Transcripts
1. Intro: Hey, my name is robert
and welcome to my course. In this course I'm going
to be going over how to fully mix and master music. I'm going to first start by explaining EQ and compression
all the fundamentals. Then I'm going to
go on to actually go into a song and do
step-by-step what I do, and how you should approach it, and what you should do in
terms of mixing a song. Then for the final thing
I'm gonna do a mastering. I really wish that
I had this course when I first started
because I feel like this is going to help if you're a beginner and
this will fully help you understand everything
that you should do when you need to mix your music. But yeah, I hope you, I hope this really helps you and yeah, let's
get right into it.
2. Understanding EQ: Hey, welcome to the first class in this how to mix
and master class. So the first thing
I'm going to go over, as before I get to the
actual mixing the song, I'm going to teach
you the fundamentals. So the first
fundamental and one of the most important things in
all of the mixing is the EQ. So let's just go
right into this EQ. I'm going to, I'm going to first teach you these
modes right here. So if your EQ doesn't have this, you don't have to worry about this, but this
is very important. So I do suggest getting EQ that lets you control the phase, how it affects the phase. So basically, what phase does, how EQs affect the phase? Basically, this 0
latency right here. This is when you're changing
stuff in enqueuing things. It's affecting the phase a lot more than if you were
to go to natural phase, then the best one
is linear phase. So when you're doing stuff
like bass frequencies, that's where you're going
to need stuff like this, linear fees and natural phase. But I, I just, I think this is a really
important thing we're here and I didn't really learn
it until much later. And it does have a huge difference on how
the sound quality is. Because what basically
phase issues is the sound is canceling itself out and it just ruins a sound. So this stuff right here
really can help with that. Moving on. The next basic things are low
cutting and high cutting. So a low cut or a high-pass because you're letting the highs pass through and you're
cutting out the lows. That's what's called
the high-pass but low cutting standard. You're cutting out everything below this number
and you control, you can control the slope on
how much you're cutting off. So let's say you're
playing a sound. And for example, let's pull up a guitar and say I
want to cut out, let's say I want to cut
out everything below 500. So this slope right
here is going to allow you to control
how much it's cutting off. Right here says
six dB per octave. So each 12 semitones, it's going to cut out 60, be 12, 18, 24. The higher you go,
the steeper it is. So listen, listen
to the difference. So you hear, you hear
them more aggressive. That got, alright,
now high cutting, obviously, it's, it's the
same thing, but it's flipped. So I then obviously
standard stuff like bells and justing
certain frequencies. But what I want to
teach in this EQ, now that I got like sort of
the basics of out of the way. But what I want to
teach in this like EQ video is how to find in sweep for frequencies and also E queuing
unnecessary noise out. So the first thing
I like to do is if, if I'm E queuing something
that has base frequency, that is important, like
this guitar has some base. We're going to see, like I
said, this phase option. If I don't want that, if I don't want the phase of this EQ shift to mess with
the base frequencies, then I'm going to put
it in linear phase. But if it's, if it's not something that's
super important in, you're not really going
to notice it anyway. And you're gonna cut
out stuff anyway. And it's not really
like the main thing, then you don't I, I'll just suggest using natural
phase or 0 latency, but linear phase II you, Alex uses on main
insurance because it keeps the phase
together the most. Anyway, what I do for every, every single instrument
is I get a low cut. Find where it
starts to roll off. And not just where it
starts to roll off. Let's say if you have a
really big 800 eight, you might need to cut this to make room for
all the adequate. But right now let's just fine. Let's just find
where it rolls off. So around a 100. And the reason why
I'm doing this is because look at all
this stuff down here. All that right there
you can't even hear. And it's just going to
build up in not only like get in the way of other stuff like a
cake or 800 eight. But it's going to take
a more dB volume. And the more you cut out without affecting the sound like you
don't want to cut out stuff, just to cut it out other
than affects the sound. You want to keep
everything sounding good, but you want to cut unnecessary sounds out so you can actually have a louder mix. I did the same
thing with the top. But what I like to do is
I like to do a brick wall and I cut out everything
above 19 k usually. But if your sound is lower and there's not much
information on here, you can pull it
down even further, but I noticed that anything above 19 k,
you can't really hear. So Let's just solo. Just see if you
can hear anything. You can't really hear anything. But if you look at the DB, look, so cutting that out is
going to make it louder. Like it's not gonna
make it louder, but it's going to be
able to you're going to be able to make it louder
without it peaking so loud. It's a won't make
a huge difference. But when you have, when you
do this on every insurance, it does make a difference. So now, when you listen to
this, what are you hearing? What I hear is on that
one note where it goes, There's a little bit of
pain and it kinda hurts. So what I would do is I would get a frequency band
and on the bell option. And I like to use big, big QRS because it sounds more natural as opposed to
a very tight queue. It's not going to
sound as natural. You only want to use tight cues when you're getting really surgical and you need to take a very specific frequency out. So keep that in mind. Wide QRS are more
natural sounding. So what I would do
is I would maybe put on a three, which
is still a white Q. And then instead of
pulling it up in sweeping, I actually find it better to
pull it down. Then sweep. Because once once you
pull it out you're like what like instead of pulling it up
and then sweeping, everything is going
to sound bad. But when you pull it
down and said, right, when you get to
that for sweet spot where the pain goes away, you're like, okay,
I got it, I got it. And now then you're
going to drive the gain up until it doesn't really ears. Now, something I could do, that is we took
care of the issue. There's not like before. C, It doesn't hurt
your ears anymore. But something I could do
instead is make it either EQ. And basically what all
this is is when that, when that frequency spikes, that dynamic, It's only going to push it
down when it spikes. So it's like a compressor, but only on this EQ bands. So watch, watch it. Look at that, look at it again. Before. So it's only pulling it down when it spikes so
that it's unaffected. It's leaving everything
else unaffected. Because when you have something that's constantly like this, it's always, it's always
that's a fixed position. Three dB at 2500 hertz is always going to be
out of that sound. But if you use something
like a dynamic EQ, let me put this back to normal. It's only in a takeout,
what you want to take out. So you can use that
in those situations. I could like it doesn't. It's up to you to decide
what you wanna do basically. And now one more thing
I want to go over is cutting and adding. So a lot of people, when they first
started, they just want to add everything. They want to just go crazy and
just add a bunch of stuff. But subtractive EQ is
actually very good. Because let's say
you want a vocal to shine and you want
it to be more bright. Instead of adding a bunch
of high frequencies, you would want to take care of the moodiness. I'm
gonna get to that. I'm going to have a video
specifically on vocals, but you would want to
take care of what, why is it not clear
in the first place? Because then you're gonna get a more natural sounding sound. And so we're just adding
all this stuff and it's going to be a lot easier
and ears to listen to. And you're not going to have to do a bunch of crazy stuff. So what you would do is
once again, get a band, pull all the way down, see where it sounds
better to 30 then. And I'm not saying to do
this on guitars, this is, I'm just doing it on,
this is just an example. But if this guitar were to be very muddy than I would do this, but you just have to listen. That's another thing
that dequeuing. You listen to the sound
and you're like, okay, this is what I wanted, something
other than you do it or, or you hear problems, you're like That sounds like really muddy or it might
hurt your ears a lot. So yes, Stuff like that. Subtractive EQ over adding. Obviously you can add. And also I didn't
talk about these yet. High shelf than low shelf. So basically, instead of a bell, which is an independent
frequency band, it only covers this spectrum. A high shelf is, if you fold this all the
way back to the lowest, it's going to affect the
entire frequency range. So basically it's anything
above it, it's pulling up. So in also the queue can
adjust how crazy the slope is. Obviously a bigger cue. A more natural sounding Q would be more open cue like a one. And then same thing. The low shelf. It's just standard by I should though that in
there in the EQ tutorial. But yeah, that's pretty
much it for E queuing. Obviously, as you go, you're gonna get more. It's just gonna be,
it's gonna feel more natural for you to
just pick out a sound. Be like, Okay, this
is what needs to be changed because this
is sort of my ears are this is not
sounding right eye, then you're going to go in and now you know how to use this EQ. And then you're going
to be able to do it because it's not like, oh, I don't know
how to use the hue. I'm going to throw
in one more thing. This is this EQ has the ability to do midside mode
and left and right. Don't get so confused on that. Basically. Let's say, let's say you want to cut
out something on the sides. So if you're wearing headphones,
which you should be, you should be wearing
headphones, um, or listening on monitors,
Studio monitors. It's only affecting
stuff on the side. So if you want to boost
something on the sides at like, let's see, around
like $700 only. Hear that it's
adding information. It's adding gain. It's making 700 hertz louder only on the sides and it's leaving the
middle untouched. Now let's say you want to take higher frequency out of the
midst so you come here. James, made only listen before, after. And boom, it sounds more wide. So that's, that's a technique that you can also
use with the hue. I just thought that I
should throw that in there since I'm going
over E queuing, but yeah, that's pretty much the basics on dequeuing
and I hope that helped.
3. Understanding Compression: Okay, I see you made it
to the second lesson which is compression. And this is a topic
that a lot of people, including myself, when
I was a beginner, I just didn't understand it. I don't understand what
compression wasn't and understand what it
did or how to use it. So I'm going to fully break
down what compression is. And it is very simple. Don't overthink it because
when I was a beginner, beginner, I were thought in. Now what I mean when I
learned how to use it, I was like, this is
actually so simple. So let's just get right into it. Let me just pull
up a compressor. Let's see the threshold, right? This line right here is
the threshold as you see. So let's set it right
where it's peaking. So all compressor does is
basically just level the audio. It's taking a loud parts and the quiet parts and it's pushing
them clustered together. And the way that it's
doing that is it's 11 allowed part goes like the transient which is
a spike in an audio. It pushes that down. I want to acquire
parts such as play. It lets that go, it lets the compression go, and it makes stuff like this and this come closer together, like so when you
set this threshold, you see how, if I were to put it right here
at the very top? It's only pulling it
down a little bit. But let's see, Let's
put it right where this low part is pulling down. It's pulling down the loud part, but it's it's pushing the quiet part up so it's bringing those sounds
closer together. So all the spikes in the
audio are being brought down and all the quiet parts in the audio are
being brought up. So it's leveling it. And this is used on absolutely everything,
every instrument possible. This EQ and compression are the most used tools
in all of mixing. Now let's understand the
attack and the release. First, I'm gonna start
with the attack. I'll get to this
ratio afterwards, but let's start with the attack. So what the attack does is it's telling the compressor how long to wait before
turning the signal down. So let's say you
set the threshold. So what this attack
does, one millisecond. It's waiting. The, the audio spikes. It's waiting one millisecond
for it to bring it down. Let's say we put it
on 100 milliseconds. Now when it spikes, it's waiting a 100 milliseconds
to pull it down. So it's letting that first,
initial transient through. And what a transient is, it just spikes and the audio, the louder parts of the audio. So this is going to allow, the reason why people use
this is it's going to allow for a more energetic
sounding sound. It makes when you, when you push the attack back more and let some of
the transients through, it sounds more life, sounds like has more
life in it instead of just the complete crushing, making an absolute, the same
everything the same volume. So basically the attack
control is to control how, how fast that reacts
and how natural or unnatural it's going to
sound. That's all that is. So the faster they attack, the faster and the instant. If you set this on 0.01 milliseconds is going
to act instantly. Look at this instant. Let's set this on 1 second. See that I didn't
even do anything. Let's do a 150. See, it's waiting
a lot more time. It's letting that first initial, initial transient through. Okay, now, now that we got that, let's
go with the release. So there really is how long it waits to
let go of the signal. So what compression does is
it brings on the loud parts. So now it's clamped down. It's the loud part hit. Now the compressor
clamps down right. Now the release is how
long it takes to let go. So if we have this
set really fast, the SEC watch this. The second that this
passes the threshold. The second that the, the audio itself isn't above
the threshold anymore, it's going to let go
of it immediately. If you have this
on a fast release. But if you haven't
on a slower release, like a 100 or 200, It's gonna take a lot
more time to let go. Let's push it even further. You see that it took that
much time for to let go. So this controls basically the, the attack and the release
controls that, that's, so that's what it
actually controls, but what we humans
use it as to hear it. Controlling the vibe in
controlling how it fuels. Because, you know, if you let something just get smashed by the compressor and
there's no transients. It's not going to be as
low as full of life as if there is transience
of the releases way too. It's not fast enough, you know, you're not going to be
bringing up anything up. So the attack and the release is basically the controlling of the compressor to
actually level. It's the timing that
you use to level everything properly
instead of all over the place and also
having the attack too high to completely destroy the sound and make
it not sound good. So use those two things to actually get the best sound out of your
compressor basically. And also leveled audio. Now the ratio, this
is very simple. It's actually a
really easy thing to understand. The ratio. So you see this threshold. So right now it's
on a four to one. That means it's going to, for every four dB
above the threshold, which is audio level, it's going to take one dB out. So if 40, It's gonna
take a one dB out. And then let's say
you have infinite 21, which is if any audio
goes over the threshold, it's going to just
take everything out. So it's not going to let
anything over the threshold. So the lower you have the ratio, the less the less taking out in, the less pulling the audio
down and clamping down. Basically, the less
the compressor is going to compress the audio, the more the higher you have it, the more that the compressor is going to compress
everything over the threshold. It's controlling the, the
softness and hardness of how much it's going to
take out over the threshold. So now what you need to understand is these
different things are here. So peak and RMS, RMS is an averaging. It takes a listen
to the audio and it gets an average level, it gets an average audio level. Then the compressor reacts
to how, what that is. But peak is. It sees the peaks and it sees only the audio level
of those exact peaks. And then it, it, the compressor reacts
to just the peak. So if you wanna do like
dressing on a vocal, you would want to use peaks because a ds is
going to be loud. I mean, an S is going to
be very fast and loud. And then using a peak, instead of having average, it's going to be a
softer sound for RMS because it's an average. The peaks is going to be
a more exact, exact cut. So you'd want to use that. But on like a guitar or
something that's more smooth, like maybe like a
piano or even base. To make it more smooth, you don't want to
use RMS because it's an average level and that's
what we use on mastering. I'll get to that
later on, but yeah, the next thing I want to say
is this knee right here. So the closer the audio
gets to the signal, if you have really high knee, it's going to, it's
almost like this. So the knees down here, this is the actual threshold. The audio's coming up. If you have the nice that here, it's going to start
to reduce already. Then once you get
to the threshold, then it's going to
reduce even more. It's going to
compress even more. So the higher you it's
almost like a softening it. When you have a knee,
it almost softens the that it softens the
compressor almost. So if you have no knee
on the compressor, then it's the compressor is just going to do exactly
what's the threshold, exactly where the threshold is. It's going to pull
it down, write out that ran a threshold. But if you have a a software
knee or bigger knee, it has a 90 and 90 dB range. So it's going to
everything above and below or every, yeah, everything below the
threshold by nine dB, It's going to start to, start to compress before it
even reaches that threshold. So that's all that is of n. Obviously, once you
compress year again, it's going to be quieter because compression is all it's
doing is turning it down. It's turning down
the loud parts. So now what you need
to do is turn up the, you want to turn up
the actual audio. So this right here,
that out to make up, right here, this
button, it says makeup. It's to make up for that
stuff you just took out. And think of it as
this loud part, low part, that compressor
takes the loud part down. And now the whole sound is quieter and I had to
bring everything up. So the compressor is
taking on a lot of parts then you push
everything up together. So there's more even and everything is like
glued together. That's why compressors are often called a glue
compressors because they just glue the sounds together and mix them
more even in level. All right, I hope this lesson helps you understand
compression more. Obviously, I'm gonna go more. I'm going to use compression in the videos on when
I mix the song. So let's get to that.
4. Arrangement & Color Coding: Okay, So I'm going to be walking through all the steps
to mixing a song. And the first thing that I
want to do is organization. Because organization is very important and it just
helps you so much. So what you're gonna wanna do
when you have your stems or if you're just mixing in the actual production
which I am right now. But mostly. If you're a mixing engineer, you're going to be working with stems that people send you. So you're going to
want to read it, you're going to want
to go through all the stems, each instrument. And if it's not already named, you're going to want to name
it either you color-code it. So I like to put all
my drums into one bus and into one group in bus and
named them all accordingly, then color-code them
so you know how to do the same colors that I do. I make drums red and the base orange than
the instruments. Make sure like a
greenish bluish color. But you don't have to do
the same thing as me. Basically, all you
wanna do is you want to put all these in groups. And I'm going to explain bus,
busing and a little bit, but yeah, and then all the
vocals you want to name? Absolutely. You want to name
absolutely everything. So that when you're mixing, you know what is what. And trust me, this
helps so so much. All right, Now, not
going to explain busing. And basically what bussing is
is it takes all instead of, instead of all the stuff, going straight to the master, which is the whole entire track. It's just the map, the masters, basically the entire song into 11 track that
you're listening to. And all these other tracks are usually just going
straight to the master. But if you'd create
busing bus groups, then you take all
these instruments. Only the instruments
are then you put them in an interim intolerant bus. And this is I'm I'm
on Ableton right now, but you can do this in
many different ways, like on Pro Tools, you have to go here, like as you see right here. You can click here and then send it to the instrument bus. Or you can go here to look, say the sub and send
it to the base bus, then I know NFL, you have to that there's I'm sure there's
tutorials where you can find it, but how to, on iPhone, you have to click this
like the green arrow. Then on Ableton, all you
have to do is highlight everything and press Control
G to create a group. But yeah, you can do this
in many different ways. Depending on what doll you have. Just look up how
to create a bus. And then once you have all your buses
created for the drums, the base, the instruments
and your vocals. And then maybe like
a sound effects bus. Now you're going to be
ready to start mixing. But what I'd like to do on each bus before I
start mixing is every, all the buses to minus 3. And the reason why I do
that is so that I have a little bit extra headroom
so that nothing is clipping. And then one final
thing is when you have dubs or like basically
doubles of your voice, you're going to
also want to create their own bus as well. Like I have a vocals bus and I have buses with
inside of buses. So I have a vocal bus, but then I also have a dubs bus. But this dubs buses also going to the local
bus eventually. But the reason why I do
this is so that I can manipulate an EQ in, um, do different stuff to
the dubs which are supporting the lead without
affecting the lead. Or like all the
rest of the locals in this including the ad lib. So yeah, that's the that's the last thing
I want to point out, but once you have
everything organized, color-coded and names
and everything is in buses and you set everything
to minus 3 dB on that, on the bus groups, then you are ready
to start mixing. So let's get to the next video.
5. Gain Staging: Okay, in this video I'm going
to go over gain staging. And the first step was
organizing in naming everything. But then the next step is
going to be gain staging. And what gain staging is, is basically you
listen to the song and you're going to start
with one thing first. Let's, let's say you start with, you can start with whatever you think is the main element
in the song would say you have a guitar and you want that to
be the main focus. So huge solo guitar then add on, but I'm gonna do
it with the kick. So you want everything
to be level with each other and not be
all over the place. So you would start
with the first thing, which I'm gonna
start with the kick. And I'm going to
bring in the snare. In this session, everything
is already perfectly level and it's already mixed,
but you basically, you keep on adding stuff in and you turn it up or
down according to, let's say you listen to
the kick versus the snare. That, let's say the
snares way too loud. You're going to turn down the
snare, then you're going to come in and then you're
going to add the hats. And if the hats are too quiet, you're going to turn
off the hats and so on. You're going to do this with
every single element in the entire song before
you even start mixing. Because a great mix
starts with great levels. And that's something that
will very much help you as you start to go on and
mix more and more stuff. And yeah, that's pretty much
it for the gain staging. The only thing that I want to add on is make sure
nothing is clipping. And you have at least
three dB of headroom. That's why we did the minus
three dB in the last video. Anyway, let's go
to the next one.
6. Mixing Drums: Okay, You made it to the first thing that we're
gonna do in the song. So the first thing I'm going
to start with is the drums. I like to mix the drums
first in every single song. Unless it doesn't have drums. Because I feel like
the drums are, is something that is
powering the song. That's like the whole
rhythm, you know? So I'm going to start
by on the kick. So after you have everything
gain stage and everything, you're gonna come
to the kick and let me turn all this stuff off. And as you notice, I don't
have much on the kick. And the reason for that is because if it
already sounds good, you don't need to add
anything else to it. A lot of people, they
get stuck in the hole. Or I used to do this myself to where I would think I have to add every plugin in the
world on one thing because, oh, that's just, I have these
plugins, I got to use them. But that's not
actually how you mix. Because at the end of
the day it's about how it sounds and how it feels. So if it's already
sitting right in, it's already sounding good. You might only need to add
a little bit something. You don't need to
add all this stuff. And if something
already sounds really good and it already
sounds perfect, then you don't do anything
ADL in, you just leave it. And if every, all the
frequencies right, nothing is bothering each other, you just leave it. That's something you
have to learn in mixing. Don't overdo, don't overthink. You just listen and you feel
and that's how you do it. Okay, let's get on
the first plugin. So this is something that I apply across every single
channel on every single thing. So this is the only thing, this is the only time we're
going to talk about it. Basically, this,
all this does is it emulates an SSL board. In SSL board is, is an analog board that instead of all
these digital tracks, in the analog realm, these would be actual tracks, analog tracks that the sound
is literally going through the board and the board has
this character sound to it. So in a lot of people
call it the analog sound. And this plugin, I feel like it does a really good job
at emulating that sound. And it has a drive knob on it. So it's just slight saturation. So I put this on
every single channel, then whatever I feel like, I want to pop out a
little bit more like maybe the vocals or
the kick and snare. I just drive up the
saturation just a little bit. That's like pre saturation. Anyway, that's the only time
I'm gonna talk about that because I apply that
on every single track. Let's get to the EQ. So like I said, in the first EQ tutorial, linear phase mode, I'm doing linear phase mode because I'm affecting the base frequency. If I didn't do
linear phase mode, it's going to make that base
frequency out of phase. And not only is it going
to make even quieter, even if I was boosting it. I mean, unless you're
boosting a lot. But even if I'm
boosting a little bit, it's going to not, it's going to make it quieter. And it's going to make it louder because it's going to be out
of phase with each other. Basically, when something
is out of phase, the wave are canceling
each other out. They're not working together. They're going opposites in their canceling each other out. So you wanna make sure
when you're doing base or important things like are important elements that have some type of base frequency
or just anything. Even if it's a
hi-hat, very high. If, if it's a very important
element in the song, I like to use linear
freeze mode because linear phase moon keeps
the phase of the best. So That's what, that's
what you should use on Bayesian continues
in anything that is very important in the
song. Anything else? I use natural phase. I don't even use
0 Lindsay at all. So I only use 0 latency when I'm recording because there's no
latency or delay. But all I'm doing to the kick
is I'm boosting 60 hertz, 65 hertz, and 80 hertz. And it looks like I'm
doing a dynamic EQ and I'm doing dynamic EQ
to catch the train z. And only then I have, basically all I'm doing is just boosting the thump of the kick. So let's listen to
before and after. So if you are listening on speakers, you're
going to hear, it's not too much
of a difference, but it's adding a
little bit extra kick as know, call it a kick. So it's adding a little
bit extra thumping, little less. It's always nice. If I felt like this, I felt like this kick
didn't have enough, little enough of that. So I just added a
little bit more. And if your cake RD has enough, you don't want to add
anything that already. You don't want overage stuff
like I was talking about. You don't want to
overthink anything. Or if or let's say somebody has too
much or something, then you want to subtract. But I'm doing. All I did was listen
and I'm like, Okay, I want this kick to just
slap a little harder. So you can drive
this all the way up to six dB if you wanted to, but one dB did the job, or it was 20 dB. But then the rest of what I'm doing is I'm doing
a brickwall filter, low cut at 20 hertz because
there's nothing below that. You can't hear
anything below that. And it's cutting out
everything that is below that so that it peaks lower and you can
actually make it louder. Same thing with the 99,
just opposite side. Now, the next thing
I'm doing, and this, this is a thing that people
get very confused on, but parallel processing
is actually very simple. I'm creating a parallel. So here if you, if
you look right here, this is, let's
just name this OG. So this is the original track. This is the, this just came from the EQ and now it's
coming into here and this is the actual track. Now, this is the first parallel, so parallel one,
then number two, parallel to, these are
copies of the sound. This is a copy of
this sound then. But the reason why we do this is because see all these
effects over here. Now I'm able to have
a copy of the sound and affect everything
differently. And the reason why you do
this is because you want to, let's say you want to add a very high-frequency
sound to the kick, but you want to distort it without ruining
the original sounds. So you would create a parallel. And that's exactly
what I'm doing, is on this parallel.
Let's turn this up. So I'm compressing it a lot. Then I'm saturating
it a lot of n, boosting the transient, which is the first
spike and audio. Then I'm limiting it
even more now than I am. I'm just turning
it down and then I'm adding a bunch
more frequencies. So this is, let me
show you to the sound. Let me show you the sound
before all the processing. And then after. So basically, I just
compressed it a lot with a very fast attack and a fast release so that it
would just crush the sound. Then I saturated a lot in, added a bunch of
high frequencies. And basically, what that is gonna do is
when you blend this back in. So let's just turn
this last one off, but let's watch, I'm going
to blend it back in. So if you let's, let's turn it off often on you here that has a
clicking sound to it. And the reason why I'm
adding this is because on laptops and phones, speakers, this is going to help it
cut through everything and actually you'll be
able to hear the kick. And then for this
parallel number 2, I'm doing the same thing, but I'm not doing it as crazy. And I'm cutting it. Instead of boosting the highs, I'm cutting the lowest so that it's more like a
mid-range type thing. But I am saturating it a lot. So this was more for like
a mid-range saturation. So you can create however
many parallels you want. It's just about what
I, basically what I, what this was all about is so
that you can hear the kick better on phone speakers
and laptops in. This is something that I
do on every single song. Unless, unless you
don't need to do it in the cake already
has that information. It already has a bunch of highs, and it's already perfect. But in this case, I wanted to add some highs. So I do very suggests
making parallels, then making them very saturated. And then adding a bunch of
high frequencies and then blending them in so that you can hear better
on phone speakers. Now, the next thing
is the snare. Let's turn everything off. The first thing I'm
doing is compressing it. I'm only compressing this by one dB, which is very slight. And the reason why I'm doing
that is because I'm using this compressor sort of as
a transient designer in. I'm letting some of that attack through like we talked
about in the conversion. Just horrible. I'm letting, I'm
making it to where the first initial
transit comes through authentic lamps down
so that it makes it, it actually is making the
transient even louder. And it's adding just a
little bit extra snap to the snare. On this EQ. I'm taking out a little
bit of pain frequency. So let's listen to that before and after without
the EQ other than the EQ. So it's just a little, a little bit less
hard on the ears. And this is something
that's really, really important
that I want you. And I want everyone
watching this to take in. Like really understand this. There's so many songs, like even professionally
make songs that are out today like that, still have this
sometimes still be happening on a lot of songs. Where the snare or the clap
just hurts your ears so much. There's so much pain
frequencies in it. And it's like I
go to turn it up. I want to turn it up louder, but the snare is just a hertz. So this is something
that's really important to where you gotta make sure that the snare
Doesn't her ear. So this ne'er was not that
painful to begin with. That's why I only had
to take out one dB. But if it's a snare
that's painful, you might have to take
out three to six dB, dt or even more just
depending on the snare. But once, once again, that technique of pulling it down with a wide Q and then sweeping, just
repeating this out. So right around there. So that's the technique I do. I pull it down sweep
and I keep repeating, repeating the sound
over and over and over again until I
find the sweet spot. And then I dial it back up. And then I replay this out and again until I find
the right amount, that sounds good, then
you know that it's good. But so that's, that's, that's something that's really important when it
comes to snares, especially for that I'm just rolling off at 40 hertz
because once again, I'm talking about how when you roll off
unnecessary sounds, it helps it not
peak so high in dB, then you can make it louder. And the reason why I did 40 and not like
higher, like 60 years, a 100 is because
I want this snare to have a little bit
of a punch to it, like a little low and
punch right here. And because that
sounds good on snares, and you can actually
even go ahead and add more if you want. But in my opinion, that's that's how I wanted it
and it already sounds good. All right, moving
on to the parallel. In this parallel IM, so all I'm doing
in the parallel, I'm saturating it a lot. Then I'm saturating
it even more a lot. Then I'm IQ, doing a
bunch of the paint out. Then what I do, so this
is before and after. There's a huge difference there. And that's why we do
this in parallel. Because you do something crazy to a sound
in the parallel, then you blend it in
and to some degree. And it doesn't affect
the original thing. So it was at 20 before. What you would do is
you'd blend it in. But okay, so before c adds
this extra punch and it just, it just feels more full of life. That's something I love to do, is do a parallel R Then
saturate saturated a bunch, just saturate it all the way. Oven blended in and it
just sounds so good. Suddenly I really like to do,
all right Now the hi-hats, I mean, what I'm
doing is compression. And same thing on the snare. This is the type of compression that basically it's making the first initial
transient a little bit more louder because it's letting that first
transient through. Then it's clamping down. Then it releases
off on the quieter, more quieter sounds at
the end of the sample. To just bring more
energy into the sample. Basically, that's all it's
doing is it's bringing more life then what this
EQ, I'm taking out pain. So let's see before and after. So in my ears, what I heard was basically
the hi-hat was kinda harsh. It was a little harsh
in on certain notes. It just hurt a little bit, especially at high volume. So just tapering
it back three dB. After I, I did this sweep
and it found the sweet spot. This was sweet spot. It just helps a lot,
helped us really a lot of that I'm rolling
off with high hats are usually roll off around 200 because there's not really anything below 200 and a hi-hat. Now moving on to the open hat, all I'm doing is the same thing, doing compression to add
a little bit more life. Then I'm rolling off at 200. And so that's all for that. And then so that's the last thing I have
for drums is snaps. Okay? So I'm actually compressing
this again them out. And what this is
doing is not only bringing a little bit more
of the transient out, but it's also
extending that tail. So if you listened
before and after. See, I did make it a little bit louder,
just a little bit, but it extended that
tail a lot more and it brought that transient out a little bit
more and added life. And that's exactly what
we're looking for. So once again, I'm taking
pain frequency out. And then right here, this is this at around 1600, Let's before and after. So that cleaned it
up a little bit. It was sounding a little
bit almost like muddy type. And basically all I did
was I swiped it and I found the sweet spot and it
just helped to clean up. Let's listen one more time. So it's just about fine. It's just about listening and just being like, Okay, what? Like it's, it's not even like
you have to ask yourself, you listen to the sound,
then you're like, okay, this needs to
sound like this. And now that you know
how to use the EQ, you can easily go in and
find these frequencies and then tape on the
back a little bit or add more frequencies to, let's say you wanted
more high frequencies or something, then
you would add more. But then what the snap, I'm just rolling off
everything below 60 because there's nothing really
below there and a snap. Then that's it for the drums. But now this is, this is the last thing in this video, but
drums processing. So we just, I just went through all the steps of mixing
each individual drum. But now we're going to mix, We're going to
affect all of these. All you see, all these are
going into this one-channel. So now we're gonna
affect them as a whole. So let's, let's turn
everything off and listen. And I'm
going to turn it on. So it's not so drastic, but I notice a really well, what I notice is that it sounds more together and it adds
a little bit more life. So all I'm doing is basically, all I'm doing is I'm adding
a little bit of saturation. Very, not that much, just 10 percent on this plugin, which is not that much. And then I'm adding a
transient designer. And what a transient
and designer is. On this attack, it's boosting
those spikes in the audio. So the loud parts, That's what a transient is. Then it's bringing
up the quieter part. So it's almost like, it's almost like what I was
doing in the compressor. But this is just a
different plug-in in. It's more precise, I'd say. And what that's doing
is it's adding life. Then with this compressor, this is actually a vocal
compressor, are Vox, but I worked great on drum bus processing because I don't know, It just
sounds really good. It sounds good and
everything really, but I really like to use
it on drum bus processing. So all I'm doing is
compressing it by 3, which is not like that much. So all that's doing is
it's bringing the levels more together and it's making it be a little bit
more full of life. And then with the sooth plugin, this is a plugin that basically it automatically detects
whether there's resonance. So basically certain frequencies that are peaking too
loud that our resonance. So if you have a guitar, then you have this one
note where you just have, it just hurts, your
ears are theirs or there's something just peeking out that just
doesn't sound right? Those are like
resonant frequencies. So this automatically finds
those and it reduces them. And I, this up and down,
this is like an EQ. When you pull it down, it tells this plugin to
not process this area. And when you pull
it up, it says, hey, process this area more. So as you see, I have it right here around the pain frequency area
like for K to six K. And that's just smoothing
it out a little bit. So that's all that is
a then a final EQ. And all I'm doing is I'm doing is cutting out
everything below 20 and everything above 19 because you can't hear anything about that. Then linear phase mode. So now let's hear that once
again before and after. So all that's doing
is helping it glue together a little bit more and adding a
little bit extra life. Now let's hear that in the mix. Sounds great. All right, I hope this video helped you and let's get onto the next one.
7. Mixing Bass: Okay, We made it to one of my favorite things
and that is base. I love mixing base. And let me show you the way I like to approach
from mixing base. And basically, the first
thing I wanna show you is that I have two subs
or base things here. But they're both going
into this one thing. So basically it's kinda like
this is the base of us. And these, the reason
why I'm not I'm mixing these differently because these subs are the
exact same thing. They're just different patterns. So that's all. So the first thing I do, Well first, let me take
everything off of okay. So the first thing I do, and obviously with everything,
I just listened to it. So let's listen to it. I saw off the bat. I'm like, I want to add a
little bit more, Lohan, so I use this plug-in
called the neutron and the sculptor and just exactly
does what I wanted to do. So listen, it's
boosting the loan, but then it's also
taking out moneyness. And it's doing this
automatically. It's detecting where it should, it thinks it should
apply it to other, then you just select
whatever insurance doing. But then I'm E queuing. And in this EQ, took down a little
bit of the moneyness. Let's listen to that. So it's not that much of a change because you
can barely hear that. But then right above that, I am Boosting right here. Look, listen to this part. So as you hear, that's, that's more of a high-frequency. So this, combined with this, is going to make it be heard better on phone
speakers and laptops. Because not only this right here is clearing up
the sound a little bit, a little bit the
moneyness, right? Then this is boosting more of the high frequencies
so that you can actually hear it on phone
speakers and laptop speakers. So that combo is something that, I mean, you don't have to
do that and everything, but It's just something
that really helps. Then all I'm doing is lowering the highest just by one dB and then
lowing the lowest, two-by-two BB, two dB. But all you have to do is listen and see what you feel
like you should change. Then I'm adding saturation. And what this plugin, I'm using the mix knob to
basically with this saturation, you set the saturation
point and then you can determine how
much you want to put in. You can put all the
saturation in or none, which at that point the
plugins is not doing anything. So I chose right in the middle, 50, 50% percent unaffected,
50 percent saturation. So it's like a best of
both worlds type of thing. All right, the next
thing, compression, so I like to compress it away. It's like you don't have
to do it every time. But it just makes it more full sounding because basically, as we know, what a compressor
does is it levels of sound. So all it's doing is if we, if we actually zoom in
to this audio rate, you see this 800 eight, how it kind of tapers off at the end. All this compressor
is, is doing, is making sure
that, that doesn't. It tapers off less. This part is louder. It's making this part louder. And the reason why I'm
doing that is so that you get the most base
possible in the song. Because who doesn't
want all of the vase? And I'm doing it with a fast
release so that it lets go. And it really lets that tail and get up because
you don't want it. You don't want it to not come
up where you want the base. So fast release, other than
a sort of fast attack, you want I wanted to let out, I like to let some transients through, but not
like all of them. So, you know, a
semi fast attack. And then for the ratio, a good ratio for base
is around 86 to eight. That's a pretty good
ratio for base, but it's obviously up to you. All right, so the next thing I'm doing is I'm adding saturation. And with this plugin you
can pick a certain style. This is just emulating
different, saturated. Then I'm just driving it by one. So let's listen
before and after. So that's, that's actually a pretty big difference because that what this is doing or here this is
like stylizing it. And that is really going to
help it be heard on phones. Because as you hear
a lot of that, like higher-end high mids, all a lot of the
high mids came out. If you hear that, if
you listen to that. And that's really going to
help it be more pronounced on phone speakers
and stuff like that. And now I'm doing with the
EQ is linear phase mode. Make sure it's on
linear phase mode. Then high cutting
or low cutting, 20 hertz out because there's nothing below there once again. And then rolling
everything above 10 K on off because there's not
really anything above there. And in the 800 eight, there wasn't anything
above there. Then I'm adding a limiter. And the reason why
I'm adding a limiter is because I'm trying
to control the peaks with this 800 eight because the kick is the
transient for the 80. Eat that cake really
is transient. But also when you can, when you can control
the peaks more in, in like the mix. When it comes time
for mastering, your going to be able to push the volume louder basically. All right, Let's come
to this parallel. And yes, I'm adding
more parallel stuff because parallel processing
is amazing and you should do it on a lot of things
because it is is amazing. So let's, let's hear
what I'm doing. Let's just listen to just
the parallel by itself. So what do you hear? There's no low end. It's all wide and there's
it's like really saturated. And I cut, it's
mostly the mid-range. So let's just go back to
the very first thing I did. Let's turn those off. So this is the
original Italy, right? Then what I, what I did
was add a saturated or unsaturated
saturated, extremely. Right? And then I cut everything below 200 hertz out so that
there's no low end. Then everything above 1000 out with like a 12
dB per octave slope. So this is before and after. So now, so now it's just a
really saturated mid-range. Then what I'm doing is I'm making go all the
way out to the sides. And this is a free plugin. So you can get this same plug-in and their stock plug-ins that
do the exact same thing. But you can find this
plugin on their website, ozone, just look
up ozone imager. But all I'm doing is I'm
painting out all the way to the sides with the
stereo eyes button and the width of a 100 percent. So it sounds like this
before and after. And that's why I cut everything below 200
because on the sides, you don't want any law. You don't want any
base frequencies on the sides because it's just going to muddy
up the sides. And one, there's bass
frequencies on the sides. It makes the song
sung cluttered. So when you have your base
frequencies down the middle, which is called mono. And then like we said earlier, how you can do
midside mode on EQ. That's the same thing, that there's sides and
then there's made. Also. Another way of saying something is only in
the center is a mono of an obviously stereo would be stereo two speakers
left and right. So all I'm doing is just
making it widen, just that. And making it wide is
also going to help be heard on headphones and stuff because now
you're writing it. So now you're really, you're bringing that
ate away out really. Because once you
make it really wide, you can really, you
can really hear that. The final, the final
thing I'm doing with this EQ is I'm cutting
out everything below 200 again and
everything above 1000 and make sure it's
in linear phase mode. Then then I'm blending it in. So I would just come
here right there. Sounds good. Then before and after. So that's really going
to help your one thing, that one parallel
processing is instantly, you're going to be able to
hear on every single thing you play it on now phones,
laptops, headphones. You're gonna be able to hear
that anyway, definitely. So now let's listen
to it in the mix. And as you hear, you can hear that rumble from the 800
eight. You can hear that. Like when you listen
to a by itself. You can hear that it's
wide, but in the mix, all you hear is that
rumble and that whiteness is really
helping accomplish that.
8. Mixing Instruments: Mixing instruments. So let's, the first thing I'd
like to do is define a which one is the
main instrument? So in this song, the main instrument
is the guitar. It plays throughout
the entire song, and all the instruments
are around the other. It's all around like guitar. So what I first do is obviously you're
going to have your, your gain staging already
set because we already did that before we
started the mix. So all these
instruments should be surrounding what's the most
important or what you feel, what you feel like the
most important it, because you can decide what you want the
song to focus on. But for this guitar, all I did was, so for this guitar, I
just listened to it. So immediately I
thought to myself or I didn't think But what I heard
was that when IT slapped, it was like there was a little
bit of an attack there. Like it was a little
bit too much almost. So I just added a compressor
to tame that just slightly. Then the next thing I did was
I added this sooth plugin. And you already
seen this before. It's the it's the thing
that automatically detects resonance
and it just soothes, basically it does exactly
the name sooth. It's Susie. And I just added a 10 percent. I then right here I
told it to process more of three k at R
just by another GB, just so that it suits
out that three k range. Then for the final
thing, natural, amusing, natural phase and rolling
everything below a 100 off and everything above 19 k off. And that's it for the guitar, and it's really for instruments. I mean, this goes
for everything. You don't want to
overthink anything. Like you don't want to ruin
the sound of anything. Because when I when
I first started, I kinda really just
over thought and I would just add
a bunch of stuff. But when you start with something that
already sounds good, you don't need to
overdo anything. Now if this guitar
had a bunch of, like let's say was very muddy and it was very
had a lot of pain, then I would do I would
sweep for that in the EQ. I would take it out attainment. Then with this
plugin, I would take more of the resonant frequencies by probably trying
to mix knob up. But that's just
something that you have to listen to yourself. You have to listen to for
these things yourself. It's not even something that you have to listen to
it you just play, you listen to the sound. And you automatically
are like, Okay, it's muddy or, or let's say hurt your ears
like you're going to know, like you're just gonna know because you just
listen to the thing. So you have to she have to go in and use the tools
that you know how to use like EQ and compression. So it's really just getting familiar and knowing what to do with the tools
that you have. The next thing are these
keys that came in. So all I'm doing
is compressing it a little bit just to help control it just a little bit in, bring up the tail so there's, there's more life and
it's a little bit, it's a little bit
more more consistent. The next thing I'm doing
is I'm adding a suit plug-in, and I'm adding it. I'm boosting more right here. So let's listen to
just what it's doing. So right now we're hearing
what it's producing. So you can hear that
resonance around here. Let's solo just this word. So that's something that
I heard in the sound. So let's, let's
do before, after. So there's a big
difference there. A tames that resonant
frequency a lot. When I was in when
I was listening to the keys, I was like, I just I heard that poking out, especially when I was playing all the
instruments together. When you can, when you
can control in sooth, the sound of all the instruments when they are
together, they sound, they sound so much more in harmony and they sound so much
more together like Island. For the next thing
I did, the EQ. Rolling everything below a 100 off and everything
above 15 K off, and then this light
tunnel frequency. So that's just something that I heard and I control it with a, with a dynamic EQ so that
it only affected it, it only pull it down
when it spiked out. And let's go to this, these bells, these
bells over here. All I'm doing is I'm
compressing it to bring up more of
the quieter sounds and make it basically more
together and more full life. Then I'm cutting
everything below 300 off and everything
above fitting K off. And there's nothing
below 300 that you can hear and have
an unnatural fees. And it's as simple as that, because this is more of
a background element. So let's listen to the
instruments and getting. So that's all that
I needed to do. Then the next thing I did on this guitar that comes
in on the last chorus, I added a good amount
of stuff to it. So first compressed
it to control it and also bring a
little bit more life out. Then the next thing I did here, Let's listen before and
after the saturation. Saturation. So I'm just saturating a little bit to add that electric rockets are vibe, usually rock guitars that
are pretty saturated. This one, it was already
saturated and get them out in a little bit distorted. But, but I just wanted to
add a little bit extra, extra like, you know,
saturation at that. That was more of just like
more of like a vibe thing. Not really so like
anything else, like a data add some more
impact to the guitar. But it was more such
as the vibe thing. And then for the next thing, there's a lot of resonance in this guitar Azure here,
like just listen to this. If you didn't hear
that, let me solo it. So there's a lot there was a lot of pain and
resonance and all I did was I used a suit
plugin on 20% and I boosted this all
the way up at four K, which were the resonance was in a suit that out a lot
look before and after. So you take a lot
of that paint away. But then there's still, there's still a
little resonance. So that's what it didn't the EQ. See, that's the that's the
thing that was sticking out, so I ducked that down. Let's listen to
before and after. You hear that, it just it didn't completely taken away because I wasn't trying
to take it away, added to the sound, but
it was a little too loud. So Agents Helped it soothed out. And it just made it to
where it's not annoying. You know, you don't want
to listen to a song, then it's just
hurting your ears. And then the only
thing else I did was rolled off everything
below a 100 and then 19. Okay. Everything above. So yeah, that's pretty much it for, Oh, there's one more
parallel processing. So all this is just
on this parallel. This is actually
reverb and delay. So let's listen to this. So I'm going to make another
video about effects. But let me just go
through this real quick. So just the eighth note
delay with some reverb, just to add some extra five. I'm going to go more in depth. And later on in this course about specifically
affects and automation. But yeah, that's all I did
for the rest of that guitar. The final thing that I
like to do to instruments, and this is something
that is amazing and not, I feel like this is not
really known. Like too much. Like of course, parallel
processing is known, but like this technique
that I like to do, this is something that's done on vocals to like a lead vocal. And like also I showed you
on the snare and stuff. So basically, all I'm doing
is I'm creating a parallel. Then I'm compressing it. A extremely like if you go
here, that Here's compression, then you go here, Here's
more compression, here's more compression and all these compressors are
compressing it a lot. So then i'm, I'm soothing it and I'm
seeing a lot of resonance out and paint frequency because all that compression
brought up a lot of pain. Then I'm rolling off
everything below 60 and everything about 1988. And make sure this is
on linear phase model when you're doing
parallel processing, everything should always
be on linear phase one. Then let's listen to before
and after just the parallel. Do you hear that is really
compressed, blended in. This is what, this is what
adds to the whole sound. I'm going to play it
before and after. Absolutely everything got up. Not only is it more
together, more together, and it sounds like an
actual like an actual song. It sounds like everything
just got amped up and there's so much more life and energy and thickness. It just sounds so
good and I love doing that on literally
every single song. It's not something
that is amazing. And I use that sort of as the final push to
the instruments. Then I control the level. And basically once I, once I do that final thing, I come over to the final
level of the actual bus and then I push it up and down
and find the sweet spot. But that's the final thing
I do to the insurance bus.
9. Mixing Vocals: Okay, vocals. This is something that everyone
wants to learn how to do, and everyone is
always trying to do. So let's get right to it. So as you know, we put all of them in, all in one bus, the vocal bus. And then we also have a
dub bus within the bus. So let me solo the
vocal, just the lead. I'm going to just do
the lead and then I'm going to show you
how to mix it up. So let's take everything off. Okay? So the first thing I
like to do to every single vocal is I pull up
in EQ and let me, before I actually show you, let me explain to you my
thought process of this. So my thought processes when
it comes to the vocals. Instead of adding a bunch,
this goes with everything. But for vocals, especially, instead of adding a bunch of stuff immediately and trying to do a
bunch of stuff to it. I like to take away
what I don't like. So subtractive EQ,
then I compress, then I add stuff. So this is exactly what
I'm doing that in, this is exactly what
I'm doing in the CQ. Look. So I, I come and the
first thing I do is I, I, obviously I go down and
I sweep the frequency. And I'd like to
start with a wide Q for the base frequency, because if you
listen to the vocal, this is what it
sounds like before the VM chatted to
it best for you. So that's a raw vocal. And as you hear
that is very, very, there's a lot of low frequency in there and
a lot of Medina in there. So what I do is I clean it up. So I I pull up the EQ all
the way down with a wide q. Then I sweep, added to it. I find it. Right, I found it. Then. Let's try to do it best
who you gotta show me why. I put it up. Then I come down and I stop. Once I find a spot, then I'll do it again. Baby, I'm not sure
how to do it best who you gotta show around three dB, the VM and chatted to it that baby shot to do it
best helps clean up. It just helps that clean
up a little bit more. And when you compress, it's really, you're really going to be able to
hear that difference. The next thing I'd
like to do is very, very important
because this range, this like the flag 300, the 300 to like 900 range. There's like a lot
of boxing this. So what I do is I
take another queue, then I almost do this
like a three-step thing. All I'll do, the
first thing I do is I take the very lows out on a 1 q. Then the next thing
I'd like to do is I take the boxing
this out on a. Two q. Then I take a little bit
about the nasally as nasal miss out on
with a three hue. So it's almost like 1, 2, 3, and it's going up
in frequencies. And then, so I
just take a queue. I mean, I take, yeah,
I take a bands are then put on to pull it all down, then sweep, try to do it. They got to show me what to do. Crazy. You. So if we bypass
this baby Emmet shot it, do it best to do it. Obviously this is too much, but do you hear how
much more clean? The end clear that is. Now I'm a dial back. The VM chatted to
it best for you. See, if I boost that. Listen to the boxing this baby amateur added
to it best for you. Gotta show me what to do
around four dB of induction. And I found that was
so much more cleaner. Let's listen before and after. Baby, I chatted to it that the VM chatted to it here
that do you hear that instantly brings it
up like it instantly brings up like the
clarity in the vocal. So It's just like something
that is very important. Then the next thing I do is
there the nasal illness. The last the last thing
I told you that the 123 do the same thing. Sweep. You find the nasal this area. Let me solo that for you. It's this it's this
frequency that kind of hurts a little bit like and
it's just, it's not pleasing. I only take it down
by like one dB. But I just noticed
that it helps it just the most vitamin amount
other than all the rest, all you see is a bunch
of resonant points. Basically. When you listen to a vocal raw, you can just hear a
bunch of resonance. And so all I did, I found it. Then I'm doing dynamic EQ doing instead of regular
hearings so that once it's only taking out the frequencies
when it's spiking. So that just helps to
clean up so much more. Then let's listen to
it before and after the VM chatted to
it best for you, baby, I'm attracted to it best. So much more clear. Then the next thing I do is, so this first CQ was more
of a surgical EQ other than the next one I do is a tonal EQ. So now I'm tonally shaping it. So let me bypass
that back and forth. The VM chatted to it, that baby, I'm attracted to it. So now I'm taking
even more stuff out to boost the clarity in
really totally shaped this. And you're probably
thinking, Okay, this is ruining the vocal, but just, just keep, stay with me because the
next steps that I do really, really brings the vocal out. But with this EQ, I really highly suggested
in the CQ it's an SSL, each channel EQ from waves. There's also you can get
a Universal Audio 1. But basically it, you can
do this with any hue, but with this one, instead of a graphical, you have to listen. So this is great for
tonally shaping. So what I do, let me
reset all these things. This is what I feel. This is literally my
process of what I do. I turn, I start
from the bottom up. So this is the low frequencies, low mids, high mids,
high frequencies. So I start on the
low frequencies, turn this knob all the way down. And then baby, I'm
attracted to it that I sweep with
this number here. Baby, I'm attracted to it. Got to show me what to do. And I find the point where
I like to set it up. So I said that 90, uh, then I put this back
up and I'd like to do is I'd like to turn
it up, then go down. Baby, I'm not sure how
to do it best for you. You got to show me what to do. So around negative 60, be cleaned up the vocal so much. Other than the next thing I do is I take care of
the box acinus. So let's turn this all
the way down to it. You got to show me
what to do oven. Turn it up. Baby, I'm attracted
to it best for you, you gotta show me. Then. Just take out
negative three dB out of that and it's sounding
already a lot more clean. And then the next thing I do is the high mids and this
is the pain frequency. But I'm just going to skip
this part because we are IRD just showed
you the, the loss. I'm basically just
doing the same thing. Again, other than what
this high-frequency I'm boosting by three dB at IQ. Just to add a little bit of
crispiness on the vocal. Let's hear it before and
after the VM chatted to it that the VM strata
to it that for you. So that vocal is super
crispy and clean though. So the next thing I'd like to do is another subtractive thing, right before I can press, I like to ds the VM strata
to it best for you. So DSA is standard, It's just taking
the S sounds down. It's controlling them. It's basically I'd dynamic EQ. Just think of it as
that. The next thing I'm doing is I'm
compressing the vocal. And with this first compressor, I'd make sure the
attack is all the way to the slowest setting. Because I don't want, I want to keep the transients. So like a slow attack for a regular EQ or a regular compressor would be like 50 to a 100 milliseconds. That would be on the
slower side of attacks. And a faster attack
would be like 10 milliseconds,
20 milliseconds. So when you use a slower attack, you keep the life
and the vocal oven. I'm having the fastest
possible release so that those low parts just come up and it
levels of alcohol a lot. The VM chatted to
it that for you. Here I got to show
me love to listen. Let's listen before and
after the VM strata to it that for you
baby shot into it. That really brought
the vocal up like, Yes, it did get a lot
louder and volume. But it's this specific
exact compressor brings a lot of the low
frequencies back in a good way. So that's why I'm taking out so much low frequencies
because I'm bringing it back. But it doesn't in a way
that sounds so good. And I'm, and I'm leveling
at the same time. I do multi-band compression. And a lot of people get like scared about
multi-band compression and it isn't like,
Oh, what is it? But basically think
of the compressor, how it's leveling the sound. Basically, this is doing
the same thing except it's, this is a compressor
for just this part. Like let's say just
this part, then, just this part.
And just as part. So you're able to affect the high frequency
with the attack and release differently
from the low mids. So you can have a
different attack setting over here
than over here. So that means you can
have different thresholds to and in what this one, you can set the range. So ADB is the
maximum it will do. That's, that's the
maximum it will compress. So let's just go through this. So I start with the low moments. And basically I
just control it in. I control each frequency range so that the vocals
a lot more controlled. And like it's a
lot more balanced. Like so. You can just do this
yourself by just listening and setting the attack just like how you
set, What's that? Any other compressor.
So just listen to this. Added to it best for the VM and shadow to
it that added to it. So they got a lot quieter, but it also got a lot cleaner. And in this plug-in, what I'm also doing is I'm controlling the
pain frequencies. Let's listen to this. So this is very important to control
the pain frequencies because this is in vocals. You really need to control the paint frequencies because the pain in vocals
be hurting a lot. And when you can control
it and not have, or when you can make it to
where the vocal doesn't hurt. It's so much more
easier on your ears. When I when I since I'm
taking out some of this, I noticed that when I did that little baby added to it that I got a
little bit muddy. So I'm just controlling or I'm compressing a little bit right here in the
muddy like 250. Baby, I'm attracted to it. So so that's just cleaning up
her multi-band compression. Just cleans it up so much oven right after the
multi-band compression. That's what I like
to add our Vox. And I pulled on 60 be. And this is a major change, so it'll be for the VM
strata, do it best. Shot it, do it best for you. A completely brought
that forward. Now the next thing I'm doing,
I'm doing another stage of dressing shot to do it. And that's basically another form of
multi-band compression. It, but it's just on
the high frequencies. Then I like to do saturation
with this plugin. Baby. I'm attracted to it
best for you, listen to that. Look, this is before
chatted to it, that shadow to it that
it opened up that topic. That topic is so crispy now and a brush so
much life into the vocal. So I like saturating your vocal. Saturating your vocal is key. It's on so good. Then right after the saturation. A brought up some
more paint frequency. So I'm just controlling the
S's in a little bit more of the pane right here
in the 2500, the Ss. So before the, before that
baby baby shot into it, it made it less bright. But it's, it's making
it to where it's not hurting at all and it's a
lot more easier and easier. Then the next thing I wanna do, I do a very slight, this is the last compression on the actual vocal that I do. This is a very slight soft
compression shot into it. And all that's doing
is controlling the final peaks. Then. Final EQ is, I find well, it let me just explain
this last thing I do. Right around 13 to 15 k
or 12 to 15 k in a vocal. There's this very high
pain, full frequency. Sometimes it's not all the time, but if you can if you
can pull that down and sweep up and pull it up and then down and
find the sweet spot. It makes it so much
easier and easier and so much cleaner to it. And not like digital
sounding and SMS real. Then right here, I'm
boosting around 400. Here I gotta show me. And all that's doing is
because when I listen to this, This is like my final EQ. So this is like where I'm
making the final changes. And when I listened
to that, I wanted a little bit more
body out of it. And where the body is is
going to be in the low mids. So I found the spot
looks so before. I show you before
and after baby, I'm attracted to it, that baby chatted to it that there's just a little
bit more body to body. And then I'm rolling off
everything below 90. Then I'm controlling the painful resonant
frequencies, and that's it. Then the last step to the lead vocal is parallel processing
as you, as you guessed it. And all I'm doing is basically kind of like what
I did to the insurance. I'm just compressing it a lot. Then I can control it with
a sooth and the final EQ. And then I blended in with the vocal. And this is what it does. This is before and after. Baby, I'm attracted to it, that baby I'm attracted
to it best for you. Do you? Just it's almost
like the forward and back. How would that parallel? It controls. It's like a lets you be able to
determine how upfront, skin-like, like big and
thick your vocalist. So that really, really makes a huge
difference in your vocals. Now with the dubs, basically what I do
is I just copy and paste everything I did right
onto the dubs channel. But I change a little bit of things so I just copy and paste, say I then I go into the
DLSR and I IDSA way more than I go into the multiband and I turn the attack all the way up on the Ss on
like the high band. Then IDSA, a lot more again. Then. And then I'm taking out, I'm high passing at 200
hertz instead of 90. So that there's not
because with a dubs, you don't want all
this low and build up or else it's just
going to be so cluttered. So I'm just taking out a
little bit of the low-end at, around everything below 200. And then also same
thing with the top end. You don't want the top
end to be all clutter, then it starts to
hurt your ears. So everything above 15 out of eight dB at 18 db per octave
slope is being taken out. So this is what it sounds like. This is, this is the dubs. So before that EQ. So with the lead vocal, that's going to help
it a lot less listen. Let's listen to
altogether shot into it. That's going to ensure that the dogs are not
hurting your ears. There's no extra Ss that because when you
have acids on top of S's, it just hurt your ears so much so that you wanna
make sure there's no S's and there's not a bunch of low and buildup and a bunch of top and build up. And then you're gonna have a
very clean sounding vocal. Then the final thing
is the ad libs. In the ad libs, I duplicate the lead vocal thing and I
paste it on a new chain. Then all I do is I literally put the effect
straight on the thing. I put the delay and the reverb. So with the ad
libs, I like that. You don't need to do
this for every song, but for ad libs, I like to have a bunch
of effects on them. And like be like all dopant
all around, like really wide. It just makes it just makes
it sound really, really good. But yeah, that's, that's
it for the vocals. So I hope this video helped you and let's
get on to the next one.
10. Effects & Automation: Okay, so the final, this is like the final touch to your vocals or whatever else you can put on
drums and everything. The end, this is a
facts and automation. So earlier I turned
off all these effects. Well, let me turn it back on. So that's going to be your
reverbs, your, your delays, and pretty mainly your
reverbs and delays, but you can have chorus effects, you can have, you can
just have anything. So let me go through on
what I put on the vocal. So the first thing
I put on the vocal, and this is going to
be very personalized. Everyone likes a different
sounding reverb plug-in. So it's really up to you
on what you wanna do, but this is just
the basics of it. So all I did was I
put a reverb on it. The thing is with reverb though, you want a low cut it. If you don't have a plugin
that has a loci option on it. You want to set an EQ, you want to do an EQ
after the plugin. And you want to cut out
everything like below like 300 or more like
even like maybe 500. Because you don't want a
bunch of reverb, reverb. It's reverberating in
creating a bunch of stuff. So you don't want a bunch of low-end build-up
because that will just muddy up the sides and
muddy up the whole song. So you want to cut everything. You want to just sweep
and find the sweet spot. And that's something
that you gotta keep in mind when it comes to reverb. And the longer the
reverb is like, let's say you make it four
seconds or milliseconds, the longer it is, the more you're going
to have to cut it. So I just chose the right plate that sounded right for the song. Then I blended it in. And for, if you don't know, it sends and returns are
basically all you do. This is different in every DAW. So you might have to look
up a video on how to create a send in
a different DAW. But for Ableton,
you're able to just right-click and new channel and press insert return track, then it's new return. But then other then all
you have to do is come up here and send how
much signal me. Basically you're just sending
kinda like a parallel, a copy of that signal
into the return. So these are kinda
like parallels. They're kinda like parallels
other new blended in. It's pretty much the exact same thing as
creating a parallel. It's just centered return, you know, fancy, fancy naming. You don't have to get all
caught up in the whole, It's not that complicated. But the next thing I'm
doing for the vocals are a, a fourth note delay. And this is just creating
a vibe for the track, like it's just keeping
a constant rhythm. So let's just solo
that with the vocal. So it's just, it's just
adding an extra effect. Then I'm adding reverb on top of the delay to push it
further in the background, are then awesome.
I'm low cutting it. Then right here as you see, there's a compressor on this, but here's where side
chaining comes into play. So side chaining is
basically when you, you're telling the compressor, instead of reacting to
that actual signal itself, react to something
else other than turn down this whenever
this comes in. So I'm telling I'm
telling the reverb to turn down whenever
the vocal is playing, other whenever the vocal stop
playing or are the delay? Sorry. Whenever the delay, I mean, whatever the
vocal stops playing, then the delay comes in. So it's like baby. Then, then after it
stops, then the delay. It it's like a call and
response type thing like once you then in the
backgrounds like you, it just adds that like dope
vibe, the rhythm effect, and that's all it is in width, this side chaining that it
helps it not get so cluttered. Because if you have your delay going throughout the whole song, it can get in the
way of the vocal. So you wanna, you wanna
side chain your reverbs and delays to the actual vocal so that the one
the vocal is playing, it's, it's prominent and
then it's off playing. The effects come in and
the effects come in. You don't have to completely
take away the facts. Just make it slight
to where to where it's it's not as cluttered in it does it does make
a big difference. Then I, I'm doing another delay, just a different timing, but I'm doing the
exact same thing too. And for this song, That's all I did
for the effects, but the automation is
where it comes in. So let me go to the
automation on this. So automation is basically it's when you can
automate anything. You can automate volume to start turning up
at a certain part. At a certain point, you can automate something to
completely turn off 1. You can automate
literally anything. So what I'm automating
is the delay on this vocal play too. So what are you hearing
is to another one long. So this is this is what it sounds like without
that automation way to baby out and then this is what it sounds
like with it. Way too. Baby, I've eyes this
dope effects like you. That's why I go through
on certain words and I, I, I pick on which
ones I want to do. So let's see this one. It just adds more energy, more vibrancy effects, and
that's all automation is you. You can automate anything. It's basically
automatically doing something for you at a
certain point of the song. That's all automation is. You can automate
absolutely anything. And that's it.
11. Mastering The Track: Okay, We made it to
the final, final step. And this video, I'm going to be explaining how to
master your song. So the first thing you're going to
want to make sure is that nothing is clipping. So that's why it way back in, early in the lessons I said, make sure all this is turned
to negative three dB. And then what I do. So that badges ensures
the buses themselves, which contain the entire song, it makes sure, it makes sure
that they are not clipping. Then what I do on the
actual master bus, which is the entire
song on one track, is I come in and I turn
it down negative 6 dB, but I don't turn the actual. So if you're, if
you're going to be mastering in the same
project that you mixed in, you need to get a, you need to put a plug-in on the actual thing to to
turn down the volume. Because let's say you're, you're gonna be mastering
a song in the thing if you turn down this actual
volume six dB, that's not affecting
the plugins volumes because let's say I turn
this up a bunch, right? So now it's, there's a lot of noise because of the
dithering other. And let's say I turn
this down, right? Then I add, let's just say
I add a limiter, great. This, this volume right
here is not affecting the actual plugging volume
in what it's doing. So makes sure you add an
actual plug-in to turn down the volume and not and not, it's not like
you're just turning down the actual track volume. So but if you were to be
sending this out to get to have someone master
it for you or you, or let's say you're exporting
it to master yourself in a different project to
then you would turn down the actual track volume because then you'd
be exporting it. But when, when
you're mixing it in, when you're mastering
in the same project as when you mix it in, you want to make
sure it's, you use a plug-in before these
other plugins. And that's the
whole gain staging thing that I was talking about. But let's go to the that
was that was the first. I just want to make sure
everyone understood that. So now let's get into the
first thing I like to do. So I like to add a suit
on the, on the master. And basically this is an automatic resonance
suppression tool. And I just I have, I have certain points that
I find that I that just help to alum with the pain frequencies like right
here of an 10 K in for k. Then this is controlling some
of the moneyness and stuff. Then I'd blend it in
bye percent and that's only letting it be
reduced by one dB at max. Then you can select
all these settings. This is optional because it's not obviously that's
something not everyone has. So that's just optional
and that for me, it just helps soothe the
entire song very slightly. And it just helps a little bit. The next thing I'd like to do is do a low Km and a
high cut at 20 hertz, other 19 k hertz. And make sure this
isn't linear phase. Always makes sure it linear
freeze, especially mastering. Then I am giving the kick
because this is a dynamic EQ. So it's going to see the
transients of the low end, which is the kick. So that's the transient. And I'm boosting it by one dB so that the KYC has
a little bit extra, extra thump to it
ends at 70 hertz. Now, this plug-in, I'm using
Ozone 9 to do the rest. So the next thing I'd like to do is there's this there's a mastering assistant and I don't I don't just let it
completely do anything, everything, but I first let it think of what
the EQ curve should we, then I dial it back
and let's say it did something I didn't like,
then I will just delete it. But I use this as sort of like an almost base for the
tonal curve of it. But obviously, something
I suggest doing. If you don't have some
of them like this, listen to an actual
professionally likes mixed and mastered song that's
already on like all platforms like Spotify
and stuff like that. And just play that song, then play years on, play that
song, playing your song. And then C. And also you have to do with the similar
sounding song, not just. Any random song, Get a
song that's similar, and you like the
way that it sounds, I then Q can compare the okay. Does this have is it super
like crispy and clean? And there's a bunch
of high frequencies are then is there a
bunch of low end? You can go back and forth and see that
way because that's, that's called the referencing. And that's actually a
great way to do it. I used to do that all the time. And I I guess I still do that sometimes, but
I've just gone. So use two already
how it should sound. The I don't really do that
as much anymore, but anyway, that's how you can find this EQ curve because
this curve right now, this curve for this
specific song is not for any other song. This is, this is
specific to this song, so don't even don't
reference this EQ curve. Then the next thing I'm doing is I'm doing multi-band
compression. And this is something
they have to be very precise and not, not do too much of it. So I I separate the Ben's 200. Evan, I listen, so I solo it. And I decide what
is the low mids, and I decided what
is a high mids. Then I decided what is
the high frequencies. And then I go in and
I make sure this is an RMS mode because
this is an averaging. You're getting in average
level. Right here. Detection uses average level
of the incoming signal. So that's going to be
the best for mastering. You can do PQ too. But I suggest armor
RMS because it's not as drastic and you get more of a softer sounding compression, which is better
for mastering you. I suggest using a slow attack. I usually use around a 100 milliseconds on
everything across, or not just every song, but like I suggest using
that as a base thing, then you can tweak it to your own song and see
what works for you. But I used a 100 milliseconds on all these bins because
you don't want, You want your transients in your songs like you don't
want to get rid of that. But then you want
a faster release. I like to use a faster
release because I feel like it helps bring up more of the energy faster because
when you have fresh release, you're getting the
quiet noises up. So I use 10 milliseconds, then you usually the ratio. You can, you can
start with a two, raise two to one ratio. But, but a lot of people
will tell you to use 0, 1, 0.5 to one or 1.8. It just depends on how soft in slight you want
the compression to be. You don't want it to be drastic, but I'd say the maximum
to do is to only, only go as far as two. I'd say. Then the
next bands I did, I adjusted the knee
to what I thought. You just gotta listen. And then then once you set
that threshold, so let's solo this. You only want to be
getting maximum, maximum negative two dB, like negative two to
negative three dB reduction. You don't want to get like negative 6 dB reduction like
that's, that's way too. Firm master, like that. You're compressing it a lot. Unless that's the style
you're going for. You know, because you can
do anything, you can, it doesn't matter
like it's music. But usually you want
to only get maximum of one to three dB of reduction. Then with this parallel
but thing right here, I'm blending in the
compression by 50 percent, so it's 50 percent unaffected
in 50 percent compressed. So let's hear that
before natural. It helps the song
like feel so elegant. I don't know how to
describe it. It just brings everything so it's
makes everything set. So right. Then in this dynamic EQ, I'm just controlling some of the resonant frequencies
and pain frequencies. We already talked about this. You already know
how to find them. Then I'm adding very slight saturation
to the whole thing. I'm adding tape saturation by a one literally
way one amount. I don't want them
to go too crazy. And then i'm, I'm
doing some saturation to the base frequency. And you just have to
go up and down and find how much is right for you. You don't want to, you
don't want to change the Tonal Balance of
the song extremely, unless that's what you wanna do. But when you're
mastering and song, you want to bring out
what's good and not like, just go overboard and you mastering is the final step
to make everything sound. Like just not to who? Crazy overthinking,
adding so many plugins. But it's the final step to
bring it a little bit more. Life in like more flu. It just the final step you don't want to add too much is
what I'm trying to say. Then for this imager, I'm making everything
under 250% more mono. Because like I said, you
want your base to be mono. I didn't make it a
100 percent mono. I only made it 50 percent
mono because I feel like there was some of
the vocals of the dubs, some about was in
underneath to 100. But it sounded right to be 50 percent like not
all the way mono, but just almost to the sides, but that's only, that was
only the very top of the 200. But the base stuff
is absolutely mono because in the mix we
made it 100% mono. And then what I like to do
with this mids are here. I like to stereo wise, this. And anything between six
to 12 milliseconds is usually good of a delay
for the serialized thing. Then I turn all the
way to a 100 percent. I then I dial it
back to what I like. And the reason why I sterilize the meds instead of sterilizing, what usually people
do is the top band, which is not the absolutely
best thing to do, because that's just
going to hurt your ears. Really is all that's
really doing. Like what I liked, what I like a lot is made range expansion because
when you're imaging, when you're pushing the
mid-range to the sides, it sounds so much more
full and not like just this crispy digital stuff. And I'm not going to, I'm not
going to do the highlight. I mean, you could do the
hymen is if you want, but what I like to
do is the mid-range because that feels
more I don't know, it just has a softer presence. And I learned that from this really good
mastering engineer. But the final step
is the delimiter. And what I suggest, always turn on true peak. And that means that it will not go above what
you set the ceiling. And the ceiling is the
final output of the song. So if you set it to
negative three dB, it's not going to go over
negative three dB and so on. So I haven't negative, I have
it set to negative 0.3 db, not negative three, but 0.3 dB. And the reason why I have
it exactly on 0.3 db, which is the exact number. When you convert something
From wave to MP3. This is going to
help and not clip when it converts to
those other things. So set a ton at 0.3 db, or you could also set
it to negative one dB. That's also something
you could also do, which is perfectly okay. Like you can do that. I just decided to 0.3 dB. I also use the Senate tip, just 0 dB for awhile because honestly
there's not that much. There's not a crazy difference, non
accredited difference. You can do whatever
you want to do, just don't send it to
like negative six. You want to keep it above
negative one at least. Then for this, this is
controlling how fast the, the limiting is and how
fast they're releasing is. I have it. Not too fast, but on the faster
side because I don't want the limiter to be all slow
then it sounds like it's pumping the track like you don't want to hear the limit
or working basically. Then this threshold, it's
going to depend on your song. Basically what I like to do is I like to drag it all the way towards really distorting
and I drag it back. And then when you
hear it stopped distorting, leave it there, then turn it down another dB to make sure it's not,
not distorting it all. But then what you do
is you bring it to this website called loudness penalty and you
upload it to there. And then it'll tell you what, how much it's going to, how much it's going to
turn down your track on Spotify in YouTube
and everything. And you want it to at
least turn it down by at least negative 0.5 dB. But usually my tracks, I, I set it to negative 12 L
UAV S and basically loves, is a way of getting an average
sound level of a song. So spotify is negative 14. Apple Music, I'm pretty
sure is also negative 14. So I usually, on
the Latins penalty, I usually get about negative one to negative two dB reduction. What they say,
Spotify will bring it down and every
service is different, but usually get about at least negative
one dB of reduction. Because you don't want them
to add their own limiting. You want them to at
least turn it down by one BB or a little
bit less than one dB. Because anything, if they have
to add their own limiting, they're actually
changing your song now, it's not the same thing that
you export all your DAW. So you just want to make
sure that and that is it. And I know this
mastering process might be a little
confusing at first, but if you just follow
the step-by-step, you should be able to
understand everything and take everything from the mixing and apply it
to the mastering two. Now let's hear the before
and after of the master. Hey, just brings it from
amazing to even more amazing. Now I just wanna do
it one more time, but this time I'm going
to keep the song playing. And I'm going to press his
Bypass button on and off. If you listen closely
or not even closely, if you just listen about
you can hear when I press that Bypass button off, it just it just comes to life like even more
than it already was. And it just sounds so
good, adds so much depth. And that's how you
mastering should be. You don't want it to
change the song entirely. You just want to add, you just want to enhance
what was already there. And you want to you want to just enhance
what was already there. And not like too drastic
stuff unless you're going for a drastic crazy song. But usually you would do
that in the mix anyway. But anyway, that's it for this
whole, this whole course. And I really hope that all
of these videos helped you and I hope that you can
take every single lesson in. And I want you to, if you don't understand
it right now, I want you to go back and mix with me in
every single video. I want you to go on your own songs and
watch the video and do what I'm doing in the video because
that's how I learned. I would watch things and I would learn from these
amazing mixing engineers. I would be doing
at the same time. And I want it just watched
a video on The forget. You have to be practicing
every single day to get better because that's how you get better at things
you have to practice. And like, I didn't just
learn from other people, I learned for myself too. So every time you mix the song, you're learning
new techniques and new ways to do certain things. Basically, just practices
what I'm saying in practice, repeat your factors
and you just practice. Anyway, have an amazing day. Everyone and peace.
Robert White, Artist, Producer, Audio Engineer
