Transcripts
1. Intro: What is going on
now, welcome back to another masterclass
with yours truly key around the man who is
obsessed with making great music and teaching
how to make your own inner. Today's masterclass, I'm
going to teach you how to make mac Miller
vocals like this. Come through. This is inspired by Mac
Miller's song Dang. And so I'm going to
talk to you about that. How is that for inspiration
to make this track? And then I'm going
to walk you through step-by-step exactly what
I did to get vocals. Are these perfect vocals. Absolutely not. Why? Because I reported them
here in my kitchen, but I think we can
get them at least in that ballpark range
does sound pretty good. And that's why I'm
teach you guys today. You're going to learn
today that said, if you want any of
my vocal templates, you can find all those in
the description below. We're talking about those
later. Let's jump into this.
2. Getting A Guide: When it comes to mixing vocals, I talk about this every time
and it's super important. That's what I'm
talking about it every time get a reference track. You have to know what it is
that you want to sound like. You have to have
a roadmap, right? If I'm going to teach
you, if you want to go. So I'm trying to
achieve my goals. It's important to
achieving your goals. Important when a pretend I'm
not on my recent searches. You have to if you're going
to plan a road trip, right, you're going to
make sure that you have a map to get
there. Google Maps. Back in the day
we used Mapquest. You want directions to
get where you want to go. In order to do that. In music, we use a
reference track. So I come in here and I am going to listen to
Mac Miller's track a little bit and I'll show
you what I'm looking for. So when you're
listening to this, a couple of things to think about and take note of how loud, how loud is the beat in
relation to the vocal? One thing, to, how loud
are the instruments, like the instruments
compared to the drums. How much does the kit, kit? Think about all these things
where things panned, right? You're always thinking about what are the effects
he's using on his vocal. And is it smooth? Is it intent, is it loud? Is it back in the mix? These are things that I
like to think about when I'm crafting a song
around reference track. So I'm going to listen to us
for a little bit and I'll tell you what I'm shooting
for, but I'm hearing. So I skip inheritance Part C. Although I did steal
some inspiration from that super long delay. But again, I guess this isn't
this for a second and I want to hit that way so fast. Listen to what a
bright light gland so much she gave on a Mac so young maybe use so you don't want to throw
up **** no further. So when I get home
and give you some make it fair light dandruff. That's something that I
explicitly use as inspiration. And I saw pretty
much for this track. So I hear a smooth
vocal, I hear a lot. I hear the Shakers
very prominent, or the kick is there, but it's not like
killing you with it. The instruments
are, are present, but his vocal is still present. It's not drowning out his vocal. And so that's what
I'm using constantly. I'm going, I'm making, I'm working on my
track and then going back to his working among go back to his and so as
you're creating yours, whatever you're working on, make sure I have
that reference. But today we learned
about Mac Miller vocals. So that's we're going to
jump into, let's do it.
3. Cleaning Up The Vocal: Alright, so the first
thing we're gonna do is I'm not even going to worry about the doubles right now. I'm just going to come in
here and we're going to look at the main vocals. So his is kinda like
singing and rapping. So that's kinda what
I did two in here. Just come through. And what I use for my, when I'm mixing vocals, at least right now
in my, in my career, is I love waves studio rack because I can kind of combine
all these plugins together. You can get this sound
with whatever plugins you have at your disposal. These are very simple Plugins. These are reverbs,
beacuse compressors. For the most part. A couple little fancy
things here and there, but that's what we're working
with for the most part. So because it's my
vocal and I can't sing, first thing we're doing is
auto tune, tune in the vocal. And as you can tell the vocal, the auto tuning is automated because
during the rap verse, I wanted to, let's
see where this is at. Because during the
wrapping verse, I don't like to have my
I don't like tuning, like a little baby
wrapped tuned vocals. That's just not
exactly my thing, but I need a lot of
help with singing. So obviously it's under
my singing parts. These are my Auditing
settings that we're using. We're obviously you
want the key urine. If you don't know
what key you're in, I use this app
called key finder. I think it's a free DJ tool. I just drag and drop my
instrumental and hear the song, whatever regions span of 18. So pretty, we're
getting pretty tuned. I use input low male. I've just found that that works. And then a little bit of
humanizing just to make it feel a little bit less robotic. And then the format, I like this on, just because these
are my personal settings that I prefer. But you do you now jumping into, we're going to solo these
vocals, cancel the plans. You've got to just come
through a lot of reverb. We're going to turn all
these off and we're going to come in here and do
these one at a time. So let's start get out of here. First thing we're going
to jump into is the EQ. When EQ and a vocal, I start with
subtractive dequeuing. I take out all the stuff. I don't like it first. So if we just play
this cancer plans, you've got to just come through and there's there goes
the audio engine. Cool. When it comes
to doing your vocal, just make sure that you're
cutting out the stuff that you don't want it first. Because if you're cutting
out the stuff that you, if you're trying to just
boost at the beginning, then you're going to
boost crappy stuff too. So I like to I like
to just cut a lot of these first things or just cutting until halfway
through that. I'm not cutting anymore. So I'm cutting here. This is a kind of
a pain frequency I just listened through and I have a pretty
pretty tight queue. The queue is actually all
the way up on these because I'm looking for just
specific frequencies. Ssl channel. I love this thing. And again, really heavy
EQ. So this is without it. Cancer plans, you've got
to just come through. This is with it. Straight shooter, baby. So you can tell we
cut out a ton of that low end to turn
to that rumble. We also lost a lot of
the power of the vocal. And so because of that, so I cut hard, right? These aren't super tight cues, but they're tight enough. And then I'm adding
a little bit of compression back in
about six, Right? There are no plans you've
got to just come through. And so it's about a
four to one ratio and you don't have to use the
SSL channel for this just, so I like a compressor. Just the way that I learned
was just to catch the peaks. Some sort of simple compressor. That's fast attack,
fast release. That is just helping
you just to catch some of the peaks
at the beginning. So nothing super crazy. This is an EQ, is another EQ
and another in a compressor. That's all this
says but combined into one and I like
the vibes of it. Then a d'Azur. I don't to be honest you all. I'm keeping it 1000% with you. I didn't even change
the frequency on this thing straight up. I just loved this bad boy. And then I just did to taste
work with what you've got. And then this thing I like
a lot, this is C4 is, is a multiband compressor,
which it's a compressibility. You can compress different
frequency ranges differently. You can compress the
different fruit. You know what I'm saying? You're smart. You yeah. So this is this is the low, the super lows,
little bit of muddy, little bit of compression. Fast attack and release. This is the part
where I do a lot of the heavy lifting because this is where I get a lot, is where I have a lot of my
problems is this kinda low and rumbly recording in
my kitchen type stuff. So this is also when I
listened to the Mac vocal. It's a pretty smooth vocal. Like it's, it's, it's
compressed, It's smooth. He's singing. I liked that kinda
smooth R&B vocal. So I have the attack. I don't have the
release super fast. It's fast, but it's
not super-duper fast. It's, it's still, it's kinda doing a little
bit of the dance. The compression is my first one was like super fast
attack and release. This one's not so
much. And then a little bit on these highs, look at how much faster my tech and releases
on these highest. Look at how much different
disciplines dancing then this one shot and that's
the truth, right? Totally different. Then I don't even really
mess with this top one. That's going to be
the main cleanup. I'm cleaning up,
I'm compressing. I'm cleaning up and
compress and clean. It's, this process
is this kind of the way I learned is
concentric circles, right? It's not, it's not
a linear thing. You're constantly doing
stuff in the coming back and tweaking and and kinda
coming into that bulls-eye. So take it in steps
under the compression.
4. Compressing + Leveling the Vocal: So for compression, this is
where I'm going to add back in a lot of my volume. And I like this our compressor. And so again, if we solo the vocal without this
cancer to plans, you've got to just come through. But when we play it back with the beat, you're
going to realize, like the vocals completely
dried out, right? No Bueno. But if
we come in here, listen to Mack truck rebates. So here's a thing to
Rs is gonna be way louder because I have
the mastering chain on. When I put it into Spotify,
they'll compress it. It'll do the same volume as max, but in terms of listening to the relation to the elements less than the overall
volume of the track. But his vocals really
present, right? It's not like that
thing is being hidden. So this is the
difference between that our compressor on and off. That's a huge difference. Two-to-one ratio for
the most part threshold down here in this range. And they have 17
negative 34 attack. I like a super-fast attack
on my, on this compressor. And then I'm boot
because we've lost a lot of that volume, so I'm bringing it back a
bunch of the gain here. Medium release, same settings
is just when you load it. And then we're doing
more compression here. I love this. If you've heard me talking
about it before, you know, I love this part. Vocal presets, check this out. Guys, just come through just a lot of presence
in the high-end. I load this thing.
I've barely tweak it. I loved this preset
is palpable preset. And then little
bit of guessing on the very end and the variance
of the plants you've got just come
through very little. Just to catch the peaks at the
very tail end of the chain because we're about
to jump into effects.
5. EFX: All right, so let's
listen to max vocal again so we kinda know what
we're shooting for it. The effects. Don't know what drama
drama accounts. Cash right away. Man, I try to spend it all you want about when given
who its action. What do you hear
are you hearing? I'm urine. What's nice is I like
to click through check and also find
when maybe there's not so much instrumental
because you can get like a clearer vibe of
what this flexor you didn't Amir and delays
and reverbs sound man. Who's ever felt by the way, given who attention, no. Need to reboot. I see foresee
other people need food, use every bone mass. So to me, I think it's important to create something that sounds
like what they're using, but still keep your own vibe. So these are my settings. We'll go through
them one at a time. I took this or inspiration
and then built on it for what I thought
worked for my track. For me, these are as
a parallel split. These means that
these are effects that I'm mixing into the track. I'm not adding
indirectly to the track. And a little bit of
eighth note delay. I would highly recommend not. Do not add effects while you're
listening with the beat. Excuse me. I just
messed that up. Add effects while you're
listening to the beat. Otherwise they're
gonna get drowned out. Don't listen to it and solo, but I'm going to solve them
so you can hear the effects, cancel the plans you've
got to just come through. This is almost like
a slap back delay, slap cat delay, slap back, but you can adjust
it to taste these. To me. I dial-in pretty quickly from the rep because I know
when I add riba beckon, these almost like amplified. Then HLA 1 fourth,
cancel the plans. You've got to just come through. So as you guys can notice, I have different delays in different reverbs
doing different things. So I don't rely on just one reverb to do
all my heavy lifting, one delayed do all
my heavy lifting. I have them set. You
could even yeah, you can get as fun and creative as with these as you want. And then I really like this, our verb for a plate Reverb. I liked this plate reverb just
because I feel like kinda puts things in the room. I feel like you'll see just
listen to the difference. Cancel plans. You've got
to just come through. Straight shooter, baby. Oh, aren't you? Just kinda gives it a
little bit, a little bit of presence that makes it feel
a little bit like it's, It's actually actually in a
room and not in your kitchen. And so these are my settings
there I just use will complete medium and then
adjust it to taste. Next one, this is where we get
a lot of that long reverb. This is true verb, this is
the millennium verb preset. And then I've adjusted
the decay time, taking the direct off, obviously because
this is a parallel split, cancel the plans. You've got to just come through. My vocal has I think way
more reverb than max, but I liked that SPAC. I really like spacey, we probe. So this is where I'm
starting to take creative license with
creating my, my own vocal. But then we listened to
be listened back to Mac. No Neo trust me, it would just be summer
stop, sweetness. And to me I think it's not super wide,
but it's wide enough. So I have a vocal
doubler on here. Simple W2 by waves. This is again key or
taking creative license. I like a flanger on mine just because that's
the way I get down. It makes it a
little bit weird of Bryson tiller uses
a ton of Flanders. That's what inspired
me to do it. And so again, these
are dialed in. If you see these,
like not a ton, these are some, but not a ton. I love this thing. This is
called a renaissance acts. I haven't even, well, I guess it's a
type vocal preset, but I don't see a lot of
people use this on vocals, but I love this thing. This thing is maxed out hard. Cancer plans. You've got
lights come through. This thing is smashing, stained. So I only bring in
a little bit cancer to listen to the difference
though, cancel the plans. You've got to just come
through a little bit, but I feel like makes
it really prevalent. Shoo Baby. Oh aren't you listen The
difference though in the mix. This now this is
with all the effects can just come through. I feel like it really helps
make it more present. And to me when I
listened to a Mac vocal, when I was kinda crafting
it After you want it. You want people to be
dancing group and a beat, but you want your vote
could also be there too. So there's that last, I'm going to show
you some tips and tricks and we'll get
you out of here.
6. Doubles + Adlibs: Okay, So some last
tips and tricks that I want to give you guys are around a couple of things that I got that
I stole from Mac. One it, well, I didn't
steal it from Mac, but this is a track spacer
plugin, which I love. I use a lot and this
is pretty much, this is creating a little bit
of side-chain compression from your instrumental or
whatever you have this tied to. So that way, when
the vocal comes in, whatever you have it tied to, ducks out, if that sounds
confusing, this is what I mean. Listen to this instrumental
with it on and with it off. I'll just make it
really apparent. I'm going to I'll turn
it all the way up. Those are, those are, those dips are coinciding
with the vocal. Listen. That's if it turned all
the way up, which is nuts, but I have it in its turn to maybe like
twin in the twenties. It's maybe a little
bit more subtle, but it's still there. So here's the thing.
That's one thing you can do to make
moguls more present. I loved that track spacer, check that out now
sponsored by them. But what tracks
space or if you're watching this lady's
factory hit me up. Here's another thing
that I use from Mac that I think helps a
lot is creating doubles. So not only do I
have the main hook going on here in the ad libs, but I also have these
doubles that are, the settings are
very much the same. But I have them
doubled high and then also doubled low and they're paying to the
left and the right. Answer the plans just
come through two hours. You still out of tune, but you can't tell that much. And then I mix those
back in to other hooks. So this is the hook, this is another hook later in the track that has
both of these. In the case of the plants through without them, he got it works but
just a different vibe. So I really like having
fun with doubles. I like adding some into Lowe's. I like maybe some
of these are these are the same register. These aren't high or low
with you just the same, just to give it a little
mic to hook feel, maybe a little bit
more powerful, and then just
having fun of them. And so like these, I also have some additives
in here that have, that have a bunch of their
own effects on them. Just to create kind of fun space that I saw Mac was
doing in the track. So when it comes to creating
space for your vocals, you can also just carve out frequencies from the
instrumental that can help. Or if you want to add more, you can add different types
of doubling tracks and lives. It's up to you. Create a choice. But for me, I heard
kinda macro doing that. So these are very similar doubles just
pinned to the left and the right and then down and it tastes. Hopefully
that was helpful. Thanks so much tuning as always, if you want my template to combine all that in
the description below. Appreciate you all TIAA.com. Taking the next one, please.
Kia Orion, Artist & Music Producer
