Lessons

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Demo: Mixing an EDM Track Part 1

The song we have ready to go is from grabs who's in the studio audience arises. We don't quite if we can go back to the key note for a second, so I'm gonna explain like my one little bit of difference. This stuff is I do a little bit mohr prep of just getting some plug ins on because as a price on my idiom mixes unlike my rock mixes, I know a lot of the time I'm using any q and amusing, eh, some sort of distortion, so I kind of just pre load those as a go, so I want to explain that to get going. I basically just went through this track and I did a quick listen through check some little things, but really you're syria. I have not listened to the track at all. This will be my first impression of it, just as it is yours as we do this. So I'm we should also mention if you want to check out this stuff and more grasses stuff, this is all his socials appear and cool. So without further ado, we head over this pro tools. I'm going to go over this one last time, even though I went over it a bunc...

h, but so what I did do in preparation, this is I checked whether our tracks or stereo or mono so instead of you having just threw me doing this twenty more times I just left one in case he missed this yesterday, but what I'm going to do here is I go over this track and I say I see it stereo and I unlinked the accused this usually comes as it linked and I flipped the phase on one of them actually this is for talking put them back and I check of its model by putting it toe one speaker so I hit play and once again so let me just make sure that this is yes so actually these are technically right now the both the same phase, which is why it's not doing that? So this is just about all mono, so I'm going toe go ahead and make this into a mano track and by doing that I sported in some mono and then get rid of this so with that is now time to listen to this truck get a feel for what I want to dio before I put a master fader on it assess what I'm doing and just start doing some rough levels the other thing I'm going to do is I'm going to check what my sitting is our approach is that I'm actually going to relaunch this with maximum delay compensation and while this relaunches explain what that is so plug ins introduce late and see if you're not familiar with us and this allows us so that we don't have to monitor that wait and see it all and the maximum saying this allows us to use some of the newer plug ins that have long wait and see is like some of the many m plug ins from waves that I like to use so I restarted the session with that grabs actually tracked this at ninety six is that correct? Oh yes so I took it down to forty eight because this computer can't handle a lot and I want to get it through but like we said before it's great too work at ninety six kilohertz if your computer can handle it this one cannot so I took it down to forty eight before he makes I normally would not do this if I was at home but this is what we need to do here. Um when I take this track home I'm actually going to import what I do here into a ninety six kilohertz file and then just put the water falls back in so I could do this at the frequency I the sample right? I prefer to do it at so without further ado let's give a saga we said well, we try to get an idea for what I want to do free queuing and then master bus wow cool so I really like the overall acute sounds really natural like what attract like this should sound like so you did great job tracking this the queue curbside great so now I want to bring in a master fader to give me some help so I'm gonna go in and I'm actually going to go into the streets find love song and then I'm going to actually I know I'm gonna want to use a lot of those plug ins but I'm not going to want to use a lot of those settings so I'm just gonna bring it in and then I'm going to reset a bunch of the settings on it but I also know that I'll probably want ah hole and the harmonizer and a drum subsumed also joe bring those in so I have him down yet again and talking about that science and formula you have you don't necessarily need to do is use the settings but I know I want those plans on no I want the concept of it I could just set them back to nothing and this makes my life a little faster so with setting it back let me get some more neutral settings on this one on you about thirteen on that and then first starting q I am hearing a little west not start a little higher than not on that won't need that I won't need this I'll start with this saturn way lower not even to put the phoenix on and I'm going to set these all back as far as they go so they're not active quite yet and then start to do some shaping with that once we find our head room so with that let's turn all of this off and turn this actually off and let's make a fader to discover our head room so we're going to call this group head room just like we've done in the past and I'm going to pull this down until it works let's get to a more dense part of the song I just did something wrong and would be trimmed that one off on dh so I talked about doing six to ten I know that I'm going to do a lot of gagne modification meaning distortion on this track so I'm going to air on the side of going a little under ten because I know I'm gonna push a lot of things a lot of this and I'm pushing bunch of accuse so sometimes it's also good to have that in mind that if you know you're going to do a lot of brightening a lot of additive q and a lot of extra distortion undershooting that's six to ten dp of headroom can be really, really helpful so that you make sure that you have room to work and you don't have to reset this head room a million times so what's now put this stuff back, so unlike the rock mix that I did from the streets of mission with the days of like, gravity, I did not really get into the multi band at first, but multi banding is such a crucial part of tedium that I think it really needs to be just a teeny bit from the echo, because the way it pumps is a lot of the sound. I'm using an auto release mode on all these bands, but sometimes I'm going even scale this back, tio even faster than that, so I'm just kind of try to get it the way I'm trying to find a dick, you point that sounds really good on this stuff, so I'm going to keep playing around with this and try and find like a good starting point, but already once I heard that head room in that master failure on it, I know I'm like doing pretty decently, so I'm backing off the multi band compressed because I don't want it to affect the signal too much it's one thing of the catches, a peak here there, and it gives me some gains from listening at a volume I'm used to, I'm not that concerned with having this on a team, but I also don't want it on too much here, I'm hearing that. I could find some different, you know, moving this high shelf up to about six k is sounding really nice three it finds the aggression of his since overall to be in a p pleasing place it's sounding about as bright as I think a lot of this stuff should go if we were comparing it to something else, I didn't hear that I might make a different decision, but right now I'm just going off of what feels good to me since we have to license songs in order to be ableto compare them, we won't be doing that in this class, which is why we've been skipping that so normally I would try to find something I'd ask arise what he's comparing to what he's like listening to these days and we'd a be it a little before I did that, but right now I'm just going to go off of my parents thinks so the next thing I'm going to do is let us start figuring out this drum sub compression since I want the song will be few and cool and you know I want my head bopping and wanting to dance ah from the jump so let's start figuring out what everything needs and, you know, there was one step I forgot to do that I'm going to do real quick um, which was I was going to put on an e q plugin and a fab filter saturn on every channel on bypass it before we even start because odds are I mean they use a lot of those I don't want you guys to have to sit through this I would not normally do this at home but I also want to have time to show you guys cool things instead of in the shooting plug ins constantly so I'm gonna put one of those on every track and one of he's on every truck then I'm going to bypass all of these can you confirm the ah the hockey that you did tio opposite option yeah so if you see me hitting it the guest as a write down their option puts it on every truck okay? So yeah basically gonna do that and then I'm gonna take it off these oxen tze that I have because I knew I won't use it there but I know this will save us some time in that there's probably going to be any cue on every single truck and I'm gonna use this saturday a whole bunch. So the next thing I'm gonna do is a bit start figuring out getting a general drum vibe and figured out what I want into this compressor what I don't let's also get rid of this on this on this on start feeling out things kicks outs fantastic great focus I love the river she cried, I'll be talking with music kick sounds great has great focus I want just to a little tweak to it kind of finally freed so it's like kicks super super close but it has like it sounds like a little stuffed up writer this eight hundred frequency, which is often where vocals sound a little congested and other things so I would try to find a place where I could cut that off that's really, really good to me that's the first thing I wasn't particularly loving in this, so now I know I want to throw a little compressed shot, so I'm going to find what my drum compressors called it's bust twenty one twenty two normally at home and I highly is just for you and home to macon in out profile and have these things names, but because we've been going around from so many computers on these files and this isn't my normal computer, I don't have that ready uh, let me hear what this sounds like that so that's feeling like a good starting place for the compressor. So this is interesting. So usually I'm definitely feeling the four to one ratio because like we talked about yesterday is sometimes you want things to be a little more gentle and sensitive sometimes you want to punch in the face and definitely this saw what those jobs one shot in the face so that four to one ratio is feeling really good but it's very rare for me on it when I'm hearing a kick especially I'm hearing a snare I'm going here with this stairs that I don't usually well this point three released I'm usually always on this point one but man when I put it that's something I was like that's exactly what that group feels like it needs so, um, let me is try adding the snare to this so the one thing I'm hearing with the snare is a morning a little bit of bottom and like, it just doesn't have fatness on the bottom that I kind of want to hear withthe so the way I often do that is you know, for me I come from tracking on neave mike prison lies I'm you get that by turning up the two hundred twenty hertz boost on uneven like brie is another nice bragg there, jesse, you know, I'm used to working even though nice breeze, you know, my seven thousand dollars mike freeze at home anyway, I technically sold my seven thousand dollars might need my prison bought cones. So, um, anyway, I want to hear more of that, so I'm gonna try to get some for that fighting is this isn't giving me is much character when I'm hearing that as I'd like like it's kind of doing it but it's doing it in a really transparent digital way so what I'm not going to go to is this wave ready q which I've been talking about dot in this costume you haven't been seen the using some of these mixes are older than I've had this for so basically I'm going to try to ring up the bottom of this and see if it does what I like that's giving me so the next thing I'm feeling for this groups and so much this groove is about that kick it snare bounce is I'm wanting a little bit mohr of ah reverb for the obon snare drum so I'm going bring in and talks were going to name it snare verb now I might use it for other things but that's the way I'm going to remember you can name your thing whatever you're gonna remember, I'm gonna name it whatever I remember it and have it your own way but I know that I'm going to think of this as thie reverb for ah the snare and if I want to put something else and it'll work that way I'm gonna reach for my friend the many m reverb because I think it's nice and simple and I like the way the hall sounds that I know that's probably what I want and put a large hole on and see what I get so what are the things I'll make note of is as you could see what I move this pre delay button it kind of jumped in and out pre delay is pushing the time back it takes before the river of even starts, so it does some weird things when it's jumping around in those settings so it'll cut out so you can always audition this as clearly as I'd like I moved a lot of these accused things out, trying to find what I like about the sound in this so let's hear the sounds of the track now trying to get a good level for it. We already have a pretty dense track so it's funny while I don't always love doing this there's part of me that's emotionally wanting a little bit of kind of upper mid excitement on this reverb, so I'm going to reach for my fab filter saturn and see if I bring that and if I'm just having a bad instincts or what on this river and that did exactly what I heard in my head that I wanted. So now I'm gonna reposition this so it's funny I'm seeing that the stairs not really hitting into this compressor at all or at least affecting and I know it's going through the c q and we're getting a good amount of volume out of it, but it is that thing I'm still like just there's some bit of bottom end that I'm just not loving but it started to get really really good to maine cool that's feeling a lot cora so I notice we have some other snares here so these other snares let's look at what they do in the arrangement so it looks like stare one is not even inasmuch as sneer three yet again another tone I'm really digging I think this sounds really cool let's loop this part a little bit so that's another thing we didn't touch on is I'm a very big fan of a lot of times especially when I feel overwhelmed by makes it just when you're start to feel like a mix is getting the best of you and you can't quite find where to go it's sometimes to be really good to just loop one part and get that to sound good instead of worrying about the whole song I find a lot of the time that if ah song is giving me trouble I need to just go there and then once I have that part right the next part will make more sense to make so let's do this sounds great it was a little bit there's a little bit of fizz in the high ends that's a little I feel like I heard when it was not so old that I was not loving so maybe that's where this is coming from right around there it's just a little less digital to me I I also want to get in here and pretty much every time we're doing these mixes I'm just gonna try to find you know I put on the high pass filter every time on every truck there's some base that could be gotten rid of on every truck even the bassists of bases khun get rid of twenty hertz so this is pretty much every time I get to do it you I'm going to find where that goes that's feeling good what's here this other interesting I did not hear that away on their butt I'm definitely curious to hear that so this is the case of now I'm hearing the sad and I'm like you know all these other sides are so exciting that I want to get a little bit of the stab filter just will make it sound a little more exciting to me so as you could see every time one point was found filter I'm hitting bypass getting to the pre set I think I want there's a couple different ones I use but as you pride this this is one I use a lot there's a couple different ones but I hit bypass so I'm not affected my years don't get clouded in judgment and I on bypass one zero ion bypasses once is on zero and then I saw we bring it up to find the place I wanted now let's see if this compression can help it way have a clop same thing this sounds like it could use some more excitement uh that's right so the number doesn't go over I mean dialling the one I want so starting a real happy with the drums want excite these symbols now and see what's going on with that also I think I forgot I did forget to put on high possible to robust stood up it's so yeah, I want to get a little bit more yeah there's like a little bit of ah impact of the sticks I want to hear that these high hats that's not there someone bring up where I got around here the stick click started to happen and something like let me hear this in the mix now I have to come with many men like, you know, all this stuff is tracked so it's taking a cue well, because you're tones or well balanced they're not out of whack it really thanks he adding well, you did a great job I was I was a little worried uploading it yesterday there's a lot of things for this class is tio I know I'm doing things on here and then there's times like you know I came up short put out that sold vocal before was a guy that's that's pretty good that I remembered through master fair you know it's going to be nervous about what we do with this is that so that we show with the by the seeds of every day which is what makes these courses so great tell me how long did it take you to what the song together yeah ah I think I made the song in like a day and a half um because ah ah ah I started and I'm one of those people that when I started track I get like fully and greste and very much everything stops until it's finished so I'm one of those you know objectivity people where I'm like I don't want to lose this I mean I need to ride this until it's done so yeah I think I did it in like a day and a half nice well you did a great job so let's still want a little bit more exciting on these hats so I mean yet again uh good to go back to my friends the fab filter wants see what I can get out of this so too much of that give it loses some definition so I'm trying to stay away from that um let's see what's going on with this open high had a ride uh interesting okay what's next see when I talk about the dumb things I do is that I thought I heard something happened that high hat we all do this time supplies adjusting the other high hat I thought I heard something that happens to the best of us so that we tried putting this fat filter on this high out again this's actually not doing anything for me that I really like so much trouble but here's another interesting thing is that sometimes when you're not hearing something it's really good to turn it up all the way so you hear what it's doing when it's too much and then take it down no matter what I was kind of not loving this saturn on this so so let's do a note on this high pass filter on the ride um I I really like the bottom end of this ride so I don't want to get a rose I wouldn't be very conscious of not going to write, but the nice thing about it ride cymbal that's programs you could go pretty high and still get rid of some stuff you're not really using so right about there seems right I don't quite have some possesses like on this ride, so I want to find a frequency that brings it out. So now that I've gotten through all these but the crash crash that crash is a little dirtier than I'd like will bit of burkey decide there that I'm not really feeling so I'm gonna try and change this blood pre drastically let's first get rid of that make this loop even tighter so that I can so the next instinct I have is this might be cool, since we lost some of its power in some of this reverb.