Transcripts
1. Introduction to Mixing Hacks Class: Welcome to the advanced
cakewalk mixing trick course. In this course, I will teach you all the
advanced tricks that I use to make mixing
easy inside cakewalk. My name is Shall,
and I have been producing music for
the past four years. In this course, I
will share some of my expertise on cake walk. By the end of this course, you will be able to use all the tricks that I
show you in order to be much more efficient when mixing your tracks
inside cakewalk. I will show you all of
my tricks step by step. This course is
perfect for you if you have been using
cakewalk for some time now and you want to learn a better workflow
to mix your tracks. Thank you for
checking out my class and I hope to see you there.
2. Pre and Post Setup: In this lecture, I'm going to talk to you about a concept that I see a lot of people getting
wrong when using cake walk. Because this concept is so important and yet it is
not fully understood. I decided to include
this in my course. The concept that I'm
talking to you about is pre versus post gain staging. Now what do I mean by pre gain staging and
post gain staging? Well, there's one
key difference. In order to explain that, I have imported a few
audio files into cakewalk. The first clip over
here is a kick, the second is an 88, the third is a high hat. And here's what they
sound like together. As you must have heard,
these three tracks are not properly mixed. The kick drum is obviously way louder than the 88 and
the high hat loops. Now let me open up the
console view inside kick walk and show you what
exactly is going on. If a scroll a little bit, you can see that we have an effect on our
kick drum track. And this effect is nothing
but a parallel compressor. It is called Hearty by Baby Audio and these
are my settings. Nothing much is
going on over here. I've just compressed
the original signal and I have added in a parallel signal that is collectively
going to my output. Now I'll just close this and we will focus on what
is going on over here. If I check the levels
of the kick drum, I can see that it is
going up to 3.9 DB, whereas my 808 is at a
negative 6.2 and my high hats are at about negative 8.2 Now if I was to bypass
my parallel compressor, this would still be a decent mix and the kick levels
would not be so hot. Let me just play this for you so that you can
hear for yourself. Okay, like you must have
heard and like you can see, there's almost a four DB of cut and our levels
are down to zero. I try to gain stage in a traditional way by
pulling my feeder down. Let's see what happens. All right, so like you can see, I have had to pull my fader down by almost a negative 5.5 B, just for it to stop clipping. This traditional way of gain staging is what is
called post gain staging. Now there's a
fundamental problem with this way of gain staging and
that is the flow of signal. The way the signal flows
inside cake walk by band lab is that it begins
from the gain knob, from the top flows down
into the pro channel, and then it gets processed
by the FX channel. Then, depending on whether
you have set up any sense, your signal will be sent
to another channel. If not, finally, it will
flow to our last unit, which is our volume feeder. From there, it is sent
to the master track. However, if you want to
reduce the levels of your signal before it is processed by all
of these channels, you will have to gain stage it with the help of the
gain knob at the top. And this is what is
called pre gain staging. Now if I turn my
volume fader all the way up back to your
default position, and now when I play the track and adjust the gain from here, you should be able to hear a lot of difference in the
quality of the signal. Let us play these
tracks and this time let us gain stage with the
help of the gain knob. Now that we have used
pre gain staging, let me show you the
two key differences that I observe right away. The first is that
I have had to turn down my gain knob
by just negative 4.7 as opposed to the negative six when we adjusted it with the help of
the volume fader. Despite my gain now being almost 1.5 DB up as compared
to the volume fader, I'm still able to pull
down the levels of my kick drum below what I could achieve with
the volume fader. If you remember,
the lowest we could get with the kick drum
was zero decibel. Now what we have is negative 0.8 Because I'm able to control
my level so efficiently, this will directly
translate into better audio quality because the dynamics of your
signals are preserved. Let us quickly summarize
what we learned in this lecture in cake
walk by band lab. When you're gain staging
while mixing your tracks, there are two ways
to gain stage. The first is pre gain staging and the second is
post gain staging. When using post gain staging, you can only gain stage signal once it has been processed
by the pro channel, the FX rack, and it
has been sent to other channels before it finally lands to
the volume fader. On the other hand, if you
use pre gain staging, you can gain stage
signal without it being processed by any of the
racks that we spoke about. If you use pre gain staging, you get two benefits. One, you can control the levels of your signal
much more efficiently. And number two, you can preserve the dynamics
of your signal, which directly results in a rich sound quality that was
pre and post gain staging. In the next lecture, I will show you an easy trick that can save you a lot of time when mixing your tracks
inside cake walk.
3. Click Ctrl and Drag : In this lecture I will show
you a trick that will help you save a lot of time when
gain staging your tracks. The trick that I'm talking
to you about will help you gains stage all of your
tracks in a fixed ratio. Now what do I mean by that? Let me just open up the
console view that I can show you how exactly
I use the trick. Let us say that
you are done with your project and now you're gain staging
all of your tracks. Let us assume that your kick
drum is about at a negative 6.2 and your 88 and high
hats are at zero B. Now let us say that I'm happy with how these three
tracks are mixed together and the
levels of all three of these tracks are perfect when
they are played together. However, I need to change
the levels of all three of these tracks in such a way that the difference
between the kick drum, the 808, and high hearts is
always a negative 6.2 DB. In other words, if I bring my 88 and high hats down
to a negative six DB, my kick drum should
be at a negative 12.2 Now to achieve that, you can turn down the
kick to a negative 12.2 Then you can turn down eight oh eight
to a negative six. You can do the same thing
with your high hats. I'm guessing that by this time, you must have figured out why
this technique won't work. The first reason is that you could see how
difficult it is for me to set the fader to a
particular volume level, especially if it is
in the decimals. It becomes really difficult
and it will take a lot of trials and errors for
you to set that level. The second reason, which is
not quite obvious right now, is that you could have
multiple tracks in a real life project that you might want to mix
in a fixed ratio. In such cases, there's
a simple trick inside Cake Walk that you can use
to mix your tracks in ratio. What you can do is that you
can click on the number of the track that is given here and you will have to
left click and drag. Once all three of your
tracks are selected, you will have to hold down
control on your keyboard, left click and drag. Like you could see,
it didn't matter whether I moved these
knobs up or down. They were always moving
in a fixed ratio. Now that I have pulled
down my high hats and 88 to a negative six DB, my kick is at negative 12.2 DB, which is still a negative 6.2 DB lower as compared to
my 88 and high hats. You can also use the same trick if you're trying to
do pre gain staging. You can just select the tracks, scroll up, hold down, control left click on your gain knob and
drag them up or down. Just like we saw previously
with our volume faders. Again, knobs to are in the same proportion
because all of our gain knobs were at
zero when we started, we have all three
of them at negative 6.6 Now when I play them, this is what they sound like. Now when I played
these drums for you, you must have heard that a kick drum is
hitting pretty hard. But there is certain
frequency of the kick drum that is kind
of muffled by the 808. Now I always mix my kick drum in a way that it is
really hard hitting. But if you're a beginner, you might have a hard time trying to make your kick
drum that hard hitting. And when you play it with an 88, things get even more
bad because the 88 and the kick occupy
the same frequencies. So in the next lecture, I will show you how
you can tame your 88 so that it makes room
for your kick drum.
4. Ways To Tame 808 For Kick To Hit Harder: In this lecture, I will show
you how you can tame your 88 so that it makes
room for the kick. Now there are a couple different ways in which you would do that. The first way is that you can just go over to
the console view. From here, you can
just raise the gain of your kick and turn down your 88. That way your kick should
cut through the mix. Let's play this now. The problem with this is that
my 808 is barely audible, whereas my kick is too loud. Now of course, I've gone to
the extreme with my faders. And you could argue that
I could turn my faders down a little bit in order
to gain stage better. But the point I'm
trying to make is that this is not the best way to
make room for your kick. The second more effective
way that I want to show you in this lecture is
called side chaining. If you've been making music
for quite some time now, I'm sure that you've heard this term in case you do not
know what side chaining is. It is basically just using the signal that you want to
stand out as an input to a compressor so that
it can compress the other signal while the signal that we want
to stand out is playing. In other words, we would
use a compressor to compress the 88 every
time the kick hits. When it comes to site channing, it is easier to achieve
with other DAW's. But when it comes to cake work, it is hidden and
difficult to find. Let me show you how site
chain inside cake work. But before that I
will change the level of the 808 back to where it was. Okay, let me just
reduce the volume of the kick just so you can hear how effective
side chaining is. Now when I play the kick
and the 88 together, this is what they sound like. All right. You hear how
the 88 is taking away some of the space of our kick drum to begin site
chaining inside K work. The first thing that I will
do is that I will go over to the FX section and I will click on this
plus sign over here. From here I will go to my compressors and select
the Sonnets compressor. This is the default
free compressor that you get along
with Cake walk. I will just move
this to the side. The next thing that I will do is that I will go over
to my Kick track. Beside the Sense menu,
there's a plus sign. I will click on this plus sign. From this menu, I will be
able to see this option. It is just the name
of the compressor. In brackets, you will
be able to see side and Put followed by the name
of the track it is on. So I will select this option, and now I get a Sense menu. And now when I
play these tracks, you will be able to see
the kick as an input on the sonet as compressor, okay? So you could see the
input meter moving. From here I will set
up my threshold and ratio in such a way that
when the kick hits, it compresses my eight to eight. And as soon as the
kick signal is over, my compressor should release and the eight oh eight
should play as normal. So let me just play
this track and mix using the compressor
for you to hear. All right, so these compressor
settings sound fine to me. And as you must have heard, every time a kick
hits the 808 ducks, and as soon as the kick is over, it returns back to its normal
level that was sighting a really effective way in
which you can make sure that there is enough room for your kick drum
to cut through. The mix district works specially good with
eight oh eight and base. Let us quickly summarize what
we learned in this lecture. The first thing that we learned is that we can make room for our kick drum by turning it up and turning down the
88 or the bass sound. However, this is not a very effective way of
mixing your kick and 808. Instead of using that technique, you can use the second technique that I showed you
in this lecture, which is called sight chaining. With the help of sight chaining, you can compress the signal that is overpowering your kick by using your kick drum as
an input to the compressor. In the next lecture, I will show you how you can work more effectively when using the solo track option
inside kick work.
5. 3 Ways To Tame 808 For Kick To hit harder: In this lecture, I will show
you how you can tame your 88 so that it makes
room for the kick. Now there are a couple different ways in which you would do that. The first way is that you can just go over to
the console view. From here, you can
just raise the gain of your kick and turn down your 88. That way your kick should
cut through the mix. Let's play this now. The problem with this is that
my 808 is barely audible, whereas my kick is too loud. Now of course, I've gone to
the extreme with my faders. And you could argue that
I could turn my faders down a little bit in order
to gain stage better. But the point I'm
trying to make is that this is not the best way to
make room for your kick. The second more effective
way that I want to show you in this lecture is
called side chaining. If you've been making music
for quite some time now, I'm sure that you've heard this term in case you do not
know what side chaining is. It is basically just using the signal that you want to
stand out as an input to a compressor so that
it can compress the other signal while the signal that we want
to stand out is playing. In other words, we would
use a compressor to compress the 88 every
time the kick hits. When it comes to site channing, it is easier to achieve
with other DAW's. But when it comes to cake work, it is hidden and
difficult to find. Let me show you how site
chain inside cake work. But before that I
will change the level of the 808 back to where it was. Okay, let me just
reduce the volume of the kick just so you can hear how effective
side chaining is. Now when I play the kick
and the 88 together, this is what they sound like. All right. You hear how
the 88 is taking away some of the space of our kick drum to begin site
chaining inside K work. The first thing that I will
do is that I will go over to the FX section and I will click on this
plus sign over here. From here I will go to my compressors and select
the Sonnets compressor. This is the default
free compressor that you get along
with Cake walk. I will just move
this to the side. The next thing that I will do is that I will go over
to my Kick track. Beside the Sense menu,
there's a plus sign. I will click on this plus sign. From this menu, I will be
able to see this option. It is just the name
of the compressor. In brackets, you will
be able to see side and Put followed by the name
of the track it is on. So I will select this option, and now I get a Sense menu. And now when I
play these tracks, you will be able to see
the kick as an input on the sonet as compressor, okay? So you could see the
input meter moving. From here I will set
up my threshold and ratio in such a way that
when the kick hits, it compresses my eight to eight. And as soon as the
kick signal is over, my compressor should release and the eight oh eight
should play as normal. So let me just play
this track and mix using the compressor
for you to hear. All right, so these compressor
settings sound fine to me. And as you must have heard, every time a kick
hits the 808 ducks, and as soon as the kick is over, it returns back to its normal
level that was sighting a really effective way in
which you can make sure that there is enough room for your kick drum
to cut through. The mix district works specially good with
eight oh eight and base. Let us quickly summarize what
we learned in this lecture. The first thing that we learned is that we can make room for our kick drum by turning it up and turning down the
88 or the bass sound. However, this is not a very effective way of
mixing your kick and 808. Instead of using that technique, you can use the second technique that I showed you
in this lecture, which is called sight chaining. With the help of sight chaining, you can compress the signal that is overpowering your kick by using your kick drum as
an input to the compressor. In the next lecture, I will show you how you can work more effectively when using the solo track option
inside kick work.
6. Solo Tricks : In this lecture, I'm
going to show you a simple trick that
will help you become more efficient at using the track solo feature
inside cakewalk. Let us begin by taking a look at the traditional way in which you would use the solo option. Traditionally, you
would just solo the track that you want
to hear when mixing. And once you solo a track, it will mute all the other
tracks like you can see. Now when I play this, you
should only be able to hear the kick, all right? And a track solo option can be used in combination
with other tracks. If I want to solo
my kick and 88, I can solo the eight
oh eight as well. Now the only track that is muted on my project is the High Hat. If I had more tracks
on the project, they would be muted too. And the only tracks
that would play would be the ones
that are soloed. Now if I play this,
you will hear that only the kick
and the 808 play, whereas the high hat
should still be muted. All right, so that was the traditional way in which we solo tracks inside cakewalk. However, the trick
that I'm now going to show you will allow you to hear all the other tracks in your project despite certain
tracks being soloed, but on a low volume. What this feature
helps you to do is that it allows you to
create better mixes. Because you are now able
to mix all of your tracks in context while listening to all the other tracks
in the background. The technique that
I'm talking to you about is called dim soloing. To activate dim
solo you will just have to click on the Dim
button from the command bar. Now the button has turned green, indicating that solo is activated despite my kick
and my 88 being soloed. You will also be able
to hear the high hats, but it will be really dim, meaning that the volume
of the rest of the tracks will be lower than the tracks that are soloed.
Let's play this. Like you heard, the dim solo
option allowed us to play the high hats while other tracks on my
project was soloed. The next trick that I want
to show you will prevent you from accidentally
soloing multiple tracks. This feature is called
Exclusive Solo. Once I click on Exclusive Solo
and turn off the dim solo, I will be able to solo
just one track at a time. If I solo the kick track, it is soloed and the 808 and
the high hats are muted. But if I decide that I want
to solo the high hats, you see that a track solo
on kick drum is turned off, and my high hat is the
one that is soloed. Those were the track
solo tricks that I often use when working
with chic work projects. It really helps me mix
all of my tracks way better than I would by just using solo the
traditional way. In the next lecture, I
will show you can sol tricks that will help you
set up your feeders quickly.
7. Adjust Faders Quickly: In this lecture,
I'm going to show you a trick that will help you adjust your faders much more quickly and save
you a lot of time. The first thing that
we're going to look at is a quick way to bring your fader back to
the default level. The default level
in kick walk or any other door is zero DB. If I want to bring the fader of my kick track up to zero DB, all I have to do
is double click on this fader and that brings
the feeder back to zero B. You can use the same thing on any other knob in
the console view. For example, if I turn
my pan knob hard, right? If I want to bring
it back to center, I can just double click on it. That brings the knob back
to its default position. The same thing applies to
a gain knob, like you see. This trick is a really fast way of bringing your
knob back to zero. Instead of turning it
back down to zero and then making sure that it
is perfectly set to zero. The second trick that I want to show you is that you can write, click on any knob inside
the console view, then you can click
on the revert option to revert it back to
one previous value. I can do the same thing
with my volume fader. That brings my fader back to
the previous value it was at before I double click on
it to bring it back to zero. Those are two handy
tricks that you can use when working
with these faders.
8. Conclusion: Those are some of
the advanced ways in which I work
on mixing tracks. I hope you like this class
and learned a lot from it. If you have any feedback for me, feel free to share it. And if you have any questions you can just reach out to me. I'll be happy to
answer them for you, and I'll get back to
you as early as I can. Thank you so much for taking this course and I
wish you success.
Vishal Vira, Music Producer, Investor & Entrepreneur
