Transcripts
1. Course Intro: What's up everybody here
at this makes us sick. I am super, super truly hived. To bring you this course, we're going to mix
and master EDM like a pro with just using
stock plug-ins only. Why do I want to bring
you this course? Well, of course, there's
already the beginner course for EDM mixing and
mastering with stock plug-ins, a failable here. And I wanted to
level it up for you. This course is especially
made for death. What you will learn is how we can make some moss
or an EDM track, create your own workflow
that works for you, brings you the
results that you need and that is able
for you to repeat. So you can have a
workflow that works every time you're gonna get walked through the entire
mixing process, from the kick to the base, to the kick and base, to the individual drums, to the drum group, through the phone calls, to an FX and Trudy instruments. This track that we're
using is a dove one that is released
through spinning records. It's called Map people, and it is produced
by semi-colons and Alba breaker and myself. This drug is super
dope because it's a banging club track
with a big lead synth, while the drums are more
in the deck as well. It's also super
interesting track and it's out now
through spendings. Hysteria label then for
those who don't know me yet, I am brown fader. I'm an EDM mixing and
mastering engineer. Here at this mix
is sick and makes a monster hundreds of records. And you can book my
mixing and mastering services through this
makes us sick.com. That leads to sound better where I've had the
honor of listing first in the total top mastering
engineers list multiple times. Here in the studio, I make some master
EDM tracks through the analog equipment and make them sounds as sick as
possible for all of you. That obviously means
that I'm using a lot of professional
plug-ins as well. But for this course, we won't use any of those. We're going to stick
with stock plug-ins because it starts
with the basics. And I am going to
try my ultimate best to make you as
confident as possible. We're mixing a, mastering
your next EDM track.
2. Mix & Master Session Planning : Welcome. In this session, we
are here in the track. And before starting a mix, a couple things are really
important to be handled. Why? Well, it's to get you in a
good starting position to mix. And then it's very important to be effective and
create a workflow for yourself where you can be focused on making
the adjustments that you actually need to make. So it's very important, e.g. to have a clear few
on your session. Know what's where,
what color is, what element was the
order of things. How loud is my gain stage? E.g. if you keep dose about the same for
you in every session, you will quickly
realize that it's a way of training yourself
to be a better mixer. So right now in front of me, we see the entire session. Everything is one color. And you can already see that
the stems are a bit loud. I did this on purpose, just to show you
why it's important to get this bang on
before you're starting. Otherwise, if you have too loud stamps and you're going to apply
all kinds of processing. The processing won't work as good as it would with
enough headroom. And you be basically
wasting your time because you need enough
headroom to begin your mix. So right now, if we
look at the drop, It's totally clipping and it's absolutely
not sounding good. So what I'll do is lower
all stamps by ten dB. This is not an exact number, so sometimes your stamps
even need to be pushed up. Sometimes they need to be pushed down five dB, then Db, Db. It really depends
on the material. So don't keep this number in mind for exact amounts
because what you want, Let's see where we're at now. So right now, it's
still at about zero. So what we're gonna do is dial back another ten dB
because I really want enough headroom
so we can push things. So that might be a bit
too much headroom. I'm gonna go with 7.5.
Let's see where we're at. Right now. The stems are
at the right for you. And what we're gonna
do is create groups. Why? Because it gives us control
over the entire group. We can easily call it
a groups and assign that chosen color to all
the stamps in the group. And groups are easily to order. So what you can do, e.g. and those easily follow
your preferred way, create a way for yourself. But once you e.g. could do, is half the cake, always on top, the base, always under it, the
drums under that. In this example, we're going to follow the order I love to use, which is really top down. We start with the full goal. Then we have the instruments
followed by the drums, followed by the low end, which is gig em base. And to be specific
with the kick, I love to have, if there's cake layers, I love to have the main
gig as most down stem. If there's any top cakes, they will go above that. Then for baselines, if
there is multiple layers, I always pick the most. So Obi-Wan to go on
the bottom. So e.g. the sub bass and build
it up from there with the base layer or
even layers sometimes. Then what we're gonna do
is already think ahead. Because if you mix, it's about the entire process, not only about the
choices you make. E.g. if you want to
add group processing, then it's important which
elements are in that group. So if you e.g. have
a lot of crashes, high adds all that
sort of stuff, a new, saturate it a lot, then it will definitely shape
the tone of those elements. And if you want that,
then that's cool. But if you don't, then it's important to have control over these
elements as well. Again, it's really
about what do you want? Where do you think your sound, your element will sound at its best through the processing that you're going
to apply on it. So e.g. I love to keep
my effects bus clean. Why? Is because there's a lot of
sounds that are in the back. And these are not the main
elements of the track. And mostly they are really high-quality down lift or
samples sort of stuff. So I'm not going to apply a lot of group processing most of the times on them. For drugs, e.g. I. Definitely want them all in a group together
high as collapse, because I love to
use compression on the group or clipping or
saturation mid-side EQ. It's important in which
group you put your elements. So already start thinking I hat this early in the process. Well, now let's try and put
everything in five groups, which is low-end drums, instruments, ethics, and Vogels. Then we're going to
color those groups. And we're going to put it in the order that I just described. Kick on the bottom base. Above that, I was going
into the low-end group. Shrimps above that, instruments above that
affects above that. And on top we got
the phone calls. So let me just do
that right now. And then I'll see you
back in a prep session. So we're here in
the prep session. We can see in dark reds, we got the gigs, the baseline, the
baseline on the drums. We got all the drum elements. The names are correct if you want to be able to
be effective and focused on mixing
creatively and powerfully, that it's really
important to execute as many as possible factors
which could be unclear, make's prep and clear
naming, unclear order, all kinds of things
that you can do that don't require any
creative efficient. Because you can just do them without even
listening to the music. But it's creates a session for you where you can really
focus on what's important. So you can see here in red, the drums, in the green, we got all instruments. And white are all the effects than all the vocals in pink. And I got the lead vocal here on top because I always think it's good to have the lead vocal and any other follicles
in this case, it's a lot of Vogel
Schulz and affects. It could be a background
vocal as well. Then this would be
the G down here. So this way I really easily can tell what's going
on in the project. So what I absolutely always do is export a version of
the premix as well. What's the premix? The word already says it. It's the session pre mixing. So it's the moment that
the production gets exported into stamps and
I get into stem spool, I'm up in the session, then press play,
that's the premix. Why is this important? I think is really important too. Be able to go back and forth between the premix and your mix. This way you can hear
what you're changing. But as well, where elements, where positions in
the prediction stage. So if you e.g. here that a focal effect is very much in the back then
that's most likely indicates that the client
or the artist who you work doesn't want that vocal
effect to be super France. Sometimes the client sends
a rough mix as well. That's their own
version of the master. In this case. That was not what was going on. So what I did is I have
loaded up the premix here, and then I have loaded
up the preliminary here. This is the exact same file. The only thing we're gonna
do here is add a limiter. So what this does is it gives us a fairly rough
point of reference. This is what the premixed
will sound like. Limited. It's really good to
have because you can just get a super rough idea of how
to mix with sound mastered. Absolutely no critical listening
or something like that, just to have a premix and a mouth stick pre-mixed as well. This is a good moment to load
in your reference mixes. This can be either way
done through a plug-in or just by pulling them up in a
references lane in your DAW. Keep in mind that
you don't want to send your reference to
your mastering chain. It's critical to listen to the file without any
processing active. So now that the mix is perhaps, let me talk a bit more about
deficient for the mix. We are mixing dance music hair. And I think this is
very genre depending. But the principles are
all fairy much alike. You need a powerful Foundation, which is in the
kick in the bass, and you need a powerful groove, which is in the drums. Then the next super
important thing is that the most important
elements translate. Well. Why do I say only the
most important elements? Because these are the
USBs of the track. If you've gotta hook,
if you've got a focal, if you've got
anything that makes it stick in your mind than
that needs to be upfront. That doesn't mean that's all other elements
should be washed out. They should definitely find their place in the mix as well. But the most important
elements needs to be extremely clearly
hearable on all devices. So this is the order
that we're going to do things here in this session. First, we're going
to mix the kick, then we're going
to mix the base. Then we're going to
mix those together, mixing the low-end,
the cake and the base. Then we're going
to mix the drums, all individual elements first, then the drums as a group. If those sounds fire, we're going to mix
those together. The gig, the base, and the drum group was. The next thing is
the instruments refers going to focus
on the lead synth. This can be a synth
as in this track, but it can be, of course, anything that's a lead. So make sure to take
the things away from this session and
implement them on the individual track
that you've got. Every track is different, so make sure to not copy paste, but put yourself in a position
to decide what's the lead, to decide what's the
most important elements. Every track is different. So keep that in mind. Then we're gonna make
sure to kick base. And since work together
in a great way, then we're going to
add all the effects. Because effects can give the illusion that things
are mixed as well. If there's lots of stuff
happening with noises, it can really hides
some problems. So if you just mute your effects until the cake base and
instruments are mixed, I think you will get
a better result. Then after that, as final stage, we're going to mix the focal. Why we are mixing
the focal as last is because the focal is so important that when mixing it
to a finished makes track, it will just fall into
place at its best. And if you hear that
there's things that needs to be changed in a
mixed together folk, alright? You can do it as well still. But it makes it way more doable to get a
really stunning record. And it's just amazing to mix a focal on a track that
already sounds super dope. So this is the order that
we're going to do things. And I want to just once more emphasized that it's so important to have your
own fish and air. Just focus on what makes you feel the most confident
in the studio. And no one will hear the order
in which you mix things. No one will see the
colors of your channels. So do whatever you need to make your mixes sound as
best as they can.
3. Kick Mixing: So right now we're all set
up and ready to go mix. We are going to
start with the kick my advisors to loop
the busiest drag, then you can just mix that Bart and take it from there onwards on to the
rest of your song. So let's have a listen to the first buildup and
drop into that big sense, which is I think a
great starting points to just loop and
mix the cake with. Let's go. The sequence of sounds already super dope. This drug is absolute
fire and the gig is, as I recall correctly, from a malloc sample BEC. It's already a super goods
powerful gig and the sample S, S is already powerful enough. But we want to optimize
things for this track. And normally I'm using
third-party plug-ins, but in this course, I just want to basically mix and tire track
with stock plug-ins. And we're gonna pull up
three plug-ins here. First is an EQ, seconds is a simple compressor, and a third, a simple
set generator. And now what I'm going
to do is copy the AQ as well too after the compressor because the signal chain is
going from left to right. So we first have
some EQ compression. Another EQ into the saturation, That's first start
and maybe feel how a high shelf Wood's work
on this gig with sound. Sounds a bit more open and cake, just yet, gone through
a bit more clearly. Let's listen and see if
there's any other frequencies. That might be words
boosting or cutting. Sounds, goods. It's got
a little bit more oomph. It got a bit more presence. And the kick just sounds
a bit less messy to me, a bit more clear. And the base already got
a lot of mid-frequency, so yeah, just kick. Definitely benefits from
a more smiley type girth. That next up is the compressor. We're going to try to blend
in super extreme settings. But we're going to blend
it in through the dry wet. But because I'm not a big fan of compressing
the entire cake, not something I really do. Let's put it at limiting, and let's do a super-fast.
Earliest time. Let's pull up a side chain
of a hurts us all goods. And let's try to get a
super techie sounding gig. If that's 100% So if we're at 100% now, the gig slabs so hard and
it's not nice anymore. Right away, I've put the
output at 10.5 because you could see in the yellow that the gain
reduction was 10.5. So this gives you a quick way to gain stage in the plugin. Let's push in some of the wet signal and don't
go too crazy here. You may be only want to
do a couple of things. Sounds about right, for me. Let a and b before
and after compressing and the EQ sounds though. Let's see if the EQ after
the compressor can change the tone of the compressed
signal in a pleasant way, or maybe it sounds really neat. We just leave the EQ here for a potential need for it after
we apply the saturation. What does saturation though? It's creating harmonics. This makes the sound more full literally and creates
a more dense signal, which is super important
if you want to have high RMS and allowed
mouse in the ads. Let's dial in same fish and as the compressor lives to
dial in some extreme settings, see what it does. We might go back into a bit less extreme settings
because it can really be, you know, only a
little that we need. So it definitely adds character. Do the trick. But do we want to add character or do
we want to make the track? That's a good question. I am definitely happy that we explored the sounds of
these two plug-ins. But I think this will
be the best decision. Why? Because I feel
that these two plugins together get the gig exactly where we want
it to be right now. Keep in mind every
track is different. But don't be scared to
just remove plugins if you don't feel that
they are doing anything good to the signal, be willing to go back, be brave enough to say, Okay, I didn't make the
best decision there. Shall I go one step
back, two steps back, and do this throughout your entire mixing session,
it's really important. So the gigabase we made it
sounds from this into this. If this is active, it's on. Let's have a listen. Actually, I feel
that the kid could be about the dB louder, so let's check that out. Yeah, 0.5 radio works
good for this gig. Just a bit more.
Fully room there. Nice. Let's go into the next bit, which is the baseline.
4. Bass Mixing: Alright, so next up
is the baseline. Let's have a listen
and focus on what we think is important to
handle in this baseline. So the base that is coming
in later is really high, so it's not really important to get that makes with
the baseline we're going to do actually
is put that into insurance group as I think it works better there
that's focused on that. Let's start with a
compressor and see if we can make the bass notes heads nice. And even. So what I did is bring back the
peaks a bit of the base in a very gentle way and make
sure to do it in parallel. My goal here is to decrease the dynamics
of betas to baseline. So that's in the end. I'm thinking ahead already. If this truck is like boost it to the max after mastering, then you just need to have a super tight three
master, you know, so if the base is super controls and hits at about the same
peak level on every node, then that definitely will be beneficial for the
mastery shield. Now that we've got to
tighten under control, let's see if saturation
does some magic here. So that definitely add
some richness to the base. And keep in mind the order
that I did this first, get it under control than
saturated the control signal, not the other way around, because it's better like this, the saturation just brush more effectively if you do it
after the compressor, it's the order that's
really important. The main reason is that
the saturated air. Reacts alike because the peaks are all controlled. If e.g. a. Beak will be super
high than that we'd hit the saturated are way
harder golf singer to create way more
harmonics then if you have the next peak
that's a lot less hot. So if you compress first than the peaks that
go into the saturate or will be controlled
here for creating a unified saturation zone. This specific base has no
sides information here for we don't have to focus on getting it to
translate well on base. If it does, it's really
important to make sure that's the sub
bass as a mono. How you can make sure
that this is the case, is listen to the track. It's myths only like this. Or listen to the site's
own it like this. You can hear in this base
that all the sub and the whole signal is
playing in the mid only. So, yeah, this will
not create any issues. If it does create issues and if you hear that the
subnet, e.g. a. Supervisor, then you can
switch on bass mono, and just listen like that to the sub frequencies. Many times you will see
videos where it's being sad. They should be a mono, but base is quite a
broad definition. Base can be anywhere from, from all the way down
on the spectrum, too quiet high up. It's yeah, not really true that you need to have your base all in mono, but your sub shoots
definitely be a mono. But that's sad. Don't be scared to have
sub in your side signal, but then it should
definitely be intentional. So e.g. in a, in a house drag like this one, I don't advise it, but e.g. what really worked well in a slap house records or a super commercial radio type Trek, or a super atmospheric
epic type of break. If you have your base
and even a bit of the SOP a bit more wide than that could definitely
work in the brakes. Just make sure that it's not overdone with stereo imaging. If you are out of phase, then that will mean
that if you are playing the track on a mono system that you just literally
don't hear the signal. So that's, that's a big novo. But focusing on this one, we have no issues here at all. So we leave it as is. What we're now going to
do is make sure that the side-chain compression
with the kick, which already has been done
by the producer in this case. Let's just see if it needs
any additional side chain. Compression with the cake
will load up the kick hair. Let's just go superfast here. No, I don't think it's needed. If it's needed us definitely makes sure that you
focus on the group, focus on really
ducking the baseline. And be aware that if you're using a plugin like kickstarts, then makes sure that you keep in mind what kind of cake you have. If you have a super long kick, your side-chain needs to duck
a lot longer than if you have a really clicky
short tilt gig. The kick is different. So that means that there's
different amount of space available for
the base to sit in. Don't think this works. Always, just always think, why does this work? What does this specific
element needs? The kick and base before
and after mixing. If I play this one as before, if I played this one, it's after and we didn't
yet mix the group. But let's see what
this already did. Slips way harder. You can feel that the base sits way more
powerful in the mix. It's not that like India before. It's a bit plain and boring. The mixed version definitely
has impact and power. That's what you want as early
as possible in your mix. Now it gets super
interesting when mixing the low end bus because we need to change
our mindset here. We're not mixing the cake,
we're not mixing the base. We're mixing the gig and base. We basically see
it as one element. And this is super
important mindset change. Because if you feel
the kick should be loud and that's not
something you should fix in mixing the low-end bus. You should make stats in
the specific, gentle. But if you feel that your dad where you want to
be and you want to mix the tone of these
elements together, then that's where group
processing comes into play. A great way to create
a unified sounds in your group is saturation. Acid creates harmonics on
these elements to get, and it's amazing if you
want a unified sound. But any other plug-in really
creates a tone on the bus. So it will automatically apply on all elements
summed together. So let's start with an EQ. Let's start by cutting the super low frequencies to
create some headroom for us. That sounds good.
Let's try to bring out some more of the presence of
the cake Embase together. Sounds slamming. I really like is, let's go and press good
conveys bus to get there. So what I did is literally
makes sure that there's no peaks going out of
control with the compressor. So there's almost no
compression happening. I think it was maximum at like sharepoint
six or something. This felt goods pushed a bit
of wet compressed signal in. Fast or really slow at
Tech is just to really make sure that nothing
spirals out of control. Then on the EQ, I decreased a little bit. High shelf, fell
better like this. He brought out a bit
too much dirt, I think. And I boosted the root node
with a quite narrow Q. Because on the low cut, we shaved off a bit of the
super low frequencies. But I was feeling that the base root node that's so important in
this drop in this, in this track is
so important here to really feel powerful and boosting it
here instead of on the channel is nice because
it will apply as well. And the kicks out here for
the whole root node just gets emphasized more in this
low-end makes SLS step. Let's see what saturation
does on this group. I don't really feel
that saturation does anything goods
to this group. Honestly, it's a bit hard as
well with stock plug-ins, a great saturation tool that I love using on a low-end bus, but only if it's needed is
the ozone vintage tape, e.g. it's amazing where you need
a bit of extra superpower. It's really good. The basic tools are a
bit more difficult. I want to stay away as well from creating crazy rerouting stuff. Because I just want this course to be easy
to understand them. Focus on the basics and
show you that mixing a track with stock plug-ins
is just 100% doable. And it's really all you need to get a super
powerful results. But that's not saying that
plug-ins are not super handy. Sometimes, understanding
this first helps you so much to come up with
a better result in yet.
5. Drums Mixing: Alright, so we're going
to mix the drums. We're going to first mix all the individual
elements of the drums. And then we're going
to have a look at the drum group
and see what we can do on that to even
bring it further. Let's start with going over the most important
elements which are to collapse and the hi-hats, I'll just go on and do the mix. I personally love soloing the kick and building
it up from there. So let's get started. So quickly going over
what I did on the clubs. The third club here is
a nice white gloves, so I made it super wide because there was already
sized information. So it went from this to dare. I made it louder and more
wide than on the second club. I didn't do anything
on the first club. I decided, okay, this is
going to be the main clap and I dirty it up with the saturation to get her
everything sounds like this. And why I did the compressor on the group of the clubs
which are just made is because that's a great way to pull them together and make
them sound like one sound. Because if you listen to this, you can still hear that they
are three different clubs, but if I enable the compressor, I think it feels
more like one clap. And now let's go
over the high ads. So what I did is I made
the dirty had sounded a bit more green
sheets and open has a bit more areas
that I've found that they were a bit too
much in the same space. So I really subtly
altered their banning. I don't prefer
headset our bands. So extreme in house music
or in EDM in general, that is really
catches attention. But suddenly it can
definitely add a bit more of a wide-field to your terms and
hi-hats in this case. Let's go over why I didn't
do any EQ on the clubs. That's because I didn't
feel it was needed. I really liked the tone. And what I did do to
adjust its own is boost the lower
layer of the clubs, which is the white layer. So in my mixing fish
in this already is a move that I made to get the tone a bit more
as I wanted it to be. Then on the hi-hats
I did a low gut as well to make them sound
a bit more clean, I found that they were a
bid to mid-range in dense. Let's see how the higher than clap sound and before
and after mixing. This is the before.
This is the after. Let's have a listen. Let me continue mixing the
individual elements and sometimes talking about what
I did and why I did it. It's a field thing as well. So I think they can you're with me in the
process is a nice way to get you to understand my
thoughts process and as well, my changes that
I'm making a mix. So my thought process
here on the right, I found that the right to sounded a bit too
clean like this. I added a rarely little bit, only 7% of overdrive
set duration. If I do it a lot, it
sounds like this. To just give the sound
a bit more definition. Alright, can really be dope in a drum group if it's color nice, and if it's just feels a bit
defines, it's really nice. It's not only the sizzle
that you want for the drum loops are started
by EQ in the first loop. And I ended up
actually by dropping the EQ on the entire group and grouping this
drum loops together. Why? Tao a lot of loops. So if you make them
all sound super different than it just
creates a lot of gales. What I did here is just group them together and I
found that this is a good way to do it because
then the loops together, we'll get a more unified sound. And I even brought that
further with a saturated. So let's listened to before
and after in that regard. I don't compress these. The drum loops sound
like they're already compressed and the
movement in them is nice. So I leave them as they
are where derives, and let's continue mixing
the order drum sounds. I found that this field
is actually pretty important and it's unique sound. You don't hear this
type of sound. A lot interacts. It's
cool and I wanted to really add something to the
character of the entire song. So what I did is I overdrive
and really on the high end, so make the sound a
bit more prescient than I blend in a
little bit of Oddi because I wanted to
hype this feel a bit. So it sounds from this to this. I think that's dope,
That's continue mixing. Okay. So for some of you are maybe
went a little bit fast. Orders might be used to
make things super quickly. But if you're in the moment
and if you feel that you feel in your minds and your mixing fish and where you
want to push down it, then you just need
to go with the flow. And what I did here is accentuated with compression,
the percussion heads. Then afterwards I found that the DOM acted as a
percussion head as well, made a group from it. So they got exactly the
same compression settings. Of course our forums
are different, but envelope is the
same attack and release wise than
the percussion hits. Two. Sounds a bit more accentuated as well on
the percussion hit three. I just lowered it a bit. Cow bell sounds a bit louder. Nice balance. Dan with everything else, did some volume adjustment, and now we got this. So here's the drums
before mixing. So what am I listening
to unnecessarily, just to the premix and two, where we add, right now, I tried to focus
on the low end and the drums because that's
where we really mixed. What I can tell is that premix, the gig bass and
drums, sounded a bit. All fouled up to each other. Right now it does
better separation. The elements got more
interesting. Bunch to them. They sound more separated
and more crisp. And that's really what we want. What I'm going to do on the
drum bus is first compress. Then I'm going to add some EQ, which then goes
into a saturated. This way I will
have control over the tone and I'm pushing
into saturation. Not going to go crazy here. Let's start with
compressing on a clue. Let's start with the compressor, which in this case is
the glue compressor that's built into them. If you don't have to glue
compressor build into your DAW, just use any compression. So what I just did is
put the attack the tree. I find that it's shaves off
the highest transients. And if I would use this
compressor not in parallel, I wouldn't do this
because then it would sound to muffled, but I'm using this in parallel, so I'm just shaping of
the entire transients. So they're not harsh. And then I'm just
blending in some of the compressed signal. So what I did is compressed
the entire drum group, glue it a bit to
get our dial back a bit with a super
wide low shelf. On the low frequencies, put up a bit of the presence and mid-range into the saturate or which just creates
a bit more color and just makes it
even more unified. And that finalizes
the gig em base. So now that we got the
drums database and a gig absolutely
slapping in the mix, we are moving forward
to the instruments.
6. Instruments Mixing: My fishing here is
to make sure that the most important element
is mixed the first makes around this
and make sure that you decides the relationship
between the scenes, between the instruments,
what sets in the top, and what sits in the mid-range. What needs to sit back of beds, what needs to sit up front. It basically comes down to
having certain positions available in the frequency
spectrum in the trek. Seeing those and making sure
that you feel like, Okay, this range is going to
be occupied a little bit by this elements and vice versa. It's really important to realize
that you cannot just put everything on one big bow or
crush everything together. Because then you won't
have separation. You want to make sure that
the song gets pushed forward. And this is so important. Listen, listen, and listen more. So you can actually hear what's the most
important elements and focus on really
bringing out the power where it needs to be
brought out in the mix. Let's now listen to the
drop and let's start right after mixing
the main lead. So what I hear is that the stereo image could definitely
be a bit more exciting. I think, that this
synth could be a bit more full body in the
mid-range. On the sides. Not too bad, but I think
we can do something there. I think we can compress it and get it to hit a bit harder. Movements wise. The side chain that's already added
into the stems and the prediction stage as I
can here is sounding good. Let's get started. And to now blend in a bit
of tone on the sides only, we can switch the built-in EQ to MS and just go to S. So
you're adjusting the sides. Listen to the sites only, and see what it does. You can definitely hear that
it's way more dimensional. There's more space and more
of a 3D feel to the st. This is because we altered
the side signal and here for it just makes
it a bit more deep. It makes it less flat. It's a really
powerful technique. Listen closely when
doing mid-side EQ. Doesn't do the meds, listen to the sides and absolutely
only use it if you feel that it's the
right technique to use. Let's get it to hit a bit harder movements wise
with some compression. Dove, descent is nice. Upfront sounds wide
sounds nice and large. And I've put it a
bit louder as well. It's such an important element. Now let's go over to other elements in the
instrument group. The sequence. So what I did now is group all the elements
that I feel are a bit less important
than the lead synth. But I still want them to
feel powerful in the mix. So what I'm going to do is
create a group guards utmost. Since then I'm going
to apply a little bit of processing on that
subgroup to make sure that is actually feeling strong and as a unified sounds. Okay, so I'm happy where the scenes
are at right now. I'm going to apply a little
bit of group processing to make the group be glued
together a bit more. And I'm going to compress
the group a little bit. But just so that the
peaks are controlled, then what I'm going
to do is round it up on the instruments and then we're going
into the effects. Mr. I'm Professor sir. Super heights on where
we are at right now in this mix is a dope track. And I love how at the
first part of the drop, the scent is really the
most important elements. But at the extension
of the drop, the sense go way back actually. And focal really is
what pushes it forward. That's something I'm
definitely going to focus on in the vocal
mics in this track. But first up, the effects.
7. FX Mixing: So right now we're
going to check out the effects and
makes sure that they are absolutely mixed and
ready to get pushed into mastering with the rest of the track indicates
of this production, the effects are already
at pretty amazing levels. I think they sounds fantastic. And we're just gonna do a
rundown of all the effects and see what we can do to
improve. Let's check it out. On a sequence, is a sequence on the sequence. More people under. This just makes it a little
bit more mid-range heavy. Why? It needs to translate, and this is just a sound that won't really translate.
So good on phones. You see that are sometimes swept stamps from one
to another group. This is because initially I thought they
would go somewhere. But then while mixing the track, I find out like I'm going to need some kind of
color for this laser e.g. that I just put an
instrument bus and I can definitely add a lot of
individual processes on it, but by having it run
through the interim bus, it gets the same process as all the other
elements in that bus. And then it just creates a
more unified sound instead of having all kinds of
different tones and sounds. So now we are, we mix the FX, gobbled things that will be
death, the breakdown. Live. There. Now is more
Bresson and has a nice reverb, so it's a bit more
airy in the break fields it nicely
with noise without sounding too static than
a down lift it like this one is dark because
it has character. So I added some saturation
to bring it out a bit more. And it's why it a
bit louder as well. Then here it's really leveling. And if I think the sound
is doped and I'm not really doing anything on
the individual channel. Then on the snare rises group, it now has some saturation. I edited on the top one, but I decided that it sounds
best on that entire group. So all the snares
go through that. And then to close it off, the saturation on the entire
effects group affects, group sounds, dope now. And one thing that came to mind, I listened to the mix
overall as well, a lot. A being between what you're
doing and what it sounds like in overall and the snare fill
out a bit too loud for me. So I went back into
the drums and I lowered it a little bit to
make it sound more in the mix. Bresson, but not overpowering. This was the fixed
mix on this track. Let's go into the next
chapter, which is the focus.
8. Vocal Mixing: So now that we got
a banging track of banging instrumental
with mixed effects, saints, drums, a gig. I'm based at slap, and they all work
together nicely. It's time to mix the focal
in this specific records. The focal is already
produced pretty effectively. There's lots of
character in focal. So here for it to focus
in the mixing process will be the focal sounds, clear, Loudon upfront, and is understandable at every
position in the track. And asked to forego hair really is one of the biggest
hooks in this track. The absolute most important
focus point will be that the focal makes a track catchy and make it
stick in your head. If you have a super catchy focal and it's blend
in way too much, then you will
definitely miss out on some sketchiness potential. So it's really important
to decide in your mix what's important and what
needs to be upfront, what needs to be down in the back to support
other elements. And the focal in this
situation is really important. Then let's go into the computer. I've put on LV, the lead vocal. And there's a lot of focus
shifts in this track already. Quite good levels. So I'll just go over them. But the main focus will
be the lead vocal. That's ever listen to
the lead vocal and how it right now sounds
to the track? Let's try a mix it. And in the meantime, check out what the
focus shifts do and what we can do with
the full go risers. And how we can make this entire group of
four goals individually. Sounds excising the sequence. This one's for my people. Are Muslim quiz on the sequence. Jinx to boost on weekends. People I get wavy or
more frequent disrupted heavy on the sequence that
gains to boost on weekends. This one's for my people. I get wavy or my
frequent disrupted here be honest. Sequence. And so what I just did is put the focus shot too in the lead fog
group because yes, it's a focal showed where I'm
going to treat it as one of the lead vocal
elements is because these little elements really catches your attention
before the drop, and it definitely
needs to sit up front. Let's put it a bit louder. What I did as well with the
entire lead vocal 0.5 dB. It's already super compressed into production, I can tell, but it just felt a bit
more fluorescence at 0.5. Let's put the focus
and a bit louder. And after we've leveled all the autofocus
shields as well, I just go over them. Then we'll have a look on
what needs to be done. And of course, if
anything pops up, we'll definitely
make sure to get it sorted because
it's a process. Right now we're
in the process of making the individual
elements sound good. Before. So what I found out when mixing this element is
that the reversed, since I was actually
taking away a bit of space that the
focal shield needed to really come through
before the drop. Here for I lowered the reefer synth and I add a subtle side
chain compression, where the side-chain
detection signal is coming from the focal shield. It just makes it
a bit more folks in the mix and a bit more separation
between those elements. These little details
really add up in the end. So I would definitely advise
if you're mixing your track to make sure that you feel confidence when
making these decisions. Why? Because they will add up. And in the end, when
you mix a track and you have a specific fishing
for it where you want certain parts
should be highlighted. Certain parts to be supportive
to the main elements. If you have a good overview of what you're
trying to sonically achieve than I would definitely say that's the most
important part of the mix. It's not what you do on the mix, but it's what you
come up with doing. It's really the decisions
that make or break a mix. Because we all have the same
plugins and all that stuff. And that's why this course
is super interesting. We're just dope logins
the simplest of the symbols and just going
over an entire track, mixing it from start to finish. And that's super
dope. Let's now go over the autofocus
shields, see what we got. And then after that, we'll go into the focal group. Once. We've equal monthly,
monthly, monthly earnings to boost on weekends. To be a Muslim. Sound super dope. Of course, this track has not really a
pope Vogel where we need to apply a vocal chain or we
need to work with Dr. Vogels. I would love to do
another course as well, just focused on only
four goals where we go into a complicated, dry, full session with
lots and lots of elements. That's definitely dope
for another course and it requires a
total different track. I think we are dealing
here with a really saturated and even pitched
Vogel for a club tract. So let's go into the group processing and
see what we can do to make the group as a whole sound
even better. Let's do it. On the sequence. Rubbed it could be a sequence in that game. So our first added to saturate, or it sounds though I checked a bit warmer setting because
it's a very good preset. But I actually liked
it a bit more gentle. And I went for a little
bit of percentage. I tried to put it at 8.25. Sometimes you can
go 0.25 on plugins. I tried it on this one, but ended up at 8.50. And it sounds good. Definitely add some
color but doesn't change the entire don't it
don't is already super dark, but we don't want to
go ham on this one. It's a way to make
sure that the group as a whole is optimized and ready for mastering within the tract. Let's see what we can do more to take this one even further. Sequence. Mr. On the sequence
in games to lose, don't we kick this
one off request, dropped it on the sequence and drinks to lose on weekends. This one must be this one. So my people, I get way V
on my frequent disrupted heavy on the sequence in the
games to boost on weekends. Kids, kids. This, this, this, this, this, this, this, this,
this, this, this, this, this this this this this this, this, this, this
this, this this, this this this this
this, this, this, this, this this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this
one's for my people. I get wavy or more frequent disrupted heavy on the sequence. In fact, gains to
boost on weekends. Hello. Press, press, press, press, press, press. So what I did is create some
kind of a DSR on the group. The stock plug-ins
don't have a DSLR. But what I did is focused the side chain
detection signal on the range where
it's sounds really harsh and it reacts on
the entire channel. But with a fast attack, it's just dips down to ***** and makes it
sounds a lot smoother. What I did next to that is just push it up a
bit more envoy for the full goal has a bit
more body and sound less harsh than on the
high-pitched Vogel. I just dipped on this frequency because it felt a bit
too overpowering. And now it sounds nice. Then what's really
important is that I don't default on taking away every bit of base and every element because it will make it sound
clinical as well. And if the base isn't really creating issues with the
base arrangement wise, then it can even add so much
more thickness to a track. And you just leave things
if they work in a records, if it's not broken, you don't have to fix it. And that's a really
important golden rule. Let's add one more
listen and see if we can add anything
on the Vogel bus. Or if we say, alright, This is it, and then we're going into mastering,
Let's check it out. It sounds cool. I just
altered the tone a little bit to create a
bit more presence and a bit less of the dirt. In the low end. I think this track is absolutely ready to go into the next step, mastering this track with
stock plug-ins only. That's exciting. So
let's get started.
9. Mastering The Track: So we got this track, we got it banging, and now it's time for the mastering with stock
plug-ins only. I'm going to be very honest. I usually don't use
any stock plug-ins for processing except from the
utility to lower signal, e.g. but actual plugins, I
don't use that sad though. I think it's super
important to be able to get great sounding
results with stock plug-ins. Why? Because it's the basics. If you understand the basics, if you know what to do with the absolute least
amount of help, then I think it's really
powerful if you're going to develop in mixing, in mastering with actual
third-party plug-ins or even with analog hardware that I use here everyday
in the studio. It really starts with
understanding the fundamentals, getting the basics to be internalized so you can
get the best results. Let's get started by adding a simple logo to create
some more headroom. Let's not go too crazy with it. So I didn't do the heavy slope is all the
sounds a bit too much. We can use this in oversampled. This makes it sounds
a bit better. Let's continue with
compressing the master with the built in Glue
Compressor enabled them. That's too fast enough
attack to grab the track, but not too fast. So we don't smash all the trench and keep it nice and punchy at start by lowering the
thresholds of beds until we got some nice movement going
into 0 for all tracks. Grab, subtract to
get our makes it sounds a bit more bone sheet. And what I focused on here is to grab the track
pretty intense, but just blends in only a
little of the wet signal. In this case, we
ended up with 48. Don't really dig absolute
numbers from any videos, but feel what feels good. Feel what does it need? Sometimes a track needs
a lot and sometimes it really doesn't need anything
or only needs a little. And it's really important to realize that every
track is different. So make decisions based on
your mics, fishing for it. A particular track that
you're working on. I love that we've got the
compressor now set up. Let's see how it
sounds if we blend in some saturation before
the compressor. So we're saturating
into compression. Let's see how it sounds. A bit warmer in Ableton
sounds pretty dope. So let's see what it does
when we're blending it into the signal that goes
in to the compressor. Definitely warms up the signal. I use only 16.7%. My advice, especially
where mastering is, if you're using saturation, always use it to add something. Never use it to create
something because the creation is really the trick is to
individual channels. It's the mixing,
It's the production. And when you're mastering, you're not creating a trek. Your polishing attract. And this mindset is extremely
important because you want to have a track that after mastering sounds
exactly like the same track, but just a lot better,
but not changed. It doesn't need to feel like
an entirely different track. Now that we did this, Let's see if we can alter
the compression a bit. And let's then add another EQ to open
up the tone of bids. I really like where are
we going with this track? Sounds fast sounds Fools
on spongy and aggressive. Let me talk you through
what I did here. What I did is intensified
compression a little bit, tweak some settings to just get an overall feel of
what we're doing. And I've pushed up
the dry wet a bit, so we're a bit more
compressed than in the EQ. I opened up the dopends
just a little bit, and I literally only gave
a notch in the mid-range, upper mid-range to
make the sense, feel a bit more the star of the show and what f did
as well as boost the root node with
a narrow q 1.5 dB. And this is the root node
when the baseline hits. This is dope because
when the base hits, it's just rarely
has a lot of power. It's really in your gut. And in this particular
track with this baseline, That's just a super extremely
important frequency. This is very Treg dependent, but in this rack I
felt that this is a good move to EQ moves we
just did are in stereo. Now let's listen to the sides. Let's listen to the MIS. And let's see if we can add
some nice mid-side EQ most here to make the track sounds
even a bit more exciting. So we're adding a
mid-side EQ as enabled a new gans do mid-side
stereo EQ indices, EQ. That's not a problem. So let's add another
EQ Eight here, and let's switch
over to mid sides. We got myths only
here and sites only. So we can just monitor only the myths or
decides what is sides. Sides is everything
that's different. On the right and left channel. Information on the right and
left sides are identical, then that is midst information. It sounds narrowed and it's only playing
in the myths when there's any subtle
differences or any differences at all from
the right and the left sides, then that's a difference and there is the site
of inflammation. This is super interesting
because if you alter death that you can really bring out
or push away the sides, making the trek feel
way bigger or way more focused to what you want
in your mixing vision. Let's get started with the
mid-side EQ in this track and see what we can do
to bring it further. Let's go. Good afternoon. Hello. I love. It sounds super though. It's honestly a bit difficult because I'm used to the
faithful to procure three. Or you can quickly
make your moves. And this is definitely less
fast and less good as well. It has no dynamic EQ. Honestly, it's amazing making
this course because you are just even valuing third-party
plugins a lot more. But the result is dope, powerful and it really adds up if we listen to
the master genes so far. Let me do a quick before and
after of what we've done. Big difference, way more present already increased loudness while we didn't even use a limiter. But loudness really
is in the dome, in density in the RMS. So the difference
between loud and quiet, how compact your entire waveform
is, is really important. So if you already have
a solid loud premaster, than limiting will just
bring it home basically. So let's start by
doing that right now, we add a limiter to our chain. And let's a ceiling of 0.1. And let's begin pushing it up and see what it
does to ourselves. So I just added the limiter and wished it's still a point where it
sounds louder buds, nodes, these droids,
it still sounds good. And it's just adding a bit of level and limiting to
make it hits harder. I also did a quick
utility at minus five, just so I can a be this
entire chain for you. Let's see what we've done here, and let's see how it
impacted the master. Dove love how it sounds. Let's have a listen
right now and see where we're at right
now with this track, Almost sequence in that game. And there we have it,
our master track. I got a bonus chapter for
you that's coming up right after this one about automating
for improved mastering. That's checkout.
What that does to the overall master right now.
10. Automation (bonus): Let's go ahead and add
some automation to our master to see
if we can improve the amount of impact
that this will make a start by simply pulling
down the level in the break. And I'm going to strategically positioned this before
just saturate or why? Because then the goal or the separator makes
is different. S wave hitting at
a bit less heart. So let's just literally
pull up a utility. Put it here, start with 1.5 dB. Let's activated
here in the breaks. And let's see what
difference it makes. The owners sequence. The sequence. The sequence. Super dope. It's
really makes a lot of impact because the break fuels loud assets quite long
and then the drop just feels way louder
because the anti a dime, the break was actually
a bit more quiet. It's really effective. I definitely advise doing this, especially when
you strategically positioned to fully
mode summation. This is just a simple
1.5 dB reduction. Of course, you can deal with in, with a slope as well, gradually increase or
decrease certain things. In this case, I just did
a super harsh or 1.5 dB gut because it really doesn't
catch attention this way. It's just less loud. And here for your brain
just gets used to it. And suddenly when it drops, it just hits you in the face. Then as well before
the saturation, we're going to automate some sites information here for we're closing down the stereo
image a bit. Let's listen. Sequence and sequences. Sequences. So what we just did is literally decrease the amount of
high-end information on the sides here for
making the sides a bit more dull and just switching
it off on the drop. Here for the break. Just sounds more focused
and a drop just sounds way wider than it actually is because the contrast
is improved. So let's copy paste it as
well on the other side. And make it even a bit
more extreme over there. So I made it to the
queue as well here for the shape even gets
all be more extreme. And you can check it
out on the first Rob, we got it like this,
which is dope. And then on the
second one we got it. So this is the extreme version. And this is a little
bit more subtle first. Just mostly works, but
again, listen to the track, listen to what attract
needs and just do things that you feel are
really adding something. Then automation wise. We now of course got
this little guy here, the utility, let's
call it breaks. So we can see what it does. We can use that on
the groups now. And then we can lower or increase the entire
group as well in breaks. So let's e.g. say that we want more focus on the phone calls
in the breaks. Well, we could do is
add the utility for the brakes on that sense
and lower it by one dB. The automation
already is in here because we added that
on the master channel. And now the entire
Instrument Bus is one dB less loud,
which is super dope. Sequence. Adults as well, or db of reduction on the brakes
for the effects. Out-of-focus are nice
enough France and contrast with the brakes
is even more extreme, which makes it hit a
little bit harder as well. Then another super powerful
methods we can use is just literally increasing the
frequency of the high bars here. And let's start it around here. Let's build it up
to about 50 hz. And CCO it sounds. I just want to focus
on the initial drop. Sounds super dope at around 64. Again, I didn't
focus on the number, but a focus on the feeling. It's really important to have a good feeling on the
decision that you make. Sonically, what does
it make you feel? And if you feel like
that's the right setting, I would say go for it and don't really focus only
on the numbers as well. It's about feeling the music on the sequence actually is weighed over if the automation just goes
on until the cakes. Because it just almost sequence. Yeah, it's just a nice intro to the break and the cake just
make the drop hit super hard. So definitely, let's not
get the base on those. There. We have it. We got
for your malformation. We got automation on
the high frequencies of the sides and we got hi Boss
automation on the brake. So now that we've
got some nice break and drop out summation here, I think this master
is ready to go. We did the total mix
and master completely with free stock
plug-ins enabled. Then this works, of course, in everyday a W for
the glue compressor, I would suggest going
with a normal compressor, it will work as well. Had a great time pushing
this one with you. This was everything that we
needed to do in the DAW. I'll see you in the outro.
11. Course Outro: So I absolutely loved mixing
and mastering this track, which you want an
exciting track. So much little things
happening in the TREC, not an easy mix. That's a loads of elements. And I felt that that's why this track is absolutely
perfect for this course. I hope that you've taken away
a lot of valuable insights and that you can
implement them in mixing and mastering your track. What's super important is that if you are mixing the trek, that no one will
hear your process. No one will see the
colors that you use, the order in which
you do things. And that's sad. I think it's
absolutely critical to create a workflow that
works best for you. A flow that you love that makes you feel super
confident in the studio and that you can use
diamond and time again to make banging mixes. This brings us to
the assignments. The assignment is
super simple, big, a track that you want from
yourself and go ahead and use the techniques that are
shown in this course. So that means you're not using
any third-party plug-ins. You're sticking just with
the stock plug-ins in your DAW is works at every DAW. And then what you can do if you want is to pose
the track Here in the discussion
boards and then get feedback from myself and
from other producers. And if you have any questions or things that you are
not sure about, then you can ask
them there as well. Because this course is here for you to get to the next
level in your knowledge, closing it off here, if you need any EDM mixing
or mastering done by me, and don't hesitate, go to this mixer.com to process your
order and get started. Thank you so much for watching and make sure
to follow me here on Skillshare if you want to stay updated when new courses drop.
Bram Fidder, EDM Mixing & Mastering
