00:00:42 To figure out this guitar balances I need
to hear it go from the Verse to the Chorus.
00:01:49 So I've got sort of a general
Chorus - Verse balance going.
00:01:54 I'm gonna go to the Bridge
because I know that there's
separate guitar tracks
from what I just balanced.
00:02:01 When I get to automation
there will be more
level changes, and I'll address
the dynamics a little bit more.
00:02:08 But I'm just kind of like,
for the moment, I'm looking to get...
00:02:11 I'm basically having to turn
the guitars up a little bit
now that I've made the
drums and bass a bit louder,
I need to get the guitars up
to where they're competing with it.
00:02:20 So I'm looking over there,
balance real quick.
00:02:24 Then I can go look at
what that overall bus treatment is
and then I'll go back and
do some specific things.
00:02:29 I already hear where I wanna make
Chris' verse part a little bit brighter
and Rich's
rhythm part have a
little bit more mid-range
but that's a secondary thing that I'll do.
00:02:42 So let's listen to the Bridge guitars
and get those balanced
so that then I can go look at the
overall bus treatment for the guitars.
00:03:08 I need this to be a group.
00:05:28 I love using the Vintage
Warmer on the guitar bus.
00:05:30 So let's just hear what's
going on in the guitars without it.
00:05:52 It's certainly adding some volume,
it's also adding a little
bit of saturation and grit
aggressiveness to them.
00:05:58 This thing does a lot
of things in one plug-in.
00:06:01 So you have the saturation in a
different band as low, mid and high,
I don't really want any
more low frequency saturation,
just a little in the mid
and a little bit more in the top
so I kind of adjust that,
I'll play you the difference real quick.
00:06:24 Turning down the low saturation kind of
keeps the punch and warmth of
the guitars without getting muddy.
00:06:29 A little mid-range presence
and then opening the top,
the high-end is really
where all the benefit is.
00:06:42 That saturation up in the top band
just adds a little bit of color and warmth.
00:06:46 Adds a little bit of sparkle
and gets the guitars to open up.
00:06:48 Then there's the knee, that's sort of
the shape and onset of the compression.
00:06:52 I'll turn it all the way down.
00:07:23 The speed is kind of the release time,
I've slowed it down a little bit to
kind of warm the sound back up.
00:07:29 There's a little bit of high-frequency EQ,
boosted just a little bit at...
00:07:32 way up there top.
00:07:34 13 kHz. I rolled off
a little bit of the subs.
00:07:38 I can change the mix,
I'll back it off so you can
hear the change that way.
00:07:56 It's adding some color and warmth
and aggression,
and forward feeling to the guitars.
00:08:02 Like I said, there's some individual EQ
that I wanted to do.
00:08:05 I'll get back to it before
I make those moves,
I kind of wanna hear what's gonna be like
with my keyboards in.
00:08:12 You know, the whole time we've
been listening to the programming,
I'll come back to that.
00:08:17 So let's get the keyboards going.
00:08:24 I'm gonna do a little
bit of an initial balancing
to kind of get them competing
with the volume changes
on the bass and drums.
00:08:31 I've also turned the guitars up,
you kind of need to turn everything up
a little bit now.
00:08:35 And once I balance
the keyboards a little bit
I'm gonna go over, and I'm gonna
check it in my stereo bus and see if
I've done anything significant.
00:08:44 I feel like we're gonna be in a good spot
but I'm gonna check it
out and show it to you.
00:09:50 So the Celeste and this synth,
without it the guitar just feels
a little bit lonely over there
on the right side and with them in
you really still feel the focus
of the guitar but it kind of
fills it out, the sound of it out,
and kind of spreads it out across the
stereo field,
it's kind of nice thickening thing.
00:10:09 And I'll solo this up just to remind you
again what they sound like on their own.
00:10:16 There's the bright sound that
adds a little bit of articulation
and brightness to the notes
and then the bassy keyboard is adding
a little bit of those
fundamental overtones in
kind of an interesting way.
00:10:32 And actually, now that I say that, I feel like
this just needs a little bit of
mid-range pull.
00:11:04 I just switched my speakers
to get a little quick reference.
00:11:09 Typically,
you know, like I mentioned before,
I'd be moving a little faster,
I'd probably be changing my
monitor level a little bit more.
00:11:16 I'm kind of at a pretty
moderate level right now,
it's a good listening level,
it's not too quiet, it's not too loud.
00:11:22 I don't...
00:11:22 You know,
when it's too loud it's exciting
but you get ear fatigue,
it's hard sometimes to judge the bass.
00:11:28 I find that at lower levels,
especially like rhythmic and
transient energy, vocal levels
are a bit more accurate.
00:11:34 I'm sort of keeping it at a
kind of conversational level.
00:11:38 Sort of
about the same
volume as my voice.
00:11:42 Which is probably 75 to 80 dB
that's kind of a typical
conversational voice level.
00:11:49 80 to 90 dB is a good listening range.
00:11:52 I'm conscious of not
listening too loud for too long,
I definitely turn it up, I wanna feel it
and have that experience.
00:11:59 You can kind of tell what's going
on with your low-end that way,
a bit more.
00:12:03 And, you know, switching speakers,
I just kind of want
to let you know about that.
00:12:07 Because I'm working and talking so much,
I haven't been changing it
as much as I normally would.
00:12:13 As we get a little bit further along
and I'm getting out of like
such small specific segments
and I start to hear the whole mix
I will be changing the volume a bit more.
00:12:23 Especially
when I put vocal and
want to balance that,
I'm gonna make sure, at low level,
that it's very
clear but it doesn't feel
too separate from the music
and then I'm gonna turn it up
loud and make sure that's
not to...
00:12:40 nothing is really piercing or poking out
and that the low-end feels
full but doesn't feel out of control.
00:12:47 Because,
when you turn the speakers up loud
you start getting the room involved
and
that can tell you some good things
but can also be dangerous because
you're hearing the space as opposed to
what's strictly coming
out of the speakers.
00:13:00 To follow along let's
look at a decibel meter
and just sort of see
where my speaking voice is,
the thing I was talking about
and
what the volume I'm listening to.
00:13:18 It's a little louder than I've been
but it's averaging around 77,
78.
00:13:25 My speaking voice actually is around 70.
00:13:28 So I'm just listening a little
bit over speaking volume.
00:13:31 It's good to kind of monitor your level,
let's turn it up to about 85.
00:13:51 The mid 80s, volume wise,
is a good place to
listen and I'll be there.
00:13:58 When I start doing mix
moves I wanna be in that
80 to 90 range
because that's a very balanced
decibel range in terms of
loudness energy.
00:14:08 But until I get there I don't
wanna fatigue my ears.
00:14:11 In all reality, yeah,
I'm listening a little bit louder
than my speaking voice.
00:15:16 On my keyboard bus
I don't really, I mean,
it's just there to do
like a little overall EQ.
00:15:22 I rolled of some of the subsonic stuff
that is just unnecessary
frequency stuff that's gonna be taking
dynamic availability away from my
drum kit
and some other things.
Those low frequencies
on the keyboards,
especially in this song,
because it's all kind of mid-range,
high color
atmospheric stuff for the most part,
backing up some of the
band melodies on the guitar
and just kind of give it
a little bit of a presence.
00:15:50 Once in a while,
I mean, it's not very often
that I will compress keyboards.
00:15:54 Sometimes I might do
something in parallel if I feel like
I needed a little bit more of that
full
punch feeling out of something.
00:16:03 Now,
if this was a different style of music
this might go a different way.
00:16:06 But I'm just doing a little bit of
balancing, and a little bit of EQ
on the keyboards.
00:16:11 Let's get the vocal in here.
00:16:15 This is where I'm gonna turn
the speakers down a little bit.
00:16:18 For me, and I think it's
kind of a general rule that
works for a lot of people,
is you can tell a little better
what your vocal balance is
in relationship
to the rest of the track.
00:16:26 If I have the
speakers super loud,
where there's all this...
00:16:30 all the room is kind of getting involved,
you just make the wrong
judgment about the vocal level.
00:18:19 You know,
Rich's sings off the mic because
he has so much volume.
00:18:23 Typically you might add something
in the upper mid-range for a voice
but because he's off the mic a little bit
I typically add some bottom-end in here.
00:18:31 But I'm adding a titch more than
I might normally, and also, the mid-range,
articulation presence
I'm giving it is 700,
to kind of fill out
the tone just a little bit on him.
00:18:41 And than opened up
the top for a little air.
00:18:43 I adjusted the compressor a little bit,
as you can see,
we're getting a decent and
healthy amount of compression,
but it's well recorded and the way
that I have the attack and release set
it's pretty transparent.
This is a great compressor,
the 1176 is the desert island compressor.
00:18:55 Rich has a higher timbre to his voice,
there's a lot of color to it
in the upper mid-range.
00:19:00 The blue stripe compressor
tends to have a little bit
more grit and dirt to it than...
00:19:06 like a blackface.
00:19:07 Let's pull up the blackface 1176,
the revision E.
00:19:12 I'll bypass the blue stripe.
00:19:13 We'll get it set up.
00:20:15 I have them set up in pretty similar way
and I'll switch them one more time.
00:20:20 I'm liking the blackface,
I have feeling that might be the case
because there's just a
little too much color with it
that's not adding up
to be very flattering.
00:20:28 Let's listen again.
00:20:46 It sits in the mix way way better for me.
00:20:49 The tonality and color of Rich's voice
feels just way more balanced.
00:20:53 I'll get rid of that.
00:20:54 The de-esser
sounds better with
the oversampling at times 2.
00:20:58 I've got it in 'single vocal',
'split band'.
00:21:01 A de-esser works like it's a compressor.
00:21:03 But it's something that you
set up to specifically compress
and react to high
frequencies because it has a
a filter band on it.
00:21:11 If you do wide band
it's basically when the detection tells it
to turn it down and do its compression
it's doing in more full frequency,
split band means it's just doing
the upper frequencies.
00:21:21 And then there's also these modes like
'single vocal',
more tailored to the timbre of a voice
and what happens with the
Ss and sibilance of a voice
versus 'Allround',
which is looking at more
general high frequency information
tailored for general high
frequency information
to do the de-essing job.
00:21:38 Sometimes I use de-essers on
snare tracks to get rid of hi-hats,
room mics, to get rid of cymbal wash.
00:21:45 'Alround' might be better in
that case and even 'wide band'.
00:21:48 So,
that's kind of what those parameters do.
00:22:03 You can see where,
the 'say' was really dipped down.
00:22:08 Let's see, let's go find that line.
00:22:24 It just helps that sound more
natural and balanced.
00:22:27 I added a little bit of
EQ post all this stuff.
00:22:31 It helped to roll just a little
bit more of the really deep subs off.
00:22:36 Something else more in the voice,
I added just a little bump at 160 Hz.
00:22:41 So now let's get into a little bit
of what's going on with vocal FX.
00:22:44 We've got Sugar in here,
it's not really doing anything yet
but I'm using it kind of as a Dolby A FX
which is upper harmonic excitement,
used like an aural exciter,
it's in parallel, it's just
adding a little bit of brightness.
00:22:57 OK, let's look at what this sounds like.
00:23:00 We're gonna turn this up.
We actually only want the FX return.
00:23:17 You can hear that really bright
articulation that it's adding to it.
00:23:21 I'm gonna put it back balanced
and back down in here where I had it
and I'll turn it on and off.
00:23:35 Where I've controlled some of the Ss
with the De-esser
this is adding a little bit back
of that type of sound
but it's adding it to everything
and just kind of
blending in really nicely.
00:23:45 I feel like I want to just
get rid of
some of this unnecessary
low frequency stuff going on.
00:24:39 I turned it up so I could
see what these parameters sound like,
each band has sort of a different
profile to it, I was just sort of
scrolling through those.
00:24:50 This is doing a great job of being
my Dolby A.
00:24:54 Now, the 'Vocal H3K',
all this really is is a Micro pitch-shift.
00:24:58 I'm gonna make sure that we're
getting a good amount of level sent to it.
00:25:32 This is a Micro pitch-shifter,
the return is 100%, we're hearing all FX,
I'll turn it really loud real quick.
00:25:43 What it's adding is a
little of Micro Pitch-Shift
and it's almost like a
little bit of a chorus.
00:25:48 By doing this,
it's a little bit sharp on one side,
a little bit flat on the other.
00:25:52 It's spreading the pitch center out
just a little bit and thickening.
00:25:55 But it's similar in the way the delay
on the bass kind of just,
it keeps it in the middle but
thickens it out just a little bit.
00:26:01 So the 'Focus' is
what the primary frequencies
where it's focused on
where it's doing this micro pitch-shift.
00:26:09 The 'Detune' is how much
it's detuning it, left and right,
flat and sharp
and then
there's a little bit of
a really quick delay.
00:26:18 Just adding a little bit of thickening.
00:26:19 Let's turn it back up and just
see with the different styles.
00:26:22 I most often end up on 1
but sometimes a different
style is better for a voice.
00:26:36 I like 1 the best.
00:27:11 I set up a little bit
of a slap delay there.
00:27:15 We'll set this second delay up
for a longer
delay for the Chorus.
00:27:54 The slap delay, the time on that,
I got it set to a 16th triplet,
71 ms, it's pretty tight,
it's not like a
more traditional slap delay,
that would be almost twice that.
00:28:05 I just want a little bit of
early reflection to sort of fill
the sound out a little bit.
00:28:09 The Echoplex
has a little more of a mid-range presence
and then I've done a long delay
which I briefly pulled up,
a little over 300 ms.
00:28:20 And that's just to have a little bit
of a delay throw to turn
up on the Chorus to have.
00:28:24 The 'Space Echo' is a little bit cloudier
and not as mid-range present delay
as the Echoplex.
00:28:30 I want the longer delays to be heard
but also just kind of a little bit felt,
so I want them a little
bit cloudier and not as distinct.
00:28:39 And then let's get a
little bit of this reverb
set up on the voice.
00:28:48 I tend to like the C plate the best.
00:28:55 The input filter,
I wanna roll off some of the bottom end.
00:28:58 Although, with Rich,
we maybe don't wanna roll off too much.
00:29:09 Because, higher timbre to his voice,
it's farther off the mic, I thought,
'well, let's see if
we want to have some that low,
those lower frequencies that
I've been kind of turning up on the EQ
fed into the reverb.
00:29:22 Typically,
I usually set it around 125, 190.
00:29:26 I switched it down to 90,
it just kind of,
it didn't make it as clear and focused,
I'll just do it one more time.
00:29:49 It just feels better to me
with that hi-pass filter in there.
00:29:53 I wanna turn up some of the pre delay.
00:30:19 I've got these in place
because I'll send the
vocal double to the H3000,
let's turn that on and see what that does.
00:30:29 I don't like that, it takes some
of the focus away.
00:30:32 Then I have the second reverb over here.
00:30:34 Sometimes I send straight to it
from the vocal but often times I'll
just send an element of
one of the other effects
that's to that reverb.
00:30:44 So let's get that set up.
00:30:58 Here again, I'm sending to the reverb off
of the Micro pitch-shift.
00:31:02 It's a little bit wider and
blurrier sounding tonally
then sending the lead
vocal there off the vocal bus.
00:31:08 And it kind of gets a different
texture in place for the reverb,
it fills it out in a different way.
00:31:13 I'll also try to send
the really short delay
to the reverb as well, instead.
00:31:35 I think I might like that for the Chorus,
let me just see what it
sounds like in the Verse,
I feel like it's gonna be
too much in the Verse.
00:31:54 I do know that I like the short
delay in the Chorus where I had it
but it feels like it's balanced
too hot right now for the Verse.
00:32:08 I'll automate that up for the Choruses.
00:32:11 I like this for the Verse
where there's nothing
going to the second reverb
and the delays are kind of
turned down a little bit, I'm actually
gonna turn this longer delay down
a little bit more for the Verse.
That will get turned up for the Chorus.
00:32:25 Most of the time my FX
returns are turned down
somewhere -6 or below
because
I want to push a lot of level
into the reverb or whatever the FX is
to get the most out of the tone.
00:32:41 Reverb emulates what
we sound like in a room.
00:32:44 If I'm in a bathroom, let's say,
and I'm talking in a
little speaking voice,
well, I'll hear the room a little bit.
00:32:49 The color and sound of the reverb
is not gonna be the same as if
I was shouting in there or talking loud.
00:32:55 And so,
there's a point at where the
sound becomes good with how much
you're sending through the FX.
00:33:02 What I'm trying to get to
is the good gain structure
is to have the returns
pulled down a little bit,
it forces you into
sending more level into it.
00:33:11 It's almost like
the parallel compression or something,
the way you're balancing
it in to fill the sound out
I'll just demonstrate it real quick.
00:33:44 I just hear a little bit more of the
warmth and depth of the reverb
the way I've got it set up.
00:33:49 You still hear a reverb,
no question about that, the other way,
but it's a different sound.
00:33:54 And I generally
almost always prefer
it the way I've described it,
the gain structure
being...
send the proper amount of level
into the unit to get
the best sound out of it
and then
balance the return that way.
00:34:11 Another thing I do is a run a...
00:34:12 there's a parallel bus
for the vocal.
00:34:16 I sort of stole using this
particular compressor for this
from the way Andrew
Scheps does his back bus.
00:34:22 He uses this compressor as a back bus
for his instrumentation.
00:34:26 I like using it for the vocal.
00:34:28 I took a little bit of a cue from
what he was doing because this
version of the 1176, this plug-in
has something special
that none of the others do,
is it has a 2:1 ratio.
00:34:40 So it's a very low ratio,
I'm gonna be using this
very aggressively,
it's gonna be doing a lot of compression.
00:34:45 It's gonna have a very early onset,
early attack,
a slow release.
00:34:49 It's gonna give a bit
of size and warmth to the vocal
and just kind of make it sit a little bit.
00:34:55 I'll get this set up
and we'll talk about it.
00:34:58 So, this is sending off of the vocal bus,
which is already compressed,
into more compression. And this
is being blended in as a parallel.
00:36:08 Hopefully you can hear how
that's feeling out things a little bit.
00:36:11 I'm gonna take it to the Verse
and turn it on and off for you.
00:36:24 My goal here
really shouldn't change
the transient or dynamic
volume and energy of the voice.
00:36:33 It's just sort of filling
the tone out a little bit.
00:36:36 And the way I'm doing that is,
you can observe a lot of compression,
the onset is pretty fast,
so it responds pretty quickly to it,
that's why it's not adding a lot of energy
to the transients and
dynamic of the vocal.
00:36:48 And it's also a very slow release.
00:36:49 Once the vocal starts
it's just very much sitting
on the sound and the tone
and I'm just kind of blending it in.
Let's observe and I'll turn it on and off.
00:37:12 Another thing that I'll point out with
the way that I have it set up
is, in-between the lines, obviously,
it has a little bit more time to recover.
00:37:20 And so it also helps make
the beginnings of all the phrases
really poke out and punch out.
00:37:28 Because, really, what's happening
is the very beginning of the line
is allowed to have the loudest transient.
00:37:33 Once the compressor is
activated
because the release is
slow enough
it's completely holding it down
but it's compressing and
keeping the dynamic down for
the duration of the line.
00:37:49 It's just sort of adding a little bit of
apparent volume and tone
and sort of punchiness to the voice.
00:37:55 And I don't mean punchiness
in like articulation punchiness,
I just kind of mean like fat,
kind of tone punch.
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Award-winning Producer, Engineer, and Mixer, Jacquire King, has worked with some of the world’s most influential artists in every role you can imagine in a recording studio. From being an acclaimed recordist to mixing and producing multi-platinum records (9X in the case of Kings Of Leon) by superstars like Kaleo, Modest Mouse, Kings of Leon, Tom Waits, Norah Jones, Buddy Guy, Cold War Kids, MuteMath, Melissa Etheridge, and James Bay.
To date, Jacquire has received several awards for his meticulous attention to detail and unique approach to creating records that withstand the test of time.
His discography is well-known for the variety of music encompassed from the past 20 years. When you see Jacquire’s tutorials on pureMix, you will have the chance to sit next to a true master at work, who strives to enhance the artist's vision and serve the songs he helps deliver to the masses.
