Transcripts
1. Course Intro: be making basis. Hey, was going on. I'm Joseph Evans. Also go by. Every J just wanted to welcome you to this course on. Mixing is very important for me that you get the training that you need to make sure that your beats are on point. Because I really, for a long time struggle with mixing my beats so much so that I had to go to a professional recording school full sail to learn some tips. And I've been, you know, getting tips from other producers and different things to this point now that I'm confident enough that my music is on point and I wanted to put all of that information in one course how to make sure beast in light of protein. All right, so this course is broken down into a couple of different sections. The first section is the pre mixing section where we're gonna be dealing with how to make sure that your beat is on point so that, you know, is going to be easier to mix it. You know, a lot of times ah, lot of producers. When it first, starting with mixing, they fail to realize that the sound selection that you choose or the drum selections that you shoes and even organizational aspects of things can affect how easy it is to mix your music. Okay, so that's what we're gonna be covered in the first section. The next section is actually getting into level Lean and queuing is where we're gonna balance out everything and we're gonna talk about frequencies and how to properly e que your tracks. We have several different types of EQ Ewing's attractive and additives e Q and will be going over that another section we're going covering is compression. OK, I'm not going to just be saying, you know, covering basics on it. I'm gonna be showing you what a compression is, what it does. What are the different settings? How to manipulate the settings of a compressor? Um, several different other compression techniques, like parallel compression side chaining, all those different type of you know, things that you need to make sure that your music sounds boosted to make sure certain instruments poke out on the track. The next section After that, we're gonna be basically covering, you know, some tips and tricks. Okay, How to add reverb how to add you know, pan your music automation, and then finally gonna, like, go ahead and bouncing down your track, listening to it on different speakers, different things like that, just to really make sure it's polished. Okay? And And lastly, I'm gonna give you a few tips on how that you can master your your music, Okay? For fairly, fairly low amount or master right there in the program. Okay, well, this is mainly dealing with the mix. Okay, So the main thing I want you to understand is that is going to take time to get your mix is better. You know, this is something I do every day. I have to mix my music every day to even get better, even myself. You know, I'm saying so you have to put in the work. It's not like a something that you can, you know, push a complete a button or two and all setting how this great mixer there's some type of template that you use, and also you got great mixes. The truth of the matter is that the reason why templates don't necessarily work is because every track is different and I would go into this later on when it comes to frequencies. All different sounds have different types of frequencies and everything. That's why you know, it's important to understand the fundamentals of mixing into in order to make you know, good mixes. But without further do man, let's go ahead and jump in the course. I want you to know that you can also hit me up if you have questions. This is more so, like of a beginner to intermediate level course. So there might be certain things that we don't cover. If there is something that you would like to know or, you know further, we could be expound on, Feel free to hit me up. I might even, you know, do another lecture to to explain it and help beef the course up even more. So, yeah, let's go in and jump into it. One last thing, though. There's a project that you're gonna have to some project value going to download. So I have a beat that you're gonna see be mixing in the course download. Make sure you download that beat and follow the instructions. I'm gonna pretty much be walking you through step by step. Some things you can do to the beat and there's gonna be a contest actually see to see who mixes to beat the best. And I'm looking forward to hearing your results on that as well. Anyway, let's go ahead and jump right into the course. Thanks for watching piece.
2. Introduction to Module 3: be making basis. Welcome to module three of this logic protein mixing course where I'm gonna be covering compression now. A lot of producers have a lot of questions about compression. What it is. What what are the different settings and house of properly apply it. We're gonna be covering all of that. And mawr I have other, you know, different types of compression that we're going to covering as well. Like parallel compression side chaining. That's all in this section as well. So go ahead and go through all the lectures. If you have any questions about any of the material I'm here for you go ahead and send me a question and I look forward to see you in the lectures to come Peace.
3. What Is Compression?: be making basis. All right. Now, in this lecture where we're gonna talk about his compression, okay, I'm gonna give you a basic overview of compressing is and some basic tips of using a compressor on your instruments. Now, what a compressor does is basically lessens The dynamic range between, you know, louder sounds and softer sounds in late in layman's terms with that's basically saying is the louder sounds and maybe that are too loud. It makes those sounds compressed. So it compacts those sounds, so it's not peeking over those higher than it should be. And in those softer sounds are too low. It compresses those as well. So it makes those sounds is not a soft as they should be. Kind of brings them into the middle ranges mawr, and so it makes it more punchy. Okay, So, for instance, if you have a sound that's kind of sounding a little weak, what a compression would do is, um it will make it sound a little bit stronger without actually boosting the signal to too strong. Okay, so one thing to keep in mind here again with anything. All right. This is a is a tip. Okay, is to use priest presets. Start off with these presets. Why? Because, you know, they have some professional mixing engineers and mastering engineers go in here. You know, logic Protein has hired these guys to make these presets settings, so why not use them? Okay, now, in the next lecture, where we're gonna be talking about is some of the Pacific settings, though, because I don't want you to do. Is Onley rely on using presets? I want you to understand why you would do certain things and what the effect would be. All right, So we're gonna start on certain things with far is compressing the drums and we'll go from drums to maybe certain instrument tracks. And I'm gonna be showing certain compression settings or certain ways that you use the compressor in order to manipulate to sound. All right. Thanks for washing. I'll see in the next lecture
4. Compression Settings: be making basis. All right, so now that we know basically what from pressure does let's look at some compression settings. I'm gonna come over here to the kick drum, and we're gonna go ahead and go to the audio effects section and add a kick our compressor to that kick drum though the compressor stereo, and you're good to go now, there are several different settings here. If you look at at this, what what do all of them mean? I'm gonna be going from left to right up to down or whatever. So the first thing we're gonna look at his threshold are, then one thing to keep in mind when a threshold is is basically saying that. When is it gonna tell when the compressor is actually gonna kick in? Okay, so, for instance, if you look right here says db desk transfer decibels and that means how loud the signals coming in. So the signals coming in and say negative 60 b if I have the threshold set, um, a certainty. Be okay, let's say negative six. That means that wins when the signal comes into negative six hits that any time the second goes over that that's when the actual compressor is gonna work. Vice versa. So say, like, was to go down to, like, say, negative 17. So that means that if the compressor like if the signal goes over, negative 17. Okay, that means that this that's when the compressors actually the work all right, ratio is dealing with how much compression is added at a certain level. Okay, so for instance, this is that, like, say, uh, it is that a 4 to 1 ratio that means that a time you it goes on over like four db or whatever is going to compression by one db okay. And in I don't want you to overthink these things. It just means that, you know, this is going to be a amount of compression that's gonna be applied. That's what ratio is. It's the amount of compression is applied. Threshold is, is just dealing with win the compression, actually, at what level? That's the comm pressure compression work. This is the amount. Okay. Makeup gain is dealing with, um like, sometimes the compression can be in some instances, can make the sound softer or attenuate. The sound makeup game will make that make up for that. So you could push that up or down to make up for how loud the compressor and actually hits afterwards. Um, me basically. Well, let's talk about attack and release first. The attack is dealing with how fast the compressor is going to work, so you can give different effects on that. Like, for instance, a If you got the kick drum coming in and you wanted to be more of a super quick dump that you're gonna want that compressor toe work you almost immediately. Compared to say, if you wanted to kind of come in a little bit slower on certain instrument sounds or whatever, you might push that tack up releases talking about how long the compressor is gonna work, Okay, until you know, saying, until you won't get it to stop and in me is dealing with how the compressor, how Long's press is going to be after it's actually kicks in, All right. And I know I'm kind of going fast on this, but because I was really wanted given overview, and then we're gonna show you practically in the next lectures to come like what you can do to manipulated or whatever output gain is kind of like makeup gain in the stance is just another way to move the signal up and down after after the compressor is actually, um, apply. Compression is actually applied to the instrument. All right, so you get where you were coming from. Basically where the basic settings. There. Now, in the next lecture, let's kind of go ahead and talk about O R. Give some live demonstrations off. How to use the compressor, Okay.
5. Using Compression on the Kick Drum: be making basis. All right, so now that we know what compression does and we understand the compression settings or basically have a basic idea of the compression settings let's look at it in an alive demonstration here, I'll go ahead and push play on these instruments on this track, and and we're going to see Okay, what could use a compressor? Okay. All right. So you know the instruments all it sounds OK, but one thing I'm noticing is the kick drum is not really punching. Do that mix like it should, Right. So what I would do is add a compression again. I told you that it's perfectly fine to start with presets, and that's usually where I start. Ah, good preset that I found or my favorite presets the use of this drum kit compression, the f e t live drums, compression. And sometimes I use this kick drum compression in the live Jones compression. But I'm going to start with this drum kit. Compression. Let's check out this kick drum. Now, I must say before after, All right, So let's go ahead and take a look here at these settings and see like, Well, what is making this kick drum thumped like the way it is First look at the threshold is right around nine negative 90 B. That means that soon as the signal comes in right here, that's when the compressions going to hit. OK, that means that it's going to give a a thicker sound. Um, or it's gonna work right right around this particular DB. Now, what this signal is saying is right at like three d b r. 3.9 TB. So that's when you know is going to at how much is going to compress it. If you notice here, if I go higher is not really affected in compression as much. Why? Because that means that we have to have it hitting at a certain level of BBC before we even , really, you know, compresses something so you want to carry. Sometimes these lower settings can actually give you a better effect. As you hear, hear the lower the ratio, the harder thumping. The sound of the kick drum becomes okay. Now, of course, you don't want this kick drum hitting too hard. So what you could do is you could turn, just make this makeup game down or the output level. I'm gonna do work with the makeup game first, because I don't want this, uh, this kick signal coming out too high in the mix. So what I would do is come over his makeup game. Good. Turned us down like maybe right under this, like negative one db. All right. And as you can see, you know, is still making a difference in the track. Let's listen to it without it. And let's listen to it with it again. Now I think to keep in mind again with anything that you're doing it with the mixers less is more. You don't want any of your instruments to be sounding too compressed. So, for instance, if I come over here and I completely smush everything and I bring this this threshold down to where OK is going to, you know, saying start working almost immediately as soon as it comes in here. Excuse me. Like right down here. I mean, you're gonna see how hard is going to hit is going to compressed to the point where you can't even really hear it, you know, saying, compared to say, if you put it around like where it was like around 90. Be moved. Is back up here kind of his dumping a thumb Penis. As you can see, the attack is pretty pretty, pretty much at a low value of level. And that's pretty much because you want that kick drum to Really? You start hitting immediately. You know, mean that's when you attack it again, controlling how fast the compression works. All right, so I hope this lecture is kind of help You understand how to maybe adjust e settings to make the sound sound? A couple, you know, sound differently. We're going to a few more lectures well at compression, basic impression to some of the instruments to make them pop out in the mix. Um, and if you have questions, make sure to ask Thanks so much for watching.
6. Adding Compression to the Snare Drum: be making basis. All right, so now we have a little compression added to the kick drum. Let's also added to the snare my personal opinion. My, my personal from my personal experience, the kick in the snare, those you usually have to really be the ones that they need to be standing out in the mix the most. I would say, um and so that's why I would add compression to them first again. You don't want to add too much compression, but let's go ahead and jump some dose and compression on a snare Here we went with that snare to pop out of Livermore. Now we're going to do this one without a preset just to kind of show you some settings that you probably want to, you know, put down on these instruments. Let's listen to it. So again, what the threshold is meaning is basically at what level the compression is going to start working, okay. And it can make the sounds the the actual sound sound more smushed, you know, saying or economy more free as you said it at certain levels. Okay. Okay. Now, you, as you were seeing when I was pulling the threshold down lower. You know, it was given, like, a harder, punchier sound. That's really because as soon as that hit a certain level, like when the signal first came in here. That's what is gonna, you know, really pop out. I'm gonna mute these. And you know, one thing again you want to keep in mind is that when you add or take away certain things Ah, lot of times in the mix, you have to adjust other things in the mix. So, for instance, this might be a situation where we want to come through here and reduce some of the levels . Let's just listen to with the kick in the snare. - All right, Now you might be asking. Well, why did you put them turned us the You know, I'm saying a signal from stereo tamano. Well, with the kick drum and the snare drum, you want that to be coming right down the middle a lot of times unless you want to give a certain effect. Like, say, if you have a clap that you want to be wide in the in the mix or whatever, but for this particular track, I'm gonna have everything coming in mono as far as in the kicking the sneer I'm gonna go ahead and adjust some of these levels and what you could do. It's a simple thing is just go highlight everything and bring it down slightly. Let's listen to it now. All right, So this is a basic material Afar's with the, you know, compressing the snare things to keep in mind again. Use presets. I didn't on this particular track. I just use started off with the basic compressor. I was explaining to you basic settings. You know, I'm saying I'm not going to give you specifics because specific settings doesn't make sense . And in a sense, because of, you know, every snare is going to be different, you know? And it's gonna be, you know, it's gonna give you a different sound based on the type of instruments that you're working with. So it's better to understand its settings than it is to understand certain Pacific setting that you should put, you know, saying, given saying it is better to understand how to manipulate it in okay, always put it at this value because not always gonna work at that value. Nothing didn't understand about this is like any time you're doing something to the track. Was your mixing taking away or adding You might have to adjust the rest of the tracks in order to, you know, compensate for that. So I want you to keep these things in mind again. If you have questions, please ask. Thanks for watching.
7. Parrallel Compression: be making basis. All right, so next thing I want to talk about is something called pair Lil compression, all right. And this technique is going to be used to really make something shine out in the track a little bit more. Um, but without actually, you know, adding the signal superstrong into the mix. And this is kind of gives you a way to add the compression in without, you know, overly compressing something, but still giving it a thump. So usually I would start with, you know, say putting compare little compression for a kick drum, making pop out in the mix more so say you have a compression on it already. Listen to it. Let's say you want that shine out a little bit more, but you don't want, you know, affect these compresses Said he's too much more on this actual audio effects settings. Okay, what you could do instead is sinned. Another compressor, and that way you can kind of affect the volume level of the actual compressor another way. So what I would do is I will go to the, uh, to the sins area, come down to the bus and go to an available track. Bus six happens to be the available track. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna name it PC for short, for a pair of low compression, and I'm gonna add a compressor on there. Now, in order for this to really work, what you wanted to do, really is coming with a very hard sounding compressor. Okay? And again, how to achieve that is to bring that thresh dope, though. Thresh, hold down pretty low. And, um, the attack pretty low. Now, if you listen to it, we'll see. You see how the kind of still beef is it up? Amazing. Coming in. Dump a little harder without making it sound overly compressed. All right, So, like, I'm gonna give you an example. If I was to take that compress this this signal I'm sending from over here over here and add a hard compressor to it right the traditional way. Let's see how that would actually sound. Uh, if I added another compression to like, it's coming in is hitting heart. But as you can see is really hitting too hard and so you don't want your things to be to compress. So see how that's kind of messing up your mix so it would be better for you to send a poem Presser to, uh, you know, to use track via the scenes or do a parallel compression. It's basically the liven it up now, T but keep this in mind. Actually, this could be added to any track on here. So, like, for instance, a If I wanted to add this, compare low compression that picking up the snare drum I can come to, ah, go right to the scenes and go to Bust six, which is the PC or parallel compressor track. And I can bring that up there, too. See how that's kind of making making a sound a whole lot louder without actually affecting the overall volume without making it too loud. Where's jacking up the mix again you want? You can control it however you want. We could even put it on the high hat Apparel compresses also a way to add compressing compression to any instrument track without having to actually put it on the effects. Um, channel. And what that's also could do is free up more of your processing power so that your your your processor on your computer. You basically can process the audio better, and they kind of freeze. It makes a better mix as well. So these are just some techniques that you can use on your tracks again. Spare sparingly is better or less is more. Um, and you only want to use it if you need it, OK? I just wanted to show that that's kind of how you can make certain instruments pop out on the mix a little bit better with compressing, um, and everything like that. Now, one thing to keep in mind, um, with, you know, a sinned. You know, you see the here to have post pan post fader pre fader. Okay, um, what's that saying is the signal went is telling us when this actual signal was gonna come in? All right, Is this signal gonna be effective? It's just think about this as, ah, water coming to a water hose and the water will come to each of these channels if it's added. OK, so let's say it's coming into here to the high hat, right? Do you want this to dis water to come through pre fader meaning before you actually add, Bring this fader up or down. Meaning that is doesn't is not affected. The signals coming through is not affected by the fader. How loud or soft you make it. Or would you want this to come to post pan like after you pan things? Because if you think about it, you don't want you want, you don't want to come in and pre fader because then, like, say, if you want to pan something or if you wanted to bring it up louder, soft, you know you couldn't do that, you know, saying so like post fader. Basically a post fader is basis saying that that signals coming in after you adjust the volume level. Okay, But I would say shoot after I've got just the volume level and after I just that pan man. All right, so that's kept parallel compression. If you have any questions, ask Thanks for watching
8. Side Chain Compression: be making basis. All right, Well, in this lecture, we're gonna be talking about side chain, all right, And side chain is a great way to help certain instruments cut through the mix as well. And also, I know that, like a lot of times us as producers, we always had that issue of trying to make sure that the base in the kick drum aren't competing. Side chain is gonna be a great way to do that. Now, what is the side chain going compression going to do? Basically, what is going to do is any type of compressor that were site instrument that excite chaining. We're gonna be triggering that any time that instrument comes through, the signal is going to dip at a certain level every time that instrument comes to. So Francis like with the kick drum. So every time the kid goes to boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. If we had ah, side crank I side chain compression on, say, the bass instrument or sub or even a low incense. What that's going to be doing is every time that kick hits, the compressor is going to trigger compressor to dip. That instrument now lower. So that kick comes to louder or comes to clear. So let's kind of go ahead and given a live example here. So what you would do is listen to this, so, you know, it sounds OK, but with that side chain compression is going to come cut to the mix a little bit better. What I'm gonna do is go over here to another bus under the sense, and I'm to send. This signal is kicked up single to ah, celery track. Someone put it on the next available bus, which was bust seven. And I'm gonna say s c for side chain. Okay, you can name it, whatever you want, but that's just keeping it simple. What I did. All right. Now what you want to do is you want the basically the same loud loudness or same D beasts that are coming through this kick drum to come, or a signal to come through this side change for signal. So what you want to do is turn this volume up. But a quick way to do this is the holdout option and click on the actual Nabi that's gonna bring this to nominal gain the music the same. A loudness or level of signals coming to this actual channel is gonna be coming through the same example you track, and that's gonna be important. All right. And so then what you're gonna want to do is come to your actual instrument that you want to , you know, do the side chain effect to which in this case is the base. And so what I'll do is I'll come over here and come to a compressor bone. Now, as you can see here we have side chain. All right, um, in that we have this thing section of here says Sigh, change. So what you want to do is where says side, Same at the top, Right? Scroll down until you see your actual bus. The bus instrument that you have this on which it happens to be bussed seven. Okay. And if you come over here, you can see this is bus seven. Now, every time this this signal comes through here, the kick drum signal comes through to the actual base. OK? That signal is going to effect This bass instrument which you want to do is turn the ratio up. And now Let's listen to it now desiccation like Well, I don't really hear. Hear this that Well, let's listen to somewhere on another track. You know, you hear how to effect is actually being compressed every single time you hear that kick drum coming in? So is dipping the sound and the reason why is worked through the compressor is triggered. It harder is because, like, again, I'm turning the threshold down. So meaning that now that is coming through it like Susak still comes in and hits negative 30 db that signals working So the lower you know, the threshold doing more pronounced the facts gonna be now, truth be told, you really wouldn't want to put this on this particular instrument. But say if you had a bass sound that was like drowning out the mix a little bit or driving out to kick, you want to put it on that? Wow. Uh, well, no. Alright, I'm sorry. I actually had to Assam that that that ah crash was a little bit muddy in the mix and you saw high boosted the frequencies here. I mean, a little in life in a live type of setting. When I'm mixing I don't necessarily go step by step like this. Far it. Okay, First we add, uh, e queuing and eats Didn't add compression that I had this Sometimes a lot of times I do go to that, but they analyze. I'm make after I kind of ad turn frequencies and stuff like there are certain frequencies certain setting certain things to the once I do. Starting takes to the track. Right. Um, I'll come due, and I kind of can jump around or whatever, but yeah, that's compression. Side chaining. Thanks for watching.
Joseph Evans, Make Better Music Now: Follow Me
