In this audio mixing tutorial, Fab mixes a simple and beautiful acoustic song by the ever talented Will Knox with just vocals, banjo, guitar & room microphones. He walks you through the mix step by step explaining every setting and decision. Learn how to quickly make a great sounding mix using only Universal Audio UAD plugins.
Fab show you how to:
Equalize the vocals and then apply a tasteful amount of compression
Tweak the tone and dynamics of the acoustic guitar with EQ and compression
Cleaning up the Banjo sound using EQ
Select and tweak the perfect reverb settings
Mix bus compression to glue the mix together without destroying the dynamics
The attached zip file contains the original uncompressed files of the session.
Please download it and import these files in the DAW to practice mixing this song using your own tastes, tools, plug-ins along with Fab's tips and tricks provided in this mixing tutorial.
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.
00:00:06 I thought it'd be fun to take
a few minutes to mix the song
that we tracked with the 4-710
earlier today,
and it's only four tracks,
so it shouldn't take too long.
00:00:15 I have it up here in Pro Tools,
as you can see.
00:00:18 I have a Vox track, an Acoustic
guitar track, a Banjo track,
a Room track, which is just the ambient
microphone, somewhere in the room,
and then, I send everything
to this Aux, and I print it to a track.
00:00:31 So, I'm just gonna mix it
in real time.
00:00:34 The first thing I'm gonna do is listen
to a part where everybody's playing,
say the vocal, and listen
to the raw tracks.
00:00:50 Nice separation with the guitar,
you noticed there's almost
no guitar in the vocal.
00:00:59 Even though he was playing the guitar
at the same time.
00:01:01 Let's listen to the guitar.
00:01:11 Excellent!
Let's listen to the banjo.
00:01:21 Alright! There's gonna be no fixing,
just mixing, which is nice.
00:01:25 Let's start with the vocal...
So, here...
00:01:42 That sounds very nice.
00:01:43 I hear a little bit of a nose, and then
I'd like more extension,
for it to sound like
it's kind of floating in the air.
00:01:51 If I listen again, there's a little bit
of a bunch in the middle,
which is normal with Will,
that's the way he sounds,
because he's concentrating on the guitar
and he's hunched over,
he doesn't have necessarily the fully
open sound, but we can fix that easy.
00:02:03 What I would do here first
is probably use some Cambridge
to get rid of the bottom.
So I use the filter...
00:02:12 and anything that's a little sharp
would be great,
like 36dBs/octave is good.
00:02:17 We've got to make sure we're not
cutting the bottom of the vocal,
so we have to listen while we tweak.
00:02:27 Using the Bypass button
let's you make absolutely sure
that you're not cutting
anything you want.
00:02:33 You might be cutting some stuff
that's in the way,
but let's make sure we're not
cutting anything we want.
00:02:37 So you'll see my button here
turning the thing on and off.
00:02:50 I think we're very safe.
00:02:52 Is there a point to high-passing
like this? Yes, there is!
There's stuff down there,
some of the attack of the guitar,
there's some stuff we don't hear.
If he tapped his foot, it's there.
00:03:00 So if I'm planning to compress further
or anything,
it's good to get rid
of the bottom,
to the extent that it's not ruining
the bottom of the vocal, of course.
00:03:09 My other problem is here, somewhere
in the middle. Check it out.
00:03:12 I'm gonna look for my problem,
and then get rid of it.
00:03:27 There is a little nose resonance
that I think is in the way.
00:03:31 So, to get rid of it, and it seems
to be around the 400 and change... Hz,
I'm gonna play it without,
and then with.
00:03:52 That may be a bit much, if you hear
the difference, it's quite drastic...
00:03:55 I would say, probably around 1.7...
00:04:08 The high-pass also does great things
for the P's.
00:04:11 Let's see what happens if I try to...
00:04:14 if I hear, he goes
"I don't want to be... a box of toys."
I'm gonna use an LA-2
and try and get that.
00:04:24 Nice, neat! Maybe less, even.
00:04:33 Very nice.
Without, it sounds like this.
00:04:43 It may be like a subtle difference,
but it's not really that subtle.
00:04:47 It's subtle, like this,
you have to sometimes pay attention
to what the difference is,
but the reality is that
if I put a little bit more compression,
like I have right now,
it allows for the vocal to just
stay there and not move.
00:05:03 I find it very annoying when you're
chilling and listening to a track,
and all of a sudden, the vocal
kind of like hits you between the eyes.
00:05:09 I find that very disruptive
to the music.
00:05:11 I like my vocals to stay put,
but I don't like to hear
that they're being dealt with
under the table.
00:05:18 So I would like to keep the vocal
very natural and very forward,
but still very steady.
00:05:25 Steady is the word I was looking for.
So check it out!
With.
00:05:34 And without.
00:05:42 There's a certain fragility
to have it be more raw,
and that's because we didn't push
the compressor very hard
on the tracking side of the 4-710.
00:05:53 We just used it as an overall setting
to keep things in place,
and it sounded great.
00:05:58 But I think with a little touch
of LA-2A, it's kind of perfect.
00:06:04 Maybe a little bit more...
00:06:10 Yeah.
00:06:14 I like that.
00:06:15 Now's the time for me to think forward
and I know that I'm gonna have
to make this vocal,
which I like the sound of by itself,
but I know I need to open the top
and I know it's gonna need to happen
in conjunction,
or in comparison to the other tracks
in the mix.
00:06:29 So I'm gonna prepare myself
and bring my Pultec,
because that always works.
00:06:35 And let's try, say, 10k...
00:06:39 And see how that sounds.
00:06:45 That sounds bright-ish, and not
necessarily very elegant!
Let's try higher.
I would vouch for 16k,
maybe a little less,
let's see how that sounds.
00:07:00 That's very nice!
Without, it sounded like this.
00:07:06 And with.
00:07:09 Yeah!
I like that "haaa" thing.
I think that's great.
00:07:14 I also would like a little bit of...
like... I don't know how to explain,
just... upper mid open.
Check it out.
00:07:21 If I push 5k on this with the Pultec,
it sounds like this.
00:07:24 I'm gonna start flat, and you're
gonna see this knob go up.
00:07:32 Nice presence, right?
Check it out! With.
00:07:41 And without the whole thing.
00:07:49 It's a little duller,
and a little less exciting.
00:07:53 So if we look at the journey
we've made since the beginning,
and I get rid of the Cambridge, the LA-2
and the Pultec... This is all flat.
00:08:07 That's a little unruly,
a little teenager-like.
00:08:10 And this is with everybody.
00:08:19 I really like this. I don't think
I need much more.
00:08:21 So I'm gonna start blending
with the guitar,
which is pretty much
all I have to blend.
00:08:28 Let's listen to the track,
vocal and guitar together.
00:08:35 So...
00:08:38 I'm turning the guitar on and off
to see if the vocal is affected from
the bleed of the vocal into the guitar mic.
00:08:44 I'm also looking at how my vocal
perception is affected
by the sound of the guitar
under it.
00:08:51 And I genuinely do not
like it right now.
00:08:53 So I'm gonna do the same thing.
I'm gonna take a Cambridge,
and get rid of the bottom.
00:09:01 There's something in the low-mids
of the guitar
that makes the vocal sound
unpleasant.
00:09:06 I'm gonna look for it,
and try and get rid of it.
00:09:19 That's not bad.
00:09:22 There's still that little "Mmm, mmm..."
Let's see where it's at.
00:09:30 That is ugly. Let's get rid of that.
00:09:44 I really like that tone.
00:09:45 It probably needs refinement,
but this is kind of nice.
00:09:49 I feel that there are some notes
still sticking out on the guitar.
00:09:53 I feel that it would benefit
from compression,
so, let's try and see what it sounds
like with an LA-2,
and I would actually probably
try in Compress mode.
00:10:04 Now, when would you use Compress mode,
and when would you use Limit mode?
If you wanna put a rational thought
behind it, if you have a tendency
when you need to just catch some peaks
that are in the way, use the Limit mode,
because it's gonna be less destructive
to the overall signal.
00:10:19 Destructive in a good way, of course!
Then, use the Compress mode
when you need constant gain riding,
but not necessarily so severe.
00:10:30 Try both and...
Let's try both! Check it out.
00:10:33 This is with Compress...
00:10:36 More of it.
00:10:46 So you noticed on the entry lick,
those two notes...
00:10:50 those two notes get caught
pretty heavily by the LA-2A,
and it's kind of an interesting tone.
00:11:02 What would the Limit mode
do to that?
Well, I probably would have to limit
a little more. Check it out.
00:11:13 So it catches them better,
but I don't know that I like that tone,
because it changes
kind of the balance
between the vocal and the guitar.
00:11:20 Check it out, this is with Limit.
00:11:29 Or... with... compression.
00:11:37 So now, let's not kid ourselves.
This is the same...
00:11:41 gain reduction technique. It's just
different Attack and Release settings,
and Threshold settings.
00:11:48 I like the Compress mode better,
and I'm gonna be a little severe
with it. Check it out.
00:12:02 I like that.
It's cute.
00:12:05 Ok! Now I have a nice balance
between the two tracks,
I need some space.
So I'm gonna create an Aux track.
00:12:13 Actually, two! And I'm gonna assign
a Plate 140 on one of them,
and an EMT 250 on the other.
00:12:20 140... and, here's the 250 right here.
00:12:24 I'm gonna use a blend of those two
reverbs to get the tone I want.
00:12:27 Since I'm setting up my reverb
from scratch,
the first thing I'm gonna do is take
my vocal, solo it,
and send a lot of it to the reverb,
so I can really hear
what the reverb is doing,
and how it sounds.
00:12:36 Then I will play
with the different settings,
and once I have something that pleases me,
and makes me feel a certain way,
then I will put
more reasonable amounts of it.
00:12:47 That's one way, there's many ways.
00:12:49 This way works great for me,
for a small amount of tracks,
where the reverb
is gonna get heard a lot.
00:12:54 I wanna make sure that what I'm hearing
is pretty. So here it is.
00:13:02 Definitely, it needs to be
a lot shorter.
00:13:05 I'm gonna grab it
and make it shorter.
00:13:10 That's cute.
Let's not overlook the other settings.
00:13:13 This was Plate B, this is A.
00:13:19 That kind of makes me feel nervous,
so let's go to C.
00:13:27 This is still heavy in the bottom,
let's see how it sounds shorter.
00:13:34 I can't... the guitar...
It's gonna be a mess with the guitar.
00:13:37 Let's go back to B.
00:13:41 That's very, very pretty.
Let's high-pass as much as we can.
00:13:53 So how does it sound
with less of it?
It's still a little bit
distracting to me.
00:14:11 What I would do is maybe put the EQ in
and start removing some high end.
00:14:24 I like that. And maybe also
a little bit of that low...
00:14:28 kind of low-mid thing could go.
00:14:36 I really like that.
00:14:38 So let's see how that works
with the guitar back in.
00:14:56 So, it probably needs to be
a little shorter.
00:15:21 So now...
00:15:22 I like the tone of it, but I don't like
that it sounds so separated from the vocal.
00:15:26 I think what the vocal needs is
a little bit of a natural ambience,
so that's probably where the Room mic
would come in.
00:15:34 So let's listen to that Room mic.
00:15:44 Let's EQ it a little bit.
00:15:46 I'm gonna copy that Cambridge over
from here.
00:15:50 Reset it...
00:15:51 I know I'm gonna high-pass the bottom
no matter what,
because I don't know what's down there,
and I probably don't need it,
and I'm gonna try and low-passing
the high end,
and see if it creates
an interesting tone.
00:16:08 Without.
00:16:15 And with.
00:16:22 It helps with the S's.
00:16:24 Let's tuck that under
the rest of the mix.
00:16:42 So, I think that...
00:16:46 that was a wrong choice of reverb.
00:16:47 The Plate 140 doesn't work
on this vocal right now,
this setting is no good.
00:16:53 I'm not gonna beat myself up for it,
I'm just gonna try something else,
and go to the 250, mute the 140,
and try again on the 250.
00:17:04 Cute! Wet Solo,
and not too, too long...
00:17:14 That's so lush!
Check this out.
00:17:20 This may work better, right?
You can hear right away that the grain
is less... how would I say?
It attracts less attention to itself.
00:17:30 Let's see how it sounds
with the other tracks.
00:17:39 I'm gonna shorten it.
00:17:55 That's very nice.
00:17:57 Let's see how it sounds
on the guitar.
00:18:20 Very pretty.
00:18:21 Let's focus on the banjo now.
00:18:23 Let's find a place where it's playing,
like here... It sounds like this.
00:18:36 Very nice. All it needs
is a little high-passing to me.
00:18:50 Ok, I wouldn't do much else to it.
00:18:59 We have a problem. There's a lot
of banjo in the Room mic.
00:19:02 Check it out.
00:19:06 That kind of shifts the balance of power
between the instruments,
so I'm probably gonna lower
the Room mic,
and I'm probably gonna have
to adjust my reverb because of that.
00:19:14 Let's check it out
with less Room mic.
00:19:16 I'm also offsetting the banjo
to the left,
I don't want everything to be in the
middle, I want a little bit of width.
00:19:21 Maybe I could do something
really silly,
like move the Room to the right, and the
banjo to the left, to see if we like that.
00:19:44 That actually kind of works, for some
reason, I can't really tell you why...
00:19:48 Let's see what happens if I open
a little bit of high end on the...
00:19:53 banjo, with the Cambridge.
00:20:08 If I hear the same thing,
without the Room microphone...
00:20:19 It's fine, but it's not the same.
With.
00:20:38 This sounds great!
So... I'm happy with this.
00:20:44 I'm curious to know what it would
sound like if I use the Plate 140
just on the banjo, to give it
a different space. Let's see that.
00:21:00 I kinda dig that!
In the context, it sounds like this.
00:21:13 Same passage,
without the Plate on the banjo.
00:21:26 I like it with. It's a little dreamier,
and it's a little weirder,
and it's a little more... more!
It's more more.
00:21:33 I don't think I have
much more to do.
00:21:35 I just wanna check the dynamic
of the overall tune.
00:21:41 What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pick
the UA Precision Buss Compressor,
and I'm gonna bring it in
pretty drastically,
but only for certain peaks.
00:21:51 So I'm gonna lower the Threshold
of the compressor
until it only catches the peaks
that really bother me,
but doesn't touch anything else.
I'm gonna lower at 10:1,
so it's like whenever a peak
that bothers me is there,
it really is taken. But when nothing is
in the way, then nothing gets touched.
00:22:08 Let's see...
00:22:17 This is pretty subtle,
but see if you see the difference.
00:22:21 Hear the syllables:
"I don't want to be a box of toys."
Without.
00:22:35 There's this burst of energy
on those syllables,
because that's where his vowels
are the most resonant,
and they propel very strongly
in the microphone.
00:22:45 That bothers me.
00:22:47 Also, it kind of separates him
from the guitar a little bit,
which I don't like, it sounds unnatural,
it sounds overdubbed.
00:22:53 If I put a little bit
of that compressor
on the 2-Bus, then you'll be able
to hear that that doesn't happen.
00:22:59 Let's see...
Without compression.
00:23:18 I think it's always very important
and interesting
to listen to the song with and without
the effects,
especially with such few effects.
00:23:30 You know, I do very little...
I mean... like 3dBs at 16k, big deal!
Just a tiny bit of reverb,
2dBs of compression
here and there,
2dBs off, or 1dB off in the low mids.
00:23:42 It shouldn't make that much of
a difference, but it's always fascinating
to hear the song with and without
the effects.
00:23:48 So check this out, I'm gonna play
the same passage,
once with, and once without, so you get
the difference in feeling.
00:23:53 Here we go.
00:24:24 One more time.
00:24:41 Pretty nice!
So, it's really a simple song,
obviously,
but tracked with a 4-710,
all live,
one take, actually two takes,
this is take 2...
00:24:51 using the built-in compressors,
the built-in converters,
and mixed quickly here,
with eight UA plug-ins.
00:25:00 It sounds pretty nice.
00:25:02 Thank you!
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Equipment & Software
Universal Audio UAD plugins used
Cambridge EQ
LA2a
Pultec Pro
EMT140
EMT250
Precision Buss Compressor
Featured Music
This song was written and performed by Will Knox. If you enjoyed this song please support the Will by visiting his web site at: www.will-knox.com
Fab Dupont is a Grammy winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has been nominated for Grammys 6 times, including two Latin Grammys and has received many other accolades around the world, including Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards and US independent music awards.
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.
Thank you for letting us participate in your thought process and not only showing what you did.
It changed my mind of how to think about reverbs. Fill the space between notes and let it stop right before the next one.
These videos become an addiction!
Alex94120
2017 May 29
Beautiful !
soundspace2001
2016 Nov 30
Especially helpful concerning the vocal-processing
Producerpaul
2016 Feb 29
Fab you are the king of the subtle mix. It's so subtle sometimes I can't tell the difference. Maybe my ears are cloudy, who knows. I'm a fan of less subtle mixing. I twist till I can really tell the difference. This being an acoustic song lends itself to the subtle mix. Good job, I just wish I could have noticed more of a change. Oh well
Saul Santilli
2016 Feb 15
Brilliant. Thank you.
tzeyean80@yahoo.com
2015 May 30
fab seems so moddy for this....hahha, not juz paying attention to wat to listern as well wat is the vission...llollzz
fankyg
2014 Dec 18
Great Recording!!! Loved the gentle mix approach! Downloaded the files and noticed that the room track has some rude static noise towards the middle!
Thanks Fab!
michaelpitluk
2013 Dec 10
Eh, voila!
ptalbot
2013 Feb 05
Very nice! Although the recording was already great, how you managed to add that little bit of processing to make it breathe even more is very informative. I was just curious about the fact that you didn't attempted to de-ess the vocal. I felt it sounded a bit harsh in some places and trying it myself, I found this helped smooth it out, and it helped the reverb as well. Anyway, merci pour la leçon!
jaimesoto69
2013 Jan 23
Great video Fab. It's amazing how much those subtle things that you do with EQ's, compressors, and reverbs really enhance and polish the music. Thanks for teaching!
Becky Jo Benson
2012 Jun 23
Fab, the artists that you were working with were just excellent! Then you breathed more life into that song
with your mixing. Thank you for showing us what you did! Truly 'ear candy'! Becky Jo Benson
jam92189
2012 May 30
new to the subscription here but this video helped a lot with ideas for how to mix things.
Dave Zerio
2012 Jan 12
It's great to see you reiterating EQ & Compression on vox on different singers with different mic's in different videos! Thanks for the variety Fab!
musiquero
2011 Jul 23
I only have Universal Audio plug ins and this video was very VERY instructional!. I saw you at the Sweetwater seminar and one of your cards got me in to this web page !, Gracias Man !, Chau, Luis.
fab
2011 Jun 07
Glad you all like the video guys. The mics went as follow:
Vox AEA84/Guitar Royer SF1/Banjo AKG 414/Room U87, all thru a Universal Audio 4-710 preamp using the built in converters straight into Protools. Any compression, probably very light would be the built in compressor of the 4-710 (Kinda 1176 like-ish)
The guys were about 8 feet apart in the Dangerous Live Room at FLUX studios, there was no gobos or anything in between them. We use double Figure8 cancellation techniques to track a singer songwriter playing and singing at the same time. (Coming soon on video).
Fab
islandcode
2011 Jun 06
Fantastic video! Nice song! I think the key to this mixing job is the excellent recording job.
are you open for questions?
1. can you share info on the tracking, position o musicians, mics placement, preamps and compressors? I listened to the raw audio and noticed that the guitar was kinda boomy, was that a compromise to achieve better isolation from vocals?
2. I also noticed there is absolutely none to very little ambience noise on the guitar and vocals, that's pretty amazing especially since the vocal was compresse. (ok, I did hear some parts where the mic seem stressed)
yogoo26
2011 May 31
Hey Fab,
Great video, glad I got a chance to check it out!
~Gregg Fine
http://www.hiddentigermusic.com
LargerLife
2011 May 09
Very great video, very great explanation, what, which, why... these kind of teaching I was looking for for years. Thanks Fab!
