Transcripts
1. Course Intro: Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome back to another masterclass with
yours truly key Orion, the man who is obsessed
with me great music, and teach you how
to make your own. Ended today's course, I'm
going to teach you how to make vocals and that honestly never mind a Drake
vibe like this. Gone, gone, gone, gone. Oh, I apologize for the really weird sound
coming out of my sink, but that's just the alien
that lives in there. I'm excited to show you guys
what I did to make this. I've been super inspired by this latest album in terms
of making beads like this, make them vocals like this. And there are a couple
of subtle things that I'll show you if you want to make vocals in the house, dance, modern, Drake style. So that sounds good. Set
aside a little bit of time, get locked and loaded,
and let's jump into it. See you there.
2. Getting Started: When it comes to mixing vocals, I talk about this all the time, but it's really
important to have a reference track because you have to know what you're
shooting for, right? So in this, I'm using Drake's, the single from
that leaves album falling back on display. I know, you know, I know. So to me, it's interesting. His vocals very present, has a little bit of reverb. It's feels very compressed. And so I wanted to shoot to
do something pretty similar. So this is what mine sounds like with all the
effects or the processing, where do you don't
seem so secure? I'm starting them on causes. Me everyone did. He say? He's obviously sounds way
more professional than mine, but I think at least got mine somewhere where I felt
comfortable with them. And then they
sounded good to me. So I wanted to walk you through how I went
about doing this. The first thing I did
was recorded a bunch. So this isn't just like a
one take through, right? I'm not one take Drake so
much I'm trying to be Drake. I'm not. I've got all these different tastes
down here that I take a bunch, put them in this
rod takes section. If you want all of this setup, if you want any of my
Ableton templates, all of that stuff, you can find that in the description below. Because that way
I just loaded up, so that way I have all
these tracks pretty much already locked and loaded
there already primed. So that way every time I
load up Ableton project, I don't have to create
them every single time. So I'd have these doubles
in these final vocals, these spots, I have the slots
to create these raw vocals. And then you've got
a comp your vocals. So if you zoom in here, I've chopped out the breaths, but you can tell these
aren't all the same. Take this section
is from for me. Everyone did part and this
is 11 plus the minus three. Hey them songs. But she has a lot
of copying is huge. Like you, you don't have to take the entire tape
that you want to take the bits and pieces that you like the most
from your stuff. So that's the first idea in this that I did was I kept
the vocals and then I came in here and I chop out all the unnecessary white noise and then I fade each
clip in and out. That way they kinda
fold nicely together. So this is what the vocal
sounds like without the beat. Daddy, daddy, daddy,
daddy, daddy, daddy. Oh, let us study. Gone, done it, file. So that's what the doubles
and with the vocals. And so that's kinda the overall. What we're looking to do here
is you clean them up first. Always clean up the vocals. You'd get the pieces
that you want. And then we're going
to mix them down. And that's what I'll
show you how to do now.
3. EQ + Clean Up: In typical key fashion, not a great singer,
but I do love to sing. I started with Auto-Tune. My Auto-Tune settings
are as follows. Pretty high retune speed. I always change the
input to low male, the key to be whatever
the key of your song is. In a scale, whatever
your song is. Also like, I like
having this format on that just to me sounds
better. Then I humanize. It's still a little bit
because I got a little, a little not tremolo but vibrato from time to time when I'm really
on my singing game. So that's the first thing is a two-level goes that's always
at the front of my chain. The second thing that we'll
do is we'll take these off so we can go through
them one by one. All the effects. This is a wave studio rack so I can load all
the effects of I love this thing, I
use it all the time. So the first time
going to do is EQ it. I come in here and I cut out. So this is what the vocal
sounds like without this EQ, without anything on it. Because this is going
to sound terrible. That's all. Gone, daddy gone. That a lot of room noise, terribly recorded and you
work with what you got. But we're gonna be able
to salvage this thing. There's hope if
you're recording in a crappy kitchen or bedroom. Don't despair. The first thing is this
REQ six from waves, any EQ will do. I just want to take out, If you look at this daddy
daddy gone that file, you can see where
those were, the things are where it's really peaking. Sometimes there's
resonant frequencies where it's like whistling. I'll show you what I
mean here in a second. I'm just cutting those out. Just I'm just cleaning things
up right now is coming in. Cleaning up baby, clean
it up with the EQ and then I'm going to clean
up but this SSL channel. So the way that I
do these is I will bump the volume all the way up. And then I'll scan
through the frequencies and here try to
listen for stuff. So I'm going to scan through these low frequencies
and see if I can hear something I
don't like daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy gone. Oh, it's super boxy
in there to me. So I'll just that it's not
that's not something I like. And so I cut out a lot. Getting gone, daddy,
that's a huge, that's a huge difference. But I'm cool to cut
drastically now because I know I'm
going to start adding stuff, those things. If I don't cut those out hard, then they'll later,
it's really going to bother you and I start to
compress things and add volume. So that's our first 1.
Second 1 is again down here. This is kind of
in the 0.5 range. I'll show you what
that frequency is. Daddy, daddy,
daddy, daddy. Gone. Then this last one is 1.21. Gone during gone that
far, yet now, great. So I cut that one out, not quite as hard bone, so
cotton that out. I'm adding a little
bit of compression. Daddy, daddy gone that it felt pretty fast and attack and fast release four to one ratio, negative about 11
threshold here. And it's looking
for just a couple, like maybe a negative six or six dB of gain reduction here. Not anything super crazy. Just trying to catch some peaks, get a little bit of light
compression going from the rep. We're
compressing a little bit, but still cleaning up this DSR. So I just leave this at the frequency of the DSA and then just pull
this down to get, this isn't rocket science,
I just kinda pull it into, just clean up my S
is a little bit. And then this is a
multiband compressor. This is an in this, I'm compressing each of
these bands differently. I like that. Again, though this is
more of a compression, help me clean up to team
some of those frequencies. So this is, you'll see,
this is just the lows. Not a ton, but some
tech and release. This is a real boxy frequency. So this is where
I'm cutting out. I'm not kidding, but I'm taming a lot here as much as I can. Pretty fast attack and release. I got a lot in those
boxy frequencies, so I do my best to tame
it a little bit here. Very little in
almost none up top. Almost none on the eyes. That's most of the taming, the clean up a little
bit of compression. I'm just trying to
dial in and take out the stuff that I don't
like it first right now. And then I know I'll
be able to add it, add in things big up the
vocal a little bit later on. So now that I've kind of tin things taking crap
out that I don't love. Now, we're going to compress it and boost it up and
get the volume out of it.
4. Compression + Leveling: I'm ready to add the
volume back into the vocal and I'm going to do
this with my art compressor. And I'm gonna get it back
with this output gain knob. You can do this in all of your compressors because pretty much with the compression, a lot of times
you're going to add compression, it's
going to start. You'll be able to
add gain back in and through whatever
compressor are using. But just be careful. Don't listen. You
do, do you wanna do? This is key as
rules. I don't add this back on until I'm
doing it with the beak because I want to make
sure that when I get, I'm getting the level right with the beat rather than trying to get
the ballpark level. Because as soon as
you bring the feet back in, it's going
to sound weird. So now I'm gonna play it back in and the vocals is
getting lost in there. Again, if we have
a reference track, I know it's present the right, the vocals up there. So now we're going to
turn this compressor on. And Michelle,
you what's going on? Daddy, gone, gone. Bunch of gain up there,
maybe negative six. And again, reduction here at a too little bit about
the two-to-one ratio. High attack, pretty
fast release as well. And gone, gone. It's pretty, I'm
starting to now see the compression of
the vote comes after. Certainly add layers
or compression. I'm going to add even
more with this one. And again, this is another
multiband compressor. The first one listed
team frequencies. This one we're
going to be pushing up the different frequencies. So I use this pop vocal presets. I start there and then
kind of dabble around. And this is what it sounds like with the political preset, with a little bit of
things tweet, Gone, Gone. His vocals are just so smooth, might not quite there yet, but there's not a ton of
effects on them to you. Joe, don't feel nothing else. Yeah. I hear some reverb, a little bit of delay,
obviously a lot of compression, but I don't know what that was, but not like a ton of
crazy things going on. So when it comes to
this parallel split, these are all the effects
that I'm adding in here. So now we've add the compressor. Actually, you know
what, I'm going to make that the next lesson, the last bit of
maybe compression we're going to add
is the siblings. This is just maybe this
basically another ds or so. I have a little look ahead on my settings you can
copy and if you want it. Gone, gone, gone, gone. Pretty again. Dsrs are just
compressors but very precise. And so this is just catching
again kind of peaks. I always have this at the end of my chain as well
because I just kinda, it's kinda tame everything
at the very end. But the effects I want to dive into because they're
subtle but important. So let's jump into that now.
5. Effects: Affects, time for effects, effects if X bar, okay, So the first one is I like to have a couple of
different delays of this 1 eighth delay on. And I'm going to
solo this, again, important when you are adding effects to do
it with the beat. But I want to show you
what these effects are. So I'm doing it without it, but add these in when
you have the beat. Trust me otherwise,
all your effects, you're gonna get lost once
you bring the beanbag. Dj Breanna, be back. This is the delay, the delay. Daddy, daddy, gone down
a little bit of delay. This is a fourth
delay, footnote delay. Where did you go there
if it is footnote, the way daddy, daddy,
daddy, daddy gone. And then a little
bit of plate reverb. This is kinda just puts
it like in a room. That's the best way
to describe it. That ain't gone daddy gone. That it just makes it feel
a little bit less flat. It starts to just create that little bit more
of an ambiance, ambiance for the vocals. So that's my first reverb.
It's a plate reverb. Reverb, nothing crazy. Our verb, this verb is when you
start to get some of the vibes where super
long decay time. And then I'm just
mixing a bit of this. Just a little dab will
do you with this reverb. Daddy, daddy, daddy,
daddy, daddy, gone, done. Oh, pretty long. Decay till there. But it sounds more serious now because we
don't have to beat in. But when I bring them back,
trust me, this makes sense. And then I like to add a double. Listen to Jersey. Get out
of that high register. I'm feeling I'm feeling nothing. It doesn't feel like it's
coming straight down, right? It's coming like he's got that. It feels wide. Nothingness, healing,
time, scaling. So I have this doubler on, pretty fierce, nothing crazy, but it's just simple
doubler settings. Direct turned off because
we're on the parallel split. Gone, daddy, gone,
gone, gone, done it. If you don't have headphones on, none of this is
going to make sense. And then a metal
flanger default preset, shout out to the default presets one time doing
all the heavy lifting. A little bit here,
nothing crazy. Daddy, daddy, daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Gone, done. Oh, I just liked that. I liked a little flange or I like a little
flange on my joint. And then this is
a Drake 40 hack. This is the Renaissance
acts heart. So this is with this type vocal preset and then just a
little bit mixed in. But this is looking
how much is going on. Getting gone, daddy, daddy. Daddy got that baby serious. And you can get some of the, some of the vocal that the vocal or some of
the volume back on that. So here's how it
sounds with the beat. Gone, gone, gone, gone. And so that you can use also the devils in there as well.
Drake doesn't have doubles. This is where I'm starting to get a little
bit renegade with it. And I'll show you what
I did with levels now.
6. Doubles + Adlibs: What I like to do with
my doubles is I'll do the auditing again, but I will often. Okay, this is the
same. I'll often tune it harder on the doubles. Doubles the sound exactly
like my main takes. So I like to add a lot more
effects to my doubles. And so I have again a studio
rack shot at this one time. But a lot of these
will be turned, maybe more up depending
on what I want. So I might have like this
with the double sound like, oh, oh, I need you super long decay
tail and the doubles. But I feel like it just adds that the vibe is a terrible word because
that's what everybody says. But sometimes you got
to use it more of a vibe on age without the doubles launch. Launch it. To me, it just feels like
it's just it's warmer. It feels like it's
more of a hook. It has more going on. I really, I think those
doubles make the hook. Drake almost never has doubles. I don't think. I feel nothing. I don't hear almost ever
hear them with Drake's, but I like I like
to have doubles. I'm learning that I
am making those more. And then for me, I added some additives in
here at the very end. Terrible singing aside. This is how those, I like those doubles with the highest
rolled up, excuse me, double-check with the
highest rolled off. And then I have their
own studio rack. Again, another one, Auto-Tune. Another Auto-Tune. This is a different tune because it's a little bit
less than my CTU. This one's cranked all the way because I normally
when I'm doing an ad libs ice record and let it rock and then just sing
my little heart out. And just like I just let it rip. I'm not trying to nail notes. I just kinda just sing
all over the place because it's more of
just kinda like a vibe, very much like a Post Malone. If you listen to his ad
libs, I love is our lives. It just kinda like the
ad space and texture, but they aren't really present. And then I've got, again, a lot more effects
on these ad libs. These are the sound toys.
This is an effect there. I'm not gonna dive
into this too much. It's not super crazy. It's pretty much,
I've got some delay. This is kinda like a flanger of sorts just to make
it sound weird. And then just more things to make them sound a
little bit strange. So it's a lot of delay. Reverb in flangers. And then the highest rolled off. So that it sounds weird
with it altogether. Funny genitalia. There you have it folks. That's all she wrote. Again, if you want, made
this Ableton template so that we can just
plug and play. You can find that
my producer Vault, it's in the description below. I have a bunch of vocal presets for you as
well, vocal templates. If I don't have this
Drake one built out yet. But if you want a vocal template like Tory
lanes, potty next door, like a Drake, like
the weekend I have all of those are my website
beat school online.com. You can check those out. And that way, if you don't
feel like building this out, you can just kinda
slap it on there. I have all the knobs, macros, sets so that way you can,
it makes it easy to mix. If you don't exactly
know what you're doing, you still get a decent sounding
vocal. I hope that helps. Thank you so much for tuning in. As always, I appreciate
you more than you know, please drop a comment below. Check out all the resources in the project description and let me know which
one of your next. I'll make it happen. All right. Thanks. Piece.
Kia Orion, Artist & Music Producer
