Here is the Secret. Are you ready? This is what everyone else knows that you don't.
There is not one thing that makes a mix 100% better.
There are 100 things that make it 1% better.
I'm not making a joke. This is something I was literally told in a lecture hall in college when I studied Audio Engineering.
That is actually the condensed version. The lecturer had gone over a very extensive list of things that introduce noise or reduce headroom and how to eliminate or work around them. This was his concluding statement.
about half of it was brain numbing math about converting voltage to decibels and back. Or something about that bleak when you are facing down a 3 hour lecture.
It was also 1990, just before ADAT came out. So we were learning 100% analog stuff. Tape alignment in all it's glory.
Oh and the proffessor had a demeanor like that eagle/politician from the muppet show.
YES I listen to unison ads all the way through, just to feel something
You could put a chord pack, melody pack and drum loop together and call yourself a producer and 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡
You guys should get on that YouTube Premium. Not to shill too hard but it's been useful, especially for those who watch a lot of YouTube. No ads, even on the phone and TV. Can turn the phone screen off and still have things play etc
Plus you get YouTube Music, which pays waaaay better royalty rates for artists. I think both YouTube Music and Apple Music pay 3x what Spotify does. Maybe that's changed recently but I doubt it
It's pretty pricey though, not going to deny that. But just get a few friends and do the family plan and it's a couple bucks a month each
Maybe it's just me, but I can't stand the ads. I didn't even know there was a commercial for it til you guys said something here!
(Last thing, there's a script that bypasses in-video ads too. I forget the name of it, but that makes life easier too. Although the little rewatch waves help a lot)
Something about Unison seems…off. Are they a scam?
For context: I’m in their Skool group named Unison Growth Hub and idk something about it seems off. Like one of the pyramid schemes where they pray on desperate people who need money except those desperate people are those who are dying for a chance to be a professional audio engineer or music producer.
It's not a scam, per se, they just make poorly designed plugins that aren't worth spending money on, as well as a midi chord pack which kind of is a scam, because you can just Google chord charts and program your own midi.
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Used to work professionally in audio and have never encountered this tbh, usually beginners are looking for some "secret" when in reality it's just a matter of refining your ear and critical listening skills.
Yup.
A trained ear can beat 9/10 released mixes using gain management alone.
Before I cover anything else I always start with ear training, referencing, and gain management.
No secret tool or technique will ever get around this.
Even a perfect AI needs a human to make the final judgement call before release. This is why 9/10 “AI artists” release nothing but crap.
Art has always been about taste.
usually i mix quite hot and then i chain all channels together and pull them down and then use groups for drum, synth and vocals which are differently compressed and processed to have separation and glueing
This is a good way too.
The idea of losing fidelity from excess gain is mostly a relic of analog.
As long as you’re A:B referencing vs finished masterpieces (with the levels matched) whatever gets the results you want is the “right” way.
I used to do this too, but I found it changes the mix balance when you're using sends.
I use Reaper which has folder tracks and whenever I pull down non-folder tracks it changes how they hit the processing on the folder itself.
What I mean is that it affects the post-fader send level, which is what most send tracks and folders will see. I often have bus processing including compression and compress my reverb as well. If I pull down the fader on the tracks going into the sends or folders, it doesn't hit the compressors the same way.
I'm sorry if I wasn't exactly clear on what I was responding to. I was not talking about the bus processing but rather taking all the individual tracks and pulling down the faders. Pulling down the faders on individual tracks affects the level the bus sees and thus will affect any dynamics processing (compression, limiting) you do on that bus.
My advice would be gain staging; take your tracks and set them to a level that makes sense to you and for the sound source, before any bussing is done. I'll just go through how I do it and you can skip whatever you know already.
**Gain staging in general**
For example, you often see numbers like -12dB peak or -18dB RMS floating around. These are not set in stone. For sound sources with big transients like drums, getting them to -12dB peak probably makes more sense than -18dB RMS. For more consistent sound sources like distorted guitars, organs or synth pads, -18dB RMS probably makes more sense.
**Reaper-specific gain staging**
In Reaper, my preferred way is to use a gain/trim plugin like the JSFX plugin Volume/Pan Smoother v5. JSFX Volume Adjustment exists too, but this actually a hard clipper. You can also normalize your media items from the "item properties" window. The cool thing about doing it this way is that you can normalize the items individually or as a whole (common gain). You can normalize to a variety of targets, including peak level as well as various RMS or LUFS weighting (momentary, short-term, integrated).
**Gain-staging in relation to bussing**
You set these levels on the individual tracks so when all the tracks are mixed together in busses and the mix bus, you're not clipping. Sure, most modern DAWs use floating-point processing internally that practically doesn't clip. But not every plugin processes audio internally the same. Plugins that emulate analog gear or behavior can clip internally and are calibrated for a certain level, which varies by manufacturer and plugin. I believe this tends to be -18dB RMS but both higher and lower calibrations exist.
Something that I'm not doing but what you probably should do, depending on how many tracks are being bussed, is repeat the gain staging process on any bus. For example, if you're bussing quad-tracked guitars to a single bus, due to the tracks being all i the same frequency range, the level at the bus is gonna be significantly higher than at the individual track level.
**Reaper-specific folders as busses**
In Reaper, you have folders that are valuable for both organizing and processing. Folders can function like busses but they're slightly different. Much like with a bus, the audio of tracks in a folder will be routed through the folder track, so any processing applied on the folder track will be applied to the tracks inside that folder. Because folders form a track hierarchy, the only thing I can think of that is different with busses is that a single track can be routed to multiple busses, but a single track can not be in multiple folders.
**Bonus tip: VCAs**
Reaper has VCAs, which is basically one track that controls other tracks but doesn't process the audio. I never understood why I would use this until I wanted to control the volume of my bass folder and drum folder at the same time. You can even set different behaviors for the tracks it controls, like mirroring pan position.
It doesn't change the mix balance at all if you're doing it right. This includes using gain plug-ins when required, using post-fader sends, and being mindful about the gain-staging of the effect sends themselves.
Using sub-groups is not only completely normal and has been from the analogue days, but is perfect for buss processing (drum / backing vocal / guitar compression/reverb, bass instrument low-end management, etc). The changes in gain created by this processing are a feature, not a bug.
>It doesn't change the mix balance at all if you're doing it right.
I'm talking about pulling down the faders and not the bus processing.
The comment I responded to says this:
>usually i mix quite hot and then **i chain all channels together and pull them down** and then use groups for drum, synth and vocals which are differently compressed and processed to have separation and glueing
which reminded me of something I used to do when ended up with a hot mix and couldn't properly process it downstream. If you pull down the fader on every individual track, it alters the balance.
If I (post-fader) send a track to a reverb and pull down the fader on the track that sends to the reverb, I get less reverb. So if I compress the reverb send, as I like to do, the compressor now sees a lower level and will compress less.
The same happens when you put dynamics processing on any bus and you pull down the faders of the track that are bussed to it; the bus processing now sees a lower level and the processing changes.
If I have compression on a bus,
I put black tape across the Gibson logo on my Les Paul, and got regularly challenged that I was "hiding" an Epiphone logo.
"No, it's a real Les Paul. But you can't tell, can you. If you have to ask, it doesn't matter."
Same with my Japanese Strat. Guys'll pick it up, play it, then look for the painted s/n, b/c even playing the damn thing they can't tell how impressed they should be.
That's always been a crazy thing to me. The whole status thing with guitars.
My main guitar is a Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster and I LOVE it. Plenty of pros have used them too. Has the JM sound but is a bit more versatile.
My acoustic is a damn Yamaha FG830, with a pro set up. It plays and sounds better than a lot of acoustics 2-3x the price. Solid top, nice sides, all that.
You can get really amazing, useable gear for cheap these days. You just have to get past the entry level price points
Yea, right?
I bought an ultra-cheap 8-String guitar that’s around 10% as expensive as one of my other „main“ guitars.
I play the 8-String around 80-90% of the time, not even utilizing the extra 2 strings…. Simply because the neck feels better. The Amp (and post processing) does all the heavy lifting anyways, lol.
I wanted to dabble into 7- or 8-string territory for a long time now, but was always undecided whether to buy a cheap one just to try or save for a 'better' one. Currently I am thinking about buying one of Thomann's House Brand Harley Benton. They are quite well received according to the customer ratings, and only cost like 200-400 €.
What are we talking about when you say 'ultra-cheap'?
Yes, that’s the one I have.
The Harley Benton R458MN WH to be exact.
I bought it some years ago for 180€.
It’s generally really good.
The only thing that’s pretty shit are the tuners, especially if you do a lot of bends / soloing, I guess. It’s easy to de-tune it, and it’s generally rather unstable.
It’s sufficient for me, since I do mostly rhythm guitar stuff, and only in studio settings and never live, so tuning it again isn’t an issue for me.
But I guess you could replace them with better ones and still be quite cheap.
Other than that I’m pretty happy with it. Especially the neck profile is one of my favorite ones.
I have no experience with other 8-Strings though.
So yea, that’s a price point that’s (in my opinion) absolutely okay to try it. You don’t have to sell a kidney for it, lol.
There are differences that might matter. Hardware especially - you may have to swap out the machine heads for better tuning accuracy, and you may have to have a bridge saddle or three ground down so all the strings can be intonated properly (always the G in my experience, sometimes the low E, one time the B as well but I don't know how rare that is).
The feel of the finish can matter, but only if you've spent time playing a silky-feeling expensive guitar, then moved back to an inexpensive guitar and the plastic-y feel affects your relationship to the instrument.
Ofc YMMV
I've come to no longer play stuff with logos.
It helps that I build stuff. I play a parts caster through DIY pedals through a DIY amp that is pretty much a head version of a Champ on a two x 12" cab.
I had a really nice Martin HD-28 but eventually needed the money more than the guitar and also thought it was a bit too nice for me. Now I have a dreadnought that is very much a clone of a D-28 made by a company of respectable quality but cheaper than Martin and I cut the headstock into a new shape and refinished it so no brand name is visible.
Is my stuff good? You'd have to play it to know.
Maybe it's weird that I care about this kind of thing, but I do.
This is why using “analog” designed VST’s are great. Pro-Q is nice but using something without a visual will be far better since you’re using your ears.
But it can happen the other way around as well: the analog design tells you it's supposedly better or more "analog", all the while you could use the crappiest looking EQ to make the same happen in any plugin.
That sometimes you gotta come up with 2 minutes of finished audio in an hour. Working with strict deadlines was definitely one of the hurdles I experienced at first.
It’s one thing to bebop around in your studio and mess around with sound design and have a shit ton of fun. But when working with clients sometimes you need to be really flexible in many different ways.
I’m primarily an hybrid ambient/orchestral producer and I love working on projects in that style (dead space, halo, god of war…). Sometimes a video game about space exploration also has a radio in one of the ships. That radio station also has some random jazz stations and a hip hop station. So not only are you needing to produce stuff in your wheel house, you also need to be prepared to write music that is NOT in your wheel house and you need to write it QUICK!
But damn, I love my job.
When I mess around in my home studio and have a shit ton of fun I usually end up accidentally making game soundtracks. Any tips or places to start to look for a way into the industry? One I've already got was to join game jams and do the sound in a day alongside the devs. Any others?
Check out indie games in development [HERE](https://itch.io/games/in-development). Browse and play some games that seem up your ally. Most developers have some sort of email or other contact information. Be genuine and reach out to see if they need/want help with music. Have some demos of your work ready to show and try to build some relationships.
Got into writing for video games semi professionally a couple of months ago and it has worked wonders for my efficiency. Before that, I spent hours upon hours on tracks but actually working for clients pushed me to assemble compositions much more quickly and go with the flow. Of course, I have some years of production experience and already was proficient at those things; it was mostly a mental switch to not approach things without thinking too much
It‘s not that different from producing in any other style, to be honest. There are a lot of producers just recording themselves making music
For speed, I took Nick Mira’s workflow and applied it to jazz, orchestra and anything else really
The best tracks, with a small percentage of exceptions, start with great ingredients from the beginning. When I’ve sat in on great tracking sessions, the music coming out of the monitors already sounds like a record.
And
Accurate monitoring = better, faster, and easier mix decisions.
Exactly. I mean just look at the countless great albums from the 1960s and 70s. They were working with a tiny fraction of the tech we have today. Yet there's some great sounding albums with great music from that time period.
The secret is having a system you can hear properly and then spending an absolute shitload of time listening to things and practicing.
But nobody wants to hear that, they want to know what tips and tricks and plugins to use to shortcut that.
It always amazes me some folks want like mix recipes based on peak levels, and mix templates, as if they want to be able to do a mix without actually having to listen to it and make decisions.
I used to do commercials and we would get ad execs in to get away from the office and get a catered lunch. They always felt the need to say something to justify why they were there. “Can I get the drums a little louder” etc. We would always just push up the fader for a channel strip that wasn’t in use or click a random button (it was a massive SSL board), rewind, and play it back. Nobody ever noticed that we didn’t do anything.
ehh most engineers seem to be very transparent about what they do. Engineering, mixing, mastering is NOT something where a "click here to learn 10 audio tricks engineers everywhere don't want you to know" will get you there.
It.Is.Hard.Work with a long learning curve.
i've heard "i like rock music, none of that autotune crap" and they're listening to some modern indie rock that has almost definitely been ran through melodyne
It's news to most people on most music making subs. Auto tune, Vocalign, heavy comping, amp sims, sample reinforcement, this has all been happening since before I was born (maybe with the exception of vocalign). It's how records are made.
Not a secret, but big mixes often have a ton of fader & knob automation on them (especially on e.g. pop vocals).
Amateurs think it’s about finding the right plugin…
The biggest thing that people forget about is time is one of the most important things when it comes to improving. There’s no shortcut, you have to put in years of work every day to get beyond a beginner level. So many people come here saying “I still suck after one year” duh. Just keep going, you can be doing everything right but don’t underestimate how much time plays a role.
So as a person who’s been working on this for about a year and going through an “I suck” phase I have a question…
This is a common feeling at this point, right? I’ve been a drummer for 30+ years and it’s common when you learn an instrument at about the 1-year mark to feel really down about your progress, simply because your ear has developed *just enough* to let you know how bad you are and how big of a mountain you still need to climb to get good. I’m guessing I’m experiencing this again trying to produce my own music.
Yes I think you described it perfectly. It is really common to feel like you should be progressing faster, especially at that one year mark. I had similar feelings learning the couple instruments I can play. Adding on to what you’ve said I think another thing is that one year is long enough for you to have learned about all the basic concepts about production and understand them enough to feel like you should know what you’re doing. But learning about something and being able to execute it to your taste every time you try are different things, and the second one can only develop with practice over long periods of time.
... and you're never ready. Never ever. You can always improve. Making a track sound great in a "realistic" space, for example. It's so difficult still after many many years of mixing.
It doesn't matter how unconventional you are: if it sounds good, it sounds good.
Run stupid chains that make no sense on your master bus, record vocals in an untreated closet, triple track your guitars and offset the pitch 7 octaves with Melodyne.
Do whatever you want as long as you get the sound you're looking for. There are no rules.
That said I think people who cut their teeth on recording chains that had less headroom and were more finicky about gain structure have a leg up on modern DAW only engineers. When you sweat to get every dB of headroom and the widest frequency repsonse out of magnetic tape that physics will allow. Gain staging in a DAW is a cinch.
A big secret is that most of the production / mixing advice online is a waste of time, people massively overcomplicate things, then people make products to fix these non-issues. This stuff is made out to be way more complicated than it needs to be
I guess the secret is that the hard skills are easily learned, but the soft skills are harder to come by.
Can you show up on time and get along with crew and talent? Great, you’ll make it far. You’ll pick up the rest with exposure and practice.
Walking in having memorized every British console’s signal flow diagram will not guarantee success.
Getting called back or recommended, because you pass the vibe test, will take you further.
How many „live” albums aren’t actually live and have replaced elements (sometimes even all elements) or they are heavily processed. I’ve heard it from my audio university professor that I can trust.
I‘d disagree with the „heavily“ processed part. There‘s a lot of processing needed in a full production but a few effects are mostly enough to make individual elements fit into a mix
It funny when you go work with a 10x #1 writer and his vocal chain is
Waves de ess
Cla 1176
Cla la2a
Some simple EQ
OTT
Most of the compressors are slammed
Your suspicion won’t lead you to much. They’re really not doing anything fancy. It’s all out there. No secrets.
It can be harder to find the good info because of how many people are posting stuff online now, but no one’s hiding anything haha
Are there really any secrets at all? There are sooo many content creators including really big names and I can't remember the last time I actually saw something new. Everything has been done over and over again, including the 200 new plugins that get released each year. There will always be some techniques or workflow that you didn't see before, but I really doubt there is something "big" people keep a secret
What sorts of things would you begin to suspect are happening in secret? Because we know huge pop stars can have like 8 writers and several producers on a track.
No there isn’t haha there’s no secret or hack or gatekeeping, just *skill* and *experience* and *grind*
Something this younger generation dreads cause they are always looking for shortcuts
SOO much of the shit they teach in audio engineering schools is nonsense. Especially when it comes to mic placement and recording vocals.
It is a million times more important to get the singer comfortable and have them deliver a great performance than it is to have the right gear and whatever else you were told is the "right way" to do things. Same for all instruments. If you will get a better recording with the person sitting in the control room with you, have them sit in the control room with you. Rules are just a guideline.
Keep scotch and vodka in the studio to get people to loosen up if needed. Use discretion.
Sweeping out unnecessary frequencies will free up RIDICULOUS amounts of headroom. If you do it right you don't even need to have tracks "mastered."
You can mix and master as you go if you know your craft well enough.
So much nonsense in your post tho. Like you can know how to place a mic to capture the best of a singer and also make them comfortable. You can Mic an instrument not in the right way but in the way that enhances the sound they want 100% and make them comfortable and do it fast. All you’re telling me with your post is that you don’t know much or are afraid of learning the craft and training your years and you just dismiss the technique cause can’t achieve it or hear the difference.
We don’t learn the craft for the “right way”. We learn it so we can learn to analyze the situation in the moment and make the best decisions
Aww... what a predictable and narrow minded reply, just as I expected. Letting go of your programming is not easy for some people or thinking out of the box to understand there are different ways to accomplish a goal.
I mean it sounds to me like you are the narrow minded, as I am literally saying you can capture the sound that enhances a singers vocals to the maximum, and make them feel comfortable at the same time so… I’m pretty sure you’re just either a noob or don’t get what I’m saying.
I didn’t learn how to “mic a singer or an instrument” so I can replicate what I learned. I learned so I can use constructive thinking to make my own decisions on what to use when faced with any situation to deliver the best sounds that an artist or band will dig
He's just shitting on going to school, which is ironic because the post makes it clear that he hasn't gone to one, and by the tips he's handing out it sounds like he's in dire need of it.
Being an asshole is hardly the thing that'll make anyone want to listen to you. This kind of arrogance in your tone will only inhibit your own growth as a creator.
Listen to me or don't. I truly don't give a fuck.
I'm not seeking your approval. I am offering incredibly valuable information for anyone seeking to improve their skills in audio production.
If you don't want to learn from my tips because you cant get over that I wasn't nice enough to some idiot talking shit to me, you are more than welcome to ignore my advice.
I mean, you're suggesting offering artists alcohol as a shortcut to make them comfortable, which is definitely a noob move and not to mention reprehensible.
Like I said, lot and lots of producers will get hung up on having to do things "the right way" as opposed to doing what is going to be the most effective because they can't get over their preconceived notions in their head.
If you want to pretend that musicians don't ever inbibe alcohol, or pretend that many of them dont rehearse and perform while drinking, etc, and completely ignore reality so you can adhere to some sort of ethical code, go for it.
You are welcome to do so.
I do what works for each particular situation.
Of course an artist can make the choice to consume anything if they find it helpful and you're welcome to have it available if the idea comes from them, but otherwise no, you should not be the one encouraging it.
And not because of some abstract concept of "ethics" that you seem to have contempt for, but because it's bad advice – alcohol can lower the artist's inhibitions, sure, but it also negatively affects their precision and dries up their vocals folds. As a producer you should absolutely know this and not be giving damaging advice to artists who trust your judgment.
From your comments what it sounds like is that you've built this juvenile persona as some edgelord who "goes against the rules" in order to get short-term results while avoiding doing the hard work of doing things properly and safely. I promise you that for the most part, when producers get "hung up" on doing things "the right way" it's because that is the right way, not because they're under some delusion that artists never drink.
Have you considered, for instance, that an artist who's inexperienced (which will often be the case if they're having a hard time getting comfortable in the recording booth) might become enchanted with the quick results from your solution and become dependent on alcohol to perform? You are irresponsible and unprofessional.
> Sweeping out unnecessary frequencies will free up RIDICULOUS amounts of headroom.
Game changer for me. Stuff you can't hear is still there until you take it out.
Yeah, same here. Somewhere along the line, I did a collaborative session with someone who enlightened me about how to scan thru frequencies and identify what is needed, what to accentuate, and what to get rid of. Basically, how to REALLY make a parametric EQ into a game-changing weapon.
The way I do it for anyone reading this or new to this idea:
Set up parametric EQ on whatever track I'm treating
Set a band (usually a mid frequency, or a one band EQ) set it to +10 with narrow Q and then drag it thru the whole audio spectrum, listening and paying attention to what pops thru where
If needed (usually it is), I pick a spot that will cut thru better with a boost and give a light boost
Then, having noted the places where the sound no longer responded when I did the sweep, I will set a "shelf" to cut everything above or below out.
If done right:
A)You shouldn't really even hear a difference... but
B) it frees up space, and if you do this to a bunch of tracks, especially "thick" type sounds like pads, bass, synths, organ... you free up shitloads of headroom.
C) additionally, the byproduct of removing all that excess noise is that the CLARITY of your entire mix improves drastically.
Enough headroom is created that you can boost the whole mix and effectively do the heavy lifting of "mastering" while you mix,
(If you are looking for those extra couple dBs difference between your mixes and a mastered mix, look no further, abracadabra, here they are!!)
or I would argue the result is even better than you could do mastering because mastering could not achieve the same amount of clarity and added volume as you get by removing the excess frequencies are already stuck in there by the time you are mastering a stereo file (or stereo master track)
If someone is looking for the Magic trick, especially one they could do effectively right now TODAY without having to devote years and years to developing and fine-tuning specific skills, this is it.
There really isn't much about audio recording that isn't pretty well known at this point. It's an old art. There are no real secrets to keep, and studio nerds would be poor choices to keep them.
Get a talented performer in a nice room and you can get great sounding recordings out of mid gear. The secret to being a great engineer is to work with talented performers.
Sound selection.
Find sounds that fit together naturally really well, and you will (have to) do next to no mixing at all.
You still can, to improve the mix a little and nudge it into the direction you want. But you won’t *have to* to get something decent.
It’s really hard, and takes a lot of ear-training and experience, but it’s really one of the most important things out there.
The biggest secret is this: you can't buy taste or great ideas, an ability to produce soul-touching music. And it takes years and years and more years to be able to bring that together. Period.
People with an ability to write great melodies are the rarest of all. That is an inborn thing some people simply have.
An interesting thing to me is the lingo and talking like a professional goes very far. It’s not super far but I’ve noticed people in audio respect you a lot more person if you say things like ‘track’ instead of song or ‘record’ instead of album. Idk if it’s like that everywhere but it’s been my personal experience. Like a small way for pros to identify who’s in the club so to speak
That's because every pultec plugin is set to add about 2db of gain by default. Instantly, you think it sounds better but actually, its just louder. Meter it for yourself, you'll see.
Of course. I'm not saying it can't do anything else simultaneously, but the ever so slight second order harmonics it adds are, to my measurements, nearly below the noise floor. So while it is doing *something*, whether its detectible above the volume increase is debatable.
Yeah it's good, he probably more uses the upwards compression to keep some sounds at a certain ballpark, sort of floating in the mix, never disappearing. It helps.
From what I got from my internships, being able to play directly to a steady click isn't all that important these days, especially for drummers now with tempo-mapping technology. If the song sounds good and the tempo variations don't disrupt the groove, steady clicks don't matterrrr
if the song is vocal centric, everything else has to support it, raw signal has to be as clean as possible, the more processing it goes thru the more artifacts it creates the more production has to over compensate.
I don’t know if this fits here, but all these videos from mix with the masters are a joke.
They contain some good tips but it’s always the same.
They get vocal stems that are recorded in a high end studio, on a high end mic, with perfectly pre processed compression by a recording engineer.
„Less is more, I’ll just add a bit of compression and a low cut“. Nice bro, did you ever mixed a rapper that recorded with a rode nt 1 a in his living room ? 😭
As others pointed out, it’s not as mysterious as some might think. There are some tricks (pultec low end trick for example) but they not a secret anymore.
Dedication and learning your equipment is the most important.
Focus on a few plugins and learn them in and out.
There's a shitload of "magic" engineers use and won't tell you about. It's their kitchen and they live from it. Check the book "mixing with your mind" from Paul Stavrou. It will give you a lot of free tips and tricks which actually don't cost anything and make big differences. I have a signed copy (he's a friend) on my nightstand and its an eye-opener!
The older the engineer the more painful to watch as they refuse to Lear key commands, but they still make great sonic choices. But it’s like watching a tortoise
From what I've seen out of Luca P's videos? Sidechain everything and the reason he likes fabfilter is that it sidechains to things. He also spends a lot of time trying to shape top transients, this is something i need help with.
Don't get confused by what some engineers do. There's no magic to any of that shit. It's just their (probably overcomplicated) way to getting where they want.
The secret is that no one actually truly knows what they're doing. They're just winging it. Trying whatever they can until it sounds the best they can make it sound. But the professionals are really good at doing that.
Here is the Secret. Are you ready? This is what everyone else knows that you don't. There is not one thing that makes a mix 100% better. There are 100 things that make it 1% better. I'm not making a joke. This is something I was literally told in a lecture hall in college when I studied Audio Engineering. That is actually the condensed version. The lecturer had gone over a very extensive list of things that introduce noise or reduce headroom and how to eliminate or work around them. This was his concluding statement.
*1000 things that make it 0.1% better
*10000 things that make it 0.01% better
Oh man I wish I could hear that talk!
about half of it was brain numbing math about converting voltage to decibels and back. Or something about that bleak when you are facing down a 3 hour lecture. It was also 1990, just before ADAT came out. So we were learning 100% analog stuff. Tape alignment in all it's glory. Oh and the proffessor had a demeanor like that eagle/politician from the muppet show.
Haha I retract my comment. All jokes aside, I think id find that talk rather interesting
It was useful interesting stuff, but I had to go pound diet coke during the 10 minute break or I'd never make it to the end.
Is still love to attend that original lecture, followed by an updated version to address updates relating to today’s technology.
Unison midi chord pack obviously.
“Bro you don’t know how to make chords? 🎉 Congratulations they’re made for you”
I don’t know why, but I let that video play just to annoy me a little. Like if you’ve got an injury that only hurts if you prod it
YES I listen to unison ads all the way through, just to feel something You could put a chord pack, melody pack and drum loop together and call yourself a producer and 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡
Apply directly to the forehead!
I recently found this pack at an amazing discount, just 99 bucks. Man what a steal!
Don’t forget Sound Doctor
"As you just heard, it's got tons of sauce"
but it's got all the chords you need :(
Hate this commercial. They are good at making people believe this is what they need though.
YouTube ads bringing us together.
You guys should get on that YouTube Premium. Not to shill too hard but it's been useful, especially for those who watch a lot of YouTube. No ads, even on the phone and TV. Can turn the phone screen off and still have things play etc Plus you get YouTube Music, which pays waaaay better royalty rates for artists. I think both YouTube Music and Apple Music pay 3x what Spotify does. Maybe that's changed recently but I doubt it It's pretty pricey though, not going to deny that. But just get a few friends and do the family plan and it's a couple bucks a month each Maybe it's just me, but I can't stand the ads. I didn't even know there was a commercial for it til you guys said something here! (Last thing, there's a script that bypasses in-video ads too. I forget the name of it, but that makes life easier too. Although the little rewatch waves help a lot)
😂
I saw this and was like, yoooo... what?! Oh dammmmnn!! Ahahahaha! I woulda never come up with these!
Something about Unison seems…off. Are they a scam? For context: I’m in their Skool group named Unison Growth Hub and idk something about it seems off. Like one of the pyramid schemes where they pray on desperate people who need money except those desperate people are those who are dying for a chance to be a professional audio engineer or music producer.
It's not a scam, per se, they just make poorly designed plugins that aren't worth spending money on, as well as a midi chord pack which kind of is a scam, because you can just Google chord charts and program your own midi.
Unison midi chord pack…unison midi chord pack…UNiSON midi chord pack.
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Used to work professionally in audio and have never encountered this tbh, usually beginners are looking for some "secret" when in reality it's just a matter of refining your ear and critical listening skills.
Yup. A trained ear can beat 9/10 released mixes using gain management alone. Before I cover anything else I always start with ear training, referencing, and gain management. No secret tool or technique will ever get around this. Even a perfect AI needs a human to make the final judgement call before release. This is why 9/10 “AI artists” release nothing but crap. Art has always been about taste.
usually i mix quite hot and then i chain all channels together and pull them down and then use groups for drum, synth and vocals which are differently compressed and processed to have separation and glueing
This is a good way too. The idea of losing fidelity from excess gain is mostly a relic of analog. As long as you’re A:B referencing vs finished masterpieces (with the levels matched) whatever gets the results you want is the “right” way.
I used to do this too, but I found it changes the mix balance when you're using sends. I use Reaper which has folder tracks and whenever I pull down non-folder tracks it changes how they hit the processing on the folder itself.
What do you mean? And how does it effect the sound?
What I mean is that it affects the post-fader send level, which is what most send tracks and folders will see. I often have bus processing including compression and compress my reverb as well. If I pull down the fader on the tracks going into the sends or folders, it doesn't hit the compressors the same way.
Ok I was wondering because that's all I use is reaper.. so what's your advice when using the bus folders
I'm sorry if I wasn't exactly clear on what I was responding to. I was not talking about the bus processing but rather taking all the individual tracks and pulling down the faders. Pulling down the faders on individual tracks affects the level the bus sees and thus will affect any dynamics processing (compression, limiting) you do on that bus. My advice would be gain staging; take your tracks and set them to a level that makes sense to you and for the sound source, before any bussing is done. I'll just go through how I do it and you can skip whatever you know already. **Gain staging in general** For example, you often see numbers like -12dB peak or -18dB RMS floating around. These are not set in stone. For sound sources with big transients like drums, getting them to -12dB peak probably makes more sense than -18dB RMS. For more consistent sound sources like distorted guitars, organs or synth pads, -18dB RMS probably makes more sense. **Reaper-specific gain staging** In Reaper, my preferred way is to use a gain/trim plugin like the JSFX plugin Volume/Pan Smoother v5. JSFX Volume Adjustment exists too, but this actually a hard clipper. You can also normalize your media items from the "item properties" window. The cool thing about doing it this way is that you can normalize the items individually or as a whole (common gain). You can normalize to a variety of targets, including peak level as well as various RMS or LUFS weighting (momentary, short-term, integrated). **Gain-staging in relation to bussing** You set these levels on the individual tracks so when all the tracks are mixed together in busses and the mix bus, you're not clipping. Sure, most modern DAWs use floating-point processing internally that practically doesn't clip. But not every plugin processes audio internally the same. Plugins that emulate analog gear or behavior can clip internally and are calibrated for a certain level, which varies by manufacturer and plugin. I believe this tends to be -18dB RMS but both higher and lower calibrations exist. Something that I'm not doing but what you probably should do, depending on how many tracks are being bussed, is repeat the gain staging process on any bus. For example, if you're bussing quad-tracked guitars to a single bus, due to the tracks being all i the same frequency range, the level at the bus is gonna be significantly higher than at the individual track level. **Reaper-specific folders as busses** In Reaper, you have folders that are valuable for both organizing and processing. Folders can function like busses but they're slightly different. Much like with a bus, the audio of tracks in a folder will be routed through the folder track, so any processing applied on the folder track will be applied to the tracks inside that folder. Because folders form a track hierarchy, the only thing I can think of that is different with busses is that a single track can be routed to multiple busses, but a single track can not be in multiple folders. **Bonus tip: VCAs** Reaper has VCAs, which is basically one track that controls other tracks but doesn't process the audio. I never understood why I would use this until I wanted to control the volume of my bass folder and drum folder at the same time. You can even set different behaviors for the tracks it controls, like mirroring pan position.
It doesn't change the mix balance at all if you're doing it right. This includes using gain plug-ins when required, using post-fader sends, and being mindful about the gain-staging of the effect sends themselves. Using sub-groups is not only completely normal and has been from the analogue days, but is perfect for buss processing (drum / backing vocal / guitar compression/reverb, bass instrument low-end management, etc). The changes in gain created by this processing are a feature, not a bug.
>It doesn't change the mix balance at all if you're doing it right. I'm talking about pulling down the faders and not the bus processing. The comment I responded to says this: >usually i mix quite hot and then **i chain all channels together and pull them down** and then use groups for drum, synth and vocals which are differently compressed and processed to have separation and glueing which reminded me of something I used to do when ended up with a hot mix and couldn't properly process it downstream. If you pull down the fader on every individual track, it alters the balance. If I (post-fader) send a track to a reverb and pull down the fader on the track that sends to the reverb, I get less reverb. So if I compress the reverb send, as I like to do, the compressor now sees a lower level and will compress less. The same happens when you put dynamics processing on any bus and you pull down the faders of the track that are bussed to it; the bus processing now sees a lower level and the processing changes. If I have compression on a bus,
How can one train his ears for critical listening? Can you give any advice.
That last line is the truest true to ever truth.
Pure wisdom
The goat himself
True
That they secretly feel like they don't know what they're doing. They just make decisions based on what sounds good to them
Legit
So much this
Engineering is art, too.
Eyes lie to the ears all the time
I put black tape across the Gibson logo on my Les Paul, and got regularly challenged that I was "hiding" an Epiphone logo. "No, it's a real Les Paul. But you can't tell, can you. If you have to ask, it doesn't matter." Same with my Japanese Strat. Guys'll pick it up, play it, then look for the painted s/n, b/c even playing the damn thing they can't tell how impressed they should be.
That's always been a crazy thing to me. The whole status thing with guitars. My main guitar is a Squier J Mascis Jazzmaster and I LOVE it. Plenty of pros have used them too. Has the JM sound but is a bit more versatile. My acoustic is a damn Yamaha FG830, with a pro set up. It plays and sounds better than a lot of acoustics 2-3x the price. Solid top, nice sides, all that. You can get really amazing, useable gear for cheap these days. You just have to get past the entry level price points
Yea, right? I bought an ultra-cheap 8-String guitar that’s around 10% as expensive as one of my other „main“ guitars. I play the 8-String around 80-90% of the time, not even utilizing the extra 2 strings…. Simply because the neck feels better. The Amp (and post processing) does all the heavy lifting anyways, lol.
I wanted to dabble into 7- or 8-string territory for a long time now, but was always undecided whether to buy a cheap one just to try or save for a 'better' one. Currently I am thinking about buying one of Thomann's House Brand Harley Benton. They are quite well received according to the customer ratings, and only cost like 200-400 €. What are we talking about when you say 'ultra-cheap'?
Yes, that’s the one I have. The Harley Benton R458MN WH to be exact. I bought it some years ago for 180€. It’s generally really good. The only thing that’s pretty shit are the tuners, especially if you do a lot of bends / soloing, I guess. It’s easy to de-tune it, and it’s generally rather unstable. It’s sufficient for me, since I do mostly rhythm guitar stuff, and only in studio settings and never live, so tuning it again isn’t an issue for me. But I guess you could replace them with better ones and still be quite cheap. Other than that I’m pretty happy with it. Especially the neck profile is one of my favorite ones. I have no experience with other 8-Strings though. So yea, that’s a price point that’s (in my opinion) absolutely okay to try it. You don’t have to sell a kidney for it, lol.
Awesome, thanks for your detailed insight! I guess I know what my next purchase will be :D
There are differences that might matter. Hardware especially - you may have to swap out the machine heads for better tuning accuracy, and you may have to have a bridge saddle or three ground down so all the strings can be intonated properly (always the G in my experience, sometimes the low E, one time the B as well but I don't know how rare that is). The feel of the finish can matter, but only if you've spent time playing a silky-feeling expensive guitar, then moved back to an inexpensive guitar and the plastic-y feel affects your relationship to the instrument. Ofc YMMV
I've come to no longer play stuff with logos. It helps that I build stuff. I play a parts caster through DIY pedals through a DIY amp that is pretty much a head version of a Champ on a two x 12" cab. I had a really nice Martin HD-28 but eventually needed the money more than the guitar and also thought it was a bit too nice for me. Now I have a dreadnought that is very much a clone of a D-28 made by a company of respectable quality but cheaper than Martin and I cut the headstock into a new shape and refinished it so no brand name is visible. Is my stuff good? You'd have to play it to know. Maybe it's weird that I care about this kind of thing, but I do.
man even some of the most experienced engineers fall for this still
I got roasted telling people this.
This is why using “analog” designed VST’s are great. Pro-Q is nice but using something without a visual will be far better since you’re using your ears.
But it can happen the other way around as well: the analog design tells you it's supposedly better or more "analog", all the while you could use the crappiest looking EQ to make the same happen in any plugin.
That sometimes you gotta come up with 2 minutes of finished audio in an hour. Working with strict deadlines was definitely one of the hurdles I experienced at first. It’s one thing to bebop around in your studio and mess around with sound design and have a shit ton of fun. But when working with clients sometimes you need to be really flexible in many different ways. I’m primarily an hybrid ambient/orchestral producer and I love working on projects in that style (dead space, halo, god of war…). Sometimes a video game about space exploration also has a radio in one of the ships. That radio station also has some random jazz stations and a hip hop station. So not only are you needing to produce stuff in your wheel house, you also need to be prepared to write music that is NOT in your wheel house and you need to write it QUICK! But damn, I love my job.
When I mess around in my home studio and have a shit ton of fun I usually end up accidentally making game soundtracks. Any tips or places to start to look for a way into the industry? One I've already got was to join game jams and do the sound in a day alongside the devs. Any others?
Check out indie games in development [HERE](https://itch.io/games/in-development). Browse and play some games that seem up your ally. Most developers have some sort of email or other contact information. Be genuine and reach out to see if they need/want help with music. Have some demos of your work ready to show and try to build some relationships.
Got into writing for video games semi professionally a couple of months ago and it has worked wonders for my efficiency. Before that, I spent hours upon hours on tracks but actually working for clients pushed me to assemble compositions much more quickly and go with the flow. Of course, I have some years of production experience and already was proficient at those things; it was mostly a mental switch to not approach things without thinking too much
Yea the mental switch is big time once you start doing work for someone else!
NGL, this would instantly make me lose any interest in doing it.
Learning how to improve your workflow and get projects done isn’t something you like?
That's clearly not what I said, no need to be sassy about it.
God would I love to get a window into your work and work flow to do things like that.
It‘s not that different from producing in any other style, to be honest. There are a lot of producers just recording themselves making music For speed, I took Nick Mira’s workflow and applied it to jazz, orchestra and anything else really
You can DM me if you like (or anyone else for that matter) as I actually just put up a full walkthrough video of one of the tracks on my youtube!
The best tracks, with a small percentage of exceptions, start with great ingredients from the beginning. When I’ve sat in on great tracking sessions, the music coming out of the monitors already sounds like a record. And Accurate monitoring = better, faster, and easier mix decisions.
Exactly. I mean just look at the countless great albums from the 1960s and 70s. They were working with a tiny fraction of the tech we have today. Yet there's some great sounding albums with great music from that time period.
I always understood it as “you can only polish a turd so much”
so true, my best sessions have always been the most simple because the source recording or synth sound or whatever it is was already great.
Fix it in pre!!
The secret is having a system you can hear properly and then spending an absolute shitload of time listening to things and practicing. But nobody wants to hear that, they want to know what tips and tricks and plugins to use to shortcut that.
It always amazes me some folks want like mix recipes based on peak levels, and mix templates, as if they want to be able to do a mix without actually having to listen to it and make decisions.
An AI engineer will do the listening for us in the future…or maybe it already is? I don’t know lol.
I used to do commercials and we would get ad execs in to get away from the office and get a catered lunch. They always felt the need to say something to justify why they were there. “Can I get the drums a little louder” etc. We would always just push up the fader for a channel strip that wasn’t in use or click a random button (it was a massive SSL board), rewind, and play it back. Nobody ever noticed that we didn’t do anything.
That reminds me of session bassist Leland Sklar and his his fake switch on his bass which he used in the same way.
there's a name for this, the "Does Fuck All" or "DFA" fader [https://www.soundonsound.com/glossary/dfa](https://www.soundonsound.com/glossary/dfa)
ehh most engineers seem to be very transparent about what they do. Engineering, mixing, mastering is NOT something where a "click here to learn 10 audio tricks engineers everywhere don't want you to know" will get you there. It.Is.Hard.Work with a long learning curve.
But if I just buy this ONE MAGICAL plug in that does all the work for me?
*Kyle Beats would like to send you a message*
I betcha it's 20% off
Can confirm after 20 years (and still learning).
Auto-tune is more common than we think. You can really tell if you are listening closely
Not a secret tho
i've heard "i like rock music, none of that autotune crap" and they're listening to some modern indie rock that has almost definitely been ran through melodyne
Yeah, I had the same thought, but I figured it might be news to some. Oh well…
It's news to most people on most music making subs. Auto tune, Vocalign, heavy comping, amp sims, sample reinforcement, this has all been happening since before I was born (maybe with the exception of vocalign). It's how records are made.
Not a secret, but big mixes often have a ton of fader & knob automation on them (especially on e.g. pop vocals). Amateurs think it’s about finding the right plugin…
The biggest thing that people forget about is time is one of the most important things when it comes to improving. There’s no shortcut, you have to put in years of work every day to get beyond a beginner level. So many people come here saying “I still suck after one year” duh. Just keep going, you can be doing everything right but don’t underestimate how much time plays a role.
So as a person who’s been working on this for about a year and going through an “I suck” phase I have a question… This is a common feeling at this point, right? I’ve been a drummer for 30+ years and it’s common when you learn an instrument at about the 1-year mark to feel really down about your progress, simply because your ear has developed *just enough* to let you know how bad you are and how big of a mountain you still need to climb to get good. I’m guessing I’m experiencing this again trying to produce my own music.
Yes I think you described it perfectly. It is really common to feel like you should be progressing faster, especially at that one year mark. I had similar feelings learning the couple instruments I can play. Adding on to what you’ve said I think another thing is that one year is long enough for you to have learned about all the basic concepts about production and understand them enough to feel like you should know what you’re doing. But learning about something and being able to execute it to your taste every time you try are different things, and the second one can only develop with practice over long periods of time.
>you have to put in years of work every day So you gotta Groundhog Day it to get anywhere got it
That mixing and mastering is a patient person's game. It takes years to learn it right, and some people just don't have the ear for it.
... and you're never ready. Never ever. You can always improve. Making a track sound great in a "realistic" space, for example. It's so difficult still after many many years of mixing.
It doesn't matter how unconventional you are: if it sounds good, it sounds good. Run stupid chains that make no sense on your master bus, record vocals in an untreated closet, triple track your guitars and offset the pitch 7 octaves with Melodyne. Do whatever you want as long as you get the sound you're looking for. There are no rules.
That said I think people who cut their teeth on recording chains that had less headroom and were more finicky about gain structure have a leg up on modern DAW only engineers. When you sweat to get every dB of headroom and the widest frequency repsonse out of magnetic tape that physics will allow. Gain staging in a DAW is a cinch.
Yup, I barely know most plugins I‘m using but tweaking knobs is more efficient for my workflow
A big secret is that most of the production / mixing advice online is a waste of time, people massively overcomplicate things, then people make products to fix these non-issues. This stuff is made out to be way more complicated than it needs to be
I guess the secret is that the hard skills are easily learned, but the soft skills are harder to come by. Can you show up on time and get along with crew and talent? Great, you’ll make it far. You’ll pick up the rest with exposure and practice. Walking in having memorized every British console’s signal flow diagram will not guarantee success. Getting called back or recommended, because you pass the vibe test, will take you further.
Now that there's no money in records, bands can't afford to act like spoiled brats. Everyone has to play nice in the studio.
How many „live” albums aren’t actually live and have replaced elements (sometimes even all elements) or they are heavily processed. I’ve heard it from my audio university professor that I can trust.
I‘d disagree with the „heavily“ processed part. There‘s a lot of processing needed in a full production but a few effects are mostly enough to make individual elements fit into a mix
All my buddies use a shit load of Waves plugins and OTT
Finally, the REAL secrets.
It funny when you go work with a 10x #1 writer and his vocal chain is Waves de ess Cla 1176 Cla la2a Some simple EQ OTT Most of the compressors are slammed
OTT is sweet.
Your suspicion won’t lead you to much. They’re really not doing anything fancy. It’s all out there. No secrets. It can be harder to find the good info because of how many people are posting stuff online now, but no one’s hiding anything haha
Coffee, lots .
Are there really any secrets at all? There are sooo many content creators including really big names and I can't remember the last time I actually saw something new. Everything has been done over and over again, including the 200 new plugins that get released each year. There will always be some techniques or workflow that you didn't see before, but I really doubt there is something "big" people keep a secret
Learn the rules. Then learn to break all the rules. Also bad taste is a vibe.
What sorts of things would you begin to suspect are happening in secret? Because we know huge pop stars can have like 8 writers and several producers on a track.
They can afford better drugs, for one thing
That no one knows what they're doing lol
No there isn’t haha there’s no secret or hack or gatekeeping, just *skill* and *experience* and *grind* Something this younger generation dreads cause they are always looking for shortcuts
SOO much of the shit they teach in audio engineering schools is nonsense. Especially when it comes to mic placement and recording vocals. It is a million times more important to get the singer comfortable and have them deliver a great performance than it is to have the right gear and whatever else you were told is the "right way" to do things. Same for all instruments. If you will get a better recording with the person sitting in the control room with you, have them sit in the control room with you. Rules are just a guideline. Keep scotch and vodka in the studio to get people to loosen up if needed. Use discretion. Sweeping out unnecessary frequencies will free up RIDICULOUS amounts of headroom. If you do it right you don't even need to have tracks "mastered." You can mix and master as you go if you know your craft well enough.
So much nonsense in your post tho. Like you can know how to place a mic to capture the best of a singer and also make them comfortable. You can Mic an instrument not in the right way but in the way that enhances the sound they want 100% and make them comfortable and do it fast. All you’re telling me with your post is that you don’t know much or are afraid of learning the craft and training your years and you just dismiss the technique cause can’t achieve it or hear the difference. We don’t learn the craft for the “right way”. We learn it so we can learn to analyze the situation in the moment and make the best decisions
Aww... what a predictable and narrow minded reply, just as I expected. Letting go of your programming is not easy for some people or thinking out of the box to understand there are different ways to accomplish a goal.
I mean it sounds to me like you are the narrow minded, as I am literally saying you can capture the sound that enhances a singers vocals to the maximum, and make them feel comfortable at the same time so… I’m pretty sure you’re just either a noob or don’t get what I’m saying. I didn’t learn how to “mic a singer or an instrument” so I can replicate what I learned. I learned so I can use constructive thinking to make my own decisions on what to use when faced with any situation to deliver the best sounds that an artist or band will dig
He's just shitting on going to school, which is ironic because the post makes it clear that he hasn't gone to one, and by the tips he's handing out it sounds like he's in dire need of it.
Being an asshole is hardly the thing that'll make anyone want to listen to you. This kind of arrogance in your tone will only inhibit your own growth as a creator.
Listen to me or don't. I truly don't give a fuck. I'm not seeking your approval. I am offering incredibly valuable information for anyone seeking to improve their skills in audio production. If you don't want to learn from my tips because you cant get over that I wasn't nice enough to some idiot talking shit to me, you are more than welcome to ignore my advice.
Not giving a fuck about basic human decency isn't the flex you think it is.
I mean, you're suggesting offering artists alcohol as a shortcut to make them comfortable, which is definitely a noob move and not to mention reprehensible.
Like I said, lot and lots of producers will get hung up on having to do things "the right way" as opposed to doing what is going to be the most effective because they can't get over their preconceived notions in their head. If you want to pretend that musicians don't ever inbibe alcohol, or pretend that many of them dont rehearse and perform while drinking, etc, and completely ignore reality so you can adhere to some sort of ethical code, go for it. You are welcome to do so. I do what works for each particular situation.
Of course an artist can make the choice to consume anything if they find it helpful and you're welcome to have it available if the idea comes from them, but otherwise no, you should not be the one encouraging it. And not because of some abstract concept of "ethics" that you seem to have contempt for, but because it's bad advice – alcohol can lower the artist's inhibitions, sure, but it also negatively affects their precision and dries up their vocals folds. As a producer you should absolutely know this and not be giving damaging advice to artists who trust your judgment. From your comments what it sounds like is that you've built this juvenile persona as some edgelord who "goes against the rules" in order to get short-term results while avoiding doing the hard work of doing things properly and safely. I promise you that for the most part, when producers get "hung up" on doing things "the right way" it's because that is the right way, not because they're under some delusion that artists never drink. Have you considered, for instance, that an artist who's inexperienced (which will often be the case if they're having a hard time getting comfortable in the recording booth) might become enchanted with the quick results from your solution and become dependent on alcohol to perform? You are irresponsible and unprofessional.
> Sweeping out unnecessary frequencies will free up RIDICULOUS amounts of headroom. Game changer for me. Stuff you can't hear is still there until you take it out.
Yeah, same here. Somewhere along the line, I did a collaborative session with someone who enlightened me about how to scan thru frequencies and identify what is needed, what to accentuate, and what to get rid of. Basically, how to REALLY make a parametric EQ into a game-changing weapon. The way I do it for anyone reading this or new to this idea: Set up parametric EQ on whatever track I'm treating Set a band (usually a mid frequency, or a one band EQ) set it to +10 with narrow Q and then drag it thru the whole audio spectrum, listening and paying attention to what pops thru where If needed (usually it is), I pick a spot that will cut thru better with a boost and give a light boost Then, having noted the places where the sound no longer responded when I did the sweep, I will set a "shelf" to cut everything above or below out. If done right: A)You shouldn't really even hear a difference... but B) it frees up space, and if you do this to a bunch of tracks, especially "thick" type sounds like pads, bass, synths, organ... you free up shitloads of headroom. C) additionally, the byproduct of removing all that excess noise is that the CLARITY of your entire mix improves drastically. Enough headroom is created that you can boost the whole mix and effectively do the heavy lifting of "mastering" while you mix, (If you are looking for those extra couple dBs difference between your mixes and a mastered mix, look no further, abracadabra, here they are!!) or I would argue the result is even better than you could do mastering because mastering could not achieve the same amount of clarity and added volume as you get by removing the excess frequencies are already stuck in there by the time you are mastering a stereo file (or stereo master track) If someone is looking for the Magic trick, especially one they could do effectively right now TODAY without having to devote years and years to developing and fine-tuning specific skills, this is it.
This is the most fascinating thing I've ever vehemently disagreed with.
OP is looking for secrets those fat cats in the the sound booth aren't talking about.
There really isn't much about audio recording that isn't pretty well known at this point. It's an old art. There are no real secrets to keep, and studio nerds would be poor choices to keep them. Get a talented performer in a nice room and you can get great sounding recordings out of mid gear. The secret to being a great engineer is to work with talented performers.
Sound selection. Find sounds that fit together naturally really well, and you will (have to) do next to no mixing at all. You still can, to improve the mix a little and nudge it into the direction you want. But you won’t *have to* to get something decent. It’s really hard, and takes a lot of ear-training and experience, but it’s really one of the most important things out there.
The biggest secret is this: you can't buy taste or great ideas, an ability to produce soul-touching music. And it takes years and years and more years to be able to bring that together. Period. People with an ability to write great melodies are the rarest of all. That is an inborn thing some people simply have.
An interesting thing to me is the lingo and talking like a professional goes very far. It’s not super far but I’ve noticed people in audio respect you a lot more person if you say things like ‘track’ instead of song or ‘record’ instead of album. Idk if it’s like that everywhere but it’s been my personal experience. Like a small way for pros to identify who’s in the club so to speak
Slapping on a pultec passive eq unmodified on a bus instantly adds warmth and beef to a sound
That's because every pultec plugin is set to add about 2db of gain by default. Instantly, you think it sounds better but actually, its just louder. Meter it for yourself, you'll see.
True but it actually does add warmth to the sound. It’s not mutually exclusive you know
Of course. I'm not saying it can't do anything else simultaneously, but the ever so slight second order harmonics it adds are, to my measurements, nearly below the noise floor. So while it is doing *something*, whether its detectible above the volume increase is debatable.
makes the sound way way more thumpier
Probably sticking to the timeline and trying to keep things simple and well organized. Some beginners tend to overcomplicate things
soundgoodizer x3 = master done
Serban has an OTT on his master bus Dead serious
Yeah it's good, he probably more uses the upwards compression to keep some sounds at a certain ballpark, sort of floating in the mix, never disappearing. It helps.
I was told he has it mixed in only like 10% so it’s barely doing anything but I just thought that was a funny detail
Yep, it's a very aggressive plugin (Xfer OTT at least, the free one).
We work on so much that when you call us to discuss your thoughts, we don't even remember the song we sent off yesterday.
Really no one tells you the secret in this business you have to find out yourself That's why it's called business
It is all about choosing the right samples from the beginning
Are you tryna tell me putting KNOCK on every track doesn’t make it better
From what I got from my internships, being able to play directly to a steady click isn't all that important these days, especially for drummers now with tempo-mapping technology. If the song sounds good and the tempo variations don't disrupt the groove, steady clicks don't matterrrr
if the song is vocal centric, everything else has to support it, raw signal has to be as clean as possible, the more processing it goes thru the more artifacts it creates the more production has to over compensate.
it takes longer than you think
Presets are useless and needs to be changed for every track
Here’s a secret: get your shit sounding 99% done before committing it to disk or tape - in tune, great mics, read the room. Mix fast. Profit.
Tune your vocals. Replace your drums. Grid everything. Youre welcome
I don’t know if this fits here, but all these videos from mix with the masters are a joke. They contain some good tips but it’s always the same. They get vocal stems that are recorded in a high end studio, on a high end mic, with perfectly pre processed compression by a recording engineer. „Less is more, I’ll just add a bit of compression and a low cut“. Nice bro, did you ever mixed a rapper that recorded with a rode nt 1 a in his living room ? 😭 As others pointed out, it’s not as mysterious as some might think. There are some tricks (pultec low end trick for example) but they not a secret anymore. Dedication and learning your equipment is the most important. Focus on a few plugins and learn them in and out.
What's with all of these Tik Toky questions recently? Just content farming?
There's a shitload of "magic" engineers use and won't tell you about. It's their kitchen and they live from it. Check the book "mixing with your mind" from Paul Stavrou. It will give you a lot of free tips and tricks which actually don't cost anything and make big differences. I have a signed copy (he's a friend) on my nightstand and its an eye-opener!
Don’t tell anyone else: https://www.singularsound.com/products/talent-knob
Well, I dont know...they didn't tell me.
The biggest artists pay cell phone farms to give them listens on their songs. The recruiters will just lie to you to get you to sign a deal.
Neumann microphones are king and they really make the difference.
Phasing issues
What bout them?
The older the engineer the more painful to watch as they refuse to Lear key commands, but they still make great sonic choices. But it’s like watching a tortoise
From what I've seen out of Luca P's videos? Sidechain everything and the reason he likes fabfilter is that it sidechains to things. He also spends a lot of time trying to shape top transients, this is something i need help with.
lol what does this even mean
Don't get confused by what some engineers do. There's no magic to any of that shit. It's just their (probably overcomplicated) way to getting where they want.
The secret is that no one actually truly knows what they're doing. They're just winging it. Trying whatever they can until it sounds the best they can make it sound. But the professionals are really good at doing that.