging controls you're compressing every track separately, which means when the direct sound gets really loud they're gonna get compressed more.

00:09:28
But not the reverb.

00:09:29
So on the chorus the reverb's gonna get louder, which is nice.

00:09:33
Because there's so much bulk in the chorus that if the reverb gets louder automatically it's gonna make me stronger and better.

00:09:41
Easier than all those things. So let's see..

00:09:50
lower threshold to make sure that it compresses when we need it to we don't need it to compress on the verse so this should be good.

00:09:59
Let's go to where it gets more intense.

00:10:21
Ok, without.. it sounds like this.

00:10:29
Now check out the reverb.

00:10:39
Nice! Let's see..

00:10:51
We should turn the vocal back on to see if there's space for it left.

00:11:14
I'm adding a little 1k to the guitar because I think it needs a little more bite and 1k is good for bite on guitars.

00:11:20
Usually, especially on 57s.

00:11:31
Lacking presence on the vocal. I'm gonna slow the attack of the compressor down We have the guitar on the left well..

00:12:04
a little bit on the left, let's put the Wurli a little bit on the right.

00:12:15
By itself it's awesome.

00:12:20
Still a little bit of 200 that are, you know, kind of like, 'not wanted here, you're not one of us!' And then I'm gonna high pass because I can't help myself.

00:12:46
Right? Right. A little space..

00:12:56
So we've looked at almost everything except the RS-09 strings and the background vocals, let's do that so we can then shape the whole mix together.

00:13:04
Still pretty dark, we can take care of that easy so it seems the RS-09 happens only on the choruses, sounds a little bit like this..

00:13:23
It's got a little bit of a 'Thriller' vibe, I like it.

00:13:30
Space..

00:13:35
Remove some of that low-mid stuff..

00:13:49
Maybe it would be cool to have a bit of a ensemble bite to it..

00:14:04
I like the chorus-y vibe..

00:14:17
this is more Radiohead this is more Michael Jackson..

00:14:24
Michael Jackson? Ok.

00:14:37
Ok, and let's look at those background vocals, now.

00:14:39
I'm gonna sum them to a bus, stereo..

00:14:44
call it 'Back Vox' and not forget to send that to my sum and solo safe the sub.. so I can hear the background vocals separately, without fighting..

00:15:01
I should open the VCA..

00:15:21
She is so good! Why don't we clear some of that mud that you hear, right? And see what happens after that..

00:15:34
Let's go, turn it on..

00:16:30
I think for the balance, the background vocals, the high note..

00:16:46
and less of the super bottom.. which complicates things.

00:16:54
A little space..

00:17:39
So I was able to adjust it a little bit here, while listening.. it's muddy but it's got energy and she sings great.

00:17:47
I wanna preserve that raw quality to it.

00:17:50
I don't wanna make it too bright or fancy but this is too muddy.

00:17:55
What to do, well, let's start over. Let's start with the vocal.

00:18:08
So it's important that it should go over the part that hurts.

00:18:11
Above the part that hurts, like in the 10k range.

00:18:22
That's starting to be a little better.

00:18:25
And a little 5k shine would be nice.

00:18:27
So I want to take this band and narrow it like this..

00:19:02
you get the vibe. That's more open.

00:19:04
Now, I kinda dug the space on the background vocals, check it out! That sounds right.

00:19:29
But I don't like it on the lead anymore..

00:19:36
it's a little metallic.

00:19:37
So what I'm gonna do is actually rename the send and call it 'Main Verb' I'm gonna duplicate the Space everything.. and choose another send for it..

00:19:53
say.. 3-4 would make more sense..

00:19:55
send the background vocals to it move it down in case I wanna use the Main Verb there..

00:20:00
It makes sense! Stay with me! So, I wanna rename this Space, so now whatever reverb I choose here is gonna get applied to what I had before and so, we're gonna switch to D-Verb let's see if we can get something more satisfying.

00:20:28
I already like it better, for this.

00:20:34
It's a little quieter than the other one, I'll just raise the overall volume so that our choices are not affected.

00:20:39
Previous choices.. that is! I like that..

00:20:54
Also, I'd like to add a little bit of grit..

00:20:57
I'm gonna create a new aux..

00:21:00
I'm gonna call it Delay..

00:21:02
I'm gonna move that to here..

00:21:06
and of course this should be called 'Main..

00:21:09
Space' or 'Main Verb', sorry..

00:21:13
Great. And then this one is gonna get called 'Delay' I gotta send it to the sum..

00:21:19
of course, if you get tired of re-assigning every single track you create to the sum you could do what the non-lazy people do, which is come to the I/O setup and say 'Default Output Path' which lives in the bus..

00:21:36
and say, the default output path should be 'Sum'.

00:21:41
Now, if I create a track, the default output will be 'Sum' and I don't have to do it manually.

00:21:46
You decide which one is more energy.

00:21:48
So that's it. Make it yellow.

00:21:52
And there's this new delay, that I really fell in love with recently, it's called BB Delay, it is nasty-sounding in a good way, of course.

00:22:02
I wanna mute the reverb and just put the delay on the vocal.

00:22:36
So that's with the 16th. I love it.

00:22:39
Here's an 8th.

00:22:48
I think an 8th with a filter would be awesome.

00:22:51
So I'm just gonna use EQ3 or Vintage Filter. Let's use Vintage Filter from AIR, so that way I can darken the returns.

00:23:04
Maybe not that much.

00:23:12
Less feedback..

00:23:15
yeah! Add the reverb..

00:23:26
So that's nice, I like that.

00:23:28
Let's then add the bass, again.

00:23:44
There's nothing going on, here.

00:23:45
So what I'm gonna do is use a DI, nice and clean and let's make sure it's not that nice.

00:24:00
Or clean.

00:24:01
So, I'm gonna go into the new Avid plug-ins and they have..

00:24:06
with the subscription they have a bunch of cool distortions. Let's try this one.

00:24:27
That sounds gnarly. Let's mix it with the other one, see if that works.

00:24:41
Absolutely not! Let's move on to another one! A little overdrive.

00:25:03
That's better.

00:25:23
We have the group for the two basses, let's just turn it on.

00:25:29
These are not ganged. Let's make a group just for that so that we don't have to think about it.

00:25:34
Call it 'Bass Level'.

00:25:38
Oops.

00:25:40
Great.

00:25:48
It's a little too gnarly. It's fun, but gnarly.

00:25:50
Let's try another one, called SansAmp.

00:25:54
Which lives somewhere here close to the "S".

00:26:00
This is great for everything.

00:26:16
Hear the difference, in texture? Without.

00:26:33
You can hear the fingers better, it's more elastic.

00:26:35
You get more rubber in it.

00:26:38
The labels 'Crunch', 'Punch', 'Buzz', 'Drive' are their own thing.

00:26:43
So the Punch tends to be fatter it's hard to listen to the same level, pre and post when there's so much gain, but we can try.

00:27:19
I like this a lot, this is gonna help.

00:27:35
I can open the high end of that.

00:27:51
That's a classic sound, I like it, I like it! I had stayed really dark on the guitar.

00:28:04
Let's change that..

00:28:14
So we have the built-in reverb that Mick recorded, the actual spring there.. but we don't have a Space for the guitar, so I'm gonna copy the Main Verb on the 57..

00:28:47
This is good. Let's keep going.

00:28:51
I'm thinking that we should explore the drums, more.

00:28:56
I'm gonna keep the bass as a reference as I like the bass, now.

00:29:06
I think the change of reverb kind of you know, was not in the best taste for the drums.

00:29:34
Let's go below that *poink* thing, and let's use this band, narrow, try and remove some of that cardboard, That works.

00:30:14
Let's see.

00:30:20
it's kinda weak, obviously, but the reason for that is because it gets louder, later.

00:30:30
What's one to do? What one can do, is look at what the drummer's playing.

00:30:38
See when he plays a side stick, in the bridge.

00:30:55
Duplicate the track, not the playlist, and make a special sound just for the side stick by copying down just the parts where he plays the side stick.

00:31:11
And no, it's not cheating and yes, you can tell my mom.

00:31:18
Here.

00:31:29
I can go to the second verse.

00:31:56
And then adjust the snare.

00:32:18
There's a little bit of a mess at the bottom, you hear it, so we're gonna go here and get rid of that..

00:32:38
and the reverb is only on the overheads so I can lower that reverb a little bit.

00:32:51
Here's a little trick I like to do: on the verses what would it sound like, if the side stick went into that delay? The delay's on time, it's tight to 1/8th note, maybe it's cool sounding..

00:33:21
so obviously we have a problem: everything gets delayed but I like the sound on the actual side stick, what's one to do? Let's be sneaky. Don't tell anyone.

00:33:30
You can say: ok, we're not gonna use the direct send to the delay, we're gonna have an intermediary and call it 'Side stick send..

00:33:41
trick'.

00:33:43
There you go. And that track is being sent to the delay.

00:33:49
So now, we can process what you send to the delay before it gets to the delay.

00:33:53
It's a little bit like when you send an international money transfer and you don't really get the exact amount of money the guy sent to you.

00:34:00
Which means we have a little intermediary, in there.

00:34:03
I'm gonna use an expander, there's an expander in this strip so let's use it.

00:34:07
There it is.

00:34:09
And I'm gonna turn the send 'pre' so that I can focus on just that.

00:34:15
I turn the send 'pre' but I mute the direct sound and now I hear exactly what's going on just for the delay.

00:34:21
Especially if I mute the bass.

00:34:29
So now all we have to do is raise the threshold of the expander with a silly ratio and a very fast attack so it only opens when the side stick hits.

00:34:43
Maybe a little brutish.

00:34:51
If you can't get it quite right you could use the side-chain! And say: ok the side-chain is internal and we're gonna filter so that the bass drum doesn't freak out the expander.

00:35:10
That's kinda perfect. So now we can send that loud and clear to the delay and we can play the whole thing and just the side stick will hit the delay, not the rest of the kit.

00:35:32
So, remember: if you wanna change the amount of delay, now, you can't touch this send because this will change the amount of signal you send to the expander/gate and thus ruining your setting you have to change this guy, right here.

00:35:51
I like that. It's a nice detail.

00:35:53
We're happy with this. Let's see with the guitar and the vocal.

00:36:04
Make sure the snare is as good as the side stick.

00:36:26
Kinda weak, still..

00:36:34
I hear the compressor and it bothers me.

00:36:49
What I identified as a resonance in the bottom I don't know what it was..

00:36:54
this is not happening. Let's fix it.

00:37:06
It was the bottom of the overheads that was bothering me.

00:37:08
I had raised the bottom of the overheads to enhance the bottom of the bass drum and that was an entirely bad idea! Let's see with just the drums.

00:37:33
Let's turn the piano back on.

00:37:49
That sounds pretty bananas.

00:37:52
Let's see with the vocal.

00:38:12
Add the Wurli.

00:39:22
I think the Wurli could use a little..

00:39:44
Let's scrutinise the background vocal and make sure it's as good as it can be.

00:40:04
Maybe they could use both..

00:40:33
A little too much reverb is nice..

00:40:55
I think that maybe just maybe..

00:40:58
it'd be a good idea to do a little smidgeon of parallel compression on these drums.

00:41:03
So 'Drum Par' and..

00:41:07
make it mono, simple.

00:41:09
And I'm gonna use it, doing the send trick so I can control the balance.

00:41:13
The more astute amongst you may have noticed that I've created an automatic track and that Pro Tools did not automatically assign it to the Sum bus.. the reason for that is if you really wanna be thorough, when you assign a default output bus you gotta assign a different default output bus for mono and for stereo..and I had not assigned the mono so there, for punishment, I'm gonna do it manually.

00:41:35
Boom.

00:41:37
I'm sufficiently punished, let's listen to that.

00:41:42
I wanna make the sends pre so that I can hear just that.

00:41:50
Now I wanna use the supplied 1176 knock-off, which absolutely nothing like an 1176 but it's so dirty that it's fun to use.

00:42:08
Really slow attack to let the transients through.

00:42:11
Fast-enough release that you don't get the garbage.

00:42:16
Let's get rid of some of the overhead in there because it's just un-manageable.

00:42:34
Oh yeah. So this is without the compressor.

00:42:46
Since I've separated the side stick and the snare this is only gonna go on the snare, not on the side stick, so the verses can be more metrosexual and then the chorus can be more like manly. And then what I'm gonna do next is slowly raise the drum parallel, here.

00:43:15
Without.

00:43:38
That sounds gnarly! Let's see how it sounds on the verse.

00:43:48
Little bit obnoxious on the bass drum so what I'm gonna do is automate the send from the bass drum, make sure that the send doesn't send during the verses so that way we only get that parallel drum compression on the bass drum during the choruses.

00:44:09
Let's make sure that my markers are right.

00:44:17
And.. interlude..

00:44:28
aka: boom.

00:44:31
That's the..

00:44:33
fill, there you go..

00:44:34
so, the transition would be like this.

00:44:50
Send less of that last hit.

00:45:10
And then probably

00:00:00
What's left to do? Let's think about that.

00:00:02
We have a pretty rocking drum sound, I like the bass, guitars are in place out of the way, let's listen to the first verse and make sure the piano is just right.

00:00:26
Now the second verse.

00:00:35
All right, this is all nice, I'm feeling more and more that there's a disconnect between verses and choruses meaning: the verse is a little quiet and the chorus is very loud and the whole point was to make the chorus grow so we kinda nailed.. maybe we over-nailed it, too big a hammer.. so, there are two options to reduce dynamics: compression and automation.

00:00:54
Let's use compression.

00:00:56
Since we're here and we're almost done, we feel like we're almost done anyway, let's put a limiter on the 2-mix, with a little bit of a ceiling, for fetish reasons, and then another Channel Strip, and on the channelstrip I'm gonna leave Maxim open.

00:01:11
Maxim is a limiter that comes with Pro Tools and the channelstrip, look: they're cousins! What I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna shape the overall tone of the track to my liking.

00:01:21
I could go and tweak individual instruments, I might still do that, but, there is something more powerful to EQ the whole track, like in mastering but you're not mastering! you're.. tweaking. Those are 2 different things.

00:01:36
So, for example, if you listen to any pre chorus: it's nice, however..

00:01:53
it could be fatter, now..

00:01:56
the bottom of all instruments are gonna contribute to that fatness, and so why not do it on the whole thing so I'm gonna choose the bottom filter, turn it into a shelf, and make it fatter.

00:02:22
Listen to the bass drum, the bass and their relationship..

00:02:24
Listen to the bottom of the piano and listen to..

00:02:28
the pedestal of the track if you will, what's going on below the vocal.

00:02:31
This part, here. So there's something here and then there's the vocal, above.

00:02:35
And how they hang. First I'll start without this 2dB at 197 and then I'll turn it on.

00:02:43
On the same passage, and you'll see how you feel.

00:03:05
That's what I'm saying.

00:03:07
And then I'm thinking - if I make a tight enough Q, here - I can use this band and find a blooming spot, right there, at the mix of the bass and bass drum.

00:03:36
I'll do that again: with none of the corrections..

00:03:49
just the low shelf..

00:03:59
and the peak..

00:04:09
without anything..

00:04:33
A little of bit of compression will help reign in the chorus while not touching the verse.

00:04:46
So I'm raising the threshold as you can see so that I can have the verse, be happy, untouched, or almost untouched..

00:05:30
the reason why I am still tweaking even if I felt I was done, it's because while I bypassed the whole thing I got some of that bounce from the bass drum, back. Check it out: It's just more elastic! So, what to do? Mmh..

00:05:55
Well, I am adding some bottom here, but then I'm compressing it. That makes no sense..

00:06:02
so I think it would be smart to change the order: start by filtering, if we're gonna filter, compress, and then EQ..

00:06:09
we do this and now, the compressor will not try to compress those additional bass EQs I am putting, here.

00:06:20
Let's hear that! I'll play that again. So, this is EQ first. There's no filters right now, so the filter thing is irrelevant.. EQ first: Hear that? Listen to the bass drum. It sounds good..

00:06:52
but it's not free. Something's not free. Check it out.

00:07:04
Other way.

00:07:15
Hear that? I'll play it again with the compressor before the EQ, and then I'll play it right away with the compressor after the EQ. Check it out.

00:07:37
It's pinched, it's not as good, it's nice to be able to do this.

00:07:41
Great.

00:07:43
If we listen to the top of the song..

00:08:07
One more time, I'm lowering the reverb to get a more intimate vibe..

00:08:13
and you know, I was a little brutish, let her sound..

00:08:26
so I have a problem if I go all the way to 200 it gets muddy, maybe I can get rid of the 200 problem, here..

00:08:47
One more time.

00:08:56
That's better.

00:09:19
this feels out of style..

00:10:17
Ok this is all fine, did you notice something? Check the snare sound here..

00:10:28
and the snare sound, here.

00:10:37
Not cool, right? What's going on? Well, to provide dynamics, Graham is playing the chorus with the rim shot, so he hits the snare, the side of the snare, the rim, and the snare at the same time. Here, on the first pre chorus, there's no rim shot. You hear just the snare going *ppt* without that crack of the side.

00:11:04
As opposed to..

00:11:10
While it's a cool way to play music, thank you..

00:11:14
it's a problem, sonically because it sounds like a mistake to me.

00:11:23
Since there's no shame, I'll make another track, just for those 4 hits.

00:11:30
Boom, and on those 4 hits..

00:11:35
I'm gonna name it..

00:11:38
and I'm gonna go to the channelstrip and I'm gonna bring that down.

00:11:46
Probably gonna add some reverb to just that.

00:12:08
Now it no longer bothers me! It didn't bother you? Great. It bothered me.

00:12:20
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason why you never finish a mix, you abandon it when someone screams to go out to dinner ..I think that, now that everything else is fat and great, I think that the toms sound a bit un-fat. Let's listen to them.

00:12:39
So I am adding a truck load, which is a technical term of bottom of the one of the left, which is the rack tom and a different amount of truck load on the right..

00:12:53
that sounds muddy, but let's not forget we're not listening to those in solo.

00:12:57
The other thing that's nice on toms sometimes, to make them stick out..

00:13:00
is to bring the stick out by adding some of that 10k stuff, wherever it is, above the belt.

00:13:12
Yep, and...

00:13:15
Maybe not as much belt action.

00:13:22
That was a bad idea.

00:13:47
Now, if I remove a little bit of mids, from the whole mix, like, a little bit, 300 to 500, just a smidgeon, like.. half a dB, I got lost in the music let me tell you what went through my head and why we're here.

00:14:30
It's fun. It's subtle but it's fun.

00:14:32
While I was focusing on the tom, consequently no longer focusing on the whole track and being obsessed by the whole track but only by having cool toms..

00:14:40
there was a little voice, in English, in the back of my head, that said: 'If I were you..

00:14:45
I would check out the mids.' I am me, consequently I am gonna go check out the mids.

00:14:50
And by checking out the mids I noticed that the bottom of the vocals, middle of the piano and upper part of the bass, and some of the bass drum, a bit, it was a little bit of like..

00:15:00
crowded. Like a Starbucks at 8AM.

00:15:03
Too many people for its own good.

00:15:06
Not a lot, just a few. Check it out.

00:15:29
See how it feels brighter? Not brighter, I just removed a little bit of a little bit of 0.6dB at 400 and change.

00:15:38
What it does is it creates a little vacuum there, which allows the vocal to soar above the rest a little better.

00:15:45
Now, could I remove that from the vocal? Could I remove that from the piano, from the drums, and everybody else? I guess, I could try that.

00:15:54
But my experience says it works good here.

00:15:57
It kind of like puts everybody on the same level.

00:16:02
I'll do it again so you have a chance to figure it out. Listen to the bottom of the vocal middle of the snare, top of the bass, first without, then with. See how it feels, more than..

00:16:12
don't try to analyse. See how it feels.

00:16:45
Now, I feel less the urge to automate the vocal. Maybe a smidgeon, but now it feels free, it doesn't feel eaten by the rest of the track.

00:16:55
Just by this 0.5dB move.

00:16:57
I think we're getting close to having something that we can play for our mother. Let's see! I may feel compelled to open the top.

00:17:07
Just a smidgeon.

00:17:09
A dB or so. 8k, 12k..

00:17:13
it would be nice. This is where we are right now..

00:17:32
I can tame the bottom shelf, a little.

00:17:46
Little less of the bass drum..

00:17:57
I want less of that because it's a little too present.

00:18:00
This is where we are right now.

00:18:09
It sounds great and it's addictive but maybe not tasteful. Let's see on the verse.

00:18:22
That's tasteful.

00:18:23
That means that it's our parallel that's too much. Let's go in trim mode, it's gonna allow me to use that curve I've made, not have to go back to it, just lower the overall amount.

00:18:37
And it's gonna lower the top amount, this amount, it's gonna offset by whatever amount I want. Let's say maybe 2dB down.

00:18:48
So that has no effect on the verse.. here's on the chorus: maybe a little more..

00:19:22
Awesome! So that feels good, and I think that the lead vocal could be a little more forward. Now, That means louder, but I don't want it to feel louder, just feel above the snare. A little bit.

00:19:37
I think that half a dB because there's not a compressor, here, pushing that vocal half a dB is not gonna sound like half a dB although 0.5dB is not exactly the end of the world..

00:19:51
but more importantly, because of the interaction between the raised vocal and where the compressor is, it's really gonna feel this forward and back a little bit. Let's check it out.

00:20:11
Before..

00:20:29
That's the trick. It's just a presence trick.

00:20:32
Just a little something.

00:20:33
And this is something that's hard to do at the end of the day because if you have been working on this for 6-7 hours, you have no idea if you're just deaf, if you've been listening too loud, ..if you're just addicted to the sound of one instrument that you want on the front, because maybe you played it..

00:20:50
or maybe because you're in love with the singer, whatever..

00:20:54
These are moves that are really important to check in the morning.

00:20:59
Why don't we compare to the rough mix? We wanna make sure that we are in sync with the original intention of the emotion and the energy of everybody in the room.

00:21:11
It would be nice if our mix was better than the rough mix, because we spent time on it and we have pride, but we don't know! The way to do that, if you remember, I have the rough mix on this track, right here.

00:21:23
And I've been on input this whole time.

00:21:24
If I no longer go to input, I listen to the rough mix on the track, so: Now you have to be careful. I have a feeling that we did the work we were supposed to do. We enhanced the track and we were able to sweeten what needed to be sweetened.

00:21:57
However: you don't really know until you listen at the same level.

00:22:01
Anything: even the most horrible, crappy mix, will sound better than a really great rough mix if the rough mix is 6-8dB softer. Period.

00:22:12
So, you could raise the rough mix.

00:22:16
By using clip gain, right here.. since there's so much headroom.

00:22:20
So say we raise the rough mix 4dBs let's put the second verse..

00:22:48
The rough mix is still a little too soft..

00:22:50
so let's just.. 6dB..

00:23:09
We're doing very well.

00:23:11
If you notice, for example, the peaks on the vocals are now smooth, but it doesn't sound processed, the bottom is fat, we have space, let's see what the chorus compares.

00:23:21
Make sure we have everything we needed on the chorus.

00:23:38
Fantastic. Now, to compare I'm pressing this little button and I have to click on it.

00:23:44
And sometimes it's nice to, say I'm comparing the bass drum, I wanna be here, looking at the bass drum, tweaking it, but I want to also click that button.

00:23:54
If you have the iPad app and you go to Mixer and you look at all the channels, not just the VCAs..

00:24:02
and you scroll all the way to this track, right here. You can have your finger and you can A/B with your finger while you look, here.

00:24:14
You could also do that in the tracks display and you could assign these squares that you see on the screen, to be a big input button or you can assign these squares to be solo, so if I am here and I wanna solo just the kick.. I can.

00:24:32
Like that.

00:24:33
So, if I choose Input here and I scroll all the way through the thing, it's really..

00:24:39
easy to just turn stuff on and off and compare! That's really awesome. I actually installed the app in Eucon and learnt how to use it for this one feature. Because I use this button 800,000 times a day to reference with previous versions, with production, rough mixes, or with commercial tracks to make sure I'm doing the best possible job.

00:25:12
It's always a pain to always have to scroll wherever you park your mix, to do the A/B thing.

00:25:17
With this, you can just do the A/B like this.. iz nice! So we're done, for now, because we have to play it for the singer.

00:25:25
If you're used to work on Pro Tools, logic or any other DAW in-the-box, you're probably used to bouncing.

00:25:31
Meaning, you click the button, you go here, you name it and hit 'Bounce', if you're really in a hurry, you hit 'Offline' and then it bounces.

00:25:41
You can't do that with this setup, because..

00:25:43
we have this track that's in input and Pro Tools won't let you bounce.

00:25:46
So you have several options.

00:25:48
If you really lean on bouncing you could bounce the Print Bus. Bounce, Print..

00:25:54
you print it as is. It will bounce all this.

00:25:57
To do that you have to remove the Input otherwise Pro Tools will complain.

00:26:01
So, you could do that. But think about this: This song is 3':20".

00:26:07
You've been working on it for 6.5 hours.

00:26:09
8 hours, 6 months, I don't know.

00:26:12
There's a certain pressure to listening to the mix and you know, because you're printing in real time to a track, you know this is it.

00:26:22
This is your last resort. That pressure will make you listen differently, like if somebody came in the room and listened with you you would listen to it differently.

00:26:31
If the singer came in the room right now your mix would probably not be done.

00:26:35
My mix wouldn't be done because I'd hear 1,000 things that I no longer hear because I've been there for 7 hours.

00:26:40
So, although I could bounce I choose not to. Again: if you wanna bounce in a hurry, remove the input of the record on the print track and just right click here and bounce-print. Boom, you're home in 5 minutes.

00:26:56
But, allow yourself the luxury of spending 3':25" with a piece of music you just created and give yourself the pressure of making sure it's the last time and it's so good and it's so perfect that you won't stop transport.

00:27:15
So I'm creating a new track, which I'm gonna call: 'Jealousy Fab Mix 1.0'.

00:27:22
It's nice to match the name of the mix with the name of the session..

00:27:27
not that anybody has ever done anything different..

00:27:30
nobody in this studio! Now, before I print, let's discuss levels.

00:27:35
Let's go to the end of the record, You may noticed that I have slightly exploded..

00:27:44
the VU meters on the masters.

00:27:46
The reason for that is I wasn't really paying attention while talking to you and second: I bet you're still well within the realm so, if I go to Digital VU which changes the scale, it's the same levels, but it shows me on the scale that it's a little wider..

00:28:01
if this is all the levels, the VU gives me this window I don't see what's going on here, it just goes *prrr*.

00:28:06
But, if I go to Digital VU, what do we see? We see that at about -14-ish, dB average, my delivery here is gonna be above 4dB louder than the maximum self-respect human United Nations-recommended level.

00:28:41
14dB of headroom is plenty for this, however, if you're gonna deliver this mix to your singer or the A&R or to your mother.. and via MP3 and they're gonna download it directly on a smartphone and it's gonna be in the pool with the rest of the commercial CDs, this would be a lot quieter. So there are 2 schools of thought: School n.1: Keep it a lot quieter, so nobody mistakes this with the final master and has the good taste of turning it up.

00:29:14
This relies on the idea that people know how to turn stuff up as opposed to just considering that the track is too soft hence not exciting.

00:29:21
Number 2: jack it up.

00:29:24
So to jack it up..

00:29:26
we have, here: Maxim.

00:29:28
Why don't I jack it up an extra 4dB? So I'm gonna take the threshold down to -4 which means I'm gonna raise the whole thing up 4dB.

00:29:37
This is a little backwards to understand but this is how it works.

00:29:39
I'll show you in real time so you understand what's going on.

00:29:48
I understand that it's convoluted to hear..

00:29:52
the level raising when you lower the threshold is silly but it is what it is.

00:29:57
Really what it's doing is, you're pushing 5dB of level into a brickwall limiter.

00:30:02
Think of it that way. Just like L2 used to do.

00:30:05
I think L2 still does it. This is where we were..

00:30:12
And this is where we are.

00:30:21
Now you're officially loud. If you're really curious..

00:30:24
And you have a lot of time to spare, you could lower the ceiling by 5dB and raise the threshold by 5dB what that's gonna do is it's gonna push your level 5dBs into the brickwall limiter and then bring the level 5dB down, so you're gonna be even and you're gonna be able to hear the difference between limited and unlimited, at the same level.

00:30:47
And that gives this result.

00:30:49
This is: first bypass and then with the process.

00:31:16
Again? Again.

00:31:18
Without..

00:31:49
Your choice! I'll let you decide. I ain't doing it, today.

00:31:53
So now we're gonna print the mix. So you get to listen to the whole song, then, we will export the mix and I'll show you how to do that. See you in 3':20".

00:34:21
That little guitar there on the right, so awesome, is not loud enough! Because..

00:34:26
we really didn't scrutinise that part. So I'm gonna raise it.

00:34:30
Now, Awesome! That would have been a big mistake..

00:34:51
record saved.

00:34:53
But it's a bummer we have to start from the beginning.

00:34:55
But no, we do not! Because of this amazing system that we have here and it works great: you have to be in quick punch mode, right up here.

00:35:03
You can change modes by hitting Ctrl on the Mac and clicking the Record button.. or you can hit '6'.

00:35:13
Then you have to rewind. How much? Well..

00:35:15
Just enough for the reverbs to mature. Meaning that all the reverbs in your record..

00:35:20
this is not a lot but you can have very long reverbs..

00:35:23
you have to make sure to play enough bars that you'll get to the same point as to where the reverbs where, if you have a 4-second reverb, make sure you play 4 seconds of that record.

00:35:32
Ok? And then you hit 'Record', when you feel like, before your splice.

00:37:38
Cool! So now we have to fix that little cut, right here..

00:37:43
You remove the input mode so you can hear what's in the track..

00:37:51
So you can hear it..

00:37:57
And you can select the 2 halves and consolidate, which is Shift+Opt+3 and then because we're OCD and it's not a disease it's a lifestyle, it's different! We're gonna rename it to remove that ugly '_03' to call it 'Fab Mix 1' or 'your mix 1' and then you have to export that mix.

00:38:19
The way it works in Pro Tools is that every clip is a virtual representation of a file on the hard drive.

00:38:25
This is the full audio file. If I do this, this is no longer the full audio file.

00:38:30
Even though the background vocals right now are a clip..

00:38:33
that is an extract of a full audio file. I can create another discrete file from this clip. Which is awesome. To do so, click what you need to export or create a discrete audio file out of, you hit Shift+Cmd+K, and this menu comes up. Or if you want menus, you have to open the clip window, you can select the clip here or here..

00:39:00
but I always select it in the timeline, for safety, because it's visual, and you can go here and 'Export Clip as File' doesn't get clearer than that. Like Cmd+Shift+K, then you can choose your file type so, for example 24.. and we said 88.. Remember that? And then you choose where you export it to.. our session was on the Desktop, What I do is always create a discrete folder called 'Bounces' and in that folder, I put my bounces.

00:39:30
So, Pro Tools is now doing it in much faster than real time. And what I also do is I always make an MP3 with the Pro Tools generator, because it's great, it sounds good, it's the least offensive of them all as far as I'm concerned.

00:39:45
That's a little sore but still pretty awesome.

00:39:48
Now, if you go to the Desktop and you look into your session folder, you're gonna have your original audio files in the 'Audio Files' folder, and then in the 'Bounces' folder you just created..

00:40:02
2 files: one full-res file, that's 125Mb because it's 24/88k and then one MP3. And then you can play it in the Finder.

00:40:11
With Snapper! Remember Snapper? And then if I press play now I can check my file in the Finder and then I can send it, directly, to whomever is the person you made this record with.

00:40:21
That's a really good workflow.

00:40:23
Yes, there's another folder called 'Bounce Files'.

00:40:26
I didn't make that folder. Pro Tools did.

00:40:28
This folder is a more recent addition to the Pro Tools workflow because it now has an automated stem exporting system. So I keep that 'Bounce Files' for anything that's automatically created by Pro Tools or by Pro Tools routines.

00:40:43
All right, there you have it! A real-time mix, done in the mouth of a given horse! Download the stems and have a go at it yourself, I'm gonna say it's quite fun to mix a song recorded by one of the best engineers that ever walked the Earth.

00:40:57
Et voila'!