Start To Finish of a Pop-Punk Song
03h 36min
(50)
The ENTIRE Record Making Process
In this Start to Finish video series, see how all of the pieces of the record making puzzle fit together.
Learn how Grammy winner Fab Dupont:
- Produces
- Tracks
- Overdubs
- Edits
- Mixes
- Recalls
- Masters
With over 3.5 hours of non-stop teaching, this is your chance to observe not just the details that going into making a radio-ready record but also how an award winning producer keeps the "bigger picture" in focus and enhances the band's vision for the song.
This tutorial is a fountain of record making know-how and inspiration.
Get ready for tons of tips, tricks and methods that you can apply to your next recording session.
Producing:
- Setting up and laying out the band in the studio to track together to capture a "live" feel
- Mic choices and placement for drums, bass, guitar and vocals
- Studio signal flow and patching
- Making on-the-fly arrangement tweaking to give the song a solid pop structure
- Double tracking guitars for a full and wide sound
- Vocal harmonies and doubling
Mixing:
- Vocal editing and comping that quickly finds the optimal takes for each moment of the song
- Sonically transforming drum tracks recorded by himself from "pretty good" to a modern, punchy and aggressive drum sound
- Using analog summing and stem mixing techniques for maximum depth and mix clarity
- Adding reverb and delay effects to reinforce the vocal presence and give the mix some "sauce"
- Blending together multiple guitar amps with an amp simulator to create a thick and present guitar tone
- Dialing in the perfect vocal tone and compression for the genre
- Mix bus equalization and compression as well as using the special analog 2-Bus+ processing
- Automating the mix to bring out all of the special moments of the song
- Listening and utilizing a reference mixes playlist
- Using multiple drum crush buses to get the perfect amount of smack out of the kick and snare
- Adding life to entire mix as a whole and piece by piece
Recalling:
- After stepping away from the studio, Fab and Joey return with mix changes big and small
- Enhancing the drums sound with a sample and a little extra EQ and automation
- Tweaking the guitar mic blend
- Refining the vocal sound with EQ and subtle Melodyne
- Altering the equalization on the mix bus
Mastering:
- How to take a song that's been mixed with a "mastered" sound in mind
- Mastering signal flow and workflow
- Metering and loudness
- Matching the tone and vibe with the band's previous record
- Making tweaks to the overall sonic shape and most importantly depth of the mix
- Opening up the sides and cleaning up the guitar tone using mid-side EQ
- Refine your listening skills with detailed "Listen For" exercises all along the way
This is an honest look at the WHOLE record making process, mistakes and all, so you can learn every step that goes into producing a modern rock song.
Even engineers and producers who don't make rock records will walk away with ideas and tricks they can bring from the rock world to their own music.
Don't forget, you can download the raw stems to the full song to hear the results of the tracking session and then try your hand at mixing and mastering the song!
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
- 00:0 - Introduction
- 00:48 - Listening to the Demo
- 02:38 - The Studio
- 03:34 - The Drums
- 06:51 - Tracking Setup - Drums
- 09:10 - Tracking Setup - Bass
- 11:39 - Tracking Setup - Guitar
- 15:29 - The Patch Bay
- 17:10 - The Session
- 18:17 - Gain Staging - Drums
- 26:33 - Gain Staging - Bass
- 30:44 - Gain Staging - Guitar & Vocals
- 36:07 - Replacing the Snare
- 37:35 - Playlists
- 40:30 - Rearranging the song
- 48:15 - Musicians Tip - Starting Each Take
- 49:41 - Recording a Take
- 51:31 - Doubling the Guitar
- 53:08 - Recording Background Vocals
- 58:13 - Recording Group Vocals
- 58:50 - Listening to the Rough Mix
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:0 - Start
- 00:48 - Comping the Vocals
- 08:51 - Setup Stems and Buses
- 15:18 - Getting a Drum Sound
- 27:36 - Getting a Bass Sound
- 33:19 - Guitar Tone
- 37:24 - Listening To Reference Tracks
- 41:10 - Anchor the Bass
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:0 - Adding Guitar Delay
- 01:52 - Drum Crush
- 09:58 - Adding The Vocal
- 14:00 - 2 Bus - Adding Some Glue
- 15:55 - Adding The Background Vocals
- 18:25 - Drums - Adding the Toms
- 25:34 - 2 Bus - Adding More Life
- 26:49 - Reverb - Adding More Space
- 32:39 - Vocal Automation
- 35:38 - Guitar Amp Emulation
- 39:20 - Print - Final Touches
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:0 - Intro
- 02:57 - Tweak #1 - Adding a Snare Sample
- 11:37 - Tweak #2 - Making the Vocals a Little More
- 20:37 - Tweak #3 - Adjusting the Guitar Blend
- 22:13 - Tweak #4 - 2-Bus EQ Adjustment
- 23:02 - Tweak #5 - Tuning the Vocal
- 25:05 - Tweak #6 - Drum Automation
- 28:14 - Final Mix
- 00:00 - Start
- 00:0 - Start
- 02:44 - Step 1 - Setup the Routing
- 06:17 - Step 2 - Inserting a Peak Limiter
- 07:20 - Step 3 - Mid-Side EQ
- 12:39 - Step 4 - Dangerous BAX EQ
- 25:08 - Step 5 - Cleaning Up The High End
- 36:29 - Recap Playback
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 |
00:00:08
Good morning children. Today...
00:00:10
we are going to record music
for real men.
00:00:13
I know what you're thinking,
and I think the same.
00:00:16
Enough of that sensitive
singer-songwriter
Open E and then that:
"My life sucks"
"Let me tell you
how it sucks"
What we are gonna do today
is different. Is gonna be more like:
"Argh My life sucks...
Argh Let me tell you how it sucks"
And that's a lot more fun.
00:00:30
And I wore a t-shirt, and a shirt
on top of it to blend...
00:00:33
...with the band.
00:00:35
The name of the band
is DCO
Which stands for: Dry clean only.
(Which I love)
The name of the song is Ugly
And the first thing we're gonna do
is listen to the one iPhone demo,
that they e-mailed me
before we did the session.
00:00:47
Here we go...
00:02:40
A diagram of Flux Studios.
00:02:42
Here is the control room.
00:02:44
This is where I'm speaking
to you from.
00:02:46
And this is where Josh is patching.
00:02:49
This is the live room.
00:02:51
Where Ron is gonna bang on the drums,
and Connor's gonna be
playing bass next to him,
even though his amp
is in the Iso (booth).
00:02:59
Which is also the mic closet.
00:03:01
Then, Joey is gonna be singing
and playing guitar.
00:03:04
Joey is gonna be
in the Aquarium,
because we want to be
able to have Joey and just Joey.
00:03:08
Not Joey with a lot of Ron in it.
00:03:11
He's playing guitar in there,
but his amp
is in the Sound Lock.
00:03:15
That's the Sound Lock,
right here.
00:03:17
That's where the two
guitar amps are.
00:03:20
And, in every room,
there's a bunch of panels.
00:03:24
Where all the tide-lines and
all the mic lines are connecting.
00:03:27
And they all end up here.
00:03:29
At that patch-bay.
00:03:31
That Josh is masterfully
setting up.
00:03:35
This is a modern Grid set.
00:03:38
So, they are pretty
good drums.
00:03:40
And all the cymbals are new, which
means they're gonna be very bright.
00:03:44
I had the drummer switch his
very, very bright hi-hats
for the studio hi-hats
that are much duller.
00:03:52
And the reason for that
is that
he plays very loud,
and so...
00:03:56
And he plays the "hats" very loud.
And that's the style and that's cool.
00:03:59
But with "hats" this loud
it's gonna be hard to
get a good snare sound.
00:04:05
Especially since the snare...
00:04:08
...is made out of air.
00:04:09
If you look at the snare
you can actually
see through the snare.
00:04:13
Because there's...
00:04:15
I can see you right now.
00:04:17
All this little holes here are
just perforated.
00:04:22
I've never seen this before.
00:04:23
I have no idea how it's
gonna record it.
00:04:26
So, I'm making sure that
I'm covered,
between the "hat" and the snare.
00:04:32
For this kind of heavy music
the ratio between the hats and
snare is always a nightmare.
00:04:37
So, the idea here is to try and get
the quieter hi-hats possible,
and the most snare, without
any garbage in it possible.
00:04:44
So that I can have a
great-sounding record.
00:04:48
So this is a Yamaha
sub-kick, which is
a microphone, that
Yamaha actually build
by looking at what people do
and have been doing for years
in recording studios,
which is take a Yamaha
NS-10 speaker
and use the speaker as a microphone.
By putting it in front of the bass drum
the energy from the bass drum
will make the speaker resonate
and then the magnet will
generate some electricity.
00:05:11
That's a microphone.
00:05:12
And then you, just
amplify that
and you get something
that goes: Boom!
So, it's really great
'cos it gets "boom"
in a much different way
than any other mics do.
00:05:20
That's why engineers invented
the idea of putting a speaker
in front of the bass drum
to get a lot of low end
and so in this case
Yamaha was smart
and they've made a
product out of it.
00:05:29
And it's a lot easier, compact and
robust than putting
an NS-10 speaker
in front of the bass drum.
00:05:36
And also NS-10 speakers,
used, actually are
more expensive than this thing,
I think, at this point.
00:05:41
So, this is more constructive
and it works great.
00:05:43
And you'll see is a great way
to add low end to a bass drum
that otherwise would go
puck-puck-puck.
00:06:07
By the way,
we need one of this thing.
And we'll put a template in the video
It's an input list with
which cable you're using,
what instrument,
which microphone,
what pre-amp, what converter
(If you have different converters)
which Pro Tools input
(If you have a complicated set up)
This is your life saver
for several reasons.
00:06:25
Number one:
It's a way to communicate
with the guys.
00:06:29
John was confused about
which way was five or six.
00:06:32
I'm able to tell 'em right away
without having to use memory,
'cos memory is expensive.
00:06:36
Two:
In six months,
when somebody comes and says:
"Wow that drum sounds amazing"
"What did you use on the hi-hat?"
"I don't know."
I've probably would've done 200
sessions in the meantime.
00:06:47
But this piece of paper
will tell me what it is.
00:06:49
So this piece of paper is awesome
We have a D112
inside the bass drum.
00:06:54
They are like this far
away form the beater,
looking at the beater.
00:06:57
Do I know if that's the right spot?
I don't know.
00:06:59
John put it in. So I don't
know where it is,
but I wanna trust John
because John works here
which means he's good.
00:07:04
Then the Yamaha sub-kick,
which I explained earlier.
00:07:07
We have a 57,
which is a Shure SM57,
on the top of the snare drum.
00:07:13
And something that
I rarely do
is a bottom snare-drum mic.
00:07:17
Because I usually tend to not use it.
But here...
00:07:19
because of the shape
of the snare-drum,
and the kind of music,
I may need it.
00:07:23
So I put an I5.
00:07:25
Actually Josh picked an I5.
00:07:27
We are gonna see what
it sounds like.
00:07:29
84 in the hi-hats.
00:07:31
KM84 Neumann, nice.
00:07:34
On the rack-tom which
is the one there: a 421.
00:07:39
On the low-toms: 441s.
00:07:42
421 is a cardioid,
the 441s are hyper-cardioids,
so, we should be able to get
a lot of presence
and a lot of separation from
the drums, or at least
more than we would with
the cardioid microphone.
00:07:54
And since he's actually
play the toms quite a bit,
it's important we have a good
source sound for the toms.
00:08:01
And we have two
451AKG condensers
on the overheads.
00:08:06
This are really not overheads.
I lied.
00:08:08
They are cymbal microphones.
00:08:10
And there's one on the "hat" side.
00:08:13
And there's one on the right side.
00:08:16
I always label my drums
hat-side right-side, because
There's nothing more confusing
than left and right.
00:08:24
'cos whose left?
My left? Your left?
I don't know.
So,
there's only one hi-hat.
00:08:28
So on the "hat" side is that one.
And there's no confusion.
00:08:31
And we are gonna do drums
audio perspective...
00:08:34
...today.
00:08:35
And then one mono
overhead.
00:08:37
Which is a ribbon.
00:08:38
To see if we can get
a little of a...
00:08:39
...gentleness in this
brash world.
00:08:42
Why mono overhead?
Because, I think I'm gonna use
a lot of the close mics
because he is a loud drummer,
and it's like Argh-Music.
00:08:49
And so, I'm gonna want presence
and in your face stuff.
00:08:52
And also I want it to sound different
from any other record like that,
because
well,
it's been done already
that way.
00:08:58
So we are gonna do it this way
and see if it feels better.
00:09:01
So that's it for the drums,
we should probably move on to
as soon as this gentlemen
are done wiring everything.
00:09:07
we're gonna move on
to the bass.
00:09:10
We have a B12 amp.
00:09:12
A lot of people like
to buy B15s,
and they are nice and
they look manly.
00:09:17
They also sound
manly in the room.
00:09:19
But, for me
I agree with myself...
00:09:23
I like the B12 better
because it's smaller
and it's tighter sounding.
00:09:27
Whenever I'm in a different studio,
and I use the B15
I have to hi-pass it.
00:09:32
And also it bleeds,
and it's loud.
00:09:34
It's just a pain.
00:09:35
So I figured if the B15
is too loud and too fat.
00:09:38
maybe I wanna try a
smaller amp.
00:09:39
And the B12's been doing
great things for us here, at Flux.
00:09:43
The way the whole system
is wired is as follows:
Because I want the bass player
to be able to be in the room
with the drummer
and close to the singer,
but I want to have the
amp separated,
so I can have isolation
for this kind of music
for the bass, what we're
doing today...
00:09:55
We have on the panel,
in the live room,
a connection
where you can plug a bass.
00:10:00
straight into that connection.
00:10:01
And that is connected to
a super high quality guitar cable
that goes under, in the troughs
so, we don't have to use
any transformers.
00:10:08
All we use is a
very long guitar cable,
of very high quality,
that that's not pick up
any noise
because it's well
shielded.
00:10:15
And then we have a little
mini patch made for those things,
so we can send those signals
either from the live room
to that booth,
or to these booth.
00:10:23
Which is very practical.
00:10:24
And here, it comes out
of here.
00:10:27
And I plug it into a U5 DI
from Avalon.
00:10:30
And then the pass through that
DI is going to the bass amp.
00:10:34
And then the DI out
is going back into the mic lines
and feeding to the Neve.
00:10:39
I record the DI on the bass
on every record.
00:10:42
Also record the amp,
because that's nice to feed
the player in his headphones
and this amp sound great.
00:10:48
But I always record the DI
because I love having the DI on bass.
00:10:52
It allows me
a lot of flexibility and
to get really the sound I want.
00:10:56
Most of the time,
I blend the DI
and the amp.
00:10:59
Let's put the microphone on.
00:11:00
That's a FET47
The reason why I have a FET47
it's because that's what
Josh chose.
00:11:06
and you have to be
nice to your assistance.
00:11:09
I could have chosen something else
but I love this.
00:11:11
It's great.
00:11:11
You don't have to spend $4000
or whatever is the cost this days
to put this in front
of a bass amp.
00:11:18
It's fun, it's good to have.
00:11:19
It's a nice piece of
equipment.
00:11:21
It's well-built,
and it has history
so that feels good.
00:11:24
But you can get an $800
Clarion
or some Shure KSM27
and they'll sound great.
They'll sound different
but they'll sound great.
00:11:32
As far as where I put the mic
on the bass amp.
00:11:35
Like everything else,
I put it in front of the bass amp.
00:11:40
This is where we chose to
put the guitar amps,
I'm gonna use two amps, because
I feel that
I can get probably more bottom
out of one
and more personality and
grain out of the other.
00:11:51
We have a Mesa Boogie
Rocket 44
which is off-the-shelf,
easy-to-get amp.
00:11:55
Sounds really good, though.
00:11:57
And then over there is a 50's Gibson.
00:11:59
The Gibson's distort when
you look at it.
00:12:01
This you can make it do
many, many things.
00:12:04
So this is for me to be able to
dial in whatever this doesn't do.
00:12:06
But this will have the vibe.
00:12:08
So I'm gonna have two microphones.
00:12:10
Two Shure's, that I'm
gonna put in front of them.
00:12:13
And, where do I put the
microphone on a guitar amp?
I aimed for in-front of the amp.
That tends to work.
00:12:18
I don't really care about,
and I used to really agonize about
where to put it.
00:12:23
But the fact of the
matter it's this,
Yes! If it doesn't sound
good, I'll move it.
00:12:28
But most of the time there's
so much processing.
00:12:32
going on after, for
this kind of music that
moving the microphone this much
doesn't make that much of a difference.
00:12:36
But it feels good though.
00:12:38
Let's talk about
the setup. Because
it's and interesting setup.
00:12:43
So Joey, who sings,
will also play guitar
at the same time.
00:12:47
Because this guys
they gotta play together,
there's where the vibe
comes from, I'm not gonna start
laying down the drums,
and then overdubbing the bass,
and overdub the guitar.
00:12:53
So, of course we're gonna have all
the strumming of that electric guitar
in his vocal mic, and that's fine
by me. I don't care.
00:12:59
But he's gotta be separated
from the drums.
00:13:02
'cos that drum is loud.
00:13:03
So, Joey will be in
the Aquarium,
playing guitar and singing.
00:13:08
His guitar is plugged into
part one of this studio
guitar interface system.
00:13:14
It's really a DI.
00:13:16
There's a send and a
receive box.
00:13:18
That's the receive box obviously.
00:13:20
The send box is where Joey
is gonna be playing guitar.
00:13:23
He'll plug his guitar into
this little sister of this guy.
00:13:26
Plug it in.
00:13:27
And the there's an XLR
cable that comes out of that box
and it goes into the entire
system or snake.
00:13:32
You know, the stuff that's
in the wall in every studio
on the connection.
00:13:35
And you come back of this box
and get back into the other box.
00:13:38
Then we can come back out
the guitar level.
00:13:40
Then, I go into one of our DIs,
that we've made ourselves.
00:13:43
Just a transformer with a
black box with our name on it.
00:13:45
with the P-Touch label on it.
00:13:47
This is the output of the guitar
interface system,
which is just a big extension cord,
that we can go through our rig.
00:13:52
Then we go into the DI.
The DI gets back into
the box, so we can record the DI.
00:13:58
It's always good to have
a DI as safety.
00:14:00
I rarely use it, but
usually when I don't record it
is when I need it.
00:14:05
So I record it, to make
sure I don't need it.
00:14:08
And then the output of that DI,
the pass-through.
00:14:10
Goes into this little box.
00:14:12
Which also made by Radio.
00:14:14
And it's an A/B Y-Box
So that allows me to have
one guitar source
and send it to two amps and to
chose whether I want to hear A
or B
or both amps.
00:14:24
So, I could listen to... here,
the Mesa Boogie, the Gibson or both.
00:14:29
And then you have a bunch
of, like, you know,
you can lift the ground, or you can
flip the phase, and stuff like that.
00:14:34
And then, I'm gonna put
the microphones
in front of the amps
as I mentioned earlier
and I'm gonna assume
that the assistants are gonna want
them in the next two slots.
00:14:45
Or I see the left mic and mic 2 open,
so I'm assuming that they want
the first amp in mic one,
and the second amp
in mic two.
00:14:54
The microphones I chose
for this amps are:
Shure Ribbons 313s.
00:14:59
We love them.
They're really good.
00:15:00
We've been using SM57s forever.
00:15:03
But this have more bottom,
and they are thicker.
00:15:05
I don't know, just deeper.
00:15:07
And we can choose how
much hi-end we want.
00:15:10
It's easy to add hi-end,
it's difficult to remove hi-end
from a screaming guitar amp.
00:15:15
So, I like having a mellower sound.
00:15:18
And a very full sound coming down
from the amp.
00:15:20
I can hi-pass that and
I can open if I want to.
00:15:22
But my teeth don't hurt when I listen
to the raw sound, which is nice.
00:15:25
So two Shure 313 ribbons,
on the two guitar amps.
00:15:30
For those of you who are
confused about this, it's a patch-bay.
00:15:32
It's a big patch-bay.
00:15:34
So, in studios of this
size and bigger
basically, every piece
of gear in the place
is connected to
this patch-bay.
00:15:42
And then you take a cable,
and you connect one piece
of gear to the other.
00:15:45
So in this case,
up here we have
something called
far-panel mic-lines.
00:15:50
Well that's the panel
that's all the way back,
that all the drums are connected into
And because the patch-bay
is half normal,
the far-panel mic-lines
are actually
going automatically to
the mic inputs of the Neve.
00:16:02
So, if I plug a microphone
into input one
over there,
on the panel
is gonna go into input one
on the Neve automatically
that's why you don't see
a cable in here.
00:16:11
But then sometimes you just disrupted
those automatic connections.
00:16:14
So for example, the singer
is in the booth,
so I have to have
a connection from the booth
to the line on the Neve
that I want to use for the singer
The way we have it set up today
is, output 1-2 is
going to our monitor.
00:16:27
And then to 3,4,5,6,7,8
are actually being used for
the Cue system
and we have a private Cue.
00:16:33
So, every musician can make his own
Cue so they don't bother me for it.
00:16:36
So I have bass drum, snare drum
bass, guitar and vocal
all separate
And they have their own mixer and
they do their thing, it's awesome.
00:16:44
Everything in this studio
is connected to the back of this thing.
00:16:48
I'm able to connect anything
into anything.
00:16:50
And, Josh has prepared the patch bay,
so we are ready to actually
listen to stuff while we're talking.
00:16:55
Keith setup the SM7,
which is a Shure microphone.
00:16:58
It's really a SM58
but with a different shape.
Same capsule.
00:17:03
And, he set it up
and everything is connected
so we can start getting sounds.
00:17:10
While I was setting up
bass and guitar
Josh setup a session.
00:17:14
And in this session there's
one track per instrument, obviously.
00:17:17
And all the inputs have
been assigned.
00:17:20
And you'll basically gonna
hear everything I hear.
00:17:22
You'll also notice that Josh
has setup the Cue system.
00:17:25
The way we have it set up here
is as follows:
Every track is gonna go to
separate outputs.
00:17:32
That will go to the
private Cue system.
00:17:34
So for example,
the drums (in green)
All drums are going to output 7-8.
00:17:40
Which is a stereo output
and it's pre.
00:17:43
So I can make a drum mix up here,
and then different drum mix
for me, down here.
00:17:48
Here, the bass is
going to output 5.
00:17:50
Because is a private
Cue system
the bass player can chose
how much bass he wants,
and how much drum
he wants.
00:17:56
Josh knows that I don't
like to send the DI
to the bass player.
Because it's an ugly sound.
00:18:01
But it's ready in case
the player ask for it.
00:18:04
And then for guitars, we have
the two amps going to...
00:18:07
the guitar button.
00:18:09
But no the DI, because
that's a really ugly sound.
00:18:11
And then, for the vocal,
just one going to vocals.
00:18:14
So now they can do their own mix
and I can focus on my mix.
00:18:17
That's about it, so
what we are gonna do now is
ask the drummer to play.
00:18:21
In some cases I will ask
the whole band to play,
so they feel connected
and they warm up,
and they have fun together.
00:18:27
But in this case, since we are
trying to learn how we do this,
I'm gonna ask just the drummer to play.
00:18:32
And I'm not gonna ask him to play
bass drum:
boom boom boom
Snare drum:
bam bam bam
'cos that's boring for him
and it doesn't tell me
what it's going on
in the bass drum when the
whole kit is playing
So I'm gonna ask him to play
the pocket from the song
so now I can hear the tempo.
How heavy he's hitting,
if he chokes the bass drum or not.
00:18:52
And then, if I have a problem
Then, I'll ask him and say: "Hey can
you play just the toms for a second?"
If I need to figure out
what's going on.
00:18:58
But most likely, I'm just
gonna let it jam and warm up
and do my thing.
00:19:03
-Ron
-What's up?
So just play the song.
00:19:07
-Don't worry about the Cue
-Mhm.
00:19:08
Because I gotta do my levels.
00:19:10
So don't even put your headphones
on, so don't blow your head off.
00:19:13
-Alright
-Right?
And, just play, have fun and...
00:19:16
-Stop before you get tire of it, OK?
-Alright
Alright.
Rock'n'roll.
00:21:23
He's playing the cymbals a lot.
00:21:41
There's something that
goes on with drummers
whenever you push your microphone
that you want to hear, that instrument
they will not play at that moment.
00:21:47
It's a rule.
It works great.
00:22:31
-Can you hear me?
-Yeah, I got you.
00:22:33
Could you play some of those toms.
That it'd be awesome.
00:22:36
Not like that,
that's boring.
00:22:37
In a pocket, but do a
two-ah-pocket.
00:22:40
When, then you play a tom fill
in the end. Different fills.
00:22:42
So I can hear how they feel
with the rest of the set. Thank you.
00:23:44
How about..
I have everything up,
but just want to do a quick balance.
Can you play the song, please?
So..As I expected that snare drum is
going to be "super-fun"!
but...not bad.
The rest is not bad
I'm not gonna do any compression
I'm not gonna do anything like that.
I want to record this raw
so, that everybody gets
to play quickly
and also so that, I can
probably do some more
intricate processing later,
to compensate maybe for some of the
idiosyncrasies of
the current instrument.
00:25:17
Let's see.
00:25:42
So, I tried to record the balance.
00:25:44
As you noticed, in ProTools
my faders are zero.
00:25:47
I don't always do that
but in this case it's practical
because I know that when
we're gonna start to mix
I just push all the faders at zero
and I have something that
resemblances a drum-set.
00:25:55
And I'm doing my balance here
on my sense to ProTools
This faders right here
are my sense to ProTools.
00:26:01
I have the mic pre-amp up here
and then it goes to through this whole
thing (You notice I don't use any EQ).
00:26:06
And then I'm just balancing
here my drum-set so that it's,
you know, sounds like
a drum-set-ish.
00:26:11
And then I go from there
for the mix, or
maybe I'll change that once I hear
the other instruments, but right now
I have a drum-set coming through
my speakers
and it sounds good,
and I'm happy with it.
00:26:28
Bananas!
Awesome.
00:26:30
Now I'm gonna torture
somebody else.
00:26:32
-Sounds good, man
-Thank you so much
Connor, just play something
that vaguely resembles the song
and then, I mean,
as resemblance as possible
and then...
00:26:43
Then I'll tweak the bass amp sound
here (because it's right here)
And then if you like it, cool.
If you don't then we'll have
to have you come and tweak it for us.
00:26:51
So, just play your thing
and then I'm gonna tweak for you.
00:26:55
Ready?
Rock'n'roll.
00:27:32
That's the DI.
00:27:47
Connor
What are the settings like
on your bass?
Right now it's just,
I have one volume knob.
00:27:55
-You only have a volume knob?
-All I have is a volume knob
Could you make the bass a
little bit less bright
Right here, all I have is the one vibe
I can turn it down.
00:28:07
All the other settings are
on the amp.
00:28:08
Turn it down
I don't have a lot on the
headphone either.
00:28:13
-I'll fix that
-OK
Go for it.
00:28:24
-Can you hear yourself?
-Yeah
-Now I can hear it.
-Do you like the sound?
Yeah
That's good news. Can I hear the
two of you together,
like, on the verse for example?
Yeah
Take it from top.
00:29:03
Bananas
In my headphones I need it
way up. I can't hear it.
00:29:08
You hear yourself?
Like very low. When I play by myself
with the drums, I can't.
00:29:13
You have a knob on that
white thing to your left.
00:29:16
Look to your left.
Not, the other left.
00:29:18
And there's a knob...
00:29:21
that says bass.
00:29:23
-Cool
-Try that one
How's that?
Better
Cool. And if you want,
I can give you definition
by adding the DI on it, check it out
That might be better. Let me hear
how it sounds with the drum.
00:29:40
And you know, the Cue...
Actually you know what?
The Cue is a stereo mix
for the drums and it's
probably gonna sound
awful. Like, all cymbals.
00:29:46
I wanna remove the cymbals
because
you're gonna hear them
in the room.
00:29:51
I'll keep the toms low
and then I will keep
just the main drums.
00:29:57
What have just
happened is that, since
Connor sound came out a lot thinner
than what I'd expected from that bass
and it doesn't
have a tone control.
00:30:04
That is "what you
see is what you get".
00:30:06
So, I've plugged it to the amp
but it sounded really thin
to me. The DI sounded very thin.
00:30:11
So, what I did is
I tried and cooked some
low-end from the amp.
00:30:17
Because the amp can do that
and keep the DI as clean as possible.
00:30:20
I may use a re-amp system later.
00:30:23
I don't know, we'll see when we grow up.
00:30:25
But I was able to get some sort of
a pleasant sound out of the bass
by using the amp.
00:30:29
If I was just doing DI this
would be really painful.
00:30:32
So, the combination of the two is
to me good enough,
that we can make music
and it's supposed to be raw,
and the whole thing sounds
very raw and I like that.
00:30:40
But now we have some bass from the bass.
00:30:42
Which makes sense
since it's called bass.
00:30:45
OK, Joey can you
play, like, the verse
into the chorus or something
so I can get the guitar tone going
be careful with your levels
'cos the levels are gonna change.
00:30:53
I don't want you to get deaf on this.
00:30:55
Rock'n'roll.
00:31:01
It's a DI.
00:31:04
So I'm gonna record it,
but I'm not gonna listen to it.
00:31:15
Mesa Boogie.
00:31:30
The Mesa Boogie has
a bit of a head-cold, check it out!
The Gibson's right.
00:31:53
The two of them
together, I like so..
00:31:55
I'm just gonna keep them this way.
00:32:07
Joey, do you like it?
Yeah, you can
hear yourself, right?
And you dig it. Alright, let's check
that we have the vocal life.
00:32:16
Let me see if I can hear you.
00:32:18
Check, check, check.
Hey, there I am.
00:32:21
Hey!
Check, check...
00:32:23
Can you play the guitar
but without singing,
so I can hear the bleed
of the guitar in your mic?
-Sure
-OK, go ahead
OK, I can manage that.
00:32:37
It's probably better if you
get really close to the mic.
00:32:40
Do you need a boom
stand or are you OK?
-No, this is fine
-Yeah?
Alright. So, can
you sing and play
at the same time "por favor"?
OK.
00:33:29
The urge is to put a compressor
on here. And we could
but we have a lot of headroom
so I'm just gonna bring
the levels down and then
I'll do processing later.
00:33:36
Because, It's a high energy band
and they're about, like: Grrrh!
I'm not gonna refine
this. I'm not gonna...
00:33:42
I could put a compressor on the
vocal. That would make my life easier
or I could just bring the faders
down, because I have headroom.
00:33:47
It's digital, I don't care about noise
especially with this kinds of
guitar, noise is not a big problem.
00:33:51
So, I'm just gonna lower my levels
while they play altogether
so I can get to the recording
part as soon as possible.
00:33:57
So that they don't have to
wait for me to, like, "finesse" stuff.
00:34:00
And then...
00:34:02
we get to hear the song and maybe
it'll change somethings for me.
00:34:05
I'm gonna ask them to play
the whole song, altogether
right now.
00:34:09
Why don't you play the whole
song altogether right now?
-Ronnie
-Yeah
If I were to be bold
and say: Hey would you be
willing to try a different snare?
-What would you say?
-Yes
Oh, fantastic. I'll be right there.
00:36:22
This is the stand that
I'd like Ronnie to try.
00:36:24
It's a GMS.
00:36:25
We call it the blue-meanie.
00:36:29
Because it's blue
and it's... mean.
00:36:31
And the reason why I would
like to switch the snare,
it's because I think that the
snare that he has right now
sounds a little bit like paper.
00:36:37
It's probably great for live.
00:36:39
But, right now it's
just going: Puff! Puff!
And this probably will
have a little more: Mhmf!
So let's see.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
00:36:47
Don't know 'til you try.
Let's try.
00:37:16
Alright, for reference, this is what
the previous snare sounded like
All in favor of old snare.
00:37:31
All in favor of new snare.
00:37:34
Let's make a record!
Because Josh is smart,
he knows how I work,
he made a group called the
tracking group, which is for tracking.
00:37:43
And what that does is that, now
I'm ready to do another take
I'm gonna do a play-list.
00:37:49
And everything is gonna
go away. But it's not gone,
it's just gonna slip right under here
and I can refer to it, if I want to.
00:37:55
But I can keep adding
layers on layers on layers,
and do takes and
takes in the same spot
so when it's time to edit I can cut and
paste in between the different takes.
00:38:04
So, that's cool.
Guys,
you're ready to rock?
Here we go.
00:40:06
-That sounds Bananas!
-I f***ed up a little.
00:40:08
Slight, nobody noticed.
So,
are you all comfortable
with your Cue system?
Is it fun to play with
this Cue system?
OK, is there anything I can do?
Would you like some
compression in your Cue?
Yeah, you.
You qualified.
00:40:24
Tough guy.
Alright cool.
00:40:26
Neh, I don't go that way.
00:40:29
Awesome.
I love the song.
00:40:32
And I love the energy of it.
00:40:34
And I'm wondering if you
guys would be open to, like,
maybe a couple
tweaks here and there?
So, intro,
big tom thing,
verse, right?
And that:(singing)
Awesome.
00:40:47
Then you have kind of a pre-chorus
kind-of-thing going.
00:40:50
The part before
you hit the chorus.
00:40:53
The...
00:40:54
It just goes...
00:40:59
OK, so...
00:41:01
let's agree to call
that the pre-chorus, ok?
Because that's really
what it is, kind of.
00:41:06
-Then, you go to the chorus
-Yeah
Which is...?
Alright, now...
(singing)
OK, great.
00:41:34
That's awesome.
00:41:35
Now, play the intro of the song.
00:41:57
What if you just mirror that?
What if that part that you
play after the first chorus
was you're intro, verbatim?
Like, the same thing.
00:42:05
So, we just start...instead
(singing)
you just start...
(singing)
yeah (singing)
That's pretty awesome, right?
-I liked that, that's cool.
-I think that's awesome.
00:42:45
Because what it does
is that you get to the
the matter sooner.
00:42:49
and also,
when I hear it
again, I'm like: Hey!
That's my old friend.
The intro is back.
00:42:55
Awesome.
00:42:57
So you do that. Then, you
have your second verse.
00:42:58
Now, you do some funky
stuff in the second verse.
00:43:01
can you play the
second verse now?
Alright.
So, I think that...
00:43:35
The whole beginning of
that verse, with the stops
is awesome.
00:43:39
And...
00:43:40
...the pre-chorus,
I don't think you need
to do all that stuff.
00:43:44
-This?
-Yeah
We haven't...
00:43:48
There's no way anyone will have
had time to get bored by then,
because the song is 48 seconds
So...
00:43:56
So, why don't we create...
00:43:58
I like the stops you do at
the beginning of that verse,
that's awesome.
It recharges the energy.
00:44:03
But the pre-chorus,
and I think you should,
and I'm gonna use
a very technical term,
I think you should go balls out.
00:44:11
Just like you do on the first pre-chorus
So, mirror those two parts.
00:44:15
Let's all focus and define
what the pre-chorus is.
00:44:18
Joey, play the
pre-chorus by yourself.
00:44:20
It's this.
00:44:35
That's the pre-chorus, cool?
The first one and the second
time we play the same way.
00:44:40
Cool. Now, after
the second pre-chorus.
00:44:42
In most structures comes
the second chorus which is
why we love pop-music.
00:44:47
So, in that chorus, you
do a cool stop there.
00:44:52
Great.
Keep that.
00:44:54
Then, you finish the chorus.
00:44:55
But then you have a weird thing
when you play footballs,
like, you play long chords.
00:45:07
What I propose is this,
make your selection at anytime,
either you do it for
real or you don't do it.
00:45:14
If you're gonna do it for real
everybody stops. You just play...
00:45:18
No drums, no bass.
Maybe the root.
00:45:21
But no more pocket. You just go...
00:45:23
If you're gonna do that stop there
Let's try and like...
(sound)
Like, hold note and vocals,
hold notes and vocals.
Then you get back into the groove.
00:45:32
Or you just don't do it.
00:45:34
But what's going on right now it's
basically the energy is going down.
00:45:37
It's not really justified. And I'm not
getting a feeling out of it.
00:45:40
You want to try just two rings?
Yeah. Let's try it!
Take it from the second
chorus, into the... yep.
00:46:23
I like it. I think there's
need to be something
You need a fill
to get out of it.
00:46:29
It needs to be sucked back in, right?
Yeah.
00:46:31
Rehearse that, from the hold notes.
00:46:34
One, two, three, and...
00:46:55
-It's like a little...
-Yeah
-There's a hop
-There has to be a hop
Here's another suggestion...
00:47:00
What if you punctuate that last beat?
So, (sings)
(singing)
It's not gonna work.
00:47:11
(singing)
You'll have to do a stop.
00:47:17
If you do a clean stop.
Everybody stops on that beat.
00:47:19
Then you don't need a fill.
00:47:21
The silence is the fill.
Try it.
00:47:45
Bananas
I love it.
OK, let me play-list this.
00:47:52
Tuned, right?
I was feeling that too.
00:47:54
Yeah, I mean, if you feel like it...
00:47:56
-Tuning is wonderful
-I'm gonna have to...
00:47:58
pull out. Is that gonna
make a big noise?
Ahm, yeah.
00:48:02
(laughs)
Just pull out.
00:48:07
(laughs)
That was...
priceless.
00:48:15
Ron, here's a tip.
00:48:18
If you want to make
everybody's life easier
later, when we grow up,
if we get to edit this
I don't think we're gonna edit this
because it's so beautiful as it is
but if we were to edit this,
When I start the recording
you hear a number of clicks.
00:48:33
Always start in the same place.
00:48:35
Like, always leave
four bars of clicks.
00:48:37
You know what that does?
It's that,
when we get to edit,
they all start in the same spot.
00:48:42
So, you can cut and
paste between play-lists.
00:48:44
It's nice!
Alright, you're ready?
So picked the number... and then
you still do your count-off
but in your head,
the minute the click starts
know where you are.
00:48:56
And if you have a good engineer
he will always start the
transport in the same spot.
00:49:02
So everybody knows
where they are. Yo?
Alright.
Here comes the click.
00:49:15
What happened?
You started a bit early.
00:49:18
Yeah, dude. There's four beats in a measure.
00:49:20
(laughs)
Sorry...
00:49:25
-This measure, there's four
- I got it. Alright
What's rushing your playing?
Hey, it's not a given. OK?
You're ready?
Here we go.
00:51:29
That was fierce.
00:51:32
Let's see if it works.
It may work, it may not work
to double this guitar.
00:51:36
It's basically the same part.
You do the same part every time, right?
-Yeah, straight.
-OK, great.
00:51:41
So, the reason why
I want to double it, it's
to put in stereo,
besides the many,
many, many cymbals
there's not much in the stereo field.
00:51:50
So it'd be kind of wide.
00:51:52
We can chose how wide we want it
and then we are gonna record it.
We may or may not use it.
00:51:56
but, since it's gonna take two minutes
and fifty seconds it's worth it.
00:51:59
-Sounds good.
-OK, great.
00:52:01
That's a long song for us.
00:52:04
OK, good to know.
00:52:07
Side note: if you notice here,
I have the lead vocal on input.
00:52:11
So, that I could hear him because.
00:52:12
The only way I could hear him
right now is through his vocal mic.
00:52:15
But if I do that he's not gonna
be able to listen to himself sing
so what I wanna do:
I'm gonna duplicate his track
Like this.
00:52:22
For nothing else but to
be able to listen to him live.
00:52:26
in the room.
00:52:27
and we can communicate that way.
00:52:29
-Ready?
-Yes, sir.
00:52:31
I'm gonna give you the same count off.
00:52:51
It's pretty cool.
00:52:53
It's great. You know,
I have other ideas.
00:52:56
We will see at the
mix when we get there.
00:52:58
but I think we can do
something really cool with this.
00:53:00
-Sweet
You felt comfortable with
what you've just played?
There were a couple of fuzzy parts
but they can be pushed back together
very easily.
00:53:06
-OK
-Cool.
00:53:08
So now, let's talk about vocals.
00:53:10
Do you have any background vocal ideas?
Or vocal ideas in general?
Yes, so I have that:
(guitar sounds)
It's an echo, called-response.
I'm not a hundred percent on it.
00:53:20
I'd like to get your input.
But then there's the other one
so in that pre-chorus
kind of part, going...
00:53:35
And have 'em a little
bit at the background.
00:53:37
I don't know what
justice it will do.
00:53:40
I mean, this is no censorship
we got to try it.
I just... I like
get to keep it just crude.
00:53:46
But I like the answer, is cool.
00:53:49
Yeah, the:
(guitar sounds)
Alright, let's...
00:53:57
Let's start there, that's easy.
00:53:59
I then normally
all the other times
they sing harmonies.
00:54:02
-What kind?
-Like, when we play live.
00:54:12
That one.
00:54:13
OK, that sounds great.
00:54:17
Are you comfortable singing
without playing guitar?
-Yeah, 100%
-Ah, great.
00:54:21
Well, we have a track.
Let's just record you.
00:55:15
That sounds good.
00:55:16
Yeah, but it conflicts
with the lead, I think.
00:55:19
I think it falls too low.
00:55:21
OK.
00:55:24
-Could it just be straight?
-Try that
You want me to push you
in just those two lines?
Mhmm, no...
00:55:31
-Chorus?
-Yeah.
00:55:32
-Chorus you got!
Here we go!
That's great vibe, man.
That's really great.
00:57:00
It's grrrr.
I love it
We're doubling
what you just did.
00:57:13
Awesome. Let's hear.
00:57:26
Yeah, it sounds way better.
00:57:27
OK, here we go.
Ready?
Cool.
00:57:42
Would you please be kind enough to give
me a double of the lead on the choruses?
-Absolutely
-Unison with the lead, OK?
Here we go.
00:58:06
What took you so long?
Let's get the guys so you can do
the answer before you get out.
00:58:11
-OK.
-Yes, wait...
00:58:14
Here we go!
Cool. Is there another place?
Do you think is worth it to do it
at the part that's right after that?
Or no? Just one?
-It feels a little cliché
-OK
I kind of like that not cliché.
00:58:43
Yeah, I'm cool with that.
00:58:44
Alright, so you'll come...
00:58:46
-...and listen to your masterpiece.
-Sounds good
Don't forget that this is just
microphones into pre-amps.
00:58:55
No EQ and no compression.
Nothing.
00:58:57
This is not the way
it's gonna sound in the end.
00:59:00
This is the raw material we have,
so that we can make a record out of it.
Still sounds great to me. I love it
And I'm using both guitars right now
so you can hear how it feels to have
both guitars play at the same time
OK, so we're just gonna
listen to, like,
does it feel good the playing? Are you
happy with your performance?
Is it true to the song?
That's what we matter about.
The sound...
00:59:21
that's the next chapter.
When we grow up later.
00:59:24
OK?
And I'm gonna play it loud...
00:59:27
because you've just been wearing
headphones for a while.
00:59:28
Which means you're legally deaf.
00:59:31
So I'm just gonna blast it basically.
Hold on to your socks.
00:59:34
Here comes the song...
01:01:22
-How's that feel?
-It's fat as s**t
OK, fat as s**t is
good to me.
01:01:27
I'm gonna mute that last
phrase. It's gonna be like this.
01:01:39
Awesome man.
01:01:40
-Thank you very much.
-I'm happy with it man.
01:01:42
-Thank you very much.
-Thank you.
01:01:46
Cool. Sold.
01:01:47
Do you have any idea of what
was happening behind your back?
No.
(Laughs)
00:00:07
Good morning children!
Today we are going to mix a song
that we recorded ourselves.
00:00:12
Why does it matter that
we recorded it ourselves?
It matters because of one simple thing.
00:00:16
We will not be able to blame anyone
for it being badly recorded
thus, having a bad mix.
00:00:21
So, it means we have to have a good mix.
00:00:42
The song it's called "Ugly"
by band DCO, which
means "Dry Clean Only".
00:00:48
And the first thing we're
gonna do is edit the vocals,
because we did several takes.
00:00:52
We did do several takes.
00:00:53
Yeah.
00:00:54
We need to pick one.
00:00:56
Here are the vocals.
00:00:58
We're gonna go in play-list mode.
00:01:00
These are all the takes.
00:01:01
So here's the trick, though
all the doubles and everything
were done to take 6.
00:01:05
Probably, it'd be smarter,
whenever there's a big double
to keep take 6.
00:01:09
You're kind of a machine, though.
You were very consistent.
00:01:11
So, I don't know.
00:01:12
So the first thing I'm gonna do:
Duplicate the play-list.
00:01:15
And call it "Comp".
00:01:18
ProTools has the good taste
of putting number 6 here.
00:01:20
But I want to put it here,
so that, we can actually
think from 0 to 6.
00:01:24
So, the way I like to do this: I like to
not take forever.
00:01:29
Because you could take a day doing this.
00:01:32
Basically, we're gonna start
listening to what we have.
00:01:35
And then, if something
doesn't please you, or me
then, we'll look for an
alternate elsewhere.
00:01:40
-Makes sense?
-Yeah
OK. Let's listen to it.
00:02:09
How's that first verse?
The mislead
by "liberate devotion" (the third line)
there should be a take where
there's like a little squeak
in the vocal.
00:02:18
Would you like it to be squeaky?
-Kinda
-Let's squeak
So, this is take 4.
00:02:48
I like the last squeak,
but I like that
second phrase better in 5 or 4.
00:02:55
Yeah, this phrase here
I think is the best one so far.
00:02:58
So, since we agree, let's promote
it higher grounds.
00:03:02
And the squeak in this third phrase,
you like it better here.
00:03:05
-Yeah
-I think you're right
Problem is that the end
of the word, here
on take 4, doesn't match
with your double.
00:03:10
So, what we would do here:
Take 4 has the squeak
and then we switch back to take 6.
00:03:15
So, you match the doubles.
00:03:17
-You're OK with that?
-Absolutely
The intro of take 5.
00:03:26
As opposed to take 6.
00:03:33
See, I like it shorter,
And also your first note
is more in tune here
so, let's just take 5 here
and promote it.
00:03:40
We can listen to this 4 phrase.
00:03:47
This is take 5.
00:03:54
That's more in tune and also
you have a little "Grrrghh"
Yeah, real man's music.
00:03:58
I vote for 5, unless
you have a veto on me.
00:04:02
I think you killed the chorus,
but we should still check.
00:04:06
And here comes take 6.
00:04:23
Awesome. Take 4.
00:04:38
I think I like the beginning of 4.
00:04:40
Yeah, this is much better.
And also this last phrase here.
00:04:43
So, how about we do this?
This is good. This is actually
what I was looking for energy-wise
And here also...
00:04:49
So, I'm gonna do that.
00:04:50
Awesome. Verse two.
00:04:52
Traditionally take 4 it's
been a good alternate,
so why don't we listen to take 4 now?
-Sure
-Here we go
I dig that.
00:05:25
The first phrase especially.
00:05:27
Let's see 5 just in case.
00:05:54
How about I give you a deal
first two from four and
last two from five.
00:05:58
The last phrase is so much better.
00:06:00
So let's do that. Boom.
00:06:03
Alright let's move on to the chorus.
00:06:19
That's pretty awesome.
How do you feel?
Just the word "king"
We can pick it from elsewhere.
00:06:25
Listen to 5.
00:06:32
Doesn't have the same shine.
00:06:33
Three just in case, for entertainment.
00:06:41
I can of like the way
the first phrase stops in 3.
00:06:45
OK.
00:06:45
So we are doing the opposite
of what we were going to do.
00:06:48
Which is we're gonna only replace
stuff we don't like,
and right now we're
building it from scratch.
00:06:52
-Which is fair
-That's how we roll, yo! Ya know what I'm saying?
That's what I'm saying.
00:06:56
Take 3, you like this part.
00:07:02
Let's see from here what we can do.
00:07:04
This is take 6.
00:07:13
4
-That phrase is good.
-Second one, yeah.
00:07:23
The first phrase from 6
I think is better
Yeah, I agree with you.
00:07:25
We've got what we need here.
00:07:27
First phrase here.
00:07:29
Second phrase here.
00:07:32
There you go. Take 6.
00:07:46
OK, cool. Let's listen to 4 on that.
00:08:00
Four! And then,
I wanna give you a little
help from your friends.
00:08:05
Here.
00:08:06
'cos you guys were so excited
that there's a little
bit of precipitation.
00:08:11
Check it out.
00:08:25
See, that's a little...
00:08:26
So, what I'm gonna do is take it
and you see that my Nudge here
it's at 100 samples,
so, I'm just gonna push you back
a few hundred samples,
for entertainment.
00:08:43
Maybe, I pushed it too far. Here we go.
00:08:50
Yeah.
00:08:50
OK, cool.
00:08:52
The first thing I'm gonna do
is create a bunch of Stems
So we're gonna need,
one for the bass drum,
one for the rest of the drums,
one for the bass,
one for the guitars,
and the one for the lead vocal and one
for the many background vocals.
00:09:09
So, that's six stereo stems.
00:09:11
Usually I should have a template.
00:09:14
But I'm too lazy to have a template.
00:09:16
You think about that.
00:09:17
So we're gonna do
BD STEM
DRUM STEM
and then,
good.
00:09:33
So, you know, I'm gonna mix this.
00:09:36
Pretty much on the box,
except for the summing part.
00:09:38
So, I'm not gonna use any hardware.
00:09:40
I'm just gonna use a Dangerous 2bus+
to do the summing.
00:09:44
But everything else will
be done with plug-ins.
00:09:46
To be able to hit the 2bus+
I have to send my different stems
to the different inputs of the 2bus+.
00:09:53
So, bass drum
is gonna go to A 9-10
Which is going to a Dangerous music C8
and then that's going to my 2bus+
Drum 11-12
13-14
15-16
and then the other C8 is on the C
9-10
There you go.
00:10:17
We're not gonna use all 16 Stemming
because there's not enough
instruments for that.
00:10:22
But this should be just fine.
00:10:24
And then I'm gonna set up a bunch of
busses.
00:10:30
sequentially.
00:10:31
You noticed that by using shift+Option+command
I was able to assign
bus 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
9, 10 and 11,12 with just one click.
00:10:41
and I'm gonna name this two.
00:10:45
If you're in a hurry, you can go
into the audio setup right here,
and into the bus.
00:10:51
And then, you can name them here.
00:10:53
Which is faster
because you can hit the tab.
00:10:58
Bass Stem...
00:11:01
We are good to go.
00:11:05
The last thing we need is
a return for the Sum.
00:11:10
So I'm creating one stereo aux input
and one stereo track.
00:11:14
Right here, the Aux Input
is coming back from my 2bus return
which is always in
B 15-16, in this room.
00:11:21
Then I'm sending that to a bus.
00:11:26
There you go.
00:11:29
I'm gonna rename it
Print Bus
and the
Output, so everybody can listen to it.
00:11:39
This is call sum.
00:11:41
this is called "Ugly"
Put your name on it,
so you own it. There you go.
00:11:46
Save the session as
so you can always return to the old one.
00:11:52
All this busses and tracks
have to be solo saved
so, when I solo something in the track
I can still hear music.
00:12:00
And I wanna put this
on input, right here.
00:12:03
I'm going to use my
regular color coding.
00:12:07
Which is: Metro Sexual Blue
for the stems.
00:12:11
And bright red for this
so that in my track here
I can see what's going on.
This is a bunch of drums.
00:12:17
This is bass.
00:12:18
This is a bunch of guitars.
Although this should be brown too
because that's how we roll, you know.
00:12:23
There you go.
00:12:24
And then the lead vocal
and then the background vocal,
which we'll make orange.
00:12:29
Boom! Now we know what's going on.
00:12:32
Great.
00:12:35
One more thing is... we need to assign
the kick to the kick stem,
the drums to the drums stem.
00:12:44
Although I'm probably
gonna use the sum here.
00:12:47
Send that to the stem.
00:12:49
I might as well do it now.
00:12:52
Drum sub.
00:12:54
Send that to the stem.
00:13:04
To the stem.
00:13:06
Your lead is going to the lead stem.
00:13:11
And this is going to the back stem.
00:13:15
Save.
00:13:17
Press play.
00:13:19
And nothing happens.
00:13:21
Number one mistake when
creating your track in ProTools.
00:13:24
You want to create an
Aux but you make a track.
00:13:27
That sucks.
00:13:29
So, I could be lazy
It's happened before,
and put all this tracks on inputs.
00:13:34
And then I would have sound there.
00:13:37
Or I could be a good citizen
and create the six stereo
aux inputs again,
and do that. We're gonna do this
quick so that you don't suffer.
00:13:56
And the fact that in ProTools
You can not convert a track to an Aux,
or an Aux to a track
It's called a feature
It's designed to keep you on your toes
and make sure you pay attention.
00:14:06
So, I'm gonna set up my limiters.
00:14:09
We have the Sonnox.
Which is nice and fat.
00:14:15
And I'm giving myself
a little bit of security here.
00:14:19
To prevent the red light from coming on
Of course the advantage of the stem is,
now I can just mute them
the vocal here without
having to fish for it.
00:14:25
Which is... nice.
00:14:28
Let's listen to just the drums
and then the drums and the bass,
to get an idea of what's going on.
00:15:19
I'm going to break my rule
and I'm gonna start with the drums.
00:15:26
Let's make a sub out of this.
00:15:29
Make sure that has the right track type.
00:15:31
Call it bass drum sub.
00:15:35
Solo safe the two source tracks.
00:15:37
Make sure that we send
the bass drum sub to the stem.
00:15:41
Why would I create a sub here
since I have a stem here?
Just for head space.
00:15:47
I know that I'm gonna
have a bass drum sub,
and a drum sub,
and probably a drum crush, here.
00:15:52
And they all hang here.
00:15:54
And then, when I'm mixing the whole song
or the balance between instruments
I have the stems here
which all hang together.
00:16:00
If I have a control surface
I can select those on
the control surface
and have quick tactile here,
or I can just focus on just the drums.
00:16:08
So, it's just a question of thinking of
the instruments as a whole
or thinking as the mix as a whole.
00:16:14
And those are two different head spaces.
00:16:15
In this case this is just the bass drum.
00:16:19
This is the inside.
00:16:25
Pretty fantastic.
And this is the bottom.
00:16:31
I like that very much.
00:16:32
Maybe a little less sub.
00:16:39
and then, right there in the middle
just a little bit of a cut,
in the low-mids.
00:16:45
So it's got more "umm" and more "pok"
and less of that "woolly" thing.
00:16:51
Without.
00:17:10
That's a nice bass drum.
00:17:12
From my experience
with this kind of music
you people,
like the bass drum to go
chk! chk! chk! chk!
Yeah, there's a lot of click sounding.
00:17:23
How style accurate you want to be?
I mean, you want to be your
own thing or you want to be...
00:17:27
What you wanna do?
I want it to sound like this song
and not like any other song.
00:17:32
So, we have the option of doing this.
00:17:40
It's not forbidden.
00:17:41
But maybe we wait until
we see this in the sauce.
00:17:44
OK, fair enough.
00:17:45
What I wanna do is
I want to compress it a smidgen.
00:17:49
Why am I compressing it?
Good question.
00:17:52
The reason for that is:
I think I can get a little more "umff"
and little more steadiness
in the bottom.
00:17:58
if I compress it a little bit.
00:17:59
And also I get a little more click.
00:18:01
And so, we can get a
little more of that sound.
00:18:03
Without having to go crazy.
00:18:05
Check it out.
00:18:08
Not that much.
00:18:16
Let me level match.
00:18:24
So, if you have a hard time
hearing it, check it out.
00:18:28
That, check it out.
00:18:29
Without.
00:18:37
So it's more steady.
00:18:39
What that's gonna do
is gonna help us keep the bottom there
through out the song.
00:18:43
Because it is consistent
and I can rely on it.
00:18:46
As opposed to a lot of
music in this style
Where the verse sounds great
and then all of the sudden, the chorus
the bottom goes away from some reason
which I hate.
00:18:55
And, we can do if that's what you want.
00:18:56
But we can try maybe
to keep the same bottom
fat, through-out the song.
00:19:01
Even though the chorus
is gonna go like, "Ghhh"
I think I would like that.
00:19:05
You would like that.
00:19:06
Bass drum no processing.
00:19:13
With processing.
00:19:21
So I don't know if
this is the final thing
but this is a good starting point.
00:19:24
Now I can listen to the other
drum sound against this.
00:19:28
So, rest of the drums.
00:19:30
If I solo the rest of the drums
I will get nothing
because they are no solo saved.
00:19:34
If I solo saved them I won't be able
to hear them one by one.
00:19:37
Hence the conundrum.
00:19:38
So in this particular case
what I'm gonna do,
it's solo save the sub, for now.
00:19:43
So I can do this.
00:20:15
I'm gonna do something I never do
I'm gonna use the bottom snare mic.
00:20:18
Never happens.
00:20:22
For this reason.
00:20:29
It's kind of cool.
00:20:35
Maybe not that much.
00:20:39
OK, I dig that.
00:20:40
I'm going to create a mono sub,
called SD SUB
Let's not forget to send
that to the drum sub.
00:20:51
I'm gonna solo save the two snares.
00:21:04
It seems that when
I turn on the bottom snare
the top snare gets thinner,
probably because
I forgot to flip the polarity
on the pre-amp
when we did record it.
00:21:12
And you what? I like it.
00:21:15
If I like the sound of it
no harm done by having
the wrong polarity.
00:21:18
It helps.
00:21:18
I'm just playing with phase.
00:21:20
Let's see the two of them together.
00:21:26
So, this could use some compression too.
00:21:28
I'm gonna copy this one.
00:21:35
Without.
00:21:58
It's good enough to give it presence
and make sure that doesn't
sound like a mistake.
00:22:01
Toms we'll see when
we grow up, later in life.
00:22:04
And then let's listen to the overheads.
00:22:09
I'm gonna make a group
for the overheads.
00:22:12
They are really cymbal mics
but let's call them overheads.
00:22:25
It may be a little wide
and a little bit documentary, right?
So, let's just reset
this a little bit.
00:22:31
It's nice to have the option,
but I think it's too much.
00:22:44
It's less like a cartoon.
00:22:45
Let's listen to the overhead by itself.
00:22:54
Not necessarily the more
useful stuff in the universe
but what if we crush it?
I'm gonna unbutton this
Kind of a natural crush track.
00:23:23
And all those tracks together.
00:23:35
Tough choice.
00:23:36
So, do we want more presence?
Or do we want more "umf"?
I like the "liaison", if you will
the sauce it gives
but I don't want it to take away
from the actual presence
of the two drums.
00:24:01
Because a lot of the
music like this, I hear
the drums are far away and kind of mushy
I don't like that.
00:24:08
I would like this to have more
like a pop-ier drum sound
and then the rest is
punk enough for jazz.
00:24:14
If you know what I mean.
00:24:15
Alright, here we go.
00:24:16
Let's compress the whole thing.
00:24:19
I've seen Vance Powell used
this on drums. Must be good.
00:24:22
Something you have to be
very careful about.
00:24:24
Check this out. This is without.
00:24:35
Obviously better, right?
The reason why you think
is better right away
is because there's 4dB's
of gain right here.
00:24:40
In the default state
of this compressors.
00:24:42
So, you'll have to be very
careful about not getting fooled
by the fact that a lot
of plug-ins are set
with default settings that are designed
to make them feel good,
because that's the point.
00:24:53
But since we're scholars and real men,
we're gonna listen at the same level.
00:25:09
Not as obvious, is it?
So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna use
a little bit more of the compression.
00:25:20
Without.
00:25:30
So, I lowered the threshold.
00:25:32
Which allowed me to raise the gain
to match the level in and out.
00:25:35
And this actually gives me even
more punch, which is nice.
00:25:38
So, I'm gonna use this.
00:25:39
Is this the final setting? Probably not.
00:25:42
But now I can mix into this.
00:25:43
And use this kind of a push back
to get the drum sound that I want.
00:25:48
I want something that's messy right.
00:25:50
We don't want this to be super clean.
00:25:51
But we do want the definitions.
00:25:53
So, it's gonna be a balancing
act between the two goals.
00:25:56
What I hear here is that it's kind
of burying my bass drum.
00:26:06
But we have this amazing
tool called the fader.
00:26:08
I shall use it here.
00:26:15
And then maybe we should
brighten the bass drum.
00:26:17
OK, great. Let's do that.
00:26:20
What I'm going to do
is to actually EQ it
after the compressor.
00:26:24
Why?
If I EQ a bus into the compressor
the compressor is gonna
push back against that bus.
00:26:30
Not necessarily a bad thing.
00:26:31
But in this case I don't want
to think about that.
00:26:33
I like where it sits. I'd just like
it to be brighter.
00:26:36
So, I'm gonna make it brighter.
00:26:37
And I like to use this guy.
00:26:40
There you go.
00:26:57
That's the sound we heard before.
00:27:14
It stays dirty enough.
00:27:15
I'm not fully happy
with this drum sound.
00:27:17
So, I'm probably gonna EQ,
with the same EQ
and then we'll get back to it
when we have more instruments in it.
00:27:23
But I know, it's too dull.
00:27:25
So, I'm gonna open that.
00:27:36
OK, good enough.
00:27:38
So, let's turn the bass on.
00:27:39
And see what that does.
00:27:46
We have a DI.
00:27:52
And then we have the amp.
00:27:59
A lot of the mud on this mix
comes from the amp of the bass.
00:28:02
So, I'm gonna remove that stuff.
00:28:05
Two-hundredish
Exactly two-hundred. Here we go.
00:28:19
I think I'd be fun to
have a little bit of DI.
00:28:21
Let's talk about the bass
sound the way you hear it.
00:28:24
Just the amp.
00:28:33
But we can have a blend of the two.
00:28:43
Without the DI.
00:28:49
And how about something of this style.
00:28:53
Just saying. "No" it's a perfectly
fine answer. Check this out.
00:29:09
Together.
00:29:30
A little distortion on the bass DI.
00:29:31
Can I hear with the drums?
Very good question.
00:29:34
Yes you may. Here we go.
00:29:49
It doesn't have to be this
exact distortion sound
but I think a little bit of
distortion on the bass
would be nice.
00:29:54
So maybe less bright.
00:30:11
He has a very dynamic playing style.
00:30:14
So, what I'm gonna go is I'm gonna compress him.
00:30:16
I'm not gonna compress him for tone,
I'm gonna compress him for level.
00:30:20
Let's start with the DI one.
00:30:34
There.
00:30:50
The goal here is to keep things steady.
00:30:52
There's nothing magical about it.
00:30:54
Keep a medium ratio.
Like 2:1, that's fine.
00:30:57
And then you lower the threshold
until everything is taking
care of by the compressor,
but not too much.
00:31:02
And then, if there's too much attack,
then you speed up the attack,
so that, the compressor
catches more attack.
00:31:07
Like this.
00:31:13
That kinds of kill the "grrr" thing.
00:31:14
Without.
00:31:18
It's more fun.
00:31:20
The faster the release the more
it's gonna pump and bounce,
and the slower the release
the more it's gonna stay steady.
00:31:26
So you'll have to make sure
that it's long enough that
you get your effect
but not too long that it gets mudded.
00:31:30
Over time, you'll get it.
00:31:39
I think that does the job well.
00:31:41
Amp.
00:31:51
Without.
00:32:00
Here, I feel like
I'm smothering it a little bit.
00:32:02
So I'm gonna speed up the release.
00:32:12
Here's with a very slow release.
00:32:22
Feels a little pressure cooked.
00:32:24
With a faster release.
00:32:33
It's better. And the two...
00:32:44
As a reminder,
we started here with the bass.
00:32:57
With the drums.
00:33:16
It's more listenable.
00:33:18
And it gives a better bass.
00:33:19
Let's see if we want to tweak it latter.
00:33:21
Then, we have "le guitarre".
00:33:25
The one that Joey
played live is this one.
00:33:29
So, we have.
00:33:36
That's fierce.
And then we have this one.
00:33:43
The two of them together.
00:33:47
There's a little bit of a mask
when you put the two of them together,
obviously.
00:33:53
So, let's remove it.
00:34:00
I'll show you where it is.
00:34:10
But, now without.
00:34:20
Just a little cleaner.
00:34:22
I'm assuming it's gonna
be the same here.
00:34:27
The balance is different this way.
Sounds different.
00:34:29
More of the bright end.
00:34:36
Copy this.
00:34:49
With the bass.
00:35:02
Guitar could be a little more aggressive.
00:35:04
Can guitars ever be too aggressive?
Not in my world.
00:35:08
So, I want to put all
this stuff into a sub.
00:35:12
Which I'm gonna make stereo
and call it guitar sub.
00:35:15
And, I'm gonna try some
you never know it may work.
00:35:18
Solo safe it, so I can keep soloing
the guitars independently.
00:35:21
And then Universal Audio has
this thing called the Maximizer.
00:35:24
And I really dig it, sometimes
on this kind of stuff.
00:35:27
Can't forget to send
the guitars up to the guitar stem.
00:35:30
There you go.
00:35:41
How you dig that? You dig that?
Definitely more aggressive.
00:35:44
I think it needs more EQ.
00:35:55
The guitars could be more open.
00:35:58
As in more open as a gentle
way of saying: brighter.
00:36:25
So, I'll open the top here
with my favourite top opener.
00:36:30
And then here, just
remove a little bottom.
00:36:32
If I go too far or something
hurts you, let me know.
00:36:35
I'm just trying to imagine
what it is that would make you happy
just like you're girlfriend does.
Just saying.
00:36:56
So, we plugged the guitars
straight into the amps,
so we've got the sound of the amps.
00:37:01
Yeah.
00:37:01
How do you do when you play live?
Same thing.
00:37:04
And what's the amp?
It's a Peavey head with a Raven Cabinet.
00:37:10
Like any poor punk musician.
00:37:12
OK
Are you comfortable with this sound?
Does it sound like you or does
it sound too far from you?
I like it for this song
just because it's not an
overly aggressive punk song.
00:37:23
So the crunch is nice.
00:37:24
Rather than a heavy distortion.
00:37:27
Let's listen to someone else.
00:37:28
Let's see if we are even in the
ballpark of the stuff you like.
00:37:31
And we are probably not.
00:37:32
So we are gonna switch to the devil.
00:37:35
Right here.
00:37:36
And, we are gonna listen to some stuff.
00:37:37
So, I have a Green Day track,
a Weezer track and a Rancid track.
00:37:41
Which one should we...?
Which one is the most relevant?
Probably that Green Day
track for guitars.
00:37:47
Alright, fair enough.
00:37:48
Let's hear the Green Day track.
00:37:56
It's loud. I'm gonna lower it,
so we're more or less at the same level.
00:38:37
There's a lot of stuff about
this that's great,
and there's a lot stuff about this that
is great too but it's not
necessarily my thing.
00:38:44
But I'm happy to do what ever you need.
00:38:47
So, I like the fact that we
have something below 80Hz
that makes me happy.
00:38:54
Here there's not a lot below 80Hz
which is fine. It's a style. It's cool.
00:39:00
It's just not necessarily what it makes
me the happiest on a daily basis.
00:39:04
But that changes a lot
of the balance of things.
00:39:07
There's also a phenomenal
amount of guitars.
00:39:16
As a reference we were here.
00:39:22
We're still quieter.
Actually, we are too quiet.
00:39:24
Let me hit this a little harder.
00:39:26
Like four.
00:39:28
I give it a little gain so we can hit
the meters on the right spot.
00:39:43
First things I'm hearing is
that the guitar is a little too thick.
00:39:46
And I can't bring them forward.
00:39:55
OK, as a reference we were here.
00:40:06
This is one of those tracks where
the "bam" goes away in the chorus.
00:40:09
This is nice.
00:40:14
And then.
00:40:17
But this is a good
sounding one, in this style.
00:40:19
I kind of dig this. What else you've got?
Just for entertainment.
00:40:22
Weezer.
00:40:28
Let's listen to this one.
00:40:34
That guitar sounds great.
00:40:48
But this is really awesome.
00:40:55
OK, I get the vibe.
00:40:56
So, we are gonna make it less hi-fi
less stereo, and all that stuff.
00:41:00
-And just be a little more...
-Real
Just manly. Despite the hat.
00:41:13
Should just be more anchored
and to do so, I'm gonna
put it in a mono Aux input.
00:41:19
Call it bass sub.
00:41:21
Don't forget to put it on the bass stem.
00:41:24
And I'm gonna crush it together.
00:41:32
A standard edition tool
for this task, is made by our
good friends at Universal Audio.
00:41:37
Hi.
00:42:01
Cool.
00:42:12
I'm really, really, really tempted
to add more distortion.
00:42:16
I just...
00:42:17
-I agree.
-OK, good.
00:42:44
That's fun.
00:42:45
-Yeah, you like?
-Yeah
00:00:00
I'm gonna add a little space
here on the guitars.
00:00:02
Not a lot.
00:00:04
Just call it: Guitar delay.
00:00:06
I think it's gonna be delay.
(Hence the name)
Goes yellow because I'm OCD.
00:00:12
and I've been making them
yellow for a minute.
00:00:24
Darker.
00:00:27
OK, that's cool.
00:00:29
See how that feels.
00:00:39
Without.
00:00:52
A little less demoe
This is a little bit too thick.
00:00:55
Let's see what happens if I hi-pass.
00:01:05
Listen to the connection between
the bass and the guitars.
00:01:21
They don't hang in the same
spaces anymore.
00:01:23
There's more room for
the bass to be forward,
which we gonna need,
and then, there's more room
for the guitars to be loud
without taking all the room.
00:01:30
Even though it's below 68
So in the mess obviously
we are losing the bass drum.
00:01:55
We're probably gonna lose the drums,
they're gonna sound dull and no fun.
00:01:59
We knew that was gonna happen,
because it always happens.
00:02:02
But we like the bass sound
and we like the guitar sound.
00:02:05
-We like the guitar sound?
-We like the guitar sound.
00:02:07
Which may change too.
00:02:10
but right now I have to find a way
to make this bass drum more...
00:02:15
boomy or punchy or whatever
it is that word that we're looking for.
00:02:20
So, what I'm gonna do
is duplicate this sub.
00:02:24
So, now I have two bass drums.
00:02:28
The second one
I'm gonna crush like crazy.
00:02:30
Let's listen to just the second one.
00:02:50
Well, that sounds awful but
how does it sound with this guy.
00:02:56
The two of them together.
00:03:02
With the bass.
00:03:18
With guitars.
00:03:57
Just trying to get that
"tic tic tic" kind of bass drum.
00:04:00
Alright, good. Why not?
Drums.
00:04:13
Let's do the same thing
with the snare drum
that we just did with the bass drum.
00:04:25
So we have a direct signal and
then we have the crush signal.
00:04:28
Crush signal sounds like this by itself.
00:04:34
We can do better than that.
00:04:43
Just the direct. Which already had
a little bit of compression
but just for positioning.
00:04:52
Just the crush.
00:04:56
Two of them together.
00:05:05
All the drums.
00:05:18
Bass drum still too fat.
00:05:20
Let's see if we lower the sub.
00:05:31
OK, this is a good direction.
00:05:33
What happens if we take
the two bass drum subs,
the two snare drum subs,
the ride cymbals
and we put those into a new sub
which we're gonna make mono
that we are gonna call drum crush.
00:05:51
That we are going to move
all the way here.
00:05:58
That drum crush is gonna
go to the drum stem.
00:06:01
And we're gonna use
the 160 on this probably.
00:06:04
Because since the beginning
of the history of the world
the DBX160 is been used
to crush drums. For good reason.
00:06:10
Sounds pretty good.
00:06:11
I'm gonna show you the aux, right here.
00:06:14
I'm gonna copy the mix
from here into this aux.
00:06:19
I'm gonna make sure the aux is pre
so I can change the mix to my liking.
00:06:24
And I'm gonna copy to send
It is send E.
00:06:30
So now the exact mix that
is on my main mix for the drums...
00:06:35
...are going to the drum sum
it's also been copy to the drum crush
I can alter that.
00:06:40
So for example I know
I'm gonna want more snare drum
and bass drum and probably
less of the cymbals
so I can already lower
the cymbals a few dB's.
00:06:49
Into the DBX
and it sounds like this.
00:06:52
Just the DBX.
00:06:59
Well that is what people call punchy.
00:07:01
Here's with the rest of the drums.
00:07:09
Without.
00:07:20
With the bass.
00:07:29
Nobody will get hurt,
if I actually hi-pass all
the drums here, the same way.
00:07:38
Here you go.
00:07:44
So the snare drum could
use some opening, a little bit.
00:07:48
So I'm gonna copy the Pultec here.
00:07:52
Not that much.
00:08:04
And with the guitars.
00:08:11
Let me make a group of
those two bass drums subs,
the drum sub and the drum crush.
00:08:18
that we're gonna call DRUM VCA.
00:08:21
There you go.
00:08:22
I'm gonna turn that group off.
00:08:25
Create a VCA
assign it to the drums.
00:08:31
That way I could control
the level of all the drums.
00:08:33
plus all processing, proportionally
right here with the bass.
00:08:47
How are we doin'?
Very nice.
Ok, very nice.
00:08:51
Give me a second
to check out you're references
to make sure I'm not taking you
in the wrong side of the world.
00:09:02
We're still way, way,
way fatter than this.
00:09:05
Are you OK with that?
-100%
-OK great.
00:09:15
OK, and then...
00:09:30
Alright we are gonna refine this.
00:09:32
But it's starting to turn into a song.
00:09:34
OK, let's see how you sound
on top of all this bashing
The snare drum is too loud, I apologize.
00:09:47
I'm gonna group this two snare drums.
00:09:50
Snare.
00:09:52
Which is a great way
to call your snare group.
00:09:55
And I wanna do the same
with bass drum, 'cos you never know.
00:09:57
Alright that's more like it.
00:10:30
Alright.
00:10:32
Since everything else is thick,
this is clearly too thick.
00:10:46
And you are playing guitar at
the same time, which is pretty awesome.
00:11:04
Definitely need to open the top of this,
to match the rest of the madness.
00:11:26
I'm also gonna limit the vocal.
00:11:28
Right now I'm just compressing it.
00:11:30
And it's giving me a center,
but there are peaks
that I'm not catching.
00:11:33
So, I'm gonna turn the limiter on.
00:11:45
Like that, I have the feeling that...
00:11:48
Inflator is gonna help us
give it that inflated feel.
00:11:56
A little bit of brightness.
00:12:21
A little bit of a slap
delay kind of thing.
00:12:24
I'm gonna make it mono
and call it "mono slap".
00:12:27
To give you more of a space.
00:12:29
So it doesn't sound
like the booth so much.
00:12:35
We know this one.
00:12:37
We know it works flawlessly
every time.
00:12:43
Let's not forget the colors
so we know what is what
I could even dig a little
more mids out.
00:13:17
This was an SM7 microphone
which is not a condenser,
but it's perfect for this stuff.
00:13:23
But, it's a dynamic.
00:13:24
And we're not use to hearing
dynamic in solo on records.
00:13:28
I could accelerate
the compressor a little bit.
00:13:42
And then I could tuck
the vocal in a little bit.
00:14:01
At this point for some
reason I can not explain,
I feel the urge of
tightening things together
by compressing them together
on the 2bus.
00:14:09
For centuries and centuries,
people have been using this thing
to tight things together.
00:14:14
Some people call it "glue"
but somehow there's
a negative connotation to glue,
as far as I'm concerned.
00:14:20
So, I'm gonna wide open the attack.
00:14:21
so that I can let some
of that punch go through
because, that's what I'm looking for.
00:14:25
And then I'm gonna tighten
the threshold until I get that.
00:14:28
Kind of, like, pressure.
00:14:45
So this is whithout...
00:14:57
Listen to the relationship between
the different instruments,
and especially the bass drum.
00:15:00
You're gonna tell me: "But you could
have lowered the bass drum"
Yeah, but it's not quite the same.
00:15:05
Because here,
every time the bass drum hits,
the whole mix gets affected together.
00:15:11
If we listen to the verse, for example.
00:15:13
Without.
00:15:41
It helps a low-mid problem
by nuthering it, a little bit.
00:15:45
It's still bringing us a little closer
to what this other records are,
so that, Joey can play for his peers
without having to explain
that the guy who mixed it wore a hat,
like this one.
You know what I'm saying?
This is great but we are only
listening to 80% of the track.
00:15:59
Let's put the other
background vocals in.
00:16:06
That needs to be a little compress
so we don't get those peaks.
00:16:09
So I'm just gonna turn on the limiter,
and be holy-unholy.
00:16:21
Even more un-holy.
00:16:25
OK, that's less of a pain.
00:16:27
I'm gonna create a space.
00:16:29
I'm actually gonna send everybody to it.
00:16:37
I'm gonna copy the settings
from the Echo-boy.
00:16:40
Put another Echo-boy.
00:16:44
Paste the settings.
00:16:46
Solo safe.
00:16:49
Make it yellow.
00:16:51
Send it to the back stem.
00:16:53
And to think that,
we all decided to do this job
because we didn't want
to do the same thing everyday.
00:16:58
Here we go.
00:17:02
That wouldn't be too much.
00:17:10
Without.
00:17:14
It's a little rough.
00:17:19
Then, there's the
all-important chorus double.
00:17:29
Since it's on the same mic,
at the same time,
the same day, by the same person
I'm just gonna copy this
and make it less bright.
00:17:47
And there's a little bit
of a peak at 5ks
so, I'm gonna tame that
with a SupreEsser here.
00:17:54
I should have made you
move away from the mic.
00:17:56
So we don't have
the exact same singer
with the same mic, at the same spot.
00:18:00
But you know what?
I didn't.
00:18:03
And so, we shall fix it.
00:18:25
Pretty good.
00:18:27
Toms.
00:18:29
Hi, com' here often?
My supernatural instinct
tells me that they play
somewhere around here.
00:18:37
Let's see what it sounded like raw.
00:18:45
Let's make us a group.
00:18:47
Just for entertainment
let's listen to just the drums.
00:18:51
Alright, so
(makes a sound)
I'm too lazy to go
and edit this by hand
so we're gonna use an
automatic "by-handy"
call an expander.
00:18:59
Avid makes a really good one.
It's call the Pro-Expander.
00:19:02
It says pro, must be good.
00:19:04
Rack tom.
00:19:07
Here you go.
00:19:15
I'm looking for the threshold point
where just the tom
is above the threshold,
and then I'm heightening the ratio
so that the difference
between on and off is big.
00:19:23
Makes sense?
I'm also gonna speed up the attacks
so I get the very top of the tom.
00:19:29
Higher threshold.
00:19:32
Higher threshold.
00:19:37
And a slyly slower release.
00:19:42
I'm not using a gate
because the difference
between on and of is huge
and in this case I kind of like
the buoyancy of it all.
00:19:48
And it doesn't bother me
if there's a little bit of bleed.
00:19:50
Actually, it's probably
gonna help a little bit.
00:19:52
Let's see the mid tom.
00:19:59
That's nice.
00:20:00
And the low tom.
Does he hit the low tom?
Or did we record it
for entertainment only?
Entertainment only!
We shall nuke the low tom.
00:20:08
Thanks for coming. See ya'.
00:20:11
There you go.
With the toms sounds like this.
00:20:21
There's a little bit of resonance
at the bottom of the mid tom.
00:20:23
We are gonna get rid of it,
like this.
00:20:29
Lower.
00:20:33
Listen to the "mhmhmh" thing.
00:20:45
Those toms sound great.
00:20:46
In the context of the whole drum set,
with the drum crush, to see
the balance of the toms
versus the rest of the set.
00:20:55
Too thick. Both of them.
00:21:01
I'm gonna use a shelf here and here.
00:21:06
They probably sound horrible
by themselves but I don't care
because I'm not gonna listen to
them by themselves.
00:21:20
With the bass.
00:21:49
That's snare drum makes the whole set
feel, maybe still, a little too thick.
00:21:54
So, why don't I try this.
00:21:59
Just a smidgen,
same thing I just did
on the toms, here.
00:22:03
Just a little bit.
00:22:06
See what it does.
00:22:12
So, this and this.
00:22:14
So, this is with the correction.
00:22:34
I'm still feeling that we are
a little bit low-mid rich
for what this track
is gonna get played against.
00:22:42
We've got plenty of bottom.
00:22:43
But still, I'm thinking maybe that
a little general curving of this stuff
will give us more of a
radio (whatever that means) sound.
00:23:04
Without.
00:23:15
Interesting.
00:23:16
I'm feeling that maybe it'll be smart
to just try a little of that
saturation here.
00:23:38
That's one option.
00:23:39
So, that's a certain sound.
00:23:41
Let me move this stuff up, here.
00:23:44
So, that's one sound.
00:23:45
Well, we can try another
saturation like this dude.
00:23:57
Without.
00:24:25
This is thinner.
00:24:26
And since our problem is
everything is so thick.
00:24:28
Maybe the thinner one
is actually a better look here.
00:24:32
How about we try this?
Just to see.
You never know.
00:24:49
I like that.
00:24:50
I have an idea. It may
or may not work.
00:24:52
I want to try and create space
around two instruments.
00:24:55
I wanna try and create
space around the vocal,
that is only on when the vocal sings,
and then some space around
the drums in general.
00:25:05
I could push this guy here
(the overhead).
00:25:08
But I'm not feeling the sound of it.
00:25:25
Maybe a little more.
00:25:36
Before I do the space thing,
let's see if we can get
a little more energy.
00:25:39
by speeding up the release
of the main compressor.
00:25:43
It's now on automatic,
which is fine.
00:25:45
It's basically program-depended.
00:25:47
But let's see what happens
if I use a faster one.
00:25:50
If we get more of that...
00:25:54
...thing.
00:26:37
I get a little more life out of it.
00:26:39
It's less mothered.
00:26:40
It's the same principal we discussed
on second instrument earlier.
00:26:44
It's not night and day,
but I like this better.
00:26:45
Plus the master engineer
it's gonna crush the hell out of this.
00:26:48
So, why not let it breath for now.
00:26:50
So, let's do our space thing.
00:26:52
If I create a new track
and I'm gonna make it stereo.
I'm gonna call it "lead verb".
00:27:00
voilà. And send into the lead stem.
00:27:04
Make it yellow.
00:27:06
I put something short,
like the EMT.
00:27:12
Be short.
00:27:13
So, I'm gonna solo it
so you can hear it.
00:27:28
In the sauce.
00:27:51
So listen to this:
(makes a sound)
All the attacks and everything.
00:27:55
Without it they're raw.
00:27:56
With it, they're a little more gentle.
00:28:17
So, I like the sound of that.
00:28:19
Of course then Joey is gonna
chase me with his guitar over his head
because you can hear
the reverb and the halls.
00:28:26
I understand that.
00:28:27
But it's not necessarily a problem.
00:28:29
We have solutions for
this tremendous problem.
00:28:32
We're gonna gate it
using Avid's standard rocking gate,
and then we are gonna teach
the gate when to open.
00:28:40
I'm gonna use a send from the vocal.
00:28:43
I'm gonna use bus 15.
00:28:44
I'm gonna call it "vocal key".
00:28:48
I'm gonna set the key input
of the gate to 15.
00:28:54
Boom.
By turning this on
the gate is now listening
to the lead vocal.
00:28:59
I gotta make sure to send
some signal and make it pre,
otherwise nothing is gonna happen.
00:29:04
Every time Joey is singing
on this track
this send
will send that signal to the gate,
and tell the gate:
"Yo, Joey is singing. Open."
And then when Joey is not
singing it will close.
00:29:17
Which means that the reverb will
only be on when Joey is singing.
00:29:20
So, for those hits,
the reverb is gonna get cut by the gate.
00:29:24
Sounds like this.
00:29:32
Et voilà.
00:29:33
Without.
00:29:49
In the track, it sounds like this.
00:30:05
-Are you OK, with that?
-Yes.
00:30:07
So this is gonna allow us
to have more sauce
but no left overs.
00:30:14
Let's do something for the drums.
00:30:17
Let's mute the rest.
00:30:30
Let's try and put some
reverb on just the snare.
00:30:33
And by reverb I don't mean
any of that "shh" stuff.
00:30:36
I just mean, some space.
00:30:38
So let's call it that.
It's just a space.
00:30:41
Here you go.
00:30:44
Traditionally, the Lexicon's
been doing a great job for that.
00:30:54
Drum stem.
00:30:57
So, now I have control of how much of
the snare
I'm going to send to that reverb.
00:31:12
Let's adjust the sound.
00:31:13
Less bass, more "ptsss".
00:31:22
Without.
00:31:35
That creates a little bit of that.
00:31:38
As opposed of everything being
so vertical and so real,
there's a little bit of dream
because even punk rockers dream.
00:31:48
-You dream in colours?
-I do.
00:31:49
There you go.
00:31:51
Here's the whole track
with that little sauce.
00:31:53
And then I will mute it.
00:32:26
By having those little things,
in-between the hits,
it feels more like a band
being in the same room.
00:32:32
It was a band being
in the same room
but the amps were separated.
00:32:34
Now we are replacing that separation
so, but we can chose
exactly the tone we want
by adding a little bit of sauce.
00:32:42
So I'm feeling that the vocal's
a little loud on the chorus
because of everything that
happens at the same time.
00:32:48
So, I'm gonna automate that quickly.
00:33:19
And I feel that the second
verse is also too loud.
00:33:21
So let's do that and see.
00:33:49
And then, the rest of the balance
we are gonna solve,
I think, by the guitars.
00:33:54
like this.
00:34:06
How about a little crescendo?
I'm being technical.
00:35:10
Let's do that again.
00:35:30
In this chorus it's too much.
I'm gonna lower that.
00:35:41
One more thought.
00:35:44
I'm feeling that here
I don't want to care
about the references
because I like
where we are going here
It's got it's own sound.
00:36:01
And it's Joey's sound.
00:36:03
And it's great.
00:36:04
And it sounds like them in the room.
I was there.
00:36:06
However I feel that,
because everything
has come up in energy,
that the guitar is now a little bit...
(for a lack of a better word)
...metrosexual.
00:36:16
So, what I'd like to do is to use
this DI right here.
00:36:25
So, for example.
00:36:26
Thise guys have this amp
which really does not suck.
Check it out.
00:36:37
A little brighter.
00:36:45
That could sound like you, right?
I know it's not a Peavy.
00:36:48
I know they don't have
the Peavy knock-off.
00:36:51
-It's too bad.
-I know.
00:36:52
We'll just have to do
with the Marshall one,
and then we'll lobby for the Peavy
knock-off as soon as possible.
00:36:58
Actually Peavy amp is not that bad.
00:37:00
I'm gonna group this two,
so that they hang together.
00:37:03
Like family.
00:37:05
Call it: "GIT DI"
Boom.
00:37:09
And so now, I can shuff them
in the mix a little bit.
00:37:13
And I'm panning them
full left and right.
00:37:16
So that, I can have as much
of that space as possible.
00:37:18
We have three instruments,
all of which are
completely in the middle,
except for the guitars.
00:37:22
So I might as well just
take advantage of that
Maybe a smidgen too bright for me.
00:37:49
I agree.
00:37:51
If we want it both ones
to do the same thing
without having to go back and forth,
there's a trick.
00:37:54
Let me show you.
00:37:56
If you go into the group in Pro Tools.
00:37:58
And instead of following globals,
you remove the follow globals
now you can decide
everything that is grouped.
00:38:06
In here, we can decide
the volumes and the mutes.
00:38:11
And all the plug-in controls
are gonna be grouped.
00:38:13
So now,
when I change parameter
on one of the amps,
say the brightness or treble,
it changes on both.
Isn't that wonderful?
Let's see in the track how much
of that brightness we want.
00:38:48
Little less volume, right?
By the presence...
00:39:20
With more presence it blends
better with the other sound.
00:39:23
Alright, I think we have enough
that I can print a version of this mix
and that I can send it
to your colleagues.
00:39:30
Brothers in arms,
fellow punk-rockers.
00:39:32
And see what they say.
00:39:34
This is the nicest things that
it'd ever been said about them.
00:39:37
Alright. Let's do that.
00:39:39
Let's select the whole track and print.
00:39:43
Maybe one more thing.
00:39:45
I know I said I was gonna use
all plug-ins
and I used all plug-ins
except for the 2bus,
but on the 2bus+ there's there's that
Paralimiter thing, that I really like,
and so I like to try it.
00:39:55
So let's just get a verse.
00:39:56
and I'm just gonna turn it on
and put a little bit of it
and see if we like it
better with or without.
00:40:14
The with,
without.
00:40:31
With.
00:40:39
Definitely with.
00:40:41
Just thicker and more exciting.
00:40:43
So, here we go. Print.
00:40:47
Any last comments?
This is it.
00:40:49
-Thanks.
00:00:08
Good morning, children.
00:00:10
The poet said:
there's no writing,
there's only re-writing.
00:00:13
And it's the same for mixing.
00:00:15
There's no mixing,
there's only re-mixing.
00:00:17
Or as we call it in the business:
recalling.
00:00:20
Today, we have Joey
from DCO and his track Ugly,
who's back because apparently
I did not nail the mix the first time.
00:00:28
Let's see.
00:00:29
So Joey,
how you doin'?
-I'm doing great.
-He's doing great.
00:00:36
What's the problem?
My drummer Ronnie wanted
just a little snare sample layered,
some vocal, maybe to make it sound
a little more pop vocally,
a little vocal tuning,
just a little more space
around the vocal.
00:00:50
OK
Let's open the session
and see what we can do.
00:01:39
First thing to do if you're
using analog summing
or if you're recalling
an in-the-box session
that's been sleeping for a long time
and you've done changes
to your computer
is to compare what you're
listening to, to what it was.
00:01:51
So, in this particular case
what we've just listen to is the print.
00:01:54
It's on this red track over here.
It's the print track.
00:01:57
Which is fed by the print bus,
conveniently.
00:02:00
If I press input...
00:02:01
I'm now listening to
what's going on today.
00:02:04
And what's going on today is all those
tracks are going to those blue stems.
00:02:07
Those blue stems are
assigned to separate outputs
to my Dangerous Music
convert AD2A
and that's going to my
Dangerous Music 2bus+,
with a tiny little bit of
the Paralimiter,
coming back in and being printed.
00:02:24
So, by switching this input
monitor button on and off
I'm actually able to
listen to the other day.
00:02:34
Today.
00:02:39
Strikingly similar.
00:02:40
Let's listen to that again.
00:02:56
For all intense and proposes
it's the same
-So, snare sample.
-Snare sample.
00:03:03
Let's start with the snare sample.
00:03:05
I will mute everything
but the drums and the bass.
00:03:10
Now it's the time to select
what my source it's gonna be
for the snare sample.
00:03:14
Obviously we're gonna probably to pick
something that has to do with the snare,
otherwise it turns into
experimental music.
00:03:20
In this case I think that what
would be smart is to duplicate
one of the subs.
00:03:25
If you remember,
this is my snare sub
this is my snare sub crush.
00:03:29
So, either is fine.
They're identical.
00:03:32
So here, this track "SD SUB.dp2"
is gonna be just my snare.
00:03:36
To be able to focus on what we are
doing, I'm gonna mute the drum crush.
00:03:40
Because, otherwise it makes noise.
00:03:41
If I don't mute it
sounds like this.
00:03:45
If I mute the drum
crush sounds like this.
00:03:50
So now, what
I'm gonna do here?
Well, first thing
I'm gonna make it loud.
00:03:58
That's the original snare.
00:03:59
Then I'm gonna choose
my plug-in.
00:04:00
My plug-in I'm gonna use today
is a Swiss plug-in
It's called Up-trigger 3.
00:04:07
And so, this is gonna listen
to the snare track and replace it.
00:04:10
With the sample that I choose.
00:04:12
Let's pick a basic sample.
00:04:15
I have my own library,
that I've made
with a friend of mine.
I like the sound of it.
00:04:24
I like that.
00:04:26
Let's try that.
00:04:27
So now, I need to adjust the trigger.
00:04:29
Basically tell the plug-in:
"Yo, listen to that, and that only"
So, if I listen to what's
coming in to the plug-in
I hear this.
00:04:42
So I'm gonna do
what the plug-in says.
00:04:43
I'm gonna click anywhere
to create a filter-band.
00:04:45
Check it out.
00:04:47
And I'm gonna use a hi-pass filter.
00:04:48
And that's gonna allow me to do this.
00:04:57
So, basically I'm trying to find
the most amount of energy
centered around the snare.
00:05:00
I could for example
try to get rid of the cymbals
by having a low-pass filter too.
00:05:11
So that is gonna tell the plug-in:
"Look, this is really what
we are most interested in."
"Everything else is decoration."
So, I'm gonna remove the input
filter monitoring, if you will.
00:05:21
And adjust the threshold
based on the input signal
so that I can decide what
gets triggered and what doesn't.
00:05:29
Press play, you'll check it out.
00:05:35
It's a little quiet,
I'm gonna give some gain.
00:05:37
Let's be wild.
00:05:44
If I put a little bit of
the dry signal then
you can understand what's going on.
00:05:53
But we don't need to because
we have two other subs
that have the dry signal.
They're here.
00:05:56
They're just muted right now.
00:05:58
OK, so this is what we have.
00:06:08
You've heard that: "pa pa pa ra".
00:06:10
Sounds like a machine-gun.
00:06:12
Great for heavy metal,
not great for this.
00:06:14
-Is that what you want?
-No
No, I didn't think so.
00:06:17
And I'm gonna use the "Level-mod"
control on the plug-in
to add more dynamics
to the sample.
00:06:23
Let's see this.
00:06:27
Could do some more.
00:06:33
OK, a little more.
00:06:39
It's better.
00:06:40
Blended with the rest
it should be fine.
00:06:43
Then we're gonna solo
the three snares.
00:06:52
So, obviously the balance is off.
Let's fix that.
00:06:56
I'm gonna copy the compressors,
so it kind of compresses the same.
00:07:00
But I'm not gonna use
the crush thing
Keep it wide open.
00:07:04
A little more release to keep
the sound together.
00:07:09
And some gain.
Gain is beautiful.
00:07:11
Alright, let's see.
00:07:13
This is the three snares together.
00:07:29
So, it triggers fine
but it's not the right pitch.
00:07:34
It's a little too bright and it's not
doing what we are looking for.
00:07:37
So, what I'm gonna do is
change the pitch of the sample
to match and to fill in
the bottom of the snares.
00:07:44
Let's see.
00:07:58
Check it out.
00:08:12
-Is that what you're looking for?
-Does the job.
00:08:14
So, there's a little bit of noise
because it's so unbelievable compressed.
00:08:17
I'm gonna, basically
shorten the sample
and give it a little bit of a fade.
00:08:30
Not bad, check it out.
00:08:50
Because I'm using a sub...
00:08:52
...this sub. Let's call it "SD replace".
00:08:58
Because it's going to the drum
crush, just muting it by itself
it's not gonna remove all its effect.
I have to also mute this.
00:09:04
The send to the drum crush
because it is... pre.
00:09:07
So, for me to be able to really tell
the difference before and after,
the easiest way is to go back
to my master right here,
and switch between
the other day and today.
00:09:15
Isn't that wonderful?
And I feel that maybe we can
get a little more of
clean hi-end on that snare,
Just a little bit,
just for entertainment,
by copying the Pultec
from the other snare.
00:09:40
This way.
00:09:45
I know we are looking for bottom
but since we added a lot of bottom
now there's kind of
a balance thing going on.
00:09:51
Let's see if this was a good idea
or maybe a horrible one.
00:10:10
Still a little loud, but is this
what you're looking for?
-Yeah
-Yes, great.
00:10:13
I think we definitely
could come down a little.
00:10:15
And to come down
I'm gonna come down
both in the direct sound
and in the crush.
00:10:19
That way it's all down.
00:10:21
Let's listen to it without the vocal.
00:10:23
Because Joey wants
to enhance the vocal
so I can't really base my snare
placement on where the vocal is
since the vocal is gonna change.
00:10:31
So, let's see how it sounds as a band.
00:10:51
Maybe we can raise
the snare drum a smidgen,
to re-balance this.
00:11:06
Alright, let's listen to the vocal.
00:11:09
What you mean by pop?
You want to sound a little
more like Katy Perry?
-No, not like K. Perry.
-OK
I think it just could maybe
have a little more space.
00:11:20
I know we gated the reverb last time
and the delay wasn't so present.
00:11:25
I think that those things
can be a little more present.
00:11:28
So, more like George Michael.
00:11:29
Sure.
00:11:30
OK, no problem.
00:11:32
In-between Katy Perry
and George Michael.
00:11:34
Not an option,
but not a problem.
00:11:43
The thing is though,
on it's own it sounds great, right?
And I like the space.
00:11:53
So, why don't we leave this alone
and just add something else?
Because I feel that,
this does what it does musically
and it's cool when
it dries up, you know?
So, all these dynamics are changing
and all the stuff we've done
I think is good.
00:12:06
-Now you want a little more sauce.
-Yeah
No problem.
00:12:09
Let's create a new track,
stereo, aux, input.
00:12:12
Call it "sauce".
00:12:14
And then we'll see...
00:12:18
Let's now forget to
assign it to the right stem.
00:12:20
Hello, there. Great.
00:12:22
So, what could it be?
You hear like reverb,
or like a special effect,
or what is it that
you are interested in?
Maybe like a longer delay.
00:12:35
OK
Subtle, but there.
00:12:38
Why don't we copy Echo-boy
(because that's kind of
the standard for this kind of stuff)
and instead of having the 8th note
(the same as the other one
we had before)
let's make it a quarter note,
and go from there.
00:12:49
And I'm gonna mute the other effects.
00:12:51
I'm gonna do this in solo.
00:13:04
A little thinner probably.
00:13:11
So that's not gonna really work for me.
00:13:12
Let's try and see...
00:13:19
Let's go back to the 8th note
but lengthen it.
00:13:41
Let's listen to it with everything else.
00:13:51
You know what would be more pop?
Raise the vocal.
00:13:55
And I'm gonna do that on the stem.
00:13:56
The reason for that is because is easy.
00:14:06
There's room for more of that effect.
00:14:08
Is the effect even remotely
close to what you've imagined?
Yes it is.
00:14:12
You want it longer or are
you happy with it there?
This is what we had.
00:14:23
Or we could do this.
00:14:32
Somewhere in-between?
In-between...
00:14:35
...so closer to Michael.
00:14:38
There you go.
00:15:15
So, sometimes is fun to send
the delay into a reverb
and that allows you to tie
the whole thing together, kinda.
00:15:35
For you to hear this is
much exaggerated, check it out.
00:15:50
You know what I mean?
So there's no reverb on the vocal but
it kind has a texture
on the delay only.
00:16:20
So this is definitely changing
the color of the track.
00:16:23
So, I'm thinking,
because of some of the peaks,
that I'd like to actually put
a fierce limiter before that delay.
00:16:32
So then when you peak, when you
have those (makes a sound) thing.
00:16:36
It doesn't excite the delay more.
00:16:38
Check this out, I'm gonna do this
and I'm just gonna put
a super fast limiter,
like this.
00:16:54
Obviously the amount of send
into the delay is not enough
for this limiter to be able to do it
so I'll have to find another limiter.
00:17:00
It's too bad because that's my go-to.
00:17:02
I don't want a mastering limiter.
00:17:04
I don't want a push-up limiter.
00:17:06
I want a top down limiter.
00:17:08
So let's just use the good old Avid
Compressor Dyn 3 limiter stuff.
00:17:13
Let's see if it has more range.
00:17:15
So, I'm gonna turn this
compressor into limiter
by making it infinitive here,
making sure the attack is very fast,
and let's check it out.
00:17:47
Now I'm gonna raise the gain
on my compressor
to compensate for
the amount of compression
and un-by-pass it.
You'll hear the difference
in the way the delay reacts.
00:18:10
Especially here.
00:18:39
So, it's less distracting
but you still get the effect.
00:18:41
In the context of the whole song.
00:19:13
Let's figure out what's that gonna do
when it breaks down here.
00:19:23
I propose we tame it.
00:19:25
Just like the others.
00:19:27
We're gonna tame it on the send
because if I just lower the return
then what ever tail's happening
before will get cut,
and whatever is going
under is gonna get louder
in this area here
which is not a good look.
00:19:43
So, sauce.
00:19:45
Level.
00:19:46
I'm just gonna take this
and come here.
00:20:13
Maybe that whole, less.
00:20:15
Maybe you're right.
00:20:23
Even earlier.
00:20:29
OK, great.
00:20:30
Maybe we tweak this
some more, but for now...
00:20:32
...look how he's happy...
00:20:37
Alright, what else Your Honor.
00:20:39
As for guitars...
00:20:41
the DI, kind of become
the whole guitar sound
and I really liked the amp guitars.
00:20:47
OK, why don't we just
lower them a little bit
and compensate by
raising the guitar itself.
00:20:52
The way I like to do this
is turn the trim on this
and it'd be better
if they've actually
were grouped properly.
00:21:00
So, we are gonna modify the groups
and make sure that the automation
mode is together.
00:21:06
And I'm gonna turn
the sub of the guitars trims on.
00:21:10
The reason for that is I know
now how much I changed it.
00:21:13
Because I can read.
I just took this down 3 dB's
and maybe take the whole
thing up a couple.
00:21:34
Without the change.
00:21:43
-Yeah?
-Good, I'm happy.
00:21:45
Maybe pull that sauce track just down.
00:21:50
Alright, let's try this biggest mission.
00:21:53
Let's do a whole smidgen.
00:21:56
There you go.
00:22:14
So now I feel like we
open the top a little more.
00:22:16
Yeah.
00:22:17
The whole mix.
00:22:18
Instead I'm going up to
16k for my 2bus Pultec
maybe I'll try 10 or 12.
00:22:27
So, lower frequency from 16 to 12,
which is a big jump,
but let's boost,
so you don't get as harsh.
00:22:33
But you get more "ahhh".
00:22:35
Technical term.
00:22:36
As a reminder, this is just before.
00:22:58
Great, what else?
I guess...
00:23:06
...vocal tuning.
00:23:09
-Oh yeah.
-Alright
Which part?
Maybe it's just the opening line.
00:23:17
The opening phrase that
I think I have an issue with.
00:23:19
-Here?
-Yeah.
00:23:27
It has a little...
00:23:28
It has character.
00:23:31
Let's analyze that character.
00:23:34
here's the fierce Melodyne
and we are gonna capture
that first phrase.
00:23:45
It's out there. Alright.
00:23:49
This is what we are looking at.
00:23:51
First things first
friends don't let friends
use the pitch grid
or the time grid
and then...
00:23:58
That's a little flat,
I give you that much.
00:24:02
Fine. And this is a little flat.
00:24:05
Isn't this a pleasant sound?
Beautiful sound.
00:24:10
So, it's phenomenal and also fun
to do that with the singer in the room.
00:24:14
You do this...
00:24:21
It's fun.
00:24:22
Alright, so are you ready?
You're annoyed by the drift.
00:24:25
Yeah.
00:24:25
OK, we have a pitch drift tool.
00:24:30
And then we can...
00:24:39
it's better but...
00:24:44
There you go.
00:24:52
Much better.
00:24:53
So surprisingly much better.
00:24:56
You know that most people
will never hear this stuff, right?
Yeah, but I will.
00:25:01
So, this is for you and your dog.
00:25:04
Alright, great wonderful.
00:25:06
Anything else?
There's one extra hi-hat hit.
00:25:11
Crucial. Where's that?
In the big ring part.
00:25:21
-In the hop.
-Absolutely.
00:25:23
No, it's important.
00:25:25
It's true. Let's make it more magical.
00:25:27
For everybody to be able to hear this
I'm gonna mute everybody else.
00:25:40
The problem is that cymbals are ringing.
00:25:42
Yeah.
00:25:43
I mean, here's the deal, if I do this
and cheat...
00:25:57
-Right
-This is as un-punk as it gets.
00:25:59
Un-punk.
Un-punk.
00:26:00
-I agree.
-A new style.
00:26:02
Even if we try to be sly about it...
00:26:09
What else is going on in
the track at that moment?
Because if there's a big hole
it could be interesting.
00:26:13
-That's the silence part.
-Let's see.
00:26:19
So that's semi justified.
00:26:21
I haven't heard this on headphones
but I know is gonna bug me
if I listen to it on headphones.
Check it out.
00:26:34
Some fierce foot stomping.
00:26:36
Yes.
00:26:38
This can led foot.
00:26:39
So, what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna hi-pass that gently.
00:26:44
Just for that section though.
I'm going to make this.
00:26:49
So, let's start with it off
here. Turn it on.
00:27:09
Let's be fair and make sure
it's on the drum B.
00:27:21
With the sauce.
00:27:25
Here we go.
00:27:46
What else.
00:27:47
I think that's it.
00:27:49
Alright, so why don't we
select the mix.
00:27:54
And I'm selecting the mix as my source
creating a new play-list.
00:27:58
That way this two mixes will be
exactly the same length.
00:28:02
So when you come home
and compare and you tell me:
"At 1 minute and 23 seconds
I don't like this."
It will be 1 minute and 23 seconds
on both mixes
exactly the same thing so I can compare.
00:28:13
-It's nice.
-Beautiful.
00:28:14
Let's print this sucker!
Et voilà, again.
00:00:00
Good morning children.
00:00:01
Today, we are going to
take some loud music
and master it.
00:00:05
Note:
I did not say
"We're going to take some
music and master it loud"
Those are, in theory,
two different things.
00:00:13
Let's go.
00:00:21
The victim today is DCO,
A.K.A "Dry Clean Only".
00:00:24
Which is one of my favorite
band names of all times.
00:00:27
And the song is called "Ugly",
although the song is not ugly.
00:00:31
Let's take the song and
drag it into the time-line
of our fierce Pro Tools rig.
00:00:38
I'm gonna master this
in-the-box, in Pro Tools.
00:00:40
So that, we can focus
on the processing
and the thought process
behind the processing
rather than on the gear.
00:00:46
Because this plug-ins
and their little brothers
are available to you,
like everybody else.
00:00:51
First thing I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna put a meter on it
so that, you can see the levels.
00:00:56
And this is Blue Cat's fearless meter.
00:00:59
This is what the track sounds like.
00:01:52
It's pop music. It repeats.
00:01:53
It's incredibly loud!
Who mixed this?
Me?
Great mix.
00:02:00
But incredibly loud.
00:02:01
We can see on the meter, here
there's an average of -5.6 Rms
Despite the incredible
blow to my reputation,
it is where the master should be,
and this is where the mix is.
00:02:12
Alright, so what's the mastering
process here?
It's already loud.
What am I gonna do?
Well, I hear some things
that I think could be better.
00:02:19
It's gonna be difficult to do
because it's so incredibly loud
that I don't have any headroom.
00:02:24
Remember, if I use an EQ
to raise the bass drum
by pushing the middle 3dB's
at 100Hz for example.
00:02:32
I'm gonna have to
raise it into the limiter
It's gonna make the track collapse
So, this is actually an interesting case
because we are in a situation
where I don't have that much leeway
but there are somethings I wanna do.
00:02:44
First thing I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna create a process track.
00:02:47
So, I'm gonna send the whole
track to stereo Aux
I'm gonna call it process.
00:02:52
And then, I'm gonna send the output
of that process Aux object
into a track that
I'm gonna use to print.
00:02:59
And I'm gonna call it
"Ugly Fabmaster 1.0".
00:03:05
Because, you know, there might be
several versions of this.
00:03:08
I'm gonna put this track on input,
so that, I can listen to it.
00:03:12
And I'm gonna send out
to my reference converter.
00:03:15
My "Convert-2" by Dangerous Music.
00:03:17
It is the angle and the ultimate quest
to have a controlled
listening environment,
especially for mastering.
00:03:24
Where what you hear is what you get.
00:03:26
I always listen to everything
through the same converter.
00:03:30
In this case I'm using
a Dangerous Music "Convert-2".
00:03:34
Everything I do,
I do through that Convert-2.
00:03:37
If I listen to a demo
I listen through it.
00:03:39
If I listen to a record I like,
I listen through it.
00:03:42
So, no matter what I listen to, I listen
to it through the same exact converter
and the converter that I know
is perfect for me.
00:03:50
I strongly urge you
to do the same thing.
00:03:53
I'm gonna take my meter and
put it at the end of my process.
00:03:57
The reason why I'm using an
Aux track in the middle here is multiple
First, having all my process, all my
plug-ins on the middle Aux track
leaves the source track clean.
00:04:07
Which means if I want to
I can send it to a separate output.
00:04:10
I can send it to another
output right here.
00:04:13
For example, put 1-2
and I can now listen to it
using my monitor section.
00:04:18
Raw, listen to output 1-2
or processed, listen to
my reference converter.
00:04:23
And using an Aux track
allows me to go around
the Pro Tools
pre-fader only plug-in slots.
00:04:28
Which means if I want to do a fade,
or things like that, I can do them
while keeping my processing clean
if I have a limiter on the last slot.
She's kind of nice.
00:04:38
First things first,
let's prove to ourselves
that nothing's changed.
00:04:45
It's still incredibly loud.
00:04:47
What am I going to do here?
Well, let's listen again to
the first verse and first chorus
and focus on relationship
between the sides and the center
Which is the first thing I've heard
when we listened to it earlier.
00:04:57
Do you like the relationship
between the sides and the center?
And the bottom, the low-mids,
where the bass and the bass drum
hang out for dinner,
is it bright enough?
Is it compressed enough?
It's now the question.
Here we go.
00:05:53
So what are we gonna do?
Well, I know what I hear
and what I hear goes right now
because I have control of
the keyboard and mouse, so there.
00:06:00
What I hear is that the guitars,
on the sides, are a little forward.
00:06:04
The architecture of the mix is...
00:06:06
I like it. And it sounds
really lovely.
00:06:08
But I feel that the guitars are
a little too (makes a sound).
00:06:11
They could use some support.
00:06:12
I'm wondering if we could extend
the high-end a little bit
but that we'll find out
by listening to a reference.
00:06:17
So, the first thing to do is to put
a diaper onto the master,
by putting a limiter at the end,
to make sure that
we don't clip too hard.
00:06:25
Here's my favorite limiter
for this purpose
This is the ultimate diaper.
00:06:29
The Sonnox Oxford Limiter.
00:06:31
It is lovely.
I recommend you open the attack,
so you don't crush
all the hard work that you put into it.
00:06:37
Just tucked 0.001dB
to make sure we don't clip.
00:06:41
Here we go.
00:06:59
It's fatter. It's got more presence.
00:07:01
Why is that?
Because this limiter
has a bit of a tone
and it's always kind of good.
00:07:06
I always like what it does,
which is why it always ends up
being last on my chain
98,89% of the time.
00:07:14
So, this thing does something fun.
00:07:17
What? I don't know.
00:07:18
Send them a postcard
and maybe they'll answer
Now, I'd like to start working
in the MS mode.
00:07:22
Sum and difference mode.
00:07:25
And I'm gonna use the new Brainwork V3.
00:07:29
Sum and difference is when you work
on middle and sides
as opposed to left and right.
00:07:34
For those of you who are confused,
let me explain in one simple step.
00:07:39
This is stereo...
00:07:45
This is just the center...
00:07:51
And this is just the sides...
00:07:59
So, in this sides, even though
displaying the sides in the middle,
you hear the content
that is on the sides.
00:08:04
Namely the guitars,
because they're pan left and right,
and the reverbs and stuff.
Check it out.
00:08:17
So now the possibilities are great.
00:08:18
Could EQ this?
If you wanted to.
00:08:34
This EQ has a solo function
that let's you hear what you are doing.
00:08:38
It's kind of disruptive,
if you're not use to it.
00:08:40
Sometimes is useful and sometimes
it drives me insane.
00:08:42
In this case I'm gonna leave it on
so that you hear what I'm doing.
00:08:45
I'm gonna remove this EQ
because that's in poor taste.
There you go.
00:08:51
You have the stereo width control here.
00:08:54
What's a stereo width control?
It really is a side level.
00:08:58
Meaning, with this button you decide
how much of the sides
you're gonna have in the signal.
00:09:03
Meaning, if you have more sides
it's gonna feel wider.
00:09:06
Right? More sides, wider?
Check it out.
00:09:09
I'm starting at 100%
I'm gonna go all the way to 400%.
00:09:12
It's fun.
00:09:25
In my case
I think that the guitar's a little loud.
00:09:28
Don't tell Joey.
00:09:29
So, I could lower them.
00:09:39
Of course there's a problem:
If I lower the sides,
I lose width.
00:09:43
So, what's my choice.
00:09:44
My feeling is that
if I lower the guitars a little bit,
if I lower the sides a little bit,
I'm lowering the guitars
by lowering the sides
because the guitars again
are panned hard left and right.
00:09:55
So say, 10%.
00:09:57
This is where we started.
00:10:11
Already it does this,
a little bit, right?
And then, use the center EQ
to enhance the parts
of the center signal
that I feel could help
make a better relationship between
the vocal and the guitars.
00:10:25
So, for example,
I'm gonna solo the center
and listen to the vocal
and try and find that vocal
with this EQ
and touching just the center,
raise that vocal.
00:10:34
Like this.
00:10:47
Flat.
00:10:58
So we get that lift, right?
And then, I remove the solo.
00:11:02
Without the correction on the center.
00:11:17
Notice the difference?
It does that shape
that I was looking for.
00:11:21
As a reminder without any of the EQ
meaning, without the 10% less
on the sides
and this EQ, it sounds like this.
00:11:40
You can hear the relationship
between the vocal and the guitars
being more something
that I would do.
00:11:45
And then let's not forget
that we started with nothing
and this is the raw track, the mix.
00:12:04
And that's the difference
between nothing
and 2dB's at 4k shelf
on the center channel,
a little bit of the sides down
and a limiter that supposedly
does nothing.
00:12:15
And that's a big difference.
I'll play it again.
00:12:17
Raw.
00:12:31
It jumps out of the speakers more.
00:12:33
It sounds more like a record.
00:12:34
We are on the right track.
00:12:36
Now, what else could we do to this?
Good question.
00:12:39
I still feel that we can enhance,
polish the tone of the track more.
00:12:45
Now, I don't want to polish too much.
00:12:47
This music is supposed to be raw.
00:12:49
"Grrr", like real men.
00:12:51
However this is recorded
by somebody who tends to like
things to be pretty hi-fi.
00:12:59
Let's find a good mix between
hi-fi and Sex Pistols.
00:13:02
How's that?
So, I'm gonna use the
Dangerous Master Bax.
00:13:07
Love this thing.
00:13:08
Right now the left and right
work together.
00:13:10
I'm gonna remove that link
and I'm gonna go into MS also.
00:13:13
So I can still decide just like you saw,
here, on this EQ
I can still decide to do
things differently
on the sides and on the middle.
00:13:21
I'm gonna hi-pass, a little bit.
00:13:38
I'm hi-passing at 18
I'm actually gonna go up to 24
on both sides. See what it does.
00:13:42
Listen to the bass raw
listen to how it moves this way.
00:13:46
But listen to how certain noise
take out more than others.
00:13:49
Without and listen with.
00:13:51
Also listen to the morphology
the shape of the bottom of the track,
with there a hi-pass filter at 24Hz.
00:13:58
Check it out.
00:14:11
Notice how that peak at 90...
00:14:15
I play it again.
00:14:16
That goes away
and things feel more together,
why is that?
Why would a hi-pass filter at 24Hz,
6dB's for octave, like the Bax does,
do something to your signal at 90Hz?
Well, there's a lot of reason for that
but my personal philosophy is that
if you don't need it cut it out.
00:14:35
Because if it's there, you're making
your converters work harder
and you don't want your
converters to work harder
especially not your iPhone converters.
00:14:43
You know what I'm saying?
You people are gonna listen to
your track on iPhones and iPads
or worse.
00:14:50
I don't think there's anything worse.
Maybe there is. Send me a postcard.
00:14:53
But overall if there's too much
stuff at the bottom
your playback system is gonna struggle.
00:14:58
So, it's a balance.
00:14:59
If you're doing a hip-hop record
do you wanna hi-pass at 30
or you wanna explode the speakers
in your escalate?
You choose.
00:15:06
In this case I have a strong feeling
there will be no escalates involved
in the listening of this track,
consequently, I can hi-pass the bottom
and gain a little bit of energy.
00:15:14
You may need really good headphones
or really good speaker system
to be able to tell the difference here.
00:15:20
But for me it's important.
00:15:38
Let's listen to the hi-end.
00:15:39
What happens if I enhance
the hi-end with this EQ?
This is a Bax EQ, Baxandall EQ
instead of being a shelf
that just raises in plateaus
the Baxandall EQ
just keeps gently going
up, up, up to the sky.
00:15:53
I already raise the center
in my BX-digital EQ.
00:15:58
and I loved the sound of that.
That was very nice.
00:16:00
So why would I wanna raise
the hi-end again in this EQ?
Well, because it sounds different.
00:16:06
and it's gonna do different things
that I can't do with the other EQ
and the combo of the two
is a nice combo,
at least in my experience.
00:16:12
Let's check it out.
00:16:13
Let's link them, so we can
hear easily what it does.
00:16:16
From 0dB's of gain to 5dB's of gain
on the 18k band on the Bax.
00:16:34
Pay attention to
the relationship between
The hi-mids, the vocals at the top
of the snare and the low-mids.
00:16:41
Now, you may not hear it be brighter
but when I turn it off
you may hear that track is gonna feel
a little bit muddier
Check it out.
00:16:50
Without, with and then without.
00:17:13
Crazy, right?
Well, not that crazy.
Not Joker crazy.
00:17:16
But crazy kind of like...
your mother in-law crazy?
Depending on your mother in-law.
Anyway.
00:17:22
Let's talk about the 18k thing.
00:17:25
You can't hear 18k.
00:17:26
If your been making music
for more than 10 minutes
at modern levels
or if you've been listening to
those iPad headphones you're
listening to right now.
00:17:35
against my better judgement
you can't hear 18k.
00:17:38
You can kind of feel 18k maybe
but you can't hear it.
Your dog can, you can't.
00:17:42
Your 2 year-old can. You can't.
00:17:44
So why is there an 18k setting
here on the Bax?
Because 18k is the turning frequency
but it gently kind of, like,
goes slower
And also, there's harmonics,
you can feel those harmonics.
00:17:55
I play it again so you can
re-focus on it.
00:17:58
18k is not a crazy thing
to have on an EQ like this.
00:18:02
It actually let's you enhance
that air thing
and it's pretty high up
that's why we have 5dB's of it.
00:18:09
But it's listenable.
00:18:10
So again, without,
with and without.
00:18:34
The fact that I can raise
18k 5dB's on the Bax
and not have a nose-bleed
means that the track was
probably mixed a little dark.
00:18:44
And the track is probably
mixed a little dark
because we were probably
listening way too loud.
00:18:48
Who ever mixed this
has really bad monitoring habits.
00:18:54
I mastered the previous DCO record.
00:18:55
I didn't mix the previous DCO record.
00:18:57
but I mastered the previous DCO record,
so I might as well,
see what this new track
which it was done in a very different
environment than the previous track
is gonna do tucked against
the previous record.
00:19:08
Because that's what's gonna
happen to them.
00:19:09
Their fans are gonna
listen to this record
after having listened to their previous
record forever and ever and a day.
00:19:16
The way I do that is
I go to my desktop,
Then I drag a master
that I know worked out.
00:19:21
I'm dragging it to
my receptacle track here.
00:19:24
And I'm actually gonna
re-name this "Ref".
00:19:28
If I have the green button on
I'm listening to today.
00:19:35
And if I have the green button off
I'm listening to the previous master.
00:19:45
So, level-wise I'm in the same realm.
00:19:47
Obviously, not mixed by the same person.
00:19:49
So I'm not too bright, not too dark.
00:19:51
The levels are very healthy.
00:19:53
I can hear the vocals very well
and the snare drum doesn't sound like
some sort of a plastic tub
hit by a spoon.
00:20:00
So, we're making progress.
00:20:02
I think I can get a little bit
of aggression.
00:20:05
If I listen to their previous music
it sounds like this.
00:20:20
And today.
00:20:34
Obviously I like this look better
but there's something charming
about that density of the other mix.
00:20:41
So, how would I achieve that?
I'm gonna un-link it.
00:20:45
I'm gonna add some 360
to put a little bit of that mud
on the sides.
00:20:49
This is from 0 to +5
at 360 on just the sides.
00:21:13
So now, when we started
the guitars were too loud.
00:21:15
But really, they were probably
a little too forward
and a little too bright.
00:21:20
And now with this 360 added
we're more in the realm
of what they were doing
without losing any of the quality gained
and the transients, the definition and
the fact that it doesn't hurt your eyes
Again we started our mix,
from here with nothing.
00:22:19
Nice.
00:22:20
Now, I still want to add
a little bit of aggression.
00:22:23
I just want to feel like a real man
with hair everywhere.
00:22:26
We're gonna memorize this setting.
00:22:27
+5 at 18.
00:22:30
Not difficult.
00:22:33
Lower that and let's go to 7.1
and do the same trick
I did before with 18
by raising slowly and see how it feels.
00:22:50
You hear those (makes a sound)
coming out?
Not gonna work.
00:23:00
You'd say: "Why don't you
do that just on the sides
and keep +18 in the middle?"
Good thinking.
00:23:07
So, I'm gonna keep +5 at 18
in the middle,
go to 7.1 on the sides
and raise it again.
00:23:28
So difference between 7.1 and 18
on the sides only?
We're getting into some
super geeky stuff right here
So this is 7.1
and then I play 18 and then 7.1
I'm gonna play it on the intro so
you can really focus on the guitars.
00:23:59
Why not?
Without any of the Bax.
00:24:14
So now the guitars are coming back up.
00:24:15
Let's go back to the digital.
00:24:17
I like the tone of them
but they're going back up.
00:24:19
So, let's remove a couple
percent of the sides
so we can regain some of our balance.
00:24:32
Alright.
00:24:33
We started here.
00:24:52
It's getting more exciting.
00:24:53
Gotta be careful not to go too bright.
00:24:55
Oh, but we have a reference.
00:25:07
We're on the edge.
00:25:08
One thing I heard here, is...
00:25:19
Hear that "Color"?
So, we have several options
for that problem.
00:25:22
We could speed up
the attack on the limiter.
00:25:26
But I kind of like it
what it does like this.
00:25:28
What I wanna do is
use a compressor.
00:25:31
There's many compressors
that can do this.
00:25:32
This one is pretty awesome.
00:25:34
We're gonna train the compressor
to listen to that peak.
00:25:38
To do so, I'm gonna turn
the side-chain EQ on
and I'm gonna listen to it.
00:25:43
and I'm gonna listen to that area.
00:25:58
Let me locate.
00:26:10
There it is.
00:26:13
Sometimes you're looking
for the harmonics
and it's the fundamental
that's bothering you
and sometime you're
looking for the fundamental
and the harmonics
is really bothering you,
and sometimes you
just wanna go to bed.
00:26:22
In this particular case
that is genuinely offensive sounding
So, now what I'm gonna do is
remove it from the signal
and put it in a side-chain.
00:26:30
So now, I'm gonna feed
that to the compressor.
00:26:37
Being careful not to
crush the whole track.
00:26:41
Faster.
00:26:44
I need a little bit of make-up gain
so I can hear exactly the same thing.
00:26:49
Without.
00:26:53
I'm making progress.
00:26:54
Again, this is without.
00:26:56
Listen to the "color blind".
00:27:01
With.
00:27:11
It's doing too much to
the rest of the track though,
so I'm gonna have to
speed up the release
and then go a higher threshold,
I don't need that much.
00:27:28
It's doing very good things.
Check this out.
00:27:41
It's tucking all those
peaks a little bit
in an elegant manner
and it's making it some
more style accurate.
00:27:47
meaning less well-recorded.
00:27:49
Without anything.
00:28:09
I like it.
00:28:10
It makes it somehow
more together.
00:28:13
We lose a little bit of the definition
but actually I kind of like it better.
00:28:17
I always make absolutely sure that
I'm listening at the same energy level
so that I don't get fooled
by the fact that it's louder.
00:28:25
And when you're not 100% sure
here's a good trick.
00:28:27
Listen to it without gain.
00:28:29
If you like it better compressed
without extra gain
meaning when the compressor
is going softer,
you're in really good shape.
00:28:35
Let's listen without the compressor.
00:28:51
I like the sound,
the togetherness of it better,
even though I'm listening to it quieter
which means I'm doing something right.
00:28:57
So, let's give 1.8 dB again back.
00:29:00
Let's listen to this again.
00:29:09
Previous record.
00:29:20
Overall I'm happy.
00:29:21
It's a little bright.
00:29:22
So, I'm gonna chill out on this,
for example.
00:29:32
And then, I can't help to wonder
what it would sound like
if I did some fattening of the center.
00:29:52
It's a little too high
starts becoming a problem on the snares.
00:29:55
and maybe 131...
00:30:06
Without the Bax.
00:30:21
It's nice!
Maybe a half dB less
on the sides of the 361
As a reminder we started here.
00:31:07
It's good I like.
00:31:08
So we have +2dB's at 4k shelf.
00:31:12
We have 3dB's at 18k in the middle.
00:31:15
5dB's at 7.1k on the sides.
00:31:18
3 (and change) dB's at 361
on the sides for the guitars.
00:31:23
1dB at 131, a little bit of hi-passing.
00:31:27
Some tucking in of the peaks right here.
00:31:30
and then nothing on the limiter.
00:31:31
Now let's look at the level.
00:31:34
So, you might think that
these are pretty broad strokes.
00:31:38
Sometimes it ends up being a half dB
and it does all the difference.
00:31:41
When the music is
that loud and that dense
you tend to use more EQ
to be able to feel it.
00:31:46
If it's a wide open, uncompressed,
totally transparent, gorgeous
you put a 3rd of a dB at 10k
and you're like... (makes a sound)
It all depends on the material.
00:31:56
So, let's look at our level right now.
00:31:58
This is your level, right here.
00:31:59
The harmless level, the average level.
00:32:01
Which is how loud music feels.
00:32:02
So the apparent level of the music.
00:32:05
Let's listen to the intro
and look at the levels.
00:32:31
Now, let's look at the new version.
00:32:33
You noticed 5.60 Rms.
00:33:01
You've noticed that the numbers
are not that different.
00:33:03
So, all that level is apparent,
more that it is actual real.
00:33:07
Well, it gets louder
obviously because you raise an EQ 2dB's
only at 10k or at 4k
you're raising 2dB's
and part of the spectrum
is gonna make the signal louder.
00:33:18
But it's not that much energy
for the system to take care of
and process and handle.
00:33:23
So we've got a lot of apparent level.
00:33:26
for low-cost in headroom.
00:33:28
Again flat.
00:33:34
Processed.
00:33:44
There's a science and a habit to take
to make sure that if
you're gonna do those moves
you're gonna do them for good reason
and it's not gonna cost you too much
level or too much headroom
so you don't have to crush the song.
00:33:55
So, in this particular case
it feels louder than our previous master
does it not?
Let's check it out.
00:34:11
What happens if I lose a half dB?
Here.
00:34:31
Nobody is gonna die,
and I'm not crushing it as hard.
00:34:35
This is the kind of stuff you can't do
when the artist is in the room
because if he sees you lower his master,
all of the sudden,
the manly-hood is in danger.
00:34:44
This is at 0.
00:35:11
The real test would be.
00:35:13
raise it 0.5 dB on the output
and lower 0.5dB on the input
and do a true A/B.
00:35:18
But that's a pointless A/B because
nobody is gonna listen to it.
With your 0.5dB's down,
everybody listens to it on stump.
00:35:24
So, in this particular case
your mission,
my mission (if you wish, you accept it)
(and this Pro Tools system
will self-destruct in 30 seconds)
is to create the best listening
experience for your end-user.
00:35:36
And in this case, I think
these people are looking for loud as hell
and loud as hell is
what we're gonna give 'em.
00:35:43
Last step: Create a new play-list.
Name the song.
00:35:47
There you go.
00:35:49
Select the track and print it.
00:36:04
So there you have it
an already extremely loud mix
because of extremely poor level handling
on behalf of this
sub-par mixing engineer.
00:36:14
Two or three little tweaks
allow us to go from a very good mix
to something that can be delivered
and competes against
their previous record
and what's going on
in the field right now.
00:36:27
Et voilà!
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- Sonnox Oxford Limiter
- Sonnox EQ & Filters
- Sonnox Oxford Dynamics
- Sonnox Oxford Inflator
- Sonnox Oxford Supresser
- SansAmp PSA-1
- Soundtoys Decapitator
- Soundtoys Echoboy
- UA 1176LN
- UA Neve 33609
- UA Pultec Pro Legacy
- UA Precision Maximizer
- UA LA-2A
- UA DBX 160
- UA SSL Bus Compressor
- UA EMT 140
- UA Lexicon 224
- UA Marshall Plexi Super Lead
- Avid Dyn 3 Expander / Gate
- Avid Pro Expander
- Blue Cat's DP Meter Pro 4
- UA Brainworx Digial V3
- UA Dangerous BAX EQ
Artist: Dry Clean Only
Song: Ugly
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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.
David Crosby
Queen Latifah
Jennifer Lopez
Mark Ronson
Les Nubians
Toots And The Maytals
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