Lessons
Who I Am
04:13 2Free Preview: Introduction to Mixing
05:42 3The Mixing Toolset
07:39 4Reference Makes Perfect
22:26 5Calibrating Your Room
19:28 6Using a Reference Track
08:37 7Preparing Your Mix
08:50 8Understanding Gain Staging
08:46Analog vs Digital Gain Staging
05:12 10Adding Dynamics to your Mix
11:12 11Getting a Balanced Mix
09:55 12What is Loudness?
14:15 13What Is Compression?
05:06 14Compression Parameters
14:08 15Basic Compression Techniques
19:55 16Multiband, Sidechain and Glue Compression Techniques
15:34 17The Golden Rule of Compression
07:29 18Basics of Equalization
06:07 19High Pass and Low Pass Filters
07:09 20Additive and Subtractive EQ
17:23 21Mid-Side EQ
22:36 22Spatialization and Panning
07:26 23Panning In-Depth in Ableton
14:13 24Using Reverb
28:04 25Mixing Recap
03:44Lesson Info
Adding Dynamics to your Mix
now, One thing we want to look at is what happens when you want to add humanization and dynamics to your volume. This is something I saw in nto CEOs track, and we're going to be looking at it of using automation within the track. Volume actually makes it kind of hard to mix. We're gonna look at adding new automation lanes and using a technique to to prepare our volumes for mixing. I want to give you an example of that to bread. So I'm just gonna open up in Theo's track and I'm pretty sure we're gonna have a link at some point to their music. But it's what soundcloud and feel music are just just soundcloud Anthea or nto music. Follow him there. Totally great. A lot of these guys music's fantastic. We're gonna listen to it for just a second because we haven't actually listened to a part of it yet, and then I'm going to show you some volume things that you can look at. I could just listen that forever love that music. But there's some things we see in the volume, and we're gonna be lookin...
g at that. I'm trying to see I know that I found tracks before that had volume automation just have to find them. I mean, there is quite a few of them, but I wanted to find a really good example. Here's here's it. No, no, that's your input output. All right, Well, all of these do work in a way, but basically what I'm looking for is every time, every other, that's no. Yeah, you have a lot of them. That won't work, too. All right, so every time if you pick your volume, notice how there's like this little red dot on the volume. That means it's been automated every time there's a red dot Within life, there's been some formal automation. Well, let's say Theo set up this volume to be this certain level if I play it. And if I were going to my arrangement, you, for instance, and trying to affect it, since he's added automation as soon as as soon as you go back to normal automation because it takes over, it'll change it. But as soon as you go back, it goes that original automation that is not helpful when you're mixing like if I mean here, mixing all these different levels. There's how they all are red. They have those little red dots on them right there. That means they've been automated. So I can't actually like, come in here and change the volumes very quickly and easily within my Knicks on the mixing stage. So what you want to do is you want toe. You want to make sure that this automation that's happening is not happening at track level. So any humanization or changing to the volume levels through time, you should do through utility. So, utility If I dragon in here, it can affect volume. And yeah, we have a question. What if I'm doing this to bring something in same thing? Because if you bring something in, if you're later in your mix and you decide the highest part, the rest of the track needs to go up by, like two TV or down through two D b. You have to go in. It's really annoying. You have to come in here, you have to select all of it if to go move it. But sometimes you move it like too far left. I mean, we've all experienced this, and, uh, and the problem is as soon as you add a new section or you change your base. Now you gotta go back, change the volume, and you're doing this over and over and over and over. But if you automate this volume, then we can get those types of fades and make it easier to next. Easiest way to do this is if I pick this little guy to represent the willing and come to my track. There's this little plus button. You'll see it right there. I press that it gives me a new lane, and a new lane is dedicated to whatever parameter I want to choose. So now I can change my volume in this new lane and it shows it, no matter what I'm looking at in other lanes. Right? So there we go. That's the volume. Now, in this instance, I'm gonna have to translate your volumes to this, which doesn't take that long. I mean, all I have to do is say OK, it goes to it, goes minus two to minus 10 around. What I can do is I can actually right click copy and loop. Just pasting control the or command V and it pasted. Now you just got a double check because the range of utility is way higher. So it might actually you have to play with it a little, So I don't need to make sure that this section right actually went to minus 10. So I'll just move it a little. Yeah, because it was at, like, plus 10. Oh, no, I'm looking to the wrong area. I was 12 getting close around there. I mean, it has the same contour, which is fine. No, change that to minus two. It takes just a little bit. But once you have that, I can. And now delete this automation by right click or double click on Mac and oops, that was duplicate. Delete envelope. Now this volume. Oops. Why? Oh, because they're still there. One hiding? Yes. There's another one hiding. Do you now? If I said this to zero, I have my automation. So we're seeing automation here in my volumes. Right. Slowly moving. But I can now adjust The actual output of all in the final volume of that track is now free to move through. Outlined mixing. So could you take a guess? That may be why I had it automated. like that. Well, you have the eq you here which you could automate gain on your reach. You Oh, there's this gay knob, which is important when we look atyou queuing. I'm gonna show that, but just is like a to show. You can do it through utility and I prefer to, like, really go through, clean up the whole mix, especially if I have a client. Give it to me and change all those automation to in utility gain Always makes me nervous and maybe not rightly so, because I would assume it becomes much more sensitive as well. So I'm gonna hear more noise. Forces will never Mike, if I turn the being that too much against unfortunate sometimes or a track that turned the game starts getting super noisy. Is it not the case in some of these that if I crank the game, is it gonna get kind of uglier? Well, I mean, yeah, if you recorded at minus 40 and you're bringing up its yeah, it's gonna all sorts of weird stuff will happen, but generally, if you're working in the box, things are allowed to begin with, like if you have a synthesizer, it should be it around like minus six or something you have. And it's a way cleaner sound. So it's not that big of a deal. If you ever dealing with, like, professional samples, all that stuff. It's like super cleaning and a decent level. Um, but yeah, I mean, if you're bringing, if you're bringing it up plus 35 like you can't on utility, there's a problem. But I'm showing how to automate. Get rid of these automation points so that when we're actually mixing like this is a great example of throughout this track. And Feo here is changing, just like one section by up to DB, which means he's he's found out that that's what he wants that part of the track to be like. But in the mixing it again, it's totally hard to deal with. So you just come in here. You're right. Click it. You add a utility. Bam! Drop it in. Come through. Looks like you have some spike there and you just copy the envelope. Copy envelope going to this one. Hit the plus button to make a new lane. You don't have to new do a new lane. I just find it helpful, and then I paste and make sure they're similar volumes. But going in here, what? Minus six? What? Around 96? I mean, it's not Doesn't have to be perfect, because the ratio should, you know, should be about the same. So that was at minus six six. And this one's at mice nine. So bring that one up a little, and we'd have about that, right? And then I can delete that the automation. Great. Once I do that, I'm much more free to use the knobs, right? Which I'm not gonna I mean, there's a lot on here. They do that. And I'm not gonna have timeto told really go through do that to all of them, But you guys would get it. If you have a client that using that you're mixing, do this beforehand or have been do it or you just spend, like, 10 minutes or so
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Ratings and Reviews
Jose Gerardo Rendon Santana
Excellent Course, Isaac Cotec is a great instructor and a great producer. The course is very well organized explaining each important step of the mix. as well as great tips and techniques. He also includes a great deal of support material with the course including an Ableton Live Pack with tons of great presets and tools to put to practice the knowledge acquired in the course.
Ian turner
this is the best thing money can buy in my life. Isaac makes it look easy and the way he teaches makes you understand everything and makes it easy for you as well. its exactly what i wanted to learn in each video! i cant even sleep because another video loads and im like "ohhhh i need it" lol. i thank god for this class being affordable and the real deal.
a Creativelive Student
Isaac covers an amazing amount of material in a clear and concise way. Great intro to mixing with Ableton or review for the intermediate user who wants to solidify their best practices, DAW knowledge as well as gain some production tips.
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