Lessons

Lesson Info

Automating Reflections Mix

Let's start by looking at the kick a lot of times I'm one kick kind of dude by the way um I have stacked samples a lot on some records I'll have you know, one kick for a certain types of parts I'll have another kick for like softer parts or sometimes I'll have different different kicks for or at least different velocity layers for different types of parts but this is another way that I do things let's just do it through automation and just one kick that works for you so first thing that was really important here and you'll see this a lot throughout the day is automating this bypass now exit here check it out so this right here this week you so low and bunk can bypass there and uh quickly it comes on and off I don't know you guys do this uh but I will have these automating excuse kicked her himself throughout now was interesting about this is that on most records what I'll be automating is a high pass like I'll cut everything off below say forty on the fast parts um and I'll be showing ...

you guys that on a later mix that we're going to go through but for some reason and this was an artistic choice on this record I wanted the double bass to hit you in the face a little more so like I said before the the aggression was more of a priority than the clarity I mean still need enough clarity for it to be a professional mix and you know not get rejected and for people who actually know what's going on but the artistic decision wass want more aggression so actually did the opposite of what I normally do which was bumped the low end on some of the double bass parts but so on those little love under zero turn turn turn right yeah a little automation things just for you know to make a certain part hit a certain way what kind of animations do you do on cakes just out of curiosity on the kick it maybe it's just level like some sometimes on double kick parts the low and will almost get too much yeah so sometimes to do the opposite of this really is on the double kicks just bring it down but that's what I was bringing that up normally I do the opposite of this um like especially on a death metal thing I think also this is slower music so I've noticed that a lot of times metal mixers the guys that do the fast stuff are not good at mixing slower music is because they don't know how to change gears it's like they're just usedto ok so you have double bass you cut out the sub's that's what you do and that's right? That is what you do with fast music but this because this is much slower what I was noticing when I try that was when I cut the subs out of the out of the double kick parts the power was suddenly gone out of everything, so instead of basically opening the part up like it would on something fast it actually did the exact opposite. It kind of just died, so I try to do the exact opposite and it worked so and that's what? The song so that's one thing so in controlling the low and balance is I think we talked yesterday at some point about having to choose what's going to be what's going to dominate the low end and I decided it would be the kicks on those parts but you will see here that, like, for instance, um we got a double bass part right here. The volume is at point eight that's something that says, god, I'm blind but that's yeah that's one point two d v down from the normal volume so I still do turn turn the kicks down during double bass parts turn it down but bumped the low end up a little bit um as you can see here too, there are quite a few tiny automation moves going on throughout the song, so I'll un solo this and uh let's go to this double bass part in some ways that's the opposite of what I would normally do in double bass but for some reason the work and then the idea was that just because it went to solo I didn't want the low and to just drop out but the same time you didn't want to kick to overpower the solo and that's what happens and so's is the click of the kick will interfere with the clarity of the solo so you do have to get double bass out of the way I figure at least boosting the low end it would keep the consistent thought happening so with this intro however see what the volume is on that um I did not lower the volume that's because the power needed to be there the whole time that is needed to hit you like like a brick all right now maybe you guys could hear the automation there on the turn to turn it and how bump the low and they're a little bit because I wanted those other little accents to pop out more so check it out again and watch watch this bypass but the low and kicks up just a little bit more in those parts then you see there's a volume automation there uh no no it's just two dots for no reason it bring it brings out those those little accent parcel it mind you I want to also point this thing all right here and noticed that these two kicks are quieter, like substantially quieter because they're in a film often times when I had told based on the phil, I actually make a point of bringing it down a little so that it doesn't, because if you have kicks and tom's going at the same time, for instance, you'll encounter many situations where the kicks and the tom's mask each other, and I'll show you guys ways to get around that in other songs, because that issue comes up a lot. But just as a general rule of thumb, when you have, like, you know, multiple little kick bursts or whatever, quasi or whatever in phil, I'll bring the kicks down and, uh, yeah, so so you guys just a general treatment to this kick anyways, um, and again, as you see, this is an old real quick. This is an older mix, uh, it's a different sort of prep scenario. I'll get back to the kick in the second. As you see, uh, there's, not much. Hell, let me get one more thing going on. You know, my view right here. So I don't have to keep switching screens. So we notice there's no kick bus, and if you notice a lot of the more complicated routing functions and features that we talked about yesterday or not in this mix but like I said, this is a earlier mix however it's still organized in a way that I understand it it still makes sense I've still got my drums going in order that the snares color coded to each other this was back when I was doing stuff with someone that like no color it also still in that mindset but you have all your symbols in one color then at least I know where my guitars are here so I still have it relatively organized enough so that I know is going on um one thing that you missed was there saying that er and I should this bears repeating is that we're going through older mixes some some of them were done on systems that you know don't exist anymore like for instance, I did this on pro tools eight tdn so I don't have tdm plug ins that they didn't make new versions for and there's there's just differences that I couldn't recreate and also a lot of these mixes have hardware inserts that you don't have now so there are slight differences but she has concede this isn't quite as complicated of a template this was before the the amazing template I showed you guys yesterday but it's still laid out in a way that makes sense see vocals what will you go get your drums snares coded for reason overheads rooms your bases your guitars, your lead guitars, clean guitars, guitar effects, vocals, vocal effects and then weird noises because they so it's still laid out in a way that I could understand um all right so back to the kicks so this is single sample and uh this is uh says all I did to it they see here she one sec there's another layer of complexity that I think you guys will find interesting about this kick and I'm just setting it up in a way to show you exactly what it is some more automation cz so I mean you erin we're talking about how you use multiple kicks blended together I often use multiple multiple types of automation zx to get different things with white kick because at least this one kick I know that thea the phase is going to be is going to find so we're about to say in case you asked me a question how are you doing? Fine great does my question cool okay, so you see right here I have ah I haven't ox have a bus right here on the kick bus nineteen it's just maintaining ah you know constant level and uh I didn't name it but it was right there and I knew it and again this is my own mix so I knew is that people was going on um and I cut out the low end as you can see on that and then I, uh compressed the hell out of just the high end on it and there's something for you guys to try so bus nineteen that and that trick is that you send your kick too an ox and on the ox uh, you remove all the low end and then you compress just the clicking nous of of the kit and then you can blend the cliquey nous in as desired so you can see here there's another element to that solo that we were just going through, you know, we're talking about the clicking this, uh, getting in the way of the lead guitar. Well, sometimes just turning down the volume isn't enough. In my opinion, like when we get got to this section right here to me, just turning down the kick wasn't enough to get it out of the way of the solo because I had bus nineteen you know, the compressed sign to the kicks still in there, so I turned it down considerable about, um his ten to myself, so at least two d be so not only did the overall level of the kick come down like a dvd and a half the high end, the high end compressed track there came down to tv, so really getting the high end out of the way of that lead simultaneously boosting the low end on the kick tio at least keep keep the loan balance there so uh the reason I'm kind of going through this guy guys is because low in balance it was a really, really tough thing to do so often it requires a bunch of little moves put together tio to get it to get it to work. So for instance, if I had just turned down the kick to get it out of the way of the solo um I'd be turning down everything so the low end would go down the high end would go down and sure you'd hear the solo better but you would lose the foundation of the mix so that's why, as I turn down, the volume turned up the low end but then I realized ok that's not enough uh that that's definitely not enough. I needed to actually even turn on the high end a little bit more to get the solo to poke through something. Yes. Karen wants to know when you say low in balance what's what is like perfect loan balance look like what are you referring to? Specifically when you say little imbalance, what do you try to balance when trying toe the low end of the entire makes alot and how the guitars bass and kick all work together tio be a consistent oh consistent and powerful throughout the song without getting flooding without fluctuating so it's not like you suddenly go to this solo er and the low end drops out that's one of the problems with uh I guess early mixes is that people don't know how to control their low end so you'll get to something like this were ok you've got double bass going and so you got to turn it down so that it doesn't overpower everything and people don't know how to compensate for it and then suddenly it goes a double bass section and the bottom falls out so yes so you're balancing a bunch of things you're keeping the bottom from falling out while retaining your clarity and it's often a collection of a bunch of different moves I hope that that that helps definitely that's ah it's a tough thing to deal with um no we got this as well on here uh on this kick the basic e q right here and uh to see one thing real fast see something okay um and I guess that this this became an issue in another song uh is you see right here I have I have this low pass filter autumn autumn a double on guy do that because sometimes you have a softer apart you want little less click um I give myself various different ways to control a certain element that's really prominent in this style so cliquey bass drums are they're just the thing in medal a a lot of people complain about them you can't have kick drums that air too cliquey and else and I find that just doing having one way to approach the problem isn't enough like so for instance you have a soft part and in their song maybe turning down the compressed track on lee isn't the right thing to do and maybe you don't even want to compress track and there were you don't want that high end slamming in the face but at the same time uh you still need a way to reduce the clicking nous so I attached a kn automation too the low pass filter and as you can see, it moves a automation for those of you who don't know howto automate to plug ins and pro tools will show you real fast right here you see this little, uh, square on the square you touch it, you click it don't touch the square on the square could get weird uh then you you pick your parameter like pressure compressors threshold you add it and voila then it'll appear in your options they're removed that okay and then besides that I've got some pretty extreme meet you on the kick uh raised eight like everybody always does raised the hell out of three point five for ish lord the hell out of the mids and gave a boost at around eighty. Okay, now, why eighty, um, that's what it says, right, yeah, this was since I remember eighty, and this is something that will forever be etched into my memory, because when you're balancing the kick in the base, you have to decide who's going to inhabit the bottom of the mix. Is it going to be who's going to get the sub's prominently? Is there going to be the kicks, or is it going to be the bass? And I decided that it's not going to be the kick. Okay, so I decided that, uh, that the kicks were going to be above the base. So as you can see, I have eighty boosted right there, and then I do have the kicks. I do have a high pass to around forty four already just on their period. It's, not automated, so let's, go take a look at the base real quick.