Fred Everything Mixing Believe
01h 18min
(15)
Watch Fred Everything Mix A Hit House Music Track
As a world-renowned DJ in the House Music Scene, Fred Everything has gained notoriety for his diverse DJ sets where he navigates a variety of genres from House to Techno, and Drum and Bass to Ambient.
In this 80-minute pureMix exclusive video, Fred Everything shows you how he mixes in a creative flow, in a live, real-time mixing session, using his template on the song “Believe” by Kathy Diamond. After mixing portions of the song uninterrupted, Fred explains how he:
- Organizes his mixes in Logic Pro X for quick navigation
- Manages his gain structure from the start
- Mixes elements in the context of the rest of the track, rather than in solo
- Adds rhythm to percussion tracks and depth and space to synthesizers
- As well as how he masters his tracks to fit into his DJ sets
Once you have seen Fred mix in a creative flow, download the stems and apply Fred’s techniques on your system at home.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
Once logged in, you will be able to click on those chapter titles and jump around in the video.
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:31 - Gain Staging
- 03:03 - Track Stacks
- 03:44 - Mixing the Drums
- 10:51 - Drum Pass Review
- 11:16 - Kick
- 13:22 - Claps
- 15:18 - Snare
- 16:16 - Percussion
- 19:31 - Hi-Hats
- 22:14 - Toms
- 28:43 - Drum Bus
- 29:53 - Mixing the Keys
- 35:12 - Keys Pass Review
- 35:43 - 303
- 38:09 - Prophet Synth
- 41:44 - Bleep
- 43:34 - Clavinet
- 44:14 - Deep Chords
- 46:47 - Oberheim Progression
- 49:55 - Stack String
- 51:36 - Piano
- 52:34 - Vocals
- 56:29 - FX
- 1:01:42 - Tweaking the Mix
- 1:07:03 - Mix Bus
00:00:07
Hi, this is Fred Everything.
00:00:09
Here's a song I made in Logic Pro X
using a bunch of hardware synths
and drum machines.
00:00:15
Vocals come courtesy of the
lovely Kathy Diamond,
vocals were recorded
in Hamburg via a live Skype session.
00:00:22
In the previous video I demonstrated
how to arrange this track on the fly,
now I wanna show you how to
apply the same process to mixing,
from stems, so let's check it out.
00:00:33
First of all I wanna
talk about gain staging,
which is very important
so you don't max out
your Mixbus and you're not able
to do anything anymore
and just have to add...
00:00:43
Add EQs and then you get
your sound very confused.
00:00:47
So, in this particular project,
in pretty much every project
I do now, as you can see,
I've got a gain plug-in on every channel.
00:00:55
My gain plug-in default preset is -5 dB.
00:00:59
The only reason I do that
is just a number that helps me
keep everything
more or less in -18 dB FS.
00:01:09
And -18 dB FS
would be 0 dB VU as
you would use on a console.
00:01:15
It helps me get the most
out of my plug-ins
because most of them are designed
to receive a -18 dB FS signal.
00:01:23
This is just a trick I use
to keep my levels healthy
so I don't clip my Master Bus.
00:01:28
Let's take a quick listen
to the track in context.
00:02:36
So, as you can hear,
some of those tracks already have
FX and EQ already in there.
00:02:42
The reason why is because these are stems
from the original mix.
00:02:46
Stems that I send out to remix after.
00:02:49
What I wanna do with this
is remix my version,
in remix I just mean mixing
applying new processes to different things
to make it sound
a little different as this is a track
I've done quite a few years ago.
00:03:03
What I did was arrange these
groups into stacks.
00:03:07
And the reason for that is that I can also
concentrate easier on every stack.
00:03:12
For example,
we're gonna start with the drums.
00:03:14
When I create a track stack
it creates an Aux or a Bus.
00:03:19
And that way I can process
all my drums all at once.
00:03:23
I can apply an EQ,
compression,
or a I can send it to parallel
compression for example,
or parallel overdrive.
00:03:32
So I'm gonna go ahead
and do a little bit of live mixing
on each of this stack.
00:03:38
First I'm gonna start with the drums
and then I'm gonna come back
and talk about it a little bit more.
00:10:42
The reason why I didn't stop after
every drum
is that I wanted to show
you to make something
more on the fly like I did previously
with the arranging on the fly.
00:10:51
Now I'm gonna show you a little bit more,
instrument by instrument,
what I did.
00:10:56
The reason why I like to do that is
I like to hear everything in context
and be able to do decisions
that are more informed
with more instruments,
even though I solo stuff,
I like to hear things in context
and just apply things
more like by intuition.
00:11:13
So, let's go and check out
instrument by instrument what I did.
00:11:17
First let's start with the kick.
00:11:19
Originally, our kick sounded like this.
00:11:26
To me it seemed like it
needed a little bit of weight.
00:11:29
And often what I do
is I go to the UA Pultec.
00:11:33
And I usually use the 30 or the 60 Hz
frequency and I usually boost it
until basically I can
really hear it too much and then I just
drop it down a little bit.
00:11:45
Just to add a little bit of weight.
00:11:54
So this is something you're gonna
hear more on bigger sound systems.
00:11:58
Maybe not so much on you laptop speakers.
00:12:00
And also something that I never use to do
at all is add a little
reverb to the kick.
00:12:07
In this particular example the
kick has a lot of high frequencies.
00:12:11
And this song is a little
bit more informed by
everything that's like 80s disco.
00:12:17
In general this is an
aesthetic that I really love.
00:12:21
You can hear that,
sometimes it was very exaggerated,
the 80s was the decade of reverb.
00:12:28
So, in this particular case I'm
using an Eventide UltraReverb.
00:12:32
It's a little preset that I did,
just like a chamber.
00:12:35
It works really well for percussions.
00:12:38
And, as you can see,
I'm not using a ton of it,
just a little 13%.
Here's without.
00:12:48
Again, you gotta hear it in the
context of the rest of the track.
00:12:52
It's not gonna be so noticeable
but it's gonna give
it a little bit of space.
00:12:56
Let's hear it in context,
with and without the processing.
00:13:17
While I was listening I decided
to give it a little bit of reverb
so it's a bit more noticeable.
00:13:22
Next, let's talk about the clap.
00:13:24
I'm a big fan of claps,
especially disco claps.
00:13:26
This one comes from a record
and I reprogrammed it later.
00:13:30
I like my claps to be quite loud
and very bright in a way
and with a lot of reverb.
00:13:36
So let's see, this one already has
the reverb from the stems.
00:13:41
Let's see how I can change it.
First of all,
we're gonna listen to it
without anything on.
00:13:52
And what I did hear is I took
a Logic Channel EQ,
I just removed some
of the lower frequency,
which probably wasn't there,
I don't do that all the time
but I did that just in case,
just to remove a little bit of mud.
00:14:07
Then I used a Harrison.
Channel EQ to just boost
a little bit of the high-mids
and barely a little bit of the highs.
00:14:15
I like the Harrison EQ
it's the EQ that was used by Bruce Swedien
on Thriller, for example.
00:14:23
And, yeah, it gives me what I
want in this case so let's listen to it.
00:14:43
So, as you can see, you have to be careful
with this kind of EQs because
they're really great
but they could add
a lot by just... little...
00:14:51
little movements, so you have to
be really careful, and just dial it in
how you wanna hear it.
00:14:56
Let's listen to it in the
context of the track.
00:15:18
Now let's move on to the snare.
00:15:27
In this particular case I removed
a lot of the low frequency.
00:15:31
And now, when I hear it soloed,
I feel like I almost took too much off,
especially, not to forget that
there's always a little
bit of body in the snare
at 200 Hz, or at least there should be.
00:15:44
So, if we remove too much
of the bass frequency,
the snare is gonna sound tiny, so,
I also added a little bit of overdrive
to make the sound pop a little bit more.
00:15:54
Let's listen to it without the EQ
and the overdrive and then with,
in context of the song.
00:16:09
As you can see, especially when I added
the overdrive
you hear more the
snare come out in the mix.
00:16:16
The next rhythm element that I
have is called delay percussion,
which is a weird thing that happens
when I had the drums on my board
and I was messing around with one my FX,
I think it was the Eventide
Time Factor pedal.
00:16:28
Basically it did this like weird
texture that I decided
to resample and loop
and I also added some side-chaining to it.
00:16:38
But that's all done in the stems.
00:16:40
Now let's listen to it.
00:16:41
I just added one process to it.
00:16:43
But let's listen to it
without the process.
00:16:50
So you can hear it in the
context of the track a little bit more.
00:17:05
Really hard to hear it,
but you can feel it.
00:17:07
And when you remove it,
all of the sudden something is missing.
00:17:10
It's just another little
texture that I think is good.
00:17:13
It wasn't there on my
first draft of the track,
it came in later but I like it.
00:17:18
In this particular example,
all I did is turn on
a little bit of Bus 4, which is,
in this case, my chorus.
00:17:26
While mixing live I just
also rolled off the bass
and the highs of that chorus
because I don't need that information
after the chorus as there's,
so much going on already in the track.
00:18:00
It's very subtle but all I wanted
to do is get it out of the center
and pan it a little bit more.
00:18:06
It actually has an Auto Pan on it
but I like the fact that
the chorus can kind of like
make it more...
00:18:14
sound more together and not so divided
because of the panning.
00:18:17
Next I got a drum loop
which I completely forget
where it comes from.
00:18:21
I think that was put there
when I started the track
as an idea and I never removed this,
so let's listen to it,
without any plug-ins.
00:18:36
It may have come from
one my drum machines
or if it's a loop I don't even remember.
00:18:40
But here, on this particular example,
I decided to just
add a little bit of the room reverb
that I have on my Bus 2.
00:18:48
We're using the stock plug-in from Logic,
just a small room.
00:18:53
So, let's just listen to it.
00:19:18
That's a sound that's very low in the mix
but it just adds a little bit of depth
and makes that sort of whole section
live in a different space
than the rest of the instruments.
00:19:31
Next we have
a hi-hat pattern,
which I did a few more things to it,
let's listen to it without any
of the plug-ins, soled first.
00:19:50
So, in this particular hi-hat pattern,
first of all, I wanted to
add a little bit more high-frequency,
I could have used the Harrison again,
for this one I just went with a Neve EQ.
00:20:01
I found them very similar,
this one is even more
fragile, you just gotta move it
just a little bit,
it does a lot and it
adds a lot of character.
00:20:11
So,
often I'll just add a touch in the highs
and in the mid-highs a little bit.
00:20:17
So, let's solo
without the EQ and then
I'm gonna engage the EQ after.
00:20:31
So it just adds a touch of air to
an already good sounding hi-hat.
00:20:37
While I was mixing I thought
something that could be nice
is to add a little reflection,
I didn't want anything too hard,
I just grabbed the Echoboy Jr, which I love.
00:20:47
Cause I love its simple interface.
00:20:50
So, I just wanna to kind of
add a little bit more rhythm to it.
00:20:54
So, let's listen to it.
00:21:05
Now let's hear it in context.
00:21:18
Again, it's very subtle,
but it adds a little bit
and I think that that's the point
at this level, in a song that already existed,
and I just remix it, I just wanna add some
subtle movement to the track
which is gonna make
it little bit different.
00:21:30
The last thing I did on the hi-hat
pattern is I had a slight amount of chorus.
00:21:35
So we're gonna hear it soloed,
with and without the chorus.
00:22:08
All these changes are very subtle
but the will add to the overall sound
that I wanna get at the end of the mix.
00:22:15
The next element is the sort of
Disco tom fill that I have there.
00:22:20
It kind of sounds like
and old Simmons drums
but again, I won't remember exactly
where it came from.
00:22:27
With that I always like to go to
a dbx 160, I use the UA one
because it just adds a little
bit more punch and attack.
00:22:36
I could have also used
a transient designer.
00:22:38
Of course a transient
designer is not a compressor
but the dbx kind of does this job,
it's very very simple.
00:22:45
And I just adding the compression
and going through the threshold
you get that sort of attack that you
would get from a transient designer
by adjusting the attack and that's
what we want in this specific case.
00:22:57
So, let's listen to it soled first.
00:23:02
Without any FX.
00:23:08
It's nice but they are missing some punch,
let's see what we can do with the dbx.
00:23:12
And we can adjust it as well,
while I listen to it in solo.
00:23:21
It's quite drastic what it does,
so I like it.
00:23:38
As you can see it adds a lot of attack,
I can then, you know,
play with my levels a little bit more
because it's very contained now.
00:23:45
I can decide to put it a little bit louder
however I want it in the mix.
00:23:49
During my live mixing flow
I messed around with the
Eventide Harmonizer,
I wanted to find something
a little spacey for the drums.
00:23:58
I can't quite find,
on the spot, what I wanted,
so I turned on the EMT 250 plate,
just to add a little
bit of different reverb.
00:24:08
So, let's listen to what it sounds
like without and with the reverb.
00:24:22
Yeah, I like what it does,
let's listen to it in context.
00:24:40
Let's see what else I did to the track
by using the Aux Send
because you can use your
reverb on and Aux Send
but in this particular case,
because I didn't wanna share that reverb,
I decided to put it as an insert
and instead deal with the dry/wet signal,
right here.
00:24:56
As if it wasn't enough already,
I put a little bit more
reverb from the Bus 1, here.
00:25:02
Which is my Space Designer
Choir Hall, I don't know why I chose that,
I just wanted the hall,
it's not a specific preset
but let's listen with the extra reverb.
00:25:20
And within the context of the track.
00:25:30
Basically, all it does is just
augment the other reverb.
00:25:34
It doesn't do much, but because it's there
and it doesn't bother me,
I'm gonna keep it there for now.
00:25:39
The next thing I did
was add a little bit of chorus as well,
which is kind of what I was looking for
in the Eventide,
that I couldn't quite find.
00:25:48
So, now let's listen to it.
00:25:57
As you can see,
it kind of modulates the whole sound,
it also modulates the reverb,
the plate reverb that we have in there.
00:26:04
I like it, so let's keep it.
00:26:13
And the last thing I did on this
was add a little bit of that
Bus 8 overdrive that I've been sharing
with other instruments here.
00:26:20
It's just the stock Logic overdrive,
in this case.
00:26:24
So let's listen to it.
00:26:31
So all it does is just add
some body to the tom
which was sounding a little tiny for me.
00:26:37
Let's listen to it in the
context of the track,
first without and then with.
00:26:48
It really brings some body to the tom.
00:26:49
And it helps bring it up in the mix.
00:26:53
The last element on
my Drum Bus is noise effect,
in this one I didn't touch it
purposely because I like how it sounded
as a stem, I probably put reverb on
it and treated it before.
00:27:03
So, anyway, let's listen to it.
00:27:10
I use this with the tom fill
almost maybe like a crash,
or something for a transition,
so you can hear it
better with the tom here.
00:27:28
While I'm here, what I could do
is I could pan it a
little bit to the right.
00:27:33
So, I'm gonna come here in the panning
and Logic Pro X has a new feature
which is much welcomed.
00:27:40
Before your stereo was just a balance
but now you can use it as a stereo pan,
which is much nicer.
00:27:46
Because the way it worked with the balance
is that your level was kind of
lowering as you were
panning to the left or to the right
and now it doesn't affect the level.
00:27:57
So let's just do a little
bit of panning this way.
00:28:06
Yes, I like this.
00:28:08
One thing I like to do with my production
is stay away from the usual
crashes, or swooshes or big white noises.
00:28:15
I try to find other things that
can do the same, that has the same effect,
but it would be a different sound.
00:28:22
So, I'll use some percussion with reverb,
for example.
00:28:27
It could be something
from a Mini Moog,
like a noise percussion that I'm creating.
00:28:33
I think it's important to find
different ways and
not just rely for example
on sample libraries.
00:28:40
That way you can really have
a unique sound.
00:28:43
Now let's move on to the drum bus.
00:28:45
So the last thing I did to the drums
was adding a little bit of compression,
in this case I used the
SSL G Bus compressor.
00:28:53
Just to kind of keep
all the drums together,
add a little bit of glue.
00:28:57
So, let's listen to the drums
without the bus compressor and then with.
00:29:16
As you can see,
the needle is barely moving.
00:29:19
My settings are very simple.
00:29:22
I'm using a slower
attack because I don't
wanna mess with the transient
and kind of a medium release,
I could put it faster.
00:29:29
You have to play with
it and see how it feels.
00:29:33
For me, in this case,
I just wanted to have a little glue,
add a little glue to the mix,
which this compressor is very good at.
00:29:41
I didn't want to mess with it too much,
it sounds good already,
I didn't wanna crush it,
I just wanna hold them together.
00:29:48
Now I'm gonna go ahead
and do the same thing that I did with
the drums with the keys.
00:35:12
Now that I'm done mixing the keys
on the flow let's see what I've done.
00:35:18
Since a lot of these tracks
have been already processed,
I haven't touched all of them.
00:35:22
So, for example,
this 'muted guitar' here,
I'll let you hear.
00:35:31
I'm perfectly with how it sounds.
00:35:33
Same thing with this bass here.
00:35:39
So, let's move on to the instruments
where I worked on the most.
00:35:43
For example, let's go to the 303 here.
00:35:46
And let's remove all
the plug-ins that I added.
00:35:49
Let's listen to it in context this time
and I'm gonna talk about what I've done.
00:36:05
In this particular case I didn't want
the 303
to conflict with the bass
that we already had
so I went ahead and
removed a little bit of bass here.
00:36:14
So, I could see here with the analyzer
where it was heading and I just wanted to
have it hit around 100 Hz.
00:36:22
Here's the bass with the 303
without the low-cut and with the low-cut.
00:36:37
I don't know if you can
hear it but I can hear it.
00:36:40
Suddenly the 303 is not
in the way of the bass.
00:36:42
So it doesn't create this confusion.
00:36:44
Next thing I added was
a little bit of distortion,
again, just to add some body.
00:36:49
I'm using it as parallel
with the Bus 8 where
we have our overdrive.
00:37:04
I like how that sounds.
00:37:06
And then to add more body
I added a little bit of room
reverb in my Bus 2, let's listen to it.
00:37:21
And then, just because I wanted it
to be a little bit more spacey,
because the track is quite spacey,
I wanted to add more
of the first hall reverb.
00:37:37
And now, in context with the track,
I'm gonna remove all plug-ins
and add them one by one.
00:38:02
To my ears it sounds more together
and more part of the whole song.
00:38:06
Let's move on to the next element.
00:38:09
So, this is coming from the Prophet,
I believe that was a
Prophet 8 at the time,
now I'm using mostly the Prophet 6.
00:38:15
They are both really good synths.
00:38:17
This is one seemed
to be a little harsh in
the higher mid-range
and still had too much highs for me.
00:38:27
So I went ahead and
did a little cut there,
in around 10 kHz.
00:38:32
And then here,
the harsh frequencies, I find,
are often between 5 and 6 kHz
but you can experiment with it.
00:38:41
The way to do it is
do a very small band Q
and then sweep it around the areas where
you think that might be annoying.
00:38:50
You can hear the
frequency that's resonating.
00:38:52
Let's try that by soling it.
00:39:06
So, you can hear it more
when the filter is open.
00:39:08
You can hear a whistle,
and when you can hear that,
often that's a frequency
that can be dangerous,
or unpleasant to your ears so I
just went ahead and did a cut here.
00:39:18
And I'm gonna a with and without.
00:39:20
And here I want to remove a little bit of
mids, just a little bit of mud,
but it's very subtle.
00:39:28
Let's listen with and without the EQ fix.
00:39:47
So, to me it sounds more smooth,
and again, by removing all these little
artifacts from your mix I find that
you have a mix that breaths better
and it's less fatiguing for the ears.
00:40:00
On this track I also
added a little bit of hall
and a little bit of chorus, so,
let's play without it and then
I'm just gonna add them on.
00:40:30
I like what it does.
00:40:31
It sounded really good already but
that's why it's so nice to be able
to work with stems sometimes,
you already have something that
sounds good but you can really augment it
with just little details like that.
Now it sounds more
together and more spread.
00:40:45
So, I'm gonna mute those
and listen to it in context.
00:40:50
And I'm gonna add those plug-ins.
00:41:22
I don't know if you can hear that
but for me
it comes up a little bit
more in the mix as well.
00:41:27
It makes it a little bit more proud.
00:41:29
And also, because I added a little chorus,
it stays out of the middle,
even there was already that sort of
auto-panning in there
the chorus kind of
like holds that sort of
division in the stereo field.
00:41:43
On this next element,
the little bleepy melody that I had,
I just decided to apply a little bit
of EQ to remove some frequencies
and to enhance a little bit
in the mid-highs.
00:41:55
Here's without the EQ and with the EQ,
soloed.
00:42:13
As you noticed, I've adjusted it even more
because I can still hear this sort of
unwanted noise in the lower frequency
that is definitely not needed
for this kind of sound.
00:42:22
And I also boosted in the area
where I often tend to cut
because I wanted the sort of ring
to come up a little bit more.
00:42:31
And the next thing I did was
add a little bit more reverb
to the reverb, so let's listen without
and with the reverb.
00:42:48
Now in the context of the whole track
I'm gonna remove
first the EQ and then the reverb.
00:43:12
OK, I like this better, it's very subtle.
00:43:14
As you can see, I try to see if I can
add a little bit of overdrive
but I didn't think it was needed.
00:43:21
I raised the level a little bit
because of the EQ the level
has gone down a little bit.
00:43:26
I like the reverb, I like what it adds,
it's not too overpowering.
00:43:31
So, we're gonna keep it like that.
00:43:34
This particular stem, the Clavinet,
which is not really a Clavinet,
it's one of my synths,
it's the Oberheim.
00:43:41
Oberheim Matrix 1000.
00:43:42
So let's listen to the sound,
all I did was add a little room reverb
but let's just listen to it first.
00:44:00
So really, there was nothing needed here.
00:44:02
All I'm doing is very subtle.
00:44:04
Adding a little bit of room to just
give it a little bit more body
but there was already reverb in the stem,
I like how it sounds
so let's move on to the next one.
00:44:13
The Deep Chords here,
it's just a nice little sequence.
00:44:17
I'm gonna remove the bus and
let's just listen to it soloed.
00:44:30
Don't mind the clicking noise,
they're part of the stem.
00:44:32
I don't hear them in the mix.
00:44:34
If I had access to the original file
maybe I could fix it
but now we're not gonna worry about that.
00:44:39
In the EQ what I did is I just tried
to remove a little bit of mud in the 200,
between 200 and 500, so 350.
00:44:48
And again I went in the
higher register this time,
around 2500 just to add actually
a little bit of the clickyness.
00:45:11
All I did as well was
add a little bit of chorus
because I liked what it did to
the other sound in the track,
it just widens things a little bit.
00:45:20
It puts a little shine
on something like that.
00:45:22
Even if there's a reverb,
it can sound a little bit dry.
Let's listen without,
and I'm gonna bring up the chorus slowly.
00:45:40
I like how it kind of
brings up a little bit
of that sort of flangy
element in the sound.
00:45:45
Let's move on to the next one.
00:45:47
This was sort of an
experimental thing that I did,
again, I think it was on the Oberheim.
00:45:54
I use this function called
'capture recording' in Logic, which is really nice.
00:45:58
Where you're basically
playing something MIDI
and you didn't record
and you hit capture recording
and all of the sudden
everything you played
is back there.
It could be pretty strange sometimes,
but it could be useful.
In the original track I used it,
in this particular
version I decided to go
and not use it because
I didn't think it was doing much
to this new arrangement, so,
after playing a little bit
with the chorus and things like that,
I just decided to mute it.
00:46:27
What we can do as well,
as I showed you before,
we can hide this track
to remove it from our arrangement, so,
let's do that by pressing H
and repressing H
and all of the sudden it's disappeared,
but if I want it again, it's in the back
so I can use it again.
I really like that function.
00:46:46
The next thing we have,
I'm gonna remove the plug-ins here,
is kind of like the B part of the
track at the end, little progressions.
00:46:56
This is definitely Oberheim
because it says OB on it.
00:46:59
It's a little brassy
sound progression thing.
00:47:02
Let's listen to it.
00:47:10
I really like it
but to me it sounds a little muddy
and little bassy,
so first of all I did a little bit of EQ.
00:47:19
So, I removed a little bit of
bass and mud in the 200 to 500.
00:47:23
And again, did a little sweet boost
around 2500,
just to raise it a little bit.
00:47:30
So let's listen to it without EQ and
then I'm gonna turn on the EQ after.
00:47:48
Let's listen to it in the
context of the track.
00:48:07
I'm turning the volume back up
because I turned down because of
other processing that I've put in.
00:48:11
Basically, all I did is again,
I went to my busses,
which saves us a lot of time,
and added
a little bit of
hall reverb,
a little bit of chorus
and a little bit of distortion.
00:48:24
I'm gonna start with the distortion,
the overdrive
and just see what it does to the sounds.
00:48:44
So, of course the overdrive
adds a little bit of volume
but it does more than that.
00:48:49
It adds certain
harmonics in the high frequencies
and in the whole spectrum, really.
00:48:56
I like it,
it makes it a little bit bigger.
00:48:58
Let's also try a little
bit of chorus and reverb.
00:49:01
I'm not gonna stop there,
I'm just gonna add them.
00:49:04
I'm just gonna
raise the level so you
can hear what it does.
00:49:44
Again, to my ear, all the processing
that I did on this
helped bring that sound back in the mix.
00:49:51
I felt like it was a little bit hidden
and needed to be heard more.
00:49:55
The next thing we have is a track
called 'Stack String',
which was done with the Prophet.
00:50:01
And let's listen to it,
I'm gonna remove the plug-ins.
00:50:04
What I did on this one is very simple.
00:50:14
On this one I wanted to
widen a little bit the sound
because I felt like,
even if it's stereo it
was still very centered
so I added a little bit of chorus,
so let's listen to that.
00:50:39
Here, in the EQ section,
as you can see,
I'm trying to get the sound
to cut a little bit through the mix
so I'm adding in those
frequencies that I often cut.
00:50:50
And I removed a little bit
of the mud, between 200 and 500.
00:50:56
Let's listen without and with and then
I'm gonna turn on the rest of the track
so you can hear how
it sounds in the context.
00:51:33
Subtle changes for bigger results.
00:51:35
And then, that leads us
to the last track of our keys,
which is some kind of piano
but it's a synth piano.
00:51:45
I didn't do much on this one,
all I did was correct two little areas,
again, in the lower mids
and in the higher mid frequencies.
00:51:55
Let's listen to it.
00:52:19
As you can probably hear,
it got rid of that
little sort of ringing tone
in the higher mid frequencies.
00:52:26
That's about how I did
with the keys, I didn't do as
much as I did with the drums
because I felt like they were
sounding already very good.
00:52:34
Now let's talk about vocals.
00:52:36
Unfortunately I don't have
the original session with me.
00:52:39
All I have is what you're
seeing on the screen right here.
00:52:43
This was probably 6,
7 or 8 tracks put together.
00:52:48
A lot of work has gone through this.
00:52:51
I stemmed it for the remixers
when I was released.
00:52:55
It saves us a lot of time too,
when you wanna mix.
00:52:59
So, all the work has already been done
but I think I can do a little bit of
enhancement for the sake of this video
and of this different arrangement.
00:53:08
So, let's listen to the vocal a little bit
without the plug-ins first.
00:53:25
So while those vocals are
sounding really good to me
I can hear a little something
in the higher frequencies
or maybe more in the mid highs again,
that is very disturbing,
almost like an artifact.
00:53:34
So, let's see if we can fix it.
I already did something on the EQ
but let me see if we can do it
for the example.
Let's listen to it.
00:53:57
Between the 'what we are',
I don't know if you guys can hear it,
so I'm gonna play it again.
00:54:01
Just listen to between
'what' and 'we are'.
00:54:06
It's almost like a saliva sound
or something like that, from the singer.
00:54:10
I put up the EQ here
and already made a cut somewhere around 5
so let's if we can isolate this frequency.
00:54:27
So, to me, just that little cut here
helps smooth out that sound,
which mostly, we can only hear it in solo,
but also in the context of the track,
all these little artifacts add up.
00:54:38
And getting rid of it
makes for a more pleasant sound.
00:54:42
Let's to it in context and I'm
gonna remove the Eq here.
00:54:45
I'm gonna go back a little bit
at the beginning of the vocal.
00:55:08
To my ears it sounds much better.
00:55:11
Again, that wasn't a problem in
the original version we released
but now we have access to this file
and it's easier to correct when
you have all stemmed together.
00:55:19
The next thing I did was just
add a little bit of reverb,
I really like how this reverb sound
but because this new version has a little
bit more space to it
I just add a little bit of hall and room.
00:55:31
And what I'm gonna
do is just gonna let the track play
and just the bring the busses up
so you can hear it.
00:56:19
That's it for the vocals, as you can
see there wasn't too much to do to it
but I'm glad I just did
that little correction
and added a little bit more space
to the already spacey vocal.
00:56:30
The last track stack we
have here is the FX stack.
00:56:35
I like to use a lot of
ambient stuff in my music.
00:56:38
A lot of my music starts often
without a beat, very ambient.
00:56:43
In this particular example
I don't think there's
much that I wanna do.
00:56:47
But let's listen to the track and see if
within the flow I can hear something.
00:56:52
If not, I won't touch anything
but at least I'll make you hear
the different elements of the track.
00:58:35
So, there we have it,
just small changes here on this track,
also done with the Oberheim.
00:58:42
I could fell when the filter opens
up a little bit, this little harshness
that I went and identified
around 3 kHz here.
00:58:50
As you can see I was using
the same trick about sweeping,
and then removing
the frequency that was a little whistling.
00:58:59
Also,
on this little FX
I also removed a little bit of harshness
in the high-mids.
00:59:06
I added a little bit of reverb
a little bit of delay on this one.
00:59:11
I can show you a
little bit how it sounded
without and with the FX.
00:59:16
I'm gonna solo it.
00:59:19
And mute all the process.
00:59:38
So, yeah, I think it was
more in the high frequencies as well
so I removed a little bit.
00:59:43
And then added a little bit of reverb
and delay to just kind of have a
longer tail after the sound is gone.
00:59:49
So, let's listen and I'm gonna add
the reverb and the delay after.
01:00:13
So I really like what it does,
it adds a little bit more of a subtle
kind of Dub feel using the Tape Echo,
with a pretty high feedback.
01:00:24
And the other instrument here,
which is a bit of a melodic element
but I still count it as an FX for me.
01:00:33
Let's listen to the sound
soloed without any processing.
01:00:44
Again, I like how it sounds
and it has a little bit of panning.
01:00:49
I'm just gonna add a little bit of chorus
and I'm gonna play with
and without the chorus
and in context of the track as well.
01:01:21
As you can see the chorus brought
the sound a little bit more up in the mix
and gave it a slightly different space.
01:01:28
So that's about it for my FX stacks.
01:01:30
Now let's listen to the mix in context
with everything that I have done so far
and readjust some levels, see if I can get
a better sounding mix before
I apply anything to the master bus.
01:06:46
I'm fairly happy with the
balance in the mix, what I just did.
01:06:50
I think
you can spend very long time on a mix
and I could go back
and do a lot of revisions
but for the sake of this example
I'm happy where the mix is
and we're ready to
move on to the Mix Bus.
01:07:04
A question that a lot of people have is:
'what do you put on your mix bus?'
There's all kind of different
school of thoughts about that.
01:07:11
I personally don't really do anything,
I don't mix with a limiter on.
01:07:15
But if I have to send my tracks
to a label, if I have to play it out
to check it out or send it to a friend
I'll do a small mastering job.
01:07:23
My mastering chain is very simple.
01:07:26
And I've learned from attending
different mastering
sessions for my records.
01:07:31
So I'm gonna just show
you a little bit what I do here.
01:07:35
First on the chain I have a
Fairchild which is a tube compressor.
01:07:39
There was a mastering engineer
that I worked with
that was a using a copy of a Fairchild
but a hardware unit.
01:07:45
And its needle wasn't even moving.
01:07:48
But he was using it just
for the circuitry.
01:07:50
And I thought that was very interesting.
01:07:52
Let's listen to what the Fairchild
does to a master bus.
01:08:14
Of course you can hear
that the gain is not matched
and that's not what
wanted in this example
because we wanna raise
the level a little by little
so the limiter doesn't have
to do all the heavy lifting.
01:08:24
So, what I'm hearing with the
Fairchild is this little excitement
in the high frequencies,
just bringing the sound a bit more life.
01:08:32
You can see the needle is barely moving.
01:08:34
In the example of my mastering engineer
his needle wasn't moving at all.
01:08:39
It was just adding this circuitry.
01:08:41
And the Fairchild,
even if you don't move the needles,
if you're just passing it through,
you get that sound.
01:08:47
Let's listen to it one more time.
01:09:03
The second plug-in on my chain
is the Precision Buss Compressor.
01:09:08
I really like the Precision
Series from Universal Audio.
01:09:12
I bought them all at the same time
and watched a tutorial on it
and I really like what they were saying.
01:09:19
Putting a bus compressor
before the limiter,
just hitting it at about 2 dB reduction,
and then pushing it back,
the output, like 2, 3 dB.
01:09:30
And one thing that's very interesting
with this bus compressor
is you can see here there's a filter
and the filter means that you can
allow certain frequencies
to not trigger the compressor.
01:09:41
So, in this case,
I usually put it at around 200, 250.
01:09:46
I wanna prevent the kick and the bass
from triggering the compressor
so I can have a really
nice bass signal left.
01:09:55
And then the threshold
you just hit it until you
have about
2 dB of reduction
so we're gonna listen to it a little bit,
let me just
start by playing it without
and I'm just gonna activate it after.
01:10:28
So, as you can hear,
it kind of just like holds the
track together a little bit more.
01:10:33
It makes it a little bit more
even without squashing it.
01:10:36
And now it's pretty much
gain match because we're talking about
an extra dB that I added here.
01:10:43
Again just wanting the limiter
to not have to do all the heavy lifting.
01:10:47
Let's listen to it one more time.
01:11:10
Now, for the final plug-in in
my unofficial mastering chain
is the Precision Limiter.
01:11:16
I like other limiters,
I like the FabFilter Limiter,
this one I just happen to have
and I really like it.
01:11:22
With a limiter I always try
not to squash it too much.
01:11:26
So, I try to go to about a
maximum of 4 to 5 dBs of reduction.
01:11:32
Let's hear it, obviously now you're
gonna hear a big change in volume.
01:12:00
It's important to use your ears
and not just your eyes here
and to know that if you
have too much gain reduction
and the sound will break
and you can hear that.
01:12:10
What I do is that I monitor everything
using a multi-meter inside Logic.
01:12:16
And what I'm looking for is not the peak,
but the RMS.
01:12:19
A lot of people have
different ways of doing things.
01:12:22
I like the RMS because I feel like that's
the weight of the sound that you hear,
how it feels really.
01:12:29
And I don't like to go too much
above -10, -9 RMS.
01:12:36
But different people have different rules.
01:12:38
So let's listen to it with the limiter
and let's adjust the
limiter to get to that sort of
level that I feel that's healthy.
01:13:13
I'm happy with that, as you can see
I was really close to
the result that I wanted
and now I know if I play this in a Club
it will match the level of
another commercial track.
01:13:25
This is just an example
of how I mix live in the flow.
01:13:29
I hope this will help you get
to the finish line with your projects.
01:13:32
I'm gonna leave you with my track
'Believe' featuring Kathy Diamond.
01:13:35
And I hope to see you next time.
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Software
- Channel EQ
- Chorus
- Gain
- EchoBoy Jr.
- Eventide H910 Dual Harmonizer
- Eventide Ultra Reverb
- MultiMeter
- Overdrive
- Space Designer
- Tape Delay
- UAD DBX 160
- UAD EMT 250
- UAD Fairchild 670 Legacy
- UAD Harrison 32C
- UAD Neve 1073
- UAD Precision Buss Compressor
- UAD Precision Limiter
- UAD Pultec Pro Legacy
- UAD SSL G Bus Compressor
- UAD Teletronix LA-2A Legacy
French Canadian DJ/Producer Fred Everything is a key player in the world of House Music with two decades in the music business and a discography of more than 200 releases to his credit. Born in Hull and raised in Quebec City, Fred caught the bug early for electronic music in high school, working summer jobs washing dishes to buy his first synths. He then formed a few bands while spending his weekends as the youngest kid in local nightclubs. In the early 90s, he started playing live in raves and clubs across Canada. He was then known simply as “Everything,” because of the eclectic nature of his sets, which would include Techno, House, Ambient and even Drum & Bass. A highlight of that period was opening for Sasha at Metropolis in Montreal. Tired of carrying his 909 and 101 around, he started to DJ more actively and changed his name to ‘Fred Everything’. A move to the big city of Montreal was the next obvious thing, where he landed a job at the city’s legendary Inbeat Record Store. It wasn’t too long after, that Fred found himself releasing on some of his favorite labels and touring internationally.
Lazy Days
Defected
Montreal
Kathy Diamond is a funk/disco house singer-songwriter from London, United Kingdom. She was born in Sheffield in the north of England. Her love for soul and disco started at an early age, gaining inspiration from Donna Summer.
Believe
CLICK_HEREMusic CreditsBelieve
By Kathy Diamond
Kathy Diamond is a funk/disco house singer-songwriter from London, United Kingdom. She was born in Sheffield in the north of England. Her love for soul and disco started at an early age, gaining inspiration from Donna Summer.- Artist
- Kathy Diamond
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