Lessons

Lesson Info

Demo: Mixing in a Rock Track Vocals Part 2

So that I had a static mix and it's feeling pretty good I probably would cleanse my palate this is private time I'd check my twitter walk out of the room for five minutes, write an email back to a client something fun like that then what I would do is I would now start checking my other speakers so I'm gonna hit play and listen to what these this sounds like on the amazon now and hear what I hear teo way just swimming in that so that sounds pre damn good to me there's a little frequency things here and some nitpicking I would hear, but I would do all that and then I would also start compared to those five reference trucks we thought about so hearing this song I'm like, I'd probably like, you know, there's not a serf record. I really like the sound of that, I think would it really well with this, I just would kind of like look around, especially with spotify and rdio these days you could look around, find a few things, maybe I'd ask the band what they like in fact, there's no, maybe in ...

that question I would one hundred percent asked the band what they think is a good reference and I'd start trying to zone in let's pretend I just a beat and listen after cataloging some things that I didn't like when I was listening to my five references that I thought I could get better I would then spend some time doing stuff like that now as you can see I still haven't added in the organ the tam marine some other small parts of the song I want to get an overall picture before I start bringing in a lot of the year can andy I want keep spicing it up so I know one thing that's been driving me crazy every time I hit play is I still love the snap of the kick trump so let me work on that and say that's what I heard it I'm going to mess around with you again but some goes god my way so I would basically be a being back and forth and keep fixing and finding the things that I don't like about this so the other thing is we should talk about making some space because I haven't really talked about that is so a lot of this process is just finding the things that aren't feeling is great and trying to accentuate the things you think are great so one of the things like I'm finding like with space is so for example let's go back to this intro and find his vocal where it's just that guitar yeah cool I get this nervous feeling ah weekends with good so I just copied over the cue that was on the other track a spot of heights feels like it has a totally different vibe that I need to get. So that would be like, one of the first things is I'm gonna nitpick is and, you know, one of the big things I think that becomes a myth, too is that you think that you need to have the cuba say, bon uh, what he called instruments through the whole track when I think, especially with bullet holes, it could help to have e cues are totally different, but at the same time work with the emotion of each part. I know this is gonna sound absolutely ridiculous, but if you want to hear how much you could very cute e q sounds on a song that was so good to have it still be consistent. Listen, that spice girls song if you want to be my lover, I know it's the cheesiest solve on earth, but the q settings throughout that song are so dynamic and amazing. It's opened my eyes up to the that, and it doesn't need to just be pop music like you, a really vulnerable light part here, you know, finding a way to make that vocal a little bit, mohr vulnerable inside compared to the next one that sounds a little bit more confident does seem like this is the emotion of the song and you've got to follow that emotion and follow what gives you that emotion back and I'm not quite getting that yet so like I'm going to play around with the c q and try to find where that is I get this nervous feeling weekends with good friends and it's a feel uh can spring and he's got some thiss nervous feeling weekends with good friends and it's a feel uh can spring it so one of the things we talked about is the true to three river bs in a song so here's a funny what is that like I'm not really hearing anything it's this song that would have like that big longer whole reverb but what I am hearing in the song is that this part of the song is such a different emotion then the other part of the song that I really want to make this special andi I think this deserves its own vocal reverb and this one is just not cutting it for me so um I'm gonna call I'm gonna change re verbs on this because the reverb in the next part of story is so subtle that I think it makes sense that we just cotto almost give this to different vibes but still I wanted to feel somewhat the same in the song so um let me try toe find one that seems like it has a great name and maybe that'll get me lucky again just like the last time. Um oh yeah there's this nice thing in this half a reverb where you consorted by vocal sounds that they like and actually it's um pretty good luck with this the other day when I was scrolling around and let's try small standard deep I get this nervous feeling ah weekends with good friends that's not a little too artificial for me right now uh I did just see one though ambient room about you I get this I get this nervous feeling ah weekends with good friends and it's um feel ah, again I'm not like you I'm going to go back to my many m reverb and bet show I could find something there because like I said, I want that thing uh and so I get this nervous feeling ah weekends with good friends and it's going to feel it uh can spring and thiss nervous feeling not perfect but illustrate the point that sometimes, you know, we think of this rule up kind of like say that think of that it's a great idea that you keep three verbs of reverb zina solve that that is a very common thing, but at the same time those don't always have to be the small, medium and large that we talked about, it could be all sorts of things that you could break the rule, and you should follow your emotion, like, right now, my emotion tells me this needs a different reverb. I know I got it pretty close, so jesse, the band members are in the chat room saying we're very happy with the direction the mix is going, and he definitely nailed the mood of the song oh, that's, so sweet of angle, I can't wait said that listen, talk to them myself, so that's awesome. So, um, with that, I guess the last thing I would make it an example is that I would say now I was gonna pull start bringing in. So let me also say this one of the things that we discussed when this break happened was that we're going to kind of go in the automation tomorrow, since we're not going to get into automation today, that we're going to kind of go into some of the more advanced automation. So tomorrow morning we're going to start off with that, or maybe we might do a little quick thing and then go into that, but I will get in the lem nation since we're going to probably not have time for today, but so right now, we're going to say I'm happy with this mix even know I'd love to work on it more time doesn't permit, so I'm gonna start bringing in the very selman so let's show how I do that, so one of the first things we didn't do is we never got thes tom's to sound good. I will usually I would love for the b team or hits, but sometimes there isn't. So this is where there's, too, tom, I would loop those out and seek you compress and work on those for quite a while. If there's, I will also also say this that a lot a lot of records when I can't if I'm going to mix the whole record and I don't get the toms, I only have two hits. Another song is a lot of times I'll often times go in and import this mix into it at the end, mess with those toms and try to get that and then import the cue back over and see if that works, and then a lot of times I'll even revise the mix after that, after I mix the song with the toms and put that q one and see if I could get it to sound better there so that the mix s so that the record has a consistent tom sound. Just because you started off with one without tom's, you made need to revise you may need to go back and tweak that again, so I then go one by one the elements and try to bring them in and find their place so let's, start with pretend we got those toms and let's play with this. So what I'm liking about this organ is it's got a really good high end it doesn't sound computer really like a lot of the high ends in the box organs who knows? They probably used something pretty cool to get this because it actually sounds really good, so I'm gonna bring out that high, end a little bit and get rid of some of the world because I don't want muddying up the mix, so what I'm basically searching for is what I like about the high end and I'm gonna find a place for it once it's in the truck, so that seems like that's a decent place for it. For now, I also see that this is nowhere near the same volume here much lower, so I would probably find some sort of compromise or do some automation for this year I might need to since it's plague so much different yet again as you could see this little key command here I'm holding down the three keys next the space bar I would probably automate this will pass filter which you could do by holding those down the bring that in and I'd pull down this so I get a little bit more of that base since this plays a little lower yes, and then I would automate this up to get it right in the mix er what other elements do we have that I haven't brought in? And, uh oh looks like we have backing vocals, which isn't the most, you know, what's interesting I like really like this intra these guys did so let's see what we got to do to get these ambient sound since these could be some of the most painful thing is in the mix if they're not recorded, right? But I think this time and really good get this or leave here with this is that something I'm gonna make that a little bit of I like to call some elements to make someone for the kids in the dorms, you know, when they're been smoking some of the wacky to back and they have their head phones on that you don't hear that the first time, so I'm gonna find a special place the pan that keep that a little subtle um I get this service you thie q on those three omens is sounding pretty right to me, so I'm not really getting too crazy that I see what all right so now that I hear this is the answer to this focal I now get this a little bit better that this should not be so but also what's fine howie way so I think it's kind of cool to have these pad toe left and right so you're always getting up into different speakers yet again we've got to keep the year can be happy for the kids of the dorms the key takeaways I would say is um you wanna prep your tracks before you mix I was able to concentrate on being creative I got all that stuff out of the way I was able to just keep going get some momentum going and keep just I felt really good throughout this mixing process you want to establish a goal for the mix like I said this mix I found that I really like that acoustic guitar and I want to make sure that doesn't get covered I wanted even keep bringing it out more and more and more I really like his vocal he wrote some great lyrics so I want to make sure that shyster every word gets hurt and tomorrow I'll go through a little bit of the automation on how you get those words hurt and then the other thing I think is that you know, we talked about so many techniques the last two days you want to build this haystack accumulates all of these it's lots of little things that had to agree with that don't feel like you have to la bod ten d b of compression for its matter a little bit of this a little bit of that a little bit of a bunch of things that do good could really add up to something great cool oh guys are so kind jesse cannon you're so awesome so this is just a really good question that eyes actually something I am curious about two from mom mark zero let's say that you need to tune the vocal our harmonies or make fake harmonies what's your method for finding the key of the song okay, so there's two ways you could do this one you could play along and figure it out if you're a terrible terrible musician like me who's really really good at like one handed keyboard parts at this point there are because I haven't been in the band now for thirteen years because I've been doing this for so long with my technique if I'm without an instrument like in my apartment I don't keep musical instruments of there because I need a place that I don't make music funny that I have pro tools in there I will either take a soft said and play along or broadly based through it auto tude I'll see what notice it's playing up figure out the key like that so that's a pretty easy way to do it okay um so this question had come abasi question had come up with north and from north and recording what's your take on all all in one boutique plug ins e maserati seela jack joseph accept or do you prefer using the individual elements to get your sound I prefer using the individual of it's it's the same way I feel about ozone and other plug ins like that is that I tend defied the plug ids work best when they're just what they now I will also say this that there's times I put that chris ward alge poking out of backing vocal that I wanted a fact odd add the vocal effects plug it could be a nice thing for just like you know like a real subtle little think of the big said like you throw it on and it's got just like a cool little character and a little rushed because the bads running out of a budget it could be great but in general I think those are great for like wording and come out with things but I'm just you know, I know all these tools really well and I think there's something really good about learning the specialized tools because I think there is a better result but you know, I mean I've also fallen in love with those many m plug ins tomorrow I'm going to show you one of the things I've been doing with the media a bug it's that's kind of like a really good short cut for you when you're first starting off that I really found with the track doesn't sound good there's like a trick I've been using with the towed shaper that I'm just like man that guy really made an amazing pocket but that's all flowed the first of those all in one plug ins that I've ever really been blown away by ok and a follow up a plug in question from dan iko so I noticed just uses different types of the same plug in what is the benefit of using different versions of the accuser compressions other than emulating actual different types of gear I'm not talking about different types per se but different brands of plug ins yet they also have different the bomb factory eleven seventy six sounds so much different than the seventy six it's well, I could say the seventy six has all this bottom end and I think it's just finding which ones work that trick idea with the overheads that I showed before doesn't work on that seventy six the way it does in the bomb factory one of I think that's just the same thing is like the hardware stuff is like it's that funny thing is it's like it's a different person in putting math and do an algorithm and they don't all work the same and they're not all you know emulation tze you know, none of these really work the same way things do, but they do something cool, and a lot of them sound really good, and they don't need to sound exactly the same way as the hardware does, but it's finding which ones work well with each thing like, you know, I'm I've been really in love with that waves ready to you and, you know, I've used in my accuse before it doesn't sound exactly like it, but it sounds really cool and similar and using a different way, and it sounds awesome, I think, it's, just finding things that work for you. Ah, this is ah, question you dealt with in your master in class a little bit and I I wish that I had known this because I literally bought some speakers about a week before that. Um, ace boogie has a question for you, which is with four speakers slash monitors. What size do you recommend? Eight, five, six, etcetera. Uh, so to me, I use the general ten thirty's, which I believe are a six inch will for I could be wrong. I'm very bad visual person. I don't remember this. That looks like six inches, right? Yes, cool, six inches work great, the ten, thirty ones our eight inches, I believe, and they're like a little too much bass for me personally, so I like a mid sized one, but I also think they could be too small. I notice on some of the smaller k arcades that it just doesn't reproduce base the way I would like it. And you need a bigger speaker to reproduce that base properly. See, I got the five. Yeah, I wish that I would have spent an extra fifty bucks and gotten six is yeah, there's, just something that's like a little plasticky and small about the smaller ones. Now, can you still do great work on it? Absolutely. Especially if you're not doing really base intense music, but yes, if you're going out to truth like yet again, I'm gonna plug these yamaha speakers you guys have here is that every time I turn him on, I'm just like these air a great buy. And I know todd who ah, I wrote my book with just bought him, and he loves them as well. Well, uh, question from any of the h fifty one fifty how do you deal with noisy guitar amps like uber ultra high gain? Also, do you recommend recording the noises like the hiss and home, etcetera solely by themselves, and then inverting the phase to counsel the noise out no, I actually just something totally different. I suggest that you're doing your game wrong of third noisy. Those amps are not meant to be noisy and all the records you love unless you're listening to really terrible sounding grind corps records that odds are there gain staged there using cables? I mean, you got to remember, like, getting that hum out of those guitars sometimes is stan, you know, I have guys when we're doing records for two weeks where they have to face a certain way to get the home out of their guitar, but we also do is we search through qatar's, we have thirty different cables at the studio, and then we set the game properly so that we don't get that I would really suggest try turning your master up in your gained out and getting your tone different, maybe see if there's a problem with your pickups are using cheap cables, or you're turning your pedals up to I have a bad pedal in the system that's bringing in our f noise something is wrong your change another great tip? Because I know there's a mixing class but record with only the pedal your recording with do not record through paddleboard record directly into one pedal, one cable shortest cable run possible without it being silly do not try to, you know if this is your guitar, do not get a two foot cable that goes here in theory, in her face or into your amp like allows some breathing room six feet of cables find but twenty five feet of guitar cable before you turn up tons again. That's bad bad news never mind through all that feet of cable in your pedal board or whatever no, and I know this isn't your workflow, but another option till we think about this is recording dies editing out the silence, you know all that stuff and then ramping up that is an option on diseases when I've employed before, but most often I fix it at the source there's no reason I don't have homes in my home and my recording, but I also you know, I work very hard at this, you know, it's not uncommon for me to do two hours a guitar tone that's that's something I noticed, I used to have probably feedback and hama and stuff and then ayla's likewise or gain so high and I haven't had any problems with it ever since you don't need it I e one of the big gain gain is like a bad relationship was a drug and it's the same thing like even with like loudness, maximization of mixes that you get your life, you get addicted to it, and you need to learn to back off and use it. Suddenly, it's really tough at first, because it is addicting and feels great to play, too. But, you know, I gotta stay off those drugs kids. Why is words from mr general?