Mixing 101: Learn The Essential Mixing Skills

1. Mixing Intro: You obsess over getting your demons to sound glued and professional, but your muddy mixes make you more frustrated than a drop wi fi connection. Well, this is your golden ticket. In this course, I have cramped in 2 hours. Well, it took me two years to learn when I was a beginner sound engineer. We go step aside from organizing, processing, mastering, and many more topics with no confusing technical stuff. There will be no balling theory, just the exact techniques to pop the energy and the excitement into your music. If you don't believe me, just have you listen the before and the after. I only love you, love you. I'm, it's the way you can be. So after every word things kill and burns. So Crystal gets love when love you, here's, here's, I love you, I only love you. And I'm trying. It's the way you can be. It tell me that way. After every world quiet whisper to things. Just cantel and burning be and you can break everything in my house. You call me wonderful. I I love you high. Only love your, love you all. I only love you Adam High. Only love you Mr. Love your love you. I love you. Only love your love you. A, I love you. Am high log your. I'm try love your. I'm drink a lying. Now let's go into this. 2. Mindset: We start a mixed truck, it is really important to understand the mindset of the mixing process. What do I mean by that? Is to understand what the goal of the mixing is. To identify what are some important elements. What are the most important elements on the truck? What general are we working with? Because for example, if you're mixing a hip truck, it is more important to have a bigger and better tight in comparison with an EDM truck because we're not going to use any Doight. The kick there is a little bit more important in comparison with the base and many more things. 3. Organizer: Right now. This is our track that we have here. I will just go and let it play and have a listen together. I love you, Love you. Can do it after every word to can kill burns. I love you. Only love you. Will try Love you will. I love you. Only love your, love you, love you, Gress me. I on love you. As you can already hear, the truck is all over the place. Our goal has to go and make it sound cohesive. But before we go there, I would like to show you the dirty work that the sound engineer has. 99% you will get the stems looking like this. I will just go and import. For example, now the original stems create new trucks, then they will look like this. This is not the best way. What you got to do is to go and clean it up and put kicks, for example, the drums altogether in a group. In my opinion, I would highly recommend to color your trucks because it will be much easier for you to identify where is the kicks, where is the drums, or where is the bass line, the vocals, and so on. Let me show you here an example. Here we've got the kick, and here we got Shaker. Let's put this one here above. Let's take also the snap, all the drums that I can choose. I can go and choose altogether. Right click and create a track stack, the summing track. Now we've got here our bus which is on the kicks on the drums. Then I can go here and open and choose, for example, three drums colors. And I want, let's say this color, and I can choose this color. And then if I open the mixer with my shortcut, here is the X on Logic. I can go and choose all these three drums that we have and make it the same color. And now it is easier to identify where are the drums in comparison with what we got here. It's everything blue. I didn't want to waste your time here while you are watching how I clean up my tracks. If you apply this method that I already showed you, you will be. 4. Rough mix: But we talked about some important things that you have to do before you start mixing. Now let's go and get our hands start here. We've got an EDM truck that is really popular, like Medusa kind style To understand here, what really important is, in my opinion, are the vocals and the groove that you have on your drop. You have to focus on the vocals and on the kick and then on the baseline. So let's say that the first priority for me in this case are the vocals, then comes the kick and then comes the baseline with the groove. And then the rest are the scenes that we have on our trucks that are making this by this atmospheric tracks. Though really important before we start is to check if we have any samples that are picking. Let's go and zoom all the samples here. Make it a little bit bigger. I don't recognize sample that is picking. For example, let's say for example that this kick had, I don't know, like this one. Then you can see that the kick is now picking because we have boosted on 2.8 DBs. And if I overdo it, alittle bit more, you will see that the way from here is going above the line and it's already really loud. You can see right away that we are hitting now at 1.5 and we don't want that in case this happens to you, just bring this one down. This is not the best option to say the truth, but you have to work with what you had. Let's bring this one down. Put it on minus nine. -9.9 was this one. Let's put this one also on -9.9 And then we go and start, as I've already mentioned, with the main elements of the truck. We are going to start mixing Top down on the drop because the drop most of the time is the loudest part of the truck. When I say top down is what I already said, like you said, the kick is the most important element. Then comes the vocals, then come the baselines, and then the rest. Let's go here and I've already made a loop. Take down all the ones. Yeah, take down all the elements. But as you can see, I am only changing the fades from the channels, not the groups. That's why I'm going to bring also these two down. The instruments, the groups of the B of the instrument and the drums are up. Let's take this things down. Let's also create a group here for the vocals, just altogether create truck stack summing. And let's name it Vox Bus. Now that we've got all the faces down, I wanted to mention that we are going to use only the O filter plugins because because 90% of the music producers that are out there have already worked with these plugins. Of course, this doesn't mean that you are not going to be able to use your Doplagins. I'm going to show you also how you can apply these techniques on your Plegins. Most of the times I will be using filter plug ins. By the way, I forgot to mention that when I say that we are grouping the trucks, you can see here that the output of the truck is the bus five, which is this one. This is the input of the bus five, and the bus goes to the stereo out, so that means the routing that we have here, the output of the sins are going firstly here on the B of the instruments. And then the bus sends the senal on the master output. Now let's go here on our master output. And the first plug in that we are going to use is the fabfilter pro L. We are not going to master the truck right now. I just want to use this plug in because I want also to see here how much we are hitting. For example, right now let's put the kick up. We are hitting at -12 B. Our goal here is to, our goal here is to hit -60 before we start the mustering process. Because if we hit the -60 we have a lot of headroom to work on our mustering. Okay, let's go and make it a little bit smaller, this one here and let's start mixing. We got the kick right now on -12 then I'm going to use the sub right now. We are just going to do a rough mix and our next step is to go here. On the vocals, here is the lead vocal. Now let's go and mix the vocals. Love your, love you, I love you all. Only love you. Am tran love you. Aam. I only love you when I'm high. Only love you. Am I only love you when I'm high? Only love you. I'm trying love you. I'm I only love you when I'm high. Only love you. I'm trying love you. I'm I only love you. I'm high. Only love you. And I'm trying. I only love you. I'm trunk love you. Am I only love you? I'm high. Only love you. I'm trunk love you. Am he? I love you. Only love you. Try love you. At I love you. Only love you. I'm try love you. Only love, I only love you. When t love love you, only love you when I'm trying love you, only love you. Am. Now let's go and mix the love your love you am I love you. Only love you. Trunk love you. I love you. Only love you. Trunk love you. I love you. Only love you. Trunk love you. I love you. Only love you. Trunk love you. I love you. Only love you. Trunk love you. I love you only. Okay, now that we mixed here, the drop, let's go and check also other sections here from the track. Let's go to choose this one because I can see that we haven't mixed strings to plug the Rp and the Right. I think here, yeah, mix also the vocal, the lead vocal here that we got. The previous good trick here is because we've got two different vocals on the drop, on the verse right now we are on -5.1 and most of the time it's going to be also here -5.1 Let's also see what we are hitting here. You call me beautiful, but we're hitting like -16 Let's go check also the vocals here on Love, Love You. I'm trying lovely. We can see here that this one, it's a little louder in comparison here, everything in my house. I only love you and I'm trying. So when we got the same part, we're hitting almost the same base. Tell me them, so this is a good way to take a reference that we have already mixed in. Now we can work with this one after things won't be so high, them down and burn, Whisky split. Tell me that mix also. The other. My world. Quite everything. In my house, Gif, I love you heat in my house. You call me but I do. I love you in my house. Let's see on the other elements. I love you. Make a small loop here. Cave in my heart. In my heart, you call me beautiful boy. Do I love you? Only love you? I'm trying. Love you. Only love you. I'm love you. I'm love you. I love you. Here we've got, that's another drum field. I love you, I love you. Only love you, I only love you. Only love. Let's mix. Also the other drum field here, love you, love you. Here's I love you, only love you, I'm trying, Love you. Okay. Now let's go and mix. Also the other vocals that we got here, the doubles in my house, you call Mel, Love you to me. That me, After every world you only quite whisper two things can kill you and burn you. Wi, I only love you. Am I only love you? Am I only love you? And I'm r, let's go listen. Also, hear out songs. I only love you high. Only love you and I'm trying love you. Am I only love you, am high, only love you. And I'm trying love you. And Mr. Love you. Yes, I love you, love you. Try love you. And I found that the kick was a bit loud here as it began. Love. But don't forget, this is just a rough mix that we want to use to start our mixing process. 5. What is EQ: Now that we had our first rough mix, the next step is to go and apply. Q. Q If you don't know what it is is the frequency spectrum that we are going to watch and listen also, then we are going to take decisions like attenuating some frequencies or boosting some other frequencies that will help our track sound cleaner and much better. Let's go and have a look here on our kick for example, I'm going to use the pro Q three and I'll just go and let it play and you'll see here that something is going to happen. Let's go and phrase it. This right now is the frequency spectrum that our kick has. We can see it has also some high frequencies. Let me just give you an idea what an equal as it does, in case you don't have any idea what Qing is. Let's go and take this one out. Right now, I have attenuated all the frequencies that are above 103 hertz. If I go and open the Q here, the band one, you will see that the kick sounds also. You will see that the kick sounds back as it was. Let me go and use this one also on the vocals. This might help you a little bit more to understand what equalizing is. I love you. Trunk love. Here for example, we have the vocals that they don't have so much low frequencies because most of the times the female singers will not have this frequency spectrum from the lows because they sing a little bit on higher pitch. I love trunk. That's going to do the same thing again, but this time out, these frequencies on love M now we have taken so many frequencies out here. I only love love. Now that you understood what the equalizer is, I'm going to show you how you can apply this on your tracks and how you can make it a bit cleaner. Why? I, you don't have to put any que on every channel. Sometimes some samples don't need so much queuing. 6. Drums EQ Part 1: Walking out. The technique that we are going to use to find these has frequencies that we don't like. Let's go and boost like this and make the queue really narrow. Then you can sold this one here for example. I found these frequencies that are a little bit too harsh in my ears. Take them down -2.5 somewhere there. Let's make it also a little bit shorter. Now let's go and see if we've got any other frequencies that we want to take out. Also, the ones I can take them out a little bit also, this one we can take them out. But as you can see, I am not attenuating so much. Let's go and bring them back on. Three, you can see here that I am taking down like 2.62 0.70 and then here two debs. But you can also go and make the Q bit higher, a little bit brighter, because we don't want to have this filtered kind of sound. Take them also, this one out. Let's also have a list how it sounds with the truck. I'm going to bypass it and let it also play. The changes that we made are not so easy to listen to right now when all the things play together. But I am 100% sure that later you're going to find them like really helpful. Let's go now and see if we can accuse something here on the club. Okay. We don't have so many low frequencies here. I can take them down just to be sure. Because when we are going to master the track, we are going to put also some frequencies here that we don't want. When I am qing, I am trying to take out frequencies that I don't like so much, do not seem so often bursting some frequencies. 7. Drums EQ Part 2: Now check the crash. If we need there any que, let's leave it on a loop. And let it play shorter the loop. Okay, I see that right now we have some frequencies. Let's put it on solo. I can take these frequencies out. In this case I can break the low cut here on 900 Hertz because we are taking out some other frequencies that we don't need for the crash. Let's go and check also the high hat. I am big fan of low cut because I don't want these frequencies on my mustering. Let's go here again. Right now we have this look. A good trick here is to go and take the low cut and bring it up until you hear that the high hats are changing, the frequencies are changing the tone that they have. Right now, for example, it will be too much. I can go and leave it here. Let's see. Also if we find any harsh frequencies from the high hats for example. I don't like these frequencies here. X. Take them down, give it to my. Okay. Now let's go on to Shaker. I love you. We're going to do the same thing again. Take down some low frequencies that we don't need. As I already mentioned, this is not a must have to do. But I really like to have my lows cleaned for the base, the kick, and the other instruments that I want to have there. Reverse crash. I'm going to leave it like it is here. We have a snarl. There is also an automation here from the production here. We don't have to do anything. And then we can go here on the right. Let's do it here, not Q. Let's go and choose the foot filter here. We can see, for example, that we have some low frequencies that we don't need them. Let's go and take them out. Now, let's go here on the snap. I only love you, I'm, I only love you, I'm. Let's go here on the field. Most of the times when we have these effects, we don't want to go and change something. Love you. Let's go also the second one. I only love you only. Okay, let it like it. 8. Bass Synths EQ: Now we go here on the, is an important part here of the track, also the sub, let's go and use the Q here. In this case we see that we have some deep low frequencies, below 40 herds below 50 hertz somewhere there. I don't want these frequencies to be taken from the S. I want sub there to go and take these frequencies. I'm going to use also the Q here on the sub. You see that we have some frequencies here already here below 40 hertz. In this case, I'm going to take down the frequencies from the res, and leave more space for the base. Now let's go to dig some sense. Again, I'm going to apply the same technique to check if we have some low frequencies that we don't need. Let's go on the plaques here. We got also some high frequencies that it might be useful to take some of them out because we want to have also some space for the vocals. This make this one bit very large. Now let's go here on the art again, we've got some low frequencies. You see that I am not taking so many things out, I just want to have a little bit more space for some other elements. Of course, you can go here and find also some frequencies and take them out. If you don't, for example, this frequency here is that I don't like so much. Take them down, open the bit, Let's go on here. Let's go on the Atmos. Again, the same thing. Take some things out, find also some frequencies that we don't like. Let's take them down a little bit. Again, open the queue. I only love you and I'm trying. Love you. Am I only love you, am only love you. I'm trying. But let's go here and listen on the drop. I only love your, love you. I only lovely, love. We forgot here. The high hats, put them back. Love. I'm trying. Love. Right now we are hitting on minus B. I'm trying, oh, we have a space to boost it. So that means we can go and choose all the trucks here from our mixer, but not the buses. This one out, stout, master out instruments, bass out, and drums out here, the buses. And let's go again. I love you, I'm trying, love, love, love you. I'm trying love you. I only love you when I'm trying love you and more a love you. Okay. Now, let's go on where we were here. We got also they, this one, it's going to cite love you. I'm trying. Love you. Love you. Love you. Love you. I love you. I'm trying. The next one is the synth two on. I'm try love you, I love you. Only love you. I'm trying love your, I love you. I'm okay. Let's open the que a little bit more and there. 9. Vocals EQ: Now let's go and dice the vocals. Let's make this loop here. Hey, everything, in my, in this case I'm just going to boost a little bit the whole truck because I want to hear them on my speakers little bit louder, but I cannot boost here the sound that comes from the sound card. So let's go and, but this is just for us, what we are doing. Make it a bit easier for us. I love you. Only love you. I'm trying. Love you, I love you. Love you. I'm try love you. Importantly, we're limiting the track. We just wanted to lead to hear a little bit louder. Okay, now let's go on and the vocals. Let's find here sweet spot. I only love you. I'm love you. Am I only love you, Adam High. Only love you. I'm trying love you. Am I only love you, Adam High. Only love you. I'm trying Love you, am only love you, Adam high. Only love, I'm trying. Don't love you. Am I only love you Adam High. Only love you, Adam. Try go find some only love. Let's go and find some sports that we want to take out. I only love'm trying love you, Adam. I only love you. I'm only love you and I'm trying love you. I only love you. I'm only love you, and I'm trying love you. I only love you. I'm only love you. I'm sorry for that, but you have to listen. I only love you and I'm trying love you. I only love you and I'm only love you and I'm trying love you. All these frequencies is a little bit too harsh. That's why I took a lot of frequencies down. Love you, only love you, I'm trying love you, am. But here for example, I can go and boost the frequencies a little bit because I want this warmth here that we have this a little bit more on the higher frequencies. I only love you, I'm trying love you, Elm. Ah, I only love you Adam High. Only love you Adam. Trunk love you Adam. I love you Adam High only love you Adam. Trunk love you. Am love you Adam High only love you Adam. Trunk love you am love. Also a really important exercise is you have to go and equ while you are also hearing the other tracks playing together. Because, because if you're equeing while you are being only on solo mode, then you're not going to be able to understand if it helps a track or not. It might, while equeing the vocals, for example, might sound like, oh wow. But it sometimes can happen that you can take a lot of frequencies from the vocal that you took some life out of the vocals. I only love you all. I'm trying love you. Am I only love. Okay, let's go. Now on the doubles, I only love you all. I'm trying love you. Am love you all. Only love you all. I'm trying Love you, am love you. Am only love you, Am trying are most okay. Let's go on and now we have the same drop fox. It should be the same. So let's go and open the Q to make a bit easier for the work for us. Let's go and duplicate this equalizer here. And also this equalizer on the doubles this equalizer on the doubles queuing can take a little bit more time if you have a lot of trucks right now. Here we have 24 like 25 trucks because we have also some groups, if I am correct. So take your time and apply the que that you think it will help your track. 10. What Compression Is: Let's talk about compression compression. It's a bit difficult thing to understand, but I will try to explain it as easy as possible. A compressor is a tool that sound engineers use to shape the dynamics of a sound and control the loudness. In simple terms, it evens out the high and low volumes of a truck. Let me show you an example. Here we are going to work on our vocals. This time I'm not going to use the pop filter because I want to show you what the compressor does. So I'm just going to use this plug in, but we're going to change later. I just want to show you now what compression is. Let's leave it in place. Only love trove, I only love you. Hi, only O, be down so that you can hear me also when I'm talking about right now. Hi, I Only Love. We have this audio signal that comes from the vocals, decay, love. Here we got the threshold. With the threshold, we set like a wall where we say, okay, from this point you have to compress the audio signal. You you will hear right right now what I'm pushing down, trying love you, I only love you and I'm only love you and I'm trying love you. The white love you. The previous only loves that we had earlier love you. And the red now is the compressed audio signal. Only love you and if I go here and love you, love the auto, I love you and I'm high. Now let's go and compress how it was before and how it is now. I only love you and I'm trying love you. I only love you, I'm only love you and I'm trying love you. I love you. Only love you, and I'm trying love you. If you listen carefully, you will hear right away that when I enable the compressor, you will hear this breath that the singer text. Like this kind of things. You will hear a bit more louder because the compressor right now, it pushes the low volume higher so that it evens out with the higher volume of the singing on love you. I'm trying love love you. I'm only love you and I'm trying love you. Overdo it. I love you. I love you too much. I just want to show you what compressor does I love? I'm high. Here we've got also the ratio. The ratio as it says, set the ratio determines how much compression is applied to any signal that is over the threshold. You can go ahead and lo, and then you will see that compressor. I love you much more now. I love you, I'm trying, love you back. I love. And also you have here the attack and the release in the knee. The attack is how quickly the compressor starts to work and the release is how quickly the release happens from the compressor. I only love you and I'm trying. Let me show you now on a kick and explain you about the release in the attack. Let's go here above. Now let's put this one on the kick, let's make it solo right now. You see that way from here. And if I go and compress, let's make a loop here. Let's see now the details now what is going to change when I'm going to bring the attack down? If I take the attack on zero mas, you will hear that the transit is not so easy to hear. But if I bring it back, we have more transit because the compressor starts to work a bit later. Let's also see what the release does. See that when I'm pushing on the right side where we have a little bit more a massive release, we hear that the body is taking, attenuated a little bit. If I go and put it back here and change it drastically, this is how the compressor works. Of course, it was just an overview about what the compressor does, but it is a really important tool where you are going to mix your tracks because I am 100% sure that you're going to use a lot of compressing. 11. Compressing Drums & Synths: Let's go here on our project. It is not a must do to put a compressor on every track. Let's have listen to how the jump sound. I think I will put a compressor here on the kick. My goal here with the kick is to attenuate a little bit the body from the kick because I found it's a little bit too much in comparison, like when we are hanging together with the sabin as of course I'm going to show you the sight compression thing because it's really must have knowledge in this kind of tracks. Now let's go and compress the kick. Let's leave a little bit more room on the attack from the trans ye, to come. Okay, we got a res, heart 41 and a slower attack and really slow release. The threshold is on -17 DB. Let's go now and list it also how it sounds with the alpha, with the tracks. My next step is to go here on the high hats and compress also them. Because I find that the high hats are not the whole time like they have changing on the volume. Love, love you, love you. Try love, love, love your love, love, love you. Also, I want to use this one on the clubs. Let's have a listen over. Love you, love you, love you, love, love, love, love, love you. Try. If you look carefully here, I always take out the order game when I am compressing the drums because I just want to take the picks that the drums have and I don't need the lower parts to come and be louder or love you. I think that sounds okay. Let's see. Maybe a little bit. Just a little bit, okay. And if you look carefully, I am always not going like minus five B reduction. I just want to compress them a little bit. Not so much so that I am taking out all the transit or all the power that the jumps have. Love, love here, I'm not going to use any compression. Love you also here are the sound. Okay, maybe here on the plaque here, I want to have a little bit more control on the transit from the place. That's why I'm having a really quick attack. Okay. So the right. Let's have a listen also on the right. Okay. You propose? Look at also the snap. Okay. I only love you and I'm. 12. Vocals Compressing: Now we are going to work also on the vocals. The vocals need a lot of compression, in my opinion. So let's go ahead and choose Only I only love you track. This kind of track is, as I already mentioned, it's more like pop. Because also, okay, Medusa is a little bit more EDM, but you will hear that the vocals have this pop, squeezed vocals. That most of the times when you are mixing pop music, you will not have such a big difference from the high volume of the vocal in comparison with a low volume from the vocal. So let's go and try this technique. I'm going to put a really quick attack and a little bit slower release, and let's go and squeeze the vocal. I love you Tra. It's way you can, it's new to. Also the other. I love you Mra. It's the way you can be. Tell me let's after every world quite whisper two things can kill you. And burn Whisky to get tens of you can by in my house I think this kind of music you can go squeeze them a little bit. So right now we are having like -5.60 reduction. And I'm just going to push back a little bit with, again, I'm not going to push like minus five, I'm just going to push the 40 B. And let's have a listen again, I only love you and I'm drunk. It's the way you can be with me. Tell me that. Miss me. After every world quite whisper two things just can kill you and burning whiskey drunk things. Be and be with you can break everything in my house. You croy, okay, let's go and take also the compressor and put them also on the drop vocals and have how they sound there. Love you. Here's, here's, I love you, love you. I'm trying Love you, love you. On also just to be sure, I'm going also to check again, if we are clipping here, if we are limiting something, love, love, love you, okay? We are still on the safe zone. Let's go and take this thing out. Let's put it on 10 to see how many debes we are hitting. Love, love, love. Right now we are, -90 Let's go to put them back on seven. In my opinion, it's much better if you are having a limit at your master output. And then where you are going to mix the track at the final stage, take out the limiter, push, beat the whole tracks until you achieve this -60 B that we already mentioned. And then you can have much more headroom on your master Right now, I'm just pushing, but in reality I'm not doing anything. Now, let's also check out the doubles here. We're going also to compress them a lot, everything in my house. Or maybe not, so listen, you beautiful boy. I have out. I only love you Adam High. Only love you when I'm drunk. Love you Adam. A, a, I only love you Adam High. Only love you when I'm drunk. Love you. I'm try everything and with me tell me that after every world you only quiet whisper to things just can kill me and burning whiskey. So just to get drunk then to be and be with you, you can break everything. Okay. The compression also was not so drastic here on the doubles. Let's have listen also the Atmos. But to tell the truth, I'm not going to use here any compression. This is just some atmospheric sounds that we have here. Let's going to duplicate again the same effect from the doubles here on the doubles from the drop. I love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you. Tells me, every world quite whisper, two things can kill you. And burning whiskey so to kin can be and be with you can break everything in my house. You call me beautiful boy, I love you, am high. Only love you when I'm trying. Lovely, love you am high. Only love you when I'm trunk love your. By the way, let's go and make a small space here because I believe this was not supposed to be like this. So let's take this thing out. Let's take this mono also. Let's do the same, just make this effect a little bit more drastic. Okay, now let's go and do searching. 13. Sidechaining: You don't know what the sighting is in just simple terms, you just duck everything. When the kick plays, you duck the volume from the trucks that you're going to sidechain. In this case, we're going to side chain the base and the vocals. When we have the kick hitting how you achieve this one. Let's go and make a loop here on the first on the drop. Again, there are two ways you can go here on your base line and you can apply the sin compression on each channel. Or you can go here on your Bs on your mix bus and apply here to s show you this method because I like it a little bit more and I'm going to use the prostitute again. Here above you see that you have the sight chain option. I don't know how it is on Ableton, I believe it's not like this in this case. I'm just going to use the audio and I'm going to select the kick. That means every time that the kick plays, we are going to duck the volume from the baselines. Let me go And soloist and also the kick. And let's go and start chaining. To do this technique, you need a really fast attack and a really fast release. The ratio, you need a little bit higher ratio. Let's go on ten to one. Let's have a try. You have to open here, the side chain by the way, and choose the external, that's going to overdo it here. But I believe on ten or 15 it's a good ratio. The goal here when you are side chaining is to hit like minus eight until minus tend to be reduction. In addition, also really portant, we don't do any other game here, we just want to y chain the base. Have listen how it is with and without, when we are cechaining the base. You can hear right away that the kick shines a little bit more because you have more space for the kick to be out there and to be this pumping effect. Love, you try, love L. You can also go here on the instruments you can try and you can put also a side chain in here. Let's go and do the same technique, but this time we're not going to sighting like a lot. We want to schine just a little bit to have this pumping effect out. The other game again here, fast attack, fast release. Put this one on ten. Here down opens the side chain and choose external. I think this does the work. Let's listen also with the bass. Okay, now let's go and put also a side chain on the vocals to have this pumping effect. Again, go here and choose the kick. Take out the other games to release 21, open and external Love, love you, I love you, love you, love you on it so much. Love, love, love, love you, love The Sch happens only when the kick is heading. So that means this doesn't tell. After every world two things can kill you. Burns with you can break it. Let's go per call me beautiful. I do, I love you. When I only love you, tell me that you have a world of July. Quite whisper, two things that can kill you and burning. 14. Mixbus Processing: Let's talk now about the mixed processing. I have done a mixed bass processing. When I was showing you the side chaining here, If you remember on the bus, I have a compressor that works as a side chain. But in this case, I want to show you how you can use compress to glue your drums, in this case a little bit more. Or to glue your vocals and scenes a little bit more. In this case, I'm going to use compression. A little bit compressing here on the bus from the drums. Let's follow them, thank you again. Take out the Ot again for the beginning, and then we're going to put it back again. Let's start from the zero, let's go on to one. I don't want to compress it so much on 41 ratio, I want you to have two to one. And I'm going to leave a bit more attack and I'm going to mix it in. I love you, try love you all, love you, love your love you, love you, love you all. Always check out how it sounds with the other instruments on the track. This is really important because if you mix only on solo, you will not have right away an idea how it sounds with all the instruments together. Case I'm to compress minus three DBs here I have a slow attack because I want to transit from the kick to come through the releases bit slow, you can say it's not so much slow in the middle, something like in the middle, because I want to have a bit more glued kind of trumps. Let's have a listen out this with and without. You can see that when I am activating the compressor, I can hear the high heat ham a bit louder. But also the club have a little bit more body. I love you, love you, I love you. Let's also check here how it sounds. Tell me that you after every world quite whisper two things can kill and burning whisky to children. Be on with. All right. It in my house it's the way you can be. Tell me that after every world only quite whisper to things that can kill you and burns things. Be on hop with you can baby you call me beautiful after love you. Okay, cool. I like how it sounds. Now let's go on the instruments and glue also the instruments a little bit. Can the other gain out? I love you in my house, you call me beautiful, I love your, love you all. I love you, only love you, I love you, only love you, love you. Always double check guys. It's really important to listen carefully and to hear if you like, how it sounds on both parts because we are processing here, the boss of the instruments. Now let's go on the Vox Bass and also glue the vocals here. Li I only love you, I'm trying. Love you. Am I love you. Am high on. Yeah. We, we are not going to glue it so much because we have already compressed the main vocal, so we are going to aim like -1.5 minus study Bs reduction. I only love you and I'm trunk love you. My I only love you am high, Only love you, I'm tr, love you. Let's leave this one on 41 in this case and let's put it here on fact. I only love you, I'm trunk love you. I only love you am high. Only love you, I'm trying. Love you, I love you, only love you and I'm trying. You can also go and try some other styles here, from the algorithm, from the pro Q. Proceed, sorry. But to tell the truth, I don't want to dive it so deep right now. I want to keep it simple and to have a good result At the end of this course. I only love you. I'm trying love you, love you, love you. I'm trying love you. Love you. Only love, okay. Let's have a listen how it sounds now from the beginning. I only love you, I only love you. Run. It's the way you can be. Tell me that you less me. After every world, only quite whisper to things that can kill me and burning whiskey. So sterns, be and be with you can bay in my house. You call me beautiful. I love you high. Only love you. I'm trying Love you, Adam love you, am only love you and I'm trying love your, love you am. Here's okay. Cool. Okay, cool. Our next lesson is going to be about stereoplacing and imaging. 15. Panning: Now let's talk about planning and what planning really is panning. Think of it like you are setting a place for instruments to be. If we have the planning like all in the middle, it's going to be Sound like it is going to be really clashed. And it will not have much space for all the instruments to shine. For example, here, there are some instruments that we want in the middle, and this is going to be always the kick, the cup and the vocals. These are some main things that we want to be in the middle. Let's go here and have a look, for example, on the drums, let's go and solo. And here we've got some shakers and some high hats. Now we have both of them in the middle, but we can go here and open our mixer. And let's give a little bit pace on the kick here on our jumps by moving the high hatlebit on the left side and the shake bit on the right side. Let's have listen, okay. We had only these two things that we can go and pan them. Now let's go and search here on our scenes. Okay, Here we can play with the Atmos a little bit. We can go and put the Atmos libit on the left side. And in this case, let me listen. We can leave here the first synth on in the middle and put the right, the second synth little bit on the right side. I found that the bass was a bit too loud here. Let's go and do a search also for the vocals. But right now on our, we don't have so many things to choose. We have only the main vocals and the doubles. We can go and leave it. It is, but in case, let's say for example, that you have another vocal here that was another pitch or something else. You can go here and put this one on the left side a little bit, and you can have a little bit more space on the main vocals. Okay, let's delete this one, because it's not the case in this truck right now. Let's also have a look here. If we can find something that we can use. Love, love, love, love, okay? We cannot use something from there. So the only thing that we could do here was from the Atmos and the scene here on our job. Let's go and have a listen also if we can make also something here, a bit more space and a bit more atmosphere here. We've got three different instruments. We got the strings, we got the plug in the Arp. Sometimes you should be a bit careful about what you're going to punt, because right now we see that the strings come from the beginning. So it will not sound so good if I put the strings on the left side from the beginning and it will be the whole time on the left side. So in this case I'm just going to leave the strings at the beginning, in the middle and put the plug at bit on the left side and the Arp a little bit on the right side. And listen, give it in my house, you call me put foot, boy, I love you. When he everything in my house, you call me foot, I love you. Only love you when I'm trying. Now that we saw what panning is, let's go on the next lesson when we are going to talk about effects. 16. Reverb On Drums: Let's go and talk about effects. We have two main effects. When we are producing and mixing, we're going to use the reverb and the delay. Of course, there are also some other effects like the course and the flanger, but in this case, I just want to keep it simple. That's why we are going to use only these two effects. In addition, there are two ways how you can use the plug ins. You can put them like an insert on your channel, and also you can use them as a send on another bus. I'm going to show you how and in which occasion you are going to choose this technique. Let's go here on the snap, for example, I'm going to sol it and zoom it in. Right now, the snap sounds like this. You can hear that the reverb cuts out a little bit. In this case, you can go here like an insert and use the A filter. Because we're talking about drums, we don't want this big reverb, but in this case we are going to use like a medium size reverb because we want to fill the gap. Let's have a listen. Right now it's on 100% mix. Let's listen also with other things. I love you and I'm trying. Let's try some other reverbs. Some sits here, get I love you, I'm try. You can also increase here the tail of the feedback of the reverb. I love you my, the pop, how it, how it is now I only love you Mt. With this effect, you can hear right away that we are filling some gaps between the singing and between the other instruments. In addition, we can see here that the pro R has some qing. So that means if you want, you can go take out these frequencies from the reverbone, not from your vocals, from your snap. Sorry. You see what I'm doing here. Let's say that you don't want these low frequencies from the reverb. You can clean it up or you can take out some is here from the reverb, we can play with it. But in my opinion, because I wanted to achieve this special effect that it is like a big reverb on the background and it's not, but so big, so big that it covers the other instruments. This is what I would just leave it like it is right now. I love you. Now let's go and check out if we can use a reverb on other, on other drums. Let's have a listen here at the club. Maybe here we can use also a shorter verb. Let's go and put it on an insert. A really small verb. You can choose this one. Let's have a listen up to a quite quick two things complete up to a world quite quick. Or you can do also the following. You can put it on a scent and we are going to use the bus. Ten, let's deactivate. Let's bypass this one and choose the pro art here on our sent, we have it on 100% mix. We are going to use this technique when we are sending some drums on the bus because we want the bus from the drums to have the same reverb. We want to use this technique because when we are mixing the whole drums in the same reverb, it will sound more cohesive. Imagine for example, you have a club that has a really big reverb or a high, has a really small reverb somehow. It doesn't sound so right. This is a good technique if you want to make your drums sound good altogether and glute altogether in one room. Yeah, we've got the default setting. Let's put this one on medium. And listen here. Let's send it okay. Right now it's a bit too much on the smaller room. Again, let's put also the high hat there. Let's check out also the right. If we can send it right now with this technique, we have the jumps have a bit more live in comparison with earlier. Let's listen all the things together. Tell me that after every world quite quiz two things to complete, the counter every world quite quiz two things to complete. Tell me that you, After every world quite quiz, two things to complete. Tell me that you. Let's check out also the shaker here. I love you, love, love, love you. I'm an 17. Reverb On Synths: Now let's go and check out if we can put a reverb here on our instruments. Here are the strings. Let's have a listen. In my opinion, we don't need any reverb there. Let's go on the pluques here. We can use it as an insert. I'm going to explain why I want this one to use it as an insert. Because the plug right now is not the main instrument, it's like a ear candy. In this case, we want it to be a little bit more on the background of our instrumental here. Let's go and put it on this plate. Let's go and duplicate also the same reverb here on our Arp, because again, the Arp is not the main instrument here. Down, bait the reverb mix. Now let's go on to drop and look if we can, we can apply some reverb here also in this instrument. This already has some reverb in it, so we don't want to apply anything also. This has some low frequencies in it. It's not a good idea to apply a reverb. You can go and apply a reverb of course, if you want, but if you go and let's say this reverb for example, you have to take out some low frequencies here from the reverb. Right now we just from the main instruments. Let's take this thing out. And here it's from the reverb. Yeah. But in my opinion, we don't need a river here. Let's go on. Let's choose since two. This already has some river in it, so let's leave them as it is. 18. Reverb On Vocals: Now we come here on the main part, where we are going to use the reverb on our vocals. Here the vocals are the main instruments on our track. So let's go and make a loop here. And we want to send the vocals on a bus. I'm going to use the bus 20 and just name this one box bus. We want to use again, the Pro R. This time I want to have this big reverb because these trucks have a lot of the vibe of the truck is like so atmospheric. And if you want to achieve this truck, this vibe, you need a big reverb. Let's go and use a long plate. After every world que, whisper to things just can kill me. And burning after every whisper. So things can kill you and burn you whiskey. So get drunk so you can break everything in my house. You call me beautiful after I love you. Only love you, I'm trunk love you. And A, I only love you, I'm only love you and I'm drunk, love you, drink love you. Okay. Now that we've got the reverb here on our lead vocal, we are going to choose also the doubles. Let's go enable this one, the doubles. In this case, we want to put them a little bit on the background. So let's go and make a loop. Again, only the lid Vox and the doubles me tell me that's me after every left quiet whisper. Two things just can kill. So here you can go and put the reverb as an insert. And let's choose the large again chapel one. And it tell me that's after every left quiet whisper. Two things just can kill you and Bernie Sky's dens and who you can breathe. Tell me that. Okay. Now let's go and check out the Am I believe the Atmos have already a reverb in it. No, they don't have. So we can go and choose again the pro R and put a really big reverb here, a very large river. Because we want to have this kind of atmosphere, kind of effect, love. So now that we have the reverb, we can go and apply a delay. But before we go and apply the delay, I would like to show you a really great technique that a lot of big producers use when they want to make the vocals not so much drowned, but still have this reverb effect. Let's go and make a loop here. On the vocals again, we're going to use only the lead vocals. And here on our, our B here from the reverb we're going to apply the sighting technique that we already saw earlier. Let's go put again the attack, the release on zero gain out. Let's put the ratio on ten to one threshold down, expand the side chain, choose the external, and use this one as an audio to be triggered from the ad vox. You want to do this one because when you are hearing the vocals, you want to duck the reverb a little bit when the vocals play. I think it will be easier if you listen and understand what I mean. It's way you can be me. Tell me that, miss me after every word. Jump right now, quiet, whisper two things, just really dry. Because we are compressing the verb to Msg dense and how you can break everything. It's the way you can be me. Tell me. That's the before every world quiet whisper two things just can kill me and burnsen can break every it's the way you can be with me. Tell me that. I think it's pretty clear that the vocals come a little bit more in front, but still they have this reverb on the tail. Let's go and check out those what sounds with altogether. It's the way you can be. Tell me that's after every world quite whisper. Two things just can kill and so let's you still get on cans of beer and will be with, you can make it in my house. Okay. Like hot Sounds. 19. Delay On Vocals: Let's go and apply the delay. We're going to apply the delay here on our vocals. Again, let's go here on the Vox pass and find the times three. Let's name this one delay vox. And here you have some different settings. So let's go and slow the vox. And right now we are on 100% It can be tell after every word only quite whisper. Right now it sounds a little bit too much in my opinion. So you don't want this one. A big tip for you, I would always recommend is to go here in this case and use a time delay. Because there you will not have such a big, messy vocal. It's too way you can me tell me that tass me after every world quite whisper to things just can kill me. You and burning terms of and be with you can break everything. It's way you can be me. Tell me that rema me. After every world here you got also a delay. If for example you don't like this delay, you can still here on your vocal, you can go here on your bus and choose the pro Q three again and take out some low frequencies from, from the delay. Sorry, it's way, you can be me. Tell me that. Mas after every, but if your computer is not so powerful, you can go and use this equalizing, it's way you can be me. Tell me that. Treas, after every world quiet whisper two things just can kill me and burn. So'senseopright Now this is a bit too much. Let's go and put it down. It's way you can be me. Tell me that tramas me. After every world quiet whisper two things. One and Burke's just kirks of people and you can break every I only love you and I'm trying. It's the way you can do it. Tell me. That's after every world. Yes, I really like this delay. There's also another way how you can go and use this delay. Let's go and duplicate this one. Deactivate this one, and here if you go, you can see that we have the ducking. Let's put it, this one on zero. Let's put this one on 100% dry. Let's make it a And solo. And I will explain you how you can use the ducking and the wet like as an insert. But to Senator I don't really like this technique but sometimes it can be really useful. It's way you can be me. Tell me that after every word quite whisper two things. Just right now you can hear Skeen and who'll be with you. Just made it on one eighth note here. Let's listen again. It's way you can be me. Tell me that I like this rhythm a little bit more, but I can use also the ducking. And here you can hear how this plugin works and shines. It's way you can be me. Tell me, ask me after every word quite whisper to things just can kill me. And burns just to get drunk. Tens of B. And so in this way, in this case we are siting internally from, with the timeless three, with this ducking option here. So, it depends if you want, you can use it as an insert or you can go and use the other method that I showed you as a sent, let's leave it as an insert. Right now it's too weak with me. Tell me that me and take out some low quiet whisper to things just can kill me and burning. Just to Ketron and be with you. Okay. Right now I really like how it sounds. Let's have listened all the things together that we did, the effects and how they sound. I love you, I love you. M's way you can be. Tell me that's me after every world quite whisper. So things can kill you and burn your whisky. So to kill on things be and with you can everything in my house you call me bef after I love you and High only love you. I'm trying Love you well. And A, I only love you and High only love you. I'm trunk love your. Love you. Well here's, here's I love you, love you. Down also a little bit of these drum fields because I found them a little bit too loud. Love, love, love you. Okay? And here again, I love you, love you, love you. Only love love, love you. Heard right away that when we apply the effects the reverb delay, only the truck becomes more alive and it sounds like more professional. A lot of people don't understand how crucial reverbative delay is. I would highly recommend to go and check out some other precets that you got from your op filter or some other process that you got from your reverb. The Vala is also a really good reverse play with it a little bit and you will find the reverb sound that you really. 20. Final Balance: We are on our final stage from our track, we are going to master it. The master is a bit more complicated as you think it's. I'm just going to put like two or three plagins, but this course is more for basing understanding of mastering. So that's why I'm going to use only two to three plugins to have a good final result. But of course you cannot compare this result from the master that you get from a sound engineer that has 100,000 equipment there, from analog and digital. On the other hand, you can achieve a really good sound also with the plugins that I'm going to show. You don't worry though, because a lot of people will not understand such a big difference from a good mastering engineer and a really beginning mastering engineer. But don't get discouraged. You can still achieve a good sound with this techniques that I'm going to show you. And also with this plugins that I'm going to use before we start the mastering. Let's go here and open our limiter that we used earlier previously. It was on class seven here and we're hitting like minus the piece. We are still okay, we can take it out and now our master, the main output, we are hitting on -13 So that means we have still a lot of play. We can go and open the mixer, take this one out bit, and choose all the instruments that we got here. But remember, not the buses. We don't want to choose the buses because we are going to boost bit the volume from all the instruments. Individual also do not go and choose the buses that we sent here. Just the instruments. Let's go and bring back the Pro L, push it until it hits the minus six on the Timm. Let's bring down a little bit, also the kick, because I found the kick, it is a little bit too loud right now. And also here we're compressing a little too much right now because our kick is louder. So let's bring it down a little bit, trail down the ri. Right now I'm going to use only the buses because I want to find a good spot that everything sounds good and cohesive. Altogether t troll love you, love. Let's also check the rest of the track. It's really important that you have a good mixed balance mix before you start the Sterling. I love you, I love you. Don't forget here that the main instrument is the vocal track. It's the way you can do this. Tell me that. Up to every world jue back here again. It's the way you can do this. Tell me that he up to every world of quite quick, two things just can kill you and burn your whisky. So to kid on things be and be with you can break everything in my house. You come bei love you and high only love you. I'm trying Love you. Well ay love you. Higher only love you. I'm trunk love you, I'm love you, I love you, love your, love you. Love love, love you. Okay? Now that we found a good balance, we are going to use the buses this time to boost a little bit more the volume. We don't want to use the individual trucks because we are going to trigger the compressors in case we had a bus there that had a compressor. Let me show you what I mean. So let's open this one here right now, if I go here, let's say for example on the kicks, on the drums, I'm going to boost this. Right now you are hitting at 1.8 But if I go and boost, you see that compressor is triggered, this one back again. In that case, you just go and select the buses, the drums, to bust the instruments and the vocals. And the goal here is to hit again at -60 somewhere there, and you can boost a little bit here. Buses, Try love you, love you, love my love, my love you, love you, love, love you. Try love, love, love, love, love you. Okay. Right now we are hitting like -70 somewhere there. That means we have a lot of headroom to work on our master. 21. Mastering: I already mentioned, it is really important to have this headroom for your mustering because here we are going also to use some other facts that they are going to boost the truck. Let's go. The first thing that we are going to use is a clipper. Unfortunately, the plugins here from the Fabfilter pro L. Yes, it has a clipper, but it's not the best out there. For this purpose I'm going to use Mr. Odio, this is one of the best clippers out there. Let's put the pro L down. The chain is really important. The standard clipper should come before the limiter and the next plugging that we are going to use is also a compressor from the fat filter this time. And in addition, we can go and use a saturator, but it's not a mask. It's just a good idea if you want to saturate some frequencies that you like a little bit more. Let me show you what I mean, but let's start first here with our compressor here. Let's take out also the odogain Again here we want to glue the truck, so that means we don't want to have such a big attack and we want a really quick release, so let's try here. And also a ratio, a two to one, it's a good ratio for your master compressor there trying, um, highly love anum tail. Our goal here is to hit like -1.5 -2.5 DB reduction with our compressor because we don't want to squeeze so much the truck love track. Let's add back again to hilum. Love, love, love, love. Of course, you can go and use the multiband compressor, but I think if you're not familiar with how the multiband compressor works, it might ruin your track. So I'm just going to show you how you can use the multi band. But to tell the truth, I wouldn't suggest, if you are a really beginner love, for example, I found these frequencies here a little bit harsh and I can compress only these frequencies here a bit. Let's go and put the range not so high like min is too a really quick attack this time. Really quick release, lovely. Now the range is on 41. You can go and put it on 21, but as I've already mentioned, it's a bit more complicated. Let's say to use a multiplanopressor if you don't have the knowledge right now, love. So let's go and take it away. Now our next step is go and use the Saturn. Saturn two is a saturator. Then this makes the sound at bit more warmer if you want. For example, in this case I'm going to use the Saturn to boost a little bit, not with an equalizer. This is a saturator, so that means it boosts the frequencies that are a little bit more low on the frequency spectrum. Let's have a listen, it might make it easier for you to understand what I mean. Yeah, let's say that I want to boost a little bit the ice somewhere there from one K until six kolo. Only love you when I'm trying love you. Now comes a bit more alike here, only love you. Frequencies, love, try love, love, love you before, love you, love love, love you. I love you well. But you have to be really careful because if you overdo it, it will ruin your track. Love, I'm trying. Love you well, I love you. Love, love, love you. Let's also add some warmth here. Love, love, love you, love you only love. And sometimes if your truck doesn't have so many, yes, you can go and bust the little bit here. But again, be careful on love. Love, you, love, love, love. To love. As you can see here, I didn't make so many boosting here on this band. Levels just a little bit like one deb here and 0.3 debs here, but I just boosted with the drive here. I didn't boost the volume, I boosted the frequencies that I've already mentioned. Now, the next step is to go and use this clipper. This is one of the favorite, in my opinion. You want to use the clipper because you want to clip the picks that you have here on your truck. Let me show you, there are some different options here. I'm just going to use the hard clip mode and the oversampling on 16. You don't have to do it, but this is just what I like a little bit more. Love you, love you, and I am not going to boost anything. I'm just going to clip, love, love, love, love. So let me explain you what the clipper really does right now without the clipper, we are hitting A -6.9 over now we are hitting a minus ten. So that means retain some volume here from the final master, and we have more space to boost it later with our limiter. Let's go and deactivate this clipper right now, and I'm just going to boost here without a clipper. And you will see a lot. For example, right now we are hitting at minus 79, but we are clipping so much like -7.7 we are taking out. But if you go and activate the clipper, you will see love, love, love, love, love you try you see that we are getting like minus eight, but we are not using the limiter at all on love your love, love, love, love you, love, love, love, love you, love you. I love love. In this case, we are hitting like -7.8 we are on the safe zone. Let's say you need to have this kind of, this kind of power there. Because when the DJ plays a truck that let's say hits at -14 LUFS, the other truck that he already plays is at minus eight is going to be a really big volume difference. And this might turn the DJ off. So it might also happen that he will not play your truck again. Right now we are hitting Love minus O. Let's have a listen how it sounds from the beginning. Love you, I only love you and I'm. It's the way you can be. Tell me. That's after every world quiet whisper to things just can kill me and burning sky. So it's to tr, tens of. Be and be with you can break everything in my house. You call meflo high. Only love you. I'm trying. Love you. Only love you high. Only love you. I'm try. Love you. Love you? Yes, Yes, I love you. Only love you. I'm trying. Love you. Hey, only love you high. Only love you. I'm trying on the fly. I just heard that. For example, the ride was a bit loud in comparison with the other instruments. It's the way you can tell me, That's me. It's the way you can be it tell me. That's after every world quite whisper to things that can kill you. And burning whiskers be can by in my house you call me. Okay. Now I think we have a good final result. Now, the next step in the final step is to go and export the truck. 22. Export Settings: Our next step is to go and bounce the check. The short cut for the logic is command B, but if you don't have logic, you just go here and above and choose bounce or export. We have two options here. We have the PCM where you can go and enable it and take the or the calf or the way file. I always just go and choose the way file. 24, 44 to one sample rate. Just leave it like it is. I don't go and change so many things here M three in case you have like 192, I'll just put it on 320 kilo BPS, but it has a little bit more match quality. You need two different file formats because you're going to send the MP three, let's say, to some other DJ, some other music producers. You don't want to send right away the file because most of the people will not use the file to play on the digital sets. You need the file. If you want to upload your truck through districtd or through other distributor on your Spotify, always be careful here on the normalized because if you leave it on, it will somehow apply an extra limiter there and it will destroy your truck. It has happened to me. So always I leave normalized off. As I already mentioned, The A file 24, 44 to one and the MP three and you are good to go. 23. Outro: If you have made it so far, we are at the end of the scores. I hope you really learned a lot of things about mixing and what qing is, how you can use the compressor. A little bit more about the sie chaining. We learn a lot of basic stuff here. Of course, you will have to apply a lot of these techniques and learn also some other techniques there in the future where you are going to practice and practice and practice. And a quick reminder from my experience, mixing is a skill that evolves with experience and continuous learning. I hope you really like the final result of the track, and you enjoyed this journey. See you on the next course, guys. Bye bye.