'Words To Say' is a great example of modern pop production with a blend of acoustic and electronic drums, layered synths, guitars tracks, and tons of cool subtle production tricks.
You may have seen producer Fab Dupont and the South African band The Arrows take the song ‘Words to Say’ from demo track to a mix-ready session in Start to Finish: The Arrows - Production . In this 80 minute tutorial, Fab Dupont breaks down his final mix of that same Pro Tools session.
Since this is an enormous session, instead of starting the mix from scratch, Fab deconstructs the mix from the final record. Track by track, he analyses every setting and explains the thought process behind all of his mix decisions. Fab shares all the tips and tricks he used to make this song sound huge. This mix was performed with 95% plugins except for analog summing and some key analog mix bus processing.
This is your opportunity to see how the pros manage a big session and what goes into mixing a major label release.
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00:00:07 Good morning children!
Today we're gonna do what children do,
we're gonna play with a puzzle.
00:00:12 But instead of putting
the puzzle together like they do,
we're gonna take it apart, because
that's the kind of people we are!
The song is called "Words to Say,"
by a band called The Arrows,
from South Africa.
00:00:24 They're fantastic, and I was lucky enough
to be able to produce and mix their record.
00:00:28 We're gonna work a little differently,
because it would be
virtually impossible to take this track
from zero to finish
in 2 hours, or 3 hours, or 4 hours,
or even 10 hours.
00:00:37 So what we're gonna do is
we're gonna take a guided tour
through the insanity that is
the mix of "Words to Say."
The first thing we should do is take
a look at the version number of the mix.
00:00:50 It says 1.8.1.
00:00:53 Which means that I mixed this song
8 times, and then a little more.
00:00:57 Why would I have
to mix a song 8 times?
It brings an interesting question:
how long does it take to mix a song?
It depends on the song.
00:01:05 Let's take a look at why it took me
8 attempts to get this to sound right.
00:01:10 Let's listen to the song.
00:02:54 Then it repeats,
and there's a really great bridge
which we'll play later.
00:02:58 If you look at the Pro Tools mixer,
I have my regular organization,
from left to right,
drums starting left,
then bass, guitars, keyboards,
vocals, background vocals,
door slams, special effects,
stemming, and then ancillary stuff.
00:03:14 Let's look at the whole thing.
00:03:17 If you look to the left of the mixer,
you see that I tend to put
electronic drums all the way left.
00:03:21 Here, I have some sort of a tom fill,
a Rhythm 77,
which we'll look at in a minute,
3 DMX samples, Boom,
and a cymbal crash, apparently.
00:03:32 Then I go into real drums,
which I put in green,
3 bass drums, so I have 3 bass drum
microphones, then a Sub,
and then something in light blue
that's electronic,
we don't know what it is yet,
we'll look into it.
00:03:45 A top snare, apparently miked
with a Horizon microphone,
a hi-hat, a pair of toms...
00:03:52 printed toms, a tom reverb,
then a bunch of rooms
and cymbal microphones
which apparently I wasn't
too enthused with since they're at zero.
00:04:00 A Drum bus, and then another Drum bus
with apparently
a gnarly compressor on it,
that must be parallel compression,
and another one called
Parallel Compression
with distortion on it.
That's gonna sound interesting.
00:04:13 A snare tail, another tail,
a non-linear reverb,
which is probably a gate.
00:04:18 Then we switch to bass, in red.
Electric bass amp,
Electric bass DI, a Sub for those two...
then a duplicated DI.
00:04:26 I wonder why I did that for,
we'll have to look into it.
00:04:28 Some riff, and apparently it was new,
because it says "NewRiff."
Then guitars, 1, 2, 3 guitars,
which we tracked in Paris,
the riff was tracked in Paris too.
00:04:39 Electric Guitar through an Avalon DI.
00:04:42 More busses, reverbs,
delays on the guitars...
00:04:45 A delay throw on the guitar! Ah ha!
And then in pink of course, keyboards.
MS20s, some piano riff,
another piano that was tracked in Paris.
00:04:56 Reason was tracked in Paris... Xpand!,
more piano that I added after...
00:05:02 and then a bunch of little things
that are supposed to sound pretty.
00:05:05 A reverb for the keys,
a delay for the keys,
and then, a whole bunch of vocals.
00:05:12 1, 2, 3, 4 lead vocals, and a bus,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
different reverbs or echoes,
then another lead vocal here, LowVerse,
I wonder what that does...
00:05:21 Then a whole bunch
of backgrounds, doubles,
about 30 tracks of vocals in total.
00:05:26 And then reverbs for the backgrounds,
delay for the backgrounds,
and then the stemming,
and then the printing.
00:05:33 And that is why
it took me 8 attempts
to make this song sound right.
It's an enormous amount of tracks.
00:05:40 Here's how I function
when I mix these kinds of songs.
00:05:42 Every track goes to a stem,
either directly, or via a bus.
00:05:46 For example,
if I look at the Rhythm 77 beatbox,
that is going straight to EDrumsStem,
Electronic Drum Stem.
00:05:53 But if you look at
the 3 bass drums right here,
first they go to a Bass Drum Sub,
so I can process the 3 of them together
and get them glue,
and then it goes to the Bass Drum Stem.
00:06:04 If you look to the right of my session,
you have an Electronic Drum Stem,
a Bass Drum Stem,
a Drum Stem, a Bass Stem,
Guitar Stem, Keys Stem,
Lead Stem, and Background Stem.
00:06:14 The benefits of working this way
are multiple, and endless,
and wonderful.
Let me show you.
00:06:20 First, for example,
say you want to listen to the verse
with just the drums and the bass.
00:06:25 You don't have to go throughout
the session and mute everything,
you can just mute
the stems you don't like,
like these 4, and press Play.
00:06:35 If you want to hear
just the bass drum and the vocal
you can mute everything
but the bass drum and the vocal!
Not super useful, but you can do it!
The point here is that everything
being separated in little slices
gives you the benefit of listening
to whatever you want very quickly.
00:06:54 Also, it lets you process
groups of instruments together
very quickly, and very elegantly,
throughout the whole mix,
as opposed to just at the end.
00:07:03 For example, if your client is
gonna play this record live
but doesn't have a 25-piece band...
Easy!
You say: What do you want?
You want the bass drum separate?
The drums separate? The bass separate?
Here you go!
You want the bass drum separate?
Mute everything, record the bass drum!
Mute that, record the bass!
With all the processing,
perfectly aligned, perfectly in sync.
00:07:24 Isn't that wonderful?
Another benefit of working in stems is
that you're set up for analog summing.
00:07:30 If you pay attention, the output
of everyone of these busses
is actually sent to
a physical output of my interface.
00:07:36 So! You'll notice that
the EDrumStem goes to C 1-2,
Bass Drum Stem, C 3-4, etc., etc.,
until D 7-8.
00:07:44 Then, that goes into my 2-Bus,
then the output of my 2-Bus
is connected via the patch bay
to the input of my Liaison,
and the output of my Liaison
is connected to
the input of this Aux right here,
on which I have a couple of plug-ins,
and then I print that onto a track.
00:08:01 If you want to know more
about the analog summing proper,
you should watch a video about that.
But that's the principle.
00:08:07 I have all my tracks going to stems,
the output of the stems go to my 2-Bus,
the output of my 2-Bus
goes to my Liaison,
which I use to process, or not process,
depending on my taste that day,
and then I print that. It makes sense?
If you're curious to know what I have
on my 2-Bus, via the Liaison,
on Insert 4, I have a Dangerous Bax EQ,
and on Insert 5,
I have a Dangerous Compressor.
00:08:32 That's all the hardware
there is on this mix.
00:08:35 No other hardware other, of course,
than the Dangerous 2-Bus.
00:08:38 Let's start with drums.
I'm gonna mute everything else...
00:08:43 on the stems right here,
and scroll all the way
to the left of the session,
and take a look at
everything that's going on with drums.
00:08:50 Let's start at the top of the song.
00:10:31 And then it repeats.
00:10:32 So! We have... nothing but
acoustic drums for the first verse.
00:10:37 Then on the second verse,
we have some weird kind of like march
coming in from an old beatbox.
Then there's a pre-chorus,
and instead of going to the chorus,
we go to another verse,
where the beatbox stays,
then another pre-chorus.
00:10:49 The pre-chorus is the part
where the hi-hat goes... (sings the part)
And then, we go into the chorus
where everything comes on,
where the DMX samples come on,
and it sounds huge.
00:11:00 Let's listen to
all the parts separately,
and analyze
why they sound the way they do.
00:11:05 First, bass drum.
00:11:07 The acoustic bass drum
sounds like this by itself.
00:11:18 You hear the bleed
from the rest of the instruments,
and that's the actual bass drum,
there's 3 microphones.
00:11:23 If I mute
every plug-in on the bass drum,
it's gonna sound like this.
00:11:38 You have
the inside bass drum microphone...
00:11:45 Then you have
the outside bass drum microphone...
00:11:54 And then you have a Sub microphone,
one of those speaker deals.
00:12:02 I see no time alignment plug-in,
which means that
they're relatively in phase.
00:12:09 If I start
with just the inside microphone...
00:12:25 So, I have gates on the inside
and outside microphone,
probably because I thought that
I was gonna compress this a lot,
because it's modern,
and it's got to be in your face,
and the bleed from the rest of
the instruments would become a problem
so I put the gates.
It sounds like this.
00:12:43 Not gonna change
the course of modern music,
but I may gain a couple of dBs.
00:12:47 Then I'm EQ'ing
the inside bass drum this way. Flat...
00:12:52 With...
00:12:54 You notice that
I'm high-passing very much
and I'm also cutting all the fat
around 120, because it's a little wooly.
00:13:01 What I'm looking for
from this bass drum microphone
is the punch, and the click,
not the "Woomm."
So I'm happy with this.
00:13:10 Then if I add the second bass drum
and I turn that EQ on...
00:13:15 it sounds like this.
00:13:17 If I play it by itself, flat...
00:13:23 Now with the EQ...
00:13:28 Less cardboardy.
00:13:30 You'll notice that
the high-pass is being tuned
so that the two of them
still feel in phase.
00:13:40 Then, on the second one,
I'm adding a little bit of compression.
00:13:44 I'll gate it first, or expand it,
so I get rid of some of the ambience,
and some of the bleed
from the other instruments.
00:13:51 That allows me to then compress it
to give a tone
without raising
the noise floor too much.
00:13:56 So this is flat,
without the compression.
00:14:01 And with.
00:14:06 Because of the compression action,
it actually lengthens
the bass drum a little bit.
00:14:11 The two of them together
sound pretty cool.
00:14:18 And then there's the Sub.
So the Sub is EQ'ed this way.
00:14:22 You'll notice there's also a high-pass
in the same area
so it doesn't get out of phase.
00:14:27 It sounds like this, without.
00:14:31 With.
00:14:36 It's just a question of getting
the phase together.
00:14:38 And a little bit of compression.
00:14:40 Or no compression at all!
This compressor could not be here.
But it's here, so we're gonna leave it!
And the three of them together...
00:14:57 So these 3 bass drum microphones
are then summed into an Aux
that I call a Submix,
or Sub for short,
not to be confused with
the Bass Drum Sub microphone,
which is a speaker you put in front of
a microphone. It's confusing!
And that Submix has some plug-ins on it.
00:15:12 Why not put the plug-ins on here?
I have found over time that
the way I function
is I get the 3 bass drums
to work together,
then I have this Submix,
and then I mix everything else,
and then, as other things evolve,
I feel the need to enhance
the bass drum sound again.
00:15:27 And I can do that on
all 3 microphones at once
by processing the Submix, as opposed to
processing the separate microphones.
00:15:34 So for example, here,
I have another high-pass,
and then I have
a little bit of compression,
and then I have a Pultec Pro
that gives me some 60, and some 200.
00:15:45 So flat, without these 3 plug-ins
on the Submix...
00:15:50 And then with the 3 plug-ins
on the Submix...
00:15:57 That is an obnoxious amount of gain!
So it's difficult to hear before
and after. Let's try and do that.
00:16:07 Mmm...
00:16:14 Ok, that makes sense.
Without... all three.
00:16:21 With.
00:16:26 So it's fatter, and more forward.
00:16:29 I'm gonna bring the gain back up
to where it was,
because if I don't,
it's gonna throw the whole mix off.
00:16:34 Side note: this is really bad behavior.
I sucked at this.
00:16:38 I should always make sure that
my pre and post plug-in levels
are more or less the same,
so that when I bypass a plug-in,
three months from now, or a year
from now, I can hear pre and post
without ruining the mix, and knowing
exactly what the plug-in is doing.
00:16:51 I was just being lazy.
00:16:54 One more thing on this bass drum
that's unconventional.
00:16:56 You may notice here
something called "NON LINEAR."
This guy.
That's a send, and it goes to a bus.
00:17:03 And in that bus, there is a plug-in.
00:17:07 And that plug-in is
a non-linear reverb.
00:17:09 So this is the sound of the bass drum
without the effect.
00:17:15 With.
00:17:20 Listen to the tail,
just the end of the sound.
00:17:23 It's not as abrupt.
It's more extended if you will.
00:17:26 Again, without and then with.
00:17:37 But didn't your mother tell you
never to put reverb on bass drums
because it makes a mess?
Absolutely! And we don't care!
In this particular case, I felt that
the bass drum was disconnected
from the rest of the mix,
and too dry, and too forward,
and didn't have any sauce.
00:17:50 And I like my dishes with sauce,
so there!
Another trick I used here is I actually
augmented the bass drum with a sample.
00:17:59 I'm using Trigger, and this is
what the sample sounds like.
00:18:06 Now you understand, since the regular
bass drum sounds like this...
00:18:11 that the sample helps
with the "Pppt!" part.
00:18:14 That's a technical term!
I'm gonna raise the level of the sample
so you can really, really make it out
and then I'll bring it back
to a more metrosexual level.
00:18:33 Here we go.
00:18:47 So it punches.
And that's what we need,
because it's a big song,
with a lot of stuff,
and there's a lot of bass drums
and they all want to be the one!
And so... this one helps
this bass drum be the one.
00:18:58 Here we go.
00:18:59 So that's the beginning bass drum
of the song.
00:19:02 Here!
The groove is based on a tom pattern,
this tom pattern right here.
00:19:19 That's not how it sounds in the sauce.
00:19:21 How's that possible? Good question!
Because I thought that
this was a little...
00:19:30 small! Also, it rings a lot,
which means that if I push it loud,
it's gonna make a bloody mess.
00:19:34 More of a mess than the reverb
on the bass drum for sure.
00:19:38 So, not only do I try and augment it here
with RBass... This is without RBass...
00:19:48 Better, but not great.
00:19:50 So what I did is I actually ran
the track through a MIDI detector
and used a sampler,
and I played the tom sample,
under it, perfectly in phase.
Check it out. This is the sample.
00:20:04 With the direct sound...
00:20:10 As a reminder,
the direct sound without the sample...
00:20:16 Who votes for "With sample?"
Who votes "Without sample?"
With sample! Good choice.
Here we go!
Of course, there's a high tom too,
so I sampled a high tom too,
and the high tom only plays a couple
of times, we'll hear it when it comes in,
and then I added some reverb
on the sample only. Why that?
Good question! Because if I add
the reverb on the real tom,
the reverb is gonna be on everything,
the snare bleed, and the high tom bleed,
and the hi-hat bleed, and everything.
It's gonna make a mess!
Even more of a mess than
the reverb on the bass drum.
00:20:55 So I put the reverb
just on the sampled tom.
00:20:58 It sounds like this.
00:21:03 So... I'm high-passing
the send to the reverb
so that the reverb doesn't get excited
by the whole sample,
and then I'm using this digital reverb
that sounds a little bit like a 250...
00:21:18 In the sauce of all the drums...
00:21:25 Notice what happens if I mute the reverb.
I'll start with, and then I'll mute it.
00:21:43 If you mute the reverb, everything
feels kind of lonely, in its own corner.
00:21:47 If you add the reverb, it creates
a sauce in the back of the track
that sounds like family, because it is
generated by elements of the track.
00:21:55 It's better than a pad, and it
kind of acts like a pad for the drums.
00:21:58 Side note: the snare drum microphone
is also responsible
for a good part of the tom sound.
Check it out.
00:22:04 This is just the snare microphone.
00:22:12 Notice there's no compressor
on that track.
00:22:14 The reason why there's no compressor
on that track is because
if I compress the snare, it would also
compress everything in that track,
which would bring
the level of the tom up.
00:22:23 And we don't want that,
because we like the tom sound.
00:22:25 So it's a compromise. But...
00:22:27 There are ways to go around that,
which we'll see in a minute.
00:22:31 Quickly, the overheads sound like this.
00:22:37 They're not crucial, check it out.
00:22:47 They don't really change
the sound of the drums.
00:22:49 However, when he hits a cymbal,
the overheads help.
00:22:52 Everything else is so close-miked
that I won' hear the cymbal very well
in the other mics. Basically, those are
still there just for the cymbals.
00:23:00 We'll talk about cymbals in a minute.
00:23:03 The Mono kit and the cymbal mics,
apparently I didn't like the sound of them
because they're incredibly off.
00:23:08 Then the Drum room, same thing, is up.
There's no processing.
00:23:10 It's just extra noise to create
buoyancy, and happiness,
and joy, and things like that.
00:23:16 All that stuff is being
bussed into a Drum bus
that has a little bit of limiting on it.
00:23:27 You noticed that the snare excites it.
I show you again...
00:23:34 Just to keep
the peaks on that snare down.
00:23:36 All these drum tracks are sent to a bus
that I called Drum Sub,
for Submix,
and I assigned that to an Aux.
00:23:42 I also used that bus to feed
the parallel compression bus right here
on which I have my dbx 160.
00:23:47 If I listen to just the direct drums
without parallel compression,
it sounds like this.
00:23:55 If I listen to
just the parallel compression...
00:24:01 And if I listen to the both of them...
00:24:07 For reference, this is the parallel
compression bus without the EQ,
or the dbx 160, or the limiter.
00:24:18 And this is with all three of them.
00:24:26 I got lazy.
00:24:27 I did not set another Aux,
with another bus,
and have a different mix
for my parallel compression.
00:24:33 I basically took the same source
as my direct clean bus for the drums,
and I used that to crush them,
and then I used the fader here
to decide how much parallel compression
I want to tuck under.
00:24:43 Apparently,
I wanted to tuck about this much.
00:24:50 Now the point here is the bass drum
is nowhere near those two busses,
the clean one,
or the parallel compression one.
00:24:57 Because I know
there's 80 or 90 tracks of stuff
and I know that the first thing
that's gonna collapse
when I start putting everything together
is the bass drum.
00:25:04 The last thing I want
for this kind of music
is to have to fight
to keep the bass drum in the middle.
00:25:09 Putting the bass drum
in the parallel compression bus
would make it a little fuzzier,
a little more connected,
and I have no control
over that connection.
00:25:16 So I decided to leave it alone,
but to put reverb on it. Remember?
One more thing
about the acoustic drums...
00:25:23 There's this Drum Parallel track,
which means that it was recorded
with compression on it.
00:25:29 So this is what it sounds like raw.
00:25:34 Then an EQ high-passes it
to remove the "Woomm!" thing.
00:25:42 Then Decapitator probably gives it vibe.
00:25:48 And then, the dbx glues it together.
00:25:56 In the sauce of everything...
00:26:01 Without...
00:26:11 Day after day,
version after version,
based on the feedback from the band,
and my own change of feelings
on what I did the day before,
it gets more and more complex
and more and more layers get added,
it's like a tree growing,
and then you get there!
If I started from scratch today, it would
probably sound completely different.
00:26:28 It may be better, it may be worse,
but definitely different.
00:26:32 On the second verse,
we have a guest!
This is our guest!
It's my old Roland Rhythm 77
preset beatbox.
00:26:50 And I probably selected the March preset
and tried to match the tempo,
which it probably didn't,
then I recorded it into Pro Tools
and I sliced it up,
and matched the tempo.
00:26:59 But it's still a March from a Rhythm 77
from the 70s, or 80s.
00:27:04 The point here is
it's a different texture,
and it adds a really nice layer
and groove to the other drum set.
00:27:10 Check it out.
00:27:28 Even though this came out of a box
that was designed
to be put on top of your home organ,
so that you could entertain
your guests and family
when they visit from Ohio,
in this particular case, it actually
gives a bit of a gnarly vibe
and manly vibe to the track.
Check it out again.
00:27:46 Rrrr! So!
By itself, it sounds like this.
00:27:49 Completely raw.
00:27:57 I then removed that "Mmm" thing
with an EQ.
00:28:04 Gave it a little bit of bite
with the ubiquitous Decapitator...
00:28:12 And then, I gave it a space!
Simple, repetitive,
just what we needed.
00:28:29 As a reminder,
this track started as a demo
that The Arrows did themselves
in Durban, South Africa.
00:28:34 Then we met in Paris, we travel a lot,
and we worked together on it
and came up with a bunch of tracks.
00:28:39 Part of those tracks was
a DMX sample that I like,
that I added because I felt
it needed something on the chorus.
00:28:46 The current drums at the time
were some sampled drum
and they were not super happening.
00:28:51 Now we have the DMX, but since then,
we've recorded the acoustic drums,
so do we want to keep the DMX
that we put there
because we felt the chorus
was not happening?
Do we want to get rid of the DMX because
the real drums are really happening?
This is the chorus with
the real drums, the DMX samples,
and the Rhythm 77 March top-of-the-organ,
family-entertaining beatbox.
00:29:25 And I forgot the Boom pattern
that we actually added in Paris too.
00:29:29 Check it out.
00:29:34 So! This was everything.
00:29:38 Rhythm 77, DMX, Boom,
and acoustic drums.
00:29:43 Without the Paris tracks,
it sounds like this.
00:30:10 Who votes for "With the Paris drums?"
Who votes for "Without the Paris drums?"
With? Good choice!
I like that we always vote the same.
00:30:20 Processing-wise, Boom is left alone,
it's actually still playing
from the soft synth plug-in.
00:30:26 We liked the sound the way it was,
left it that way.
00:30:28 It does its trick, it's fantastic.
00:30:30 The hi-hat, the DMX hi-hat, same thing.
00:30:33 The DMX snare apparently had
a little ring at the bottom.
00:30:37 Let's check it out.
00:30:40 Without.
00:30:44 With.
00:30:48 Just a little shine,
and getting rid of the head cold.
00:30:50 And then, the bass drum, however...
00:30:56 It started like this.
00:31:01 That's a bass drum for real men!
What happened here with the DMX is
I probably soloed the real bass drum,
played the DMX bass drum raw,
and try and find a spot where
the DMX bass drum could fill
what the real bass drum does.
00:31:18 And the Boom track too.
00:31:20 So, all three of them together,
with no EQ...
00:31:26 With.
00:31:31 So you'll notice that I'm using the DMX
in the 200 and the 400 range,
where it can be difficult to get
a real bass drum to really hit,
but the sample is really easy.
00:31:40 So the sample is taking care of that...
where the real bass drum can't,
and the real bass drum is giving
the joy, and the buoyancy,
and the humanity in it all.
00:31:48 Then, I'm adding even more of that
with the SPL Transient Designer
on the DMX.
00:31:59 You'll notice that the Sustain is down.
00:32:01 What's that Sustain thing?
This is great,
because it lets you paint
the length of the bass drum.
00:32:06 Check it out.
00:32:08 This is flat Sustain.
00:32:15 Now I can shorten it.
00:32:17 If you notice, the effect of it
on the entire bass drum is this.
00:32:20 Without the DMX...
00:32:30 Super punchy.
00:32:31 And then, the Summit EQ is probably
just to soften the transients.
00:32:36 Let's listen to it in solo.
00:32:47 I was probably planning to use it
for something else,
enhance it and make it fatter,
and then I forgot,
or it didn't work for me,
but then when I muted it,
that tiny little thing it does,
I felt a little bit OCD over it,
so I decided to leave it
instead of ruining the rest of the mix,
because that's the kind of person I am.
00:33:03 So that's how drums sound for the song.
00:33:05 Let's listen to all this,
now that you know how it's done...
00:33:09 from the top.
00:34:49 Etcetera.
00:34:51 Let's turn the bass on,
and check it out.
00:35:03 So the bass is made out of...
a bass!
That sounded like this
at the beginning...
00:35:14 Then a little bit of this EQ,
looking for some 300 here...
00:35:19 Ok.
00:35:21 Without.
00:35:25 So basically, I know that the bass
is not gonna be fat enough
to be "the bass". So I'm using it
as an ambassador for the bass,
making it shine
in the area where there's room
and leaving the rest be.
00:35:37 A little bit of compression...
00:35:47 It adds a little fatness.
00:35:48 Decapitator,
because when you can, you should.
00:35:55 And then Tape Head, because
that's a different kind of distortion.
00:36:03 Again, this is colors,
so I probably...
00:36:06 put the EQ on, and the compressor on,
then I added some other stuff
and I said: I need a little bite,
so I added Decapitator,
and then I said: that's not enough bite,
I tried to push it and didn't like it,
and I said: what about Tape Head?
So I put Tape Head on,
removed Decapitator,
then I was like...
00:36:21 I kind of like Decapitator
into Tape Head.
00:36:23 Trying these kinds of things
gives you ideas
and lets you make happy mistakes,
and for the rest of your life, you will
always use Decapitator into Tape Head,
no matter what you do.
00:36:32 That last EQ is probably there
for the fact that you should probably
not be using Decapitator into Tape Head
for everything
until the rest of your life.
00:36:45 Then, we have a duplicate of the DI
and I've put a bunch of stuff on it.
00:36:53 What's that for,
since I already have a DI there?
I'm doing parallel processing.
00:36:57 The reality is that
this is just not enough.
00:37:03 We have this guy here...
00:37:07 The synth we recorded in Paris.
If I mute it, it sounds like this.
00:37:14 A little edge with Devil-Loc,
and then a little fat...
00:37:23 with the Pultec.
This Pultec is always great
if you want to add bottom to something.
00:37:28 A couple of clicks at 100,
quite a few clicks at 200.
00:37:31 And then, EchoBoy for space.
00:37:36 Without.
00:37:40 With.
00:37:45 That is a 1/16th note delay,
with feedback,
but with the high-end cut on the return.
00:37:50 So it's not a reverb,
but it does give a tail. Again.
00:37:56 Without.
00:38:01 It sounds less demo-y, and less dry
with a little bit of that tail.
00:38:05 But still, this plus the regular bass
is not enough!
So I added a duplicate of the DI
which I crushed.
00:38:15 This is how it sounds raw.
00:38:22 So I see a Little Labs
In-Between Phase here.
00:38:25 And if I listen together...
00:38:28 flat without the In-Between Phase...
00:38:33 That sounds pretty fat.
If I activate the In-Between Phase...
00:38:39 I think the answer is
with the next plug-in...
00:38:42 This EQ here,
I'm using as a extreme high-pass,
because all I want is
the buzz from the extra DI,
the fat coming from the original sound,
composed of the amp and the DI.
00:38:55 So if I activate the EQ that has
a really high-passed filter,
this happens...
00:39:02 Without the Little Labs...
00:39:11 So this Little Labs is here
to compensate for
the fact that I'm using
an extreme high-pass filter
on that extra DI.
00:39:19 The fact that I use
an extreme high-pass filter
kind of ruins the phase
between the direct sound and this DI.
00:39:24 I use the Little Labs
to compensate for that,
and shape the tone to my liking,
so I can use the DI
just for high-end and distortion,
without ruining the bottom.
It makes sense?
Rewind! I'll wait...
00:39:39 Distortion...
00:39:41 Yeah!
Compression...
00:39:54 That compression is there for that line,
because otherwise it just sticks out...
00:40:00 With.
00:40:03 Just a little bit of state power.
00:40:05 And then a little delay
to give it space. This is flat.
00:40:09 With the delay.
00:40:16 And now, the three of them together.
00:40:29 If you listen to just the synth
and the bass we did in Paris,
without the DI trick,
it sounds like this.
00:40:37 With.
00:40:41 And in the sauce of everything, without.
00:40:52 And with.
00:41:04 You need that DI
to give focus in the middle
and make sure that the bass is really
anchored and never wavers.
00:41:11 So that's the bass sound,
that's pretty much it.
00:41:14 Next is guitars.
00:41:15 Most guitars in this track were
recorded in Paris. There's this guy...
00:41:21 Which is basically exactly what we did..
00:41:24 I probably have
a little bit of a cleanup at the bottom,
and a little bit of compression.
Without, it sounds like this.
00:41:35 With.
00:41:41 We knew what we wanted,
and we did it well,
so there's no need to torture
this sound into something else.
00:41:46 We just need to adjust it a little bit
so it fits with the 800 other tracks.
00:41:51 That's about it for this one,
no big deal.
00:41:53 The next one started as a DI recording,
straight into the box.
00:41:59 Then we used a Waves Guitar Stomp
to give a nice, gnarly octave vibe.
00:42:08 That was done
during the recording session.
00:42:11 Then Eleven to give it more of a guitar
vibe, as opposed to a synth vibe.
00:42:19 This really qualifies more as a bass
than a guitar, but it's fun anyway.
00:42:22 And then a little bit of a delay.
Without the delay is like this.
00:42:32 The delay is all the way to the left.
00:42:34 That way, you get that spread thing.
The two guitars together...
00:42:44 And with the bass... es! Basses!
Awesome! There's one more guitar that
comes in on the pre-chorus,
I ran it through a synth filter
in real-time while I recorded it.
00:43:11 So it started raw like this...
00:43:19 There's a first EQ to give it presence.
00:43:21 This is probably due to the amount
of stuff that's going on in the chorus.
00:43:25 And then, a little bit of the Neve vibe.
00:43:28 I don't know why I have this on,
let's figure it out. With and without.
00:43:35 There's a nice saturation. Without.
00:43:41 Listen to the transient,
the first attack. This...
00:43:46 So, without.
00:43:51 And with.
00:43:57 It's super subtle, but it will prevent it
from sticking out of the track
on that one hit,
and the subsequent hits,
and it will give it a little bit
of a softer, gentler sound
in the sauce of everything.
And then... A reverb.
00:44:13 That's this 250 there,
I love this reverb.
00:44:18 And then, the same delay.
00:44:28 That is awesome.
And then, after the Paris session,
I added two more filtered guitars
that I think were interesting to double
the line on the chorus, that go like this.
00:44:41 It's kind of the same vibe
as what we did in Paris,
a guitar through a synth filter,
but they're stereo,
and they have delays,
and they help transition
and soften the exit of the chorus.
00:44:52 Let's listen to all guitars,
plus drums, plus bass,
on a verse, pre-chorus, chorus,
so you get the progression of
the arrangement. Here we go.
00:45:56 Cool! Let's move on to synths.
00:45:58 Keyboard-wise, in Paris we did this.
00:46:09 Which was really this...
00:46:14 I needed to open it up, because there's
so much stuff going in the low-mids.
00:46:17 And then a little bit of filter for...
extra filter!
You can't have too many filters!
So this is just opened up with the EQ...
00:46:26 And then, the Moog filter
to give it more of a bite.
00:46:35 And then we use Xpand! to do that
80s synth-y kind of thing.
00:46:40 Which at a time sounded like this...
00:46:46 Opened it up...
00:46:50 If you wonder why
there's a big peak here,
it's because
there's room in the track there.
00:46:54 So I took advantage of it.
00:46:56 And then, Devil-Loc,
which is a great crush box.
00:47:07 You can't listen at the same level
pre and post with Devil-Loc,
it's a shame, but, it doesn't matter
because it's so good that I use it anyway.
00:47:15 And then EchoBoy for space!
Then there's the Reason thing.
00:47:32 I played with it a little bit
after the Paris session
to give it some detail
and cool little things,
and then I added some reverb.
00:47:42 And then some delay.
00:47:48 The reverb is the 250 that I love,
and then the delay is,
you guessed it, EchoBoy.
00:47:53 It's a 1/8th note delay,
and it's high-passed a little bit,
and it's a really thin delay,
it's the Transmitter model.
00:47:59 It sounds like this... Just the delay.
00:48:06 As a reminder, dry.
00:48:20 So... these little sequence-y parts
are always good
to put a little bit of reverb.
00:48:26 I like it,
because it gives height to the part.
00:48:29 It also gives it a more grandiose vibe,
as opposed to just somebody doing
(plays little notes) on a keyboard.
00:48:34 It gives this majestic quality to it.
Check it out in the track.
00:48:56 I'm gonna play the same thing
and mute reverb and delay
every 2 bars,
so you get the vibe of what they do.
00:49:02 So these are my reverb and delay
right here. Here we go. We start with.
00:49:22 It does this. And that's what we need!
That's what the keyboards are for.
00:49:26 Things I added post Paris session,
because nobody's was watching...
00:49:30 These...
00:49:40 Because I wanted a piano and I could.
00:49:43 I also use that on the verse.
00:49:46 Somewhere I think, if I remember well.
Here! On pre-chorus actually.
00:49:52 I really like the filtered gate idea
we did in Paris on the fake piano,
so since I had a real piano miked up,
I said: what would a filtered gate
sound like on a real piano?
Well, it sounds like this.
00:50:09 The reason why it falls apart bitsy
like this, is because I have a gate on it
with a fairly short release. And so...
00:50:17 the piano hits,
and then the gate tries to close it,
but it doesn't quite know what to do,
and it gives that "Krrr!" thing to it.
00:50:23 Which makes it weird,
and we love weird! Here we go!
I also added some MS 20s on the verses
to go with the choir that was
"La, la, la, la!", check it out.
00:50:36 And then its little brother on the left.
00:50:39 And the whole family.
00:50:42 Played twice,
because we're not lazy.
00:51:28 It's a puzzle!
And here's another piece! Check it out!
Here, at the end of the chorus,
before the verse, it goes like this.
00:51:36 What's that? That is a piano hit,
which I reversed, and cut up.
00:51:41 And then I cut two little pieces
out of it. So you hear the rise...
00:51:46 And then the other two pieces
go "Pop Pop!"
And that's to create a transition
with the verse.
00:51:53 If I play the end of the chorus
without this transition trick,
it sounds like this.
00:52:02 Boring!
But if I add this little thingy...
00:52:08 Much better transition,
and a lot more fun.
00:52:11 These days,
we all make music with computers
which, let us not forget, were designed
to do word processing, and not music.
00:52:18 And it shows!
Now, the biggest problem with computers
is the copy/paste function,
which most of us think as a benefit.
But it's not!
The problem with copy/paste is that
most of the music
has already been heard somewhere,
because it's a copy/paste!
Also, copy/paste tend to be used
from bar to bar,
which means you copy a whole chorus,
which means that the transition
between every part is really forgotten
because there's no real special
transition copy/paste function
in your word processor. So!
It's very important as a producer,
or as a mixer,
to pay attention to your transitions,
otherwise it sounds like word processing!
Side note:
I get asked the question a lot
about where do I draw the line
between production and mixing.
00:52:59 Very good question!
These days, it's blurry.
Because of the word processing thing.
00:53:05 Because you can do just about anything,
and add stuff, and remove stuff.
00:53:09 It really depends on the ego
of the producer if you're the mixer.
00:53:12 In this particular case,
I was the producer.
00:53:15 So I had a conversation with myself,
and I let myself do
whatever I wanted for the mix.
00:53:20 But it may not be that easy. Sometimes
I don't let myself do what I want,
sometimes I had to fight myself
to let myself do what I want,
if you know what I mean.
00:53:29 So, production and mixing, at one point,
are gonna completely merge.
00:53:34 Some people basically mix the track
while they produce it,
and some people hire somebody to mix it,
it's not that in stone,
and that's the key.
00:53:42 It's blurry, it moves,
there's no dogma about it,
and let's not have any dogma about it.
00:53:48 Let's get back to transitions.
00:53:49 We saw the piano one
at the end of the first chorus.
00:53:52 Before every chorus, you may not have
noticed, there's this little thing here.
00:53:55 It's a tom fill. Check it out.
00:54:00 This was actually created for this song.
It's not a found sound.
00:54:04 I had him play a tom fill, because
I felt maybe it'd be cool.
00:54:07 Why? I don't know.
Maybe I felt tom-y that day...
00:54:10 Usually, people do things like this,
I'm sure I have one here.
00:54:13 Check it out. This is cool too.
00:54:16 This is a reverse cymbal.
00:54:22 You can do this very simply.
Drop a cymbal sample in your timeline,
copy it, use the Reverse function
to turn it around,
and then, aim it so it feels good,
just tight on the beat.
00:54:32 That, plus the tom, really help.
00:54:36 With the whole thing...
00:54:40 Without.
00:54:45 It just sits there.
00:54:46 Those little details make the difference
between interesting productions
that will bring new stuff to listen to
to the listener every single time,
or just a flat track
that just sits there,
because it was done in a hurry.
00:54:57 Transitions not always have to be
something special,
they can also be "nothing" special.
00:55:01 For example, at the end
of the first verse here,
there's a hole that I just cut in
with automation.
00:55:18 The fact that there's a space there,
in a wall of sound,
makes it an interesting transition
and makes it different
from the other transitions in the song.
00:55:25 That's your touch. Make sure you pepper
little things like this
here and there in the song,
otherwise it just gets boring.
00:55:33 It can also be cool to use
special effects on existing tracks
to create smoother transitions.
00:55:38 I showed you earlier on the guitar that
there's that extra line that comes down
that has delay on it,
and I used the same trick here
on that "If I Only Knew" part.
Check it out.
00:56:00 So what's going on here?
If we go and look at the tracks,
there's three tracks saying
"Oh If I Only Knew."
And that's all bussed into
this Aux right here,
and I have a reverb on it, a big reverb.
So all flat, it sounds like this.
00:56:16 That's a lot of plug-ins...
So flat!
Those backgrounds are actually from
the original demo they did in Durban.
00:56:29 I like them,
why redo something that's great?
So I cleaned them up by using
a little EQ to high-pass it.
00:56:35 There you go...
00:56:40 And then I made them cloudy
by adding a big reverb, 8 seconds.
00:56:51 It fills the holes
in between the syllables.
00:56:53 Then, I soften them with the Studer.
00:57:03 Again,
these were probably brush strokes.
00:57:05 Maybe I did the reverb, then
I went back to do something else,
and it was too bright,
so I added the Studer,
and then it didn't work,
so I said: but I like the Studer,
so I'm gonna modify that
by high-passing further.
00:57:22 That by itself is atrociously bright.
00:57:25 But that's ok in the track.
00:57:31 If I play the same thing
without this EQ, look what happens.
00:57:38 It clouds the bottom and makes a mess,
we don't want this.
00:57:40 So I'm gonna keep that EQ.
Then a little bit of Devil-Loc for bite.
00:57:45 So this is without the Devil-Loc.
00:57:50 With.
00:57:55 In this particular case, I'm obviously
looking for that "Krrr!" thing,
that bite, that aggressiveness,
and those artificial sounding breaths.
Check it out.
00:58:07 Without.
00:58:09 Everything feels mediumy,
and cardboardy,
and compressed, and ugly,
and that's the point!
Ok! Then a little bit of reverb, because
you can't have too much reverb.
00:58:28 There's the reverb that I put
on the Aux to create the cloud,
and then there's this reverb,
which is a 140, this one right here,
that I use as a tail
on all the background vocals.
00:58:38 The second Aux here says:
Background Reverb 2.
00:58:42 It's a lie! It's a pitch thing that
I'm doing with this Waves plug-in.
00:58:46 Let me cut the reverb
so you can hear what it's doing...
00:58:54 Without.
00:59:02 It's basically the same signal
pitched off a little bit,
6 cents to the left,
and -6 cents to the right,
and put back with the original signal,
so it gives this otherworldly kind of
chorus-y, but not really chorus-y vibe.
00:59:15 That is an old trick
you used to be able to do with an SPX90,
called Ensemble, if I remember well.
00:59:20 Then, a delay.
00:59:26 So, all those effects create
with the reverb... this!
But what of our transition?
Check it out!
It just sits there. However,
I decided to do a delay throw.
00:59:51 So I have this delay send right here
that I automated, as you can see here,
so there's no delay, no delay, no delay,
and when you get to this part here,
it just sends all the signal
from the bus into this other delay
that I set up on this track,
called FX Delay.
01:00:07 And the first thing I have on that delay
is an MXR, Flanger, Phaser, thingier...
01:00:13 Check it out.
01:00:17 So on just the word "New,"
I'm gonna add an effect.
01:00:20 I'm making it weird with the phaser,
then I'm putting a delay on it.
01:00:27 Now the word "New" is gonna
lay over the transition,
and then since I just can't help myself,
I also have PanMan, which is gonna
make the effect go like this.
01:00:37 And it sounds like this.
01:00:41 And in the sauce...
01:00:53 By the way, in this case,
if you want a longer transition...
01:00:57 just lengthen the delay.
Go here... More repeats...
01:01:01 A little louder... There you go!
You could even be obnoxious!
Not that I would ever be obnoxious...
01:01:19 That was obnoxious!
Let's put it back where it was before.
01:01:22 There's a reason why it was there
in the first place.
01:01:24 Speaking of vocal effects,
let me show you something else.
01:01:28 We haven't heard the bridge yet.
Let's listen to the bridge.
01:02:19 That is a really great bridge.
01:02:21 Let's listen to just the vocals on that
broken down chorus at the end there.
01:02:24 It's kind of cool, check it out.
01:02:47 We'll talk about the vocal sound after.
01:02:49 But right now,
let's talk about this part here.
01:03:01 With the lead, it goes like this.
01:03:17 Pretty cool right? So you have
the sound come before the sound,
and it's reversed.
But it's not really reversed.
01:03:22 I'm using the built-in,
trusty Avid Non-Linear reverb.
01:03:28 The track sounds like this, raw.
01:03:36 Slightly aggressive and compressed,
and distorted.
01:03:39 I'm running it through
the Reverse setting on this reverb.
01:03:50 And I took that whole clip
and moved it forward,
so that the direct sound without
the reverb is early
before the actual real chorus.
01:04:05 It sounds like you're having a headache!
But with the reverb on it...
01:04:09 the two of them together
sound like this.
01:04:17 Which is pretty cool, but messy.
01:04:19 So, then I compressed...
well, then I EQ'ed it,
because this gave me a headache.
It sounds like this.
01:04:29 So I removed the bottom and the highs,
as to not hurt my feelings,
and then I used
the built-in Digi compressor
and I used a key.
01:04:38 So the main track,
the lead vocal, has an Aux
that goes to a key,
which is just a bus.
01:04:46 And I'm feeding that
to the effect track.
01:04:49 The purpose of that is that
whenever the real track is playing,
the reverse track is getting compressed.
01:04:55 So the reverse track is never gonna
cloud the real track.
01:04:58 Whenever the real track is playing,
the reverse track is getting compressed.
01:05:01 Whenever the real track is not playing,
then the reverse track is
gonna come up.
01:05:05 Playing with the release
and the attack on this,
I'm able to do this play
between the two tracks,
and it sounds like this.
01:05:23 And that is probably why I keyed it,
so you hear it come in between
the direct lines,
you can hear that reverse come in.
01:05:30 The one place where it's different
is I actually chose to automate
the reverse off here in the bigger hole,
because it was just too much,
and it made no sense lyrically.
01:05:38 But this is a funny fact
that's easy to do,
that you haven't heard many times.
Check it out in the track.
01:06:01 Without.
01:06:17 Not as much fun. And not as good
a transition! Check it out.
01:06:40 Fun!
Let's look at the lead vocal.
01:06:43 As a reminder, we tracked it in Paris...
like this...
01:06:55 That's a great recording.
01:06:57 I'm removing stuff... We shouldn't
look at this... in the absolute,
we should look at it in context.
01:07:03 All of this is done in context, because
the vocal by itself sounds great.
01:07:06 But in the mess, it probably
overwhelmed some of the parts,
and since it's a puzzle,
remember the puzzle thing...
01:07:11 it has to fit in this little hole
right there.
01:07:15 So... I'm removing some stuff that's
probably in the way in the track.
01:07:27 It makes no sense by itself, but I'm sure
it does with the rest of the plug-ins.
01:07:36 She's so good, almost no compression
because she's super controlled.
01:07:39 There's like 2 dBs of compression,
nothing to talk about.
01:07:42 However, probably on the chorus
it gets loud.
01:07:46 No! She also knows how to control that.
Amazing singer!
And then, I'm adding
a little bit of 200... for body.
01:07:57 Without.
01:08:01 With.
01:08:06 It's subtle, but it's important.
01:08:08 Then, compression.
This is mostly for tone.
01:08:17 And then, a little echo...
01:08:27 Then a Supresser to remove that "Gnnee"
thing, that's part of close miking.
01:08:31 I'll play you
the frequency I'm looking for.
01:08:36 Alright? This is the full track
without the effect.
01:08:43 Hear on the word "Say",
"Gnnee" thing?
And then, with the Supresser.
01:08:50 Magical!
Then, I have a bunch of reverbs on it.
01:08:55 But they're not all there all the time.
01:08:57 So the LeadVerb, LeadEcho
are there all the time.
01:09:08 And then I have two hardware reverbs
on this song.
01:09:11 I'm gonna make it very loud,
so you can hear exactly what it does,
and since it's a hardware reverb,
and it's old,
it goes "Gnnee!"
But it also creates that cloud
that's indefinable,
and that I haven't been able to make
with the plug-ins,
so I'll take the buzz
in exchange for the nice cloud.
01:09:35 I can always gate the buzz.
And then, there's a BX 10.
01:09:40 It sounds like this.
01:09:46 Really nice.
01:09:47 And then there's the key we use
for the effect on the bridge,
and then the long delay
comes in on the chorus.
01:09:54 I show you.
01:10:04 That is because when the chorus comes,
there are so many tracks coming in,
and so much stuff going on,
that the vocal felt detached from it.
01:10:11 I'll play you the whole track,
and you can hear the sound of the vocal
without the delay, and with the delay,
on the chorus. Check it out.
01:10:19 So this is without delay, first.
01:10:31 And then with.
01:10:44 Again without.
01:10:53 With.
01:11:05 It creates a sauce that makes it a whole
with the rest of the track,
as opposed to being just pasted on top,
which is important to me.
01:11:12 Now, everywhere on this track,
there is a 2nd, and a 3rd vocal track.
01:11:16 On the chorus, there's a plain double
that sounds like a double.
01:11:21 Wish she was a little further
from the microphone... Fine!
But... throughout the whole song,
there is this.
01:11:36 What is this? This is her vocal
run through a distortion.
01:11:40 Where does it come from?
It comes from another song actually.
01:11:42 They had done a Logic demo
of another song,
and they had this weird distortion
effect on it, and I really loved it.
01:11:49 So when we did the vocals in Paris
and I did the track, I was like:
Hey! I would like that effect!
So I flew this vocal into Logic Audio,
used their original preset
from the other song,
distorted it, flew it out of Logic
back into Pro Tools,
and that's the sound right here.
01:12:04 The combination of the two is awesome
because it gives the bite.
01:12:17 And on the chorus, it's awesome.
01:12:34 We actually recorded four backgrounds
in Paris that sound like this.
01:12:46 Which I'm running through the ringer,
the reverbs, and delays, and everything.
01:12:50 Every other vocal is
actually from the demo.
01:12:53 There is no reason to not use
something that's from the demo
if you like the sound of it. It's not
because something sounds better
that it's necessarily better.
01:13:00 Maybe sometimes the fact that it sounds
a little off is beautiful.
01:13:03 In this particular case,
everything sounded good,
I just like the way it was,
and it was up to par,
at the level of everything else we did
during the production session,
so we kept it. It saved time,
and it saved a lot of grief
recording four times the same part
over, and over again.
01:13:17 So... We've looked at
every instrument group,
and we've looked at the lead vocals,
and the background vocals are
pretty much self-explanatory,
they're just what they are, they're just
sitting there and drenched in reverb.
01:13:28 Now I'd like to talk about
the 2-Bus processing chain.
01:13:31 If you remember, every track goes to
a stem, or to a bus and then to a stem.
01:13:37 These are our eight stems here.
01:13:39 And then the stems go to
physical outputs of the interface,
which go into the 2-Bus,
and the 2-Bus goes into a Liaison,
and the Liaison has
some goodies inserted on it,
and the output of the Liaison
goes back into Pro Tools.
01:13:50 Then we print it,
and then we go to bed!
However, the smarter, or less tired
people amongst you
will have noticed there's
a bunch of plug-ins on those stems.
01:13:59 Why are they there?
Because the world is not perfect.
01:14:03 We always set out to be perfect.
We want perfect children,
perfect output, perfect work...
It never works out that way!
So the reason why
there are plug-ins here...
01:14:12 well, the limiter plug-ins,
because that's the point,
the point of these stems is to be able
to do micro limiting on every single stem.
01:14:18 So if I play the track, you can see,
I'm gonna show you a bunch of stems...
01:14:22 so you can see
how much limiting there is,
probably not that much on this...
01:14:35 So you see a little bit
on the Bass Drum Stem...
01:14:39 Here, you can see it here.
A little bit on the Drum Stem.
01:14:43 And then, nothing on the Vocal Stem,
and nothing
on the Background Vocal Stem.
01:14:49 And nothing on the Bass Stem.
However...
01:14:52 Because the Oxford limiter has
a sound of its own,
if I bypass all these plug-ins,
you will hear a different sound.
01:14:58 It's a little fatter with the limiter.
Maybe we should do it.
01:15:01 Let me move them all to one insert
and turn the Stem Group on.
01:15:07 I'm gonna modify the Stem Group
to make sure that the bypass of inserts
is part of the thing.
So if I bypass one, they're all bypassed.
01:15:14 Now we can hear the difference.
01:15:35 We also have here
a transient control system.
01:15:39 The transient is
the attack of the sound,
and I'm using this P&M transient control
on the Drums Stem,
on the Electronic Drum Stem,
and on the Bass Drum Stem.
01:15:49 This is what they sound like
with and without.
01:15:51 I'm gonna mute all the other stems
so we only hear those two.
01:16:07 As you mix, as the day progresses,
or the days progress,
you'll find that a lot of the stuff
kind of tramples on your transients
and on the attack of the track. The more
tracks you add, the heavier it gets.
01:16:18 It's nice sometimes to be able to
get a little more of a peak through,
just on those percussive instruments,
without making them louder,
just having more of the attack,
so it feels louder.
01:16:28 But it's not louder,
so it doesn't ruin your balance.
01:16:30 Using a transient modulation plug-in
right here is usually a good idea
and I do it very often.
The other things I do sometimes
is if I have several basses,
that all go to the stem,
but are not Sub'ed before,
remember...
01:16:43 a track can go directly to a stem,
or to a Sub before it goes to a stem.
01:16:47 If it goes to a Sub,
I would work on the Sub.
01:16:49 But say I have for example,
let's take an example,
two basses that go to a Sub,
and then some copy of the DI
that's processed,
and they all go to the stem,
well... maybe I would want to EQ that
so that the three of them
actually are affected together.
01:17:04 In this particular case,
it looks like I did.
01:17:06 Probably, through the layers of mixing,
I got to a point
where it was a little too fat in
the 150 area compared to something else,
and I cut it, and then I looked
for a little bit of a shine here.
01:17:17 So this is what it does.
Without the bass EQ...
01:17:36 You noticed that it's a little cloudy
without the EQ,
and you don't read
that "Krrr" thing as much.
01:17:41 I'll play it again. Without, first.
01:17:57 It's just cleaner.
01:17:58 You noticed that the same thing
happened to me probably on guitars.
01:18:02 Yep! And on the keyboards.
01:18:04 Let's listen to the track
with all three EQs on and off.
01:18:09 Off first.
01:18:36 Clears up the low-mids,
gives it a little bit of a shine,
leaves some room for the vocals...
It's subtle, but it's very practical.
01:18:43 Then, after all this mess happens,
we go through the 2-Bus,
and then, we go through the 2-Bus chain.
01:18:48 The sound comes out of the 2-Bus and
gets into the Channel B of the Liaison.
01:18:54 Right now, I have Inserts 4 and 5
activated.
01:18:58 Which means that Insert 4 is
my Dangerous Bax EQ,
and Insert 5 is
my Dangerous Compressor.
01:19:04 Which means that the sound goes
all the way here, untouched,
then goes through the Bax, then goes
through the Dangerous Compressor,
and then out into the 2192,
back into Pro Tools.
01:19:13 If I want to hear with just the EQ,
I turn the Compressor off.
01:19:16 If I want to hear just the Compressor,
I turn the EQ off.
01:19:19 If I want to hear and compare
the whole 2-Bus chain, I clear it,
but I can recall it
with one of the Liaison presets.
01:19:26 For example, the track by itself, raw,
with no processing on the 2-Bus
sounds like this.
01:20:00 It's the sauce.
It adds a little bit of magic.
01:20:03 The settings are pretty simple.
On the Bax, I have a high-pass at 30
to get rid of the rumble, and too much
accumulation at the super bottom,
which I don't need
and will make the track heavier,
and more difficult to master loud.
01:20:16 Plus 0.5 dB at 74.
01:20:19 Plus 2 dBs at 4.8k for shine,
the 74Hz being for the "Boom! Boom!"
And then a low-pass at 70,
just because I can.
01:20:29 If I want to listen to the track
with and without just the EQ,
I can do it here,
but I'm in the habit of doing it here.
01:20:34 Check it out, without.
01:20:57 It provides the shine, and the tightness
at the bottom, it's cool.
01:21:00 For the compressor, I'm using it
just to tighten,
bring everything close together.
01:21:06 I'm using a 1.4:1 ratio,
which is not a lot.
01:21:10 This compressor is completely
transparent and has no sound of its own.
01:21:13 It does what it's supposed to do,
it's written here: Compressor.
01:21:16 It compresses, that's all it does,
so I'm able to really hear
the gain reduction,
as opposed to the tone of the box
changing my mix,
which I really enjoy.
01:21:24 Everything is automatic.
01:21:26 The Bass Cut makes sure that
the compressor doesn't see too much bass
so it doesn't overclamp on bass.
01:21:31 The Sibilance Boost actually boosts
the bright, annoying part of the signals
so that the Compressor clamps down
more on that.
01:21:37 It's a very useful Sidechain thing.
01:21:39 Don't touch the bass too much,
and make sure you catch as much
of the annoying stuff as possible.
01:21:44 Then, the Smart Dyn is
a two-level detector system
that's really cool and lets you
keep your transients happy,
and the Soft Knee is because
I'm a soft kind of guy.
01:21:54 The only other thing I do
is play with the Threshold
and compensate for Gain,
it's really easy.
01:22:00 So the Compressor,
I'll change it up here again,
the Compressor on and off
sounds like this.
01:22:05 Listen to the density of the track,
and the presence of the drums
in the track.
01:22:37 It's the difference between...
01:22:39 good, and definitely together!
So there you have in a nutshell
the reason why it took me several passes
to get this song
to sound right to my ears.
01:22:49 Now, it's a puzzle.
01:22:51 The pieces are ready for you to download
so you can try and put it back
together yourself,
in your own recycled
word processing machine!
Et voilà!
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Fab Dupont is a Grammy winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has been nominated for Grammys 6 times, including two Latin Grammys and has received many other accolades around the world, including Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards and US independent music awards.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
I voted against the Paris Drums. Fab made a mean cheat, I'll tell my mom.
viccieleaks
2016 Dec 14
She reminds me a bit of early SIA
cjperez
2016 Nov 27
This was an excellent video Fab.... I learned alot from this session.. Thank you for doing what you do bro... Keep up the good work
weissmar
2016 Oct 05
Can't watch the whole video after purchase .. Video length in the streaming player is only about 6:28.
Waiting for a fix.
composermikeglaser
2016 Apr 26
The reverse vocal effect after the bridge is one of the coolest tricks I've learned in a long time. Now, how do I tastefully use that? :)
Great video Fab!
owenlt
2016 Mar 26
I have to ask: on the lead vocals, why the 3dB cut at 250Hz with the Oxford EQ, only to boost at 200Hz with the Pultec - 10th dimensional chess, making use of the unique slope and character of the Pultec vs the Oxford, or did you dip the lower-mids during one pass, and then boost later, feeling it was thin?
David Einer
2016 Jan 19
That was such a good job, I've listened that music in Spotify and was fantastic..
pierrobass
2015 Dec 29
Hi, As far as I hear, there's some clicks on the drums. Maybe it's just the broadcasting.
ojavargas
2015 Oct 10
Amazing video. This changes completely my concept of bus processing. It's embarrassing to find out how much you know about mixing after many years studying mixing really hard, but one day you discover it never really made any sense until someone explained it and used it in front of your eyes. Thanks Fab.
Alberto Rizzo Schettino
2015 Apr 01
@iorio
Pleasant surprise: Spanish subtitles were just added for this video.
iorio
2015 Mar 29
please sub in spanish
PoPe
2015 Feb 24
Best video ever. This is deconstructs the mix instead of building it from scratch. So much more ground is covered. Love the song! love the production tips as well.
Fabulous Fab
2015 Feb 24
@peterzachos: No hardware reverbs on this mix that I recall. All plug ins. UAD EMT140/250 and Lexicon 224 emulations
peterzachos
2015 Feb 23
Excellent, informative video and a great song. Question: what are you hardware reverbs that create such a great, smooth cloud?
surfz247
2015 Feb 20
Not my favorite from Fab. I think the site has other videos that really dive in to the mix. This was kind of a lazy fly by. Not worth the price. I love this site and think it's definitely one of the best on the web. Howling mix was great! Check that one out.
Fabulous Fab
2015 Feb 20
@sound11advice: It's probably because I was looking for power from that sample and that I get more power in the center. And also that I could create a wider image by not having all sources coming from the same spot.
sound11advice
2015 Feb 19
@Fab...Question: What was your thought process on choosing to leave the SAMPLE TOMS panned direct CENTER when the REAL TOMS were panned LEFT and RIGHT? It looks like you had the TOMVERB panned favoring the RIGHT. Great video.
Fabulous Fab
2015 Feb 16
@lwaidosch: To get the ProTools faders golden you need to have a certified platinum record..... NO!!!!! It's a PT HD only function called trim mode.
Fabulous Fab
2015 Feb 16
@White Cat Studio: I always leave the first insert blank incase something needs preprocessing, like tuning, or tape emulation, before my first Eq. Saves time by not having to move a whole chain of plugs down if I filled the first slot fromt he beginning of the mix.
Fabulous Fab
2015 Feb 16
@drumvarna: I keep the input at zero to make it simple to check for errors. Attack is as open as posislb eunless I need transient taming, release is as short as possible unless I hear distortion
drumvarna
2015 Feb 13
Great video again!!!
My question is, how you set up the Attack and Release time on the Limiter on your final stems? And did you keep the INPUT Level of the Limiter at"0" or put it down on diferent instruments?
RESPECT!!!
Diegusva
2015 Feb 11
A great and excellent video! A lot to learn. Hugs from Argentina!
AshesOfFenice
2015 Feb 07
Great Video, Italian subtitles would be very useful...
rulletryne
2015 Jan 18
tom´s tracks missing in the exercise files???
great video
AdRi__Forn
2015 Jan 10
Here my participation for the contest "From creation to final mix".
I used PT10 with avid and P&M plugins, also Stale Digital virtual console collection (for demo test ;)).
Hope you like it.
https://soundcloud.com/adriforn/adrianroig_mixv1_2_the-arrows_creation2mix
Advices are really welcome, please!
RobbyD
2014 Dec 28
Once again...uber informative. Also, a hats off to your video team maintaining the great audio and useful graphics.
jasonxoc
2014 Dec 19
Yo Fab,
Have I told you lately that I love you and the site?
The 1st 2 minutes of this video cracks me up.
I like pensados place but I love this site. I signed up for the mix coach but cancelled it. This site I'll continue to subscribe to until the end of time.
Happy holidays to you and everyone at puremix!!
J
Drmudler
2014 Dec 16
Awesome video! Its great to get to hear and see how the the whole production in broken down. I really like this type of teaching. Helps us producer/mixing guys very much.
Hope to see more like this in the future! Keep rockin! Love from SF!
White Cat Studio
2014 Dec 16
Great video again Fab...
I saw that, for some of the tracks, the first insert is empty. Is there a reason or simply you tried something that didn't works and than remove the plugin?
And yes, what are those golden fader?
Cheers!!
msloan
2014 Dec 16
FAB.......another fantastic video! thanks a bunch for the detail and insight.......I also just got a chance to watch the recording of the song videos from Avid with their "creating to final mix" series of videos.......those were spectacular as well! Really cool stuff.
lwaidosch
2014 Dec 16
Of course a Great Video again! Thank you as always!
How do you get those ProTools Faders golden? :)
