IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi! I am Bobby Owsinski.
| | 00:05 | If you're watching this video, it's
probably because you are either new to
| | 00:09 | mixing and aren't sure what to do or
your mixes aren't anywhere near where
| | 00:12 | you'd like them to be.
| | 00:13 | Mixing is one of those things
that you have to learn by doing.
| | 00:16 | The more you do it, the better you become.
| | 00:18 | I will take you through how to
optimize your listening environment; the most
| | 00:23 | efficient way to prepare and set up a
mix; how to properly balance your mix;
| | 00:28 | (music playing)
| | 00:36 | the best way to apply EQ to the various
instruments, vocals, and loops in order to
| | 00:40 | achieve a big-sounding and powerful mix;
| | 00:43 | the best way to add effects like reverb,
delay, and modulation to make the mix
| | 00:48 | sound bigger and fatter;
(music playing)
| | 00:59 | how to build a mix around the most
interesting mix element; and the differences
| | 01:03 | between an amateur and a pro-sounding mix.
| | 01:05 | I will take you through all the areas
of mixing that will not only get you on
| | 01:09 | the right track but possibly cut a lot
of time off your learning curve as we dig
| | 01:13 | deep into the world of mixing.
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1. Improving Your Listening EnvironmentDetermining the listening position| 00:00 | Finding the correct position in the
room for your monitors is just as important
| | 00:04 | to the sound as the monitor speakers themselves.
| | 00:06 | In this video, I am going to explain
how to find the ideal place in a room to
| | 00:10 | set up your monitor system.
| | 00:11 | The place that provides the best
acoustic performance will almost always come
| | 00:16 | from setting up lengthwise in the room.
| | 00:18 | That's because it's easier to avoid
some of the problem room reflections that
| | 00:21 | can interfere with the
room's frequency response;
| | 00:24 | in other words, the speakers should be
firing the long way down the room.
| | 00:28 | The frequency response of the room is
the way it response at the high, mid,
| | 00:32 | and low frequencies.
| | 00:33 | Ideally, you want an even balance of
all these frequencies, with none of them
| | 00:38 | accentuated or attenuated.
| | 00:40 | Without getting into too many
technicalities, every room suffers from
| | 00:43 | reflections that reinforce at the 50%
point of the room, and then diminish at
| | 00:48 | to 25% and 75% points.
| | 00:51 | That means if your listening
position is exactly halfway in the room, one
| | 00:54 | frequency will be extremely loud, but
it might be nonexistent at the 25% and
| | 00:59 | 75% points in the room.
| | 01:01 | For example, in a typical room with a
12-foot length, the standing wave will
| | 01:06 | be 47 Hz, which is determined by the
formula of 1130 feet per second, which is
| | 01:11 | the speed of sound, divided by the
12-foot length of the room, times 2.
| | 01:16 | That means 47 Hz will evenly
bounce back and forth in the room.
| | 01:20 | If you place either your speakers or
listening position midway in the room at
| | 01:24 | the 50% point, 47 Hz will
reinforce, and it will sound extremely loud.
| | 01:29 | If you place the speakers or listening
position at either a quarter of the way
| | 01:33 | in the room, at the 25% point, or a
quarter of the way from the rear wall, at the
| | 01:37 | 75% point, 47 Hz will cancel out.
| | 01:41 | As a result, you want to place both
the speakers and listening positions
| | 01:45 | somewhere in between 25%, 50%, and 75%
of the room and a point that's an odd,
| | 01:50 | non-divisible number, like 27, 38, or 45%.
| | 01:55 | Many acoustic designers feel that the 38%
point is the ideal listening place in the room.
| | 02:00 | The 38% point in the room may or may
not be the best place for your speakers in
| | 02:04 | your particular room, which is why
you must be prepared to experiment with
| | 02:07 | placement of few inches backwards or forwards.
| | 02:10 | There are so many variables involved
with just about any room that even the best
| | 02:14 | designers with the best equipment can't
precisely predict the correct placement.
| | 02:18 | As a result, many spend an entire
week just tweaking the speaker and
| | 02:21 | listening placement.
| | 02:22 | Don't be surprised if it takes some
time and experimentation to get it right.
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| Fixing acoustic problems| 00:00 | Although it's always best to acoustically
treat your room, that's not always possible.
| | 00:05 | Here are a few simple things that
you can do to instantly improve the
| | 00:07 | performance of your playback system
without using any acoustic treatment.
| | 00:12 | Avoid placing the speakers up against the wall.
| | 00:14 | This usually results in some
strong peaks and low frequency response.
| | 00:18 | The further away you get from the wall,
the less it influences the frequency
| | 00:22 | response of your monitors, and
the smoother that response will be.
| | 00:25 | Figure an absolute minimum of twelve
inches, although more is better.
| | 00:30 | Avoid the corners of the room;
| | 00:31 | even more severe than the wall is a
corner, since it will reinforce the low end
| | 00:36 | even more than when placed against a wall.
| | 00:39 | But worse is if only one speaker is
in the corner, which causes a response
| | 00:43 | of your system to be lopsided on the low
end towards the speaker that's located there.
| | 00:48 | Avoid being closer to one
wall of the room than the other.
| | 00:51 | If one speaker is closer to one
sidewall than the other, once again you'll
| | 00:54 | get a totally different frequency
response between the two, because of phase
| | 00:58 | and reflection issues.
| | 00:59 | It's best to set up directly in
the center of the room if possible.
| | 01:03 | Symmetry is essential to keep a
balanced stereo image with the stable frequency
| | 01:06 | response in the room.
| | 01:08 | That means that your sweet spot will be
in the exact center of the room if the
| | 01:11 | speakers are exactly the same
distance from each sidewall.
| | 01:15 | Although the layout of your room may
suggest some other position, acoustically
| | 01:18 | you could be asking for trouble.
| | 01:20 | Avoid different types of wall absorption.
| | 01:22 | If one side of the room contains a
window and the other is dry wall, carpet, or
| | 01:26 | acoustic foam, once again, you'll have
an unbalanced stereo image and one side
| | 01:30 | will be brighter sounding than the other.
| | 01:32 | Try to make the walls on each of
the speakers the same material.
| | 01:36 | Make sure you place the speakers on stands.
| | 01:38 | Speakers mounted directly on a
desk or console can even defeat
| | 01:42 | well-designed acoustic treatment.
| | 01:44 | Mark the position of the speakers with
masking tape, and mark the position of one-
| | 01:48 | inch increments up to six
inches either way from the wall.
| | 01:52 | That way you don't have to re-measure in
the event that you have to move things.
| | 01:55 | Exact distances are critical, so always
use a tape measure, because even an inch
| | 01:59 | can make a big difference in the sound.
| | 02:01 | So that's how to quickly and
easily improve the sound of your room.
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| Setting up your monitors| 00:00 | Now that your listening position is
placed correctly in the room, it's time to
| | 00:03 | set up your monitor speakers.
| | 00:05 | In this video, I'm going to show you
how to get the most out of your monitors,
| | 00:08 | regardless of the brand or type.
| | 00:11 | While most home studios seem to have
a random amount of space between their
| | 00:14 | monitors, there are a number of general
guidelines you can use to optimize your setup.
| | 00:19 | Since most rooms are unique in some
way in terms of dimensions or acoustic
| | 00:23 | qualities, you may have to vary from
the following outline a little, but these
| | 00:26 | are good places to start.
| | 00:28 | Check the distance between the monitors.
| | 00:31 | If the monitors are too close together,
the stereo field will lack definition.
| | 00:35 | If the monitors are too far apart, the
focal point, or sweet spot, will be too far
| | 00:39 | behind your head, and you will hear the
left or right side individually, but not
| | 00:44 | both together as one.
| | 00:45 | The rule of thumb is that the speaker
should be as far apart as their distance
| | 00:49 | from the listening position.
| | 00:50 | That is if your listening position is
four feet away from the monitors then start
| | 00:54 | by moving them four feet apart so
that you can make an equilateral triangle
| | 00:58 | between you and the two monitors.
| | 01:00 | That being said, it's been found that
67.5 inches from tweeter to tweeter seems
| | 01:05 | to be an optimum distance between
speakers and focuses them three to six inches behind
| | 01:10 | your head, which is exactly what you want.
| | 01:12 | Check the angle of the monitors.
Not angling the speakers properly will cause
| | 01:16 | smearing of the stereo field, which is
a major cause of a lack of instrument
| | 01:20 | definition when you're listening to your mix.
| | 01:22 | The correct angle is
somewhat determined by taste.
| | 01:25 | Some mixers prefer the monitors angle
directly at their mixing position, while
| | 01:29 | others prefer the focal point
anywhere from three to twenty-four inches behind them to
| | 01:33 | widen the stereo field.
| | 01:35 | The focal point is where the
sound from the tweeters converges.
| | 01:38 | It's been found over time that an angle
of thirty degrees where it's focused about eighteen inches behind
| | 01:43 | the mixer's head works the best in most cases.
| | 01:46 | A great trick for finding the correct
angle is to mount a mirror over each
| | 01:49 | tweeter and adjust the speakers so
that your face is clearly seen in both
| | 01:53 | mirrors at the same time when
you're in the mixing position.
| | 01:56 | Check how the monitors are mounted.
| | 01:58 | If at all possible, it's best to
mount your monitor speakers on stands just
| | 02:02 | directly behind the meter bridge of
the console or the edge of your desk.
| | 02:06 | This gives you a much
smoother frequency response.
| | 02:09 | Monitors that are placed directly on
top of the computer console or console
| | 02:12 | meter bridge without any isolation are
subject to low-frequency cancellations.
| | 02:17 | This is because the sound travels faster
through the desk or console and reaches
| | 02:21 | your ears before the direct sound
from the monitors through the air.
| | 02:24 | This causes some frequency cancellation
and a general smearing effect of the audio.
| | 02:29 | If you must set your speakers on the
desk or console, place them on a 1/2" or
| | 02:33 | 3/4" piece of open cell neoprene, a
thick mouse pad or two, or something like
| | 02:39 | the prime acoustic recoil stabilizers.
| | 02:41 | You will be surprised how much
better they sound as a result.
| | 02:45 | Check how the monitor parameters are set.
| | 02:47 | Almost everyone uses powered monitors
these days, but don't forget that many have
| | 02:51 | a few parameter controls
on the front or the rear.
| | 02:54 | Be sure that these are set correctly
for the application by reading the manual.
| | 02:58 | Then set them the same on each monitor.
| | 03:00 | Check the position of the tweeters.
| | 03:02 | Many monitors are meant to be used in
an upright position, yet users frequently
| | 03:07 | will lay them down on their sides.
That makes them easier to see over, but the
| | 03:11 | frequency response suffers as a result.
| | 03:13 | That being said, if the speakers are
designed to lay on their sides, most mixers
| | 03:17 | prefer that the tweeters be on the
outside towards the walls because the
| | 03:21 | stereo field is widened.
| | 03:23 | Sometimes speakers to the inside
works, but that usually results in the
| | 03:26 | stereo-image smearing.
| | 03:28 | Try it both ways and see
which one works best for you.
| | 03:32 | If your speakers are placed upright, be
sure that the speakers are at head height.
| | 03:36 | The high-frequency response at the
mixer's position will suffer if they're too
| | 03:40 | high and firing over your head.
| | 03:42 | Sometimes it's necessary to even flip
them over and place them on their tops in
| | 03:45 | order to get the proper tweeter height.
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2. Prepping Your MixSetting up your session| 00:00 | Before you even get into mixing, it's
best to set up your session so the mix
| | 00:03 | is both a lot more efficient and keeps
you from making any mistakes as well.
| | 00:07 | In this video, I will show you all
the different things that you can do to
| | 00:10 | prep your DAW session.
| | 00:12 | Before anything else, the first thing I
would like to do is make a copy of the file.
| | 00:17 | So if this was the file that we
recorded into, the first thing I will do is I
| | 00:21 | will right-click on the mouse,
| | 00:22 | I will bring up this dialog, and
I will go down and say Duplicate.
| | 00:26 | Next thing I want to do is I want to
rename it, and since this is going to be a
| | 00:30 | mix, I am going to call it mix1.
| | 00:32 | The reason why I want to call it mix1
is, if you are doing this right, you may
| | 00:36 | have a lot of mixes.
| | 00:37 | You will go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
and there may be up to 100.
| | 00:41 | It's not unheard of to go that far.
| | 00:43 | Many times what I'll also do is
add a date right behind it as well.
| | 00:47 | That's not absolutely necessary because
you can see every file over here is time
| | 00:52 | stamped so it tells you when the file
is actually made, when it was created, and
| | 00:55 | when it was modified.
| | 00:57 | The next thing we want to do is delete any
tracks that don't have any audio in them.
| | 01:01 | So for instance, here's Guitar 3, it
says. And if we look through the whole song,
| | 01:06 | we don't see any waveforms
which means we didn't record on it.
| | 01:10 | The reason why we want to get rid of
this is even though you're not using them,
| | 01:13 | empty tracks actually take up system
resources. And there may come a time, if you
| | 01:17 | have too many of these in your session,
that you may actually be prohibited from
| | 01:21 | adding an extra processor or an extra
plug-in because these empty tracks that
| | 01:26 | aren't doing anything for you are actually
taking up that extra processing power.
| | 01:30 | So I am going to right-click, and
once again I bring up a dialog box, and I
| | 01:34 | want to delete this.
| | 01:36 | We come over here to Audio 2.
| | 01:37 | Well, Audio 2 is pretty non-descriptive.
| | 01:39 | We don't know what it is, but it
doesn't matter, because if we take a look,
| | 01:42 | there's no waveform.
| | 01:43 | So we will go over here
and we will get rid of it.
| | 01:46 | The next thing we want to do is if there is a
track that we know we are not going to use,
| | 01:50 | we want to get rid of that as well.
| | 01:53 | So for instance, background
vocal 2 we are not going to use.
| | 01:56 | Now we don't want to delete it at all;
| | 01:59 | we just want to make it inactive.
| | 02:00 | So we'll come over here and
we will say Make Inactive.
| | 02:03 | Once again, what that will do is that
will enable some extra system resources
| | 02:08 | for us to use as plug-ins.
| | 02:09 | We will go another step, and we can say
just having this here is distracting and
| | 02:14 | gets in our way and since we
are not using it, why not hide it?
| | 02:17 | So come over here again, right-click
on the mouse, Hide, and there it goes.
| | 02:22 | Now, again, if we are not using it,
there is no point in having it in the mix.
| | 02:27 | The next thing that I always do is I try
to group everything together that needs
| | 02:30 | to be grouped together.
| | 02:32 | So if we go and we look at our Mix
window, we can see both our kicks are there.
| | 02:37 | We have a kick that's inside the kick drum,
and we have a mic that was outside the kick.
| | 02:42 | So we want to put those together.
And now we have a SNARE top, which means
| | 02:45 | there is a SNARE bottom
somewhere, and here is our Snare bottom.
| | 02:48 | Now I want to make sure they are there
because it's easy to manipulate together.
| | 02:53 | Same thing with the Floor Tom.
| | 02:55 | Now we see we have two toms: Tom 1 and Tom 2.
| | 02:58 | Well, Floor Tom over here doesn't do
us much good. We can still hear it, but
| | 03:01 | it's so much easier if we bring all the
toms together, because it will make our
| | 03:06 | panning so much easier down the line.
| | 03:08 | We want to make sure that all of
the light tracks are grouped together.
| | 03:12 | So all the guitars we want to put
together; all of the keyboards we want to put
| | 03:16 | together; all of the
drums we want to put together;
| | 03:18 | percussion I'd like to put right after
the drums, so there are like instruments
| | 03:22 | that are all together; and that will
help us be more efficient down the road.
| | 03:27 | The next thing that we want to do is
come over here to any track that isn't
| | 03:31 | named in such a way where it's very descriptive.
| | 03:33 | Now you can see, if you look across all
the tracks, just about everything has a
| | 03:37 | name that we can immediately tell what it is.
| | 03:40 | We see guitar, we see GTR 2, which
means guitar 2, we see Room, which is a room
| | 03:45 | mic, we see OH L and OH R, which
is overhead left, overhead right.
| | 03:49 | Well, that all makes sense, but now we
come down here to this one right here
| | 03:54 | that says 1.12blz for a track name.
| | 03:58 | If you're just coming in as a mixer
and you saw this, you would scratch your
| | 04:01 | head and you go, "I don't know what that is."
| | 04:04 | You have to play it, and try to figure it out.
| | 04:06 | Since I tracked this, I know what it is.
| | 04:08 | I happen to know that it is a tambourine.
| | 04:10 | So the next thing I am going to
do is I am going to rename this.
| | 04:13 | Once again, I will right-click on the mouse.
| | 04:15 | I will come down here and
say Rename > Tambourine.
| | 04:20 | So now we want to make sure that all
those tracks have a descriptive name so
| | 04:24 | it's very easy for us to get to when
the time comes that we have to get to it.
| | 04:28 | And then lastly, one thing I like to
do is to color-code all of our tracks and
| | 04:34 | again, this helps find groups of
tracks when you really need them.
| | 04:37 | So for instance, kick in, kick out, I
have two different colors in the SNARE
| | 04:41 | top and SNARE bottom, have two more
different colors. And as you keep on looking
| | 04:45 | down the line, each drum track actually
has a different color. And it would help
| | 04:49 | us a whole lot if they each had same colors.
| | 04:51 | So now we are going to go up, I
am going to say Color Palette.
| | 04:54 | This will be different in different
DAWs, but now we will Shift+Click and
| | 04:58 | select all of our drums, and we will
select just one color. And in this case,
| | 05:06 | I am going to go to green, for no other
reason than I happen to like green for drums.
| | 05:10 | So now we can see these are all drum tracks.
| | 05:13 | We will do the same thing for
guitars, and if you see here, there are four
| | 05:17 | guitar tracks. And actually, it's two stereo
guitars, but they all have different colors.
| | 05:23 | So once again, we will Shift+Click on
all four tracks, and in this case, we'll come up
| | 05:29 | here on red, and red
tells us they're all guitars.
| | 05:34 | And this really helps when we have
to find something very quickly. We can
| | 05:37 | just go to a color. And everybody sort
of gets their own colors that they like
| | 05:42 | for different tracks.
| | 05:43 | There's no one acceptable standard, and
you'll have to figure out what you like
| | 05:47 | that works best for you.
| | 05:48 | So that's how you set up a
session to get ready to mix.
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| Setting up your subgroups| 00:00 | Groups and subgroups are extremely
useful during mixing because they allow you
| | 00:03 | to group similar elements of the mix so
you can make adjustments by instruments
| | 00:07 | sections rather than individually.
| | 00:09 | In this video, I'm going to show you
how to set up groups and subgroups and why
| | 00:12 | they're so important when mixing.
| | 00:14 | The first thing that happens when
we're mixing is we usually have a lot of
| | 00:17 | similar instruments that are together.
| | 00:19 | Now, if we look at the Kick Drum, for
instance, we have a mic that's inside
| | 00:23 | the Kick Drum, which is Kick in, and we have
another one that's outside, which is KICK out.
| | 00:27 | They both sound different and if we take
a quick listen, you find out that both of
| | 00:35 | them sound good, but they
sound even better together.
| | 00:40 | Now what ends up happening is if I
want to adjust the level, either up or down,
| | 00:48 | of both channels at the same time, I'm
going to have to move this up a little
| | 00:53 | bit, and I'm going to have to move this up a
little bit, and you can see how imprecise it is.
| | 00:57 | So it's much better if we can link them
together, and the way we do that is with
| | 01:01 | something called a group.
| | 01:02 | Anything that we want in the group we'll select.
| | 01:04 | So come down with our mouse and we'll
click on Kick in, and we'll Shift+Click on
| | 01:08 | Kick out, and there we go.
| | 01:10 | Now we can either say Command+G or we
can just go up to Track and say Group, and
| | 01:16 | you can see over here it says
currently in the group Kick in KICK out.
| | 01:18 | Now if there is anything else we want
to put in there, it'd be really easy.
| | 01:21 | All we'd have to do is say Hat, Tom, or
whatever and then just say Add and it'd be there.
| | 01:26 | In this case, this is only for Kicks,
so Kick in and KICK out is just enough.
| | 01:31 | Now we'll go to Name and we'll say this is Kick.
| | 01:35 | As we move one fader, the other one
follows, and they follow in exactly the same
| | 01:39 | proportion as we left them. So watch.
| | 01:41 | (music playing)
| | 01:50 | The other thing that
happens is the mutes also follow.
| | 01:53 | If I want to mute both channels, and
I'll say I have five channels that are all
| | 01:58 | linked together, they'll all mute--or
they're all solo, and that's the kind of
| | 02:02 | the beauty of that as well. So that's group.
| | 02:05 | We can also do the same thing on
the SNARE drum, for instance. And once
| | 02:07 | again it's the same thing where the SNARE is
very precise in terms of level between them.
| | 02:13 | Now if we come in and have a listen
here, as soon as the SNARE comes in--
| | 02:15 | (music playing)
| | 02:26 | So that's the top of the SNARE drum.
| | 02:27 | (music playing)
| | 02:31 | That's the bottom.
| | 02:32 | You can hear the snap of the bottom.
| | 02:33 | You put them both together
and they sound pretty good.
| | 02:36 | Now, once again if we want to raise
both channels and say we just need to goose
| | 02:40 | it a little bit, or even if we are writing
both channels, we wanted to write a fade
| | 02:44 | something like that, it'll be pretty
difficult to do both channels at the same
| | 02:48 | time, so that's why we'd like to group it.
| | 02:49 | So, once again we'll say Shift+Click on
both channels so they are both selected;
| | 02:55 | Command+G, which brings up our Create Group;
and in this case, we're going to say Snare.
| | 03:00 | You can see currently in the group
SNARE top, SNARE bottom. And an interesting
| | 03:06 | thing also in Pro Tools is we can see
the group is named, and what will happen is
| | 03:11 | right now these are grouped together.
| | 03:15 | You can see the SNARE go up and down
and mute together, they solo together.
| | 03:22 | But if I come over here and I deselect
it, all of a sudden this group goes away,
| | 03:27 | and you can see just one fader at a time moves.
| | 03:30 | Come over here, we select SNARE,
| | 03:33 | both of them are grouped
again. So that's a group.
| | 03:35 | Sometimes we don't want group though;
| | 03:37 | sometimes we want something called a subgroup.
| | 03:39 | And the subgroup is a little bit
different in that it adds an extra fader, but
| | 03:42 | it gives you a bit more flexibility.
| | 03:45 | What we're going to do is come over to our B3.
| | 03:48 | Now, the B3 runs through a speaker
cabinet called a Leslie, and the Leslie has a
| | 03:54 | rotating horn on the top for the high
frequencies and a rotating horn on the
| | 03:58 | bottom for low frequencies, and
it sounds something like this.
| | 04:01 | (music playing)
Here is just the high.
| | 04:06 | (music playing)
Here is lows.
| | 04:11 | Add them both together and
sounds big and round and full.
| | 04:13 | (music playing)
| | 04:16 | So if wanted to, we could just group
them together, as we did with the Kick and
| | 04:20 | the SNARE, but in this case we
want to do something else with them.
| | 04:23 | What we're going to do is
we're going to add a subgroup.
| | 04:27 | Select them and we're going to go up to
Track and we're going to say New, and we
| | 04:32 | want a new, instead of an
audio track, an input track.
| | 04:36 | So now we have our subgroup, and the first
thing we're going to do is we're going to name it.
| | 04:42 | So again, we bring our mouse over, we
right-click, and it comes up, and it says Rename.
| | 04:46 | I always name subgroups with caps.
| | 04:50 | So in this case, it's an organ.
| | 04:52 | I'm going to say ORGAN in capital letters.
| | 04:55 | This is an easy way for me to differentiate
between earlier audio tracks and subgroups.
| | 04:59 | The next thing we have to do is we
have to actually assign the tracks that we
| | 05:05 | want to go into the ORGAN subgroup.
| | 05:08 | So for instance, we're going to say Bus 19.
| | 05:11 | We haven't used Bus 19.
| | 05:15 | Now, I want this track to go to Bus 19.
| | 05:17 | So now, if we take notice, when we hit Play,
both tracks are soloed, but we don't hear them.
| | 05:23 | The reason why is we also
have to solo the subgroup track.
| | 05:28 | (music playing)
| | 05:30 | Now we can hear both tracks together.
And just like with the group, the subgroup
| | 05:35 | allows us to move the level
of both tracks up and down.
| | 05:38 | Take notice of the differences though,
that the levels of your individual audio
| | 05:44 | tracks don't move as they do with groups.
| | 05:47 | But here's the cool thing that happens:
| | 05:49 | with a subgroup, we're able to actually
add an EQ or any kind of effect across a
| | 05:56 | subgroup, and that, in fact, works
across anything that's assigned to it.
| | 06:00 | So for instance, if I want to add reverb,
I'll come up here to the SEND, but I'll
| | 06:04 | do it on the subgroup. Say we want to
go to the Short reverb. Okay, now listen.
| | 06:09 | (music playing)
| | 06:19 | Now what ended up happening there was
I was able to add some reverb to both
| | 06:24 | of those B3 channels.
| | 06:26 | Now the beauty of this is this allows
you to add just one reverb instead of two.
| | 06:31 | Now, for instance, if you had five
background vocals, for instance, you'd be
| | 06:35 | able to add reverb to all
five with just one subgroup.
| | 06:40 | This saves you some system resources
because instead of having five different EQs,
| | 06:44 | you only need one in this case.
| | 06:46 | So if I wanted to EQ both the high and
low channels of the B3, all I'd do is I'd
| | 06:51 | add an EQ on the subgroup and both channels
would be EQed, and that's kind of the beauty of it.
| | 06:57 | Now this enables you to do a very, very
quick and easy mix, because in this case
| | 07:02 | I'll have a subgroup just for my drums.
| | 07:05 | Now I have one just for the organ.
| | 07:07 | I have one over here for guitar.
| | 07:08 | I have another one for a second guitar.
| | 07:11 | I have one for vocals.
| | 07:12 | And by doing this, instead of having to
move individual channels after I got my
| | 07:17 | balance, I can just move one channel
and move the mix in different directions.
| | 07:23 | So this is a very powerful way of doing things.
| | 07:26 | To sum it up, groups and subgroups
allow you to group similar elements of the
| | 07:29 | mix so you can make adjustments by
instrument sections rather than individually.
| | 07:33 | In a group, a number of channel faders,
like drums, are digitally linked
| | 07:36 | together so that you can move one fader
in the group and they all move, yet they
| | 07:40 | all keep the same relative balance.
| | 07:42 | In a subgroup, you assign the desired
channels to a subgroup fader, which lets
| | 07:47 | you insert processing in all
that channels that were assigned.
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| Setting up your effects| 00:00 | Mixes go a lot faster if you set up
your effects before you begin your mix.
| | 00:04 | In this movie, I'm going to show you a
couple of quick and easy effects setups
| | 00:07 | that'll sound good for not only mixing,
but tracking and overdubs as well.
| | 00:11 | It's a good idea to have at least some
effects set up before you start the mix
| | 00:14 | so you won't break your
concentration to set them up later.
| | 00:16 | The first thing we're going to do is set up two
effects, and these are going to be just reverb.
| | 00:21 | I'm going to go up to the Track menu,
I'm going to say New, and since reverbs are
| | 00:26 | usually in stereo, we're
going to have two stereo aux inputs.
| | 00:33 | The first thing we'll do is name our aux inputs,
and we'll name them Short Rev and Long Rev.
| | 00:39 | Now the next thing is we'll insert
some reverbs into these channels.
| | 00:46 | So on the Short Rev, we'll come up to
Insert A > multichannel plug-in, and
| | 00:51 | come down to Reverb.
| | 00:52 | I happen to like the D-Verb,
| | 00:54 | so we'll add that. And usually a
short reverb is added to the drums,
| | 00:59 | especially the SNARE.
| | 01:00 | So we're going to start with a Small
Room, and we're going to take the DECAY time
| | 01:06 | and put it up at about 1.5 seconds.
| | 01:08 | This is only a starting place and in
fact, this will be tweaked to the track
| | 01:13 | where we'll get into a little bit later.
And the PRE-DELAY, we're going to bring
| | 01:16 | that up to about 20 milliseconds.
| | 01:17 | PRE-DELAY is the onset of where the reverb starts.
| | 01:21 | So if you hit the SNARE drum, the
reverb will actually start 20 milliseconds
| | 01:25 | later. And once again, this
is only starting place for us;
| | 01:28 | we'll tweak this later to the track.
| | 01:30 | This is the Short Reverb and go to the
Long reverb and once again, we'll add an
| | 01:35 | Insert on A, go to multichannel plug-in,
come down to Reverb, and say D-Verb
| | 01:40 | again. And in this case, we'll go to a plate.
| | 01:43 | Usually, we want to add the
different-sounding reverb every time.
| | 01:47 | Keep this Large and put this maybe at
2 seconds. And once again, we'll add 20
| | 01:52 | milliseconds of PRE-DELAY and this is
going to change depending on the tempo of
| | 01:56 | the track and depending on what the track needs.
| | 01:59 | So now we started with
two reverb effects channels.
| | 02:02 | Now we're going to add two delay
effects channels as well. Do the same thing.
| | 02:07 | We'll come up to the Track menu, say
New. We want two of them. And delays
| | 02:12 | are usually in mono.
| | 02:13 | So we'll say Mono Aux Inputs, and we
create them. And once again, when we name
| | 02:19 | them, say the same thing.
| | 02:21 | We will say Short Delay, and the
second one we'll say Long Delay.
| | 02:25 | Now for the short delay, come down to
Delay, same thing. On Insert A and we'll
| | 02:33 | just go to Long Delay in here, and the
reason why I like to use Long Delay is if
| | 02:38 | I have to change this later,
it gives me some room to move.
| | 02:41 | I can move it up so it's really long;
| | 02:43 | I can move it down so it's short.
| | 02:44 | If you only select the Short Delay, it
stays very short, and if you decide that
| | 02:49 | you want a longer delay
then you have to reinsert it.
| | 02:52 | This is just an easy way to
do it, at least in Pro Tools.
| | 02:55 | So now for DELAY, I'm going to take it
down to maybe 175 milliseconds, and the
| | 03:00 | reason why it chose 175 is that's
a favorite of Paul McCartney's.
| | 03:03 | If it's a favorite of his,
it's a favorite of mine.
| | 03:07 | And FEEDBACK, which is the number of
repeats, we'll add 4%. And once again, this is
| | 03:13 | just a starting place, because we'll
change this depending on the tempo of the
| | 03:17 | track and depending on what the track needs.
| | 03:19 | So this is our Short Delay.
| | 03:20 | Now we're going to go to the Long Delay.
| | 03:23 | We'll go to our plug-in on Insert A, and
down to Delay, and we'll say Long Delay
| | 03:29 | II (mono), and we'll go to about 300 ms
or so, and we'll put 3% or 4% of FEEDBACK,
| | 03:37 | and that's a good place to start.
| | 03:38 | We're not finished, however, because
in order for the channels to send into
| | 03:43 | these effects, what we need to do
is set up a path for that to happen.
| | 03:48 | So for the Short Reverb, come up here
to where it says no Input, and this is
| | 03:53 | actually the input into that effects
channel. And we're going to go down to the
| | 03:57 | Bus and say Bus 11 and 12 is
the input into the Short Reverb.
| | 04:02 | And to Long Reverb, we're going to come down
here and we're going to assign Bus 13 and 14.
| | 04:07 | Remember, it's stereo, so
there will only be two buses.
| | 04:11 | Since the delays are mono, I'll only
do one bus, and we'll come down to Bus 15
| | 04:16 | for the Short Delay. And now we'll
come down to Bus 16 for the Long Delay.
| | 04:21 | We're not finished yet.
| | 04:22 | Even though we have all of our effects
set up, now what we want to do is we want
| | 04:27 | to go to the channels that we think
we're going to be adding reverb and delay on
| | 04:32 | and set those up so they're pretty
much ready as soon as we get into the mix.
| | 04:36 | So we know for sure that we're
going to add it on the SNARE,
| | 04:38 | so we'll go and we'll add an effects
SEND. And this is going to be on the very
| | 04:42 | Short Reverb, and the Short Reverb was
on Bus 11 and 12, and it is all set up.
| | 04:48 | And we're going to add a short
reverb probably on the toms as well.
| | 04:53 | So an easy way to set it up is you hit
Option and all you do is drag the SEND
| | 05:00 | and then drop it on the Floor Tom, and
we'll do it again on Tom 2 and Tom 1, and
| | 05:06 | now we're set up on the drums to add reverb.
| | 05:09 | Now let's say we want to add a longer reverb.
| | 05:12 | We're going to add this on
the guitars and on the ORGAN.
| | 05:16 | One of the beauties of having subgroups--
and this is something we talked about in
| | 05:19 | the last movie--was that it allows us to
add reverb on several channels by just
| | 05:26 | adding it on the subgroup channel.
| | 05:28 | So this is what we're going to do.
| | 05:29 | We're going to go to the ORGAN
subgroup and we're going to say Bus 13 and 14,
| | 05:35 | which is the Long Reverb, and
that's all set up and ready to go.
| | 05:39 | We're going to add the same
thing over on the guitars.
| | 05:42 | So now we have guitar 1. We bring this
over to guitar 1 on the subgroup, bring it
| | 05:48 | over on guitar 2 on that
subgroup as well. Now, vocals.
| | 05:53 | The lead vocal well, we want the Paul
McCartney 175 milliseconds, and that's the Short Delay.
| | 06:00 | So now we're going to come over to the
bus and we're going to add Bus 15, and
| | 06:06 | that's already sent to the short delay. And for
the background vocals we want the Long Delay.
| | 06:12 | So we'll come over here and we'll set
this up for Bus 16, and now our whole mix
| | 06:18 | is set up and ready to go.
| | 06:21 | To sum it up, setting up your effects
before you begin mixing can help your
| | 06:24 | mix go a lot faster.
| | 06:25 | Your own particular starting point
might use a lot more effects, and you
| | 06:29 | might add more effects as you go--
you probably will--but this is a good
| | 06:33 | place to start from.
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3. Learning the Basics of MixingDeveloping the groove| 00:00 | Your mix will never sound as good as it can
unless the groove of the song is emphasized.
| | 00:04 | In this video I'm going to show you how
to identify, then emphasize, the groove of
| | 00:08 | song that you're mixing.
| | 00:10 | The groove is the pulse of the song.
Every kind of music, regardless of
| | 00:14 | if it's R&B or jazz or rock or country or
even some alien space music, has a groove.
| | 00:20 | The better the music is
performed the deeper the groove is.
| | 00:24 | A groove doesn't have to have perfect
time, because a groove is created by
| | 00:28 | tension against even time.
| | 00:30 | Music loses its groove if it's too perfect,
which is why a song can sound life-
| | 00:34 | less after it's quantized in a
workstation; it's lost its groove.
| | 00:38 | The groove doesn't always
come from the drums and bass;
| | 00:41 | it can come from other instruments as well.
| | 00:43 | Some songs, like The Police's "Every
Breath You Take," has a rhythm guitar
| | 00:47 | establishing the groove, while most of
Motown's hits of the '60s relied on
| | 00:50 | James Jamerson's bass.
| | 00:52 | Regardless of what instrument's
providing the groove of the song, if you want
| | 00:55 | a great mix, you've got to find it and
develop it first before you can do anything else.
| | 00:59 | Let's have a listen to this song
and see if you can find the groove.
| | 01:02 | (music playing)
| | 01:23 | Now on first listen you might think it's
the drums, but I think the combination
| | 01:27 | between the kick and the snare and
the hi-hat is providing the groove, you
| | 01:31 | probably would be right.
| | 01:32 | Let's listen what the song
sounds like without the drum track.
| | 01:35 | (music playing)
| | 01:52 | Now in this case you can still feel
the pulse, and the pulse is coming from the tambourine.
| | 01:57 | If we pull the tambourine out, now listen.
| | 02:00 | (music playing)
| | 02:13 | Now here you have a number of
instruments that imply the groove, but you don't
| | 02:17 | really feel it as much as when you have
the drums in there, and that's why you
| | 02:21 | have to find that groove and then emphasize it.
| | 02:24 | Now listen again with just the
drums and hear what it sounds like.
| | 02:27 | (music playing)
| | 02:43 | Now you can feel that pulse pretty well.
| | 02:45 | Let's listen to everything together.
| | 02:46 | (music playing)
| | 03:01 | And you can tell, when you put
everything together and the groove is emphasized,
| | 03:06 | the song feels really strong.
| | 03:08 | It feels really compelling to listen to,
and that's the important part. You're
| | 03:13 | trying to find that groove,
| | 03:14 | you're trying to emphasize it,
and that's what we've done here.
| | 03:17 | In order to practice find the groove,
play a song from a genre that you seldom
| | 03:21 | listen to and then see if you
can feel the pulse of the song.
| | 03:25 | Try to determine what instruments or
instruments are providing it, what makes
| | 03:29 | the groove stand out. Is it because the
instruments providing the groove are
| | 03:32 | louder than everything else, is it the tone of
those instruments, are they punchier sounding than the others?
| | 03:38 | All these things contribute to the groove.
| | 03:40 | In closing, your mix will never
sound great until you find the groove of
| | 03:45 | the song.
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| Emphasizing the most important elements| 00:00 | Every song has some element
that acts like a hook to capture the
| | 00:03 | listener's attention.
| | 00:04 | In this video, I'm going to show you how
to find that element and emphasize it to
| | 00:08 | bring excitement to your mix.
| | 00:10 | The most important element
captures listener's attention.
| | 00:13 | Many times it's the vocal, but
it can be other elements as well.
| | 00:16 | Usually it's an element that's so
important that without it, the song just
| | 00:19 | wouldn't be the same.
| | 00:20 | Think of the piano line in Coldplay's
"Clocks" or the clavinet in Stevie Wonder's
| | 00:24 | "Superstition: or the intro guitar line
and the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction."
| | 00:28 | If they weren't there, it
would be almost a different song.
| | 00:32 | Finding the most important mix element
is vital to getting a great mix because
| | 00:36 | it's what provides the excitement
and the reason for you to listen.
| | 00:39 | In a dance song, it might be the kick
drum; in an R&B song it could be the groove;
| | 00:44 | in a pop song it might be an
interesting hook than an instrument plays in the
| | 00:47 | intro or the interludes--
| | 00:49 | and yes, it could even be the
vocal in just about any genre.
| | 00:51 | So let's take a listen to our example and
see if we can find the most important element.
| | 00:57 | (music playing)
| | 01:12 | There is not a signature line in
this kind of song, so we're actually going
| | 01:16 | to go through all of the elements and
see which one we'd miss the most if it
| | 01:21 | weren't there, and let's
start first with the organ.
| | 01:24 | (music playing)
| | 01:33 | Okay, we kind of missed it, but it
wasn't that big deal that it wasn't there.
| | 01:36 | Let's listen without guitar number one.
| | 01:38 | (music playing)
| | 01:48 | Okay, let's listen without guitar number two.
| | 01:50 | (music playing)
| | 02:00 | Okay, that didn't make all
that much of a difference either.
| | 02:02 | Let's go and listen without the bass.
| | 02:04 | Now this might sound a little
radical, but have a listen anyway.
| | 02:07 | (music playing)
| | 02:20 | Now we really missed it, for a couple of
reasons. First of all, the bottom, or the
| | 02:24 | foundation of the whole mix,
and of course that's a big deal.
| | 02:28 | But the biggest thing is
the motion that it adds.
| | 02:31 | Now in some songs you'll find that
the motion is added and is really
| | 02:35 | important through guitars, through
saxes, through vocals, through any kind of
| | 02:39 | overdubbed instrument, and usually
it's not something in the rhythm section
| | 02:43 | with the bass and drums.
| | 02:45 | In this case, the bass has a special
place in that yes, it does add the
| | 02:49 | foundation, but also the movement
of the song, and we really miss it.
| | 02:53 | There are many songs where you can mute
the bass and just turn the bottom up on
| | 02:56 | the kick-drum and you won't
even miss the bass all that much.
| | 03:00 | In this case, you missed it because of
the movement. Let's listen one more time.
| | 03:04 | (music playing)
| | 03:18 | So the bass is the most important
element in this song, and that's what
| | 03:21 | we're going to emphasize.
| | 03:22 | Now keep in mind that every song has its
own most important element and you have
| | 03:26 | to go through and listen to each one to
find out which is the most important for
| | 03:30 | that particular song, that
particular arrangement. If something's up,
| | 03:34 | you have to listen to each of the mix's
elements to discover exactly which one drives the song.
| | 03:38 | Once that element is found, make
sure it's emphasized to take your mix to
| | 03:42 | the next level.
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| Knowing what to avoid| 00:00 | Before we can talk about how to make a
great mix, it's good to be aware of signs
| | 00:03 | of one that isn't that great.
| | 00:05 | In this video I'm going to show you some
mixing characteristics to avoid to keep
| | 00:09 | your mix from becoming amateur-sounding.
| | 00:11 | First of all, avoid a mix that has no contrast.
| | 00:14 | That means the same ambient texture--
as in the same reverb--is used on every
| | 00:18 | instrument at the same level
throughout the entire song.
| | 00:21 | Avoid a mix that has no focal point.
| | 00:23 | That's a mix where there are holes
where nothing is brought forward to hold the
| | 00:26 | listener's attention.
| | 00:28 | Avoid a mix that's noisy. Clicks, hums,
extraneous noises, count-offs, and
| | 00:32 | sometimes lip-smacks and breaths
are all signs of an amateur mix.
| | 00:37 | Avoid a mix that lacks clarity and punch.
| | 00:39 | That's a mix where the instruments
aren't distinct and the low end is either
| | 00:42 | too weak or too big.
| | 00:44 | Avoid a mix that sounds distant.
| | 00:46 | The mix sounds distant because too much
reverb or other effects have been used.
| | 00:50 | Avoid a mix where the
element levels are inconsistent.
| | 00:53 | That's a mix where the instrument
levels vary from balanced, to soft, to loud,
| | 00:58 | and certain lyrics can't be distinguished.
| | 01:00 | Avoid a mix where the sounds
are dull and uninteresting;
| | 01:03 | that means generic, dated, or
often-heard sounds are used.
| | 01:06 | There is a difference between using
something because it's hip and new
| | 01:09 | and using it because everyone else is using it.
| | 01:11 | So those are some of the things
that make an amateur-sounding mix.
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4. Building Your MixLearning the principles of building a mix| 00:00 | The essence of mixing is the balance
between instruments or mix elements.
| | 00:04 | No matter how good you are at other
aspects of the mixing process, if you don't
| | 00:07 | get the balance right,
you don't have a good mix.
| | 00:10 | Before we begin mixing, let's look
at some of the balancing concepts that
| | 00:12 | are important to grasp.
| | 00:13 | There are a number of places to
start your mix from, which we'll explore
| | 00:18 | in subsequent videos.
| | 00:19 | There is no right or wrong way to build a mix.
| | 00:23 | Wherever you start your mix from, keep
in mind that the mix bus level will get
| | 00:26 | louder and louder with
every instrument entrance.
| | 00:28 | It's best to begin your mix with the mix
bus meter, or the master meters, reading
| | 00:32 | at about -10 dB regardless of
what instrument you start off with.
| | 00:37 | With each instrument that enters at
the same level as the current mix, the
| | 00:40 | master mix meter will increase about 3 dB.
| | 00:43 | Finally, remember that the sound of
every drum will change anywhere from a
| | 00:46 | little to a lot when a new drummer
cymbal is added to the mix, due to the leakage
| | 00:50 | of the other drums into the mic.
| | 00:53 | In the next series of movies, we'll
explore all the aspects of building your
| | 00:55 | mix, but remember that these principles
will apply, regardless of where your mix
| | 00:59 | starts from.
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| Assigning the drums to a subgroup| 00:00 | Whenever there are two or more
instruments in a mix element like a drum-kit,
| | 00:03 | it's best to assign them to a
subgroup in order to make any level
| | 00:06 | adjustments easier.
| | 00:08 | In this video I'm going to show you
how to assign your drum channels to a
| | 00:11 | subgroup and why using one can be helpful.
| | 00:13 | So the first thing we're going to do
is insert a subgroup, but in order to do
| | 00:17 | that, we'll first go to the last channel
in the group of channels that we want to
| | 00:21 | go into that subgroup.
| | 00:22 | So in this case it's Room, and this is the Room
mic, and you'll see why we do this in a second.
| | 00:27 | Now we come up to Track and we say New.
| | 00:31 | We want this to be a stereo subgroup,
and the reason why is we want to pan the
| | 00:35 | drums across the stereo soundstage;
| | 00:38 | therefore, we need a stereo subgroup.
| | 00:40 | So we don't want an audio track.
| | 00:41 | We want an aux input track.
| | 00:43 | Now watch where the subgroup is created.
| | 00:47 | It comes up right after Room.
| | 00:49 | If you didn't select Room, it would have
randomly selected a place to put it, and it
| | 00:53 | probably would've been down at the
right-hand end of your mix window,
| | 00:58 | so you would have had to move it.
This is just saving your next step.
| | 01:01 | So now this is called Aux 1.
What we want to do is rename it.
| | 01:03 | I'm going to right-click on the mouse,
which brings up a window, and say Rename.
| | 01:09 | And we're going to call this Drums,
but I'm going to put this in caps.
| | 01:13 | What I like to do is put all of my
subgroups in caps to make it easier to
| | 01:17 | differentiate between input
channels and the subgroups.
| | 01:20 | If we take notice, in this case there
is a lot of input channels; in fact, the
| | 01:24 | description is already in caps. And
probably what I would do normally is go
| | 01:28 | through those and actually re-title
them so they would be in small case,
| | 01:34 | so with just a glance you'd be able to
see what was a drum subgroup in this case.
| | 01:39 | The next thing we want to
do is select an input path.
| | 01:41 | I'm going to come up to the Input section of
the channel, which is here, and now it says no input.
| | 01:48 | What we're going to do is select an input.
| | 01:50 | In this case, it says Drum Sub.
| | 01:52 | The reason why it says that, it's
because it was already pre-titled in a layout.
| | 01:59 | Now, normally this would say something
like Bus 1 and 2. Or you can select any
| | 02:03 | bus you want, Bus 23 and 24,
Bus 12 and 13, whatever you like.
| | 02:09 | Now we want to go to all of the input
channels and select the signal path so
| | 02:14 | they are sending directly to this drum subgroup.
| | 02:17 | So we'll come over here and we'll select
our first channel, which is the kick-in.
| | 02:21 | Now we're going to select
all the other channels as well.
| | 02:26 | And the way we do that is we do Shift+Click.
| | 02:30 | These are all of the other channels
that are going to be sent to that subgroup,
| | 02:34 | and there is a reason why we do this.
| | 02:36 | We can assign all of those channels all at once.
| | 02:40 | And the way we do that is we hit the
Option key and the Shift key, we go to
| | 02:44 | our output assignment,
| | 02:45 | we're going to say Bus, and in this
case again it says the Drum Sub, but it
| | 02:49 | could very well just say
Bus 19-20, Bus 1-2. Click it.
| | 02:55 | And now if you take notice, everything
that was selected has changed, so all of
| | 03:00 | those channels are
assigned to that drum subgroup.
| | 03:04 | The reason why we want the subgroup in
the first place is it makes it very easy
| | 03:07 | for us to change the whole drum kit with
just one fader. By moving this fader up
| | 03:13 | and down, we're able to change the
complete balance of the drum kit against
| | 03:17 | everything else in the mix, and
that's what makes this very, very powerful.
| | 03:21 | The other thing that makes it powerful
is we can insert a EQ or a compressor
| | 03:26 | into the signal path of the drum
subgroup and it will affect everything that's
| | 03:31 | assigned to that subgroup.
| | 03:32 | So with just one EQ, we can EQ the whole
drum kit if we'd like, or with just one
| | 03:38 | compressor, we can
compress everything if we like.
| | 03:40 | It's not necessarily the best
way, but it is a way to do it.
| | 03:43 | So that's how you create the drum
subgroup. In a subgroup all the channels of
| | 03:47 | the group were assigned to a subgroup fader
which is then assigned to the master mix bus.
| | 03:51 | This gives you a lot more
control over the level of the drum kit.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building the mix from the kick| 00:00 | Many mixers like to build their drum
mix from the bass drum, because it's
| | 00:03 | part of the foundation of the song.
| | 00:05 | In this segment, I am going to show
you how to start with the bass drum first
| | 00:08 | and build your mix from there.
| | 00:10 | The first thing we are going to do is
take notice that there are two kick drums
| | 00:14 | that says Kick in and Kick out.
| | 00:17 | That means that there was a
microphone inside the bass drum and there was
| | 00:20 | another one that was outside the bass drum.
| | 00:22 | So, the very first one that we will
raise is the Kick in inside the bass drum,
| | 00:27 | because it's a little bit
more aggressive-sounding.
| | 00:30 | (music playing)
| | 00:35 | And now we'll bring the Kick out, and
you'll find this has a lot more bottom to it.
| | 00:42 | (music playing)
| | 00:46 | You can hear the low end come in.
| | 00:48 | If we have too much,
it's all we have is low end.
| | 00:52 | Now the best way to do this is just bring
it up enough that you can barely hear it.
| | 00:57 | (music playing)
| | 01:05 | And that's about the right level.
| | 01:10 | Now we've got that level, and we can
look over here. We see on the master it's
| | 01:15 | going about -10 on its peaks.
| | 01:18 | That's a good place for it to be.
And now we've already assigned a subgroup;
| | 01:23 | now we are going to engage it on the
kick drum, and the reason for that is now
| | 01:27 | with one fader, we can move both of
those channels up and down in level and
| | 01:33 | still maintain the relative balance between them.
| | 01:38 | So now that we've got the sound on the
kick drum, now we are going to bring the
| | 01:41 | snare up to about the same level.
| | 01:43 | Now it doesn't mean it's the
same level on the channel fader;
| | 01:46 | it means it's the same
level that's worth listening to,
| | 01:49 | the same relative level.
| | 01:50 | So bring the snare top up.
(music playing)
| | 01:59 | Let's go from the beginning again.
| | 02:00 | (music playing)
| | 02:07 | Once again, we have two mics on the snare:
| | 02:09 | we have one on the top and one on the bottom.
| | 02:11 | The one on the bottom usually gives you
a bit more snap, because all it is is
| | 02:15 | capturing the sound of the snares themselves.
| | 02:20 | So let's bring that up.
| | 02:21 | It's about the same as with the Kick out.
| | 02:23 | Bring it up until you can just about hear it.
| | 02:25 | (music playing)
Here we go!
| | 02:32 | If we bring it up too loud,
it gets very trashy-sounding,
| | 02:37 | and that's not what we want.
(music playing)
| | 02:43 | Here is what it sounds like without it.
(music playing)
| | 02:49 | You can hear it just adds a little bit of EQ
to it, a little bit of top end.
| | 02:52 | There is a sound of both of them.
| | 02:56 | Now if you look over on a master fader,
you can see how all of a sudden it went
| | 03:03 | from about -10 to about -7 on peaks,
and this is what happens if you have the
| | 03:08 | same level of two instruments: you
will get an increase of around 3 dB.
| | 03:15 | The next thing I like to do is bring
the overheads up, and the reason why is
| | 03:20 | the overheads will add to the
overall sound of the drum kit.
| | 03:25 | There are two types of overheads:
| | 03:28 | you have overheads that
are used as a cymbal mic
| | 03:30 | so they're really close the cymbals,
and then you have other overheads that are
| | 03:34 | up higher trying to capture the overall kit.
| | 03:37 | Either way, you will do about the same thing.
| | 03:39 | Bring them up until you can just hear the
cymbals on cymbal crashes or ride cymbals.
| | 03:44 | (music playing)
| | 03:50 | Let's go back to a place
where there's--there we go.
| | 03:53 | (music playing)
| | 03:58 | And we will bring the second one.
| | 03:59 | We are not going to pan them yet;
we are just going to bring them up.
| | 04:01 | (music playing)
| | 04:10 | We don't want those cymbals too loud,
but we do want to be able to hear them, and
| | 04:13 | we want to hear them with definition.
| | 04:14 | The next thing we are going
to do is bring the toms up.
| | 04:17 | Now one of things that will happen
is that toms will change the sound of
| | 04:21 | the entire drum kit.
| | 04:23 | That's not a bad thing,
but it happens all the time.
| | 04:26 | So you can't fall in love with what
you have right here without the toms and
| | 04:30 | then all of a sudden have the sound change
and then worry about the fact that it's changed.
| | 04:34 | It's the fact of life;
| | 04:36 | it is going to change. So here we go.
| | 04:38 | Bring the middle tom up first.
| | 04:40 | (music playing)
| | 04:48 | And you can hear how everything
has changed already. Mute it.
| | 04:54 | You can hear the ring of the tom.
| | 04:59 | You can hear more of the lower end of the kick.
| | 05:01 | You can hear more hi-hat.
| | 05:03 | Watch as we bring the other ones up,
especially this one.
| | 05:06 | You can really hear it on
this one. On the floor tom.
| | 05:13 | (music playing)
Now once again, this is normal.
| | 05:17 | This is the way it should sound.
| | 05:18 | It's not going to sound as
clean as you might think.
| | 05:21 | Now let's go back and listen again, and
what we want to do is go to a place in
| | 05:26 | the song where it has a
lot of tom fills already.
| | 05:31 | So you center around a tom fill, and
what you're trying to do is find a place
| | 05:35 | where you can balance the three of them
together, or the two of them, or the five
| | 05:39 | of them, or however many toms you have.
| | 05:41 | You want to balance them so
they're all the same level.
| | 05:44 | So now we've already set our memory at a place
where there are tom fills so we can hear them.
| | 05:50 | (music playing)
Okay, let's go again and have a listen.
| | 06:00 | (music playing)
| | 06:11 | Once again, what we are trying to do
is make sure that we have a nice balance
| | 06:15 | between them, and that we
can hear them distinctly.
| | 06:21 | We don't want them too loud, but
yet we don't want them too quiet.
| | 06:24 | I will bring them down just a little bit
so they're more in context. There we go!
| | 06:31 | Now we can hear all three
of them. Pretty good level.
| | 06:35 | You can hear all the cymbals.
| | 06:37 | Now take notice, without even
bringing up the Hi-hat channel,
| | 06:40 | we can already hear the hi-hat fairly well.
| | 06:45 | Sometimes this level right here is just
enough for the song, but sometimes you
| | 06:51 | need it a little bit louder.
| | 06:52 | Sometimes you want to actually add to
the definition of the hi-hat, and that's when you bring it up.
| | 06:57 | Once again, what we are going to do is
we are bring it up just loud enough until
| | 07:00 | we begin to hear that definition.
Here we go, on the hi-hat.
| | 07:03 | (music playing)
| | 07:15 | If it's too loud, it
overpowers the rest of the drums.
| | 07:21 | Bring it down just until we
hear that definition happen.
| | 07:26 | Here is without it. Here is with it.
| | 07:30 | It has just a little bit of definition,
and that's about the right place for it.
| | 07:35 | Now remember, these are only starting
places, and as we bring more instruments
| | 07:40 | in, we are going to tweak all of these levels.
| | 07:43 | Also, as we EQ the drums, as we
compress the drums, as we add effects,
| | 07:48 | that's going to affect level as well, so
we're going to do minute tweaks as we go along.
| | 07:55 | There is one last channel;
it's the Room channel.
| | 07:57 | Now in this case, there is only
one room mic that was recorded.
| | 08:01 | Sometimes there are two, so it's in stereo.
| | 08:03 | Sometimes there's three of them, so
there is left, center, and right.
| | 08:06 | What the room mic does is it gives
you a little ambience on the drum kit,
| | 08:09 | first of all, which is pretty cool, but it
also gives a little bit of glue to the sound.
| | 08:13 | So let's bring it in and have a listen.
| | 08:15 | Once again, just about the time we
begin to here it is about enough,
| | 08:19 | although I'm going to take it beyond
that, so you can hear what it sounds
| | 08:21 | like when there's too much.
| | 08:23 | (music playing)
| | 08:32 | So that's way too much room mic.
| | 08:37 | And if we solo it, you can hear it
sounds pretty trashy just by itself.
| | 08:48 | But without it, the drum
set doesn't sound as good.
| | 08:57 | Right about there is about right.
| | 09:00 | Now also take notice what
happens over on our master fader.
| | 09:04 | Let's go again, and watch
what happens on the drum fills.
| | 09:08 | You can see it's almost up at 0 dB, and
this is why having a drum subgroup is so
| | 09:18 | powerful, because now we can control
the level; all of those 11 channels can be
| | 09:25 | controlled by this one fader.
| | 09:27 | (music playing)
| | 09:32 | And we can bring it down to where
everything fits well in the mix.
| | 09:36 | To sum it all up, your mix bus is
going to get louder and louder with every
| | 09:42 | drum track entrance.
| | 09:43 | Don't forget, it's best to begin your mix with
the mix bus meter reading about at -10 dB or so.
| | 09:49 | The sound of every drum is going to
change anywhere from a little to a whole lot
| | 09:54 | when a new drum or cymbal is added to the mix.
| | 09:56 | This is because of the leakage that
you're going to have on those tracks.
| | 10:00 | Finally, each drum that enters at the
same level as the current mix is going to
| | 10:04 | make the master mix
meter increase by about 3 dB.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building the mix from the snare| 00:00 | The snare drum is the pulse of the
song, which is why so many mixers like to
| | 00:03 | build their drum mix around it.
| | 00:05 | In this movie, I am going to show you
how to start with the snare first and
| | 00:08 | build your mix from there.
| | 00:09 | When we start with the snare drum
usually what happens is it winds up being
| | 00:13 | more prominent in the mix.
| | 00:15 | Now, you might want that, and that's a
reason why you want to start with the snare.
| | 00:19 | Many people just feel more comfortable
starting with it because it is the pulse of the song.
| | 00:23 | Either way, here's how we do it.
| | 00:25 | You'll take notice that there's two
snare tracks: one with a snare top and one
| | 00:29 | with a snare bottom.
| | 00:31 | The snare top means there is a mic
on the top of the snare, and the snare
| | 00:34 | bottom means there is a mic underneath
the snare that's capturing the sound of
| | 00:37 | the snares themselves.
| | 00:39 | Just as when we started with the kick,
we're going to bring the snare top
| | 00:42 | channel up so it reads
about -10 on the master meters.
| | 00:46 | (music playing)
| | 00:57 | Now it might go a little above and it
might go a little below -10, but it's
| | 01:01 | where the average is.
| | 01:02 | Somewhere around -10 is good.
| | 01:04 | If it's a little above, it's okay;
if it's a little below, that's okay too.
| | 01:07 | Now, we're going to bring the bottom of
the snare, or as it says, SNARE bot, which
| | 01:12 | is the snare bottom mic.
| | 01:14 | We are going to bring that up
until we can just about hear it.
| | 01:16 | (music playing)
| | 01:24 | If we mute it, we can hear the difference.
(music playing)
| | 01:31 | Now since before we created a group
for the snare, now we're going to engage
| | 01:36 | that, and that means that with the
movement of one fader, we can move the level
| | 01:41 | of both of them up and down.
| | 01:42 | (music playing)
| | 01:46 | Now, we're going to
introduce the kick into the mix.
| | 01:48 | We're going to use the Kick in channel,
and that means it's the microphone that's
| | 01:52 | inside the kick drum.
| | 01:53 | I am going to use that one first
because it has the most definition.
| | 01:57 | I am going to bring that up so it's
about the same level as the snare top mic.
| | 02:01 | (music playing)
| | 02:08 |
| | 02:09 | Now, when I say the same level, what
that means is not the same level on the
| | 02:13 | fader, but the same level relatively
speaking of what you're listening to.
| | 02:17 | So it's what you're hearing, they
should be about equal in level, and not the
| | 02:21 | channels being equal in
how far up or down they are.
| | 02:26 | We're going to do the same thing with
the Kick out channel that we did with the
| | 02:29 | snare bottom channel.
| | 02:30 | We're going to bring it up until it's
just about to the level that we can hear it.
| | 02:34 | If it's too loud, it's going to sound
too big and it's going to overpower the
| | 02:39 | kick in mic and the snare drum.
| | 02:41 | So we're going to bring it up
until we can just about barely hear it.
| | 02:44 | (music playing)
| | 02:54 | It's easier to hear when you
have bigger speakers that go lower.
| | 02:57 | So you have to be careful with this
if you're listening on headphones or if
| | 03:00 | you're listening on very, very
small speakers, like computer speakers,
| | 03:05 | because it's very easy to bring this up so
it's too loud and it overpowers everything else.
| | 03:10 | If that's the case, just bring it up so
you can barely hear it, and in some cases
| | 03:14 | if you can't really tell, you're
better off not to use it at all.
| | 03:17 | Now that we have both kicks in, what
we're going to do is engage the group that
| | 03:21 | we created previously.
| | 03:23 | So now that allows us to change the
level of kick drums with just one fader.
| | 03:27 | (music playing)
| | 03:35 | Now, I am going to bring
the overhead channels in.
| | 03:38 | What that's going to do is it's going to
change the sound of the kick and the snare.
| | 03:42 | But the real secret here is to bring
it in just enough that you can hear the
| | 03:46 | sound of the cymbals, and what you're
looking for is some sort of definition.
| | 03:49 | In order to do this, I am going to go
to a memory location that I've already
| | 03:54 | noted that has a lot of cymbals.
| | 03:56 | The way I am going to do that is I
am going to bring up my Memory palette,
| | 04:00 | and that's Command+5.
| | 04:02 | It brings in the memory locations.
| | 04:04 | I am going to hit Drum Fill, and it's
going to take us exactly where we need to go.
| | 04:08 | Now let's listen without
listening to the overheads.
| | 04:11 | (music playing)
| | 04:17 | You can hear the cymbals,
but they are very subdued.
| | 04:20 | Now, we're going to bring up the left
overhead, so we can hear that with more definition.
| | 04:25 | (music playing)
| | 04:33 | Let's bring up the right overhead as well.
| | 04:35 | We're still listening in mono, by the way.
| | 04:37 | We'll get into panning in
the next series of movies.
| | 04:39 | (music playing)
| | 04:48 | Now, you can hear the definition of
those crash cymbals and that's exactly what we want.
| | 04:51 | Now, let's move on to the toms.
| | 04:54 | The first thing I am going to do is bring
up tom number two--that's the middle
| | 04:57 | tom--and listen to how
everything changes with that tom.
| | 05:01 | All of a sudden, the sound of the kick
and the sound of the snare is going to
| | 05:04 | change, just by the fact that the channel is up.
(music playing)
| | 05:17 | Listen to tom number one, the same thing.
| | 05:19 | We'll bring it up to about the same level.
| | 05:20 | (music playing)
| | 05:26 | Now you can really hear it there.
| | 05:28 | There's a lot of rumble from that tom.
| | 05:30 | The kick drum and the snare drum
are actually setting that tom off.
| | 05:34 | It's actually ringing as we're going.
| | 05:36 | That's perfectly normal, and what
you're going to hear is a lot of different
| | 05:40 | leakage coming from those tom mics,
which is going to change the sound of the
| | 05:44 | rest of the drums, but in fact that's normal.
| | 05:47 | What we're going to try to do now is
get the level of the toms, so when we hear
| | 05:52 | that fill, all of the toms are going to be
at about the same level when they are hit.
| | 05:57 | Here we go!
| | 05:58 | (music playing)
| | 06:06 | Let's listen to that again.
(music playing)
| | 06:15 | Let's listen one more time.
(music playing)
| | 06:25 | If you take notice as we listen, you
can still hear the hi-hat, even though the
| | 06:29 | Hat channel is still at 0.
| | 06:31 | Now, sometimes that's perfect for the
song, but other times you'd like to have
| | 06:36 | it either louder in the mix or
you want to hear more definition.
| | 06:38 | So let's just listen to it
without the hat channel even in the mix.
| | 06:43 | Listen for the hi-hat.
(music playing)
| | 06:53 | Now, let's bring the hi-hat in.
(music playing)
| | 07:03 | Mute it for a second.
(music playing)
| | 07:09 | The idea here is to bring it in just
enough that you can hear the definition.
| | 07:13 | Finally, there is one channel that's still
not in the mix, and that's the Room channel.
| | 07:18 | Sometimes there is only one room mic;
sometimes there's two, for stereo;
| | 07:22 | sometimes there's three, which
are left, center, and right.
| | 07:25 | The idea of the room mics is to make it
sound bigger and fatter and fuller and
| | 07:30 | add some glue that you can't get any other way.
| | 07:33 | Once again, the ideal level is
just about when you can hear it.
| | 07:37 | If it gets too loud, the sound of
the drums begins to sound trashy;
| | 07:40 | if it's too low, you won't hear it at all.
| | 07:42 | Let's bring that up now.
| | 07:44 | (music playing)
| | 08:07 | The idea here is that room mic will
not only give you some glue, but it gives
| | 08:13 | you some extra ambience from the room.
| | 08:16 | The better the room sounds,
the better the ambience sounds.
| | 08:19 | So that's how we build the
mix around the snare drum.
| | 08:21 | Usually when you build it this way
the snare will be more prominent in the
| | 08:24 | mix than if you started with another instrument.
| | 08:26 | Keep in mind that it's all going to
change as we add more instruments, as we
| | 08:30 | add compression, as we add EQ, even as we
add effects like reverb and even some delay.
| | 08:37 | Those will all help change the balance
of what we have here, but this is the
| | 08:41 | beginning balance since where we
start from and everything else will be
| | 08:44 | tweaked from there.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building the mix from the toms| 00:00 | Many mixers feel that when they build
their mix from the kick or snare the tom
| | 00:04 | fills get lost when they enter the song.
| | 00:06 | That's why some mixers prefer to build
their drum mix from the toms and build
| | 00:10 | the rest of the mix around them.
| | 00:11 | In this movie, I will
show you just how to do that.
| | 00:14 | So in order to start from the toms, the
first thing we're going to have to do is
| | 00:17 | find a place in the song
where the toms are playing.
| | 00:19 | What I am going to do is hit Command+5.
| | 00:23 | That's going to bring up our memory
locations. And I have already selected a
| | 00:27 | memory location where the drum fills happen.
| | 00:29 | So we come down here to Drum Fill,
click on that, and now we should have a nice
| | 00:34 | drum fill to start from.
| | 00:36 | The first thing I will do is I
will bring up tom number one.
| | 00:38 | It doesn't matter which tom
you start from in this case.
| | 00:41 | I will just bring up tom number
one because it says number one.
| | 00:43 | We'll be able to adjust it a little bit later.
| | 00:46 | The big thing is we want to be able to
hear this and all the other toms without
| | 00:49 | worrying about the rest of the mix first.
| | 00:52 | (music playing)
| | 00:57 | Now, let's bring second tom in, tom
number two. And the idea here is to get it
| | 01:02 | balanced so tom number one, tom
number two are about the same level.
| | 01:05 | (music playing)
| | 01:11 | Let's play that again.
| | 01:11 | (music playing)
| | 01:18 | One more time.
(music playing)
| | 01:23 | Now let's bring the Floor Tom in.
| | 01:24 | Once again the idea is to get
it so it's at the same level.
| | 01:27 | (music playing)
Let's tweak it a little, play it again.
| | 01:34 | (music playing)
It's about right.
| | 01:40 | Now, the next thing I am going to do is I
am going to group all these three together.
| | 01:44 | So what I'll do is I will select the
Floor Tom, then I will Shift+Click on the
| | 01:49 | other two tom channels, and I will go
up to Track, and say let's add a group.
| | 01:54 | You can see Currently in Group there
is Floor Tom, Tom 1, and Tom 2, and let's
| | 01:59 | call the group Toms. Makes sense.
| | 02:03 | And now click OK and now we have the
tom group, and you can see that with one
| | 02:07 | fader, I can move the level of all
three channels up and down as needed.
| | 02:12 | So now we're going to start with the kick,
although you can start with any other
| | 02:16 | drum channel that you like.
| | 02:17 | In this case, we'll do the kick.
We'll try to bring it up so it's about the
| | 02:20 | same level as the toms.
| | 02:23 | (music playing)
Let's hear that one more time.
| | 02:37 | (music playing)
Now, let's bring our snare in.
| | 02:46 | Once again, we're trying to bring it up
so it's relatively the same level as our
| | 02:50 | kick and as the toms as well.
(music playing)
| | 03:03 | Now, we'll bring our overheads in.
| | 03:05 | Once again, the idea here is to bring
it in so you can hear those cymbals,
| | 03:09 | either the crash cymbal or the ride cymbal.
| | 03:11 | If you're looking for definition in the
cymbals, you don't want them to be too loud,
| | 03:15 | you don't want them to be too soft, but
you want to be able to hear them clearly.
| | 03:19 | (music playing)
| | 03:29 | Let's bring the right one in.
| | 03:30 | Once again, we're listening in mono, so
you're not going to hear it as right and left.
| | 03:33 | We'll get into panning in another series.
| | 03:35 | (music playing)
| | 03:48 | If you listen to the hi-hat there,
you could hear it fairly clearly without the
| | 03:52 | hi-hat channel even being on.
| | 03:54 | It's at 0 right now.
| | 03:56 | So if we were to lift it up, the
whole idea is to bring it up so, again, we
| | 04:00 | have some definition.
| | 04:01 | We don't necessarily hear it getting louder
as much as we hear it getting more defined.
| | 04:06 | That's the whole trick.
| | 04:07 | (music playing)
| | 04:19 | And finally, the Room channel.
| | 04:21 | There could be as many as three room
channels on any given mix. One would
| | 04:26 | obviously be mono, two would be left
and right, which would be stereo, and
| | 04:30 | sometimes there's even three,
which is left, center, right.
| | 04:33 | The whole idea of the room channels is
to give the drum kit some ambience and
| | 04:37 | to give it some glue.
| | 04:38 | There is no other way to really do
it other than with the room channel.
| | 04:41 | This is a mic that's set out the room
anywhere from three to maybe a dozen feet away.
| | 04:46 | (music playing)
| | 04:59 | Let's listen again from the beginning.
| | 05:01 | (music playing)
| | 05:09 | So that's how we build a mix around tom fills.
| | 05:12 | As you can hear, the toms are out in
the front, and they are not going to be
| | 05:15 | buried when you use this method.
| | 05:17 | Remember to start with the master mix
bus at about -10 dB since the master level will
| | 05:21 | increase with every drum
that enters into the mix.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building the mix from the overhead mics| 00:00 | Overhead mics are placed further
away from the cymbals than normal cymbal
| | 00:03 | miking, and they're meant to pick
up the overall sound of the drum kit.
| | 00:06 | That's why we're using the overheads
to build your drum mix is a completely
| | 00:09 | different approach to
building your mix any other way.
| | 00:12 | In this movie, I'll show you when this
method is possible and how it's done.
| | 00:15 | The first thing to know about building
a mix from the overheads is there's a
| | 00:19 | difference between the
overheads and cymbal mics.
| | 00:22 | Cymbal mics are placed close to cymbals,
and they're only trying to pick up cymbals.
| | 00:26 | Overheads are placed above the drum
kit, and the idea here is to pick up
| | 00:30 | the entire drum kit.
| | 00:31 | And usually this depends upon the
sound of the room and how big the room is.
| | 00:36 | The bigger the room, the better this works.
| | 00:39 | So sometimes this will work
great, and other times it won't.
| | 00:42 | If you have a small room and you try to
do overheads, the reflections from the
| | 00:46 | ceiling sometimes can just make it sound bad.
| | 00:49 | So just the fact that you've placed the
mics over the drum kit won't necessarily
| | 00:53 | mean that it will sound great.
| | 00:54 | The first thing we're going to do is we're
going to bring the left overhead up until
| | 00:59 | the master mix meters read about -10 or so.
| | 01:02 | (music playing)
| | 01:12 | Now we're going to bring
the right overhead as well.
| | 01:14 | Don't forget, we're listening in mono still.
| | 01:16 | We'll cover panning of drums and panning of
other instruments in a later series of movies.
| | 01:20 | (music playing)
| | 01:30 | Now from here on in, every time we
bring a piece of the drum kit in, what we're
| | 01:34 | trying to do is make it some more
defined, not necessarily trying to put it out
| | 01:38 | in front of the overhead sound;
| | 01:40 | we're just trying to make that particular
piece of the drum kit more defined-sounding.
| | 01:44 | (music playing)
| | 01:52 | Let's do the same thing with the snare.
| | 01:54 | And as you can see, we have the kick and
the snare grouped together, as we talked
| | 01:59 | about in previous movies.
| | 02:00 | (music playing)
| | 02:10 | The next thing is we're going to bring the toms in.
| | 02:12 | In order to first to do that, we have to go
to place in the song that has some tom fills.
| | 02:17 | So actually, I'm going to hit
Command+5 or Ctrl+5 to bring up the
| | 02:22 | Memory Locations window.
| | 02:23 | I already have a drum fill marked.
| | 02:26 | I'll hit Drum Fill. And now we'll hit Play,
which is a Spacebar, and bring those toms up.
| | 02:32 | (music playing)
| | 02:39 | Let's hear it again.
(music playing)
| | 02:49 | The next thing we'll do is we'll bring
up the hat, with the idea of just trying
| | 02:53 | to add to the definition.
(music playing)
| | 03:07 | Finally, we'll bring the room channel up.
| | 03:08 | There is only one room channel in this case.
| | 03:11 | Many times there's two for stereo and sometimes
there's even three: left, center, and right.
| | 03:15 | And the idea here is it's going to
add to the ambience, and it's going to
| | 03:19 | add a little bit to the glue.
| | 03:20 | Again, we'll just bring it
up enough that we can hear it.
| | 03:22 | (music playing)
| | 03:34 | So that's how we build a mix in the
overhead mics, which are placed further
| | 03:37 | away from the drums than normal cymbal mics.
| | 03:39 | As you can hear, it's a completely
different sound than when we started from
| | 03:43 | the kick, when we started from the snare,
or when we started from the toms for instance.
| | 03:46 | The idea with this technique is
that the main drum sound comes from the
| | 03:50 | overheads and the drum mics
just fill in the sound around it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Checking the drum phase| 00:00 | One of the most important yet
overlooked parts of the drum mix is checking
| | 00:03 | the phase of the drums.
| | 00:04 | This is important because not only
will an out-of-phase channel suck the
| | 00:07 | low end out of a mix, but it'll get more
difficult to fix as the mix progresses.
| | 00:12 | In this video, I'm going to show you
how to check the phase of the drums and
| | 00:15 | select the correct settings.
| | 00:16 | So the first thing is there's two
reasons why a drum channel, or any kind of
| | 00:20 | channel for that matter, can be out of phase.
| | 00:22 | The first thing could be a mis-wired
cable and this could either be a mic cable
| | 00:27 | that was wired backwards, because a lot
of people wire their own cables, save a
| | 00:30 | little bit of money, or it could be
because during a studio install, the
| | 00:34 | installer didn't have his first cup
of coffee in the morning and didn't wear
| | 00:37 | his glasses or something that day,
and the things are mis-wired.
| | 00:41 | So, just that one cable can
cause things to be out of phase.
| | 00:44 | The other reason why you can have
something out of phase is because you have two
| | 00:48 | microphones that are very, very close
to listening to the exact same sound
| | 00:53 | source, and when that happens you have
a potential phase problem that happens,
| | 00:57 | and we'll see how that works in a little bit.
| | 00:59 | So the first thing I'm going to do is
make sure that I have a plug-in on each
| | 01:03 | channel, and usually a plug-in will have
the ability to allow you to switch the phase.
| | 01:09 | So for instance, over here on this
compressor we have a little button here
| | 01:14 | which is a zero with a line through it,
and what that is this is a symbol of phase.
| | 01:19 | So in order for us to really hear it,
what we're going to do in this case is
| | 01:23 | we're going to listen to the kick
drums by themselves, but we want them to be
| | 01:29 | exactly the same level.
| | 01:31 | So here's the kick drum.
| | 01:32 | (music playing)
| | 01:37 | Here's the second one.
(music playing)
| | 01:43 | We want them to be about the exact same level,
| | 01:45 | again, not the fader level; we're
looking at the Master Mix Meter instead.
| | 01:48 | (music playing)
| | 01:53 | Now watch when I change the Phase button here.
| | 01:55 | When it's blue it's out of phase.
(music playing)
| | 02:07 | There is more low end when it's
not select than when it is selected.
| | 02:11 | What that means is both channels are in
phase, and the best selection here is the
| | 02:16 | one that gives you the most low end.
| | 02:17 | We're always going for the
selection that has the most low end.
| | 02:22 | The next thing we're going to do is go to
our overheads where we can really hear it.
| | 02:26 | There's two overheads.
| | 02:27 | There's a left and right overhead.
| | 02:28 | We're going to solo those up, listen to them.
| | 02:33 | (music playing)
| | 02:42 | I've inserted a one-band EQ
across each of these channels.
| | 02:46 | I don't much care about the EQ;
| | 02:48 | what I do care about is the
ability to change the phase.
| | 02:51 | And once again, on the input here we
have a selector to be able to change from
| | 02:55 | one side of the phase to the other.
| | 02:57 | Now, listen to what it
sounds like when we select it.
| | 03:00 | (music playing)
| | 03:16 | Pretty dramatic.
| | 03:17 | The selection that we want is the
one that gives us the most low end.
| | 03:20 | That's when it's in phase.
| | 03:22 | If we have something that's out of phase,
you're going to have low end that gets sucked out.
| | 03:26 | It won't be all the frequencies;
it will be some of them.
| | 03:29 | So now what we'll actually do is we'll
go through each channel, we'll hit that
| | 03:33 | Phase button, and we'll see if there's
change, and if there is, we'll select the
| | 03:37 | position that gives us the most low end.
| | 03:39 | (music playing)
| | 03:52 | Don't hear much of a difference there. We'll move on.
| | 03:54 | (music playing)
| | 04:03 | No difference there either.
| | 04:04 | (music playing)
| | 04:16 | I don't hear any difference there.
And we'll keep on doing this.
| | 04:18 | We'll go through all the
channels and we'll flip the phase.
| | 04:21 | Sometimes what we'll do if it
starts to sound funny, you can solo a few
| | 04:25 | channels up and listen to what it
sounds like there. But you'll know if there's
| | 04:29 | something very much out of phase,
you'll hear it right away as soon as you hit
| | 04:32 | that selector switch.
| | 04:33 | Not only will an out-of-phase channel
suck the low end and out of a mix, but
| | 04:36 | it'll get increasingly more
difficult to fix as the mix progresses.
| | 04:40 | No amount of EQ or
compression or anything else can fix it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Balancing direct and miked bass channels| 00:00 | Once upon a time, the bass amp was always mic'd.
| | 00:03 | Today most basses are taken direct.
| | 00:05 | That being said, sometimes both the amp mic
and the direct signals are recorded on
| | 00:08 | separate tracks as well, so that the
bass sound has the best combination of
| | 00:12 | bottom end and clarity.
| | 00:13 | In this video, I'm going to show you how
to balance direct and mic'd bass signals.
| | 00:17 | So the direct and the mic'd
bass signals are going to sound
| | 00:20 | completely different.
| | 00:21 | The DI is generally going to have more
definition and a little more high end, and
| | 00:25 | the mic'd bass cabinet is going to sound
a bit more fuller and rounder. So let's
| | 00:30 | listen to them both. Here is the DI.
| | 00:33 | (music playing)
| | 00:42 | We'll go back to the beginning and
listen to it again, and here's the mic'd bass cabinet.
| | 00:47 | (music playing)
| | 00:58 | Now generally speaking, when we add
them together, we get a combination that
| | 01:02 | sounds better than either one, but not always.
| | 01:06 | Sometimes it doesn't work on the track,
and sometimes it works great, but some
| | 01:09 | combination is usually perfect.
| | 01:11 | The first thing we're going do though
is we're going to check the phase just
| | 01:14 | like we did with the drums.
| | 01:16 | So if you take notice, I have an
EQ inserted on both of the channels.
| | 01:21 | So I'm going to bring one up. I only
need one. I'm going to play it
| | 01:25 | (music playing)
And I'm going to flip the phase.
| | 01:30 | (music playing)
| | 01:45 | Now you can really hear the
difference when the phase is flipped there.
| | 01:49 | Sometimes people actually like that
flipped-phase sound and they'll use that in
| | 01:53 | the track--not all the time, but
sometimes it's perfect for a certain track.
| | 01:57 | Most of the time though, you prefer to
have a selection that gives you the most
| | 02:01 | bass, and that's where we're going to leave it.
| | 02:02 | In this case, it's going to be
deselected, and we're going to just keep it
| | 02:06 | without the phase switched
on either of the channels.
| | 02:09 | Now in order for us to figure out the correct
balance, we can do this two deferent ways.
| | 02:16 | One way is we can raise the DI, have a
listen to it, and gradually bring the
| | 02:21 | bass cabinet in until we
get the fullness that we need.
| | 02:24 | (music playing)
| | 02:39 | Now another way that we can do it that
sometime works even better is to listen in
| | 02:44 | the track to what the bass sounds like,
| | 02:46 | just the bass DI, and then
bring in the bass cabinet.
| | 02:50 | So let's have a listen.
| | 02:52 | We'll bring in not all the
instruments, but a lot of them.
| | 02:55 | (music playing)
| | 03:02 | That's just the bass DI.
| | 03:05 | Let's bring in some of the bass cabinet.
(music playing)
| | 03:22 | Now the idea here is to make it full,
but we don't make it so full that it
| | 03:26 | overpowers the kick drum, or any
other instrument for that matter.
| | 03:29 | One channel will sound fatter and the other
more distinct, so choose the one that
| | 03:32 | sounds best in the track
and add the other to taste.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building the mix from the bass| 00:00 | If you listen to hit records from
the '50s, '60s and '70s, the bass was the
| | 00:04 | foundation of the songs, not the drums.
| | 00:06 | A lot of old-school engineers still
like to start from the bass and then build
| | 00:09 | their mix around it.
| | 00:10 | In this video, I am going to
show you how to do just that.
| | 00:13 | The first thing we are going to do, just
like we did before when we were mixing
| | 00:17 | from the drums, we are going to bring
the bass level up so it's about -10 on
| | 00:23 | the master mix meters.
| | 00:24 | (music playing)
| | 00:32 | Now it's going to peak a little above
and go a little below. This is just an average.
| | 00:36 | Now let's bring the kick so they
are up just about the same level.
| | 00:42 | (music playing)
| | 00:59 | Now take notice, when the level is the same between the
kick and the bass, you are going to see
| | 01:04 | the master mix level meters increase
by about 3 dB, so that means if we started
| | 01:11 | around 10, it's going to
be some where around -7.
| | 01:13 | So take a look. That's just
about where we're at now.
| | 01:16 | (music playing)
| | 01:24 | Okay, now we are going to bring the
snare up so it's just about the same level as well.
| | 01:27 | (music playing)
| | 01:44 | Now, we are going to proceed with
building our mix just as we did before with
| | 01:48 | the drums, only now we are going to
build everything around the bass sound.
| | 01:51 | In order to hear the overheads and the
cymbals, what we are going to do is go
| | 01:57 | again to where our drum fills are.
| | 01:59 | So we are going to hit Command+5 or
Ctrl+5 to bring up our Memory Location
| | 02:04 | window and select Drum Fill.
| | 02:07 | That should take us to the place in the
song, and let's build the mix from there.
| | 02:11 | (music playing)
| | 02:24 | Let's go back and I will bring our toms up.
(music playing)
| | 02:38 | And now let's bring the hi-hat in.
(music playing)
| | 02:45 | Once again, when we're bringing the
hi-hat in what we are trying to do is just
| | 02:48 | increase the definition.
| | 02:49 | And now finally, we will bring the room
sound in, once again just to the point
| | 02:53 | where we can hear it.
(music playing)
| | 03:06 | Now what this does is it makes sure
that the bass is always up in front of the
| | 03:10 | mix when we build it this way.
| | 03:11 | Now again, everything is going to
change somewhat as soon as we begin to EQ, as
| | 03:16 | soon as we begin to compress the
various channels, and even when we will begin
| | 03:20 | to add some effects, but those should
be minor tweaks from where we are at
| | 03:24 | right now.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building the mix from the vocals| 00:00 | There's this school of thought that
since the vocal is usually the most
| | 00:02 | important element in the mix; the
entire mix should be built around it.
| | 00:06 | In this video, I am going to show you how to
build your mix by starting with the vocal first.
| | 00:09 | So just like with all the other mixes,
the first thing we are going to do is we're
| | 00:13 | going to bring the vocal up so the
master mix bus levels read about -10 dB.
| | 00:18 | (music playing)
| | 00:29 | Once again, that's just an average.
| | 00:30 | It will peak above.
| | 00:31 | It will be a little below.
| | 00:32 | I just want to get it so it's around -10,
just so you have some head room left
| | 00:37 | for all the other instruments when they come in.
| | 00:39 | Now we are going to bring the kick
drum so it's about the same level.
| | 00:43 | It doesn't have to be exactly, but
you're trying to get in the ballpark.
| | 00:45 | (music playing)
| | 00:58 | Now we are going to bring the snare
drum up, as well as all the other drums,
| | 01:02 | just so we can hear them, and they are
roughly the same level as the vocal.
| | 01:05 | We never want to go louder than the vocal.
| | 01:07 | If anything, we want to go a
little bit less than the vocal.
| | 01:09 | (music playing)
| | 01:33 | Once again, in order to check the
overheads so we can hear the cymbals and
| | 01:38 | check the toms, we want to go to a
place in the song where we can hear both
| | 01:41 | cymbal crashes or ride cymbal,
or we can hear tom fills.
| | 01:45 | So we are going to hit the Command+5 or
Ctrl+5 to bring up the Memory Locations window.
| | 01:51 | Once again, we'll come over to our
memory location that has the drum fill,
| | 01:56 | and we'll listen from there.
| | 01:57 | (music playing)
[00:02:09.0]
So now we bring our overheads up
so we can hear that crash cymbal.
| | 02:12 | Now we are going to bring our toms in so we
make sure that we can hear all the toms as well.
| | 02:18 | And once again, you can see that the
kick and the snare and the toms are all
| | 02:22 | grouped together, as we
talked about in previous videos.
| | 02:25 | (music playing)
| | 02:38 | Now we are going to bring our hi-hat up.
(music playing)
| | 02:46 | Once again, we're bringing that up so
we can hear the definition on the hi-hat.
| | 02:50 | We are not bringing it up for level so
much, just so it becomes more defined.
| | 02:54 | Now we are going to bring
the room mic up as well.
| | 02:56 | So once again, it's going to
add some glue to the drum mix.
| | 02:59 | (music playing)
| | 03:13 | Last but not the least, we are
going to bring the bass channel in.
| | 03:15 | Now the bass channel is going to
come up with about the same level as the
| | 03:19 | kick and the snare.
| | 03:20 | A little more, a little less. it depends on
the song. it depends on the sound of the bass.
| | 03:24 | (music playing)
| | 03:45 | Now, you can hear what happened.
| | 03:47 | No matter what we do, the vocal
is always front and the center.
| | 03:50 | By bringing it in first, we make sure
that it never gets buried in the mix.
| | 03:54 | One of the things that happens
frequently, if we build a mix from the drums, or
| | 03:58 | build the mix from the bass, or
build a mix from any other instrument and
| | 04:01 | bring in the vocal last, which a lot of
mixers do, sometimes there is no space
| | 04:06 | for it and they are really have a hard
time fitting it in into the mix so you
| | 04:09 | can hear it clearly.
| | 04:10 | So by building the mix around the vocal
you make sure that it's always a center of
| | 04:13 | attention and it never gets buried.
| | 04:15 | This approach keeps your
vocal front and center in the mix.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Balancing the rhythm section| 00:00 | The balance between the bass and drums is
critical because it provides the power of the mix.
| | 00:04 | The key is to make the bass, kick,
and snare work together to provide
| | 00:08 | the foundation of the pulse of the song yet
still be able to hear each one distinctly.
| | 00:12 | In this video, I am going
to show you how that's done.
| | 00:14 | So now that you have a drum mix that
you've gotten either from using any of the
| | 00:19 | approaches before from starting with
the kick, from starting with the toms,
| | 00:23 | from starting with the overhead, from
starting with the snare, now that you
| | 00:27 | have it, we're going to put it aside
for a second and mute it, and we're just
| | 00:30 | going to listen to the bass.
| | 00:31 | I am going to bring that bass up so it's
about -10 on the master mix bus meters.
| | 00:36 | (music playing)
| | 00:47 | And once again, it's not
going to be exactly -10.
| | 00:50 | It's going to peak a little above it.
| | 00:51 | It's going to go a little below it.
| | 00:53 | And a little bit later when we get into
compression, we're going to look to see
| | 00:57 | how we can make that bass sound a
little more even so we can keep it closer to
| | 01:00 | -10, but for now it's okay
if it drifts above or below.
| | 01:03 | So now that we've got the bass sound
right around -10, now what we're going
| | 01:07 | to do is we're going to unmute the drums,
but we just want to listen to the kick drums.
| | 01:13 | So we're going to mute all of the other
drums, just listen to the kick, and we're
| | 01:18 | going to mute the bass as well.
| | 01:21 | The whole idea here is we want the
kick to be somewhere around -10 as well.
| | 01:26 | In the end, it's going to drift
a little above, a little below.
| | 01:30 | Now let's unmute the bass.
(music playing)
| | 01:38 | They should be about the same level.
And let's unmute the snare drum.
| | 01:44 | (music playing)
| | 01:51 | The whole idea here is you
should be able to hear all three at about the same level.
| | 01:58 | Now, we're going to listen to all the
other drums and especially listen to
| | 02:02 | see if, when we put all of the drums in,
if the bass gets masked in any way,
| | 02:06 | if all of a sudden it seems like it's
diminished the level or the definition is diminished.
| | 02:10 | So, let's unmute them all and have a listen,
and we're going to listen at the drum fill.
| | 02:15 | (music playing)
| | 02:27 | So the whole thing here is ask yourself
if you can hear the kick and the snare
| | 02:31 | and the bass distinctly.
| | 02:32 | If you can't, don't worry about it
because what we're going to do a little bit
| | 02:36 | later is we're going to fix
that with EQ and with compression.
| | 02:39 | But right now, we'd just want to get
it in the ballpark where all three sound
| | 02:42 | like they're about at the same level.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Balancing the rest of the instruments with the rhythm section| 00:00 | After the rhythm section is balanced,
it's time to add the rest of the instruments.
| | 00:04 | The order in which that happens will
depend upon the song and the arrangement,
| | 00:07 | so let's look at our sample song as an example.
| | 00:09 | So the idea here is we're going to bring
the instruments in just at a level that
| | 00:12 | we can hear them, so we don't
overpower the rhythm section.
| | 00:16 | The first thing we're going to bring in is
the organ, because I like to bring the
| | 00:20 | keyboards in first if there
are keyboards in the song.
| | 00:24 | You can start with any other
instrument that you'd like, but for me, the
| | 00:27 | keyboards seems to work because a lot
of times they work as a pad, so they're
| | 00:30 | kind of a bed instrument in a song.
| | 00:32 | (music playing)
| | 00:46 | Next instrument I am going
to bring in is guitar number one.
| | 00:48 | In this case, it just says GUITAR.
| | 00:50 | So we're going to bring this in, once again, to
the point that we can hear it but it
| | 00:54 | doesn't overpower the rhythm section.
| | 00:56 | (music playing)
| | 01:08 | Now, we are going to bring
in guitar number two. Same thing.
| | 01:12 | We're going to bring it in just loud
enough that we can hear it, not too loud
| | 01:15 | that it overpowers the rhythm section, or
any of the other instruments for that matter.
| | 01:18 | (music playing)
| | 01:33 | Now, guitar one and guitar two sound very,
very similar, and it's very difficult
| | 01:37 | to even differentiate between the two.
| | 01:40 | We're going to fix that a little bit
later with EQ, but for now we're going to
| | 01:43 | leave it just the way it is.
| | 01:44 | Now, let's bring in the vocal.
| | 01:46 | Now the vocal actually can be in
several different places, in terms of balance.
| | 01:51 | On a normal pop song, it's way
out in front of the rhythm section.
| | 01:54 | It's the most prominent,
featured instrument in the mix.
| | 01:57 | In a rock song, or in a song where you'd
like the most power of the mix, usually
| | 02:02 | it's back further in a mix.
| | 02:04 | So let's bring this up to where it's
like a typical pop mix, where it's up in front.
| | 02:09 | (music playing)
| | 02:29 | Now, you can hear this is just a
little bit on top of the rhythm section.
| | 02:33 | It's still powerful, but what you
really hear first and foremost is that vocal,
| | 02:37 | and of course you hear
this in a lot of pop songs.
| | 02:40 | If we want to emphasize the power of
the band, usually we'll bring that vocal
| | 02:45 | back somewhat into the mix, not so much
that we can't distinguish the words, but
| | 02:49 | far enough back that the
power of the mix is up in front.
| | 02:52 | (music playing)
| | 03:18 | So now we have it back farther in mix,
and we can even bring it back farther.
| | 03:21 | There are some hit songs where you
really have to listen hard to hear the words,
| | 03:25 | and that's on purpose; that vocal is
brought back far enough in the mix so you
| | 03:29 | hear more of the power of the rhythm section.
| | 03:32 | Either way is okay.
| | 03:33 | It depends upon the song and it
depends upon the mix that you're going for.
| | 03:36 | Now, let's bring the background vocals in.
| | 03:38 | The background vocals start in the B
section of the song, so let's go there.
| | 03:42 | We'll hit Command+5 or Ctrl+5, bring
up our Memory Locations window, and B
| | 03:48 | Section, close the Memory
Locations window, and here we go!
| | 03:52 | (music playing)
| | 04:10 | So the background vocals are usually
a little bit behind the lead vocals, as
| | 04:14 | they are right now.
| | 04:15 | Sometimes they are equal to the lead
vocals in level, but they're never above
| | 04:20 | the lead vocal, or very rarely.
| | 04:22 | So we want to start with them right about there.
| | 04:25 | The last thing we're going to bring in
is the percussion--in this case, it's
| | 04:28 | the tambourine--and once again we're
going to bring this up so we can just
| | 04:31 | about hear it in the mix.
| | 04:32 | (music playing)
| | 04:52 | This is the balance of a
rough mix, and generally speaking,
| | 04:56 | it's only a place to start.
| | 04:58 | We're going to tweak it from here.
| | 04:59 | It will get tweaked as we add compression,
| | 05:02 | it will get tweaked as we add EQ to
the instruments to make them more defined
| | 05:05 | and bigger, and it will get
tweaked when we add effects.
| | 05:08 | So to sum it up, be careful that the
instruments aren't too loud so that the
| | 05:12 | rhythm section stays powerful.
| | 05:14 | Also, remember that in pop songs the
vocals are usually the loudest element in
| | 05:17 | the mix, but to emphasize the
groove, decrease the vocal level.
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| Making a mix without building it| 00:00 | There are some mixers that just push up
all the faders and mix with everything
| | 00:03 | in the mix from the beginning.
| | 00:05 | The theory is that everything will be
in the mix anyway, so you might as well
| | 00:08 | start with it all in as soon as you can.
| | 00:10 | In this movie, I'm going to show you the
advantages of mixing this way, and we'll
| | 00:14 | look at an example of
how this technique is done.
| | 00:16 | The advantage of this method is that
by hearing all of the instruments and
| | 00:19 | vocals, you're able to make
an aural space for everything.
| | 00:23 | If you insert one instrument at a time,
you begin to run out of space, and
| | 00:26 | frequently you have to go back to the
beginning just to make sure everything
| | 00:29 | fits in together properly.
| | 00:31 | The downside to this is it might not
have the power of the previous mixes.
| | 00:35 | So the first thing is we'll just bring
all the faders up. And in this case, we
| | 00:39 | have our subgroup faders that we're
going to be mixing from, just to make things
| | 00:43 | a little bit easier.
| | 00:44 | And we're just going to
randomly bring the faders up here.
| | 00:47 | (music playing)
| | 01:03 | And what we're going to do is
just gradually balance everything.
| | 01:07 | And the downside of this here is that
there's no particular rhyme or reason.
| | 01:10 | Before, we were saying
| | 01:11 | let's start at -10 on the kick or
-10 on the bass or whatever instrument
| | 01:16 | you might start with.
| | 01:17 | In this case, everything is in, and
we're going to rely on our intuition to
| | 01:21 | kind of balance things.
| | 01:22 | And this could work for a lot of
people. If you're new, it's not really the best
| | 01:25 | place to start from, but it's one way
to do it, and I'm going to show you how.
| | 01:29 | (music playing)
| | 02:29 | Now there's two things here.
| | 02:30 | The first thing is the
master mix meters have peaked.
| | 02:33 | (music playing)
| | 02:41 | They're running hot and you can see the
red LEDs, which means that we've peaked.
| | 02:46 | Now this is one of the problems that
you have when you're mixing like this is
| | 02:50 | the fact that you're going to have very, very
high levels most of the time. We can fix that;
| | 02:54 | that's not a problem.
| | 02:55 | First thing is to get rid of our overloaded
LEDs and just click on them and they go away.
| | 03:00 | And the next thing is we'll just
bring the master down a little bit so we
| | 03:03 | won't have that problem.
| | 03:04 | But now you can hear the balance is pretty good.
| | 03:06 | I've got the balance together
because I'm fairly experienced.
| | 03:09 | I know how to do this and I know the song.
| | 03:11 | But if you're just starting, it may be
more confusing than it needs to be for you.
| | 03:15 | It's just a method of how to do it.
| | 03:18 | But really what I'm doing here is I'm
concentrating first on the rhythm section,
| | 03:22 | starting with the drums, then the bass,
then really the vocal, and I'm trying to
| | 03:26 | fit everything around that.
| | 03:27 | Let's have a listen.
(music playing)
| | 03:54 | Now once again, we'd call this more
of a rough mix than anything else.
| | 03:58 | And obviously, if we're going to a
final mix, we do everything a lot slower,
| | 04:02 | but it's just an example of how you can
build the mix with all the instruments
| | 04:06 | in from the beginning.
| | 04:07 | And once again, it's just a method
that some people have--not many, some
| | 04:11 | people do do it this way.
| | 04:12 | So this is how you build a mix with
all the elements in from the beginning.
| | 04:15 | Be aware that the mix may not have the
same power as the other mix techniques.
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| Balancing the harmony vocals| 00:00 | With harmony vocals, the balance is crucial
in order to get the correct blended impact.
| | 00:04 | In this movie, I'm going to show you
how to mix harmony vocals so they have a
| | 00:07 | great blend and work well with
the other elements of the song.
| | 00:10 | Usually the highest harmony
vocal is the one that cuts the most.
| | 00:14 | And as we get lower and lower, each
one tends to get more lost in the mix.
| | 00:18 | So just like with the drums, we're
going to start from the bottom up, with the
| | 00:22 | lowest vocal first, and then build on that.
| | 00:25 | So I happen to know that BGV, or
Background Vocal number 1, is the lowest vocal,
| | 00:30 | so let's bring that up
and let's start from there.
| | 00:32 | (music playing)
| | 00:40 | Okay. Now let's bring the second vocal up.
| | 00:43 | The middle vocal happens to
be the lead vocal as well.
| | 00:46 | This is not uncommon.
| | 00:47 | Many times you'll have the lead vocal in
the middle of a three-part harmony, with
| | 00:51 | the lower vocal on the bottom
and the higher vocal on top.
| | 00:54 | Sometimes it works where the lead
vocal is actually on the bottom and the two
| | 00:58 | higher vocals are on top of that,
but in this case it's the lead vocal that's in the middle.
| | 01:02 | (music playing)
| | 01:14 | And what we're doing is we're bringing
it up so it's just about the same level.
| | 01:17 | If anything, we're keeping the lower
background vocal, the lowest one, a little bit higher.
| | 01:21 | And now let's bring the highest one in,
which is BGV2, or Background Vocal number 2.
| | 01:26 | Since it's the highest, it's
usually the one that cuts the most,
| | 01:30 | so this will be a little bit
back in level from the other two.
| | 01:32 | (music playing)
| | 01:50 | You can hear the vocal is pretty good
together, but really we won't know until we
| | 01:54 | listen in the track.
| | 01:55 | Let's unsolo these and
have a listen where we're at.
| | 01:59 | (music playing)
| | 02:19 | There you have it. That's how you
balance three-part vocal harmonies.
| | 02:22 | If you do it like you do the rhythm
section. from the bottom part up, you make
| | 02:26 | sure that none of the vocal
parts get lost in the mix.
| | 02:28 | Remember that the middle vocal part is
crucial to the harmony balance, and care
| | 02:32 | should be taken that it's at the right level.
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|
|
5. Panning Looking at the three main panning areas| 00:00 | One of the most taken-for-granted
elements in mixing pertains to the placement
| | 00:03 | of the sound element in the
stereo field, otherwise known as panning.
| | 00:07 | In this video, I'm going to show
you how panning can create excitement by
| | 00:10 | adding movement within the stereo
field as well as adding clarity to an
| | 00:13 | instrument by moving it out
of the way of other sounds.
| | 00:16 | The first thing is a stereo provides a
sense of spaciousness, and that's what
| | 00:20 | panning is giving us.
| | 00:21 | It's giving us the spaciousness and
as a result, we're also getting some
| | 00:25 | clarity out of it as well.
| | 00:27 | The thing about panning though is there
are three main fields that we have and
| | 00:31 | that's hard left, hard right, and in the center.
| | 00:35 | Now what happens when we pan something
in the center is the sound is coming
| | 00:39 | out of both speakers at the
same time, in an equal amount,
| | 00:43 | and that gives us a solid feel to the track.
| | 00:46 | So what we try to do is anything with a lot
of low end we try to put into the middle.
| | 00:51 | So for instance, listen to one
track of the bass, which is the DI track.
| | 00:56 | So if we put it in the center,
it sounds very, very solid.
| | 01:03 | As soon as we move it to the left or
to the right, now we get the sense of
| | 01:14 | spaciousness, but it doesn't
sound quite the same anymore.
| | 01:18 | And we can use this to our
advantage, but usually we do that in other
| | 01:21 | instruments rather than the bass.
| | 01:22 | Now let's just listen with the track for a
second, with the bass panned at the middle.
| | 01:27 | (music playing)
| | 01:35 | Now, if we were to add the second bass track,
the bass cabinet in, and listen to them
| | 01:41 | both and solo them both--
(music playing)
| | 01:47 | --it sounds pretty good.
| | 01:48 | Now as soon as we begin to pan them
though, all of a sudden we lose some power.
| | 01:53 | (music playing)
| | 01:57 | It still sounds good, but there's just
enough difference between the two tracks that
| | 02:02 | we've gained some
spaciousness, but we lost some power.
| | 02:05 | Let's listen with the track.
| | 02:06 | (music playing)
| | 02:17 | That's one of the reasons why we don't
pan things like kick drums and basses.
| | 02:22 | In the early days of stereo, you might
find some records where that happened,
| | 02:25 | where on the left channel you might
have the bass and on the right channel you
| | 02:29 | might have the drums.
| | 02:30 | But that was only because they
had limited panning positions--
| | 02:33 | they didn't have pan pods back
then--and they were learning to trade.
| | 02:37 | So you had a few of The Beatle records
for instance that did that, but not many.
| | 02:42 | Where panning does come in handy
though is when we do something like panning
| | 02:46 | the vocals or panning other instruments
to stay out of the way of certain instruments.
| | 02:53 | Now let's just solo up our
background vocals for a second.
| | 02:56 | (music playing)
Everything panned up the middle.
| | 03:03 | And just listen to it for a second.
| | 03:05 | It sounds pretty good.
(music playing)
| | 03:19 | Now if we were to pan these background
vocals hard left and hard right, have a
| | 03:24 | listen to what it sounds like now.
| | 03:25 | (music playing)
| | 03:38 | Now what we get is a sense of
spaciousness, but what also happens is the vocals
| | 03:43 | detach from one another.
| | 03:44 | And what we want sometimes is we
want all three vocals, in this case, to
| | 03:49 | sound like a section.
| | 03:50 | If we pan everything hard left, hard
right, and up the center, then there's a
| | 03:54 | detachment that doesn't
actually quite work really well.
| | 03:57 | But what happens if we just pan them a little?
| | 04:00 | Well, let's pan 20% to one side,
20% to the other side. Now have a listen.
| | 04:07 | (music playing)
| | 04:20 | Now what that does is it
gives us the best of both worlds.
| | 04:23 | It gives us a space in the
middle for that lead vocal.
| | 04:26 | It moves the background vocals a little out
of the way, plus it gives us some spaciousness.
| | 04:31 | So that's the beauty of using the spaces
in between hard left and hard right and
| | 04:36 | the center, where we can
get the best of both worlds.
| | 04:40 | We can get the clarity
plus we can get spaciousness.
| | 04:43 | So sometimes just a little bit of
movement to the left or to the right makes a
| | 04:48 | really big difference.
| | 04:49 | The other thing that we can do is
listen to some guitars as well and how
| | 04:52 | that works with guitars.
| | 04:54 | So I'll come over here, and there's two
guitar parts especially that we can listen to.
| | 04:58 | Let's play it for a second and take
notice, they're panned up the middle.
| | 05:03 | (music playing)
| | 05:17 | Now this sounds pretty good, and we can
hear the difference between both of them.
| | 05:21 | But now if we pan them just a little bit
left and right, you can hear a big difference.
| | 05:25 | All of a sudden, there will
be some clarity between them.
| | 05:27 | Now once again, we'll just go to 29.
And Guitar number 1 is actually in stereo,
| | 05:33 | so what we'll do is we'll pan the left
way far to the left and the right-hand
| | 05:38 | channel just a little bit.
| | 05:40 | Now here's the beauty of a stereo instrument.
| | 05:43 | We don't always have to
pan it hard left and right.
| | 05:46 | We can just pan it a little bit, and we can
get the same spaciousness. And take a listen.
| | 05:50 | (music playing)
| | 06:04 | And now you can hear that there's
a lot more clarity between both.
| | 06:08 | This also happens with stereo instruments,
and let's listen for a second to the organ.
| | 06:13 | This is a Hammond B3, and with the B3
it's being played through a Leslie Tone
| | 06:20 | Cabinet, which has a rotating horn on
the top and rotating horn on the bottom.
| | 06:25 | And what that does is it gives us
a very unique stereo perspective.
| | 06:30 | Let's just listen in mono for a second,
and let's solo both of them and have a listen.
| | 06:34 | (music playing)
| | 06:50 | Now let's pan them hard left and hard right,
which is what a lot of people think right off.
| | 06:55 | Well, I have it stereo. Let me pan it
hard left and hard right and have a listen.
| | 06:59 | (music playing)
| | 07:13 | Now sometimes you can go too far with
your panning, and in this case this is one
| | 07:18 | of those things where it's a good example where
| | 07:22 | when you pan it so far apart all of a
sudden the low end and the high end sort
| | 07:26 | of detach from one another.
| | 07:27 | It gets so far--and that happens with
pianos a lot too, where the low keys feel
| | 07:32 | like they're detached from the high keys.
| | 07:35 | So sometimes a hard left/hard right
pan doesn't really work well for a lot
| | 07:40 | of stereo instruments.
| | 07:41 | In fact, it sounds better if we do a
modest pan, and let's just take it to 32, and
| | 07:47 | we'll take the right-hand side to about
the same thing, 33. Have a listen now.
| | 07:51 | (music playing)
| | 08:06 | Now the beauty of that is there's no
detachment between the high and low
| | 08:10 | end, plus we get this sense of spaciousness,
which is what the panning is all about anyway.
| | 08:16 | And that gives us this beautiful
feel of hearing the player play right
| | 08:20 | across the stereo field, and yet we
still have the spaciousness without any
| | 08:25 | kind of detachment.
| | 08:26 | So one of the reasons why it's
important to stay away, a lot of times, from the
| | 08:31 | hard left and hard right areas is the
fact that you'll get a very, very wide
| | 08:35 | stereo field, but sometimes
it will just feel unnatural.
| | 08:39 | And by being a little more modest with
your panning, it will feel much more natural.
| | 08:43 | Let's listen in the track now.
| | 08:45 | (music playing)
| | 08:59 | Now you can hear it where we
still feel that spaciousness.
| | 09:02 | It's still sort of up the
middle, but it feels really good.
| | 09:06 | So to sum it up, stereo provides a
sense of spaciousness and panning allows us
| | 09:09 | to create excitement by adding
movement within the stereo field.
| | 09:13 | The most prominent music element is
usually panned to the center, as well as the
| | 09:16 | kick drum, the bass guitar, and even the
snare drum, because this makes the mix
| | 09:21 | feel strong and anchored.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Panning the drums| 00:00 | Back in the days when a drum kit was
recorded with only a few microphones drums
| | 00:04 | were recorded in mono, and
sometimes even on a single track.
| | 00:07 | Today with most drum kits and drum
loops tracked in stereo the entire mix is
| | 00:11 | built upon the idea that the drums will
take up a lot of space in the stereo field.
| | 00:15 | In this video, I am going to show you
a couple of different concepts that you
| | 00:18 | can use for your drum panning.
| | 00:20 | First of all, there are two ways to pan
the drums: from the audience perspective--
| | 00:24 | or how you're looking at the drums--or
from the drummer's perspective--how he's
| | 00:28 | looking at the drums himself or
looking out at you, the audience.
| | 00:31 | 90% of most mixers that I know pan
from the audience perspective, and that's
| | 00:36 | very comfortable to them, although it
might work from the other way as well.
| | 00:40 | First of all, let's listen to this
track with just the drums in mono and listen
| | 00:46 | to what they're like.
| | 00:47 | They are powerful as is, but they
don't have a sense of spaciousness.
| | 00:51 | (music playing)
| | 01:00 | Now the first thing we will do
is we will pan out the overheads,
| | 01:03 | and the overheads usually are left and
right and they work very well if they are
| | 01:07 | panned hard left and right.
| | 01:09 | They are also the most dramatic.
| | 01:10 | It might not be the best way to put
them, but at least to start you can
| | 01:14 | really hear it well.
| | 01:15 | So let's go up and pan the left overhead
and the right overhead and have a listen.
| | 01:19 | (music playing)
| | 01:32 | All of a sudden you get a sense of
spaciousness from the drums, and you can hear
| | 01:35 | that crash cymbal on the left-hand side.
| | 01:39 | Later on, it goes to the ride cymbal that's
on the right-hand side, which is just the
| | 01:43 | way you'd be looking at it.
| | 01:44 | Now the next we are going to pan out is
going to be the toms, and if we listen
| | 01:48 | to the tom fills right now, they're all
up the middle, every single one of them
| | 01:52 | are at the same level,
but they fairly boring as is.
| | 01:55 | And the way you we are listening to them
live, if we are standing in the room six
| | 01:59 | feet in front of the drummer,
that's not the way it's going to sound.
| | 02:02 | So let's start by just panning this out
a little bit, and we will pan too much.
| | 02:07 | We will go about 30% to the right, 30%
of the left on the rack toms, and the
| | 02:12 | floor tom will take a lot wider because
that's going to be at the edge of the kit.
| | 02:15 | Now let's listen to the drum fill.
| | 02:17 | (music playing)
| | 02:28 | Now I can go even wilder with
that, and some mixers will do this:
| | 02:32 | They will take one rack tom and
pan it all the way to one side.
| | 02:35 | I will take the other one and I will
put it up in the middle, and we will
| | 02:39 | take the floor tom and put it all the way to
the left, and let's listen what that sounds like.
| | 02:42 | (music playing)
| | 02:52 | That doesn't sound quite as real that way
because that's not what you hear if you
| | 02:56 | are standing six feet in front of the drums.
| | 02:57 | The other thing that doesn't sound real
is the fact that now all of the ambience
| | 03:02 | coming off those microphones sound unbalanced.
| | 03:04 | It doesn't sound like the
real drum kit would sound.
| | 03:06 | Now this is more like you
would hear from a real drummer.
| | 03:08 | So what you are trying to do most of the time
is trying to make it sound as real as possible.
| | 03:13 | Now there are times when you
don't want it to sound real;
| | 03:16 | you want it to sound unique--and
those are the times when we go a little
| | 03:19 | radical with your panning.
| | 03:20 | But most of the time we just
want it to sound like it sounds.
| | 03:24 | So we will pan this left and right
just a little bit and pan this out.
| | 03:29 | The next thing that we are going to pan
is the hi-hat because the hi-hat now, if
| | 03:32 | we are looking at the drummer, is going
to be to the right-hand side, and it's
| | 03:35 | going to be at the edge of the drum kit.
| | 03:37 | So we are going to pan that out to here.
| | 03:39 | First of all, let's listen without the pan.
| | 03:41 | (music playing)
| | 03:50 | Now let's listen when
it's panned out to the right.
| | 03:53 | (music playing)
| | 04:08 | Sometimes you would pan it in a
little less than that, but most of the time
| | 04:12 | it's sort of on the outside here. And again,
you can get wild and you can pan it 100%.
| | 04:17 | (music playing)
| | 04:22 | Usually with drums, when you start to
pan things either hard left or hard right,
| | 04:27 | it doesn't sound quite as natural.
| | 04:29 | The only thing that does sound natural on drums
as hard left and hard right are the overheads,
| | 04:33 | and there are times when you
might not want to do that as well.
| | 04:38 | Remember, the more space you have
usually the less power you have as well.
| | 04:43 | So sometimes if you want the drum
sound more powerful, you will bring these
| | 04:46 | overheads in, and you bring it to
somewhere in the middle between the hard left
| | 04:47 | (music playing)
| | 04:53 | or hard right and the center, and this will
give you a bit more powerful-sounding kit.
| | 05:08 | Going back to the hi-hat,
something you should remember,
| | 05:11 | we are talking about a real kit here,
but if we're talking about samples,
| | 05:14 | everything would sound a lot cleaner ,
and it would possible for us to really pan
| | 05:18 | everything hard left and hard right
and that would work most of the time, but
| | 05:23 | there are certain times when that won't work,
| | 05:25 | and I will give you an example. That
would be if you are doing something that's
| | 05:29 | intended for a club, where you have to
remember that anything that's panned hard
| | 05:34 | left or hard right might not be heard
by half the audience, because in a club
| | 05:39 | anything that's panned hard to one
side isn't coming up on the other side and
| | 05:43 | that's where half of your
audience is going to be.
| | 05:45 | So you always have to keep that in mind
that sometimes you have to sacrifice the
| | 05:49 | wide stereo field for the
enjoyment of your audience.
| | 05:53 | So you always have to keep
that in mind when panning drums.
| | 05:56 | So that's couple of ways to pan the drums.
| | 05:58 | You can pan them from the audience
perspective or the drummer's perspective, but
| | 06:02 | remember that you don't have to always
pan the kit wide since the kit may sound
| | 06:06 | a lot more powerful if
panned more to the center.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Avoiding pseudo-stereo| 00:00 | Most synthesizers and virtual
instruments have sort of a pseudo-stereo effect
| | 00:04 | that makes instrument sound larger than it
really is when panned hard left and right.
| | 00:08 | The problem is that this kind of effect can
actually make your mix sound less distinct.
| | 00:12 | In this video, I'll show you some
techniques for dealing with some instruments
| | 00:15 | that have artificial stereo, so you can
hear that instrument better in your mix.
| | 00:19 | So, the first thing we're going to do is
listen to some instruments that are in stereo.
| | 00:23 | Some are artificially put in
stereo and some are recorded in stereo.
| | 00:28 | The tendency is, if you have a stereo
instrument, to pan it hard left and hard
| | 00:33 | right, but the problem is sometimes that can
actually cause more harm than good in the mix.
| | 00:38 | Let's start with an electric piano.
| | 00:40 | Let's listen to it mono.
| | 00:41 | Now this is recorded in stereo, and what
makes it stereo is the fact that it has
| | 00:46 | a channel that has vibrato on it,
so you will hear it warble a little bit.
| | 00:49 | (music playing)
| | 00:58 | Let's pan that out in stereo.
(music playing)
| | 01:12 | Now you can hear that it got wider, but
what really is going to make a difference
| | 01:16 | is what happens with the
other instruments after this.
| | 01:18 | Now the next one that we want
to listen to is the strings.
| | 01:21 | Now let's add the strings, and this was
made stereo artificially by using a chorus.
| | 01:26 | Let's hear what it sounds like.
| | 01:27 | (music playing)
| | 01:46 | Now I can really hear that one
warble as well, and usually what happens is
| | 01:50 | one side is very, very stable and the
other side is the one that has the warble
| | 01:54 | on it in the stereo mix.
| | 01:55 | Now when you put two instruments together
like this, you can actually hear them okay,
| | 02:00 | it's not so bad, but as you begin to
add more instruments that are panned hard
| | 02:04 | left and hard right,
that's when the problem begins.
| | 02:07 | Now let's add the organ.
| | 02:09 | Notice that the organ
actually is assigned to a subgroup.
| | 02:13 | So we have the high organ, we have the
low organ, and they are both assigned to
| | 02:17 | a stereo subgroup that's
panned hard left of hard right.
| | 02:20 | (music playing)
| | 02:38 | Now as you can hear, there is a little
bit of disconnection, as we talked about
| | 02:40 | in a previous movie, where the low
frequencies and the high frequencies don't
| | 02:45 | seem to live together, and that
makes the sound a little artificial.
| | 02:49 | Let's add the electric guitar now, and
once again that was recorded in stereo, and
| | 02:54 | it's also recorded left and right and
assigned to a subgroup, which is panned
| | 02:59 | hard left and hard right.
And let's listen to that.
| | 03:02 | (music playing)
| | 03:19 | When we have more and more stereo
instruments that are panned hard left and hard
| | 03:23 | right, we come up with a
condition that I call "big mono."
| | 03:27 | And big mono basically means that when
you pan everything in stereo hard left
| | 03:31 | and hard right, you don't really wind
up with anything that's near a stereo
| | 03:35 | field; everything just sort of sounds
the same, and it steps on one another.
| | 03:39 | The beauty of having stereo is the fact
that we can put each instrument in its
| | 03:44 | own little part of the stereo soundscape,
| | 03:46 | and that's really what we want to do.
| | 03:48 | It's the best thing for us to
hear each instrument distinctly.
| | 03:52 | So the first thing we're going to do
is begin to pan things, and I'm going to
| | 03:56 | pan the keyboards, just a little to
the left and a little to the right, and
| | 04:01 | you'll hear immediately how things
begin to change and we begin to hear them a
| | 04:04 | little more distinctly.
| | 04:06 | So let's take the organ.
| | 04:07 | We are going to go to the subgroup on
the organ. Even though you can see the B3
| | 04:12 | hi and B3 lo are panned hard left and
hard right, panning is actually going to
| | 04:16 | follow what I'm going to do right here.
| | 04:17 | So as you can see, I am going to keep one
of the channels hard left and I'm going
| | 04:21 | to have the other one that's not quite as hard left--
| | 04:25 | it's going to be up towards the center.
And I am going to the electric piano, I am
| | 04:29 | going to exactly the same thing: I am
going to keep one hard right and I'm going
| | 04:33 | to take another one
that's more toward the center.
| | 04:35 | Now let's have a listen.
| | 04:36 | (music playing)
| | 04:52 | Now we have a little bit more of a
sense of stereo sound field, a little more
| | 04:57 | spaciousness, but we still
have that sense of big mono.
| | 05:01 | So now I am going to take the
electric guitar and I am going to pan it
| | 05:04 | more towards the center.
| | 05:05 | So I'm going to go to the subgroup.
| | 05:07 | I am going to pan this just a little
off the center here, a little off on the
| | 05:12 | right one, have a listen.
| | 05:13 | (music playing)
| | 05:29 | Now you can really start to hear the stereo.
| | 05:32 | You can hear each instrument in its
own little part of the soundscape.
| | 05:36 | But we still have the problem with the strings.
| | 05:38 | Sometimes an instrument that has
artificial stereo actually sounds better in
| | 05:42 | mono, and in this case we are going to make
this mono by panning both channels up the middle.
| | 05:47 | And the easy way to do that is to hit
the Option key and just click on each pan
| | 05:52 | knob, and you can see they
automatically go right to the center.
| | 05:56 | Let's have a listen.
| | 05:57 | (music playing)
| | 06:11 | So now you can see that a mono
instrument can sometimes work better than one
| | 06:15 | Now you can hear they are each in their
own little soundscape. The only problem
| | 06:19 | is that the strings sound
just a little on the dull side,
| | 06:22 | so we're going to skip ahead a
little bit to what we will watch in
| | 06:25 | another series of movies.
| | 06:26 | We are going to add some
long reverb onto the strings.
| | 06:30 | We are actually going to
make this somewhat stereo.
| | 06:32 | We are going to put it into a stereo sound
field and make it a little more spacious.
| | 06:36 | And we are going to do that by clicking up
here on the send and have a listen as we play it.
| | 06:41 | (music playing)
| | 07:15 | that uses artificial stereo.
| | 07:16 | We have a sense of spaciousness, yet
everything is in its own part of the
| | 07:21 | soundscape, and this is the best way to
make each individual instrument sound
| | 07:26 | very distinct and jump out into the mix.
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|
|
6. Exploring CompressionUnderstanding compressor parameters| 00:00 | A compressor is nothing more than an
automated level control that uses the input
| | 00:04 | signal to determine the output level.
| | 00:06 | In this video, I am going to show you
all the parameters of a compressor and
| | 00:09 | discuss how they each change the sound.
| | 00:11 | All compressors have roughly the same
parameter controls and are operated the
| | 00:15 | same way, but they can sound
different from one another because there are
| | 00:18 | different ways of
designing a compression circuit.
| | 00:20 | Let's look at the controls.
| | 00:22 | The first one is the Ratio control.
Ratio controls how much of the output level
| | 00:27 | the compressor will increase compared
to level that's being fed through the input.
| | 00:31 | Usually this is calibrated in a
ratio that goes anywhere from 1:1 to 100:1.
| | 00:38 | And what that means is if it says
4:1, every 4 dB that's coming into the
| | 00:42 | compressor, only 1 dB will
go out through the output.
| | 00:47 | The next control is the Threshold, and
Threshold determines the signal level
| | 00:50 | where the compression actually begins.
| | 00:52 | Below the threshold point, no
compression occurs, and above it is when all
| | 00:57 | the compression occurs.
| | 00:59 | Many compressors are calibrated in dB,
| | 01:01 | so a setting of -5 means that when the
level reaches -5 in the input meter, the
| | 01:06 | compression begins to kick in.
| | 01:08 | Next controls are Attack and Release.
| | 01:10 | Not all compressors have attack and
release parameter controls, but most of them do.
| | 01:16 | These controls determine how fast or
how slow the compressor reacts at the
| | 01:19 | beginning or the end of the signal envelope.
| | 01:21 | The beginning is the attack
and the end is the release.
| | 01:25 | Some compressors have an auto mode
that automatically sets the attack or
| | 01:28 | release according to the dynamics of the signal.
| | 01:31 | Some compressors have a fixed attack and
release where you can't alter them at all.
| | 01:35 | The Attack and Release controls are actually the
key to proper compressor setup, but many
| | 01:39 | engineers overlook these controls completely.
| | 01:42 | That being said, it's possible to get
good results by keeping these controls
| | 01:45 | set to midway, but learning how to
use them provides much for consistent and
| | 01:48 | professional results.
| | 01:50 | Gain control is sometimes
called makeup gain or output.
| | 01:54 | When a compressor begins to compress,
it actually attenuates the signal.
| | 01:57 | So in order to boost the signal back up
to where it was when we started, we use
| | 02:02 | the Gain control, which
adds some additional gain.
| | 02:04 | Sometimes this is called makeup gain and
sometimes it's just called an output control.
| | 02:08 | We can use this additional gain for
other things as well, and we'll talk about
| | 02:12 | that in later movies.
| | 02:13 | The Gain Reduction Meter is an
indicator of just how much compression is
| | 02:16 | occurring in any given moment.
| | 02:18 | On most devices, this is either a V or a peak
meter, but it reads backwards. Let's take a look.
| | 02:24 | (music playing)
| | 02:33 | This means that if it reads -12,
there is 12 dB of gain reduction
| | 02:38 | actually occurring.
| | 02:39 | If it reads -6, it means there is
6 dB of gain reduction occurring.
| | 02:43 | It usually varies in the amount of
gain reduction depending on the signal.
| | 02:47 | The sidechain is used for connecting
other signal processors to the compressor.
| | 02:51 | The connected processor only receives a
signal when the compressor exceeds the
| | 02:54 | threshold and begins to compress.
| | 02:56 | Sidechains are often connected to EQs
to make a de-esser, which will soften the sound
| | 03:00 | of the S coming from a vocal when
they exceed the compressor's threshold.
| | 03:04 | You can also connect to delay or reverb
or anything you want to the sidechain
| | 03:08 | for unusual program-level-dependent effects.
| | 03:11 | You can also feed the signal from
another channel into the sidechain and will
| | 03:15 | cause a sound to trigger
from that original channel.
| | 03:18 | This is used a lot in
electronic music especially.
| | 03:22 | Finally, the Bypass control allows
you to hear the signal without any gain
| | 03:25 | reduction taking place.
| | 03:27 | This is useful to help you hear how
much the compressor is controlling
| | 03:30 | or changing the sound.
| | 03:31 | It also makes it easy to set output
control so the compressed signal is about
| | 03:35 | the same level as the uncompressed signal.
| | 03:37 | So those are the parameter
controls on a compressor.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up the compressor| 00:00 | In this video we are going to
look at how to set up a compressor.
| | 00:03 | I am going to show you how to
configure the compressor so it breathes with the
| | 00:06 | track, how to turn it into a limiter, and
how to determine how much compression is
| | 00:10 | right for the track.
| | 00:11 | Timing of the attack and release is
importance so the compressor works correctly
| | 00:15 | and makes the sound punchy or fatter
or makes the note have a longer decay.
| | 00:20 | One of the easiest ways to set
that up is to use a snare drum as your
| | 00:24 | template, then use the same approximate Attack
or Release settings for the other instruments.
| | 00:29 | The idea is to make the
compressor breathe in time with the track.
| | 00:32 | So the first thing we are going to
do is going to go to our snare top mic
| | 00:37 | and add a compressor.
| | 00:40 | In this case, what we are going to do is
we're going to put the compressor before
| | 00:43 | the EQ here, and the reason for that is
the sound is different if you put the
| | 00:49 | compressor after the EQ.
| | 00:51 | What ends up happening is if you put
it afterwards is that anything that's
| | 00:56 | emphasized on the EQ, for instance
if 3k is turned up, then that frequency
| | 01:02 | is going to be compressed, and it's going
to be emphasized by the compressor as well.
| | 01:07 | So it usually sounds better if you put
the compressor prior to any EQ that you have.
| | 01:13 | If doesn't mean that that's the way it
always should be, but most of the time
| | 01:16 | that's the way it looks best.
| | 01:17 | So let's listen to this soloed
without any compression at all.
| | 01:22 | Here is the snare drum.
| | 01:23 | (music playing)
| | 01:23 | Turn it up a little bit.
(music playing)
| | 01:32 | So now what we want to do is set the
compressor up so it breathes with the track.
| | 01:36 | So what we are going to do is we are
going to take the Attack and turn it all
| | 01:39 | the way to its longest, and then we are
going take the Release and we are going
| | 01:43 | to turn it all the way to its shortest.
| | 01:45 | Now let's play it again.
| | 01:46 | (music playing)
Let's bring the threshold down.
| | 01:50 | (music playing)
| | 01:53 | So we see some compression. Okay there we go.
(music playing)
| | 01:59 | So we've got about 6 dB of compression here.
| | 02:01 | I am going to take the attack
and I'm going to move it back.
| | 02:04 | I am going to make it shorter.
(music playing)
| | 02:14 | Hear how the sound changes?
(music playing)
| | 02:19 | We are cutting off the attack on the snare drum,
the first part of the sound of the snare drum.
| | 02:25 | You can see we've got lot more
compression as well as we do that.
| | 02:30 | This isn't what we want,
because it makes it sound unnatural,
| | 02:33 | so I am going to move this back.
| | 02:35 | We just begin to hear a sound change.
| | 02:42 | (music playing)
| | 02:47 | Somewhere in there is good.
(music playing)
| | 02:50 | Going to begin to move that back.
| | 02:52 | (music playing)
| | 02:59 | You can see over here on the Gain
reduction meter, this is the amount of
| | 03:04 | compression that we have.
| | 03:06 | You can see how it's breathing with the track.
| | 03:09 | Let's move this back a little more.
(music playing)
| | 03:15 | What we're doing now is we
are making the decay longer.
| | 03:18 | (music playing)
| | 03:30 | So it sounds like the decay lasts
from one snare hit to the other.
| | 03:39 | (music playing)
| | 03:46 | Now let's Bypass for a second.
| | 03:48 | (music playing)
| | 03:51 | Really hear the difference there.
| | 03:54 | This is without any
compression, and here is with it.
| | 03:58 | (music playing)
| | 04:04 | You can hear how much punchier it is.
| | 04:07 | Let's move this Attack back a little bit more.
| | 04:09 | (music playing)
| | 04:14 | Let's listen in the track,
hear what it sounds like.
| | 04:16 | (music playing)
| | 04:26 | Okay, I am going to play it again.
We are going to bypass it this time.
| | 04:29 | (music playing)
| | 04:38 | Now watch the meter here and watch
the different levels of hits. I am going
| | 04:43 | to play it again, and watch sometimes it
goes -10 and sometimes it goes -6 here. Watch.
| | 04:47 | (music playing)
| | 04:56 | You see some go -10;
some goes little bit higher.
| | 04:59 | And in fact this drummer is actually
pretty good, because he is pretty consistent.
| | 05:03 | But what we are trying to go is we
are trying to get that snare hit to be
| | 05:06 | the same every time.
| | 05:08 | So now let's play the same
thing with the compressor in.
| | 05:10 | (music playing)
| | 05:23 | And that determines how much
compression we are going to use.
| | 05:26 | We are going to use enough that in
fact the snare hit in this case is pretty
| | 05:31 | much the same, so it doesn't change that much.
| | 05:33 | You can hear how much more punchy the sound
gets though, when we have the compressor in.
| | 05:38 | (music playing)
| | 05:50 | One more time, only Bypass.
| | 05:52 | (music playing)
| | 06:00 | And with compressor in.
(music playing)
| | 06:11 | So what will happen here is we'll
also do the same thing on the kick drum and
| | 06:16 | we will do it on the bass.
| | 06:18 | We will probably do it on the guitars.
| | 06:20 | We will do it on the vocals.
| | 06:21 | We will do it on any instrument that
has any kind of variation in dynamics,
| | 06:26 | because what we are trying to
do is control the dynamics here.
| | 06:29 | You can't make the dynamics completely
go away--and you don't want them to--but
| | 06:34 | you don't want the
variation to be great as well.
| | 06:37 | If the go, oh, 3 dB either
way, that's probably good;
| | 06:40 | if it goes more than that,
it's probably too much.
| | 06:42 | Let's try the compressor over on the vocal.
| | 06:47 | Now the first thing we are going to
do is we are going to add it in here, and
| | 06:53 | again, this is just a native
compressor that comes with Pro Tools.
| | 06:56 | Don't forget that just about all the
parameters are somewhat the same, but even
| | 07:00 | if they're different, it doesn't matter;
what we're trying to get is the sound.
| | 07:04 | We are trying to get the compressor to
breathe with the track, and that's the
| | 07:07 | most important thing.
| | 07:08 | So let's listen to the
vocal without the compressor.
| | 07:11 | (music playing)
| | 07:20 | This is pretty good, because it's
actually been compressed when it was
| | 07:23 | recorded, but we can still
do a few more things to it.
| | 07:26 | In this case what we are trying to do
is make sure that every word is heard, so
| | 07:30 | we don't want a word to drop out at all;
| | 07:32 | we want them all to be the same.
| | 07:34 | There are some that will drop out
anyway that you'll have to use automation and
| | 07:38 | actually goose the fader a
little bit so you can hear it,
| | 07:41 | but for the most part we can get
most of them with the compressor.
| | 07:44 | So let's set this up. Let's unbypass it.
| | 07:47 | So the first thing what we are going to
do is we are going to set our Attack and
| | 07:50 | our Release approximately the
same as we did with the snare drum.
| | 07:54 | This might change a little bit,
but this is a good starting point.
| | 07:56 | So I will put 188 in for the Attack,
and we will 12.3 in for the Release.
| | 08:03 | And let's dial in the Threshold.
The Threshold actually controls at what
| | 08:07 | signal level the compressor is going
to begin to work at. And let's move this
| | 08:12 | back, so we can hear it working.
| | 08:13 | (music playing)
| | 08:20 | There we go. We can hear it there.
(music playing)
| | 08:32 | Now what's happened here is these Attack
and Release settings have to be tweaked
| | 08:37 | because you can hear the change in the
vocal sound, and that's not what we want--
| | 08:42 | we want it as pure as we can get it.
| | 08:45 | So the first thing we are going to do
is back off the Attack a little bit.
| | 08:47 | (music playing)
| | 08:52 | Back off the amount of gain reduction.
| | 08:56 | (music playing)
| | 09:05 | By the way, we are reducing the gain
on the peaks, so that's why they call it
| | 09:09 | gain reduction, but it's the same
thing as the amount of compression.
| | 09:12 | Here's what it sounds like.
| | 09:14 | (music playing)
| | 09:25 | Okay, let's listen in the track.
| | 09:26 | (music playing)
| | 09:46 | Okay let's listen
without it now. Let's bypass it.
| | 09:48 | (music playing)
| | 09:59 | Here is with it in.
(music playing)
| | 10:11 | So you can hear the difference in the vocal
with the compression and without the compression.
| | 10:15 | With compression, it almost sounds like
the vocalist is in the room with you; he
| | 10:19 | comes closer to you in the mix.
| | 10:21 | You can hear every single word that happens.
| | 10:24 | In fact, there is a byproduct here.
| | 10:26 | You can keep the vocal lower in the
mix and still hear it really well.
| | 10:30 | Without the compressor some of the
words of the vocal will drop out and
| | 10:34 | you won't hear them.
| | 10:35 | One of the reasons why we would like
to keep the vocal lower in the mix is it
| | 10:38 | emphasizes the power of the band.
| | 10:41 | On a pop record, usually the
vocal is really on top of the band;
| | 10:44 | it's really loud compared
to the rest of the band.
| | 10:47 | But if we want the record to sound
really powerful, then we would like to keep
| | 10:51 | the vocal down even with the band,
| | 10:53 | and the only way you can do that well
is if you compress the vocal; otherwise
| | 10:57 | it will sound weak.
| | 10:59 | So this is what we'll do with all the
other instruments that need it as well.
| | 11:03 | We will go and we will listen to them
and we will see if there's a big variation
| | 11:06 | in dynamics, and if there is,
we will insert a compressor.
| | 11:10 | The amount of compression that we
will use is the amount that will keep the
| | 11:13 | dynamics relatively solid
so you hear all the chords;
| | 11:17 | there's not one that drops
out that we can't quite here.
| | 11:20 | And that's what gives you the feeling
of having the vocal in the room with you.
| | 11:24 | So let's talk about limiting.
| | 11:25 | Right now, we have the Ratio set to 3
to 1, but anytime the Ratio goes beyond 10
| | 11:31 | to 1, this turns into a limiter;
it goes from a compressor into a limiter.
| | 11:35 | Now compression is used to control
dynamics. What we are trying to do is
| | 11:40 | take any peaks and bring them down, and
we're trying to bring up any of the notes
| | 11:44 | that are getting lost.
| | 11:45 | What we are trying to do with limiting
is to keep the next stage in the signal
| | 11:50 | path from distorting.
| | 11:53 | So in this case what that means is it's
going to take 11 dB before even 1 dB comes
| | 11:58 | out, and that will probably mean that we
can take any kind of peaks and not have
| | 12:03 | a problem with the stage afterwards distorting.
| | 12:05 | So there's a different
mindset with using each of them.
| | 12:08 | Sometimes we use limiting of 11 to 1
or 20 to 1, or even higher, in order to
| | 12:14 | change the sound of an instrument or a vocal.
| | 12:18 | Because usually anything that's 4 or 6
or 8 to 1 is just controlling the dynamics
| | 12:23 | and we don't really hear it work, but
anything that goes beyond 10 to 1, we begin
| | 12:28 | to hear the color of the compressor.
| | 12:30 | Sometimes that's what we
want; sometimes it isn't.
| | 12:32 | Okay, let's listen to the
difference between compression and limiting.
| | 12:35 | We are going to go back to a
ratio of 4 to 1 and have a listen.
| | 12:39 | (music playing)
| | 12:49 | We can hear the sound change,
but listen when we go 10 to 1.
| | 12:52 | (music playing)
| | 13:03 | Now all of a sudden the sound of the
compressor is what we hear more than sound
| | 13:08 | of the vocal, and it gets more severe as we go.
| | 13:10 | Let's go to 30 to 1, which is really quite high.
| | 13:12 | Let's listen in the track.
(music playing)
| | 13:14 | (music playing)
| | 13:34 | In this case, we can actually hear the
compressor working, and what it's doing is
| | 13:38 | its taking some of those peaks and
it's actually bringing them down too low.
| | 13:42 | So the vocal sounds unnatural.
That's why we like to use compression rather than
| | 13:47 | limiting most of the time.
| | 13:49 | There are times when limiting is really
desirable--for instance, on a bass. The
| | 13:54 | reason why is we want to keep
the bass at a pretty solid level.
| | 13:57 | We don't want it to vary too much,
because as it varies it makes the song sound
| | 14:02 | not as powerful. It sounds a lot more
powerful when the bass is at one level.
| | 14:07 | So that's one time we might use
limiting instead of compression. Most of the
| | 14:10 | time would like use compression, though.
| | 14:12 | So that's how to set up the compressor.
| | 14:14 | You should time the compressor so it
breathes with the track by using the Attack
| | 14:18 | and Release controls.
| | 14:19 | An attack that's too fast will dull the
sound of the instrument or vocal, while a
| | 14:23 | release that's too short will cause it to pump.
| | 14:26 | A ratio setting of 10 to 1 or more is
considered limiting, because it's trying to
| | 14:30 | limit the output rather
than control the dynamics.
| | 14:33 | The more compression you use the more
you will hear it working, and the amount
| | 14:36 | of compression depends upon the song,
the arrangement, the player, the room, the
| | 14:41 | instrument or vocalist, or the
sound that you're looking for.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Compressing the drums| 00:00 | In order for the rhythm section to
sound powerful, the drums and bass have
| | 00:03 | to have an even level.
| | 00:05 | Sometimes the drummer doesn't hit
every beat of the kick and the snare with the
| | 00:07 | same intensity, which makes the pulse
of the song erratic. Sometimes the tom
| | 00:11 | fills have different volumes across the drums.
| | 00:13 | In this video I am going to show you how
to use compression on the drums to make
| | 00:16 | them punchy and steady in the mix.
| | 00:18 | So let's listen to the mix
without any compression at all.
| | 00:21 | (music playing)
| | 00:30 | We hear a little bit of leakage
there in the background, but that's okay.
| | 00:33 | The first thing we are going to do is
go to the snare drum and have a listen.
| | 00:37 | There are two snare drums.
| | 00:38 | There is a top and bottom. We only want one.
| | 00:40 | Take notice, since they are in a group,
if we solo one, both of them solo up,
| | 00:44 | and the way to get around that is to hit
Ctrl and just solo whatever channel that
| | 00:49 | you want the solo and just that one will solo up.
| | 00:52 | So now let's listen to the snare top by itself.
| | 00:54 | (music playing)
| | 01:01 | I already we have a compressor/
limiter installed in the snare channel.
| | 01:06 | Let's bring that up.
| | 01:07 | This is just the stock Pro Tools
compressor/limiter, and we are going to use
| | 01:11 | this just to show you that it doesn't
matter which one use; you can make it sound
| | 01:15 | really good if you know how to set it up.
| | 01:17 | Let's insert it and hear what it sounds like.
| | 01:18 | (music playing)
| | 01:28 | The first thing we are going to do is take
the Attack time and turn it all the way
| | 01:32 | up; in other words I want the
Attack time as long as it can be.
| | 01:35 | (music playing)
| | 01:41 | Now we are going to back off on it.
| | 01:43 | (music playing)
| | 01:48 | The whole secret here is that if you
turn it too fast, it sounds some pretty bad.
| | 01:53 | (music playing)
| | 01:58 | The reason why it sounds bad is you have
cut the transient of the front end of the
| | 02:02 | sound, and you want to keep that.
So the whole trick is to back off the attack
| | 02:07 | until just about you hear a dull, and
at that point that's when you either stop
| | 02:12 | or even back off a little bit.
Let's try it again.
| | 02:14 | (music playing)
| | 02:25 | Somewhere in there is really good.
| | 02:26 | Now the next thing we are going to do
is set the release time, and on the drums
| | 02:31 | the best thing to do is set the release
so it makes it seem as if the snare drum
| | 02:35 | is elongated until the very next snare hits.
| | 02:38 | (music playing)
| | 02:45 | Something like that.
(music playing)
| | 02:52 | Now this may be a lot.
| | 02:53 | It's about 6 dB of compression.
| | 02:55 | We want to start with only a couple,
and we will actually increase it as we go
| | 02:59 | along if we need, but we will start
with a couple, and that will even out the
| | 03:03 | inconsistencies between the hits,
first of all. Back off the Threshold.
| | 03:08 | (music playing)
| | 03:13 | Now the Ratio control is important
because the more erratic the peaks are, the
| | 03:18 | higher the Ratio control should be.
So in other words, if we have a big
| | 03:23 | difference between a lot of the hits
then we want a higher ratio, and what that
| | 03:28 | will do is it will even things out a bit
more. So we will bring this up a little bit.
| | 03:31 | (music playing)
| | 03:39 | The last thing we are going to do is we
are going to set the Gain control.
| | 03:43 | When we initially insert a compressor,
whenever the compressor exceeds its
| | 03:48 | threshold, it attenuates the signal.
| | 03:50 | And in order to bring that signal back
up to about where it was before, we use
| | 03:54 | the Gain control in conjunction
with the Bypass. Let's listen.
| | 03:58 | (music playing)
| | 04:04 | So there is without compression.
| | 04:07 | (music playing)
With compression.
| | 04:17 | It's about the same level, but you can
hear that it's a little more punchy.
| | 04:20 | Now that we did that one, let's go
over and listen to the kick drum.
| | 04:28 | We will do the same thing.
| | 04:29 | Now what we are going to do is hit
Ctrl and we are going to hit the
| | 04:32 | Solo, listen to the kick.
| | 04:33 | (music playing)
| | 04:39 | Once again we have the generic compressor/
limiter from Pro Tools, and we will do the same thing.
| | 04:44 | (music playing)
Bring our Threshold down.
| | 04:49 | (music playing)
| | 04:53 | Now if we bring the attack
so it's really, really fast--
| | 04:56 | when I say fast that means it
works very quickly on transients--
| | 05:00 | you can hear how it gets cut off and
the sound of the kick actually changes.
| | 05:04 | (music playing)
| | 05:09 | So if we bypass, you can hear the difference.
(music playing)
| | 05:19 | So once again what we are going to do is
we are going to back it off until it's
| | 05:22 | at its slowest attack.
| | 05:24 | And we are going to bring it back until
we can just about hear the transient dull.
| | 05:28 | (music playing)
| | 05:44 | Now once again, we use the
release exactly the same way.
| | 05:48 | We lengthen the release until it makes the
kick sound like it's lasting a lot longer.
| | 05:53 | We want the kick envelope to fill up
between the first kick and the next time it hits.
| | 05:58 | (music playing)
| | 06:07 | And once again, the more erratic that
the sound is in terms of its dynamics,
| | 06:12 | the higher the ratio.
| | 06:13 | So we are going to increase the ratio so
it pretty much stays within the same range.
| | 06:18 | It doesn't matter if it goes a little
bit higher and a little bit lower, but we
| | 06:20 | don't want it to go a lot
higher or a lot lower in level.
| | 06:23 | (music playing)
| | 06:32 | And then finally we will use the gain
control to give us about the same level as
| | 06:37 | when the compressor was bypassed.
| | 06:40 | So let's listen to it without any compression.
| | 06:42 | (music playing)
| | 06:46 | Now let's listen to it with compression.
(music playing)
| | 06:57 | And you can hear how much
punchier it is with the compressor.
| | 06:59 | Now let's listen to just the one
kick and the one snare compressed.
| | 07:06 | (music playing)
| | 07:16 | So you can hear how much punchier it is, and
you can feel the pulse of the song a lot better.
| | 07:21 | Now we can actually go and we put the
same compressor on the outside kick, which
| | 07:26 | says kick out right now, in the bottom
of the snare, which is Snare bottom. And
| | 07:30 | we might even put it on the toms as well,
if the playing on the toms is erratic
| | 07:35 | enough that each fill hit
is at a different level.
| | 07:38 | So to sum it up, we use compression on
the drums to even out beats that aren't
| | 07:41 | same intensity and to make them some punchier.
| | 07:44 | Once set the Attack and Release
controls so the drum breathes with the track,
| | 07:48 | and Threshold and Ratio controls
determine how forward they are in the mix.
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| Compressing the room mics| 00:00 | Room mics provide the glue that pulls
the drum sound together into a single
| | 00:03 | cohesive element,
instead of just multiple drums.
| | 00:06 | With that said, how you compress the
room mics can make a huge difference in
| | 00:09 | the overall drum sound.
| | 00:11 | In this movie I'm going to show you how
to compress the room mics to either pull
| | 00:14 | the drum more together or
emphasize the room ambience.
| | 00:18 | First of all, let's listen to the drums
without the room mic, and then we will add it in.
| | 00:21 | You can hear the difference.
| | 00:22 | (music playing)
| | 00:42 | As you can hear, the room mic adds a
lot to the drum sound, and it add some
| | 00:46 | cohesion to it, so instead of sounding like
individual drums, it sounds like a full drum kit.
| | 00:50 | But it will sound even better
when we add some compression.
| | 00:53 | Once again, I've added the generic Pro
Tools Compressor/Limiter plug-in, just
| | 00:59 | to show you that there's nothing
special with this, and you can actually make
| | 01:03 | everything sound good with whatever you
have, as long as you set it out the right way.
| | 01:07 | So let's listen to what is sounds like when
we insert the compressor into the channel.
| | 01:12 | (music playing)
| | 01:24 | Now just like with the other drums, what
we are going to try to do is make this
| | 01:27 | breathe with the track.
| | 01:29 | So we are going to set our attack
time relatively long and our release time
| | 01:33 | relatively short, and make it so we can
see feel the breath of this track with
| | 01:38 | that compressor as well.
| | 01:40 | The other trick here is to take the Ratio
control and move it up until it's about
| | 01:45 | 10 to 1 or 12 to 1 or even higher,
because what that will do is it will
| | 01:49 | emphasize the sound of
the room a little bit more.
| | 01:53 | So let's bring this up first to
about 10 to 1, and let's have a listen.
| | 01:58 | Once again, it's best to also
listen to this with the rest of the drums
| | 02:02 | rather than soloing it; this actually
gives you a more cohesive sound when you do it this way.
| | 02:06 | (music playing)
| | 02:18 | Now let's listen to it with the
compressor bypassed and with it in, so you can
| | 02:23 | hear the difference.
(music playing)
| | 02:49 | As you can hear, we've taken the
punchiness of the drum track to another level
| | 02:52 | by just these little tweaks, but
now what we are going to try to do is
| | 02:57 | emphasize the room ambience.
| | 02:59 | Then what we will do is we will
increase the gain of the room mic,
| | 03:02 | we will increase the ratio a little bit,
and we will add even more compression.
| | 03:06 | As to see, there is quite a bit already.
| | 03:07 | There is about 10 to 1, and there is
about 10 dB or 12 dB of gain reduction.
| | 03:12 | We will increase that even more.
| | 03:13 | (music playing)
| | 03:26 | Now we are emphasizing the sound of the room.
| | 03:29 | Let's go back and play it, and we will
bypass the compressor so you can hear it
| | 03:33 | without the compressor and with it.
(music playing)
| | 03:50 | You have probably heard this sound on a
lot of records because this is a trick
| | 03:54 | that a lot of mix engineers
use to punch up the track.
| | 03:56 | So that's how we compress the room
mics: set the Attack and Release control
| | 04:00 | to breathe with the track, and the
Threshold and the Ratio controls to keep
| | 04:03 | the sound even, increase the
compression to 10 dB or more to emphasize the room
| | 04:07 | ambience.
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| Compressing the bass| 00:00 | For a mix to sound really powerful,
the bass has to stay at a steady level.
| | 00:04 | Most basses inherently have notes
that are louder or softer than others,
| | 00:07 | depending upon where they are
played on the neck of the instrument.
| | 00:10 | This is especially noticeable on a bass
played with a pick instead of fingers.
| | 00:14 | In this video I am going to show you
how to keep the level virtually the same
| | 00:17 | throughout the song by
using a compressor or limiter.
| | 00:19 | First of all, let's
listen to the bass by itself.
| | 00:22 | (music playing)
| | 00:33 | Now in this case we can hear some
distortion coming from the amplifier
| | 00:35 | because that's all we have;
| | 00:37 | we don't have a direct channel, but that's okay.
| | 00:39 | We won't hear that too much in
the mix, so it won't matter at all.
| | 00:43 | Not only do we hear distortion, but
there are a few notes that are lower
| | 00:47 | or louder in the mix.
| | 00:48 | So what we want to do is even that
out so they're all about the same.
| | 00:51 | Let's insert the limiter.
| | 00:53 | (music playing)
| | 01:03 | Now just like we did with the drums, we
would with this limiter to make the bass
| | 01:08 | breathe with the track.
| | 01:09 | So what we are going to do is we are
going to take the attack as slow as it can
| | 01:12 | go and the release as fast as it can go,
and we will work at it from there.
| | 01:16 | (music playing)
| | 01:30 | Now once again the idea here is, bring
the attack back until the transient begins
| | 01:35 | to get cut off and then stop right there.
| | 01:37 | Now let's listen to it
when the attack is too fast.
| | 01:40 | (music playing)
| | 01:46 | Obviously, that's not a good sound, so let's
come back to where it should just about work.
| | 01:50 | (music playing)
Pretty good.
| | 02:01 | Now let's bring the release back, so
it makes the feel as if the bass is
| | 02:05 | breathing with the track.
| | 02:06 | (music playing)
| | 02:26 | Now there is an awful lot of compression--
| | 02:28 | that's about 12 dB--so we are going to
back that off, so we just have a few.
| | 02:32 | (music playing)
| | 02:42 | Now usually that's enough to just
make everything sound a little more
| | 02:45 | consistent, but what we want
is to make it sound rock solid.
| | 02:48 | So one of the ways we do that is we
raise the compression ratio. Right now it's
| | 02:53 | about 3 to 1, which is fairly timid.
| | 02:56 | Let's bring this up to about 10 to 1 or so.
| | 02:58 | (music playing)
| | 03:04 | And one of the things that happens is,
as soon as we go past 10 to 1, this now
| | 03:08 | becomes a limiter. The only difference
between a compressor and a limiter is the ratio.
| | 03:13 | Anything above 10 to 1 considered
a limiter. Other than that, they are
| | 03:16 | basically the same plug-in.
| | 03:18 | They are the same device.
| | 03:20 | So now let's bring the threshhold down.
| | 03:22 | (music playing)
| | 03:40 | Now the idea right here is we want to
have plenty of compression, and the only
| | 03:44 | reason why we want that is we
want the level to be the same.
| | 03:48 | Now what we are going to do is we are
going to raise the gain so it's the same
| | 03:54 | as without the compressor.
| | 03:55 | If we bypass it,
here is what it sounds like.
| | 03:58 | (music playing)
It's quite a bit louder.
| | 04:04 | (music playing)
| | 04:26 | There we go. Now let's listen to it with the drums,
because that's where you can really
| | 04:29 | hear the difference.
| | 04:30 | (music playing)
| | 04:51 | So to sum it up, the more even the
bass is in the mix the more powerful the
| | 04:55 | entire mix will sound.
| | 04:56 | This is accomplished with the
compressor--sometimes set up as a limiter--at the
| | 04:59 | ratio of 10 to 1 or more.
| | 05:01 | Remember, the more wild the peaks are,
the higher the Ratio control needs to be
| | 05:05 | to keep the bass steady in the mix.
| | 05:07 | (music playing)
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the New York compression trick| 00:00 | There is a great trick that really
punches up the drum sound without adding more
| | 00:03 | compression to the individual tracks.
| | 00:05 | It's something I call the New York
Compression trick because when I was first
| | 00:08 | starting out every mixer in
New York used it on their mixes.
| | 00:12 | Now everyone uses it, so it's not that
exclusive to New York City anymore, so we
| | 00:16 | can just call it by its more
academic name--parallel compression.
| | 00:19 | In this movie I am going to show you how
the New York Compression trick is set up.
| | 00:23 | The trick centers around
an additional drum subgroup
| | 00:25 | that has a compressor with some rather
extreme settings inserted into the signal path.
| | 00:29 | Once the subgroup is set up and the
compressor is kicking, the subgroup fader is
| | 00:33 | gently raised until it's just barely
heard underneath the original drum mix.
| | 00:37 | If you want the drums punchier,
just add set more subgroup level.
| | 00:40 | So you can see here I
have a drum subgroup set up.
| | 00:45 | This is called from Drum Comp.
| | 00:46 | What I am going to go first is I am
going to add a compressor to it--it doesn't
| | 00:50 | matter which compressor.
| | 00:51 | In this case I am going to just add
the generic Pro Tools Compressor/Limiter,
| | 00:57 | and I am not going to worry
about the settings right now.
| | 00:59 | But I will do is set up a input signal
path to that particular subgroup, and in
| | 01:06 | this case I am just going to select bus 23-24.
| | 01:09 | It could be any two that you select; 23 and 24
just works for me now because they are open.
| | 01:14 | Now I'm going to go down to the first
drum channel, which is the Kick-in, and
| | 01:19 | I'm going to select the send for it.
| | 01:21 | I'm going to say Bus 23-
24 and up comes the send.
| | 01:25 | I want to put this about 0.
| | 01:27 | The easy way to get there is you say
Option and you click on the fader and it
| | 01:32 | automatically moves to
zero, which is kind of nice.
| | 01:34 | There is another trick. In order to
assign this particular Bus 23-24 at all the
| | 01:42 | other channels, all you have to do is
press and hold the Option key and click
| | 01:46 | and drag to the other channels. You click
and drag that bus 23-24 send, and it's a
| | 01:52 | very easy way to do things.
| | 01:54 | Now that I am sending it to the Drum
Comp channel, let's have a listen to what
| | 01:59 | it sounds like without that
particular New York compression.
| | 02:02 | (music playing)
| | 02:09 | Now let's look at the compressor.
| | 02:11 | (music playing)
| | 02:18 | We want some rather extreme settings, so I'm
going to bring this up to at least 10 to 1.
| | 02:22 | Once it becomes 10 to 1, this turns
from compressor to a limiter. And it doesn't
| | 02:28 | matter what plug-in you have or
what dedicated hardware piece;
| | 02:31 | whenever a compressor is set at a
ratio of 10 to 1 or more, it now becomes a
| | 02:36 | limiter rather than a compressor.
| | 02:38 | Now the whole trick here is to bring up
the New York compression underneath the
| | 02:43 | normal drum setting.
| | 02:44 | You can just bring it up once
again until you just hear it.
| | 02:47 | (music playing)
| | 02:58 | You can hear how much punchier it's getting.
| | 03:00 | Now let's listen without it and then with it in.
| | 03:02 | (music playing)
| | 03:22 | Sounds pretty good, huh? One last thing.
| | 03:24 | We are going to make this even more
extreme by adding an equalizer to it.
| | 03:28 | So once again, I'm going to insert
just a generic 4-Band Pro Tools EQ, and I am
| | 03:35 | going to come done here to 100 Hz
and bring it up to about 3 dB or so.
| | 03:40 | You can bring it up a lot more
radical if you would like to.
| | 03:43 | And on the high frequency I will bring
it up to 10K and bring this up 3 dB or so,
| | 03:48 | and once again you can make this
a lot more radical if you like.
| | 03:52 | And let's listen what it sounds like now.
| | 03:53 | (music playing)
| | 04:02 | We have a lot more snap and a lot more low end.
| | 04:05 | Now let's listen before the New York
compression and after New York compression.
| | 04:09 | (music playing)
| | 04:19 | So that's how the New York
Compression trick is done.
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| Compressing the clean electric guitars| 00:00 | Plain electric guitars can greatly
benefit from compression since they usually
| | 00:03 | have a lot of dynamic range with a lot of peaks.
| | 00:06 | In this movie I'm going to show you
how to control those peaks and keep the
| | 00:09 | level study with the right compressor settings.
| | 00:12 | First of all, with an electric guitar,
the more it's amplified, the more it
| | 00:15 | distorted, the less compression it usually needs.
| | 00:19 | If it's direct, usually it needs a lot
of compression in order to keep the level
| | 00:23 | steady, because there's lots of dynamic range.
| | 00:26 | Let's have a listen to what
guitar 2 sounds like soloed.
| | 00:28 | (music playing)
| | 00:42 | Now let's listen to it in the track.
| | 00:44 | (music playing)
| | 00:58 | You can hear it, but especially on
the turnaround, it sort of gets lost, so
| | 01:03 | let's add a compressor.
| | 01:04 | Once again, we're going to just use the
generic Compressor/Limiter in Pro Tools.
| | 01:09 | Let's solo it up first, have a listen.
| | 01:11 | (music playing)
| | 01:18 | And just like we did before, we're
going to set the attack time as long as
| | 01:23 | it will go and back it off until we start
to hear the transient dulled a little bit.
| | 01:29 | (music playing)
| | 01:34 | So there is no transient there.
We've gone away too far.
| | 01:36 | (music playing)
| | 01:46 | So over there is okay.
Now let's set the release.
| | 01:49 | Now we can do this couple of different ways.
| | 01:51 | We can set it so it's fairly short and
it breathes with the track, or we can set it
| | 01:56 | so it's so long, so it elongates
the envelope of the guitar itself.
| | 02:00 | Let's set it a little longer first.
| | 02:02 | (music playing)
| | 02:16 | It was actually pretty good there. And the
more peaks there are, the more dynamic
| | 02:20 | range, the higher the ratio has to be,
and that will control a little bit more.
| | 02:24 | So everywhere except the turnaround,
it sounds pretty good in terms of
| | 02:27 | level, but at the turnaround, it begins to lose
some of the chords, so let's bring ratio up.
| | 02:32 | (music playing)
| | 02:46 | It's still pretty good. I'm going
to back off the attack, because I can
| | 02:49 | hear some of the transients actually
dulling a little bit on it. And let's add a
| | 02:56 | little bit higher ratio.
| | 02:57 | Now we're above 10 to 1, so
it's actually becomes a limiter.
| | 03:00 | Listen again, especially on the turnaround.
| | 03:02 | (music playing)
| | 03:15 | Now that's a little closer. The only
problem is now we've lost some level,
| | 03:19 | because the compressor has attenuated
the single, so now let's use the gain
| | 03:24 | control and the bypass switch in
order to equalize the level between
| | 03:26 | So that's how we compress
a clean electric guitar.
| | 03:29 | pre-compression and the post-compression.
| | 03:31 | (music playing)
| | 03:55 | Okay, that's about right. Let's listen in the track.
| | 03:57 | (music playing)
| | 04:29 | Start with the attack and release set
so it breathes with the track, and adjust
| | 04:32 | threshold and ratio controls for the
right amount of compression. The more peaks
| | 04:36 | the guitar track has, the
higher the ratio will need to be.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Compressing the distorted electric guitars| 00:00 | Distorted guitars are
already naturally compressed, but
| | 00:03 | a little extra compression can often
make a lead guitar stand off from a track.
| | 00:06 | In this segment, I'm going to
illustrate the best way to compress a
| | 00:09 | distorted solo guitar.
| | 00:10 | First of all, listen to the track with the
guitar just the way it is, without any compression.
| | 00:16 | (music playing)
| | 00:29 | It sounds pretty good already and as a
result of the distortion on the amplifier,
| | 00:34 | it already has a lot of natural compression.
| | 00:37 | The more distorted it is, the more
compressed it will be, and obviously this
| | 00:41 | isn't a metal guitar or even a hard
rock guitar, and nonetheless you can still
| | 00:45 | hear the edge on it.
| | 00:46 | Let's listen to it, solo
it up, just so you can hear.
| | 00:49 | (music playing)
| | 01:03 | So this won't need a lot, but just a little
bit is all we need to take it to another level.
| | 01:10 | Once again we'll use just the generic
Pro Tools Compressor/Limiter plug-in.
| | 01:14 | There may be something that sounds a
lot better out there that you might
| | 01:17 | have, but this will give you
the idea of how to set it up.
| | 01:21 | So just as we did before,
the attack is a real important part.
| | 01:25 | We're going to set it up so we don't
cut off the transient of the guitar.
| | 01:28 | Let's solo everything up
again and have a listen.
| | 01:31 | (music playing)
| | 01:44 | You can hear the compression there at the end.
| | 01:45 | (music playing)
| | 01:50 | Obviously there is too much there,
because what's happing is there is
| | 01:53 | absolutely no transient at all.
| | 01:55 | (music playing)
| | 01:59 | The tone of the guitar is still pretty
much there, but the attack is gone. The
| | 02:02 | aggression is gone. So we'll move it back
again, take the attack as long as we can,
| | 02:08 | and we'll gradually move it down until
that transient just starts to go away.
| | 02:12 | (music playing)
| | 02:22 | With the release, a little bit shorter is better.
| | 02:25 | We want this to breathe with the track.
But now since it's not playing rhythm or
| | 02:30 | anything with the track, I
just wanted to sound natural.
| | 02:33 | If it's too long, like this,
it won't sound natural at all
| | 02:36 | (music playing)
| | 02:47 | And if we have it really short--
(music playing)
| | 03:02 | Actually that's pretty good right about there.
| | 03:03 | (music playing)
| | 03:11 | Let's listen with it bypassed.
| | 03:13 | (music playing)
| | 03:23 | Once again we'll even out between the
bypassed sound without any compression and
| | 03:27 | with the compression.
| | 03:28 | (music playing)
| | 03:35 | Let's listen in track.
| | 03:38 | (music playing)
| | 03:51 | One more time.
(music playing)
| | 04:06 | We didn't add very much compression,
but yet it stood out in the track.
| | 04:10 | We didn't add more level than we had
before, but yet you can feel it coming
| | 04:14 | forward a little bit in the track.
| | 04:15 | If we wanted to add more level, we
can do without even moving fader.
| | 04:19 | We can do it with this gain control here.
Let's have a listen.
| | 04:21 | (music playing)
| | 04:35 | So that's how we compress a
distorted electric guitar.
| | 04:38 | Start with the attack and release,
set it so it breathes with the track, and adjust
| | 04:41 | threshold and ratio controls for the
right amount of compression. The more peaks
| | 04:45 | the guitar has, the higher
the ratio will need to be.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Compressing the acoustic guitars| 00:00 | Acoustic guitars generally have a lot
of dynamic range, which means that they
| | 00:03 | require some compression to
keep the sound even in the mix.
| | 00:07 | In this video I am going to show you
how to set up the compressor to keep that
| | 00:10 | signal steady, and to keep
everything even in the mix.
| | 00:13 | So the first thing to realize is that
acoustic instruments are usually a lot
| | 00:17 | more dynamic than electric instruments,
so they have to be controlled more, and
| | 00:21 | that's why we use a compressor.
| | 00:23 | The other thing to remember is the
more wild the peaks the higher the
| | 00:26 | compression ratio should be, just
like we did on other instruments.
| | 00:30 | So let's have a listen in the track
without a compressor and you can hear how
| | 00:34 | sometimes you hear it really well and
other times it drops out in the track.
| | 00:37 | (music playing)
| | 00:56 | Now, one of the things to realize
about an acoustic guitar that strums like
| | 01:00 | this, it's almost a rhythm instrument
sometimes because it's pushing the track along.
| | 01:04 | Just have a quick listen without the
acoustic and listen to the difference.
| | 01:08 | (music playing)
| | 01:18 | So there are two things that happen
here: the first thing it takes up a nice
| | 01:21 | frequency range in the middle that
really sounds good, and the next thing is it
| | 01:25 | pushes everything along.
| | 01:27 | It's almost like another rhythm
instrument, and sometimes with a good
| | 01:30 | acoustic guitar track
| | 01:31 | you don't have to add percussion or
something like that to make the track really move.
| | 01:35 | That's the value of a
good acoustic guitar track.
| | 01:37 | Anyway, let's put our normal
compressor in that we always use, which is the
| | 01:41 | standard Pro Tools
compressor, and let's have a listen.
| | 01:47 | (music playing)
| | 01:55 | So like we did with other instruments,
we're going to adjust the attack time
| | 02:00 | until it just begins to dull, because we're
cutting off the actual attack of the instrument.
| | 02:05 | That's when we want to back off a little bit.
| | 02:08 | So let's do that now.
(music playing)
| | 02:24 | Now, next thing we're going to do is we're
going to back off on the release a little bit;
| | 02:28 | we're going to make it longer.
(music playing)
| | 02:43 | And because there are a lot of peaks,
what we're going to do is we're going
| | 02:46 | to raise the ratio up.
| | 02:47 | (music playing)
| | 02:56 | Now, we can hear the compressor
kick in, and that's not what we want.
| | 03:00 | So we're actually going to use
something that we haven't used up until now, and
| | 03:03 | this is the Knee parameter.
| | 03:06 | What this will do is right at the
point where the compressor kicks in,
| | 03:09 | it will soften that a little bit.
| | 03:11 | So instead of going from no compression
to compression, it gradually turns on.
| | 03:15 | So it makes it sound a little bit smoother.
| | 03:17 | (music playing)
| | 03:28 | Now, I think the gain is different, and
it should be because we're compressing a
| | 03:32 | whole bunch and the more we
compress, the less the gain will be.
| | 03:36 | Let's listen to it where the
compressor bypass and hear how loud it is.
| | 03:39 | (music playing)
| | 03:54 | So what we're trying to do is use the
Gain control to even out the differences
| | 03:58 | between the uncompressed and the
compressed sound, and now that they are about
| | 04:02 | the same, we can really hear
the compressor working here.
| | 04:05 | (music playing)
| | 04:19 | Let's listen to the track.
(music playing)
| | 04:40 | We can hear it pushing the track
along, and we can hear all those strums.
| | 04:43 | The problem is this doesn't really sound
all that good, and sometimes that happens;
| | 04:47 | certain compressors sound better on
certain instruments and sometimes they
| | 04:51 | just don't work as well.
| | 04:52 | So we're going to try a different compressor.
| | 04:55 | In this case we're going to go to
another native compressor in Pro Tools, and
| | 05:01 | this is going to be the Bomb Factory,
BF76. And what this is is a software
| | 05:07 | emulation of the hardware UREI1176, which has
been a standard in studios for fifty years about.
| | 05:15 | This is actually one of the first
compressors built and used by studios all over
| | 05:20 | the world, and it's still
revered by just about everybody.
| | 05:22 | The thing about the 1176 though, or in
this case the BF76, is that the Attack and
| | 05:29 | Release controls work backwards from
normal Attack and Release controls.
| | 05:32 | So in other words, on the attack the
fastest is actually all the way to the
| | 05:37 | right and the slowest is all the way to
the left, and that's completely different
| | 05:41 | from what we see in most other compressors.
| | 05:43 | What we're going to do is back the
attack off to its slowest, and we're going to
| | 05:46 | put the release at its
fastest and have a quick listen.
| | 05:50 | (music playing)
| | 06:02 | Now, I can hear it getting even already.
| | 06:04 | What we're going to do is we're going to
back the attack off until we just about
| | 06:06 | Now usually what I like to do in cases
of an acoustic guitar that's strumming is
| | 06:08 | hear a dull, and when we hear
that, we're going to back off.
| | 06:10 | (music playing)
| | 06:24 | Now we didn't hear a dull and that's
because this works so well for this
| | 06:27 | particular acoustic guitar
| | 06:29 | that sometimes it's just a perfect match.
That's because the attack time of the 1176, or
| | 06:36 | in this case the BF76, is fairly slow.
| | 06:39 | Now, let's back off the release
time and make it breathe with the track.
| | 06:42 | (music playing)
| | 06:51 | Now, let's listen in the track.
(music playing)
| | 07:11 | back it off until you can just about
hear it, and that way it will add motion to
| | 07:16 | the track, which is what it's supposed to do.
| | 07:18 | It will fill up an acoustic space, which
is also what it's supposed to do, but it
| | 07:21 | won't be too prominent so it
drowns out the other instruments.
| | 07:24 | So let's bring that back a little bit.
| | 07:25 | (music playing)
| | 07:41 | Now let's just listen
without it, hear the difference.
| | 07:43 | (music playing)
| | 07:52 | After we EQ it and add some effects,
this would sound really, really good.
| | 07:57 | But now you get an idea of how to make
it fit into the track, how to make it
| | 08:01 | sound even with a little bit of
compression, and what it will do to the motion
| | 08:05 | of the track.
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| Compressing the piano| 00:00 | More than most acoustic instruments,
the piano is really capable of a huge
| | 00:04 | dynamic range, and that means that it
usually needs at least a little bit of
| | 00:07 | compression to keep the sound steady in the mix.
| | 00:10 | An acoustic piano is inherently a lot
more dynamic than a synthesizer or an
| | 00:14 | organ or even an electric piano,
| | 00:16 | so it has to be treated differently as a result.
| | 00:19 | In this video, I will show you how to set
the controls to keep those dynamics in check.
| | 00:24 | Usually the more wild the peaks, the
higher the compression ratio that you'll
| | 00:28 | need ,and the fewer the peaks,
the lower the compression ratio.
| | 00:31 | In this case, we're talking about
an acoustic piano that's by itself.
| | 00:34 | It's a solo acoustic piano.
| | 00:36 | It's not something that's working in the track.
| | 00:38 | And this is a lot more difficult
than something that is with other
| | 00:41 | instruments. The reason why is since
it's kind of naked by itself, you can
| | 00:46 | hear any compression artifacts, so you
have to be very careful about how you
| | 00:50 | compress, so you don't hear it.
| | 00:52 | In this example, you're going to see
that from verse to verse, there is a big
| | 00:57 | dynamic difference, in that the second
verse is played a lot harder, so it's a
| | 01:02 | little less dynamic, but it's also a
lot louder. So we're going to have to
| | 01:05 | control it from verse to verse.
| | 01:07 | So let's listen without a compressor
just so you can hear the difference.
| | 01:10 | (music playing)
| | 01:33 | Now you can hear there are certain
notes that are really lot louder than the
| | 01:37 | other ones, and there are some that are
a whole lot softer, and that's why we
| | 01:39 | want to use a compressor, so it
evens those peaks and valleys out.
| | 01:44 | So let's go to our normal Pro Tools
Compressor that we've been using all along.
| | 01:48 | This is just the generic native
compressor that comes with it. Let's listen!
| | 01:53 | Again, what we're going to do is we're
going to take our attack time and we're
| | 01:57 | going to make it as long as possible,
and our release time, we're going to make
| | 02:00 | it as short as possible and start from there.
| | 02:03 | (music playing)
| | 02:18 | What we're going to do is we're going
to back the attack off until it begins to
| | 02:23 | affect the attack portion of the piano
sound. As soon as it begins to dull, then
| | 02:28 | we know we've gone too far.
| | 02:29 | (music playing)
| | 02:38 | Now, we've gone way far there, and you
can hear it even introduces an element
| | 02:43 | of distortion, and of course, that's
something that we don't want, most of the time anyway.
| | 02:48 | So I'm going to back that off again.
And just about when we hear it begin to
| | 02:52 | dull, that's when we're going to stop
right there, and even back off a little.
| | 02:56 | (music playing)
| | 03:12 | Now, what we're going to do is we're
going to take our release and we're going
| | 03:16 | to shorten it a little bit.
| | 03:18 | In this case, since we're not playing
with other instruments, the release can
| | 03:22 | actually be a little longer
than we'd normally have it.
| | 03:25 | What we'd usually do is we'd make sure the
attack and release were timed to the track.
| | 03:29 | And in this case, we can actually be a
little looser with the attack and release times.
| | 03:34 | See, the attack time, not so much, because
again, it affects the brightness of the
| | 03:38 | track, but the release time, definitely.
| | 03:40 | As soon as we hear breathe, then we
know we've shortened it up too much, but
| | 03:43 | usually it can sound pretty good with
a longer release--just a bare acoustic
| | 03:48 | piano by itself in a solo mode.
| | 03:50 | (music playing)
| | 04:04 | Now, what we're going to do is we're going to
listen and bypass the way it was before.
| | 04:08 | (music playing)
| | 04:15 | Now let's listen with the compressor.
| | 04:17 | (music playing)
| | 04:29 | Now, what's happening here is that as soon
as the compressor kicks in, we can hear it.
| | 04:34 | So that's why we're going to use the
Knee parameter, and what the Knee does is
| | 04:38 | it allows the compressor to
gradually kick in, rather than doing it very
| | 04:41 | abruptly, so it smoothes out that sound when
it initially begins to work. Let's listen.
| | 04:47 | (music playing)
| | 05:03 | Let's bypass it and have a listen.
| | 05:04 | (music playing)
| | 05:13 | And let's adjust the gain a
little bit so it's even with the mix.
| | 05:16 | Again, we never use compression.
| | 05:18 | What ends up happening is that it will
actually decrease the peak so it sounds
| | 05:22 | like it's a little quieter than
it was without the compression.
| | 05:25 | (music playing)
| | 05:40 | So you can hear how even that is.
| | 05:41 | The peaks we've decreased a little bit,
and the softer notes have been raised a
| | 05:46 | little bit, which is what a compressor does.
| | 05:48 | So now it's a lot more even.
| | 05:50 | Now, this will work great in a
track with the rhythm section.
| | 05:54 | By itself it might not be as good,
and you actually might want those dynamic
| | 05:59 | changes with the solo acoustic piano.
| | 06:02 | But this is what we do if we're going
to use this in a track with the rhythm
| | 06:05 | section to control the dynamics,
something that we don't have to do so much
| | 06:08 | with the solo piano.
| | 06:09 | So to sum it up, in order to compress
the piano, you start with the attack and
| | 06:14 | release time and you set it so it
breathes with the track or it breathes with the
| | 06:18 | way it's being played.
| | 06:19 | Then you adjust the
threshold and the ratio controls,
| | 06:22 | get the right amount of compression.
| | 06:24 | The more peaks the piano has, the
higher the ratio will need to be.
| | 06:28 | Remember that the more compression used,
the less realistic the piano sound--you
| | 06:32 | can really hear the
compressor rather than the piano.
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| Compressing the electric keyboards| 00:00 | Like guitars, compression on keyboards
depends on how wild the dynamic swings are.
| | 00:05 | Sampled acoustic or electric pianos
don't have nearly the dynamic swing of a
| | 00:09 | real acoustic instrument, but they still
can have quite a lot of peaks, depending
| | 00:12 | upon the way they're played.
| | 00:14 | In this segment I'll show you how to add
compression to any electric keyboard to
| | 00:17 | keep it strong and steady in the mix.
| | 00:19 | So we are going to look at this electric piano.
| | 00:22 | It's in stereo, but it's
panned a little bit to the right.
| | 00:25 | There is no compression on it.
| | 00:26 | Listen to how it varies in level.
| | 00:28 | (music playing)
| | 00:43 | There was quite a lot of variation there.
| | 00:45 | He is a very good piano player,
and that's what piano players do.
| | 00:48 | They play dynamically.
| | 00:49 | But that doesn't always work in
the context of making a record.
| | 00:53 | So that's why we use the
compression in order to smooth those dynamic
| | 00:57 | variations out a little bit.
| | 00:59 | So let's listen in context with the
rest of instruments and hear how some of
| | 01:03 | the notes fall away and you don't hear
them, and other ones really dominate the mix.
| | 01:07 | (music playing)
| | 01:23 | So let's solo it. We've already added a compressor,,
and again, it's the same generic Pro
| | 01:29 | Tools Compressor/Limiter.
| | 01:30 | This can be anything you want.
| | 01:32 | The setup is about the same,
regardless of the compressor/limiter.
| | 01:36 | So the first thing we are going to do
is set the attack as long as it will go,
| | 01:41 | and let's have a listen.
| | 01:41 | (music playing)
| | 01:52 | And what we are going to
do is move this attack back.
| | 01:55 | We are going to make it faster
| | 01:57 | so it just catches the
peaks without making it dull.
| | 02:00 | (music playing)
| | 02:17 | Now the more peaks that we have, the
more dynamic range, the higher the ratio
| | 02:21 | that we will need, and what that will
do is that will smooth those peaks out.
| | 02:25 | So let's bring this up a little bit.
| | 02:26 | (music playing)
| | 02:40 | So now you can hear there is not much of a difference
between the loudest he plays and the
| | 02:44 | softest he plays, and that's
exactly what we are looking for.
| | 02:47 | Now let's listen to if the
compressor actually attenuated the signal.
| | 02:52 | It sounds like it did a little bit.
| | 02:54 | So let's listen to what it sounded like
before we add the compressor and after.
| | 02:59 | (music playing)
| | 03:27 | Let's listen in the track now.
| | 03:29 | (music playing)
| | 03:58 | Now in fact, we can make this sound
even smoother with a different compressor.
| | 04:02 | This one is a little on the aggressive
side, and you can hear it grabbing the
| | 04:06 | transient, and there are other ones that
sound smoother and that's probably what
| | 04:09 | we would go for, but you
get the idea of the setup.
| | 04:11 | It's going to the same
regardless of the compressor that you use.
| | 04:14 | So that's how we add
compression to an electric keyboard.
| | 04:17 | You start with the attack and you
release, so it breathes with the track.
| | 04:19 | Then adjust the threshold and ratio
controls for the right amount of compression.
| | 04:23 | Even organ and string sounds which
aren't very dynamic can benefit from a touch
| | 04:27 | compression to make all the notes
heard evenly, to pull them in front of
| | 04:30 | the mix.
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| Compressing the vocals| 00:00 | If there is one instrument that greatly
benefits from compression, it's the human voice.
| | 00:05 | Most singers are unable to sing
every word or line at the same level, so
| | 00:08 | some words get buried as a result.
| | 00:10 | Compression evens out the level
differences so you can better hear every word.
| | 00:14 | In this movie, I will show you how to
set up the compressor to do just that.
| | 00:17 | The first thing we're going to do is
listen to the vocal just by itself, so
| | 00:21 | we're going to solo it.
| | 00:22 | (music playing)
| | 00:40 | Now let's listen with the track.
| | 00:41 | (music playing)
| | 01:00 | A couple of things.
| | 01:02 | The first is that this track was already
compressed when it was recorded, so it's
| | 01:06 | fairly leveled already.
| | 01:07 | Although towards the end of the
turnaround in "never like this before," we start
| | 01:11 | to lose some of the words there.
| | 01:13 | Another thing is you can hear a lot of
sibilance, and that's an excessive amount
| | 01:17 | of S's and that's because of the way it
was compressed originally, but we'll talk
| | 01:21 | about that in another
movie and how to get rid of it.
| | 01:24 | So what we're going to do is
we're going to insert, once again, our
| | 01:27 | generic compressor.
| | 01:29 | Let's solo the vocal track,
and let's set it up. Again,
| | 01:34 | what we'll do is we'll take the
attack and we'll set it all the way as long
| | 01:37 | as it will go and we'll bring that back
until we just about get rid of the transient.
| | 01:42 | As soon as we hear the lead vocal
begin to dull and the S's go away, then we
| | 01:46 | know we've gone too far.
| | 01:47 | Let's listen to this.
(music playing)
| | 02:01 | So you can hear, that's too much
already, because we're not hearing any S's.
| | 02:04 | (music playing)
| | 02:07 | We're just hearing the
very, very, very tip of it.
| | 02:10 | Let's bring it back.
| | 02:12 | (music playing)
| | 02:29 | That sounds pretty good right there.
| | 02:30 | Now let's set the amount of compression.
| | 02:32 | Once again what we're trying to do is
even out the peaks so we hear all the
| | 02:36 | words pretty much evenly.
| | 02:38 | (music playing)
| | 02:53 | The next thing we want to do is when
we use the compressor, we attenuated the
| | 03:00 | vocal a little bit, so we
lost some of the levels.
| | 03:02 | So now we're going to use the Gain
control and Bypass control to make sure we
| | 03:05 | get that level back.
| | 03:06 | (music playing)
| | 03:20 | That's about right there.
| | 03:21 | (music playing)
Now let's listen in the track.
| | 03:28 | (music playing)
| | 03:47 | So now you can hear those words as we get
towards the end of the verse on the turnaround.
| | 03:52 | You can hear them a little more clearly.
| | 03:54 | Probably what we'll have to do is ride
that vocal a little bit, and that's not
| | 03:57 | uncommon, to either automate it or just
ride it with fader a little bit because
| | 04:02 | the compressor can't get everything out,
but it can get a lot of it, and that's
| | 04:06 | what we're trying to do.
| | 04:06 | We're trying to make it sound fairly
good, in your face, and even, and then the
| | 04:11 | rest we do with fader automation
and riding the faders a little bit.
| | 04:16 | So to sum it up, we use compression on
a vocal because it evens out the level
| | 04:20 | of differences so you
can better hear every word.
| | 04:22 | Start with the attack and release set
so it breathes with the track, then adjust
| | 04:26 | Threshold and Ratio controls for
the right amount of compression.
| | 04:29 | Remember that too much compression
can cause sibilance and make the vocal
| | 04:32 | sound unnatural.
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| Compressing the horns| 00:00 | Like most acoustic instruments,
horns can have a wide dynamic range.
| | 00:04 | Either with brass or woodwinds, the
same compression principle apply.
| | 00:08 | Let's look at how we
compress a solo tenor sax.
| | 00:10 | So let's listen to the sax by itself.
| | 00:12 | (music playing)
| | 00:32 | So there is a lot of dynamic-range
difference between all the notes, and what
| | 00:35 | we're trying to do is even them out.
| | 00:36 | So the first thing we'll do is go to
our dynamic plug-in, and once again we'll
| | 00:41 | use the standard Pro Tools
dynamics plug-in. And let's have a listen.
| | 00:44 | (music playing)
| | 00:49 | Now you can see it's compressing a lot,
and that's because the threshold is down
| | 00:52 | below what it needs to be.
| | 00:53 | So let's bring this up.
| | 00:54 | (music playing)
| | 01:00 | So like with other instruments, we
set the attack and release time so it
| | 01:03 | breathes with the track.
| | 01:05 | Since there is no rhythm track for us to
set the attack and release, we're going
| | 01:09 | to set it so it sounds best
within the context of the solo sax.
| | 01:13 | The first thing we want to do is set the
attack, and the attack is set so just
| | 01:17 | about the time we hear the attack
part of the sax envelope cut off,
| | 01:22 | we're going to stop there.
| | 01:23 | I am going to back it off a little bit.
| | 01:25 | So let's listen to it with the attack
cranked up where it really sounds bad, first of all.
| | 01:30 | (music playing)
| | 01:37 | You can hear the brightness go away,
and of course, we want to maintain that.
| | 01:40 | So the first thing we do is bring it
all the way, as far as we can, to its
| | 01:44 | longest attack time.
| | 01:45 | (music playing)
| | 01:49 | So that's working pretty well, but you
can see, once we set the attack time that
| | 01:53 | long, in fact there's no
compression that happens.
| | 01:56 | So what we want to do is back it off a little
bit until we just about hear it begin to dull.
| | 02:00 | (music playing)
| | 02:08 | Let's go again on the loud parts.
| | 02:10 | (music playing)
| | 02:16 | Now what we're going to do is bring the
threshold down so the compressor kicks in.
| | 02:20 | (music playing)
| | 02:39 | What we're doing here is we're lowering
the peaks, and if we wanted to actually
| | 02:43 | bring up some of the softer
sections of the sax solo, what we'd do is we'd
| | 02:48 | compress it a bit more. So let's do that.
| | 02:50 | (music playing)
| | 03:09 | So you can hear that all
notes are just about the same.
| | 03:12 | The last thing we want to do is set the gain,
and the way we do that is we bypass the
| | 03:17 | compressor and then what we'll do is
compare the level of the bypassed compressor to
| | 03:21 | when the compressor is in the circuit.
| | 03:23 | (music playing)
| | 03:42 | So to sum it up, we use compression on
either brass or woodwinds to even out the
| | 03:45 | level differences between notes and phrases.
| | 03:48 | Start with the attack and release so
it breathes with the track and then adjust
| | 03:51 | the Threshold and Ratio controls with
just the right amount of compression.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Using Noise Gates and De-EssersLearning noise gate basics| 00:00 | A gate is sort of a reverse
compressor that can be used to eliminate
| | 00:03 | leakage noises and buzzes and coughs
and any other low-level noises that were
| | 00:07 | recorded on a track.
| | 00:09 | Sometimes it's called a noise gate or
an expander, but it's all the same thing.
| | 00:13 | In this video I am going to show you all
about the various parameters of a typical gate.
| | 00:18 | So a gate works backwards from a normal
compressor in that the sound level is
| | 00:21 | at its loudest until it reaches the
threshold, and that's when it becomes
| | 00:25 | decreased, or even muted completely.
| | 00:27 | Like a de-esser, a gate can sometimes
consist of just a few controls, principally
| | 00:31 | the threshold, the range, and sometimes
even hold, attack, and release controls.
| | 00:36 | Also just like a compressor, threshold
selects the level where the gate begins to work.
| | 00:41 | First of all, let's listen to the
floor tom with the gate bypassed.
| | 00:44 | (music playing)
| | 00:51 | So you can hear the leakage from the
other track. And now let's take the bypass
| | 00:55 | off and have a listen what happens.
| | 00:57 | (music playing)
| | 01:04 | And you can here how it attenuates
everything else except for the loudest section.
| | 01:08 | We can tweak that. Actually, before we
even do that, let's put the threshold all
| | 01:12 | the way up and have a listen to what that does.
| | 01:13 | (music playing)
| | 01:17 | And as you can hear, you never did
hear the floor tom, the reason why is the
| | 01:21 | threshold set so high that
it can never be triggered.
| | 01:23 | And if we put it all the way to
left at -60.0 dB listen to what happens.
| | 01:28 | (music playing)
| | 01:35 | The threshold is set so low that once
the gate opens up, it doesn't close again,
| | 01:39 | because there's enough level to keep it open.
| | 01:41 | So now what we'll do is we'll tweak
that, we'll put it somewhere in the middle,
| | 01:44 | and have a listen, and tweak as it goes along.
| | 01:46 | (music playing)
| | 01:53 | And let's back that up even a little more.
| | 01:55 | (music playing)
| | 02:02 | Now in order to make it sound realistic,
we don't want the gain reduction at max.
| | 02:06 | What we'd rather have is the audio
attenuated rather than completely cut off.
| | 02:12 | So what we are going to do is going to
take the Range control and we are going
| | 02:15 | to back that off, somewhere in
here between -12 and -18 or so.
| | 02:20 | (music playing)
| | 02:25 | And that's even a little too much.
| | 02:27 | We'll back it off more, around there.
| | 02:29 | (music playing)
And that sounds a lot more natural.
| | 02:37 | Now the other thing we'd want to do,
if we decided that we are going to put
| | 02:41 | a Gain Reduction at max here, then our
Attack and Release controls become very important.
| | 02:46 | These are the same as on a compressor.
| | 02:49 | We are going to affect the front end
of the signal envelope with the Attack
| | 02:52 | control and the back end
with the Release control.
| | 02:56 | Let's listen to what happens as
we manipulate the Attack control.
| | 02:59 | (music playing)
| | 03:04 | That's with it at 10 milliseconds.
| | 03:06 | Let's put it all the way up
to 300 milliseconds and have a listen.
| | 03:09 | (music playing)
| | 03:14 | It actually sounded pretty good.
| | 03:15 | Let's put it where it's really fast.
| | 03:16 | This is 10 microseconds.
| | 03:18 | (music playing)
| | 03:24 | And what's happening is it's so fast
that the leakage is actually triggering it.
| | 03:29 | So that's way too fast, and what we
want to do is back that off until the
| | 03:33 | leakage didn't trigger the gate.
| | 03:35 | (music playing)
| | 03:40 | Now that last snare hit we
may not be able get rid of.
| | 03:43 | That's one of the fallacies about a
gate, that you can eliminate everything,
| | 03:47 | and you really can't.
| | 03:48 | You can attenuate things and you can
get rid of most of them, but sometimes on
| | 03:52 | fills, for instance, and especially on
a drum kit, you just can't get rid of
| | 03:56 | everything, so you have to keep that in mind.
| | 03:58 | (music playing)
That's pretty good.
| | 04:05 | Now if we take the Release control and
let's put that all the way fast and have
| | 04:09 | a listen to what it does.
| | 04:10 | (music playing)
| | 04:15 | When it's fast, it controls the
envelope of the signal, and it shuts it down
| | 04:20 | completely really, really quickly, and
let's put it the opposite way where it's
| | 04:23 | a really long release, have a listen.
| | 04:25 | (music playing)
| | 04:30 | And you can hear it fade out because
the envelope is kept open by the release
| | 04:34 | control, and then it gradually fades in from there.
| | 04:38 | Now it's more in the
middle like this, have a listen.
| | 04:40 | (music playing)
| | 04:45 | The other control that's important is
the Hold control, and this holds open the
| | 04:49 | gate before the release control kicks in.
| | 04:51 | And we can set this at 5
milliseconds and listen to what happens.
| | 04:54 | (music playing)
| | 04:54 | It's kind of abrupt.
What happens when it closes?
| | 05:02 | We can put it all the way, so
it's a 4 seconds and listen what happens.
| | 05:06 | (music playing)
| | 05:15 | It's holding the gate open so much
that it never gets a chance to close,
| | 05:20 | so obviously that's not going to work
either, and it's somewhere in the middle
| | 05:22 | here. And again, you have to experiment with it.
| | 05:24 | There's no formula for it.
| | 05:26 | You just have to
experiment until you get it right.
| | 05:28 | Gates are very touchy things, and
they do require experimentation.
| | 05:32 | (music playing)
So that's pretty good there.
| | 05:38 | But it would sound even better if we
back off on the Range. Somewhere near is
| | 05:43 | about where we'd like it.
| | 05:44 | (music playing)
| | 05:51 | See, we don't want to get rid of the
leak completely; what we'd rather do is
| | 05:54 | attenuate it, and it sounds a lot more
natural,. And it's one of the fallacies of
| | 05:59 | the gate that you want to get rid of
everything completely, and you really don't.
| | 06:02 | You just want to move it back in the
mix enough that you really don't hear
| | 06:05 | and it's not prominent.
| | 06:07 | Now one of the cool things
about gates is the sidechain.
| | 06:10 | Not all gates have a sidechain, but
when you have it, it can be very powerful.
| | 06:14 | And what this does is tune in the
band of frequencies where the gate
| | 06:17 | actually activates.
| | 06:19 | And the other thing you can do is
actually control this from another channel for
| | 06:22 | instance, or from another output
device, but really it's the high and low
| | 06:26 | frequencies that you can balance out
here, so we can affect that band of
| | 06:29 | frequencies that opens the gate.
| | 06:32 | So now what we're going to do with low
frequency is we're going to back that off,
| | 06:36 | and basically we're cutting
everything off under 16 kHz. Have a listen.
| | 06:41 | (music playing)
| | 06:46 | So you can hear, just about everything
was attenuated which isn't what we wanted,
| | 06:50 | so I'll back that off, somewhere in here.
| | 06:52 | (music playing)
| | 06:57 | Still, you heard a lot of the frequencies
attenuated, which isn't what we want.
| | 07:04 | That's better. Now we'll go to the high frequencies, and
we'll just to zero in on a particular band.
| | 07:09 | (music playing)
| | 07:16 | This usually works better on something
that has a lot of high-frequency content,
| | 07:19 | like a snare drum, rather
than a tom, but you get the idea.
| | 07:23 | (music playing)
That was pretty good.
| | 07:28 | Now a way to help you tune this
is a little Listen button up here.
| | 07:33 | Now all we are going to do is we are
going to listen to the bandwidth that the
| | 07:37 | gate is reacting to.
| | 07:38 | (music playing)
Now watch what happens.
| | 07:44 | (music playing)
| | 07:48 | What we are hearing there is just the
frequencies that the gate is going to react to.
| | 07:53 | So if we take this off, have a listen.
| | 07:55 | (music playing)
| | 07:59 | And the reason why it doesn't sound
so good is it is just listening to the
| | 08:03 | attack of the sound, and really what we
want is the body and everything. So I am
| | 08:07 | going to back that off, so we can
hear more of the drum, have a listen.
| | 08:11 | (music playing)
| | 08:16 | And you can hear how it even cuts off
the snare drum at the end as a result, and
| | 08:20 | what we'd do is we'd use that sidechain
listen in order to tweak everything and
| | 08:25 | fine-tune the opening of the gate.
And this is especially effective on a snare
| | 08:31 | drum, for instance, where we can
really tune it just so that those
| | 08:34 | high frequencies open up the
gate. It works really, really well.
| | 08:37 | The last thing is the Look
Ahead button, and what that is
| | 08:42 | it's a function that you only
find in modern digital gates.
| | 08:45 | It looks ahead at the signal so it
can react only to the peaks. And this is a
| | 08:50 | brilliant function that you don't find
on hardware gates, and the reason why is
| | 08:55 | hardware gates are analog and usually
they're a little slow at working because
| | 09:00 | they don't have this Look Ahead function.
| | 09:01 | The Look Ahead function really does look
at the signal a few milliseconds ahead
| | 09:06 | of time and allows the gates to have
enough time to react, and this makes it
| | 09:11 | very, very precise.
| | 09:12 | So those are the parameters of a gate,
which is an audio component used to
| | 09:16 | eliminate or decrease
noise or leakage in the track.
| | 09:19 | But like compression, remember
that a little goes a long way.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the noise gate on guitars| 00:00 | As I said in the previous video, a gate
is sort of a reverse compressor that can
| | 00:04 | be used to cover up any noises or
buzzes or coughs or any kind of low-level
| | 00:09 | noises that were recorded on the track.
| | 00:11 | In this video I am going to show you how to
use a noise gate to clean up a guitar track.
| | 00:16 | So the first thing we're going to do is
have a listen to this track so you can
| | 00:19 | hear the noise and you can hear
the guitar play when it comes in.
| | 00:24 | (music playing)
| | 00:43 | Now what you are hearing there is a
very loud Marshall that's set up so it
| | 00:47 | sounds good for the guitar player, but
as a result, it has a very loud buzz, and
| | 00:51 | you can hear some string noise and
everything prior to the guitar entering.
| | 00:55 | So what we are going to try to do is
get rid of that, so we are going to bring
| | 00:59 | our expander/gate in and
just have a quick listen.
| | 01:02 | These are some random
settings. And let's hear what happens.
| | 01:04 | (music playing)
| | 01:19 | Now if you take notice, this worked
great from standpoint that it got rid of
| | 01:23 | the noise at the beginning, but it also
didn't sound all the good when the guitar
| | 01:26 | entered, and that's where some
tweaking on the parameters really helps.
| | 01:31 | So the firs thing we are going to do is
play with the threshold, and let's bring
| | 01:34 | that down to a place
where it kind of works for us.
| | 01:38 | Let's just see what happens down here.
| | 01:40 | (music playing)
| | 01:45 | That wasn't that good because it
really didn't get rid of the noise at the
| | 01:48 | front, and that's what we are trying to do.
| | 01:50 | (music playing)
| | 02:08 | Now that was kind of perfect because
it got rid of the noise at the front of
| | 02:13 | the guitar solo and yet it didn't
affect the guitar when it entered, and that's
| | 02:18 | what we are trying to do.
| | 02:19 | We are trying to make sure that it
sounds just as good as if we didn't have gate
| | 02:23 | in yet, get rid of the noise at the same time.
| | 02:25 | Now sometimes when we get rid of the
noise completely it sounds unnatural.
| | 02:30 | You don't always have to cut it off completely;
| | 02:32 | just lowering it sometimes is quite enough.
| | 02:35 | Now if you take notice on the left-hand
side, you see the in and out meters and
| | 02:39 | another meter called GR, and this is
Gain Reduction. And really what it is it's
| | 02:43 | the amount that the gate is
attenuating the noise when it opens.
| | 02:49 | And we're down about -40 now, and really it
doesn't have to be that low to be effective.
| | 02:55 | Now if we go to the Range control, we
bring it up to -15, -12, somewhere around
| | 03:02 | there, have a listen now.
| | 03:03 | (music playing)
| | 03:23 | So what happened there was you can
actually hear some of the buzz before the
| | 03:26 | guitar entered, but it was attenuated
enough that you'd never hear it in the
| | 03:30 | track. It would never be one of those
things that would stick out or muddy up
| | 03:34 | the track in anyway.
| | 03:36 | So that's really what we're trying to do:
make it sound natural, but attenuate it
| | 03:40 | enough that we don't notice it at all,
| | 03:42 | and never worry about getting it
completely eliminated, because sometimes it
| | 03:46 | sounds very unnatural when you do that.
| | 03:48 | So that's how we set up an
electric guitar with the gate.
| | 03:51 | We'll take a look at attack and hold
and release in context with drums in
| | 03:55 | the next video.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the noise gate on drums| 00:00 | Just as we discussed on the video with
the noise gate on the guitar, a noise
| | 00:03 | gate is sort of a reverse compressor
that can be used to cover up noises and
| | 00:07 | buzzes and coughs or any kind of other
low-level voices that were recorded on the track.
| | 00:11 | In this video I am going to show you how
to use a gate to clean up your drum tracks.
| | 00:15 | Sometimes the drums actually sound
pretty good with leakage from one to another;
| | 00:20 | many times what ends up happening
though, it makes some sound kind of muddy, and
| | 00:24 | adding some noise gate to get rid of
the rest of the leakage from the drum kit
| | 00:29 | or from other instruments really
cleans the sound up a little bit.
| | 00:32 | So let's experiment a bit with adding
some noise gates. And the easiest way to
| | 00:37 | hear it is on the snare drum,
| | 00:39 | so let's go over and listen
to our snare drum for a second.
| | 00:42 | (music playing)
| | 00:50 | Now what you are hearing here is
leakage from the hi-hat, and that's because the
| | 00:56 | easiest placement on a snare drum so
the drummer doesn't hit the microphone
| | 01:01 | happens to be close to the hi-hat and
therefore, you're always going to get a
| | 01:06 | certain amount of leakage.
| | 01:07 | You'll also get some leakage from the
kick drum, and you'll also get some leakage
| | 01:11 | from the toms as well.
| | 01:13 | So the only way to get rid of any kind
of leakage like that is to use a noise
| | 01:16 | gate. Even with the very directional
microphone, it doesn't work nearly as well
| | 01:20 | as putting a gate on it. So let's try that.
| | 01:23 | So we'll go to our dynamics list in the
plug-ins, go to Expander/Gate, and there we are.
| | 01:29 | Let's just have a listen to what it
sounds like with the default settings.
| | 01:32 | (music playing)
| | 01:36 | Well, that's not going to work because
obviously it's cutting off the noise and
| | 01:40 | it's also cutting off the
sound of the snare drum.
| | 01:43 | So the first thing we are going to do is
back off on the threshold and have a listen.
| | 01:46 | (music playing)
| | 01:48 | Now you can hear it's getting rid of
some of the leakage, but it's also getting
| | 02:01 | rid of some of the drum envelope as well.
| | 02:04 | And we want to make sure we
keep that as much as possible.
| | 02:07 | So that's where the Attack and the
Hold and the Release settings come in.
| | 02:10 | Let's experiment a little bit.
| | 02:11 | (music playing)
| | 02:22 | So now we hear the attack pretty good.
| | 02:24 | (music playing)
Let's back off on the threshold.
| | 02:30 | (music playing)
| | 02:49 | Now you can hear what's happening.
| | 02:50 | Now we're starting to hear just the
snare drum itself, and we are getting rid
| | 02:53 | of a lot of a leakage. What's happening
here is we are trying to preserve the envelope.
| | 02:57 | We want to hear the attack and we want to
hear the release of that snare drum as well.
| | 03:02 | We want to hear the full dynamic envelope of it.
| | 03:05 | The only way to do that is to use
the Release and the Hold parameters.
| | 03:10 | (music playing)
| | 03:17 | That's pretty good there.
So let's listen without the noise gate.
| | 03:21 | (music playing)
| | 03:28 | Let's listen with it now.
(music playing)
| | 03:38 | You can still hear a little bit of a hi-
hat on the release, but that's okay; it's
| | 03:41 | attenuated enough that we'll never notice.
And actually in the track what we are
| | 03:45 | trying to do is just clean things up, and
it's incremental. As we get rid of some
| | 03:49 | of the leakage, it doesn't sound like
it's a big deal on one drum, but as we put
| | 03:54 | it on three and four and five, all of
a sudden it just sounds a lot cleaner,
| | 03:58 | especially when you add
the other instruments in.
| | 03:59 | So let's listen with the track for a second.
| | 04:01 | (music playing)
| | 04:08 | I am going to bypass it now.
(music playing)
| | 04:18 | Now we didn't hear a whole lot of
difference in the track, but that's okay.
| | 04:21 | What ends up happening, again, it's a
cumulative effect against all the drums.
| | 04:25 | The other thing is if we were to
trigger another instrument or to trigger a
| | 04:30 | separate snare reverb, you would
find that would be a lot cleaner, because
| | 04:34 | there'd be a lot less leakage
that's actually going into the reverb.
| | 04:37 | So that's why it is important here to use that.
| | 04:40 | Take notice the Range is at -40, and
that tends to sound fairly unnatural.
| | 04:46 | So a lot of times what we want to do is back
that off so it's -15, or -12 or something.
| | 04:52 | Have a listen to what it sounds like.
| | 04:54 | (music playing)
| | 05:02 | Now we can still hear the leakage, but
now it's attenuated a lot, and that's what we are trying to do.
| | 05:06 | We are just trying to bring it down
in the track, not necessarily want to
| | 05:09 | eliminate it, because sometimes when
we eliminate it completely, it sounds
| | 05:13 | unnatural, and we want it to
sound as natural as possible.
| | 05:16 | Let's listen on another drum now.
| | 05:17 | Let's go to the floor tom. Solo it up.
| | 05:22 | (music playing)
| | 05:28 | You can hear there is a lot of leakage there.
| | 05:30 | Let's go and add the
Expander/Gate, have a listen.
| | 05:34 | (music playing)
| | 05:38 | That doesn't sound good at all.
| | 05:40 | Once again, the only thing we want to
hear is just the hit from the floor tom.
| | 05:43 | (music playing)
| | 05:58 | Keep on moving the threshold back.
| | 05:59 | (music playing)
Now here we go.
| | 06:01 | We are getting closer.
| | 06:04 | But again, listen to the Release.
| | 06:06 | It's cut off on this floor
tom hit. Try that again.
| | 06:14 | Let's bring the Hold back.
| | 06:16 | We are getting closer.
| | 06:18 | (music playing)
And there we go. That sounds a lot more natural.
| | 06:23 | Let's back off on Release still again.
| | 06:27 | Here we go and once again we can still
hear the leakage from the other drums.
| | 06:36 | What we are trying to do is
attenuate it, not necessarily eliminate it.
| | 06:40 | So what we'll do with our Range control
is back that off once again to somewhere
| | 06:44 | on -15 or -12 or somewhere in there,
and it will sound a lot more natural.
| | 06:49 | (music playing)
| | 06:56 | Now, have a listen with the gate bypassed.
| | 06:59 | (music playing)
| | 07:13 | Let's listen in the track.
(music playing)
| | 07:28 | You can hear that's cleaning it up a whole lot.
| | 07:31 | Now if we went and continued on the
other drums, it would clean up even more.
| | 07:35 | So that's the way we use noise gates on drums.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Learning de-esser basics| 00:00 | Sometimes a vocal has short bursts of
high-frequency energy where the S's are
| | 00:03 | overemphasized, and that's known as sibilance.
| | 00:06 | It comes from a combination of mic
technique by the vocalist, the type of mic
| | 00:10 | used, and heavy compression on the vocal track.
| | 00:13 | Sibilance is nasty sounding and
generally felt to be highly undesirable, so a
| | 00:17 | special type of compressor
called a de-esser is used.
| | 00:20 | In this video I'm going to show you the
typical de-esser parameters and what they do.
| | 00:24 | So first of all, de-esser is a tunable
compressor, and it allows you to compress
| | 00:28 | only a selected band of frequencies,
usually between 3 and 10k, and specifically
| | 00:32 | to eliminate sibilance.
| | 00:34 | Now you'd want to use this rather than
an EQ, because if you use an EQ, you'll
| | 00:38 | cut out those frequencies all the time,
which is undesirable and just won't just
| | 00:42 | sound the same, and that's why a
de-esser works a little bit better.
| | 00:46 | First of all, let's listen to what sibilance is.
| | 00:48 | Let me play you a track with a lot of sibilance.
| | 00:51 | This is a vocal track.
| | 00:52 | (music playing)
| | 01:09 | So the S's really come out at you, they
really spit out, and that's what we want to
| | 01:13 | get rid of, because they'll just jump
out of the track and they'll make you
| | 01:15 | crazy when you listen to it later.
| | 01:17 | Most de-essers only have a couple of controls.
| | 01:20 | They have a frequency control, and that
allows you to tune in the exact frequency
| | 01:25 | where the S's are happening, and the
reason for that is everybody has a little
| | 01:29 | bit different frequency
where the sibilance occurs at.
| | 01:31 | The second control that you have is a
Range control, and that's the amount of
| | 01:37 | attenuation that you'll have
at that particular frequency.
| | 01:40 | The other thing that you have on many
de-essers is a Listen control, and that
| | 01:44 | allows you to listen to just the
particular high frequencies where the sibilance
| | 01:48 | is happening so you can dial in a
little bit better, and let's have a listen to
| | 01:52 | what that sounds like.
| | 01:53 | We'll engage Listen control. Here it is.
| | 01:55 | (music playing)
| | 02:06 | So between the Listen control and the
Frequency control, it allows us to zero in
| | 02:10 | on the sibilance, and then it
allows us to control it as a result.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the de-esser on vocals| 00:00 | Sometimes a vocal has short bursts of
high-frequency energy where the S's are
| | 00:04 | overemphasized, and this is known as sibilance.
| | 00:06 | A se-esser, which is a selective
frequency compressor, helps eliminate
| | 00:10 | this undesirable effect.
| | 00:12 | Let's see how to use it.
| | 00:14 | The first thing we'll do is we'll listen
to a vocal that has a lot of sibilance.
| | 00:18 | Let's solo it up and listen.
| | 00:19 | (music playing)
| | 00:23 | Now you can hear the S's just jump out.
| | 00:25 | There is way too much there.
| | 00:27 | So the first thing we are going to do is
insert, under dynamics, it says De-esser,
| | 00:32 | and this is the plain-vanilla
de-esser that comes with Pro Tools.
| | 00:36 | The first thing we are going to do is
we are going to hit the Listen button and
| | 00:41 | we are going to try to zero in on the
frequency where the sibilance happens.
| | 00:45 | (music playing)
| | 01:01 | So it seems like about 6.1 kHz,
right around there is where we have the S's.
| | 01:07 | So now the next thing is to set
how much sibilance is attenuated.
| | 01:11 | (music playing)
| | 01:14 | Now it's attenuated a lot here.
| | 01:16 | Let's listen to what happens.
| | 01:17 | (music playing)
| | 01:22 | So as you can hear, there are hardly any
S's there, and it just doesn't sound good.
| | 01:25 | It wrecks the vocal.
| | 01:27 | But we don't really want a whole lot;
| | 01:29 | we just want a little bit.
| | 01:29 | We want to deemphasize the
sibilance just a little bit.
| | 01:32 | (music playing)
| | 01:42 | One more.
(music playing)
| | 01:46 | Now let's bypass and have
a listen before and after.
| | 01:49 | (music playing)
| | 01:58 | Now let's listen in the track.
| | 01:59 | (music playing)
| | 02:04 | As you can hear, it sounds very, very
natural, and that's what a de-esser does:
| | 02:08 | it gets rid of the sibilance for us, makes
everything sit in the track a lot better. So to sum it up,
| | 02:13 | use a de-esser to eliminate sibilance
from a vocal by using a frequency control
| | 02:16 | to find the offending frequency.
| | 02:18 | Then use the Threshold or Range
control to dial in the proper amount.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Learning About EQUnderstanding equalizer parameters| 00:00 | Most equalizers sound a whole lot
different from one another, even though they
| | 00:03 | might have the same basic parameters.
| | 00:06 | Let's look at the controls of the
basic Pro-Tools-native EQ plug-in.
| | 00:09 | Now the one thing that differentiates one EQ
from another is the number of bands it has.
| | 00:15 | And as you can see here, we
have a five-band equalizer:
| | 00:18 | low frequency, low-mid frequency, mid
frequency, high-mid, and high frequencies.
| | 00:23 | Sometimes you'll only have
four bands instead of five;
| | 00:25 | sometimes you'll have three bands, sometimes
you have even two bands, like on a guitar amp.
| | 00:30 | In this case, even though there are five
bands, you can only use four at a time.
| | 00:34 | The difference here is for the most
part they're parametric equalizers, and
| | 00:39 | parametric equalizers give you the
ability to control three different
| | 00:43 | parameters of the equalizer.
| | 00:45 | You can control the gain, what
frequency it works on, and you can control
| | 00:49 | something called Q, and what this means, it's
the quality of the filter that's being used.
| | 00:55 | And really a better name for it is
bandwidth, and bandwidth is how many
| | 01:01 | frequencies it's working on at the same time.
| | 01:03 | Just to show you difference between
the three parameters, let's play a little
| | 01:06 | with the low-mid
frequency on the Snare Drum Top.
| | 01:10 | (music playing)
| | 01:13 | Now there are two hundred cycles here, but the
first thing we're going to do is just
| | 01:17 | boost the gain, have a listen.
| | 01:18 | (music playing)
| | 01:24 | That sounds way boxy, but you heard it.
| | 01:26 | (music playing)
| | 01:30 | And now when we cut it, you hear the two hundred
cycles go away, but it's more than two hundred cycles.
| | 01:37 | As you can see, it's everywhere from
about thirty cycles up to about 5K or so
| | 01:42 | that's being effected at the same time.
| | 01:44 | Now the beauty of the Q control is you
can control the number of those frequencies.
| | 01:52 | Take notice, we can zero in on a
very narrow band of frequencies.
| | 01:58 | And frequency control allows us to sweep those.
| | 02:03 | You can hear it if you open this up a little bit.
(music playing)
| | 02:22 | I can really hear that what we've done
is we've eliminated a lot of the lower-
| | 02:26 | mid frequencies, and it sounds pretty boxy there.
| | 02:29 | (music playing)
| | 02:33 | We can do the same thing if we
boost the frequencies as well.
| | 02:36 | (music playing)
| | 02:44 | Now it's at 1K, and you can hear the difference.
| | 02:46 | Now watch when we open up the bandwidth.
| | 02:48 | (music playing)
| | 02:54 | And what we've done there is basically
control almost all the frequencies, but
| | 02:59 | it's centered around that 1K, which
you see in the frequency window there.
| | 03:03 | So from 1K, it gets the most
boost, and it rolls off from there.
| | 03:08 | And as we move our bandwidth control,
our Q control, still it's centered around
| | 03:13 | 1K, but there are fewer and fewer
frequencies that are controlled.
| | 03:17 | Now, let's listen right there and what happens?
| | 03:19 | Let's play it and just sweep through the
frequencies, starting at 1K and moving downwards.
| | 03:25 | (music playing)
| | 03:36 | And of course now we're down below the
main frequencies of the snare drum, so
| | 03:40 | it's not going to affect it too much.
| | 03:43 | Each band has an IN and OUT control.
As you can see on the graph there, EQ goes
| | 03:48 | away until we put it in again, and there it is.
| | 03:51 | The other thing that's interesting here
is the fact that we can only have four
| | 03:54 | bands at the same time.
| | 03:56 | So now when we bypass the low-mid
frequency, the mid frequency is available to us.
| | 04:02 | Let's go to high-mid frequency and
listen as we sweep through that as well.
| | 04:06 | (music playing)
Now you can really hear it.
| | 04:12 | (music playing)
| | 04:24 | And what we're going to do now is we're
going to take that Q and we're going to
| | 04:27 | make it really narrow and
sweep through everything.
| | 04:29 | (music playing)
| | 04:41 | Sometimes a combination of a really
tight Q like this and a lot of gain makes
| | 04:46 | the equalizer ring a little bit.
| | 04:47 | And we can hear it here.
| | 04:48 | It gives it kind of an overtone, and
that's equalizer actually distorting a
| | 04:53 | little bit, and that's because we've
actually pushed the parameter controls just
| | 04:56 | a little beyond what they're capable of doing.
| | 04:59 | So we have to be very careful.
| | 05:01 | Generally speaking, any equalizer
sounds best if you don't push it
| | 05:04 | really, really hard.
| | 05:05 | In this case, 18 dB of gain is way more
than we usually use on just about anything.
| | 05:11 | (music playing)
And if we back off on that a little bit--
| | 05:21 | (music playing)
Open up the Q.
| | 05:22 | (music playing)
| | 05:29 | And you can hear the difference.
| | 05:30 | The high and low frequency controls
also have an additional parameter which
| | 05:34 | turns the band into either peaking or shelving.
| | 05:38 | And you can see that here, watch.
Take the high frequency and you can see
| | 05:42 | it looks like a shelf.
| | 05:43 | Let's have a listen.
| | 05:44 | (music playing)
| | 05:48 | And you can see, in this case,
everything from about 3K up to 20K is pretty
| | 05:54 | much the same level.
| | 05:56 | We can change this to peaking control,
and you can see the difference, and you can
| | 05:59 | hear the difference.
| | 06:00 | (music playing)
| | 06:09 | One isn't necessarily better than the other;
| | 06:11 | it depends on the situation.
| | 06:13 | It just gives you a lot of extra
variations and a lot of extra ability.
| | 06:17 | Now a couple of other parameters that we
have that aren't available in all equalizers.
| | 06:21 | There is a high- and lowpass filter which
are very, very powerful and used quite often.
| | 06:26 | And what this will do is it will either
cut all the frequencies off on the low
| | 06:30 | end or on the high end.
| | 06:31 | And watch what happens.
| | 06:33 | If we go to the highpass filter and
we put it in, and you can see there are
| | 06:37 | two parameter controls.
| | 06:39 | One is a frequency control
and the other is a Q control.
| | 06:43 | Once again, let's listen
as we sweep the frequencies.
| | 06:46 | (music playing)
| | 06:56 | And what it's doing, it's cutting
off all the low frequencies.
| | 06:59 | Now we can exaggerate that by
changing how quickly that roll-off becomes.
| | 07:04 | 6 dB per octave is fairly gentle, and we
can move this up to 24 dB per octave, and
| | 07:10 | now watch when we sweep.
| | 07:11 | (music playing)
| | 07:20 | Now at about six hundred cycles you hear it, and
before it was probably at about 3K before
| | 07:24 | you start to hear it sound very similar.
| | 07:27 | It's very, very effective, but it also
can add a little bit of ring, just like you
| | 07:32 | heard when we boosted the Q and
the Gain in the high-mid frequencies.
| | 07:37 | The same thing can happen, and that's
why most engineers keep it just at 12 or
| | 07:41 | 18 dB per octave, and you can
see how the roll-off changes.
| | 07:45 | These are the number of frequencies that
are controlled by the highpass filter.
| | 07:49 | The other thing we have is a lowpass
filter, and that's going to allow lows to
| | 07:53 | pass and will attenuate the highs.
| | 07:55 | Let's have a listen.
| | 07:55 | (music playing)
| | 08:03 | Now you can hear all the high
frequencies go away, and the same thing happens
| | 08:08 | here in that we have a Q control that
allows us to control how fast those high
| | 08:13 | frequencies go away.
| | 08:14 | (music playing)
| | 08:24 | The high- and lowpass filters are
very, very powerful and used by most of
| | 08:28 | the top engineers more than you'd know.
| | 08:30 | Just about every time you have an
instrument, you can always use a high- and low-
| | 08:35 | pass filter to help
shape the sound a little bit.
| | 08:39 | There are two other controls that we have:
| | 08:40 | an Input control and an Output control.
| | 08:42 | The Input control allows us to
either attenuate or boost the level into
| | 08:47 | the Equalizer plug-in.
| | 08:48 | The Output control allows us to
either boost or attenuate the output coming
| | 08:52 | out of the back end.
| | 08:53 | And the reason why we would want that
is the Input control will sometimes keep
| | 08:57 | the Equalizer from overloading if
a signal is too hot coming into it.
| | 09:02 | And the Output control can either back
off the signal so the next stage doesn't
| | 09:06 | overload, or in fact, it will boost
up the signal to where it was if you
| | 09:11 | attenuate a lot on the EQ bands.
| | 09:13 | (music playing)
| | 09:16 | We can see the meters on the top.
| | 09:17 | We have an IN and OUT control.
| | 09:19 | And when we back off in the input,
the level goes down, and we can see the level
| | 09:24 | goes down on the meter.
(music playing)
| | 09:30 | Now what we did is we actually peaked
into the red, and by clicking, we get
| | 09:35 | rid of those peaks.
| | 09:36 | And the other thing that
happens is the Output control--
| | 09:38 | (music playing)
| | 09:45 | Just like you'd expect.
| | 09:46 | One of the most important parts of
an Equalizer is the Bypass control.
| | 09:50 | It's really important to be able to
hear what the sound was originally
| | 09:54 | before you EQed it and compare both
of them, because sometimes you're not
| | 09:59 | making it any better;
| | 10:00 | you're just making it different.
| | 10:01 | And to be able to go back and forth
with just a flip of a button is really
| | 10:05 | important, and it's something
that you shouldn't forget is there.
| | 10:08 | So those are the
parameters of a typical Equalizer.
| | 10:11 | Remember that with an Equalizer, less
is sometimes a lot more, so make sure
| | 10:14 | you use it judiciously.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Learning subtractive equalization| 00:00 | While you might think that you'll
automatically make an instrument or vocal
| | 00:03 | sound better by randomly adding
some EQ, that's not always the case.
| | 00:07 | I'm going to show you an effective EQ
technique called subtractive equalization
| | 00:12 | that works by attenuating
frequencies instead of boosting them.
| | 00:15 | Many superstar mixers love this method
because it's a lot more natural-sounding
| | 00:18 | than if you boosted any of the frequencies.
| | 00:21 | That's because every time you boost an
EQ there is a form of distortion called
| | 00:25 | phase shift that's added to the signal.
| | 00:27 | Phase shift is a byproduct of the
way an electronic equalizer works.
| | 00:31 | By using subtractive equalization, you
completely avoid any phase shift, and the
| | 00:35 | track blends a lot better with the
other tracks in the mix as a result.
| | 00:39 | Here's how to use subtractive equalization.
| | 00:41 | Set the Booster Cut control to about 8 or 10 dB.
| | 00:46 | I like to use 10 dB. Actually the more, the better.
| | 00:49 | You can even go deeper if you want.
| | 00:50 | Then you want to sweep through the
frequencies until you find the least amount
| | 00:54 | of boxiness and the most
definition of the sound.
| | 00:57 | So we'll listen to a vocal now.
| | 00:59 | (music playing)
| | 01:13 | Okay. So that sounds a little muddy in the mid range.
| | 01:15 | So let's sweep through
there and see what happens.
| | 01:19 | (music playing)
| | 01:37 | Now you can see we hit a position
right there where it's a lot less boxy.
| | 01:44 | So now we back this off a bit, open up
our Q, and watch when we take the EQ out.
| | 01:59 | (music playing)
Did you hear how nasally it is?
| | 02:05 | (music playing)
| | 02:24 | In that case, it sounds like the
vocalist was really close to the microphone or
| | 02:28 | maybe even off axis a bit, and that's
kind of what happens when we get that mid-
| | 02:32 | range nasally sound.
| | 02:34 | Now the other way we can work this is if we
in fact boost it instead of cut. So watch.
| | 02:41 | We'll boost the frequencies, and then
we'll sweep through again. And sometimes
| | 02:47 | it's easier to actually hear the offending set
of frequencies by doing it this way. Here we go!
| | 02:52 | (music playing)
| | 03:10 | Okay. You can hear these
frequencies right here sound really funny.
| | 03:15 | (music playing)
| | 03:29 | Here's the difference.
When you go in and out, here's our EQ.
| | 03:34 | (music playing)
Without the EQ.
| | 03:37 | (music playing)
| | 03:38 | Now, you can hear how much less boxy, and
how there's more definition when we do this.
| | 03:48 | In fact, you'll find if you do this
across all of the tracks that you're mixing,
| | 03:53 | it will sound a lot better
than if you're boosting things.
| | 03:55 | But that being said, there are
times when you'd like to boost as well.
| | 04:00 | Subtractive equalization works
especially well in two frequency ranges:
| | 04:04 | between 200 and 600 and maybe between 2K and 4K.
| | 04:09 | There's a reason for this;
| | 04:10 | 200-600 is the area where there's a lot
of proximity effect when you're recording.
| | 04:17 | So in other words, the closer you get
a directional microphone to the source,
| | 04:22 | either a vocal or whatever it might be,
an instrument, the more you're going to
| | 04:27 | have this low-frequency buildup
from what's called proximity effect.
| | 04:32 | If you use the same microphone on a lot
of different instruments, that buildup
| | 04:37 | gets to be an awful lot in that one area.
| | 04:40 | So 200-600 is an area that happens an
awful lot, and subtractive equalization
| | 04:46 | works really well there.
| | 04:48 | The other place that it works is
between 2k and 4K, and this is when you have a
| | 04:53 | good vocal microphone like a
condenser that already has a presence peak
| | 04:57 | built-in, and a presence
peak is usually around 2-4K.
| | 05:01 | So it sounds terrific on vocal, but
there are times when in fact it accentuates
| | 05:07 | the sound of a vocalist that already
has a little peak or she has a little peak
| | 05:11 | in that range, and the
microphone just accentuates it too much.
| | 05:15 | So you find that in this particular
area, subtractive EQ works really well.
| | 05:20 | After you've actually gone through
subtractive EQ, there are a couple of other
| | 05:24 | things that you might
want to do to add definition.
| | 05:27 | In this case, we want to add something
called Point, and Point is a little bit
| | 05:31 | of upper midrange that in fact
helps the definition a little bit.
| | 05:36 | Now, usually that's around 1K, but in
this case, that's about where we're
| | 05:40 | decreasing because of the
subtractive equalization.
| | 05:43 | So that's not going to work there,
but in fact we can add a little bit of
| | 05:46 | what's called sparkle.
| | 05:48 | That's by adding a little bit of a
boost between 5K and 10K. Now watch what
| | 05:52 | happens here with the vocal.
| | 05:53 | (music playing)
Okay. There's without it.
| | 06:20 | (music playing)
Here's with it.
| | 06:31 | Now you can hear what happens there is
you start to hear the S's a little bit
| | 06:35 | better, and there's a little bit more
definition. And of course this is what
| | 06:38 | we call sparkle and it adds a lot to,
especially a vocal, but just about any instrument.
| | 06:44 | You don't need much;
sometimes a dB is just enough, or sometimes two.
| | 06:48 | In this case, it's 2.9. I might want to
back that off when I play it with the track.
| | 06:53 | But it usually works really well.
| | 06:55 | You have to watch that you don't add it
to too many tracks, because in fact then
| | 07:00 | it just builds up, and you'll have
clashes between one track and another in
| | 07:04 | those frequency ranges.
| | 07:06 | So this only works in certain cases.
| | 07:08 | There is something else that we add
sometimes for the brilliance, and that's
| | 07:13 | what a lot of engineers call AIR.
| | 07:15 | An AIR is up at the 10K, 12K range.
| | 07:19 | Here's what that sounds like.
| | 07:20 | It really works well in a vocal especially.
| | 07:22 | It's very subtle, but it opens it up. Watch.
| | 07:25 | We'll bring it up to, in this case 11K,
so we're sort of right in the middle, and
| | 07:31 | we're going to put this Equalizer on Shelving.
| | 07:34 | There's two ways that you can make this.
| | 07:35 | You can make it a peaking
equalizer, or a shelving equalizer.
| | 07:39 | You can put it on Shelving.
| | 07:41 | Shelving works on all the frequencies,
in this case from 11K to beyond 20K.
| | 07:46 | Now watch what happens.
| | 07:47 | (music playing)
| | 08:02 | Watch when we take it up.
(music playing)
[00:08:1306]
It just gives it the little bit of--
well, again, what they call it AIR.
| | 08:17 | It gives you the idea that you're
listening to the vocalist right in front of you.
| | 08:22 | He is standing right there.
| | 08:24 | So, many times what we'll do in a vocal
is we'll add a little bit of EQ at 1K,
| | 08:29 | very, very little bit.
| | 08:30 | We'll add some at 5K.
We'll add some at 10K.
| | 08:33 | And again, when I'm talking about adding
some, I'm only talking about a dB or two.
| | 08:37 | It doesn't take much in these
areas to really make a difference.
| | 08:41 | That's how we do subtractive equalization;
| | 08:43 | you either boost your cut by about 10 dB
and sweep through the frequencies until you
| | 08:47 | find the one that sticks out the most.
| | 08:49 | Then adjust the amount of cut to taste.
| | 08:51 | After that, you can add some Point,
some Sparkle, and some AIR to add some
| | 08:55 | definition to the sound.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Learning frequency juggling| 00:00 | In this video I am going to
show you an EQ technique called
| | 00:03 | juggling frequencies.
| | 00:04 | One of the biggest problems during
mixing is when two instruments clash because
| | 00:08 | their predominant
frequencies are in the same bandwidth.
| | 00:11 | This often happens with two similar
guitars in the mix, like if they're both
| | 00:14 | Strats played through Marshals.
| | 00:16 | But it could happen with other combinations too.
| | 00:19 | Sometimes it happens between a guitar
and a lead vocal, or a snare drum and a
| | 00:22 | guitar, or a keyboard and a bass.
| | 00:25 | The way to avoid this is to use a
method called juggling frequencies.
| | 00:29 | Veteran mixers know that equalizing
a track without listening to any of the
| | 00:33 | other tracks at the same time
inevitably causes a frequency clash.
| | 00:37 | The way to avoid this is to listen to
other instruments while you're EQing.
| | 00:41 | When you fine-tune instruments that have
frequencies that clash, just solo those;
| | 00:45 | here is how this works with these two guitars.
| | 00:48 | Let's listen to them first.
| | 00:50 | (music playing)
| | 00:59 | This sounds so much alike that it's
really difficult to determine that there are
| | 01:02 | two different guitars playing at the same time.
| | 01:06 | In fact, it sounds like they are
both Gibsons or guitars with humbucking
| | 01:10 | pickups and they are played through
the same style amplifier, and this is what
| | 01:14 | you get, where there is no definition.
| | 01:17 | Now, of course if we wanted to, we can pan
them like this, and here is what it sounds like.
| | 01:22 | (music playing)
| | 01:28 | Now you can tell for sure that they
are two different guitar parts, but they
| | 01:31 | really have the same sound. Listen once again.
| | 01:33 | (music playing)
| | 01:39 | They are both panned up the middle.
| | 01:40 | It's really hard to tell that
they're two different parts there.
| | 01:43 | So what we are going to do is we
are going to juggle some frequencies.
| | 01:46 | The way this works is that two
instruments shouldn't have their frequencies
| | 01:50 | boosted at the same place.
| | 01:52 | In this case, neither of them are
boosted, if you look at both EQs.
| | 01:56 | So what we're going to do is we are
going to use a little bit of subtractive
| | 01:59 | equalization, and we are going to
change the sound of both of them by
| | 02:05 | juggling some frequencies. Now watch.
| | 02:07 | Here is the first guitar.
(music playing)
| | 02:11 | Now put the Equalizer in.
(music playing)
| | 02:16 | Okay. Now, we are starting to hear that there
is two different guitars there: one is a
| | 02:30 | With this guitar, you can hear that
it's a little bit fuller and there is more
| | 02:34 | body now, and what we are going to do is
we are going to carve the other one so
| | 02:38 | it's a little bit more treblier.
| | 02:39 | Now you see in this 1.5K or so,
this is where the notch is here.
| | 02:43 | So what we're going to do is we are
going to boost a little bit just in that
| | 02:46 | place on the other
guitar, and watch what happens.
| | 02:49 | (music playing)
| | 03:20 | little bit chunkier and the other
one is just a little bit more treblier.
| | 03:25 | Now we are going to actually
carve those out a little bit more.
| | 03:28 | I am going to go up to 6K is
a magic frequency for guitars.
| | 03:33 | It's about the upper high end of a guitar.
| | 03:36 | Guitar amplifier rolls off somewhere
around 8K, and anything above that, if you
| | 03:41 | boost it, you really don't get much out
of it, but 6K is a magic number because
| | 03:45 | that's where the high frequencies come in.
| | 03:47 | so watch what happens on this guitar.
| | 03:49 | (music playing)
| | 04:07 | Now, we are getting more definition.
| | 04:08 | Now if we go back to the other one--and
this is the way we are always going to do it.
| | 04:12 | We are going to go back and forth and
back and forth and back and forth until we
| | 04:15 | get the definition that we are looking for.
| | 04:16 | So now, we may even cut the high
frequencies in that same place on this guitar.
| | 04:22 | (music playing)
| | 04:41 | Now, we're going to go back again.
And we can see how much we boosted it here
| | 04:45 | to make that sound.
| | 04:46 | We are going to do something else.
| | 04:47 | We are going to add the highpass
filter in, and watch what happens.
| | 04:53 | We are going to get rid of a lot of the
low frequencies as well, so you'll be able to hear the
| | 04:59 | definition as soon as that happens.
(music playing)
| | 05:25 | And going to go back to the second
guitar, move this up a little bit.
| | 05:28 | Now, you can hear there are two guitars there.
| | 05:30 | Now they sound somewhat
different, but we are going to go back.
| | 05:33 | We are going to tweak it even more.
| | 05:34 | (music playing)
| | 05:37 | In this case, I am going to take the Gain.
| | 05:40 | I am going, where we cut before,
| | 05:42 | I am going to cut it back a little bit.
| | 05:44 | (music playing)
| | 06:02 | (music playing)
| | 06:15 | Now, if we take the two guitars and we pan
them a little bit, now you can really
| | 06:20 | hear the difference.
(music playing)
| | 06:38 | So you probably have to do a lot of
back-and-forth EQing where you start with
| | 06:41 | one instrument, EQ it, then go to the
other one, and EQ that, and then back and
| | 06:46 | forth and back and forth until
you hear them both distinctly.
| | 06:48 | Now with this we might spend a little
more time and make them both more distinct,
| | 06:52 | but let's hear what they
sound like in the track first.
| | 06:55 | Let's unsolo them and have a listen.
(music playing)
| | 07:17 | Now, I am going to refine
this guitar even little bit more.
| | 07:20 | (music playing)
| | 07:22 | Now in this guitar one of the things
I'll do is also add a highpass filter,
| | 07:29 | add a little bit more
definition. Hear both of them.
| | 07:33 | (music playing)
| | 07:45 | Now, you can hear they both sound a
little bit different, and they don't
| | 07:48 | sound like the same guitar anymore.
And when we put them in the track, see
| | 07:51 | what it sounds like.
(music playing)
| | 08:05 | So that's how frequency juggling works.
| | 08:07 | It's used whenever you have two instruments
or vocals that clash frequency-wise. You
| | 08:11 | want to make sure that the two offending
instruments aren't boosting at the same frequency.
| | 08:16 | If one instrument is boosted in the
frequency range, the other should be cut in
| | 08:19 | that frequency range.
| | 08:21 | Remember that after frequency juggling,
an instrument might sound terrible when
| | 08:25 | soloed by itself, but it
should work well in the track.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the magic high-pass filter| 00:00 | In this video I'm going to show you
how to use the highpass filter to
| | 00:03 | magically clean up your mix.
| | 00:05 | The highpass filter is one of
the most useful and overlooked
| | 00:07 | equalization parameters.
| | 00:09 | It allows the high frequencies to pass
and cuts off the low frequencies, which
| | 00:13 | usually don't add that much to the sound anyway.
| | 00:16 | What we're going to do is go over on
the electric guitar and let's insert a 1-
| | 00:21 | Band EQ. And what we're going to do is
we're going to put it on highpass filter.
| | 00:28 | So we selected High-Pass here.
| | 00:29 | Now usually there are
two controls that you have--
| | 00:33 | sometimes there is only one--and
it's a frequency control that selects the
| | 00:36 | frequency that the filter works, at
and sometimes there is a slope control,
| | 00:42 | or sometimes called Q, and what this
will do is select the rate that the
| | 00:48 | filter rolls off at.
| | 00:49 | So there is 60 dB/octave.
| | 00:50 | You can see when we go to 12 dB/octave,
it's even more pronounced, 18 dB/octave is
| | 00:58 | more so, and 24 dB is flat off the cliff.
| | 01:03 | Let's listen to what these sound like
first, and we're going to use electric guitar.
| | 01:07 | Electric guitar is especially
good for using a highpass filter.
| | 01:14 | So let's listen what happens.
| | 01:16 | (music playing)
| | 01:31 | Now, there is a point where you won't hear
the highpass filter work at all. Now watch.
| | 01:37 | So we have it down to 20Hz here.
| | 01:40 | (music playing)
| | 01:49 | We're rolling quite a lot of the lows off,
but you don't hear any difference at all.
| | 01:53 | That's because there's not a lot of low
frequencies that are in the electric guitar sound.
| | 01:57 | (music playing)
| | 02:03 | That's where we can about hear it.
| | 02:05 | Now the way this works is the low
frequencies that are being picked up by the
| | 02:08 | microphone are things that we don't want anyway.
| | 02:12 | They may be things like truck traffic,
or it might be, there is heavy equipment
| | 02:16 | being used somewhere, and that gives you
a low rumble that you really can't hear
| | 02:21 | unless you have headphones on or if you
have the monitors turned up. But it's all
| | 02:25 | sorts of extraneous noises in your mix
that really take away from it and make it
| | 02:31 | sound muddy and jumbled.
| | 02:32 | So the more we can get rid of this,
the better off everything sounds.
| | 02:37 | Besides, these low frequencies really
don't add anything to the sound of the
| | 02:40 | electric guitar, and that's why if we
get rid of them, it only makes the guitar
| | 02:45 | stand out in the mix more.
| | 02:46 | So let's have a listen.
| | 02:47 | (music playing)
| | 03:00 | So that still sounded pretty good there,
even though all the lows were rolled off.
| | 03:04 | Let's listen to it with the lows.
(music playing)
| | 03:14 | Here when we actually put the
highpass filter in--I'm going to put this up,
| | 03:19 | so it's 12 dB/octave--
| | 03:21 | it makes the guitar a little more
distinct, because those low frequencies are
| | 03:26 | getting in the way of the bass guitar,
of the kick drum, and if we get those out
| | 03:32 | of the mix, it makes everything more distinct.
| | 03:35 | It will clean up the low frequencies on
those instruments, and it'll also clean
| | 03:39 | up the sound of the electric guitar.
| | 03:41 | So now let's listen.
| | 03:43 | (music playing)
| | 03:57 | Sounded pretty good!
| | 03:58 | Let's go and put the
highpass filter on the vocals for instance.
| | 04:02 | Now, the vocals are another instrument
that can really use a highpass filter,
| | 04:11 | and the reason why, again, is
usually they're turned up loudly,
| | 04:15 | they're recorded loudly, and also
you're standing away from the microphone that
| | 04:19 | they're being recorded, and most
people are recording in their garages or in
| | 04:24 | their bedrooms or whatever.
| | 04:26 | So you don't have an acoustically tuned
room or an isolated room to get rid of
| | 04:31 | all those extraneous low-frequency
noises. And you don't even hear most of them,
| | 04:35 | but you can see them on a meter.
| | 04:37 | If you turn the track up loud enough,
you can actually see the meter bouncing,
| | 04:42 | and it's because of these low
frequencies that are happening, and this is when
| | 04:45 | there is no other sound happening,
but you can see that happening.
| | 04:48 | Now on this particular vocal, I can't
show you that because it was recorded in a
| | 04:51 | real studio, so we don't have those
problems. But now let's listen to the vocal
| | 04:56 | by itself, and we'll put the highpass in.
(music playing)
| | 05:09 | Okay. So there are no low frequencies there
and that doesn't sound very good, but
| | 05:12 | watch: we can roll it off at 40 or 50 and it
doesn't change the sound of the vocal at all.
| | 05:19 | (music playing)
| | 05:27 | Let's bypass it.
(music playing)
| | 05:38 | So now you can hear there is really no
difference, but what we've done is we've
| | 05:42 | gotten rid of those low frequencies that
aren't helping the vocal at all and are
| | 05:46 | really clouding up the mix.
| | 05:48 | We can even use this on
something like the bass or a kick drum.
| | 05:53 | Now let's go over to the bass
and put a highpass filter in it.
| | 05:58 | We'll go in Bass and we'll
insert 1 Band filter. There we go!
| | 06:04 | Call that highpass filter.
| | 06:06 | Now, let's listen to the bass.
| | 06:07 | (music playing)
Let's gradually put the highpass filter in.
| | 06:16 | We'll raise the frequencies.
(music playing)
| | 06:21 | Now, you can hear it.
It really makes a difference.
| | 06:23 | At 150 cycles there is no low
end, and that's not what we want.
| | 06:28 | So what we can do now is we can
actually bring it up to 30 or 40 cycles, and we
| | 06:33 | won't hear the sound of the bass change,
but yet we'll get rid of a lot of the
| | 06:38 | muddiness that's down below the 30
cycles that just muddy up the sound.
| | 06:42 | (music playing)
| | 06:57 | We can use this on a kick drum and just
about anything that uses a microphone.
| | 07:01 | It really performs some magic on the
mix because you get rid of a lot of
| | 07:05 | frequencies that don't really add
anything to the sound yet cloud up the mix
| | 07:09 | because they are in the way of the bass
drum, and what we're trying to do is add
| | 07:14 | definition between all those
instruments, and this is one of the ways we do it.
| | 07:18 | So to finish up, a highpass filter is
used to get rid of the low frequencies
| | 07:22 | that muddy up the sound.
| | 07:23 | There is one main parameter that sets
the frequency, and sometimes another that
| | 07:27 | selects how quickly those
frequencies are rolled off.
| | 07:30 | Finally, we can use the highpass
filter in almost every instrument, but
| | 07:34 | it's especially effective on those
that don't have many low frequencies to
| | 07:37 | begin with.
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| Learning the principles of equalization| 00:00 | Here are some general equalization
principles that can speed up the EQ process
| | 00:04 | and keep you from chasing your EQ tail.
| | 00:07 | If it sounds muddy, attenuate it at around 250 Hz.
| | 00:10 | If it sounds honky, attenuate it at around 500 Hz.
| | 00:14 | Cut or attenuate if you are
trying to make things sound clearer.
| | 00:17 | Boost if you are trying to
make things sound different.
| | 00:20 | Use a narrow Q / Bandwidth of
between 6 and 10 when cutting and a wide Q of
| | 00:25 | between 0.5 and 2 when boosting.
| | 00:27 | If you want something to
stick out, roll off the bottom.
| | 00:30 | If you want it to blend in, roll off the top.
| | 00:33 | If you keep these principles in mind,
your EQing will go smoother and faster.
| | 00:37 | In this chapter on equalization, I am
going to cover each point in a lot more
| | 00:40 | detail when we EQ a number
of different instruments.
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|
|
9. Applying EQ to the Rhythm SectionEqualizing the kick| 00:00 | The kick or bass drum is extremely
important because it's the heartbeat of the
| | 00:03 | song and provides power to the mix.
| | 00:06 | Although different kick drums sound
different, here is a general way to approach
| | 00:10 | EQing the kick drum that will
usually get you in the ballpark.
| | 00:12 | The first thing to remember is
you can't overcome a bad drum sound.
| | 00:16 | If the kick drum sounds bad in the room,
then there is no amount of EQing that's
| | 00:20 | going to make it sound better.
| | 00:21 | But if a kick does sound good, we can
make it sound even better, with a little
| | 00:25 | bit of EQ at certain EQ points
here and there in the frequency range.
| | 00:29 | Let's see what we can do with this kick.
| | 00:30 | First of all, let's listen to
the entire drum kit just by itself.
| | 00:35 | (music playing)
| | 00:43 | You can hear some leakage from the bass
guitar in the background. That's okay.
| | 00:47 | You'll never hear it in the track.
| | 00:49 | So let's bring our native 4-Band EQ up.
| | 00:54 | The first thing to remember is that the
ideal frequency for a 22-inch kick drum,
| | 00:58 | which is what most kick drums are,
| | 01:00 | that's usually around 80 Hz.
| | 01:02 | If you go and EQ below that--40
or 60 Hz--it may sound big on certain
| | 01:08 | speakers, but you've probably added too
much if you're listening on small speakers.
| | 01:12 | You'll find low end will be just
too big for the rest of the band.
| | 01:15 | So you have to be really careful.
| | 01:17 | So let's solo our kick drum,
have a listen to it by itself.
| | 01:21 | (music playing)
| | 01:28 | That could use a little bit in the low end.
| | 01:29 | Let's start with couple
3 dB, and let's have a listen.
| | 01:33 | (music playing)
| | 01:44 | Now, the next thing we want to do is get
rid of any of the hollow sound that the
| | 01:47 | drum might have, and that's
somewhere between 200 and 400 Hz.
| | 01:51 | So let's see if we get a little
bit of that out if we attenuate it.
| | 01:56 | (music playing)
| | 02:05 | Let's bypass it and have a listen.
| | 02:07 | (music playing)
| | 02:15 | Now, let's listen. Then we'll bypass
it so you can hear before and after.
| | 02:15 | You can hear how it sounded bigger already.
| | 02:18 | Now, if we really go crazy and get rid
of a lot of, in this case it's 258
| | 02:22 | cycles, have a listen when we scoop it up.
| | 02:24 | (music playing)
| | 02:39 | It sounds a lot better when we
get rid of that 200 to 400 cycles.
| | 02:43 | It just seems to sound bigger,
and it does fit better in the track.
| | 02:46 | Now the final thing that we want to
do is add something that we call point,
| | 02:50 | and point is a little bit of definition on the
drum, and that definition comes between 3 and 5K.
| | 02:56 | So let's go up to 3K or so
and add a little bit of point.
| | 02:59 | (music playing)
| | 03:18 | (music playing)
| | 03:33 | Big difference there;
let's listen in the track.
| | 03:35 | (music playing)
| | 03:54 | Now, let's add the second kick drum mic
into it, and what this is is it's called
| | 03:58 | a sub-kick, and this is either a
homemade drum mic, which is a six- or eight-inch
| | 04:04 | speaker that's placed in front of the
kick drum, or Yamaha actually makes a unit
| | 04:08 | that's called a Subkick.
| | 04:10 | And what we're aiming to do is get the 40
to 60 cycles that you don't normally hear.
| | 04:14 | So you have to be careful because this
could actually overpower everything else
| | 04:18 | and really on most bookshelf speakers
| | 04:21 | you can't really hear the
effects of this so much.
| | 04:23 | So you have to be careful and
be very judicious with its use.
| | 04:27 | Just about the time you hear it is the
time that you want to stop adding more.
| | 04:30 | (music playing)
| | 04:45 | We can listen to that by itself.
| | 04:46 | (music playing)
See, it's only low frequencies.
| | 04:51 | Now the last thing we might want to do is
actually add a highpass filter to the kick drum.
| | 04:58 | And even though this might sound
counterintuitive, sometimes you can actually
| | 05:02 | clean up the sound of the kick a little bit.
| | 05:04 | So what we'll do is we'll go to the
plug-ins and we'll add a simple 1-Band plug-in.
| | 05:10 | And what we're going to do is select
the roll off, the highpass filter, and
| | 05:15 | we're going to go to a frequency
starting at 20 and have a listen.
| | 05:20 | (music playing)
| | 05:33 | You usually don't want to go too much
above 40 Hz, and sometimes 30 is enough, and
| | 05:38 | what this will do is clean up a lot
of unwanted sound, and actually it will
| | 05:42 | tighten up the sound of the kick drum.
| | 05:44 | It's not necessary, but
sometimes it's really nice to have.
| | 05:47 | So that's how we EQ the kick drum.
| | 05:48 | Our bottom comes from 80 to 100 Hz, any
hollowness in the drum is anywhere from
| | 05:54 | 200 to 400 Hz, and the point
or definition is at 3 to 5K.
| | 05:59 | Beware the boosting from 40 to 60 Hz
may make the kick sound big on big
| | 06:03 | speakers, but it might not be heard
when played back on smaller speakers.
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| Equalizing the snare| 00:00 | The snare is important because you hear
it more than just about any drum in a
| | 00:03 | song, and is responsible for the song's pulse.
| | 00:06 | Although different snare drums
sound differ from one another,
| | 00:09 | here is a general way to approach EQing a
snare that will usually get you to the ballpark.
| | 00:13 | The first thing is you can't
overcome a bad drum sound with EQ.
| | 00:18 | If the snare drum doesn't sound good
acoustically in the room, no amount of EQ
| | 00:22 | is going to make it sound great.
| | 00:24 | Let's listen to our snare drum soloed,
| | 00:25 | hear what it sounds like, and then
add a little bit of EQ to help it up.
| | 00:29 | (music playing)
| | 00:38 | Sounds pretty good to begin with, but I
think we can make the sound even better.
| | 00:41 | So let's go to our EQ plug-in.
| | 00:44 | We will just go to the 4-Band EQ.
| | 00:46 | The first thing to remember is we
can make the drums sound crisper with a
| | 00:50 | little bit of 5K, and this will give
it just a little bit of more definition
| | 00:55 | than we had before.
| | 00:56 | So let's add that 5K, have a listen.
| | 00:59 | (music playing)
| | 01:11 | It's a good amount of high end there,
| | 01:13 | but we can add some snap if we add
some 10K as well, and that will give us the
| | 01:18 | snap of the snares. So let's go up 10k
or thereabouts, and we will put a peaking
| | 01:23 | filter on it and have a listen.
| | 01:25 | (music playing)
| | 01:34 | Now remember that we get
fatness between 120 and 240Hz.
| | 01:39 | This just makes it a lot fuller, so
| | 01:42 | let's bring it down to 100,
and let's hear what happens.
| | 01:46 | (music playing)
| | 01:54 | Let's bypass and have a listen.
| | 01:56 | (music playing)
| | 02:01 | And with the EQ.
(music playing)
| | 02:07 | Now let's listen in the track, and what I
am going to do is let you hear it with the
| | 02:11 | EQ, then we will bypass the
EQ and you can hear it flat.
| | 02:14 | (music playing)
| | 02:18 | Now of course, there's a lot of
leakage from the other drums, which is
| | 02:31 | absolutely normal, so you
don't want to get rid of that.
| | 02:34 | What we're doing is we are just
adding a little bit here and there so
| | 02:37 | everything, when it comes to EQing, is subtle.
| | 02:40 | Usually, you don't want really,
really big changes, especially if the drums
| | 02:43 | sound good begin with.
| | 02:45 | So that's how you equalize the snare drum.
| | 02:47 | Remember the fatness comes at 120 to
about 240Hz, the point at 900 or so,
| | 02:53 | crispness at 5K, and snap at 10K.
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| Equalizing the rack toms| 00:00 | Rack toms have a wide variety of sounds
and are usually an effective part
| | 00:03 | of the song's turnarounds.
| | 00:05 | Sometimes you want them to sound big
and fat, but sometimes you just want to
| | 00:08 | hear them in passing.
| | 00:09 | But you always want them to sound good.
| | 00:11 | Here is how to get them that way.
| | 00:13 | Remember again, no matter what
you do with EQ, you can't make a bad
| | 00:17 | sounding drum sound great.
| | 00:19 | EQ just doesn't do that kind of job.
| | 00:21 | It has to start all in the studio, the
drum has to sound great acoustically, and
| | 00:25 | then you can improve it from there.
| | 00:27 | Just like with the other drums,
there is a few points in the frequency
| | 00:30 | spectrum that really makes the sound,
that makes it sound bigger, makes it
| | 00:34 | sound fatter, takes out some of the
beach ball sound, and we're going to get
| | 00:37 | to those right now.
| | 00:38 | Let's listen to a drum fill that's
right at the beginning of the song.
| | 00:42 | (Music playing)
| | 00:45 | So there are two drums here.
| | 00:47 | It's a rack tom and a floor tom and
what we're going to concentrate on right
| | 00:50 | now is the rack tom.
| | 00:51 | Let's have a listen to it just by itself.
| | 00:53 | (Music playing)
| | 00:55 | So there is a whole lot of leakage in that,
but we can still make it sound pretty good.
| | 01:00 | First thing is we'll get our native
EQ up and in this case, what we'll do is
| | 01:05 | we'll go to a couple of frequencies
that really make a difference first of all.
| | 01:08 | The one thing that always works at
rack toms, believe it or not, is somewhere
| | 01:13 | around 200 cycles or so.
| | 01:15 | If we dip some out, it
actually sounds a whole lot better.
| | 01:19 | So let's listen to this just by itself first,
and then we'll dip a little of 200 Hz out.
| | 01:26 | Let's listen to it with a
little bit of 200, removed.
| | 01:29 | First of all we're going to make a
peaking filter, we don't want a shelving filter.
| | 01:35 | (Music playing)
| | 01:37 | That's good, we'll do more.
| | 01:38 | (Music playing)
| | 01:40 | Listen to the difference.
| | 01:41 | (Music playing)
| | 01:49 | Just bring a little bit more out.
| | 01:51 | (Music playing)
| | 01:58 | Next thing we're going to do is we're
going to add somewhere around 400-500
| | 02:01 | Hz and just add a little bit there and
that's going to add some fullness, some body.
| | 02:06 | Once again, this tends to work on a rack T\toms.
| | 02:09 | It doesn't necessarily work on floor
toms, but in rack toms, it works great.
| | 02:12 | (Music playing)
| | 02:18 | Now, the next thing we're
going to do is add some 5K or so.
| | 02:22 | 5K is the stick sound, so this
gives you the definition on the drum.
| | 02:27 | We'll add a few Db here. Have a listen!
| | 02:30 | (Music playing)
| | 02:33 | Now here is without the EQ.
| | 02:35 | (Music playing)
| | 02:36 | With EQ. (Music playing)
| | 02:39 | Without. (Music playing)
| | 02:42 | With it. (Music playing)
| | 02:45 | Now, it might seem a little bright,
but you put it in a track with all the
| | 02:48 | leakage and all of a sudden,
it will jump right out.
| | 02:50 | Let's have a listen.
| | 02:51 | (Music playing)
| | 02:54 | Listen with a Bypass. (Music playing)
| | 02:58 | With it in. (Music playing)
| | 03:00 | So it just jumps out a little
bit and it sounds pretty good.
| | 03:03 | One thing we're going to do there is
we're going to back this off a little,
| | 03:06 | because you can see it peaking up here.
| | 03:08 | So we're going to back our output
off, so we don't overload anything.
| | 03:12 | (Music playing)
| | 03:17 | There we go!
| | 03:18 | Okay, last but not least.
| | 03:19 | If we add High Pass Filter, we can
actually make everything sound a little bit
| | 03:24 | better and a little more crisp and
more defined, and that's because we can
| | 03:28 | get rid of some of the low-end that really
isn't adding too much of the sound to drum.
| | 03:32 | So what we're going to do is come over here.
| | 03:34 | Once again we will solo it up and
we're going to bring in a 1-Band filter and
| | 03:42 | come over here and we'll say High Pass,
12 Db/octave and we'll bring it down to
| | 03:46 | somewhere around 50 or 60. Have a listen!
| | 03:50 | (Music playing)
| | 03:52 | Here is without it.
| | 03:53 | (Music playing)
| | 03:55 | Now you might not hear a
whole lot of difference in this.
| | 03:57 | If you have big speakers and you listen,
it will sound very defined all of a sudden.
| | 04:00 | There will be a lot of low-end that will
go away, but it's not adding so much to
| | 04:05 | the sound of the drum.
| | 04:06 | You can even lower this to 40 cycles or so if
it sounds like you're losing too much low-end.
| | 04:11 | But it really makes a difference.
| | 04:12 | It gets rid of things like truck rumble,
maybe even helicopter is going over.
| | 04:16 | Sometimes you can get rid of things
like that. Footsteps, any kind of heavy
| | 04:20 | machinery that's working outside the
studio that's just giving a low rumble.
| | 04:25 | That's why Low Pass Filter here is really,
really important and I try to add it whenever I can.
| | 04:31 | Let's listen to the drum kit on the fill now.
| | 04:33 | (Music playing)
| | 04:39 | So to sum it up, the rack toms will
sound different because they each have a
| | 04:42 | different size, different heads, or
construction of the drum is different.
| | 04:47 | Remember that the rack toms gain their
fullness at somewhere around 400-500 Hz
| | 04:51 | and if you get rid of 200 Hz, sometimes
you can get rid of the bouncy beach ball
| | 04:56 | effect and make it sound that much bigger.
| | 04:58 | Remember that the attack or the
definition comes at somewhere around 5 to 7K.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Equalizing the floor tom| 00:00 | The floor tom is one of the most
difficult drums to equalize because if we are
| | 00:03 | not careful, it can end up sounding like a
basketballs instead of a very powerful drum.
| | 00:07 | But here's an EQ approach that you
can take to really make it sound great.
| | 00:11 | So once again, our floor tom sound
different but if it doesn't sound really good
| | 00:15 | in the room, it's not going to sound
good, regardless of how much EQ you add.
| | 00:20 | So the real trick here is add just
enough EQ to make it sound a whole lot better.
| | 00:25 | So let's listen to our drum fill at the
beginning of the song, and listen on the
| | 00:30 | left-hand side for the floor tom.
| | 00:30 | (Music playing)
| | 00:34 | Just listen to it soloed.
| | 00:36 | (Music playing)
| | 00:42 | So I think we can make that sound little better.
| | 00:45 | Let's go to our 4-Band native EQ plug-in.
| | 00:49 | So the first thing we are going to do
is we are going to go to 400 and that's a
| | 00:53 | magic number for the floor tom because
that's where the beach ball sound comes
| | 00:57 | from, and you want to get rid of it.
| | 00:59 | So put this up at 400Hz and it might
vary because it could be a little higher or
| | 01:04 | little lower but 400 is a good place to start.
| | 01:08 | So let's get rid of it
little bit here. Have a listen.
| | 01:12 | (Music playing)
| | 01:13 | Little more. I am going to exaggerate
the amount of EQ that I am adding or
| | 01:18 | subtracting here just so you get the idea,
and in an actual mix, you might use a
| | 01:22 | whole lot less than what I am going
to show you here, but I am showing you
| | 01:25 | enough to get the idea across
on just about any size speakers.
| | 01:28 | (Music playing) Let's Bypass that.
| | 01:33 | (Music playing)
| | 01:35 | Here we go again.
| | 01:36 | (Music playing)
| | 01:37 | I can hear big difference there.
| | 01:39 | Now the next thing, we want some
fullness and the fullness is almost like a 22
| | 01:44 | inch kick drum. It's somewhere around 80Hz.
| | 01:45 | Let's add a little bit there and have a listen.
| | 01:49 | I am going to exaggerate it one more time.
| | 01:51 | (Music playing)
| | 01:53 | Yeah it sounds a lot bigger.
| | 01:55 | Let's Bypass it have a listen.
| | 01:56 | (Music playing)
| | 01:59 | You can hear the difference there.
| | 02:00 | One more time with the EQ in.
| | 02:02 | (Music playing)
| | 02:05 | Next thing we need is a little bit of
the stick sound that goes some definition
| | 02:08 | so once again that somewhere in the 5K to
7K region, I will start with 5, we had here 4dB.
| | 02:15 | Let's listen.
| | 02:16 | (Music playing)
| | 02:19 | And let's Bypass.
| | 02:20 | (Music playing)
| | 02:22 | One more time with the EQ in.
| | 02:25 | (Music playing)
| | 02:26 | Bypass. (Music playing)
| | 02:29 | Big difference here. It sounds
like a corporate box without the EQ.
| | 02:33 | Now let's listen in the track.
| | 02:35 | (Music playing) One more time.
| | 02:40 | (Music playing)
| | 02:44 | One last thing I want to show you is
adding a high-pass filter, which once again
| | 02:48 | can get rid of some of the unwanted
low-frequency sounds that are happening,
| | 02:53 | and these are usually environmental
sounds that are coming from trucks that are
| | 02:56 | passing outside, coming from
helicopters, things like that.
| | 03:01 | And we don't take too much of this out
but just a little bit goes a long way.
| | 03:04 | So we're going to go to out plug-in,
we will just use a one band plug-in and
| | 03:09 | we'll put it on high-pass filter, at 12dB
per octave and we are going to bring it
| | 03:14 | back to somewhere around 30 cycles or so.
| | 03:18 | Now you might not even hear this
unless you have big speakers or you are
| | 03:21 | listening with a subwoofer, but what
it's going to do is help to really clean
| | 03:24 | up the sound of your drum kit.
| | 03:26 | So it's always worth
putting a high-pass filter in.
| | 03:29 | Let's listen soloed.
| | 03:31 | (Music playing) Bypass it.
| | 03:35 | (Music playing)
| | 03:40 | And once again, this type of thing if
you are listening on small speakers or
| | 03:43 | even headphones and you don't have a
like 15 inch subwoofer or a very large
| | 03:49 | monitor system, you might not hear
that but it's still worth putting in and
| | 03:52 | stopping somewhere around 30Hz or
maybe with a little bit higher, and it will
| | 03:57 | cleanup the sound of all your drum tracks.
| | 04:00 | The more you use it on your drum tracks,
the more you'll find that it will be a lot
| | 04:03 | cleaner and punchier.
| | 04:05 | Let's have one last listen.
| | 04:05 | (Music playing)
| | 04:10 | Now the toms sound pretty good.
| | 04:11 | So remember, like other drums it's the
floor tom for each kit is going to sound
| | 04:15 | different. You are never going to make
it sound great if you start out with a
| | 04:18 | bad product to begin with.
| | 04:19 | Remember that the fullness comes from
around 80Hz, the stick or attack sound
| | 04:24 | or the definition comes from around 5
to 7K and that basketball sound comes
| | 04:29 | from around 400 Hz.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Equalizing the hi-hat| 00:00 | The hi-hat is the timekeeper of the drum kit,
and depending upon the player and the arrangement
| | 00:05 | it can be a signature of a song.
| | 00:06 | Let's look at how we can EQ the
hat to make it sound clean and crisp.
| | 00:09 | First thing to remember is that, all hi
-hats don't sound the same and that's
| | 00:14 | because of the thickness.
| | 00:15 | Usually studio players tend
to get really thin hi-hats.
| | 00:19 | And those sound clean and crisp and
usually really good under a microphone.
| | 00:25 | But the problem is they never last
if you play live with them because they
| | 00:28 | break and that's why most
players will have heavier cymbals.
| | 00:32 | Now the heavier cymbals will last a
lot longer but they don't sound nearly as
| | 00:35 | good under a microphone and
tend to clang a little bit.
| | 00:38 | So we can help that with a little bit of EQ.
| | 00:41 | So let's listen to what that sounds like.
| | 00:43 | Concentrate on the hi-hat
because we'll hear the entire drum kit.
| | 00:46 | (Music playing)
| | 00:55 | Let's listen to the hi-hat soloed.
| | 00:57 | (Music playing)
| | 01:05 | So take notice of the leakage there.
| | 01:06 | We hear a lot of kick drum and
we hear a lot of the snare drum.
| | 01:10 | So let's go to our EQ plug-ins and once
again we will go our trusty native 4-Band EQ.
| | 01:16 | The first thing we are going
to do is add a high-pass filter.
| | 01:20 | And the high-pass filter is important
because what it will do is it will get
| | 01:23 | rid of a lot of frequencies that we
don't need and usually those frequencies are
| | 01:27 | down below 200, 400 cycles, even more.
| | 01:31 | The hi-hat is mostly high frequencies.
| | 01:34 | That's what the ear wants to hear
there and anything that's kind of below 200
| | 01:39 | cycles or so just doesn't
register and it just clutters up the mix.
| | 01:42 | So I want to get rid of that.
| | 01:44 | A way to do that is we add the high-
pass filter and near about 12 dB per octave
| | 01:49 | or so and let's bring this up to 200
Hz or so, have a listen from there.
| | 01:52 | (Music playing)
| | 02:00 | Now let's listen with the
Bypass and listen to the kick drum.
| | 02:02 | (Music playing)
| | 02:08 | Now let's listen with the filter in.
| | 02:09 | (Music playing)
| | 02:15 | The kick is really attenuated as soon
as we get rid of those low frequencies
| | 02:20 | and actually take a notice that we can
go pretty drastic here with the high-pass
| | 02:24 | filter and bring it up to even 1K.
| | 02:26 | And it doesn't affect the
sound of the hi-hat all that much.
| | 02:28 | (Music playing)
| | 02:35 | Let's listen in the track, listen what happens.
| | 02:37 | (Music playing)
| | 02:43 | And now let me Bypass it, have a listen.
| | 02:44 | (Music playing)
| | 02:50 | And watch when we put the EQ in.
| | 02:52 | (Music playing)
| | 02:58 | Here, we get rid of a lot of leakage and
it sounds pretty crisp as a result.
| | 03:02 | I wouldn't go quite up to 1K.
| | 03:03 | I would probably put it at 400, 500
in a Hz there. It is about right.
| | 03:07 | Let's have a listen.
| | 03:09 | (Music playing)
| | 03:13 | And you can hear that the Kick
drum is pretty attenuated at that.
| | 03:17 | Once again we are getting rid with a
lot of frequencies that don't really add
| | 03:20 | anything to the sound of
the hi-hat to begin with.
| | 03:23 | The next thing we are going to do is
add a little crispness to it and the
| | 03:27 | crispness and sparkle comes from
somewhere between 8 to 12 K or so, and once
| | 03:33 | again it really depends on the sound
to begin with. We'll just start at 10K
| | 03:37 | and we are going to exaggerate it here
so you can hear it so, we will go to
| | 03:40 | 6dB, have a listen.
| | 03:43 | (Music playing)
| | 03:49 | Let's listen to some Bypass.
| | 03:50 | (Music playing)
| | 04:03 | I may even come down a little bit a K or so.
| | 04:06 | (Music playing)
| | 04:14 | Let's listen to the track.
| | 04:15 | (Music playing)
| | 04:26 | And of course, the sound of the hat
is filled in through the leakage of all
| | 04:29 | the other drum mikes.
| | 04:31 | So in fact, it never sounds as crisp
and clean as when it's soloed, but even so,
| | 04:36 | you can hear just what you need,
you can increase definition and that's
| | 04:40 | what we are looking for.
| | 04:41 | So that's how to EQ the hi-hat.
| | 04:43 | Remember that there is not a lot of low
frequencies to the sound of the hi-hat,
| | 04:46 | so you can get rid of a lot of the
leakage by using a high-pass filter to
| | 04:49 | filter out the bottom end.
| | 04:51 | Also remember that sparkle from the
cymbal comes from around 8 to 10 K.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Equalizing the cymbal or the overhead mics| 00:00 | Cymbal mics are usually placed fairly
close to the cymbals, while overhead mics
| | 00:03 | are placed higher in attempt to
capture more of the overall drum sound.
| | 00:07 | In this video I'll show you examples
of both and the EQ points that work
| | 00:11 | for both instances.
| | 00:12 | First thing to remember about cymbals is
the thinner the cymbal, the brighter
| | 00:16 | it is and the crisper it is.
| | 00:18 | So most drummers if they play live a lot,
will usually have heavier cymbals and
| | 00:22 | those tend to clang more
and aren't nearly as crisp.
| | 00:25 | We can actually make them sound
pretty good with some EQ, but remember that
| | 00:29 | thinner cymbals usually
sound better under microphones.
| | 00:32 | That being said there's a couple of
magic frequencies that just about work for
| | 00:36 | any kind of cymbal in any instance.
| | 00:39 | So let's listen to our
overheads first of all just soloed.
| | 00:45 | (Music playing)
| | 00:58 | There are actually two
crash cymbals and a ride cymbal.
| | 01:01 | The ride is sort of in the middle and
the crashes are on the outside, sort of
| | 01:05 | hard left and hard right.
| | 01:06 | In this case the ride cymbal is important to
the song and it's a little lower in the mix.
| | 01:12 | In fact, the ride had a separate
microphone on it and let's listen to it what it
| | 01:16 | sounds like when we add that ride.
| | 01:18 | (Music playing)
| | 01:30 | Let's listen in the track now.
| | 01:31 | Listen for the cymbals and especially the rides.
| | 01:34 | (Music playing)
| | 01:42 | Now they sound pretty good in the track,
but we can make it sound even better.
| | 01:45 | First thing is we'll listen to the left
overhead and we'll add some EQ, and once
| | 01:50 | again, we'll go to our 4-Band EQ.
| | 01:53 | First thing we're going to do is go to
a high pass filter and get rid of a lot
| | 01:57 | of the low end, because just like with
the other drums, there is a lot of low
| | 02:01 | end that's happing with cymbals and
with the overheads that we don't really
| | 02:05 | want. It doesn't add to this overall
sound and just kind of muddies it up.
| | 02:09 | So the more of that that we can get rid
of, the crisper everything will sound.
| | 02:13 | So what we're going to do is
go to about 12 DB per octave.
| | 02:16 | Let's bring this up to 100
cycles or 120 or so have listen.
| | 02:22 | (Music playing)
| | 02:36 | Now depending how big our speakers are,
you can either hear that very distinctly
| | 02:40 | or you can't hear it at all.
| | 02:41 | If you have fairly bigger speakers,
suddenly you'll find that low end doesn't
| | 02:45 | really add anything, is gone. As a
result everything is a little crisper and has
| | 02:50 | a lot more definition and that's what we want.
| | 02:52 | I'm going to exaggerate this, I'm going
to bring it up to four or five hundred
| | 02:55 | here and now you'll really hear it.
| | 02:58 | (Music playing)
| | 03:11 | And you can hear what happens. The
kick drum especially is attenuated a whole
| | 03:15 | lot and that's kind of what we want,
and the high end of the cymbal isn't
| | 03:19 | really affected at all.
| | 03:21 | So now we want to make that little
crisper and the way we're going to do that is
| | 03:25 | we're going to add a little,
somewhere around 10K or so maybe 8.
,
| | 03:29 | Let's go to 8 because we can hear it better.
| | 03:31 | And once again I'll exaggerate it so
you can really hear it, but we might not
| | 03:35 | use this much in a real mix, have a listen.
| | 03:37 | (Music playing)
| | 03:47 | I can really hear how crisp it is.
| | 03:49 | Now what we're going to do is we're
going to hit the Option key and we're
| | 03:52 | going to click and hold the EQ plug-
in with the mouse or we're going to
| | 03:55 | move it over to the right overhead,
and now what happened is we copy that
| | 03:58 | whole EQ with all the settings over
there. Now let's listen to both the left
| | 04:03 | and the right overhead.
| | 04:04 | (Music playing)
| | 04:10 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 04:11 | (Music playing)
| | 04:20 | I can hear how crisp it is and
actually for me there is too much of
| | 04:24 | low-frequency that we're missing, so
we're going to bring it back down to 150 or
| | 04:28 | so, because a little bit of it
actually has some body in fullness.
| | 04:32 | It just sounded a little too
thin to me. Now let's listen.
| | 04:37 | (Music playing)
| | 04:44 | That sounded pretty good.
| | 04:46 | Now we'll do the same thing with our ride
cymbal, so listen to the ride cymbal by itself.
| | 04:50 | (Music playing)
| | 04:57 | That really need some crispness.
That's very dull sounding.
| | 05:01 | So once again we're going to get that
somewhere in the 8K range, have a listen.
| | 05:05 | (Music playing)
| | 05:13 | And in this case it's very dull
sounding cymbal and we have to bring the
| | 05:17 | frequency down. Have a listen.
| | 05:19 | (Music playing)
| | 05:24 | That sounds better.
| | 05:26 | Now if you take notice up here, the
output is peaking and that's not a good
| | 05:31 | thing, because even if we can't hear it
it's one of those things that enough of
| | 05:34 | these overloads add up and eventually
they become cumulative and you can be
| | 05:39 | able to hear it, so we always want to
keep the peaks from happening, so let's
| | 05:43 | back off by a couple DB in the output.
| | 05:44 | Let's watch it now.
| | 05:45 | (Music playing)
| | 05:50 | There we go. Now we're going to the same thing.
We're going to roll off some of the low end
| | 05:55 | using a high-pass filter, because
there's lots of low end that isn't adding
| | 05:59 | anything to the sound and all it's
doing is mudding up the mix, so let's go to
| | 06:03 | 150 like with the other ones, have a listen.
| | 06:05 | (Music playing)
| | 06:11 | It also gets rid of some of the leakage as well.
| | 06:13 | Now let's have a listen with the other cymbals.
| | 06:15 | (Music playing)
| | 06:30 | You can hear how defined the cymbals
are, how sparkly they are, and that all
| | 06:34 | came from just a little bit of EQ.
| | 06:36 | Now remember that I'm over-EQing here,
so you can hear the difference, but
| | 06:40 | usually I would back off and maybe do
about half as much and the way EQ works
| | 06:45 | is just about the time we start to
hear it is when you should stop from increasing it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Equalizing the room mics| 00:00 | Room mics glue the sound of the drum
kit together by making it sound like a
| | 00:03 | single element instead of individual drums.
| | 00:06 | They don't usually need a lot of EQ to
do the job, but let's look at a couple
| | 00:09 | scenarios where EQ can really help the sound.
| | 00:12 | Let's listen to the drum kit
first of all without the room mics.
| | 00:15 | (Music playing)
| | 00:25 | Let's listen with the room mics now.
| | 00:27 | (Music playing)
| | 00:39 | And if we even push the room mics a
little further, so we here more of the room
| | 00:42 | this is what it sounds like.
| | 00:44 | (Music playing)
| | 00:53 | The room mics actually give the sound
of the drum kit a lot more ambience and
| | 00:58 | a lot of times this is used instead of reverb,
because it's a little more of a pure sound.
| | 01:03 | Now it all depends on the sound of the
room that you have and the kind of mics
| | 01:07 | that you're using, because sometimes
this can actually be a bad sound that you
| | 01:11 | don't really want and sometimes
just a little bit goes a long way.
| | 01:14 | Anyway, let's EQ it to make
it sound a little bit better.
| | 01:17 | So let's listen first of all
to the room mics by themselves.
| | 01:19 | (Music playing)
| | 01:28 | It's kind of a bland sound by itself
and you can hear the leakage of the bass
| | 01:33 | guitar, but not to worry. That actually
adds to the sound and it's not something
| | 01:37 | that you should be afraid of.
| | 01:38 | We never worry about leakage when it
comes to recording and mixing, and if we
| | 01:43 | know how to do it we can actually make
all the leakage work in our favor and
| | 01:47 | that's basically what
we're doing with the room mics.
| | 01:49 | The best way to add the room mics
first of all is just bring it up until it
| | 01:53 | seems to glue the whole kit
together and you hear a little bit of the
| | 01:57 | ambience of the room. So let's try that.
| | 01:59 | (Music playing)
| | 02:10 | Now what happens there is all of a
sudden we can hear especially on the snare
| | 02:14 | drum where now the snare sounds a
little more tight into the kit than sitting
| | 02:18 | individually by itself.
| | 02:19 | And now we can make this sound even a
little bit better by adding some EQ.
| | 02:23 | So let's go over and bring up our
trusty 4-Band native EQ and the first thing
| | 02:29 | we're going to do is add the high-
pass filter again, because the high-pass
| | 02:32 | filter is going to get rid some of
the low-end stuff that isn't really
| | 02:36 | helping us, and again, that might be
things like truck traffic outside or it
| | 02:40 | could be footsteps.
| | 02:41 | So let's go to 12db per octave, and
bring it up to somewhere around 80.
| | 02:47 | (Music playing)
| | 02:54 | Okay, let's solo the room and have a listen.
| | 02:56 | (Music playing)
| | 03:09 | Now if you have big speakers you
hear that immediately; if you have small
| | 03:12 | speakers or you are listening with
headphones you might not hear anything at all.
| | 03:15 | And that's the problem
that happens with low end.
| | 03:18 | Lot of times you can't hear what's
happening and just about the time you begin
| | 03:21 | to hear, it's really too much.
| | 03:23 | So you have to be very careful
whenever you're doing anything to the low end.
| | 03:27 | But just to exaggerate things so you
can hear, let's bring it up to maybe 200.
| | 03:31 | Now let's have a listen.
| | 03:32 | (Music playing)
| | 03:41 | You can hear a lot of the low-end from the
bass and from the kick goes away.
| | 03:45 | We actually want the sound the
kick in the room sound though.
| | 03:48 | So again, we'll just bring this down.
| | 03:50 | It's always a good idea to have this high
-pass filter in at least somewhere, and
| | 03:55 | again, when in doubt put it at 40 or
even 35H. Even if you can't hear it, it is
| | 04:01 | really going to help the sound in the long run.
| | 04:03 | The next thing we want to do is add a
little bit of sparkle to everything and
| | 04:06 | of course the way we do that is with just a
little bit of EQ and bring it up at 10K or so.
| | 04:10 | Just add a few db.
| | 04:12 | Actually I'm going to exaggerate
things so you can really hear it.
| | 04:15 | So this is a lot more than I
normally add, but now you hear it.
| | 04:19 | (Music playing)
| | 04:25 | What we're going to do is
back this down a little bit.
| | 04:28 | Once again depending on the speakers
that you have you might hear 10K really
| | 04:33 | distinctly or you might not.
| | 04:35 | When in doubt, add less.
| | 04:36 | (Music playing)
| | 04:45 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 04:46 | (Music playing)
| | 04:57 | So to sum it up, you don't need much
EQ in the room mics to do the job.
| | 05:00 | So listen to the drum kit while EQ-ing,
add a high-pass filter if the bottom
| | 05:05 | needs some more definition, and finally
add a little bit of 10K and either add
| | 05:09 | some definition to the kit or
emphasize the sound of the room.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Equalizing the bass| 00:00 | The bass has both the power and the
foundation of the mix and it's usually best
| | 00:03 | to EQ it along with the drums to
get the best frequency balance.
| | 00:07 | That said, there are few common frequencies
with the basses EQed, so let me show them to you.
| | 00:12 | The first thing to remember is that the
low end on a bass usually comes a little
| | 00:16 | bit higher than everybody thinks.
| | 00:18 | Everybody thinks if they crank up 40 or
60 Hertz, then in fact you're going to
| | 00:22 | get a lot of bottom.
| | 00:23 | Well, what they usually get is a lot
of mud if that's the case, and usually
| | 00:27 | somewhere around a 100 or 120 or even
a little bit higher sometimes will give
| | 00:32 | you the sound that you're looking for.
| | 00:33 | So not to say that you want to add
a little bit of 60 sometimes, but
| | 00:36 | usually it's a little bit higher to
make everything sound a little more
| | 00:40 | distinct and punchy.
| | 00:41 | So let's listen to this bass with the
track and then we'll listen to it by itself.
| | 00:46 | (Music playing)
| | 00:54 | Let's have a listen.
| | 00:55 | (Music playing)
| | 01:07 | And this is an amplifier
that's miked. It's not direct.
| | 01:11 | This is the old fashioned way of doing things.
| | 01:14 | So I'm going to make this sound a
little bit better using some EQ.
| | 01:17 | Once again we'll go to our 4-
Band EQ, nothing fancy here.
| | 01:20 | it's just the native plug-in from
Pro Tools and non-extravagant plugin.
| | 01:26 | First thing we're going to do is we're
going to go to 120 cycles and watch what
| | 01:32 | happens when we add a low end here.
| | 01:34 | Usually what we're trying to do is
EQ above where we EQed the kick drum.
| | 01:37 | So if we EQ the kick at 80, then any where
above that is going to work. Or even below that.
| | 01:43 | I want to make sure that we don't EQ
with the exact same places they kick,
| | 01:47 | because then they both will clash.
| | 01:49 | Let's bring this up about 3db and have a listen.
| | 01:52 | (Music playing)
| | 01:58 | Let's exaggerate it a
little bit, so it's easy to hear.
| | 02:01 | (Music playing)
| | 02:15 | Next thing we're going to do is add a
little bit of attack and that usually
| | 02:18 | comes that around 700 Hz. 700 is sort
of a magic number because it will really
| | 02:24 | make it stick out in the mix.
| | 02:25 | Watch what happens when
we add a little bit here.
| | 02:27 | (Music playing)
| | 02:40 | All of a sudden we get little bit of
definition and if we want we can add a
| | 02:44 | little bit of 2K to 3K, somewhere in
there, and usually what that will do is
| | 02:50 | it will give us a little bit of a
finger snap of the players playing with
| | 02:54 | fingers or even with a pick.
| | 02:55 | We'll just get a little bit more
definition, so let's go down to 2.5 in this
| | 02:59 | case, add a little bit, and again I'm
going to add more than I normally would,
| | 03:03 | just so you hear what it sounds like.
| | 03:05 | (Music playing)
| | 03:17 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 03:18 | (Music playing)
| | 03:35 | You can hear it's a lot bigger sounding,
it's a lot more defined, and that's
| | 03:38 | just what we're looking for.
| | 03:39 | So that's how we EQ the bass, Remember
the low end comes from somewhere around
| | 03:43 | a 100, but you might want to add a little at 60.
| | 03:46 | The attack is at 700 Hz and the
finger snap is somewhere around 2K to 3K.
| | 03:51 | Also remember, if you add too much
bottom, you're going to make it sound too
| | 03:54 | big for the mix and it's going to
be lot harder to fit all the other
| | 03:57 | instruments into the mix.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing the bass rhythm| 00:00 | Sometimes when we get something in the
mix we find that there is a problem and
| | 00:04 | that there is some timing issues, there
is something that's early or something
| | 00:08 | late, and the only way we can make
the track sound good is to do a fix.
| | 00:12 | So let me show you how to do a quick fix
on the bass here that we can apply just
| | 00:16 | about any instrument if it happens.
| | 00:17 | Let's have a listen first of all
to the drum track and the bass.
| | 00:20 | (Music playing)
| | 00:28 | Now it doesn't sound so bad
when everything is together.
| | 00:31 | But if we soloed things up, we can
definitely hear if the bass is late.
| | 00:36 | We are going to solo the
Kick, the znare, and the bass.
| | 00:39 | (Music playing)
| | 00:45 | You can hear that last note is
definitely late against the snare.
| | 00:48 | That's what we want to fix.
| | 00:50 | So the easiest way for us to do this is
to move the snare channel next to the bass.
| | 00:54 | And the way we do that is we click-and
-hold and then move over to the bass.
| | 01:00 | Now when we go to our Edit window we
see bass and snare are right next to one
| | 01:05 | another and this is important, because
we'll look to where the snare is so we
| | 01:09 | can line up the bass and we'll do the
final part by ear where this will give
| | 01:12 | us in the ballpark. Let's listen.
| | 01:14 | (Music playing)
| | 01:19 | So here's where the
problem is and it's right here.
| | 01:21 | So what we'll do is we'll
highlight just that note.
| | 01:25 | Now we can tell by the peak
here this is the next note.
| | 01:28 | So we want to go from the peak here to
the next peak and what we're going to do
| | 01:33 | is hit Command+E. Command+E now separates
on both sides so we just have this one piece.
| | 01:41 | Now what we're going to do again is
grab this piece by clicking and then moving
| | 01:45 | the mouse and move it up just a little
bit and let's hear what this sounds like.
| | 01:51 | (Music playing)
| | 01:57 | It sounds almost but not quite.
| | 01:58 | (Music playing)
| | 02:03 | Go to a little ahead now,
then a little bit behind.
| | 02:07 | (Music playing)
| | 02:12 | Let's listen with the rest of the track.
| | 02:14 | (Music playing)
| | 02:20 | Now we can zoom in by just hitting the
T button and the R button moves us back.
| | 02:26 | And if we zoom in we can see, we
are just a little bit ahead.
| | 02:31 | Here is this snare drum
right here and here is the bass.
| | 02:35 | Now what we want to do is move this just
ever so slightly and we'll grab it move
| | 02:40 | it back and we'll listen now.
| | 02:42 | (Music playing) That's pretty close.
| | 02:45 | (Music playing)
| | 02:47 | The next problem is right at the Edits.
| | 02:49 | Let's listen to the bass by
itself and listen to what happens.
| | 02:52 | (Music playing)
| | 02:56 | If we really want to make this sound
good what we're going to do is do a quick crossfade.
| | 03:01 | Now where we want to do this is just
move our mouse right on top of the edit.
| | 03:06 | Now if you take notice we get this
little icon and what that means is we can now
| | 03:11 | add a crossfade and the way we will do
that is we'll click and we'll move to the
| | 03:15 | right and you can see this crossfade comes up.
| | 03:18 | We can do the same thing over here.
| | 03:20 | Now what we're going to do is we are
going to elongate the previous region so
| | 03:24 | they overlap a little like
this. And let's have a listen.
| | 03:27 | (Music playing)
| | 03:30 | And you can hear it's pretty seamless.
| | 03:31 | (Music playing)
| | 03:34 | Let's listen with the snare again.
| | 03:36 | (Music playing)
| | 03:42 | And let's listen to the whole track.
| | 03:44 | (Music playing)
| | 03:47 | Matter of fact let's go back to
the beginning and have listen.
| | 03:50 | (Music playing)
| | 03:57 | And you can hear all of a
sudden it's tightened up.
| | 04:00 | Now if you want, you can go through all
the parts and tighten everything up so
| | 04:04 | they hit pretty much the same.
| | 04:05 | You don't want to always make
everything exactly the same because then it gets
| | 04:09 | a little boring but you want to make
sure that one instrument doesn't sound so
| | 04:13 | far either ahead or behind
that it just sounds awkward.
| | 04:17 | Of course, that's a taste call, but
that's why you're the producer, right?
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| Equalizing the rhythm section| 00:00 | The bass provides the power to the mix,
but it's the relationship between it and
| | 00:04 | the drums that really makes
the mix sound big and fat.
| | 00:07 | That's why some mixers can spend
hours just fine-tuning this balance.
| | 00:12 | If the relationship isn't correct then the
song will just never sound big and punchy.
| | 00:15 | In this video I'm going to show
you just how to get that balance.
| | 00:18 | First thing we're going to do is we're
going to have a listen to what we have.
| | 00:21 | This is just the drums and bass.
| | 00:24 | (Music playing)
| | 00:31 | This doesn't sound too bad, but
it's a little murky in the low-end.
| | 00:35 | There are some times when we can't hear
the definition of the kick and there are
| | 00:38 | other times when we really can't hear
the definition of the bass, and that's
| | 00:41 | what we're trying to get:
definition plus some power.
| | 00:44 | So the first thing we're going to
do is look at how the kick is EQed.
| | 00:48 | Now the first thing we see
is it's EQed at almost 80 Hz.
| | 00:53 | Now if we go and look at the bass as
well, we can see that it's at 60 Hz.
| | 00:59 | Well it should work in that they're
not boosted at the exact same point.
| | 01:04 | The only problem is if we add a lot
at 60, we might not be able to hear it,
| | 01:09 | because maybe our speakers are too small
and they don't reproduce 60 Hz very well.
| | 01:14 | So what ends up happening is
it just gets muddy down there.
| | 01:17 | Even if we can really hear 60 Hertz,
even 40, what ends up happening is that
| | 01:23 | this just becomes one
big ball of mud down there.
| | 01:26 | So the first and we want to do is we
want to solo the kick and the bass, and just
| | 01:31 | have a quick listen.
| | 01:32 | (Music playing)
| | 01:41 | This isn't too bad, but again we're
trying to make everything clear and what we
| | 01:47 | have is a lot of mud, especially from the bass.
| | 01:49 | So the first thing we're going to do
is bring this frequency up above where
| | 01:53 | the kick drum is, and the other thing
we're going to do, instead of having a
| | 01:57 | shelving EQ, we're going to go to
peaking EQ, and what this will do is it'll
| | 02:02 | just peak in this case a 100 or so, and
let's have a listen to what it sounds like.
| | 02:06 | (Music playing)
| | 02:17 | You can hear they're both working
together now. You can hear each of the notes
| | 02:22 | from the kick and from the bass guitar,
but they're a lot more distinct because
| | 02:26 | there are in frequency ranges.
| | 02:27 | Next thing we're going to do is add
just a little bit of definition and on the
| | 02:32 | bass, the best way to do that is add
something around 700 Hz or so and what
| | 02:38 | you're going to hear is some sudden
definition that you didn't hear before.
| | 02:42 | (Music playing)
| | 02:49 | Although we have that, we have to add
the same thing, not the same frequency,
| | 02:54 | but the same definition to the kick.
| | 02:57 | So we come over here and when we look,
we see there is no high end here at all.
| | 03:01 | Usually what we'll find with the kick
drum is somewhere between 2K and 4K is
| | 03:07 | where we're going to hear some
definition and that's really the sound of the
| | 03:10 | beater hitting the head, so let's
have a quick listen, hear what we get.
| | 03:15 | (Music playing)
| | 03:24 | I can really hear the definition.
| | 03:26 | The real key here is the fact that if
we look at the bass, we'll find that the
| | 03:31 | frequency points are completely
different than what we see for the kick, and
| | 03:37 | that's what we're always trying to do.
When we are juggling frequencies like this,
| | 03:40 | we're trying to keep the frequency
boost that we do or cuts different from
| | 03:44 | every other instruments slightly.
| | 03:46 | Whenever there's an instrument that
seems to get in the way of another one, it
| | 03:49 | muddies it up or veils it. The reason why is
| | 03:52 | there is probably a frequency that's in
the way and the best thing we can do is
| | 03:56 | move one of those instruments out
of the way frequency wise, by either
| | 04:00 | boosting a little up above the
frequency or cutting at the same frequency.
| | 04:04 | Either one will work.
| | 04:05 | Let's look at our kick again, and
another thing we can do is get rid of the
| | 04:11 | beachball effect and that's kind
of down here in the 200 to 400 range.
| | 04:15 | (Music playing)
| | 04:23 | Let's add our snare drum in. Have a listen.
| | 04:26 | (Music playing)
| | 04:32 | And also let's add our sub kick in.
| | 04:35 | The sub kick captures just the very
lowest frequencies and it's usually
| | 04:39 | somewhere below 100 cycles and
actually what we're looking for is something
| | 04:43 | that's down around the 60 or even 50.
We're not going to hear it, but sometimes
| | 04:47 | you feel it more than hear it.
| | 04:49 | Let's solo it up, have a listen.
| | 04:50 | (Music playing)
| | 04:58 | Let's listen with all the solos
off, listen to the whole track.
| | 05:01 | (Music playing)
| | 05:13 | Now we can hear the kick and the
snare distinctly, as well as the bass
| | 05:17 | distinctly. There's a lot of power between
them, and that's what we're trying to do.
| | 05:21 | Now what we probably do is spend
probably another hour or so just tightening this
| | 05:25 | up so it sounds even bigger and fuller.
| | 05:27 | But what we're going to be doing is
just tweaking these frequencies a little at
| | 05:31 | a time until everything kind of melts
together so it sounds like one, instead of
| | 05:37 | all three instruments, the kick, snare,
and the bass, are distinctly different.
| | 05:40 | We want them sound like one, yet we want
to hear them all individually, and that
| | 05:44 | takes a little bit of time to
do, but this is how you do it.
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|
|
10. Applying EQ to the InstrumentsEqualizing the electric guitar| 00:00 | Electric guitars whether they're clean
or distorted are very dependent upon how
| | 00:04 | they sit in the track with other
instruments in order to be heard in the mix.
| | 00:07 | In some cases like with the big
distorted guitar playing power chords, it may be
| | 00:12 | better for the guitar to actually
blend in with the rest of the instruments
| | 00:15 | rather than be heard distinctly.
| | 00:17 | But at other times, you want to make
sure you hear every note of every guitar.
| | 00:20 | In this video, I'm going to show you a
few tips for equalizing electric guitar.
| | 00:24 | The first thing we're going to do is
have a listen to this song and there's
| | 00:27 | actually two electric guitars in it
and see if you can hear them both.
| | 00:31 | (Music playing)
| | 00:41 | They sound pretty much the
same and that's the problem.
| | 00:44 | It's really hard to tell the difference
between the two, and that's where some EQ comes in.
| | 00:48 | So let's Solo Electric Guitar
number 1, have a listen to it.
| | 00:51 | (Music playing)
| | 00:59 | Actually it doesn't sound too bad, but
let's EQ it. We can make it sound better.
| | 01:04 | Go to our trusty 4-Band EQ.
| | 01:06 | And the first thing we'll do is we'll
add the high-pass filter and the reason
| | 01:10 | why is an electric guitar doesn't have a whole
lot going on way down under 100 cycles or so.
| | 01:17 | So the first thing we'll do is we'll
disconnect these frequency bands and that
| | 01:22 | opens up our high-pass filter, go to 12dB per
octave and then we'll go to maybe 150 hertz.
| | 01:28 | And let's have a listen.
| | 01:30 | (Music playing)
| | 01:40 | As we switch the EQ in and out, you
really can't hear the difference between
| | 01:44 | having the high-pass filter in the signal
path or not having it in the signal path.
| | 01:49 | Sometimes it really makes EQing simple
when you just use the high-pass filter
| | 01:54 | and you bring them up to 1 or 2K.
| | 01:56 | And sometimes a guitar will just jump
out because all of those low frequencies
| | 02:00 | are now attenuated and they get out of
the way of some instruments that have a
| | 02:03 | lot more low frequencies
that are part of their sound.
| | 02:06 | But that's not all we're going to do.
| | 02:08 | We're actually going to add some
other EQ to make it more defined
| | 02:12 | and stick out in the mix a little bit.
| | 02:14 | So somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5K gives a
guitar presence, so we're going to start there.
| | 02:20 | We'll go right at 2K and I'm going to
play it and add some EQ as we listen.
| | 02:26 | (Music playing)
| | 02:48 | I can hear it's a lot more defined.
| | 02:50 | Let's have a listen in the track.
| | 02:52 | Let's see if we can hear the
difference between both guitars.
| | 02:54 | (Music playing)
| | 03:13 | That's a little better but both of
them still sound pretty much the same.
| | 03:16 | This is probably because they sound like
there were two Gibsons of some type and
| | 03:20 | maybe both are into the same
type of amplifier, Marshals perhaps.
| | 03:24 | So this is usually the case where both
guitars sound pretty much the same and
| | 03:29 | this is why a lot of studio guys have
different guitars and different amplifiers
| | 03:33 | that they can mix and match just so
they can sound a little bit different and
| | 03:36 | stick out in the track.
| | 03:38 | So let's listen to Guitar number 2 by itself.
| | 03:41 | (Music playing)
| | 03:50 | Once again it doesn't sound so bad by
itself, but we can help it out with some
| | 03:53 | EQ and let's go to our native 4-Band EQ plug-in.
| | 03:57 | And again, the first thing we'll do
is we'll roll off the low end with
| | 04:00 | the high-pass filter.
| | 04:01 | We're going to do that by disabling
the Low Frequency and Low Mid Frequency
| | 04:06 | bands, and that opens up the ability
for us to insert a high-pass filter.
| | 04:11 | And let's go to 150
cycles or so. Have a listen.
| | 04:15 | (Music playing)
| | 04:25 | Once again you don't hear too much of a
difference and the reason why is there
| | 04:28 | is just not a lot of low-frequency
information happening down there.
| | 04:32 | If we wanted, we can move the frequency
of the high-pass filter up even higher
| | 04:37 | and get rid of even more low frequencies
in order to shape the sound a bit more.
| | 04:40 | Let's try that and just
here what it sounds like.
| | 04:42 | Let's go up to about 800 and have a listen.
| | 04:44 | (Music playing)
| | 04:55 | You can hear it's a lot smaller sounding.
| | 04:57 | Let's listen in the track and see if
there's difference between both guitars now.
| | 05:01 | (Music playing)
| | 05:10 | There is a little bit of a
difference but not a whole lot.
| | 05:13 | And that's because we have to shape that
sound a little bit more, so we'll bring
| | 05:15 | this back down to 150 or so.
| | 05:18 | And we're going to look at the first
electric guitar and look at where it was EQed.
| | 05:22 | And now we can see that there's a
peak that's at 2K and it's a 4.7 dB peak.
| | 05:29 | And what we're going to do is come over to
our second guitar and we're going to go to 4.7.
| | 05:34 | But now where the other one peaked, what
we're going to do is we're going to put
| | 05:41 | a dip in there, 4.7.
| | 05:44 | And now what happens is it carves out
a frequency range where one is actually
| | 05:49 | emphasized in that area and
the other one is deemphasized.
| | 05:52 | Let's have a listen.
| | 05:52 | (Music playing)
| | 05:58 | Little bit of a difference.
| | 05:59 | Let's Solo them up, have a listen.
| | 06:01 | (Music playing)
| | 06:07 | So it's a little bit better.
| | 06:08 | Now we're getting more defined.
| | 06:10 | Now of course what we'd normally do is
we'd pan these left and right and there
| | 06:14 | would be a lot more definition that way.
| | 06:16 | But if we can do it in mono, it's
going to sound even better when we pan
| | 06:19 | them out in stereo.
| | 06:20 | So the next thing we're going to do is
we're going to add a little bit of 2.5
| | 06:24 | to 3K, somewhere in there, because that's
going to give this a little bit of presence.
| | 06:28 | So we have to disable our High Frequency
band and enable our Mid Frequency band.
| | 06:34 | We'll come to about 2K.
| | 06:36 | Let's give it a little boost
here and have a listen between them.
| | 06:41 | (Music playing)
| | 06:56 | Now you can hear a big difference between them.
| | 06:58 | And we're actually going to move this
down a little towards 1K and have a listen.
| | 07:03 | (Music playing)
| | 07:08 | Now we can hear the difference.
| | 07:09 | Now let's put them back in the
track, we'll unsolo, have a listen.
| | 07:12 | (Music playing)
| | 07:22 | And watch what happens when we pan them.
| | 07:24 | We pan them about three quarters
left and right. Have a listen now.
| | 07:28 | (Music playing)
| | 07:38 | Now we can tweak these even more and
probably if we're doing a full-on mix
| | 07:43 | we'll spend a little bit more time
tweaking everything so there would be a lot
| | 07:46 | more definition between the guitars.
| | 07:48 | But this is where we'd
start and this is how we do it.
| | 07:51 | So remember there are frequencies to
look at when you're EQing electric guitar.
| | 07:55 | Somewhere around 2 to 5K gives a
presence; somewhere around 4K you can hear the
| | 08:01 | pick noise and it makes it brighter.
| | 08:02 | Now if you want to make it full, between 240
and 500 actually gives you some fullness.
| | 08:08 | But there is usually
never much below 150 cycles.
| | 08:11 | So you can use a high-
pass filter and cut that off.
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| Equalizing the acoustic guitar| 00:00 | The acoustic guitar has an entirely
different sound from electric guitar, so it
| | 00:04 | has to be approached differently.
| | 00:06 | Plus each acoustic guitar has its own
sound depending upon the body size and the
| | 00:10 | wood that it's made from.
| | 00:11 | Here is how to equalize that acoustic
guitar to make it fit a lot better in the mix.
| | 00:16 | First thing we have to remember is,
that the bigger the guitar body, like a
| | 00:19 | dreadnought or a jumbo sized,
the more bottom in it will have.
| | 00:22 | That doesn't necessarily mean it will
record better though because it might
| | 00:26 | actually sound too big for the mix.
| | 00:28 | The other thing is that a small body or
a cut away acoustic guitar will have a
| | 00:32 | lot less bass but that may make it
sit better in the mix as a result.
| | 00:35 | The same goes for the wood that it's made from.
| | 00:37 | Certain woods will sound better because
it will be brighter and other woods will
| | 00:41 | sound a little darker, and that will
make it even fit better in the mix or stick
| | 00:45 | out or actually fallback little in the mix.
| | 00:48 | It depends on the song.
| | 00:49 | It depends on the
arrangement which one is going to work.
| | 00:51 | So let's listen to this acoustic guitar
with the rest of the track, and you'll
| | 00:57 | find that it's a little dark and what
happens is it sort of blends into the mix.
| | 01:01 | (Music playing)
| | 01:10 | Now if we mute it, you can really
tell a difference that is not there, even
| | 01:14 | though you can't really hear it.
| | 01:15 | (Music playing)
| | 01:24 | Sometimes an acoustic guitar is just
there to push the song along and add some
| | 01:29 | rhythm, then add some motion, the same
way that some percussion instruments do.
| | 01:34 | But if we want this to actually stick
out in the mix, we can do some interesting
| | 01:38 | EQ things to make it work.
| | 01:40 | So let's add our favorite 4
-Band native Pro Tools EQ.
| | 01:45 | The first thing we are going to do is
we are going to solo this and we're going
| | 01:49 | to add some body to the sound.
| | 01:51 | Let's listen to it soloed first.
| | 01:52 | (Music playing)
| | 02:01 | Now, the body on acoustic guitar comes
from somewhere around 250 cycles or so.
| | 02:07 | So lets' add 250, add
3 or 4dB, have a listen.
| | 02:13 | (Music playing)
| | 02:24 | You can hear it got a little bit fuller.
| | 02:26 | Now we can add even more fullness if we
go down to 80 or 100 and add a couple of
| | 02:31 | dB there, so that's our 80, now hear it.
| | 02:36 | (Music playing)
| | 02:48 | So now that we heard that the fullness
comes from 80 to 100 to 110, somewhere in
| | 02:52 | there, and the body of the acoustic
guitar comes from 250 or so, now we want to
| | 02:58 | add little bit of presence and
that comes from between 2 to 5K.
| | 03:01 | So let's just start at 2. Listen to that.
| | 03:04 | (Music playing)
| | 03:19 | Now you can hear all of a sudden
it sounds fuller and there is a bit
| | 03:22 | more sparkle to it.
| | 03:23 | Now if we want we can make it cut
through the mix, if we go up to 5 to 8K
| | 03:27 | somewhere in there and that
will actually make it cut.
| | 03:30 | (Music playing)
| | 03:34 | So let's listen in the track.
| | 03:35 | (Music playing)
| | 03:43 | Now, the difference is before that
guitar was just kind of pushing the track
| | 03:46 | along and it wasn't very predominant
because we couldn't really distinguish it.
| | 03:52 | Now we can really distinguish it.
| | 03:54 | The other thing I want to show you is
let me get rid of the lower bands here and
| | 03:57 | we will just listen to the upper bands.
| | 03:59 | And this is interesting the way it sounds.
| | 04:01 | It will stick out of the mix, but
sometimes you really want that extra body as well.
| | 04:06 | (Music playing)
| | 04:26 | So let's go back and will
Bypass it and have a listen.
| | 04:29 | (Music playing)
| | 04:43 | So that's how we EQ an acoustic guitar.
| | 04:46 | Just check to see that your acoustic
isn't EQed in the same place as any other
| | 04:50 | instrument like electric guitars,
because we don't want them to clash frequency wise.
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| Equalizing the hand percussion| 00:00 | Percussion can be categorized into
two groups: the low-frequency drum
| | 00:04 | instruments like bongos, congas,
djembes and udus, and the high-frequency
| | 00:08 | instruments like shakers,
tambourines and triangles.
| | 00:11 | In this video, I am going to show you
how to equalize the high-frequency hand
| | 00:14 | percussion instruments.
| | 00:16 | So the first thing we are going to
do is have a listen to the track with
| | 00:20 | the tambourine in it.
| | 00:21 | And the tambourine is
actually adding some motion.
| | 00:24 | The beauty of this is we won't
necessarily hear it but we can feel it in the track.
| | 00:29 | (Music playing)
| | 00:38 | Feels really good. Now watch if we mute it.
| | 00:40 | (Music playing)
| | 00:50 | It's very subtle thing.
| | 00:51 | It just adds some motion, which is what
percussion usually does, and that's why
| | 00:54 | record producers from the time they are
record producers, always wanted to have
| | 00:58 | percussion on the track.
| | 01:00 | Let's listen soloed.
| | 01:01 | (Music playing)
| | 01:06 | Okay, let's add a little EQ.
| | 01:08 | It really doesn't need too much
and that's the whole thing with
| | 01:11 | percussion instruments.
| | 01:12 | If they are recorded even reasonably
well, they usually don't need a whole lot
| | 01:15 | of EQ to make them work.
| | 01:17 | But there are a couple of tricks.
| | 01:19 | Now first thing is we are going
to go back to our high-pass filter.
| | 01:22 | Now watch what happens here.
| | 01:25 | There's really not a lot of low-frequency
information on high-frequency hand percussion.
| | 01:30 | As a matter of fact,
there is zero low-frequencies.
| | 01:33 | If we actually roll off everything
from about 1K, believe it or not, we won't
| | 01:38 | notice the difference. Have a listen.
| | 01:40 | (Music playing)
| | 01:47 | There's not a lot of low-
frequency information there at all.
| | 01:51 | Now the beauty of this is what we might
have picked up in recording,= would have
| | 01:55 | been once again things like truck
traffic, helicopters flying over or footsteps
| | 02:00 | or things like that, basically
consisting of low-frequency information that does
| | 02:04 | nothing to help our mix.
| | 02:05 | So we want to use the high-pass
filter in order to get rid of it.
| | 02:09 | So that's the first thing we will do.
| | 02:11 | The next thing is it's fairly simple
with hand percussion. nywhere between 05
| | 02:16 | and 10K or so add a little bit of a
boost and all of a sudden that particular
| | 02:22 | percussion instrument
will jump out of the track.
| | 02:24 | So let's add a little bit of 5K or so
and let's listen to what it does to the
| | 02:29 | tambourine in the track.
| | 02:31 | (Music playing)
| | 02:43 | There is a little bit more definition
to it and let's listen what happens when
| | 02:46 | we play the tambourine with
the rest of the instruments.
| | 02:49 | (Music playing)
| | 03:06 | So that's what happens when we add a
little bit of 5 or 10K, depending on how it
| | 03:12 | was recorded and what the instrument is.
all of a sudden we go from not really
| | 03:16 | hearing the instrument, the tambourine,
because it's blending in with the track
| | 03:20 | to all of a sudden sticking out of the track.
| | 03:22 | And that's what we want sometimes. We
want to be able to hear the instrument
| | 03:25 | and that's the way we do it.
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| Equalizing the lead vocals| 00:00 | The vocal is almost always
the focal point of the song.
| | 00:02 | So it's not only important that it's
heard well in the mix, but it has to
| | 00:06 | sound good as well.
| | 00:07 | In this movie I'll show you some of the
prime frequencies for equalizing vocals.
| | 00:11 | It's important to understand that EQing
can make a vocalist sound up close and
| | 00:15 | in your face or back in the mix, but
it really depends upon the song, the
| | 00:18 | arrangement before you choose the
frequency that's best to work with.
| | 00:21 | So let's have a listen to this lead
vocal with the track and then we'll
| | 00:25 | listen to it by itself and then we'll play
with some of frequencies that might affect it.
| | 00:30 | (Music playing)
| | 00:41 | I want to play that again.
| | 00:42 | Let me make it louder in the mix.
| | 00:43 | (Music playing)
| | 00:54 | So let's have a listen to it soloed.
| | 00:56 | (Music playing)
| | 01:07 | So it doesn't sound too bad and we can
hear some leakage of the guitar in the
| | 01:11 | background, but that's not so bad because we
don't hear it with the rest of the instruments.
| | 01:16 | So once again here is a case where
you never worry about leakage because
| | 01:19 | usually it's not as big as a
problem as you might think it might be.
| | 01:24 | So let's add a familiar 4-Band EQ.
| | 01:28 | The first thing we're going to do is EQ
somewhere around 125 to maybe 250, and
| | 01:36 | what that will do is take a male
vocal and make it sound a bit more chesty.
| | 01:40 | So have a listen when we
boosted here at about a 125 or so.
| | 01:45 | (Music playing)
| | 02:00 | I can hear it. There is a little bit
of bottom there that wasn't there before
| | 02:03 | and it just seems a little bit closer to us.
| | 02:07 | Now if we add somewhere we've seen 2k
and 5k, we can accentuate the consonants
| | 02:12 | and add a little bit of presence and it
makes the vocal also seem closer to the listener.
| | 02:16 | So we'll go to 2k and add a
little bit and let's see what happens.
| | 02:18 | (Music playing)
| | 02:30 | Now let's bypass it and have a listen.
| | 02:31 | (Music playing)
| | 02:42 | I can hear there is a big difference
there, because all of sudden he is a
| | 02:46 | little bit closer to us and there is
a little bit more definition on the
| | 02:50 | consonants as well.
| | 02:51 | Let's listen in the mix for a second.
| | 02:53 | Take notice we have an
overload in the output here.
| | 02:55 | I'm going to click on the overload LED and I'm
going to back this off a little bit, and let's listen.
| | 03:01 | (Music playing)
| | 03:07 | Let's have a quick listen in the track.
| | 03:09 | (Music playing)
| | 03:18 | Here is another trick that we can do.
| | 03:20 | That's if we go somewhere around 10k
or so, we can add something called air.
| | 03:26 | Now air is one of those things that
you don't really hear-- you feel it.
| | 03:30 | And if you have the speakers that
aren't that good you won't hear it at all and
| | 03:35 | you won't feel it either.
| | 03:36 | This is usually one of those things
that you need some really, really good
| | 03:39 | speakers to hear, and the thing
about it is even if you can't hear it and
| | 03:43 | you add a little bit some people
that will be listening on other speakers
| | 03:47 | will be able to hear it.
| | 03:48 | So it's kind of nice because it just
gives an impression that there's a space
| | 03:53 | that the singer's in.
| | 03:53 | And let's just add a little bit and see
what happens, and once again it's not a
| | 03:58 | whole lot that you can add, because
if you add too much it just sounds bad.
| | 04:02 | So let's start here and that's actually more
than I'd probably add anyway, but have a listen.
| | 04:07 | (Music playing)
| | 04:13 | Actually let's listen to it by itself.
| | 04:16 | (Music playing)
| | 04:31 | Here we're getting a little bit and it
does help, but again this is a little bit
| | 04:34 | more than I would ever add.
| | 04:36 | One of the problems that we have right
here when we add too much of the 10k is
| | 04:40 | we start to get into a problem called sibilance.
| | 04:43 | Sibilance is when the S's are
emphasized too much, and in fact they become very
| | 04:49 | disconcerting to the listener.
| | 04:51 | This is somewhere around oh 4 to 7k.
| | 04:53 | It depends on the vocalist.
| | 04:56 | What we do to get rid of that.
| | 04:57 | EQ helps a little bit, but it usually
what it is it's a special compressor
| | 05:01 | called a de-esser that we use, and
we've gone over that in another movies.
| | 05:05 | But let's intentionally get that sibilance.
| | 05:09 | So what I'm going to do is switch to
the peaking filter here and I am going to
| | 05:13 | crank this up and I'm going
to go a 5K and have a listen.
| | 05:16 | (Music playing)
| | 05:32 | You can hear that those S's kind of
jump out and that's exactly what we don't
| | 05:35 | want, especially if we
compress this vocal as well.
| | 05:39 | If we compress it hard and add a lot
between 4 and 7K, suddenly you're going to
| | 05:44 | find that S's are going
to be taking your head off.
| | 05:47 | So that's something you should avoid.
| | 05:48 | So that's what to look
for when EQing a lead vocal.
| | 05:51 | Don't be afraid at a high-pass filter
at 60Hz to clean up the bottom end of the
| | 05:54 | vocal and make it sit better in the mix.
| | 05:56 | Just like any other instrument vocal
sometimes has a lot of low frequencies that
| | 06:00 | don't add anything to the sound of it.
| | 06:02 | So don't be afraid to get rid of those.
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| Equalizing the background vocals| 00:00 | Many times background vocals conflict
with lead vocal and can even cover it up.
| | 00:04 | In this video I'll show you
just what to do when that happens.
| | 00:08 | Let's have a listen to the song
with both the background vocals and the
| | 00:10 | lead vocals together.
| | 00:11 | (Music playing)
| | 00:25 | Now there are two things about the
background vocals. The first thing is that
| | 00:28 | they cover up the lead vocal on the
third line that we just heard and the other
| | 00:33 | thing is they are kind of dark and we
can brighten those up little bit so we
| | 00:37 | can hear them a bit more distinctly.
| | 00:39 | There is one thing that you should
know about background vocals against lead
| | 00:43 | vocals and that's if you attenuate
anywhere between 2K and 5K, just a few db,
| | 00:50 | all of a sudden you open up a space
for lead vocal frequency wise. That will
| | 00:54 | allow you hear both pretty well.
| | 00:56 | The first thing we're going to do
though is we're going to look at the lead
| | 00:59 | vocal EQ and we're going to see
that there is 4db boost at 2K.
| | 01:05 | So really what we want to do is now
attenuate the background vocals at 2K and
| | 01:10 | that will automatically give
a space for both of them to sit.
| | 01:14 | Let's solo them up, have a listen.
| | 01:18 | (Music playing)
| | 01:26 | A third line again is a little
indistinct and we can fix that. Once again we'll
| | 01:32 | put our 4-Band EQ in, and since we're 2K,
we're going to dip that a little bit.
| | 01:39 | Let's have a listen.
| | 01:40 | (Music playing)
| | 01:49 | All of a sudden we can hear both the
background vocals and lead vocals, because
| | 01:54 | both of them have their own sonic space
and that's the whole trick here. We
| | 01:58 | want to make sure that we never boost
at the same frequencies and we never cut
| | 02:02 | at the same frequencies for that matter.
| | 02:04 | We want to make sure every instrument or
vocal has its own space in the frequency pan.
| | 02:08 | The next thing we're going to do is
brighten these vocals up a little bit,
| | 02:11 | because they do set a little dull.
So at 6K or so, we'll add a few db.
| | 02:16 | Let's have a listen.
| | 02:17 | (Music playing)
| | 02:26 | And we can even add a little bit more.
| | 02:29 | (Music playing)
| | 02:43 | Now they don't sound nearly as though
as they did before. They don't cover up
| | 02:48 | lead vocal and there is
a space for both of them.
| | 02:50 | The final thing that we're going to do
is we're going to add a high-pass filter
| | 02:54 | once again, because just like all
vocals there is things that exist in low
| | 02:58 | frequencies that don't really help the
sound, and again, that could be a rumble
| | 03:02 | and it could be footsteps and it
could be any kind of low frequency
| | 03:05 | interference that isn't adding anything
to the sound or to the mix and if we get
| | 03:10 | rid of it, it'll just
make everything sound better.
| | 03:12 | So what we're going to do is disable
our bottom two bands here, insert a
| | 03:16 | high-pass filter, and go to a 150
cycles or so. Have a listen and you're
| | 03:23 | going to see that it doesn't affect
the sound of the vocal at all and yet it
| | 03:26 | cleans everything up.
| | 03:27 | (Music playing)
| | 03:40 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 03:42 | (Music playing)
| | 03:59 | So that's how you keep the background
vocals from conflicting with lead vocal.
| | 04:03 | By cutting a little in the 2K to 5K
range in the background vocals, you will be
| | 04:07 | able to hear every word of your lead
vocal. Don't forget to add a high-pass
| | 04:10 | filter in the backgrounds that
clean up any low frequency clutter.
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| Equalizing the piano| 00:00 | The grand piano was an interesting
instrument because it's so percussive and has
| | 00:03 | such a wide frequency range.
| | 00:05 | Because it can play just about any role
and arrangement, it can be equalized in
| | 00:09 | a lot of different ways.
| | 00:10 | Here are some frequencies to
look at when equalizing that piano.
| | 00:13 | The piano can sound a lot
different depending how it's miked.
| | 00:16 | If there's one mike that's directly
over the middle of the strings, it
| | 00:19 | will sound one way.
| | 00:20 | If that mike is moved out into
the room it will sound another way.
| | 00:23 | If it's mike with two mikes in stereo,
it's going to sound different yet again.
| | 00:27 | Regardless of how it's miked, there is a
couple of frequency bands that make a
| | 00:30 | big difference when it comes to equalizing
and the first is the fullness of a piano.
| | 00:35 | If you want it to sound bigger and
little bit closer to you, somewhere between
| | 00:39 | 80 and a 100 Hz or maybe even
110 will give you that fullness.
| | 00:44 | So the first thing we will do is we'll
listen to this one without an EQ and have a listen.
| | 00:49 | (Music playing)
| | 00:59 | Now let's boost it.
| | 01:00 | We will start at 100.
| | 01:01 | I am going to boost it more than I ever
normally would, but just so you get an
| | 01:08 | idea, now let's play it.
| | 01:09 | (Music playing)
| | 01:25 | You can hear that especially on the
left-hand of the piano, where suddenly it
| | 01:29 | gets a lot bigger and fatter, and let's
just experiment little bit with moving
| | 01:33 | the frequency band a little bit
and see if it makes a difference.
| | 01:36 | (Music playing)
| | 01:53 | This particular piano seems to like
about 100 Hz to make it fuller but
| | 01:57 | depending on the piano and depending on
how it was miked, it could be anywhere
| | 02:01 | from 80 up to a 120 or so, but that's
the frequency range that you use to make
| | 02:06 | it sound little bit bigger and fatter.
| | 02:08 | The next frequency band that we look at
is a band that will give us the presence
| | 02:13 | so it kind of jumps out of the mix
and brightens it up at the same time.
| | 02:16 | This present band is between 2K and
5K and this is little higher actually
| | 02:21 | in that 4 and 5K tends to work
little better but on certain pianos, down
| | 02:25 | at 2K works okay as well. So let's do that.
| | 02:29 | Let's go up to above 4.
| | 02:30 | Once again I boost it higher than I normally
would just so you can hear, and let's play it.
| | 02:35 | (Music playing)
| | 02:51 | You can hear how much
brighter it sounds all of a sudden.
| | 02:54 | Now once again, you use just enough EQ
to make it peek out from the mix and
| | 02:58 | that depends on all the other
instruments that are around it.
| | 03:01 | Now in this case, it's just a solo
piano, so it will equalize it to make it
| | 03:05 | sound pretty good to our ears.
| | 03:06 | But again, it will always be different
depending on if there are guitars in the
| | 03:10 | mix or if there are synthesizers or any
other kind of electronic instrument or
| | 03:14 | even acoustic instruments.
| | 03:17 | So there is one other band that you
have to be aware of with the piano.
| | 03:20 | And this is around 1k.
| | 03:22 | It's a mid-frequency band.
| | 03:24 | And if you are not careful with that,
if you boost it there you can make it
| | 03:28 | sound like a honky-tonk piano, which
is not usually what we are looking for.
| | 03:32 | So let's bring it down to about 1K and
have a listen what it sounds like now.
| | 03:36 | (Music playing)
| | 03:51 | You probably heard a little bit of
distortion there and that comes from an
| | 03:54 | overload at 1K and 1K tends to do that
especially in the digital domain. Once
| | 03:59 | again we are boosting at
70B which is quite a lot.
| | 04:02 | If we back this off to 3dB, you wouldn't
have that and you could still probably hear it.
| | 04:07 | Take a listen.
| | 04:08 | (Music playing)
| | 04:18 | So once again, you hear that 1K.
| | 04:20 | It even distorts there and you
can also hear how you get that honky-tonk quality.
| | 04:25 | If you moved that particular band up
to 3 or 4K's, certainly it will sound
| | 04:30 | a whole lot better.
| | 04:31 | So remember that the kind of piano
and how it was miked means a lot to this
| | 04:34 | final sound, but it gets fullness at about 80
to a 100 Hz and its presence at about 2K to 5K.
| | 04:41 | Don't boost too much in a mid-range though,
because it will give it a honky-tonk quality.
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| Equalizing the organ| 00:00 | The organ is a quintessential
instrument to add glue to a track.
| | 00:04 | It isn't always heard as a distinct
instrument, but you can always feel its presence.
| | 00:07 | In this video I'm going to show you
a couple of approaches when it comes
| | 00:10 | to EQ-ing an organ.
| | 00:12 | So you have to remember that an organ,
especially like a Hammond B3 has a really
| | 00:16 | wide frequency range.
| | 00:17 | It can have a huge low-end, so you have
to be careful that it doesn't get in the
| | 00:20 | way of the bass or the kick drum.
| | 00:22 | That's why it's not in common to use a
high-pass filter to roll off the low-end
| | 00:26 | below a 100Hz or so.
| | 00:27 | Let's listen to the organ in the track.
| | 00:29 | (Music playing)
| | 00:42 | Sounds pretty good.
| | 00:43 | Let's listen to it by itself now.
| | 00:45 | This is a Hammond B3 through a Leslie.
| | 00:47 | And there are two speakers on the Leslie.
There is a rotating horn and there's
| | 00:51 | also a rotating speaker on the bottom.
| | 00:54 | The speaker on the bottom will give
you the low frequencies and of course
| | 00:58 | the horn will give you the high
frequencies, so this is miked with two
| | 01:01 | different microphones.
| | 01:02 | So that's why it says B3 High and B3 Low.
| | 01:04 | Let's have a listen.
| | 01:05 | (Music playing)
| | 01:16 | So let's add some EQ to make it sound a
little bit bigger and a little bit more present.
| | 01:21 | The first thing to notice is that both
channels of the B3, B3 High and the B3
| | 01:25 | Low, are assigned to a subgroup
channel and that's called Organ.
| | 01:31 | So what that does is it allows us to put
one EQ in that covers both the high and
| | 01:36 | low channels without having
to use a separate one for each.
| | 01:39 | Under certain circumstances we might
use an EQ for each channel, but usually
| | 01:43 | it's just easier to use one.
| | 01:44 | So let's put it in a Subgroup channel.
Come back to our favorite 4-Band EQ.
| | 01:50 | Now if there was a lot of low
frequency in the organ, in other words if
| | 01:54 | the organ player was using his left-hand
on the lower registers or using bass pedals,
| | 01:59 | if we EQed between 80 and 100Hz, it'll
give it a lot more body, but since he's
| | 02:04 | not doing that we won't hear anything
and I'll play a little bit and I'll boost
| | 02:08 | the low-end and you won't hear.
| | 02:09 | (Music playing)
| | 02:18 | So I had a 10dB of gain on the low-end
there at a 100Hz and you hardly heard it
| | 02:22 | and that's because there is not much
on the low-end coming out to begin with.
| | 02:25 | So it goes to prove an EQ principle
in that you can add something that
| | 02:30 | isn't there already.
| | 02:31 | So what we'll do if we want more body,
we'll go up to about 240 cycles or so.
| | 02:36 | 240, 250, 300, in there.
| | 02:39 | It's kind of a magic for an organ.
| | 02:41 | It's a magic frequency and then
you'll hear the body just feel bigger.
| | 02:45 | (Music playing)
| | 02:53 | One more time then I'll switch in and out.
| | 02:55 | (Music playing)
| | 03:02 | Now when he's playing the chords you
definitely can hear when he goes to the
| | 03:05 | high sustained note you don't hear it
as much, because once again, if there are
| | 03:09 | no frequencies there to begin
with, you can't really add them.
| | 03:12 | But as he plays the chords in the mid-
registers then you can definitely feel
| | 03:16 | that body come up and that's kind of a
secret, at 250, 240, and 300 in there
| | 03:21 | usually makes the organ sound a lot bigger.
| | 03:23 | The next frequency that we'll go to is
between 2K and 5K again and you can see
| | 03:28 | a pattern here. We've used
this on other instruments.
| | 03:30 | This is our presence frequency that kind
of works on everything, but you have to
| | 03:34 | be careful that if you boost one
instrument in one place, you can't boost the
| | 03:38 | same frequency on another
instrument, because then they'll clash.
| | 03:41 | So what we're going to do is go to maybe 3K
here and add a little bit. Now have a listen.
| | 03:46 | (Music playing)
| | 03:56 | One more time.
| | 03:57 | (Music playing)
| | 04:04 | Let's listen in the track now.
| | 04:06 | (Music playing)
| | 04:17 | Now you can hear two things there. The
first is it definitely sticks out of the
| | 04:20 | track a bit more, but also right
towards the end the lead guitar that was
| | 04:25 | playing the lead lyrics was beginning
to conflict with the organ and that's
| | 04:29 | because it was probably
boosted at about the same frequency.
| | 04:32 | So without even looking at it we can
probably change this by just moving the
| | 04:35 | frequency down a little bit and
let's go to 2.29. Listen to that again.
| | 04:41 | (Music playing)
| | 04:51 | Now you can hear both of them equally the same.
| | 04:53 | That's what we're trying to do with EQ.
We're trying to carve out a frequency
| | 04:57 | space for every instrument.
| | 04:58 | We don't necessarily wanted to make an
instrument sound great by itself, because
| | 05:03 | then it might not live with
all the other tracks as well.
| | 05:06 | What you're trying to do is make them
all work together and that's why we keep
| | 05:10 | on moving those frequencies up and
down, up and down, listening to other
| | 05:13 | instruments and moving
the frequency a little bit.
| | 05:16 | It doesn't take much. Sometimes 100Hz is
just enough to make the difference, but
| | 05:20 | you have to keep on listening to
different instruments to make it work.
| | 05:23 | Finally, it's not uncommon to use a
high-pass filter on the organ as well to
| | 05:27 | roll off some of the low end,
especially in a case like this where there is not
| | 05:31 | any low end to begin with.
| | 05:32 | So here's what we'll do. Since we're
not using the upper band, we'll disable
| | 05:36 | that, and just like we did before 12
dB per Octave, we'll take it to a 100 or
| | 05:42 | so, and let's solo this up and have a listen.
| | 05:44 | (Music playing)
| | 05:54 | It doesn't make any difference to
the final sound, but what it does do is
| | 05:58 | clean up that low end.
| | 05:59 | Now if you're listing on a set of
speakers that has a 15 inch woofer and has a
| | 06:05 | very extended low frequency response,
there'll be artifacts that you will hear
| | 06:10 | that will suddenly disappear
when we add the high-pass filter.
| | 06:14 | But on most small bookshelf speakers, on
headphones, you may not hear that at all.
| | 06:19 | Nonetheless, it's always a good
practice to roll off the low end if it doesn't
| | 06:23 | affect anything, because it will
only clean up the mix, so it's a good
| | 06:27 | practice to get into.
| | 06:29 | So that's how you equalize the organ.
The fullness comes at about 80 Hz, but be
| | 06:33 | careful because that can get in
the way of the bass or the kick drum.
| | 06:36 | Body comes at about 240 and
presence between 2K and 5K.
| | 06:41 | Remember, just like with other
instruments, sometimes a high-pass filter can
| | 06:44 | tighten up the sound, so don't be afraid
to try it if the bottom sounds too big.
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| Equalizing the strings| 00:00 | Whether real or artificial strings, are
frequently used as a finishing touch to
| | 00:04 | an arrangement, although they tend to
stick out of the mix because of their
| | 00:07 | mostly high-frequency content.
| | 00:09 | In this video I'll show you
some tips for EQing strings.
| | 00:11 | First of all let's listen to the
song with the strings in the mix.
| | 00:14 | (Music playing)
| | 00:31 | What we just heard was some
artificial strings like you'd find on a typical
| | 00:34 | synthesizer and you can hear that
they stick out the mix a little bit.
| | 00:39 | There are pads, three octaves of strings.
| | 00:42 | But that being said there's not much
movement and that's the way it usually is
| | 00:47 | with most string sections.
| | 00:49 | What that means is usually we have to
make sure that not only does it fit in the
| | 00:53 | mix but we can hear it as well.
| | 00:56 | So let's listen to the string
patch just by itself for a second.
| | 01:00 | (Music playing)
| | 01:16 | Now obviously when they're dry it
doesn't sound as good as when we envelop it
| | 01:20 | with reverb, but nonetheless you
will get the idea where we add some EQ.
| | 01:23 | We'll go to our 4-Band native EQ in Pro
Tools and the first frequency we'll look
| | 01:29 | at is between 200 to 500 Hz and
this will give the strings more body.
| | 01:35 | So now I'm going to exaggerate how
much EQ I'm going to add just to make sure
| | 01:39 | that no matter what speaker you're
listening on you're going here this.
| | 01:42 | So we'll goose it up to almost +10 and we'll
put it 334, just arbitrarily picking a number.
| | 01:50 | Have a listen.
| | 01:50 | (Music playing)
| | 02:06 | You can hear there is a
lot more body to the strings.
| | 02:08 | Anything below 250, 240, somewhere in
there, you really won't hear because once
| | 02:14 | again strings don't have a lot of low
frequencies unless you have basses and in
| | 02:19 | this case we're just listening to what
would basically be violas and violins
| | 02:24 | and there's not a lot of low frequencies there.
| | 02:26 | Of course, you can't add
anything that isn't there to begin with.
| | 02:30 | This is a little too much.
I wouldn't normally put that much on.
| | 02:32 | So we'll bring it back here and
now we'll go to the next frequency.
| | 02:36 | Sometimes strings are a little harsh
at somewhere between 4K and 5k, and just
| | 02:42 | by attenuating those frequencies you can make
these string sections sit better in the mix.
| | 02:49 | So let's go 4k or so and attenuate a little bit.
| | 02:54 | The other thing that you should
remember when we're attenuating is usually what
| | 02:58 | we try to do is narrow the bandwidth
somewhat and that's the Q. When we're
| | 03:02 | attenuating, usually a narrow band that
sounds better and we're boosting a wide
| | 03:07 | bandwidth sounds better than that narrow one.
| | 03:10 | So now what we're going to do is
narrow this a little bit. Have a listen.
| | 03:15 | (Music playing)
| | 03:33 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 03:34 | (Music playing)
| | 03:51 | Now we can hear it in the track, but it
doesn't get in the way of anything and
| | 03:55 | that's what we're trying to do.
| | 03:56 | We're trying to make sure that there
is no frequencies that clash anywhere.
| | 04:00 | Usually, you may be boosting the other
instruments at 4K or 5K because it's a
| | 04:05 | typical presence frequency for a
lot of instruments, but it's just the
| | 04:09 | opposite on strings.
| | 04:10 | So on strings usually we want to
get rid of that little bit or at least
| | 04:13 | attenuate it somewhat.
| | 04:15 | The final frequency range that we want
to look at is between 7K and 10K, which
| | 04:19 | gives the strings some brightness.
| | 04:21 | But we have to be careful.
| | 04:22 | If we add too much, we can actually make
everything sound little scratchy there.
| | 04:26 | So what we're going to do is
just boost it a little bit.
| | 04:29 | I'm going to boost it more than I
normally would just so you can hear the
| | 04:33 | effect and let's solo it and play.
| | 04:37 | (Music playing)
| | 04:53 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 04:54 | (Music playing)
| | 05:12 | Once again just by listening to a track
by itself, be it the strings or any other
| | 05:18 | track, in EQing doesn't really get you
where you want to go a lot of times and
| | 05:22 | that's just a solo instrument.
| | 05:24 | What you're you trying to do is have
each instrument sit well in the track with
| | 05:28 | all the other instruments combined and
sometimes something that sounds terrible
| | 05:32 | soloed sounds terrific in the track.
| | 05:35 | So just by soloing something and making
it sound good doesn't necessarily mean
| | 05:39 | it's going to work with the other instruments.
| | 05:41 | What I'm showing you here is more of
an illustration of the frequency points
| | 05:44 | that work, but it's not something that
you have to use every time you EQ the
| | 05:49 | strings or any other instrument.
| | 05:51 | Also remember that a high-pass filter
will get rid of a lot of the unwanted
| | 05:55 | low frequencies that don't add anything
to the sound, except in the case where
| | 05:59 | you have basses in the string section
and then you have to be very careful
| | 06:02 | when you use that.
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| Equalizing the horns| 00:00 | Either brass or woodwinds contain mostly
midrange frequency content, so they can
| | 00:04 | easily conflict with
guitars, vocals and snare drums.
| | 00:07 | In this movie I'll show you what to look for
when it comes to EQ-ing brass or woodwinds.
| | 00:11 | In this example we have a solo
saxophone, let's take a listen to it unEQued.
| | 00:16 | (Music playing)
| | 00:25 | So now let's go to somewhere around
120 cycles, because that's where the
| | 00:30 | fullness comes in on most woodwinds and brass.
| | 00:32 | Now let's go to 120 or so,
I'll go to 133. That's okay.
| | 00:36 | Crank it up a lot, so you can hear it.
| | 00:38 | Actually I'm going to put a
peaking filter on as well.
| | 00:41 | (Music playing)
| | 01:01 | Now you can hear it gets a
lot fuller at that frequency.
| | 01:04 | Now you won't want to add 7 or 8 or 9db
like I just did here, because what that
| | 01:08 | will do is it will get in the way of
some of the low frequency instruments.
| | 01:12 | So unless its pretty much sitting out
there by itself, it needs just a little
| | 01:16 | bit help on the low end.
| | 01:17 | Usually you're better off if you don't
do too much and if you only do a couple
| | 01:22 | db that might be enough.
| | 01:23 | So you always want to make sure you use
an EQ in moderation, because if you use
| | 01:27 | too much, it will usually make
things worse instead of better.
| | 01:30 | Now let's go to right around 5K or so, and
let's put a peaking filter on one more time.
| | 01:37 | Let's go up here, just bring this
down to 5K and have a listen what happens
| | 01:43 | when we add a lot of 5K.
| | 01:44 | (Music playing)
| | 02:00 | Now that actually sounds okay, because
it brighten it up a lot, but you have to
| | 02:03 | worry about 5K, and that if you add
too much, what's going to happen, it
| | 02:08 | becomes very piercing.
| | 02:09 | In this case we needed that
extra 5K, so it's all right.
| | 02:13 | But you have to always worry that
adding too much is actually going to
| | 02:16 | be counterproductive.
| | 02:17 | Once again, how it works in the track is
always best, rather than listing to it by itself.
| | 02:22 | And finally, on the saxophone there is a
special case and that's in around 1K to
| | 02:28 | 2K, and let's go to 1K and boost
this here, and listen what happens.
| | 02:33 | (Music playing)
| | 02:40 | 1K to 2K makes a sax squawk
and it's very unwanted.
| | 02:45 | It's not really good frequency for the sax, so
it's best stay away from that for the most part.
| | 02:50 | Finally, just like with most acoustic
instruments, they benefit greatly from
| | 02:54 | adding a high-pass filter and usually
you could dial in somewhere under 100
| | 02:59 | cycles and get rid of a lot of unwanted
noises like rumbles from outside, truck
| | 03:05 | traffic, things like that, but
sometimes you can't really hear, but it's picked
| | 03:08 | up anyway by the microphones and
all it does is muddy up the mix.
| | 03:13 | It doesn't add anything to the sound,
so it's a good idea to always put a
| | 03:17 | high-pass filter on if you can
because it will clean up the mix quite a lot.
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|
|
11. Understanding ReverbLearning the principles of reverb| 00:00 | Reverb is added to track to create
width and depth, but also to dress up an
| | 00:04 | otherwise boring sound.
| | 00:06 | Like with other aspects of mixing,
the use of reverb is frequently either
| | 00:09 | overlooked or misunderstood.
| | 00:11 | Before we get in to adding or
adjusting the reverb in your mix,
| | 00:14 | let's look at some of the
reasons to add reverb first.
| | 00:17 | There are four reasons to add reverb.
| | 00:19 | To make the recorded track sound like
it's in a specific acoustic environment.
| | 00:23 | Many times, a track is recorded in an
acoustic space doesn't fit the song or the
| | 00:27 | final vision of the mixer.
| | 00:29 | You may record in a small dead room,
but want it to sound like it was in a large
| | 00:33 | studio or a small reflective drum
room or a live in reflective church.
| | 00:37 | Reverb will take you to each of
those environments and many, many more.
| | 00:41 | To add some personality and
excitement to a recorded sound, picture reverb
| | 00:45 | as makeup on a model.
| | 00:47 | She may look rather plain or even only
mildly attractive until the makeup makes
| | 00:51 | her gorgeous by covering her blemishes,
highlighting her eyes, or accentuating
| | 00:55 | her lips and cheekbones.
| | 00:57 | Reverb does the same thing with some tracks.
| | 00:59 | It can make the blemishes less
noticeable, change the texture of the sound
| | 01:03 | itself, and highlight it in a new way.
| | 01:05 | To make a track sound bigger or wider
than it really is. A sense of stereo space
| | 01:10 | can be added artificially by reverb.
| | 01:13 | Usually reverb there has a short
decay time of less than one second to
| | 01:17 | make track sound bigger.
| | 01:18 | To move a track further back in the mix.
While panning takes you from left to
| | 01:22 | right in the stereo spectrum
reverb will take you from front to back.
| | 01:26 | An easy way to understand how this
works is a picture of a band on stage.
| | 01:30 | If you want the singer to sound like he
is in the front of the drum kit, you would
| | 01:33 | add some reverb to the kit.
| | 01:35 | If you wanted the horn section to sound
like it was placed behind the kit, you
| | 01:38 | would add even more
reverb up to the horn section.
| | 01:40 | If you wanted the singer to sound,
like he is in between the drums and the
| | 01:43 | horns, you would leave the drums dry
and add a touch of reverb up to the vocal,
| | 01:47 | but less than the horns.
| | 01:49 | If we were going to get more
sophisticated with this kind of layering, we would
| | 01:52 | have used different reverbs for
each of the instruments and tailor the
| | 01:55 | parameters to best fit the
sound we are going after.
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| Understanding reverb parameters| 00:00 | Although many sophisticated reverbs
have a wide variety of somewhat obscure
| | 00:04 | parameters, you can get exactly what
you need for any mix with only five.
| | 00:08 | Let's take a look at a
native Pro Tools reverb plug-in.
| | 00:11 | Most software reverbs have four
environments that you can dial in: a Hall, a
| | 00:15 | Room, a Chamber, and a Plate.
| | 00:18 | In this case we have a Church instead of a
Chamber and we have a couple other ones too.
| | 00:22 | I have ambient and nonlinear and let's
forget about those for a second because
| | 00:26 | most reverbs don't
actually have those parameters.
| | 00:29 | A Hall is a large space that has a very
long decay time and lots of reflections
| | 00:33 | while a Room is a much smaller space
that can be dead or reflective but has
| | 00:38 | a short decay time of
less than 1.5 seconds or so.
| | 00:41 | A Chamber is an electronic
representation of a tiled room that many of the large
| | 00:46 | studios used to build just to
create a great reverb sound.
| | 00:49 | Phil Spector's Wall of Sound was built
around in an excellent acoustic chamber at
| | 00:53 | Gold Star Studios as an example.
| | 00:55 | A Plate is a 4 foot hanging piece of
metal that has transducers on it that
| | 00:59 | many studios use for artificial reverb when
they couldn't afford to build the chamber.
| | 01:04 | Each of these reverb types have
distinctly different sound and there's no rule
| | 01:08 | on which one to use.
| | 01:09 | Also in this Pro Tools D-Verb plug-in
that we're looking at is also a size
| | 01:14 | parameter that can select between a small,
medium, and large space and that means
| | 01:19 | a hall could either be a small
hall or a medium or a large hall.
| | 01:23 | In fact, you don't see that
on a lot of other reverbs.
| | 01:26 | Probably the most important
parameter is the Decay parameter and what this
| | 01:29 | does is it represents how long it takes the
reverb to fall off to where we can no longer hear it.
| | 01:35 | So in other words if it's set on 4.5
seconds, it takes 4.5 seconds until the
| | 01:41 | reverb tail falls below a
level that we could hear it.
| | 01:44 | The longer the decay time is the more
it pushes a track further back in the mix
| | 01:50 | while short ones under about a
second or so make it sound bigger.
| | 01:54 | One of the things you have to worry
about in almost all artificial reverbs is
| | 01:57 | the very shortest decay times, because
they tend to boing and usually that's how
| | 02:01 | you can tell if a reverb
actually sounds good or not.
| | 02:05 | If it boings or sounds funny or
metallic at a very, very low decay time, then
| | 02:11 | usually it's not going to sound all
that much better at longer ones as well.
| | 02:16 | Now the other end of the spectrum is the
longest delay time and what will happen
| | 02:21 | is you'll also hear some boinginess or
ringing or just some funny artifacts as a
| | 02:27 | reverb is dying out.
| | 02:29 | Sometimes it doesn't matter so much
because it's cover-up in a track, but if it
| | 02:33 | was the very last note of a song for
instance and you had this dying reverb tail
| | 02:37 | that all of a sudden has sounded
boingy or funny or had some artifacts in it,
| | 02:42 | then it's something
obviously you wouldn't want to use.
| | 02:45 | So if you stay anywhere in between the
shortest reverb time and longest reverb
| | 02:50 | time it usually sounds a whole lot better,
but that's how you can tell whether a
| | 02:53 | reverb is going to sound good or
not or the quality of the reverb is.
| | 02:57 | Let me put this back here to somewhere
normal. The third parameter is Pre-Delay.
| | 03:02 | Pre-delay delays the entrance of the reverb.
| | 03:06 | So in another words a pre-delay of 0
milliseconds means that the reverb begins
| | 03:11 | exactly when this sound does.
| | 03:14 | But sometimes it actually muddies up the mix.
| | 03:17 | So it's better if the Pre-delay is
actually moved to 20 milliseconds or even
| | 03:23 | more, which we will cover in a later movie.
| | 03:27 | What this will do is add some space
between the entrance of the sound and the
| | 03:30 | entrance of the reverb and that
space will clean it up considerably.
| | 03:34 | Suddenly instead of the reverb
sounding kind of muddy, along with vocal let's
| | 03:37 | say, you'll hear the vocal distinctly
and then the reverb distinctly, and even
| | 03:41 | though it's 20 milliseconds or 60
milliseconds or something very, very short, it
| | 03:45 | really does make a difference.
| | 03:46 | Though this is very important.
| | 03:48 | In the days before electronic reverbs
Pre-delay was achieved by using a tape
| | 03:51 | recorder and what would happen is they
would listen off the playback head and
| | 03:56 | there a delay between the record head
and the playback head, because there's a
| | 04:00 | distance between the two heads and that
would pre-delay the sound of the reverb.
| | 04:05 | It's a lot easier to do it
without digital plug-in these days.
| | 04:10 | So the Pre-delay can be usually
adjusted from 0 to 120 milliseconds or so and
| | 04:14 | that's about an eighth of a second.
| | 04:16 | Usually, a 120 milliseconds is way long.
| | 04:19 | We don't use it that much.
| | 04:20 | It's usually somewhere between 20, 40,
60, 80, somewhere in there, but it's a
| | 04:24 | very powerful parameter on reverb and
something that you should learn how to use
| | 04:30 | because it makes a huge difference in the sound.
| | 04:32 | The next most important parameters are
the high and low pass filters on a reverb.
| | 04:36 | Now many times these aren't included
in a reverb plug-in and you would do
| | 04:42 | this externally to shape the tone
of the reverb. And that's another very
| | 04:46 | important thing in mixing, where the
tone of the reverb is shaped to make it
| | 04:52 | fit best in the mix.
| | 04:53 | In this case we have a high cut
filter which is really important.
| | 04:57 | There is a low pass filter which is
basically the same thing and I'm not quite
| | 05:01 | sure why they actually put two of the
same thing in here, but the high frequency
| | 05:05 | cut filter is very important
and it will be used all the time.
| | 05:08 | If you want to clearly hear the
reverb in the mix, you wouldn't cut the
| | 05:11 | high frequencies at all.
| | 05:13 | If you want the reverb to blend in with
the mix, you cut the high frequencies and
| | 05:17 | sometimes you'd cut them down to 8K
and sometimes you cut them down to 3K, and
| | 05:21 | this will make the reverb
fit a lot better in the mix.
| | 05:25 | On the other hand if your mix has a
lot of low-end and it's already busy, too
| | 05:29 | much low-end on the reverb would just
muddy it up and that's why we would use a
| | 05:33 | high pass filter to roll off anywhere
between 50 Hertz and maybe as high as 600.
| | 05:38 | It should be noted that the reverbs
at Abbey Road that have been heard on
| | 05:41 | hundreds of hit records over last 50
years and of course every Beatles record,
| | 05:45 | they set their low pass filter at 10K
and their high pass filter at 600 and
| | 05:50 | that's a real secret to
the way their reverbs sound.
| | 05:53 | Finally, the dry/wet control, which is
sometimes called the mix control, allows
| | 05:57 | you to mix the reverb
signal with the dry signal.
| | 06:00 | Normally, we'd set that at 100%
wet when inserted into a dedicator
| | 06:04 | reverbs effects channel.
| | 06:05 | Many reverbs have a diffusion parameter
and what that does is it simulates how
| | 06:10 | reflective the walls in
the particular space are.
| | 06:12 | For instance a more diffused
environment has hard walls with lot of reflections
| | 06:17 | while one with softer
walls has few reflections.
| | 06:20 | A simple way to think of this is that
high diffusion provides a thicker sounding
| | 06:23 | reverb and low diffusion is
a thinner sounding reverb.
| | 06:27 | So to sum it up, the reverb types
selects between different reverb environments.
| | 06:31 | Decayed time represents how long it
takes the reverb tail to fall off to where
| | 06:35 | we can't hear it anymore.
| | 06:36 | Pre-delay delays the actions of the reverb so
the reverb doesn't get in the way of the track.
| | 06:41 | The high and low pass filters help
shape the sound of reverb and the dry/wet
| | 06:44 | control determines the mix of
the dry to the affected signal.
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| Timing the reverb to the track| 00:00 | One of the secrets of hit-making engineers
is that they time the reverb to the track.
| | 00:04 | That means timing both the pre-
delay and the decay so it breathes with
| | 00:08 | the pulse of the track.
| | 00:09 | The decay of a reverb is timed to the
track by triggering it off a snare hit.
| | 00:13 | The decay parameter is adjusted so that
the decay just dies by the next snare hit.
| | 00:19 | The idea is to make the
decay breathe with the track.
| | 00:22 | The reason why we want to do this is
timing the delay to the beat of the track
| | 00:26 | and add depth without the
reverb being noticeable.
| | 00:28 | Let's have a listen.
| | 00:29 | Here is a track without any reverb.
| | 00:31 | (Music playing)
| | 00:36 | Let's listen to just the snare drum.
| | 00:39 | (Music playing)
| | 00:42 | And what we're going to do is add a Send.
| | 00:45 | Now I know because I've preset this
already Bus 11 and 12 is actually my send
| | 00:51 | to the first reverb.
| | 00:53 | So let's bring this up and have
a listen to what it sounds like.
| | 00:56 | (Music playing)
| | 01:00 | So the decay is far longer than it
needs to be, because it bleeds over and pass
| | 01:04 | the next drum hit. So we'll
bring that back and have a listen.
| | 01:08 | (Music playing)
| | 01:24 | We'll add even more.
| | 01:26 | That's about the right amount though.
| | 01:27 | (Music playing)
| | 01:34 | Maybe back it off a bit more.
| | 01:35 | (Music playing)
| | 01:37 | Now it's time to the track and
have a listen to what it sounds like.
| | 01:40 | (Music playing)
| | 01:57 | Now what happened here is
the snare sounds bigger.
| | 02:00 | It sounds fatter, it blends into the
track better, but you don't really notice it
| | 02:04 | is a reverb helping it out.
| | 02:07 | You can time to pre-delay to the
track by using the following formula.
| | 02:10 | 7,500 divided by the Beats per minute of
the track equals a delay time in milliseconds.
| | 02:16 | As an example, if we had a song that
was a 125 beats per minute, this is the
| | 02:20 | formula: 7,500 divided by a 125
beats per minute equals 60 milliseconds.
| | 02:27 | This is the delay of a 32nd note. If
that's too long you can divide the result of
| | 02:32 | the formula by 2 to get a 64 note delay
of 30 milliseconds, or you can double it
| | 02:38 | to a delay of a 16th node
which is a 120 milliseconds.
| | 02:42 | Any other amount that's visible like
45 milliseconds or 90 milliseconds will
| | 02:46 | also sound pretty good.
| | 02:48 | So for it to time to pre-delay it to
this track, we happen to know that it's at
| | 02:51 | 104 beats per minute.
| | 02:54 | So if we use a formula here, it goes
7500 divided by a 104 beats per minute and
| | 03:00 | that comes out to 72 milliseconds.
| | 03:02 | I'll just type 72 milliseconds in.
| | 03:07 | Let's have a listen.
| | 03:08 | (Music playing)
| | 03:14 | I can hear there is like a second
note there, so what we do is we bring the
| | 03:19 | reverb down in intensity and have a listen.
| | 03:21 | (Music playing)
| | 03:28 | Let's listen to what that's like in the track.
| | 03:30 | (Music playing)
| | 03:40 | Now you really don't hear that delay
and the reason why is it timed to the
| | 03:44 | track, so you don't hear it as a distinct delay.
| | 03:47 | Now what might work better is if
we cut that in half. Instead of 72
| | 03:50 | milliseconds, if we cut it into half to
36, it might sound a little different.
| | 03:55 | Let's do that and have a listen.
| | 03:56 | Let's solo it and listen.
| | 03:58 | (Music playing)
| | 04:08 | Here is a difference between no Pre-
Delay and a 36 millisecond Pre-Delay.
| | 04:12 | (Music playing)
| | 04:21 | You can hear there is a
little bit of separation there.
| | 04:23 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 04:24 | (Music playing)
| | 04:39 | And the reason why you don't hear the
separation is it's timed to the track.
| | 04:43 | So what we're trying to do is make
this blend in instead of send out.
| | 04:47 | If we wanted to stand out, we don't
time it to the track. We just set an
| | 04:50 | arbitrary number that sounds
good to us and we use that.
| | 04:54 | If we wanted to, we could actually
double the pre-delay time, we could cut it in
| | 04:58 | half again. Any of those will make a
big difference in the way it sounds.
| | 05:02 | Another way the time that pre-delay to
the track is to use the ultimate delay
| | 05:06 | time iPhone application or the
chart in the mixing engineer's handbook.
| | 05:10 | Even if you decide not to time the pre-
delay to the track, pre-delay can still
| | 05:15 | be very effective. Even if you only use
10 or 20 milliseconds just arbitrarily,
| | 05:20 | you'll find that it thickens
up the sound of the reverb.
| | 05:23 | So let's take the Pre-delay to 0, we'll
solo up our snare, and have a quick listen.
| | 05:29 | (Music playing)
| | 05:33 | Watch what happens when we
remove to 10 milliseconds.
| | 05:38 | (Music playing)
| | 05:43 | Watch me go to 20.
| | 05:44 | (Music playing)
| | 05:56 | There is a big difference from the way
it sounds at 0 milliseconds Pre-Delay to
| | 05:59 | 10 or 20 milliseconds.
| | 06:02 | It's just a thicker sounding
reverb and it works better in the track.
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| Equalizing the reverb| 00:00 | One of the biggest secrets of making your
reverb fit into a mix is by using either
| | 00:04 | an internal or an external
equalizer to shape the sound.
| | 00:07 | In this video, I will
show you just how to do that.
| | 00:09 | First thing we are going to do is take
a listen to the way this reverb sounds
| | 00:14 | both when the snare is
soloed and also in the track.
| | 00:16 | Let's listen in the track first.
| | 00:18 | (Music playing)
| | 00:27 | Reverb sounds okay, but let's see
what happens when we equalize it.
| | 00:30 | What we are going to do is add our
standard 4-Band EQ but we're going to add it
| | 00:36 | before the reverb plug-in.
| | 00:38 | The reasons for that is it always
sounds better if you equalize going into the
| | 00:42 | reverb rather than coming out.
| | 00:44 | So the first thing we will do is disable
our various equalizer bands because all
| | 00:50 | we want are the high and low-pass filter.
| | 00:53 | So let's dial in the Abbey Road settings here.
| | 00:56 | So what we will do is we'll set the high
-pass filter to about 600. Actually we
| | 01:02 | can just type it in, 600.
We will put this at 12 dB.
| | 01:07 | Let's have a listen to what it
sounds like just that part of it.
| | 01:09 | (Music playing)
| | 01:18 | Now let's dial in the low-pass filter
and Abbey Road just uses 10K and that so we will use too.
| | 01:26 | And we will set this at 12 dB per
octave put it in. Have a listen.
| | 01:29 | (Music playing)
| | 01:43 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 01:44 | (Music playing)
| | 02:03 | Now it sounds like we are taking
away too much of the reverb sound itself.
| | 02:07 | What we are trying to get rid of is the
frequency bands that get in the way of
| | 02:12 | other instruments in the mix.
| | 02:13 | Just to prove that this actually helps
the sound, let me show you what it sounds
| | 02:18 | like in the track when we turn the
reverb on and off, and you can see that it
| | 02:23 | actually improves it quite a bit,
even they have it equalized like this.
| | 02:26 | (Music playing)
| | 02:43 | So you can hear that it fits into the
mix a lot better when it's equalized and
| | 02:47 | this is a really big secret to
making the reverb work in the track.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the two-reverb quick setup| 00:00 | Here's a reverb method designed to
get you up and running quickly with the
| | 00:03 | parameters in a general position to
where they almost always sound at least
| | 00:06 | acceptable and sometimes even surprisingly good.
| | 00:09 | This method works well when you're
tracking and need some quick reverb or for
| | 00:12 | doing rough mixes when you don't
have time for more a complete setup.
| | 00:15 | It uses two different reverbs and is
what I call the 2 reverb quick setup.
| | 00:20 | So the first reverb is intended just for drums.
| | 00:23 | We're going to go to a D-Verb because
I like the sound of that and what we're
| | 00:29 | going to do is set this to Room.
| | 00:31 | I'll go to Room 1 first, and we're
going to set this to about 1.5 milliseconds
| | 00:37 | and we'll set it to the Large or
Medium or Small when we have a listen.
| | 00:41 | Now what we're going to do is set
the Pre-Delay to 20 milliseconds and 20
| | 00:45 | milliseconds is good because it
works on just about everything.
| | 00:48 | If you have a low-pass filter available,
low-pass and high cutter are the same
| | 00:52 | thing, we'll set it to 10,000. There we go.
| | 00:56 | And if you have a high-pass filter
available you want to set that to 100.
| | 00:59 | We don't have one here, but we'll
just leave it the way it is for now.
| | 01:02 | Now let's get some drums here
soloed up and have a listen.
| | 01:07 | So let's just solo all the drum tracks.
| | 01:13 | Quick listen to what it sounds like.
| | 01:16 | (Music playing)
| | 01:20 | I already have a Send in.
lLet's see what it sounds like.
| | 01:23 | (Music playing)
| | 01:29 | And usually we want to put a reverb also
on the toms. We don't need it on any of
| | 01:34 | the other drums. Sometimes on the hat,
occasionally, if the hat is in the front
| | 01:38 | of the mix, but most of the
time we want it on the tom.
| | 01:41 | So the easy way to do that is we'll
click and hold the Option key, we'll click
| | 01:45 | on the mouse and hold on Bus, and we'll move it
over to Floor Tom, let go and there is a copy.
| | 01:51 | We'll do that again on the
Tom 2. Once again on Tom 1.
| | 01:55 | So that's exact copy of the Send
coming over on all of Toms. Let's listen.
| | 01:59 | (Music playing)
| | 02:06 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 02:07 | (Music playing)
| | 02:21 | So that sounds pretty good
just the way it is right there.
| | 02:25 | Let's close that up and what
we'll do is add reverb number 2.
| | 02:30 | And once again, we'll go to our find
the D-Verb. This one we're going to set to
| | 02:37 | Plate and we're going to set
the Decay time to 1.8 seconds.
| | 02:42 | You can just highlight the
Decay window, type in 1.8.
| | 02:46 | We'll set the Pre-Delay to 20. Once
again, we click on the window, type in
| | 02:52 | 20, and there it is.
| | 02:53 | We have a low-pass filter or a
high cut filter, as we have here,
| | 02:57 | we're going to set it about 10K or even 8K.
| | 03:00 | In this case we're going
to set it to 8K or 8000.
| | 03:04 | If a high-pass filter was available,
we'd set that to about a 100, but since
| | 03:07 | it's not available here
we'll just go without it.
| | 03:12 | First thing we'll do is we'll listen on vocals.
| | 03:14 | So first thing we want is we want this
on Bus 13-14. If we take notice, this is
| | 03:21 | 13 or 14 here, and that's our long reverb,
the one that we just set to a Plate tone.
| | 03:27 | Now let's have a listen.
| | 03:29 | (Music playing)
| | 03:37 | That's pretty good huh?
| | 03:38 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 03:39 | (Music playing)
| | 03:53 | Let's try that in some
other instruments as well.
| | 03:56 | Let's listen on the guitars.
| | 03:57 | So let's go to electric guitar 1,
solo that up, have a listen.
| | 04:03 | (Music playing)
| | 04:05 | Now since these are bussed to a subgroup,
all we have to do is add one Send to the
| | 04:11 | subgroup, instead of having a
Send on each of the guitar tracks.
| | 04:15 | So we want to go to Bus 13.
| | 04:17 | Let's have a listen.
| | 04:19 | (Music playing)
| | 04:29 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 04:31 | (Music playing)
| | 04:49 | You can hear it's getting bigger sounding.
| | 04:51 | We'll do the same thing on the B3.
| | 04:53 | Once again, it's the high and low
B3 tracks that are bussed to the organ
| | 04:58 | subgroup, and let's just
type this inhere, Bus 13.
| | 05:04 | So let's have a quick listen.
| | 05:05 | (Music playing)
| | 05:18 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 05:19 | (Music playing)
| | 05:28 | So there you have it. The 2 reverb
quick setup will get you up and running
| | 05:32 | quickly and sound surprisingly good.
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| Using the three-reverb setup| 00:00 | In this video we'll look at how to use
3 reverbs in the mix to get a small, a
| | 00:04 | medium, and a large space.
| | 00:06 | I'll show you that by placing
instruments in different environments, we can give
| | 00:10 | the mix depth and interest.
| | 00:12 | So the first thing we're going to do is
add a reverb. We'll go and I'll get our
| | 00:16 | D-Verb that we've been using, and
this is going to be for our short reverb.
| | 00:21 | This will be a small space and we'll
call this a Room, and it will be set to
| | 00:26 | less than one second. In this
case I'm going to put it somewhere down
| | 00:30 | 500 milliseconds or so.
| | 00:31 | We're going to use this for percussion and
drums and maybe even guitars and keyboards.
| | 00:36 | The second one is going to be a medium
space and what we're going to do is add a
| | 00:41 | Reverb Effects returned.
| | 00:43 | So we'll come up to Track, we'll say
New, we'll say Stereo because it sounds
| | 00:48 | better in stereo, and we'll say Aux Input.
| | 00:51 | So there is our Aux Input that just came up.
| | 00:54 | Let's call this Rev Medium.
| | 00:57 | Let's again let's add a D-Verb.
| | 00:59 | I am using D-Verb because I think it
sounds better than all the other ones.
| | 01:02 | Now this one we're going to set to a plate.
We're going to set it between 1 and 2 seconds.
| | 01:07 | Now it's at 1.7; we'll set it at 1.8.
| | 01:10 | Once again, 20 milliseconds or so
sounds really good and what we would like to
| | 01:15 | do also is roll it off to about
10K. That always sounds really good.
| | 01:20 | There is our second one and our third
one is going to be a long reverb. This is
| | 01:25 | a large space. D-Verb up again.
| | 01:29 | Now we'll set this to more than 2
seconds, so we'll go to 2.5 in this case.
| | 01:35 | Once again, 20 milliseconds always sounds good.
| | 01:37 | If we were going to do this really the
right way in the mix, we would time the
| | 01:41 | decay and we time the pre-delay
to the track. This will work okay.
| | 01:45 | Let's cut it at 10K and we're all set.
| | 01:51 | The one thing we didn't do is set the
bus input for the medium reverb return
| | 01:56 | channel that we just
created, so let's do that now.
| | 02:00 | And since this was Bus 11 and 12, the
other one is 13 or 14, I don't know what
| | 02:05 | the other buses are.
| | 02:06 | I'm just going to say 23 and 24.
| | 02:09 | So now let's have a listen to what
these sound like and we'll start with the
| | 02:12 | drums. I'll start with our snare drum.
| | 02:14 | (Music playing)
| | 02:20 | The first thing we'll do is go to
Bus 11-12. That was our short reverb.
| | 02:25 | Let's have a listen what it sounds like.
| | 02:26 | (Music playing)
| | 02:43 | I don't know if that fits this song,
so let's actually set this now to the next bus.
| | 02:49 | Let's set it to 13 and 14.
This is to the medium reverb.
| | 02:52 | (Music playing)
| | 03:04 | That seems to fit the track a lot better. Let's listen.
| | 03:07 | (Music playing)
| | 03:22 | That sounds pretty good.
| | 03:23 | Let's go to the vocal.
| | 03:26 | Vocal is always the most important
thing, and once again we'll try the
| | 03:31 | three different reverbs.
| | 03:32 | Let's set it to 11-12 which is the short one.
| | 03:35 | Let's hear what it sounds like.
| | 03:36 | (Music playing)
| | 03:48 | Again, this is only a half a second,
so it doesn't take much to actually put
| | 03:53 | the singer into a room.
| | 03:54 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 03:55 | (Music playing)
| | 04:08 | You can hear it. It makes a really big
difference, so we're going to keep it there.
| | 04:12 | Let's go to the strings.
| | 04:13 | Strings are interesting because they
usually sound really good when they have
| | 04:18 | a long reverb on them, and in this case we
have a nice long reverb on our reverb number 3.
| | 04:24 | So let's have a listen. Solo it up.
| | 04:27 | (Music playing)
| | 04:32 | Okay, now let's listen to the
strings, and usually they benefit from a
| | 04:36 | really long reverb.
| | 04:38 | So the first thing we're going to do
is we're going to set our bus to 13 or 14,
| | 04:43 | which happens to be the really long reverb.
| | 04:46 | Solo it up first and listen
without the reverb at all.
| | 04:50 | (Music playing)
| | 04:57 | Pretty bland.
| | 04:58 | Let's listen to the reverb added now.
| | 05:01 | (Music playing)
| | 05:17 | Let's go back and forth.
| | 05:18 | We'll go between the
muted reverb and the reverb.
| | 05:23 | (Music playing)
| | 05:30 | Let's listen in the track now.
| | 05:31 | (Music playing)
| | 05:48 | Now let's add a couple more
reverbs here to some other instruments.
| | 05:53 | (Music playing)
| | 06:02 | Okay, let's add a reverb to the electric piano.
| | 06:04 | Let's listen to it by itself now.
| | 06:07 | Here is the electric piano.
| | 06:09 | (Music playing)
| | 06:16 | Let's add some of the medium reverb
and see what it sounds like. So we know
| | 06:20 | that it's on Bus 23-24.
| | 06:22 | Let's have a quick listen.
| | 06:23 | (Music playing)
| | 06:34 | Let's have a quick listen in the mix now.
| | 06:37 | (Music playing)
| | 06:50 | Now let's go back and just mute the
reverbs quickly and have a listen to what it
| | 06:54 | sounds before and after.
| | 06:55 | Now keep in mind that all of the
instruments don't have reverb on them and they
| | 06:59 | don't normally would, but you
can get the idea just from this.
| | 07:02 | (Music playing)
| | 07:17 | So by using three different reverbs
we can artificially simulate a small, a
| | 07:22 | medium, and a large environment,
and that will help us better layer the
| | 07:25 | tracks in the mix.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
12. Adding ReverbAdding reverb to the drums| 00:00 | The drum kit is interesting and
different from the other instruments in the
| | 00:03 | mix in that it may use several
different reverbs in order to layer it
| | 00:06 | correctly in the track.
| | 00:08 | In this video, I'll show you how
reverb can make your drum sound come alive.
| | 00:11 | One of the things to keep in mind is
that the reverb on the drums usually comes
| | 00:15 | from the snare more than anything else.
| | 00:18 | Matter of fact, the kick drum
is usually left completely dry.
| | 00:21 | Sometimes the cymbals and the hi-hat
and the toms even have a different reverb
| | 00:26 | from that of the snare.
| | 00:27 | On the other hand, a single reverb may be
just enough to make the kit sound great.
| | 00:32 | So let's start with our snare drum.
| | 00:33 | Let's have a listen.
| | 00:34 | (Music playing)
| | 00:37 | This is the send going to
Reverb number 1 and we'll solo it.
| | 00:43 | (Music playing)
| | 00:53 | Now we have our D-Verb and first thing
we want to do is time it to the track.
| | 00:57 | So what we're going to do
is put a room sound on it.
| | 01:00 | And I'd like to start somewhere around
1.5 because it usually sounds good in
| | 01:05 | there, but let's tweak it
so it fits best in the track.
| | 01:07 | (Music playing)
| | 01:19 | The way we time it to the track is when
the snare drum hits the reverb should
| | 01:24 | just about die out by the next time it hits.
| | 01:27 | If it spills over, then
the track tends to get muddy.
| | 01:30 | So if we make a mistake, we'd rather make it
on the shorter side rather than the longer side.
| | 01:35 | Next thing we'll do is we'll add some pre-delay.
| | 01:37 | Now what we want to do
is time this to the track.
| | 01:40 | I happen to know that
this track is at 104 BPM.
| | 01:43 | So that means that 72
milliseconds is equivalent of a 16th note.
| | 01:47 | Let's put it at 72 milliseconds.
| | 01:49 | That's going to be too
long but you'll get an idea.
| | 01:51 | We'll just click in the box, hit 72.
| | 01:53 | Let's have a listen.
| | 01:56 | (Music playing)
| | 01:59 | That's way too long.
| | 02:00 | Let's cut that in half to 36 milliseconds.
| | 02:03 | (Music playing)
| | 02:10 | It sounds pretty good there.
| | 02:12 | Take note if we turn it to 0 what it sounds like.
| | 02:14 | (Music playing)
| | 02:18 | And at 36.
| | 02:19 | (Music playing)
| | 02:23 | We can even cut that in half again,
to 18, and have a listen to what that sounds like.
| | 02:29 | (Music playing)
| | 02:35 | Even that sounds good.
| | 02:36 | So we'll leave it at that.
| | 02:37 | Let's hear what it sounds like in the track.
| | 02:38 | (Music playing)
| | 02:51 | You can hear that it
makes the drum sound bigger.
| | 02:54 | The next thing we want to do is
tweak the sound of the reverb.
| | 02:59 | So what we're going to do
is add our 4-Band reverb.
| | 03:03 | We're going to disable all of the EQ
bands and we're going to set the High-Pass
| | 03:13 | filter to 120 and Low-Pass filter
we'll set that to 10K or thereabouts.
| | 03:22 | Now let's have a listen.
| | 03:23 | (Music playing)
| | 03:32 | Let's listen with the EQ bypassed.
| | 03:34 | (Music playing)
| | 03:46 | So it fits a little bit better in the
track when the reverb is tailored by using some EQ.
| | 03:51 | Now let's listen when we actually
add reverb to the rest of the drums.
| | 03:55 | First thing we're going to
do is add it onto the toms.
| | 04:00 | So the easiest way to do that, press
the Option key, press and click the mouse,
| | 04:05 | and drag it over to Floor Tom, let
them both go, and there you have a copy.
| | 04:09 | One more time, on the Tom 2,
one more time to Tom 1.
| | 04:14 | What that does is it gives you a
copy with the same exact settings.
| | 04:19 | So it's a real fast and easy way to do that. And
let's solo all the drums, have a quick listen.
| | 04:26 | (Music playing)
| | 04:36 | Let's go to a part in the
song where we can hear the drums.
| | 04:40 | (Music playing)
| | 04:44 | Now let's listen with the rest of the
track now that we have some reverb on the toms as well.
| | 04:49 | (Music playing)
| | 04:55 | Now sometimes what we might want
to do is add a different reverb.
| | 04:59 | So let's go over here. We
have another D-Verb here.
| | 05:02 | And we can leave this on a Hall
and let's just bring this down to
| | 05:08 | somewhere around 2 seconds.
| | 05:10 | Let's make this a bigger Pre-Delay.
| | 05:12 | Let's put this back at 36 milliseconds
because we're timing it to the track, and
| | 05:17 | let's have a quick listen.
| | 05:19 | (Music playing)
| | 05:23 | We'll have to assign it first.
| | 05:24 | So now what we're going to
do is solo everything up.
| | 05:28 | Now let's change the send to Bus 13
and 14 which is the longer reverb, 13 and
| | 05:39 | 14, and Bus 13 and 14.
| | 05:41 | Now let's have a listen.
| | 05:43 | (Music playing)
| | 05:49 | Let's just listen to the toms themselves.
| | 05:51 | (Music playing)
| | 05:55 | A little bit more.
| | 05:56 | (Music playing)
| | 06:09 | Let's listen in the track now.
| | 06:10 | (Music playing)
| | 06:17 | Now you can hear that the toms have
their own different sound and they're in
| | 06:21 | a different environment with a different
pre-delay, so they're a little bit bigger.
| | 06:25 | Sometimes it works in the track, sometimes
it doesn't, but this is the best way to do it.
| | 06:29 | Now finally, let's listen to our hi-hat
and sometimes we'll want some reverb on it.
| | 06:34 | We want to put it in space
and other times we won't.
| | 06:36 | Let's have a quick
listen to what it sounds like.
| | 06:38 | First of all let me put this Let's go here.
| | 06:43 | (Music playing)
| | 06:50 | So let's put this out to the first reverb.
| | 06:54 | This is our short reverb.
| | 06:55 | Let's have a listen.
| | 06:57 | (Music playing)
| | 07:05 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 07:05 | (Music playing)
| | 07:16 | Now if we have a drummer or an
arrangement that has a very intricate hi-hat
| | 07:20 | part that's featured, sometimes we really
want to have that in its own individual space.
| | 07:27 | In this particular case, it doesn't
matter all that much because the hi-hat
| | 07:30 | really isn't featured and it's just keeping
time, so we don't hear that much of a difference.
| | 07:35 | But that's what you do if in fact you
wanted to have multiple layers just within
| | 07:39 | the drums themselves.
| | 07:41 | So to sum it up, reverb on the snare
and toms are usually all you need to place
| | 07:45 | the drum kit in its own environment.
| | 07:47 | But they might need to be
different-sounding reverbs.
| | 07:49 | Make sure that the reverb is timed to
the track and experiment with different EQ
| | 07:52 | and pre-delay settings to tailor
the reverb sound to the drum kit.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding reverb to the vocals| 00:00 | Since the lead vocal is usually the
focal point of a song, reverb setting is
| | 00:04 | critical because of how it
can make the vocal sound.
| | 00:06 | Pick the right one and it'll add the
extra professional sounding sheen that
| | 00:10 | all hit records have.
| | 00:11 | Pick the wrong one and it'll sound
washed out and lost in the track.
| | 00:15 | In this video, I'll show you how to
get the best reverb sound for your vocal.
| | 00:19 | Many times the lead vocal has a lot
more reverb on it than it seems, but it's
| | 00:23 | disguised by the way it's tailored in
that it uses a high-pass filter and a
| | 00:28 | low-pass filter and maybe
even some additional reverb
| | 00:31 | so it fits better in the mix.
| | 00:32 | Other times it's really important that
we hear the reverb and every effort is
| | 00:36 | made to maintain or even equalizes its
high-frequency response just so we can
| | 00:39 | hear it and it sticks out.
| | 00:41 | Bells that have a long period of
space in between vocal lines will usually
| | 00:44 | benefit from a longer reverb
decay that's obvious in the mix.
| | 00:48 | So let's have a listen to the lead vocal here
and see what we can do in terms of some reverb.
| | 00:53 | Let's listen to it just by itself.
| | 00:55 | (Music playing)
| | 01:03 | So now what we're going to do is we're
going to assign this to our second reverb.
| | 01:08 | The first one is pretty much for the drums,
so I'll go to the second one on Bus 13 and 14.
| | 01:15 | Let's bring up the Reverb
settings and have a look at it.
| | 01:20 | This is set to a large plate, which has a
Decay time of about 1.8 seconds. Let's listen.
| | 01:25 | (Music playing)
| | 01:34 | That sounds pretty good.
| | 01:35 | Now 1.8 seconds is actually timed to the track.
| | 01:38 | We timed it with our snare drum and if
you don't know how to do that, go back
| | 01:41 | and look at the movie on
timing your reverb to the track.
| | 01:45 | So now the next thing we want
to do is add some pre-delay.
| | 01:48 | Now we know that this song
is at a 104 beats per minute.
| | 01:53 | And again, if we go back to the movie
about timing our reverb to the track, we
| | 01:56 | can figure out from the formula that it
comes out to about 72 milliseconds for a
| | 02:01 | 16th note Pre-Delay.
| | 02:03 | So let's hit that tp 72 milliseconds.
| | 02:06 | Let's have a listen now.
| | 02:08 | (Music playing)
| | 02:16 | Now with no Pre-Delay.
| | 02:17 | (Music playing)
| | 02:25 | It sounds a lot better, doesn't it?
| | 02:27 | The Pre-Delay adds some space in
between the attack of the vocal and then the
| | 02:31 | attack of the reverb.
| | 02:33 | If the attacks are both on top of one
another, they tend to blur together.
| | 02:37 | In this way the Pre-Delay actually
makes them both distinct, so it sounds a lot
| | 02:41 | bigger and it keeps them
out of each other's way.
| | 02:44 | Let's listen in the track now.
| | 02:45 | (Music playing)
| | 03:01 | Now let me mute that and then I'll play
with the reverb so we can hear both of them.
| | 03:05 | (Music playing)
| | 03:14 | You can hear it adds an awful lot.
| | 03:15 | Now what we might want to try to
do is actually cut this in half.
| | 03:19 | From 72 milliseconds, we'll cut it down to 36.
| | 03:24 | Have a listen to what that
sounds like. Let's solo it up.
| | 03:26 | (Music playing)
| | 03:31 | It sounds pretty good.
| | 03:33 | It's less distinct and that might work
better in the track. So let's listen.
| | 03:36 | (Music playing)
| | 03:45 | It sounds really good.
| | 03:46 | Now you can see that the Pre-Delay is
really important and it's something that
| | 03:50 | if we time it to the track,
it especially works very well.
| | 03:54 | We're going to go one more step and
we're going to add an EQ in front of the
| | 03:58 | reverb in the signal chain.
| | 04:00 | So let's bring up our friendly 4-Band EQ.
| | 04:04 | But now what we're going to do is we're
going to dip right in the presence range
| | 04:12 | of where the vocal is.
| | 04:13 | Now what this will do is it will keep
those frequencies out of the way of the
| | 04:18 | vocal and it will
actually open up a lot of space.
| | 04:21 | Let's solo up the track, have a listen.
| | 04:23 | (Music playing)
| | 04:38 | Now let's listen in the track.
| | 04:40 | (Music playing)
| | 04:52 | Now usually at somewhere between 2 and 5K,
it's in the presence region of the vocal.
| | 04:57 | And if we attenuate those frequencies
just a little bit, and again, there's no
| | 05:02 | set amount to do this, this is pretty
much by ear, but you'll find that the
| | 05:06 | reverb will fit a lot better.
| | 05:08 | We can go another step here though.
| | 05:10 | Let's add our high-pass filter
and we'll cut this off at about 200.
| | 05:17 | Now again, 100 to 200,
even 500, works really well.
| | 05:21 | The famous Abbey Road reverbs use 600.
| | 05:23 | So actually, let's go to 600
just so we can hear what it's like.
| | 05:29 | I can do this easily. I can just type it in, 600.
| | 05:32 | Let's have a listen now.
| | 05:33 | (Music playing)
| | 05:42 | Now you can hear how thick it is when
the EQ is bypassed and how it fits into
| | 05:47 | the track and sounds so much
more natural when EQ is in.
| | 05:49 | (Music playing)
| | 05:58 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 06:00 | (Music playing)
| | 06:08 | Let's go back and listen with the EQ
bypassed and then I'll put the EQ in
| | 06:11 | as we're listening.
| | 06:12 | (Music playing)
| | 06:22 | This is why many hit records have
a lot more reverb than you think.
| | 06:26 | The reverb is actually tailored
frequency-wise so it fits better in the track and
| | 06:30 | this is a real secret.
| | 06:31 | Another thing that we might do is
put another high-pass filter in.
| | 06:35 | We can't do it on this particular EQ
because we have limited resources, but if
| | 06:41 | we could, we would also roll off the top
end to about 10K and that would help as well.
| | 06:46 | So all those things help to
make it fit better in the track.
| | 06:50 | If we look at background vocals,
we'll have a slightly different approach.
| | 06:52 | Let's have a quick listen.
| | 06:54 | (Music playing)
| | 06:59 | I'm going to go to a different place
in the song for the background vocals.
| | 07:02 | I'm going to hit Command+5 and
it brings up our Memory Locations.
| | 07:06 | I'm going to hit this particular chorus here.
| | 07:08 | Let's get rid of the Memory Locations
again and have a listen to the background
| | 07:13 | vocals against the lead vocal.
| | 07:14 | (Music playing)
| | 07:28 | Now background vocals sometimes are
just put into a space and pushed back
| | 07:31 | farther in the mix on the lead vocal.
| | 07:33 | But sometimes they're made bigger than
life thanks to a really short reverb and
| | 07:38 | that's somewhere less than
about half a second or so.
| | 07:41 | If the background vocals are singing
harmony with the lead vocals, sometimes
| | 07:44 | they need to have the same
reverb as the lead vocal.
| | 07:47 | But most of the time, you want to
have them distinguished differently, so a
| | 07:50 | different reverb actually works better.
| | 07:52 | Let's solo these up and have a quick listen.
| | 07:54 | (Music playing)
| | 08:03 | Now what I'm going to do is add another
reverb just for the background vocals.
| | 08:08 | So let's add one more.
| | 08:10 | We're going to add an Aux Input and we're going
to drag it over with our other reverbs. Here we go!
| | 08:19 | Let's add another D-Verb.
| | 08:22 | I'm using the D-Verb because I think
it's the smoothest sounding reverb of the
| | 08:26 | ones that are included
in the Pro Tools software.
| | 08:29 | So the first thing we're going to do is
let's say we'll put this in a room. I'll
| | 08:34 | put it in a Large room.
| | 08:36 | And since we know that 1.8
seconds work good on the other reverb,
| | 08:40 | let's make it 1.8 over here.
| | 08:42 | And 72 milliseconds might work really
good, and again we're timing it to the
| | 08:47 | track and we want the reverb
to sound somewhat different.
| | 08:50 | Let's see what happens.
| | 08:52 | So again this is a brand-new aux track.
| | 08:56 | We're going to call this Rev BG for
background vocals and we're going to put
| | 09:03 | this input on a different bus.
| | 09:05 | We can see here the ones
in yellow are already used.
| | 09:08 | So 19 and 20 isn't used.
| | 09:11 | That'll be our input to the new reverb.
| | 09:14 | We'll come up here and we'll add a
send and 19 and 20 is what we need.
| | 09:20 | Let's have a listen now.
| | 09:21 | (Music playing)
| | 09:26 | Now one thing we have to do
is come over here and solo it.
| | 09:29 | Also, we want to hear it.
| | 09:30 | (Music playing)
| | 09:34 | Now there is a trick that we can do over here.
| | 09:37 | We can put it into something called Solo Safe.
| | 09:39 | And the way we do that is Command and
then hit the Solo button, and now what
| | 09:44 | happens is no matter what other solo is
engaged on any other channel, this solo
| | 09:50 | will always be on on the reverb
background channel that has a Solo Safe on it.
| | 09:55 | And that's usually what we
do with effects channels.
| | 09:58 | We put them in Solo Safe so we don't
have to worry about always soloing one
| | 10:02 | channel and having to go back to solo the
reverb channel just to hear what it sounds like.
| | 10:06 | It's a quick shortcut.
| | 10:08 | (Music playing)
| | 10:17 | Now that might work.
| | 10:18 | Now take notice there is a lot more
reverb but we're putting it in a different
| | 10:21 | space than the other vocal and
then also the other instruments.
| | 10:25 | Let's listen what it sounds like in the track.
| | 10:27 | (Music playing)
| | 10:44 | One more time, let me mute it and
then I'll unmute it just so you can hear the difference.
| | 10:48 | (Music playing)
| | 10:58 | So you can hear the background vocals
are in a different space and there is a
| | 11:03 | fair amount of reverb on there, so
they are pushed back more in the mix.
| | 11:06 | Now if I wanted to tailor the reverb
like I did on the lead vocal, what I would
| | 11:10 | do is add an EQ and then I would notch
it in the presence frequencies, 2-5K, and
| | 11:16 | then add high- and low-pass filter,
and once again that would make it blend a
| | 11:20 | little bit better in the track.
| | 11:22 | But that's how you do it.
| | 11:23 | So that's how we add reverb to a vocal.
| | 11:26 | Many times a lead vocal has a lot
more reverb on it than it seems, but it's
| | 11:29 | disguised by the way its bandwidth
is tailored by a high-pass filter and a
| | 11:32 | low-pass filter and maybe an EQ.
| | 11:35 | Other times it's important to hear
the vocal and every effort is made to
| | 11:38 | maintain or even equalize
its high-frequency response.
| | 11:41 | Background vocals sometimes are just
put in the space, pushed back in the mix
| | 11:45 | from the lead vocal, or even
made it bigger than life,
| | 11:47 | thanks to a very, very
short, like a 0.5-second, reverb.
| | 11:51 | Remember you're usually trying to
put the vocals in the space, not push
| | 11:55 | them back in the mix, which is the
opposite of what you're trying to do with
| | 11:57 | the background vocals.
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| Adding reverb to the guitars| 00:00 | While guitars are percussive by
nature they also have a sustaining quality.
| | 00:04 | That means that a variety of different
reverb settings can work depending upon
| | 00:07 | the guitar's place in the arrangement.
| | 00:09 | In this movie, I'm going to show you
some different tricks that you can use to
| | 00:12 | make the guitar sound larger-than-life.
| | 00:14 | So the first thing we're going to
do is we're going to listen to these
| | 00:17 | guitars in the track.
| | 00:18 | There is two of them. One is panned
left, the other one is panned right.
| | 00:21 | (Music playing)
| | 00:35 | We can work on the first one,
Guitar 1 that's on the left.
| | 00:39 | We'll solo that up and have a quick listen.
| | 00:41 | (Music playing)
| | 00:49 | So I already have a reverb all set for
this guitar and it's called Guitar Verb
| | 00:54 | and it's on bus 21-22.
| | 00:57 | So what we'll do is we'll
go to bus 21-22 with send.
| | 01:02 | Now let's bring it up and hear what happens.
| | 01:04 | (Music playing)
| | 01:24 | Now what we didn't do is tailor the
sound of the reverb, but also let's take a
| | 01:28 | quick look what it is.
| | 01:30 | This is just the default settings
of the reverb. We're in a large hall.
| | 01:35 | We probably don't want that.
| | 01:37 | So what we're going to do is just come
down to Plate and we know from the other
| | 01:41 | settings that the time to the
track we want about 1.8 seconds.
| | 01:46 | The other thing that we know is this
track is at 104 BPM which comes out to
| | 01:50 | about 72 milliseconds of a pre-delay.
| | 01:52 | Now again, you should look at the movie
that shows you how to time the delay to
| | 01:57 | a track and that will show you
how we get the 72 milliseconds.
| | 02:01 | Let's start there. 72 milliseconds.
| | 02:03 | Here the thing we're going to do right
off is use the High Cut filter and bring
| | 02:09 | it down to 10K or thereabouts.
| | 02:12 | Let's have a listen now.
| | 02:13 | (Music playing)
| | 02:22 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 02:24 | (Music playing)
| | 02:40 | Now the other way we can go with this
is to have a very, very short decay time
| | 02:45 | and what we're going to do is bring
this down to about half of what this is.
| | 02:50 | So this is 1.8 seconds.
| | 02:51 | Let's bring it down to 0.9 seconds.
| | 02:54 | Have a listen to what it sounds like now.
| | 02:56 | (Music playing)
| | 03:05 | See it's making it bigger than
pushing it further back in the mix.
| | 03:09 | Let's cut it down even more and
actually what we're going to do is cut the 72
| | 03:14 | milliseconds in half as well.
| | 03:16 | What we're always trying to do is cut
everything in half. We're doubling it.
| | 03:20 | (Music playing)
| | 03:29 | Now see it just sounds bigger
rather than pushing it back in the track. Let's listen.
| | 03:34 | (Music playing)
| | 03:42 | Let's listen in the track now.
| | 03:44 | (Music playing)
| | 03:59 | Now another trick is we can
even take it down even more.
| | 04:02 | So let's take this down to 450
milliseconds and let's take the Pre-Delay down to
| | 04:11 | 18 milliseconds, again cutting it in half.
| | 04:13 | Now let's solo it and have a listen.
| | 04:15 | (Music playing)
| | 04:27 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 04:28 | (Music playing)
| | 04:43 | This is a trick that we can use on
guitars to make them sound bigger, and again
| | 04:48 | we're not trying to push it back in the mix.
| | 04:50 | Usually a lot of reverb is
really good to make it sound bigger.
| | 04:55 | We find this a lot on lead guitar solos
because it's a way to make it sound
| | 04:58 | bigger without washing it out.
| | 04:59 | So there you have it.
| | 05:01 | An electric guitar playing power
chords can sound great with the long reverb
| | 05:04 | decay and certain types of guitar mix
elements sound even better with a very
| | 05:08 | short but loud room reverb.
| | 05:10 | Don't forget to try different pre-
delay settings since that can make a big
| | 05:13 | difference in how distinct the
guitar and the reverb sounds.
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| Adding reverb to the piano| 00:00 | Since there is such a wide variety
of keyboard, they each demand their own
| | 00:03 | approach to adding reverb.
| | 00:05 | In this video we'll look at some of the
techniques for adding reverb to a grand piano track.
| | 00:10 | Since a piano is so percussive, reverbs
that are timed to the track usually fit
| | 00:13 | better than reverbs that are not.
| | 00:15 | The exception is a solo piano or a
classical situation where you are more
| | 00:19 | concerned about putting the piano in
an environment or enhancing any ambience
| | 00:23 | that's already there.
| | 00:24 | So the first thing we're going to do
is listen to this piano and it is a solo
| | 00:29 | piano which is a special case.
| | 00:31 | But that's okay because it'll give us
chance to listen to what happens with the
| | 00:35 | piano just on its own.
| | 00:36 | Let's listen by itself.
| | 00:38 | (Music playing)
| | 00:45 | So I have a De-Verb, which is one of the
native reverb plug-ins in Pro Tools, and
| | 00:52 | I have it set to a small room and if
you take notice there is the Decay of 500
| | 00:56 | milliseconds and this is
a very, very small room.
| | 01:00 | Have a listen to what happens when we add it.
| | 01:02 | (Music playing)
| | 01:16 | Now what happens with a small room or
a small reverb in general is that it's
| | 01:22 | really good for making something bigger,
but it doesn't necessarily put it in an
| | 01:26 | environment. Especially a piano that
soloed on its own, it really likes a lot more
| | 01:32 | reverb and a much bigger space.
| | 01:34 | So even if we set it to a large area
which is about a second, have a listen to
| | 01:38 | what it sounds like.
| | 01:39 | (Music playing)
| | 01:47 | It's still not as big as what we'd like.
| | 01:49 | So now let's move up to a plate.
| | 01:52 | We're going to put this
generously 2.3 seconds. Have a listen.
| | 01:56 | (Music playing)
| | 02:08 | Now this helps a lot, but let me
show you another thing that really helps it out.
| | 02:12 | Here's a Pre-Delay.
| | 02:13 | If we bring this out to 20
milliseconds let's say, have a listen to what
| | 02:17 | it sounds like now.
| | 02:18 | (Music playing)
| | 02:30 | Not only is it bigger, but
there's more of an environment there.
| | 02:33 | But really a solo piano
likes a much bigger space.
| | 02:37 | Let's go to our Hall and have a listen.
| | 02:39 | (Music playing)
| | 02:48 | It sounds pretty good.
| | 02:51 | Let's add a little bit of
Pre-Delay and have a listen.
| | 02:53 | (Music playing)
| | 03:09 | You can hear as we mute the reverb how
much bigger it sounds with it and how
| | 03:13 | much the Pre-Delay actually helps.
| | 03:15 | We can actually double this.
| | 03:17 | Let's bring this out to more the 50
milliseconds and have a listen what happens.
| | 03:20 | (Music playing)
| | 03:40 | Now the beauty of the Pre-Delay is it
actually makes the reverb more prominent
| | 03:45 | without getting in the way.
| | 03:47 | The reason for that is the fact that
you hear the attack of the piano and then
| | 03:52 | there's a slight delay and then you hear
the reverb and you hear them separately.
| | 03:56 | Without the Pre-Delay they're both on
top of one another and they're sort of
| | 03:59 | blend together, which isn't
exactly what we want all the time.
| | 04:03 | So that's a few concepts to think
about when adding reverb to a piano.
| | 04:06 | Reverbs that are timed to the track
usually work better than reverbs that are
| | 04:09 | not because the piano is so percussive.
| | 04:12 | The exception is a solo piano or
classical situation where you're more concerned
| | 04:16 | about placing the piano in an ambient space.
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| Adding reverb to the organ| 00:00 | Since there is such a wide variety of
different sounding keyboards, they each
| | 00:03 | demand their own approach to adding
reverb. Because an organ places more
| | 00:06 | sustaining notes, the approach to adding
reverb to it is different than any other keyboard.
| | 00:11 | Let me show you how.
| | 00:12 | While an organ might sound pretty
good with the timed reverb, but it's not
| | 00:15 | always essential and the reason for that is
it's playing some long sustaining notes.
| | 00:20 | So you won't necessarily
hear if it's timed or not.
| | 00:23 | Usually you don't try to make
an organ sound larger-than-life.
| | 00:27 | So simply putting it in an
artificial space works well.
| | 00:30 | Let's have a listen to the
Hammond B3 on this track.
| | 00:33 | Let's solo it up and listen.
| | 00:34 | (Music playing)
| | 00:39 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 00:41 | (Music playing)
| | 00:49 | Let's listen to it by itself.
| | 00:50 | (Music playing)
| | 00:55 | It sounds good, but it can sound
better with little bit of reverb.
| | 00:58 | I've already placed an effects bus in
the organ subgroup and this is sending
| | 01:03 | to our long reverb.
| | 01:05 | So let's just have a
listen to what this sounds like.
| | 01:08 | (Music playing)
| | 01:18 | Let's listen in the track now.
| | 01:19 | (Music playing)
| | 01:33 | You can hear it adds some sheen to it.
| | 01:35 | It puts it in its own environment.
Before without reverb it sounded kind of dull
| | 01:41 | and now it sounds a bit more exciting
and that's what we're trying to do with
| | 01:43 | reverb, where we are trying to make
things sound more exciting or we're trying to
| | 01:46 | make them sound bigger than life or just
trying to make them sound plain bigger.
| | 01:51 | Let's experiment a little bit.
| | 01:52 | Let's go over and look at the reverb
and if we play with it a little bit,
| | 01:56 | let's see what happens.
| | 01:56 | Now this reverb right here, this is
same one that the vocal is using I think.
| | 02:03 | Let's just have a listen, if we'd
changed the parameters little bit.
| | 02:06 | Let's solo up the B3 and have a quick listen.
| | 02:09 | (Music playing)
| | 02:14 | Let hear what happens if we
shorten that the decay time.
| | 02:17 | We'll make it really short.
| | 02:19 | Let's make it at about...
| | 02:22 | (Music playing)
| | 02:31 | Now this could work sometimes in
certain tracks and other times it won't.
| | 02:35 | What a very short reverb does is it
makes them bigger rather than put it in
| | 02:39 | the environment, because the environment is so
small that you don't hear it as an environment.
| | 02:43 | You just hear it as sounding bigger.
| | 02:45 | Let unsolo it and listen in the track.
| | 02:46 | (Music playing)
| | 03:00 | You can hear a little bit of a
difference, but not as much as when we had it
| | 03:03 | at the longer setting.
| | 03:04 | Let's go back and set it at 1.8
seconds like we had it before. Now listen.
| | 03:09 | (Music playing)
| | 03:29 | There is a big difference there.
| | 03:31 | The reverb really helps.
| | 03:32 | So there you have it. Because an organ
plays more long sustaining notes, timing
| | 03:36 | the reverb to the track isn't essential
and putting an artificial space around
| | 03:39 | it is more important than trying
to make it sound larger-than-life.
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| Adding reverb to the strings| 00:00 | Whether it's real or artificial
strings they always sound better with reverb.
| | 00:04 | In this video I'm going to show you how
to enhance those strings by adding just
| | 00:07 | the right kind of reverb to make them sing.
| | 00:09 | String sound best when we place them
in a medium to large artificial hall,
| | 00:12 | because that's how we're used to hearing them.
| | 00:14 | Usually, this means a Hall or Church
setting if the reverb unit of the plug-in
| | 00:18 | has one, with a decay
time of two or more seconds.
| | 00:22 | Let's have a listen.
| | 00:23 | So here are the strings by themselves.
| | 00:25 | (Music playing)
| | 00:33 | There are three reverbs here.
| | 00:34 | We are going to the Rev Long.
| | 00:36 | So let's set a bus here and
a Rev Long on Bus 13 and 14.
| | 00:42 | Let's listen what it sounds like.
| | 00:43 | (Music playing)
| | 00:55 | It sounds a lot better.
| | 00:57 | Let's see if we can tweak this a little bit.
| | 00:59 | So let's go to a Church
setting to hear what it sounds like.
| | 01:03 | (Music playing)
| | 01:14 | That's a really long
decay time of 8.7 seconds.
| | 01:17 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 01:19 | (Music playing)
| | 01:28 | It's a little muddy and that's
because of that decay being so long.
| | 01:33 | So if we back this off
to 4 seconds or something.
| | 01:36 | Let's have a listen.
| | 01:37 | (Music playing)
| | 01:46 | That's about 4.9 seconds.
| | 01:47 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 01:48 | (Music playing)
| | 02:03 | Now let's go back to our Hall setting
here and let's put this at about 4 seconds
| | 02:09 | or so, because usually a nice long the
decayed time really befits the strings.
| | 02:14 | They like it a lot better
than the short to decay time.
| | 02:17 | Let's listen to a short decay time
first. Let's go to 700 milliseconds,
| | 02:23 | slightly under a second, have a
listen to what it sounds like.
| | 02:25 | (Music playing)
| | 02:38 | So this illustrates a good point.
| | 02:40 | Short decay times usually make
something sound bigger and in this case that
| | 02:44 | happens, but it doesn't give us
the wash that we're looking for.
| | 02:47 | Now if we bring it back to a second-and-a-
half, which is what we generally used for drums.
| | 02:52 | Let's have a listen.
| | 02:53 | (Music playing)
| | 03:06 | Pretty good! But if we bring it back to about 4,
you'll find that it'll sound all that much better.
| | 03:12 | (Music playing)
| | 03:23 | And we could even bring it out
more and this depends on the track.
| | 03:26 | Now sometimes you can get away with
more and sometimes it will be too much.
| | 03:30 | (Music playing)
| | 03:37 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 03:38 | (Music playing)
| | 03:53 | Okay, next thing we're
going to look at is Pre-Delay.
| | 03:57 | Sometimes adding between 10 and 20
milliseconds allows the attack of the strings
| | 04:01 | to be more noticeable.
| | 04:03 | Longer pre-delays usually don't
suit an instrument that's used as a pad
| | 04:06 | element in the mix, which
is what the strings are.
| | 04:09 | So let's bring this out to about 20
milliseconds and have a listen now. Solo it up.
| | 04:14 | (Music playing)
| | 04:21 | Now without it.
| | 04:22 | (Music playing)
| | 04:29 | The pre-delay makes it sound that
much bigger and a little more distinct,
| | 04:33 | because what happens is you can hear the
attack of the strings then you hear the
| | 04:37 | reverb rather than both at the same time.
| | 04:40 | So it keeps the mix from getting muddy.
| | 04:42 | Let's listen one more time.
| | 04:43 | (Music playing)
| | 04:49 | Now let's listen in the track.
| | 04:50 | (Music playing)
| | 05:04 | You can hear when I muted the reverb
on the strings how dull they sounded.
| | 05:09 | They sounded much more realistic
even though it's an artificial string
| | 05:12 | patch on the synth. It sounded so much more
real when we had the big reverb wash on it.
| | 05:17 | So to sum things up, string sounds
best when we place them in a medium to a
| | 05:21 | large artificial hall, because
that's how we're used to hearing them.
| | 05:24 | This means a hall or a church setting
with a decay time of 2 seconds or more.
| | 05:28 | Because of the long sustaining quality
of the sound of the string section, the
| | 05:32 | decay time is far less important
than it is with other instruments.
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| Adding reverb to the horns| 00:00 | Whether it's brass or woodwinds, solo
instrument or a section, all horns sound
| | 00:04 | better when placed in some
sort of acoustic environment.
| | 00:07 | In this video, I am going to show you
the best way to add reverb to this sax track.
| | 00:10 | So we are used to hearing a horn or a
horn section, whether it's a brass or
| | 00:14 | woodwind, in some sort of a space and
that's why reverb always sounds a little
| | 00:17 | bit better than any other
effects when it comes to horns.
| | 00:20 | The other thing it will do, it will
push the horn further back in the mix and
| | 00:24 | sometimes that's what you want.
| | 00:25 | You want it to sound like it's
farther back rather than in the front.
| | 00:28 | So let's have a quick listen to what
this sax sounds like, just by itself.
| | 00:33 | (Music playing)
| | 00:40 | Let's add a little bit of a standard
reverb with just the default settings on it.
| | 00:45 | (Music playing)
| | 00:51 | That's a little long.
| | 00:53 | Let's make it a medium hall,
bring that down at 3.4 seconds.
| | 00:58 | (Music playing)
| | 01:04 | And the next thing we can do is add pre-delay.
| | 01:06 | That was playing at a 160 beats per
minute and that comes up to 92 millseconds for
| | 01:11 | pre-delay, so let's type that in
and will listen to what happened.
| | 01:15 | (Music playing)
| | 01:27 | And what happens is we hear the
reverb after the horn. So in other words, it
| | 01:32 | sounds a little bit bigger and also stays
out of the way of the original horn sound.
| | 01:37 | Now let's compare them both.
| | 01:38 | (Music playing)
| | 01:48 | You can hear the pre-delay
sounds a lot more interesting.
| | 01:52 | (Music playing)
| | 01:56 | Now if we want we can cut this in half,
so let's go to 46ms, have a listen now.
| | 02:02 | (Music playing)
| | 02:09 | It also sounds good.
| | 02:10 | I think the longer one sounds better in
this case, but again, if it was playing
| | 02:14 | a track with other instruments, then
you'd actually have to compare and find out
| | 02:17 | which one sounds best.
| | 02:19 | Last thing we can do is use the high-
cut filter, cut some of the highs off.
| | 02:22 | Let's have a listen.
| | 02:24 | (Music playing)
| | 02:36 | Now, this will make the reverb sit in
the track a whole lot better, so a lot
| | 02:40 | of times you want to shape the sound of the
reverb by using a high and low-pass filter.
| | 02:44 | So to sum things up,
| | 02:46 | horns sound better when they are
placed in an acoustic environment.
| | 02:49 | Use reverb to push them back in the
mix or making sound larger than life, and
| | 02:52 | because most horns have a brisk
attack and release, the time reverb works very well.
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| Adding reverb to the percussion| 00:00 | Just like drums, percussion is made up of
short bursts of sound with strong attacks.
| | 00:04 | As a result, it's very important
that the reverb parameters are tuned
| | 00:08 | precisely to the song.
| | 00:09 | In this video I am going
to show you how to do that.
| | 00:11 | So the first thing we are going to do
is listen to the tambourine which is
| | 00:14 | a nice hand percussion.
| | 00:15 | Let's listen to it in the track.
It doesn't have any reverb at all.
| | 00:18 | (Music playing)
| | 00:28 | Now let's solo it and have a
listen to what it sounds like.
| | 00:31 | (Music playing)
| | 00:36 | I already have a Send in here. This
goes to our shortest reverb, which is
| | 00:41 | used for the drums.
| | 00:43 | Let's just have a quick
listen of what it sounds like.
| | 00:45 | (Music playing)
| | 00:53 | Sounds pretty good in space.
| | 00:54 | Watch what happens when we add too much reverb.
| | 00:57 | It actually changes the rhythm
that the tambourine is playing.
| | 01:00 | (Music playing)
| | 01:08 | It all starts to melt into one instead
of sounding like very distinct events.
| | 01:12 | Let's bring it back to where it was before.
| | 01:13 | (Music playing)
| | 01:18 | And let's listen in the track.
| | 01:19 | (Music playing)
| | 01:31 | Now you can hear it has a little bit
more personality when the reverb is on.
| | 01:35 | This could actually work
without reverb in the track.
| | 01:37 | Usually what we want to try to do is put
everything in its own space, at least a little bit.
| | 01:41 | Let's just experiment a little bit with
the sound just so you can hear what it
| | 01:46 | sounds like with different parameter settings.
| | 01:48 | So right now we are at 1.2
seconds on a rather large room.
| | 01:53 | Let's cut this in half
and let's make this 600 milliseconds.
| | 01:59 | And have a quick listen to what it sounds like.
| | 02:00 | (Music playing)
| | 02:09 | You can hear that what happens is with
the shorter decay, it puts it into a
| | 02:13 | different environment.
| | 02:14 | And it begins to sound bigger.
| | 02:16 | Let's cut it down even more.
| | 02:17 | We cut it to 300ms.
| | 02:20 | (Music playing)
| | 02:28 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 02:29 | (Music playing)
| | 02:39 | This sounds pretty good and usually
what you'll find is very, very short reverb
| | 02:44 | decay times will greatly
help a percussion track.
| | 02:48 | The longer the reverb decay, the worse
it usually sounds because once again,
| | 02:53 | it begins to change the
rhythm and that's not a good thing.
| | 02:55 | The only thing that
really helps is the pre-delay.
| | 02:58 | Let's solo it up again and have
a quick listen to what happens.
| | 03:01 | (Music playing)
| | 03:03 | Let me change the decay time.
| | 03:05 | We will put it back to where it
was at about 1.2 ms and let's listen.
| | 03:11 | (Music playing)
| | 03:16 | Now let's listen with no pre-delay.
| | 03:18 | (Music playing)
| | 03:24 | It sounds okay but it sounds a
lot better with some pre-delay.
| | 03:28 | Let's put it up to 72 ms
which is timed to the track.
| | 03:30 | (Music playing)
| | 03:41 | Now, you can hear what happens is
it sort of blends together since it's
| | 03:44 | timed with the track.
| | 03:45 | And that makes it sound pretty interesting.
| | 03:47 | It makes it sound big and
puts it in its own environment.
| | 03:49 | Let's have a quick listen.
| | 03:50 | (Music playing)
| | 04:04 | Sometimes what we are trying to do is
when we time reverb and delays to tracks,
| | 04:08 | what we are trying to do is
make it so it's not obvious.
| | 04:11 | When we add the reverb, when we add the
effects, we are trying to make it sound
| | 04:15 | bigger without being obvious.
| | 04:17 | And that's what the timing of the pre-
delay and the decay does to the track.
| | 04:21 | In conclusion, percussion is made up
of short bursts of sound with strong
| | 04:25 | attacks and as a result, it's very
important that the reverb parameters are
| | 04:29 | tuned precisely to the song.
| | 04:30 | That means timing the pre-delay and
the reverb time to the track. You can see
| | 04:35 | exactly how to do that in another movie.
| | 04:37 | Remember, that you're normally not
trying to make any percussion instrument
| | 04:40 | sound bigger, push it back in the track.
| | 04:43 | You are just trying to put
it into its own environment.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using reverb to layer the mix| 00:00 | Now that we have a reverb set
up, it's time to layer the mix.
| | 00:03 | In this video, I'll show you that
by placing instruments in different
| | 00:06 | environments, we can give
the mix depth and interest.
| | 00:09 | So in layering the mix, we're
thinking of three different things.
| | 00:12 | First thing is, are the instruments
in front or behind each other in a
| | 00:16 | pleasing manner in the mix?
| | 00:18 | The second thing is, does one
instrument or vocal need a completely different
| | 00:22 | reverb sound, and therefore its own reverb?
| | 00:24 | The third thing is, does an
instrument or a vocal need an effect other than
| | 00:28 | reverb like a delay or modulation, which
are things that we'll cover in other movies?
| | 00:33 | So the first thing we're going
to do is set up three reverbs.
| | 00:35 | The first one is a small space and it's a
room with less than a second of decay time on it.
| | 00:42 | And we can use that for percussion
or drums or guitars or even keyboards.
| | 00:46 | Second one is a medium space and in
this case, we're going to use a plate.
| | 00:49 | And that's set for between 1
and 2 seconds of reverb decay.
| | 00:54 | Again, we can use that for drums, we can
use that for guitars, vocals, or keyboards.
| | 00:58 | The third reverb is a large
space and this is a hall or a church.
| | 01:02 | In this case, we're going to use a hall
and it's set for longer than 2 seconds.
| | 01:06 | And this is usually for instrument pads like
synthesizers and strings and things like that.
| | 01:11 | Organs could work really well with that.
| | 01:13 | The next thing is when it comes to
layering a mix we're talking about the reverb
| | 01:16 | balance of each
instrument or a vocal in the mix.
| | 01:20 | So let's start out listening to the
drums first and that's where we're going to
| | 01:23 | put our first reverb.
| | 01:24 | (Music playing)
| | 01:32 | So this is completely flat.
There are no reverbs anywhere.
| | 01:35 | We have our reverb set up, but we
haven't actually put anything in yet.
| | 01:39 | So the first thing we'll do is we'll
go to the snare drum because usually the
| | 01:42 | reverb sound of the entire drum
kit comes from the snare drum.
| | 01:47 | What we're going to do is we're going
to go to our first or shortest reverb and
| | 01:51 | this is set up on Bus 11 and 12.
| | 01:52 | (Music playing)
| | 02:03 | This is a reverb that's set for a decay
time of 400 or 500 milliseconds, which is
| | 02:07 | about a half a second, but it
also has some pre-delay on it.
| | 02:10 | So here's what it sounds like.
| | 02:10 | (Music playing)
| | 02:15 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 02:17 | (Music playing)
| | 02:30 | That sounds okay, but
let's try a different reverb.
| | 02:33 | We're going to go down to Bus 13 and 14.
| | 02:36 | This is the medium sounding reverb.
| | 02:38 | (Music playing)
| | 02:50 | It actually might work better.
| | 02:52 | It might be smoother in the
track and let's have a listen.
| | 02:54 | (Music playing)
| | 03:08 | Now again, sometimes what we're trying
to do is set the instrument into its own
| | 03:13 | acoustic environment.
| | 03:14 | We don't necessarily want the reverb to
stand out; we just want the instrument
| | 03:19 | to sound bigger or in its own space.
| | 03:21 | Let's try the third reverb that we have
set up and this one is on Bus 19 and 20.
| | 03:26 | Let's have a listen.
| | 03:29 | (Music playing)
| | 03:39 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 03:40 | (Music playing)
| | 03:50 | Now this could work even though it
doesn't sound really good by itself.
| | 03:54 | It has a very long pre-delay on it, which
is 72 milliseconds, which is fairly long.
| | 04:00 | And it's set for about two and a half seconds
of decay time, and that's kind of long as well.
| | 04:05 | But notice that it's timed to the track and
when it's timed to the track, it blends in.
| | 04:09 | We'll listen to it by
itself and it sounds funny.
| | 04:12 | You listen to it with the track
and it blends in. There we go!
| | 04:14 | (Music playing)
| | 04:24 | So that sounds okay because it blends
in with the track, but it's not exactly
| | 04:27 | what we're looking for because we want
to put it into more of an environment.
| | 04:31 | So let's go back to the very, very
first one, the shortest reverb, and
| | 04:35 | that's also a room.
| | 04:36 | It's on Bus 11 and 12. Let's listen.
| | 04:38 | (Music playing)
| | 04:48 | It sounds a lot better.
| | 04:50 | The other thing we're going to do now is we're
going to copy those settings over to the toms.
| | 04:53 | The reason why is when a tom fill hits,
we also want to have reverb in that.
| | 04:57 | Sometimes you want the same reverb,
sometimes you want it different.
| | 05:00 | In this case, we'll just keep the same reverb.
| | 05:02 | So the way we do that is we hit the
Option key, we click on Send, and we drag it
| | 05:08 | over to Floor Tom, release both, and
there we have an exact copy of the send.
| | 05:13 | Let's do it again on Tom 2.
| | 05:15 | Let's do it again on Tom 1. Have a listen.
| | 05:17 | (Music playing)
| | 05:25 | The next thing we're going
to do is go to the vocals.
| | 05:27 | Let's come over here, have a
listen just to the vocal by itself.
| | 05:31 | (Music playing)
| | 05:40 | It really needed to be in its own space.
| | 05:43 | So now what we're going to do is we're
going to go to the middle reverb, which
| | 05:46 | is on Bus 13 and 14. Have a listen.
| | 05:49 | (Music playing)
| | 05:56 | Let's see how those are set.
| | 05:58 | (Music playing)
| | 06:07 | That sounds pretty good.
| | 06:09 | The other thing is that we've also
tailored the sound of the reverb by inserting
| | 06:12 | an EQ in the signal chain
before the reverb plug-in.
| | 06:15 | And you can see how we did that by
going to the movie about EQ'ing the reverb.
| | 06:19 | Let's listen again by itself.
| | 06:21 | (Music playing)
| | 06:25 | Now let's listen in the track.
| | 06:27 | (Music playing)
| | 06:35 | Now let me mute it and have a listen.
| | 06:37 | (Music playing)
| | 06:47 | It's in a nice spot.
| | 06:48 | It sounds really good, it's not
obtrusive, and yet it adds a nice bit of
| | 06:52 | interest to the track.
| | 06:54 | Next thing we're going to do is add
something to the background vocals.
| | 06:57 | And actually what I'm going to do is I'm
going to go to a place where there is a
| | 07:01 | lot of background vocals which is the chorus.
| | 07:03 | So let's listen to that.
| | 07:04 | (Music playing)
| | 07:09 | Now for that, let's try the long
reverb and that's on Bus 19 and 20.
| | 07:14 | So what we're going to do --
| | 07:16 | (Music playing)
| | 07:18 | -- is take notice Background Vocal 1,
Background Vocal 2 are assigned to the
| | 07:23 | Background Vocal subgroup.
| | 07:24 | An easy way to do this is just add a
Send on the Background Vocal subgroup and
| | 07:30 | that will cover both
Background Vocal 1 and 2 channels.
| | 07:33 | This is on 19 and 20.
| | 07:35 | Let's solo this up, have a listen.
| | 07:38 | (Music playing)
| | 07:50 | Let's listen in the track now.
| | 07:52 | (Music playing)
| | 08:10 | Now you can hear what happens is
it's in a difference space, different
| | 08:13 | environment, there is a lot more
reverb so it pushes it back on the track
| | 08:16 | from the lead vocal.
| | 08:18 | The local vocal is in front. We can
imagine the background vocals are standing
| | 08:22 | behind them and that's what we're trying to do.
| | 08:24 | The next thing we'll do is we'll add
some reverb to the other instruments and
| | 08:28 | let's start with the guitars.
| | 08:30 | First guitar that we have here,
let's listen to it by itself.
| | 08:33 | (Music playing)
| | 08:39 | Once again we have Electric Guitar 1,
Electric Guitar r which stands for room,
| | 08:45 | and they're both sub-grouped.
| | 08:47 | So all we need is one Send on the
subgroup and what we're going to do is go to
| | 08:51 | the very shortest reverb,
which is reverb short on Bus 11-12.
| | 08:56 | Have a listen to that.
| | 08:58 | (Music playing)
| | 09:08 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 09:09 | (Music playing)
| | 09:19 | Let's listen to Guitar 2.
| | 09:20 | Now here is it soloed.
| | 09:22 | (Music playing)
| | 09:31 | Once again Guitar 2 is sub-grouped and
all we need is one send on the subgroup.
| | 09:37 | And let's put this into a longer reverb
and we'll put this into reverb Bus 13-14.
| | 09:44 | Let's listen.
| | 09:45 | (Music playing)
| | 09:53 | Let's listen to both guitars and
listen to how the reverbs are different.
| | 09:56 | (Music playing)
| | 10:05 | Because guitar number 1, because the
reverb is shorter, it seems like it's
| | 10:10 | closer to us, while the guitar in the
right sounds like it's farther away and
| | 10:14 | that's because the reverb is longer.
| | 10:16 | So let's listen in the track now.
| | 10:17 | (Music playing)
| | 10:34 | Last thing we'll do is we'll put some
reverb on the organ. It's a Hammond B3.
| | 10:38 | Once again, there's a high- and a low-
frequency speaker called the Leslie speaker.
| | 10:43 | They are both miked, so it's
stereo and they're both subgrouped into
| | 10:47 | one subgroup channel.
| | 10:49 | So all we need is one
reverb send to make this work.
| | 10:52 | So here is what we're going to do.
| | 10:53 | We're going to send it to the
longest reverb which is on Bus 19 and 20.
| | 10:58 | Let's Solo that up, have a quick listen.
| | 11:00 | (Music playing)
| | 11:04 | Let's listen with the reverb now.
| | 11:06 | (Music playing)
| | 11:20 | Because we're adding a long reverb, you can
feel the layers coming together in the song.
| | 11:25 | Now what happens is the organ is
pushed further back in the mix.
| | 11:28 | You can imagine it as the farthest
away because it has the most reverb and
| | 11:33 | the longest reverb.
| | 11:34 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 11:35 | (Music playing)
| | 11:51 | So we're going to do one last thing and
that's listen to the mix and then we're
| | 11:55 | going to mute the reverbs
just to hear the difference.
| | 11:57 | (Music playing)
| | 12:14 | You can hear there is a lot more
personality to the mix and none of the
| | 12:17 | instruments or the effects clash
because they're different, we're putting
| | 12:20 | everything in a different environment.
| | 12:22 | That's how we layer a mix.
| | 12:23 | What we do is we place different mix
elements in different environments.
| | 12:27 | Try to visualize if an instrument is
in the front or behind or in the back
| | 12:31 | of another instrument,
| | 12:32 | and that determines the layer
that the instrument should be in.
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|
|
13. Adding DelayLearning delay principles| 00:00 | Delay or echo as it's sometimes
called is an integral part of the mixer's
| | 00:04 | toolbox because it's able to make
things sound larger than life or push them
| | 00:07 | back in the mix, just like reverb,
but does so by being somewhat less
| | 00:11 | noticeable than reverb.
| | 00:12 | In fact, there are some recordings
where the only effect is delay and not a
| | 00:16 | speck of reverb is used anywhere.
| | 00:19 | In this segment, I am going to explain
some of the principles behind adding a
| | 00:22 | delay effect to your mix.
| | 00:24 | Many of the reasons for using delay are
the same as with reverb. For instance,
| | 00:27 | delay can be used to push
a sound back in the mix.
| | 00:31 | By using a longer delay, the track will
seem further away from the listener if
| | 00:34 | the level is high enough.
| | 00:36 | Adding more repeats also enhances this effect.
| | 00:39 | Make an instrument or
vocal sound larger than life.
| | 00:42 | A very short delay of under 40
milliseconds or so reinforces the dry signal,
| | 00:47 | while artificially reproducing what's
known as the first reflection in the room.
| | 00:51 | This is the most powerful and
audible part of natural room ambience.
| | 00:55 | Also, panning the delay to one side of
the mix and the dry signal to the other
| | 00:59 | widens the sound of the
track and the stereo soundstage.
| | 01:02 | Add an artificial double.
| | 01:04 | By adding a 50 to 100 milliseconds
delay, you can artificially create the
| | 01:08 | slap-back double track effect heard on
so many hits of the 50s, because that's
| | 01:13 | the only effect they had back then.
| | 01:14 | Add a "glue" to the mix.
| | 01:17 | Delay that's timed to the track
essentially disappears, but it has the effect of
| | 01:21 | melding the track together
in a way that reverb can't do.
| | 01:24 | Better mixers call it the glue to the track.
| | 01:27 | So to sum it up, delay is used either
push the sound back in the mix or make an
| | 01:31 | instrument or vocal sound larger than life.
| | 01:34 | And also be used at an artificial
double track effect or add the elusive glue to a mix.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding delay parameters| 00:00 | Delay has fewer control parameters in reverb,
but that doesn't make it any less powerful.
| | 00:05 | In this movie I'm going to show you the
various delay controls and explain what they're for.
| | 00:09 | The very first one we're going to talk
about is delay time and that's similar to
| | 00:13 | the decay time on reverb.
| | 00:15 | What that does is set the time between repeats.
| | 00:17 | It's usually measured in milliseconds
since it's rare that it ever goes as long
| | 00:21 | as a second, which is 1000 milliseconds.
| | 00:24 | Let's have a listen to what it sounds like.
| | 00:25 | Here we go with a soloed
electric guitar, have a listen.
| | 00:29 | (Music playing)
| | 00:36 | Now, let's go down to 34 milliseconds
and have a listen what it sounds like.
| | 00:40 | (Music playing)
| | 00:47 | We can't really hear too much of a
difference and once again like reverb, the
| | 00:51 | shorter a Delay gets, the bigger the sound gets.
| | 00:54 | It doesn't necessarily get pushed
back from here. It gets bigger.
| | 00:57 | Now let's move this out as far
as it will go and this is 2726.
| | 01:02 | In other words this is 2,726
milliseconds, which is 2.7 seconds.
| | 01:07 | Let's have a listen.
| | 01:08 | (Music playing)
| | 01:14 | And you see that it's so long that it
gets disconcerting, and now let's move it
| | 01:18 | back to about a second so you
can hear what it sounds like there.
| | 01:21 | (Music playing)
| | 01:27 | Most of the time we have delays under
500 milliseconds and somewhere around 350
| | 01:31 | is usually a nice place to start.
| | 01:34 | Let's listen to it.
| | 01:35 | (Music playing)
| | 01:42 | The next parameter is repeats, although
sometimes it's called regeneration and
| | 01:45 | sometimes just feedback.
| | 01:46 | In this case on the Pro Tools Native
Mod Delay, it's actually called Feedback.
| | 01:51 | It sets the number of repeats that we'll hear.
| | 01:53 | What we're going to do is actually
click on this, because what this does is it
| | 01:57 | sets the repeats to the tempo of the track.
| | 02:00 | Let's listen to it.
| | 02:00 | (Music playing)
| | 02:04 | Let's listen as we add
feedback. I'll start at 11%.
| | 02:06 | (Music playing)
| | 02:12 | As we get longer, listen to what happens.
| | 02:13 | (Music playing)
| | 02:21 | Actually let's make this
longer so you can hear it.
| | 02:23 | (Music playing)
| | 02:31 | And we can make it very, very long, 94%.
| | 02:33 | (Music playing)
| | 02:44 | The problem here is if we put it at
100%, it'll actually go into feedback,
| | 02:48 | which is why it's called Feedback, and
there will almost be a loop that never stops.
| | 02:53 | Let's try that.
| | 02:54 | (Music playing)
| | 03:02 | Not an effect that we use all the
time. In this case we can also have
| | 03:05 | negative feedback.
| | 03:06 | It sounds a little bit different.
| | 03:07 | (Music playing)
| | 03:13 | Bring it all the way down here.
| | 03:15 | (Music playing)
| | 03:22 | You can't always hear the difference
between the positive and negative feedback,
| | 03:24 | but I would always use the positive
feedback in this case, just to be safe.
| | 03:30 | The next thing that most delays have
is a low-pass filter or sometimes it's
| | 03:34 | just called a filter.
| | 03:35 | And what this allows us to do
is shape the tone of the delay.
| | 03:40 | Sometimes we don't want it to stick out
in the mix, so we want to roll off the
| | 03:43 | top-end and that's what the low-
pass filter does. Let's listen.
| | 03:46 | (Music playing)
| | 03:53 | I'll add some feedback just
so you can hear the repeats.
| | 03:55 | (Music playing)
| | 03:59 | And now if we turn it off.
| | 04:01 | (Music playing)
| | 04:03 | You can hear it's much brighter.
| | 04:05 | It sounds exactly like the original guitar,
but a lot of times we don't want that.
| | 04:09 | If we roll off the high frequencies it
will blend into the track a lot easier.
| | 04:13 | Last, we have a dry/wet control or
sometimes called a mix control. In this
| | 04:18 | case, it's called Mix.
| | 04:20 | And what this does is it allows you to
mix the delayed signal with the dry signal.
| | 04:23 | This is essential for dialing in the
correct amount of delay, if the delay is a
| | 04:27 | plug-in that's inserted on the track.
But it's normally set to 100% Wet
| | 04:32 | when it's inserted into a dedicator
affects return channel like this one.
| | 04:36 | Let's have a listen.
| | 04:36 | (Music playing)
| | 04:50 | Now you can hear the Mix is set to 0%,
which means it's all the dry signal, and
| | 04:54 | we can actually control the balance from here.
| | 04:57 | We can do it in two different ways.
We can control it with this fader, which
| | 04:59 | is the Send or we can control it with the Mix
control. Most of the time we want it at 100%.
| | 05:05 | (Music playing)
| | 05:08 | Sometimes delay plug-ins also have a
parameter that's called Meter or Tempo.
| | 05:13 | In this case we have both of them.
| | 05:14 | And what that does it allows
us to time delay to the track.
| | 05:18 | Now normally we can set the delay
time by using something like the Ultimate
| | 05:22 | Delay Time iPhone app or the chart from
the Mixing Engineer's Handbook, but the
| | 05:26 | easy way is to just find the tempo of
the track and then use these notes here to
| | 05:32 | dial in the exact delay time that we want.
If we go on a quarter note and
| | 05:38 | it gives us 576
milliseconds of delay. Have a listen.
| | 05:42 | (Music playing)
| | 05:47 | If we set it at an 8th note, it sets at
exactly half of that, 288 milliseconds.
| | 05:52 | (Music playing)
| | 05:56 | If we set it at a 16th note, it sets it at
exactly one half of the 8th note value.
| | 06:01 | (Music playing)
| | 06:04 | The other thing we can do is dial in a
dotted note, which you can see now up
| | 06:09 | to 260 milliseconds.
| | 06:10 | (Music playing)
| | 06:13 | Or we can put it into triplet figure,
which cuts it down to 96 milliseconds.
| | 06:17 | (Music playing)
| | 06:22 | I found the triplet and dotted note
figures actually work better sometimes than
| | 06:27 | the straight 1/4 and 8th and 16th note,
but again, it depends upon the track and
| | 06:31 | it depends upon the arrangement.
| | 06:32 | So that's an overview of the various
parameters of a typical delay unit or plug-in.
| | 06:37 | Delay time is similar to decay time in
reverb and sets a distance between the repeats.
| | 06:41 | Repeats or Regeneration or
Feedback, sets the number of repeats.
| | 06:45 | The filters allow you to shape the
frequency response of the delayed signal,
| | 06:49 | and the Dry/Wet or Mix control allows
you to balance the delayed signal with
| | 06:52 | the dry signal.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Timing the delay to the track| 00:00 | Just like with reverb, timing your
delay to the track can add depth without the
| | 00:04 | delay being noticeable.
| | 00:05 | In this video, I am going to show you
how to time your delay to the track.
| | 00:09 | The reason why you want to time your delay to the track
is because the delay will be noticeable if it's not timed.
| | 00:13 | Now sometimes you want it to be
noticeable, and other times you don't.
| | 00:17 | Most of the time you don't, because
it gives it a feeling of depth without
| | 00:20 | pushing the Track back into the mix.
| | 00:23 | Many delay plug-ins allow you to
sync to the BPM of the track which
| | 00:26 | automatically determines the delay times.
| | 00:29 | In fact, in Pro Tools this is what happens
and this is what Tempo and Meter and Groove does.
| | 00:34 | If this option isn't available, you
can time the delay to the track by using
| | 00:38 | the following formula.
| | 00:39 | 60,000 divided by the beats per minute
of the track, and that equals the delay
| | 00:44 | time in milliseconds.
| | 00:45 | As an example, 60,000 divided by 125
beats per minute equals 480 milliseconds.
| | 00:52 | This is the delay of a quarter note.
| | 00:54 | If that's too long, you can divide the
result of the formula by 2 and get an 8th
| | 00:58 | note delay of 240 milliseconds.
| | 01:01 | Divide by 2 again and you get a 16
note delay of a 120 milliseconds.
| | 01:05 | You can keep dividing by 2 to get
smaller and smaller note divisions.
| | 01:09 | Another way to time the delay of the
track is to use the Ultimate Time Delay
| | 01:12 | iPhone app or delay chart found
in the Mixing Engineers Handbook.
| | 01:16 | That's how you time delay to the
track, which can add depth without the
| | 01:19 | delay being noticeable.
| | 01:21 | Find the BPM of the track and your
DAW may calculate it for you, or use the
| | 01:25 | formula or the Ultimate Delay Time iPhone app.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using delay timing variations| 00:00 | Sometimes a delay fits in the mix
better with other note denominations such as
| | 00:04 | triplets or dotted notes.
| | 00:05 | In this video, I am going to show you how to
do that and you will hear what they sound like.
| | 00:09 | Dotted note denominations can be
determined by using the following formula.
| | 00:13 | Delay Time x 1.5 equals the dotted value.
| | 00:17 | For example, 480ms, which is the
quarter note 125 BPM delay from the previous
| | 00:23 | example, times 1.5 equals 720ms.
| | 00:27 | That's a dotted quarter note.
| | 00:29 | For a triplet denomination, use this formula.
| | 00:32 | Delay Time x .667 equals the triplet value.
| | 00:36 | For example, 480ms, which is a quarter
note 125 BPM delay, times .667 equals 320
| | 00:44 | ms or a quarter note triplet.
| | 00:47 | As with the straight quarter and 8th
and 16th notes, you can continually divide
| | 00:51 | the dotted or triplet values in half
until you get the desired denomination.
| | 00:55 | While the straight note
denominations of quarter, 8th, 16th, and so on can
| | 00:59 | provide depth in a track, triplet and dotted
note denominations are great for adding glue.
| | 01:04 | They can make a track feel good and can
blend in seamlessly. Let's hear them.
| | 01:08 | So right now we have a quarter note delay and
this is based on the 104BPM tempo of the song.
| | 01:14 | (Music playing)
| | 01:21 | Let's listen in the track a bit.
| | 01:22 | (Music playing)
| | 01:31 | Now, if we make this into a
dotted note, now the delay gets longer.
| | 01:35 | Basically we are adding one half of the delay.
| | 01:38 | So in other words, instead of cutting
it in half, we are adding another half to it,
| | 01:42 | which comes out to 432.69ms in this case.
| | 01:47 | Solo it now and have a listen.
| | 01:48 | (Music playing)
| | 01:51 | Let's listen to the track.
| | 01:52 | (Music playing)
| | 02:00 | That's pretty long and it probably
isn't going to work because it clashes with
| | 02:03 | the rest of the track.
| | 02:04 | So let's try triplet.
| | 02:06 | Now the triplet is a 192ms and this
should sound pretty good. Have a listen.
| | 02:11 | (Music playing)
| | 02:15 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 02:16 | (Music playing)
| | 02:29 | This might not be right for
the track but you get the idea.
| | 02:32 | Sometimes if a quarter note or an 8th
note or a 16th note just doesn't work,
| | 02:36 | try triplet or try a dotted value and
that might work better in the track.
| | 02:40 | So that's how you set
dotted or triplet delay times.
| | 02:43 | For dotted times, multiply your
standard delay times by 1.5. For triplet delay
| | 02:48 | times multiply it by .667.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Equalizing the delay| 00:00 | One of the biggest secrets of making
your delays fit into a mix is by using
| | 00:03 | either the internal or an
external equalizer to shape the sound.
| | 00:07 | In this video I'll show you how to do just that.
| | 00:10 | So the first thing we'll do, we will listen
to the track and concentrate on the vocal.
| | 00:13 | (Music playing)
| | 00:23 | Okay, now let's add a little bit of delay.
| | 00:25 | What we're going to do is
solo it and I'll add the delay.
| | 00:29 | This is going to be an eight
note delay of 288 milliseconds.
| | 00:31 | (Music playing)
| | 00:52 | Now that might not be exactly right.
| | 00:54 | Let's try a couple of other combinations and
see if we can find something that works better.
| | 00:57 | Let's try a dotted variation and
let's actually go to a dotted 16th note.
| | 01:02 | (Music playing)
| | 01:20 | That sounds pretty good.
| | 01:21 | Let's see what the triplet sounds like.
| | 01:22 | (Music playing)
| | 01:33 | Now let's go to an eighth note triplet.
| | 01:35 | Let's hear what it sounds like.
| | 01:37 | (Music playing)
| | 01:48 | That's sounds pretty interesting.
| | 01:50 | Let's leave it there.
| | 01:51 | But what we're going to do is we're going
to shape the sound of the delay a little bit.
| | 01:55 | So what we're going to do is come over
here and add our 4-Band EQ and let's have
| | 02:02 | a listen to what this sounds like.
| | 02:04 | Let's bring this over here.
| | 02:06 | Let's bring our EQ over here and now
we're going to solo it up and what I'm
| | 02:11 | going to do is shape it.
| | 02:12 | Now just like we did with reverb
sometimes if we add a dip in the presence
| | 02:16 | frequencies of the vocal, we can actually
have the Delay blend into the mix a lot better.
| | 02:21 | So let's do that by-- let's go to
about 3K or so and let's dial in a 5 or 60
| | 02:28 | Db dip and let's have a listen.
| | 02:30 | (Music playing)
| | 02:39 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 02:41 | (Music playing)
| | 02:51 | Now let's mute it and then I'll
unmute it as the track goes on.
| | 02:54 | (Music playing)
| | 03:03 | You can see by adding that dip in the
presence region that suddenly it fits
| | 03:07 | better into the track.
| | 03:08 | You don't notice it as much and
that's what we're trying to do.
| | 03:11 | The other thing we can do is add a
high-pass filter and get rid of the low
| | 03:14 | frequencies which also makes it fit
better in the track. So what we'll have to do
| | 03:18 | is disable the frequency bands that
we're not using on the equalizer and that
| | 03:23 | will enable us to use the high-pass filter.
| | 03:26 | Well, let's put it about 100.
| | 03:27 | Let's put it at 200 and that should work.
| | 03:30 | Dial it in and let's have a quick listen.
| | 03:33 | Let's solo it first.
| | 03:34 | (Music playing)
| | 03:43 | You can hear the difference that the EQ makes.
| | 03:45 | It makes it sit a little bit better in the
mix because the delays aren't as prominent.
| | 03:49 | And that's what we want sometimes.
| | 03:50 | Have another listening to the track.
| | 03:52 | (Music playing)
| | 04:02 | So to sum it up shaping the sound of the
delay with the either the onboard or an
| | 04:05 | external equalizer is a great way
to get it to fit into the mix better.
| | 04:09 | High-pass filter it from 100 to 600 Hz
to keep it from getting muddy or keep it
| | 04:13 | out of the way of a busy track.
| | 04:15 | Filter from 10K down to 2K to
make it blend into the track better.
| | 04:19 | Insert an EQ dip from 2k to 5K to
keep it out of the way of a vocal.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the Haas effect| 00:00 | The Haas effect is a very short delay
that can be used to thicken a track.
| | 00:04 | In this movie, I will show you how to set it
up and let you listen to what it sounds like.
| | 00:08 | The Haas Psychoacoustic theory states
that a delay of 30ms or a less is not
| | 00:12 | perceived as a distinct event.
| | 00:14 | That means if a delay on the snare
drum was set to 50ms, you would hear two
| | 00:18 | separate events, the initial
snare hit then the delay.
| | 00:21 | If you set the delay to less than 30ms
the two would blend together and you'd hear
| | 00:25 | them both as a single event.
| | 00:27 | Let's try that just so you can hear.
| | 00:29 | Let's bring up our delay.
| | 00:30 | Let's set at the 50ms.
| | 00:34 | This is our snare drum.
| | 00:35 | Let's solo it, have a listen.
| | 00:37 | (Music playing)
| | 00:44 | Okay, let's mute the delay just so you can hear.
| | 00:47 | (Music playing)
| | 00:53 | So you can hear two distinct
events happening: the snare hit then the
| | 00:57 | delay shortly after.
| | 00:58 | Now let's move this
down to 30ms. Now listen to it.
| | 01:05 | (Music playing)
| | 01:14 | It's a lot harder to hear the
distinct events that are happening.
| | 01:18 | If we move it down to 20ms and listen again.
| | 01:22 | (Music playing)
| | 01:31 | A short delay of less than 30ms can be
used to thicken a sound that seems a bit thin.
| | 01:35 | It can be used to stereoise a mono
track by panning the dry track to one side
| | 01:39 | and the delay to the other.
| | 01:42 | Let's have a listen to what that sounds like.
| | 01:44 | Let's solo our guitar and have a listen to that.
| | 01:48 | (Music playing)
| | 01:55 | First thing we are going to do is we
are going to put this at 50ms again,
| | 02:00 | just so you can hear it.
| | 02:02 | (Music playing)
| | 02:10 | Now let's put it down to 30ms.
| | 02:11 | (Music playing)
| | 02:18 | Really hard to hear the delay this time.
| | 02:20 | And what we are going to do is pan that
delay to the right-hand side because the
| | 02:24 | Guitar is already panned to the left side.
| | 02:26 | Now listen to the stereo effect that we get.
| | 02:28 | (Music playing)
| | 02:39 | Regardless of how you use it, the Haas
effect is a very powerful and sometimes
| | 02:43 | overlooked tool in your mixing toolbox.
| | 02:45 | It's a short delay of less than 40ms
that can be used to thicken up a track or
| | 02:49 | stereoize a mono track.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the three-delay setup| 00:00 | Just like with reverb, many mixers
will use multiple delays during a mix.
| | 00:04 | In this setup, we'll use three different delays.
| | 00:06 | One set up for a very short delay.
| | 00:08 | Another is medium and another long.
| | 00:11 | Let me show you how to set
them up and what they sound like.
| | 00:13 | The reason why we are going to do
this is three delays cover most of the
| | 00:16 | possibilities that might arise during the mix.
| | 00:19 | It's also possible that one of the
delays will be dedicated to just one mix
| | 00:23 | element, like a solo or a lead vocal.
| | 00:26 | So our very first delay is going to be
the Haas delay, and as we said in another
| | 00:30 | movie, this is a very, very short delay
of 40ms or a less. Let's set that up.
| | 00:38 | So what we are going to do is go toward Delay.
| | 00:40 | I always use the Long Delay and the reason
why is it gives me a lot more flexibility.
| | 00:45 | If I decide that I want to go to a lot
longer than 36ms it's very easy to do that.
| | 00:52 | One of the big problems with some of
these other delays like the short delay or
| | 00:56 | the medium delay is they
have a finite length on them.
| | 01:00 | And if let's say you want to go
beyond that finite length, you can't.
| | 01:04 | You really have to put another plug-in in
and so that's why I always use Long Delay.
| | 01:09 | So since we know that the BPM of this
track is a 104 and that equates to 72
| | 01:14 | ms for an 8th note, what we want to do
is set this at 36 and the reason why is 36 is below 40.
| | 01:24 | 40 is the magic number there because
what ends up happening is anything above 40ms
| | 01:28 | will sound like a discrete delay.
| | 01:32 | Anything below 40ms will sound like
it's blending in with the original sound,
| | 01:37 | and we use this for
thickening more than anything else.
| | 01:40 | So let's set this at 36
and let's set up the next one.
| | 01:45 | This one is going to be a short delay
and it can be anywhere from a 50 to a 150ms,
| | 01:49 | with the couple of
repeats in time to the track.
| | 01:54 | So once again we use our Long Delay plug-in.
| | 01:58 | And the beauty is we already know that the
tempo of the song is at 104. We can see it here.
| | 02:03 | And if we click on any of these notes
here, it actually gives us the delay value.
| | 02:09 | So in this case, we can see
that an 8th note is 288ms.
| | 02:15 | That's longer than we want.
| | 02:16 | We want something shorter than that.
| | 02:18 | And let's try this. 144ms.
| | 02:20 | It actually might sound better little below
that but let's use that as a starting place.
| | 02:25 | And this is more for a slap.
| | 02:27 | Delay number three is set as a Long Delay
and that acts more like the glue for a track.
| | 02:32 | So we want to shoot for a time delay
that goes anywhere between 250 to about 400ms
| | 02:37 | with a couple of repeats.
| | 02:39 | I like to use a triplet or a dotted
note value here but experiment to see what
| | 02:43 | works best for the song.
| | 02:44 | If you want to delay to stick out,
sometime the 350ms untimed delay works great.
| | 02:49 | But we are going to time it this time.
| | 02:51 | So we will go to Delay, we will
say Long Delay, and so it says 288ms.
| | 02:57 | What I am going to do is put it in as a
dotted note value and that comes out to 432.
| | 03:05 | It's a little bit longer
than what we would want.
| | 03:08 | Let's see what it's like
when we go to 16th note. Oh it's not.
| | 03:11 | We won't either. So a quarter note
triplet might work and like I said, I like
| | 03:17 | dotted notes and triplet notes because they
actually blend in with the track very nicely.
| | 03:23 | So let's try that and see what happens.
| | 03:25 | And first thing we will do is we
will bring up the vocal, solo it.
| | 03:31 | Let's listen first to our Long Delay.
| | 03:32 | The Long Delay is on Bus
16 so let's go to Bus 16.
| | 03:38 | Have a listen to what it sounds like.
| | 03:38 | (Music playing)
| | 03:47 | Let's listen into track.
| | 03:48 | (Music playing)
| | 03:57 | Now we can hear it, but it
blends in with the track.
| | 04:00 | Well now if we bring it back so we can
just barely hear it, listen to what happens.
| | 04:04 | (Music playing)
| | 04:21 | You can hear when it's in the track,
where it adds a little bit of an ambience
| | 04:27 | that you wouldn't get any other way.
| | 04:29 | And what ends up happening is it sounds
different from reverb and that reverb
| | 04:34 | tends to sound a little more washy than a delay.
| | 04:38 | Delay makes everything a little crisper
sounding and that's why I like to use them a lot.
| | 04:42 | Now let's try another reverb.
| | 04:44 | Let's try the short one.
| | 04:45 | And this is setup more as a slap, so we are
going to go to Bus 15, solo it up, have a listen.
| | 04:53 | (Music playing)
| | 05:02 | So let's listen with the track.
| | 05:03 | (Music playing)
| | 05:21 | That actually works better for this track.
| | 05:23 | And you might find that the Long
Delay, which doesn't work on the vocal,
| | 05:26 | works great on guitars,
| | 05:27 | works great on keyboards or something else.
| | 05:29 | The last one to try is the Haas
effect which is a very, very short delay.
| | 05:34 | And the first thing we have to
do is assign a signal path to it.
| | 05:38 | So we will go to a bus, and we will say Bus 19.
| | 05:41 | And the other thing we have to do is we
want to put it in what's called Solo Safe.
| | 05:46 | And solo safe means that no matter what
we solo, this channel will always stay on.
| | 05:51 | And what we do is hit Command and click on
the Solo button and now it's in solo safe.
| | 05:56 | It's a good little trick.
| | 05:57 | Let's assign this to Bus 19.
| | 05:59 | This is the send we are assigning.
| | 06:02 | Let's solo it up and have a listen.
| | 06:04 | (Music playing)
| | 06:15 | Let's listen to it in the track.
| | 06:16 | (Music playing)
| | 06:34 | You can hear it thickens things up,
yet it doesn't sound obtrusive. It doesn't
| | 06:39 | sound so in your face.
| | 06:41 | It doesn't sound discrete.
| | 06:42 | Lot of times this works better on
things like guitars, works really good
| | 06:46 | on saxophones or bass. Less so on vocals but
you can hear what it does there nonetheless.
| | 06:53 | So these delay settings
are just a starting place
| | 06:55 | and they will be tweaked
as you go along in the mix.
| | 06:57 | Sometimes you might find one of delay
times unnecessary while other times you
| | 07:00 | may need more than what we have here already.
| | 07:03 | The three delay setup covers most
of your delaying during this mix.
| | 07:07 | It consists of a very short delay of
less than 40ms, a short delay of anywhere
| | 07:11 | from 50 to a 150ms.
| | 07:13 | It's used for a slap or a double.
| | 07:15 | And a long delay that will act as
your glue which is a time delay that goes
| | 07:19 | anywhere from 250 to about 400 ms.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding delay to the vocals| 00:00 | Both lead and background vocals are
frequently the primary recipients of some
| | 00:03 | sort of delay in the mix.
| | 00:05 | For a lead vocal, it can provide a
sense of space and polish without pushing it
| | 00:09 | too far back in the mix.
| | 00:10 | For the background vocals, it can be a
way to distinguish them from the lead vocal.
| | 00:14 | In this movie, I'm going to
demonstrate just how different types of vocal
| | 00:17 | delays sound in the mix.
| | 00:19 | So first of all let's listen to the vocal
in the track without any kind of delay on it.
| | 00:24 | (Music playing)
| | 00:34 | The first thing we'll do is we'll
solo it up and we already have our three
| | 00:37 | delays set up from another movie, so
we're going to use the Haas effect first.
| | 00:41 | And this is on Bus 19, which is already preset.
| | 00:45 | Let's hear what it sounds like.
| | 00:47 | (Music playing)
| | 00:52 | Now what a Haas effect is, it's a
delay of 40 milliseconds or less and the
| | 00:56 | reason why is anything above 40
seconds sounds like a very distinct event.
| | 01:02 | So in other words we'd
definitely hear the delay.
| | 01:04 | When it gets below 40 milliseconds, we
don't hear the two separate events any
| | 01:08 | longer. We hear them both as one.
| | 01:10 | In this case, if we look, we can see
that this is set to 36 milliseconds, so it
| | 01:15 | is definitely below our 40 milliseconds.
| | 01:17 | Now the cool thing about the Haas effect
delay is we can use it to stereoize a track.
| | 01:24 | Let's do that now.
| | 01:25 | What we're going to do is take the
delay and we're going to pan it out a little
| | 01:29 | bit, take our normal lead vocal track and
pan it out a little bit. Now listen to it.
| | 01:36 | (Music playing)
| | 01:44 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 01:46 | (Music playing)
| | 01:55 | This works better with other
instruments rather than vocals.
| | 01:59 | Sometimes it works really
good with background vocals.
| | 02:01 | I wouldn't always use it on a lead
vocal, but that just gives you an idea
| | 02:03 | what it sounds like.
| | 02:04 | Now let's go to our next delay.
| | 02:07 | It's a very short delay of
50-150 milliseconds or so.
| | 02:13 | This is on Bus 15.
| | 02:14 | Let's bring this back down.
| | 02:16 | We'll send this to Bus 15.
| | 02:20 | Let's solo it and have a listen.
| | 02:21 | (Music playing)
| | 02:27 | Now let's open up the Delay and see what it is.
| | 02:30 | This is set to a 16th note
delay, which is 144 milliseconds.
| | 02:35 | Anything around 150 milliseconds
sounds more like a slap, kind of like the
| | 02:40 | old-time Elvis Presley sound. We've gotten
his vocal way back when, which is tape slap.
| | 02:44 | But we can actually try a couple
of other things that might work.
| | 02:48 | One of the things I like to do is use a
triplet or a dotted note denomination.
| | 02:54 | And sometimes that works a lot better in
the track than just a straight order or
| | 02:58 | 8th or 16th note delay.
| | 03:00 | Let's have a listen.
| | 03:00 | (Music playing)
| | 03:06 | Now this is a 16th note triplet delay.
| | 03:08 | You can see it's at 96 milliseconds now.
| | 03:10 | It sounds pretty good actually.
| | 03:12 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 03:13 | (Music playing)
| | 03:23 | The other thing we can try
is a dotted 16th note delay.
| | 03:26 | And that brings this out to 216
milliseconds, which is a little bit higher than
| | 03:31 | we wanted, but listen to what
it sounds like. Let's solo it.
| | 03:34 | (Music playing)
| | 03:42 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 03:43 | (Music playing)
| | 03:53 | That sounds pretty good too. That will work.
| | 03:55 | And you can see how sometimes the
dotted note or the triplet denominations
| | 04:00 | actually sound better than the
straight quarter or 8th or 16th note.
| | 04:05 | The quarter, 8th, and 16th note tend
to blend into the track in a way that we
| | 04:10 | don't even know they are there.
| | 04:11 | And sometimes that works
great, sometimes it doesn't.
| | 04:14 | Where you find that you get a little
bit more depth and you can hear the
| | 04:17 | delay just a little bit better on the
triplet or the dotted denomination, try them all.
| | 04:23 | The other thing we haven't done is
play with the Feedback and the Feedback
| | 04:26 | is number of repeats.
| | 04:27 | And let's do that now.
| | 04:29 | Let's have a quick solo.
| | 04:31 | (Music playing)
| | 04:42 | You can hear we have more and more repeats.
| | 04:44 | Sometimes this works really well
because it fills out the space in between a
| | 04:48 | vocal phrase, but sometimes if
there's a lot of words in the vocal,
| | 04:52 | it kind of steps on the various notes.
| | 04:54 | So you're better off to have
less Feedback or less repeats.
| | 04:59 | Usually two or three kind of work
pretty good in all cases and this is
| | 05:02 | somewhere around 2-5%.
| | 05:04 | Bring this is back to where it was and
the way we do that, we hit Option and
| | 05:09 | click on it and it brings us back to 0.
| | 05:12 | Let's close this up.
| | 05:13 | Let's go to our long delay now.
| | 05:14 | The long delay is on Bus 16.
| | 05:15 | So let's bring this up here. Have a listen.
| | 05:20 | (Music playing)
| | 05:25 | Now you can definitely hear the delay
as a separate event which sometimes works
| | 05:29 | great in a track and
sometimes doesn't. Let's hear it.
| | 05:31 | (Music playing)
| | 05:37 | It doesn't really sound all that good
in the track and let's see what it is.
| | 05:41 | In this case, it's a quarter
note triplet at 384 milliseconds.
| | 05:45 | That might not work really well.
| | 05:47 | Let's see what happens if
we lower that a little bit.
| | 05:51 | Let's try a straight 8th note delay.
| | 05:55 | Let's see what it sounds like.
| | 05:56 | (Music playing)
| | 06:01 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 06:02 | (Music playing)
| | 06:08 | That doesn't really work either.
| | 06:10 | So let's go to a dotted 8th note delay.
| | 06:14 | Have a listen. This is pretty long.
| | 06:16 | (Music playing)
| | 06:19 | The other thing we'll do is
we'll add a little bit of Feedback.
| | 06:22 | So there is a couple of more repeats.
| | 06:24 | (Music playing)
| | 06:29 | Let's have a listen.
| | 06:30 | (Music playing)
| | 06:36 | That might work for some songs.
| | 06:38 | It doesn't work for this one.
| | 06:40 | Let's try a triplet now and see what happens.
| | 06:42 | Let's have a listen.
| | 06:43 | (Music playing)
| | 06:48 | That's a little better.
| | 06:49 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 06:50 | (Music playing)
| | 07:09 | And you can hear that one pretty much works.
| | 07:11 | It sounds pretty good.
| | 07:13 | It gives the vocal a sense of space.
| | 07:15 | It gives it a little bit of
dimension and yet it doesn't get in the way.
| | 07:19 | And that's what we're looking for.
| | 07:20 | Finally the last thing
we'll do is an untimed delay.
| | 07:24 | And usually what this means is it's a
delay that's not timed to the track and
| | 07:30 | because of that, it sticks out and
this is just what we want sometimes.
| | 07:34 | We definitely want to hear the delay.
| | 07:36 | So a good starting place
is always 350 milliseconds.
| | 07:40 | Let's have a listen to what it is.
| | 07:41 | (Music playing)
| | 07:47 | When you go and hear bands live, a lot
of times they'll use a 350 millisecond
| | 07:51 | delay because it kind of works no
matter what the tempo of the track is.
| | 07:56 | And if they want some
dimension, they'll just dial that in.
| | 07:58 | And this is kind of very
useful number for live delay times.
| | 08:04 | It doesn't always work for recorded
delay, but let's hear what it sounds
| | 08:08 | like with the track.
| | 08:09 | (Music playing)
| | 08:18 | It's not bad with this track, but
you can definitely hear the delay.
| | 08:21 | Whether you want that or not of course
is a question of taste, a question of
| | 08:25 | what the producer wants, a
question of what the artist wants.
| | 08:28 | So as you can hear, delay adds a sense
of space and polish without pushing the
| | 08:32 | vocal too far back in the mix.
| | 08:34 | Make sure that you experiment with
both timed and untimed delays as well as
| | 08:38 | different delay lengths and note
denominations to find the right one for the track.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using delay to layer the mix| 00:00 | Just like Reverb, there's no rule for
where or how Delay is added to a mix.
| | 00:04 | In some mixes, a single delay can
work for every instrument vocal.
| | 00:08 | That's what they did on all those great
hits in the 50s, 60s, and 70s when the
| | 00:12 | Delay came from a tape machine.
| | 00:14 | Another mix might sound better with
the separate delay for every mix element.
| | 00:17 | Here are a few examples that will
allow you to hear each scenario.
| | 00:21 | So we have our three delays set up.
| | 00:23 | We have a Haas Delay which is a
delay of 40 milliseconds or less.
| | 00:28 | We have a Short Delay, this is somewhere
between 50 and 150 milliseconds, and we
| | 00:32 | have a Long Delay that's
somewhere around 300-400 milliseconds.
| | 00:37 | In this case, everything is timed to the track.
| | 00:39 | If we look at our Haas Delay, it's
at 36 milliseconds timed to the track,
| | 00:44 | Tempo is at 104 BPM.
| | 00:47 | If we look at our Medium Delay or
Short Delay, it's at 216 milliseconds and
| | 00:52 | that's a dotted 16th note delay.
| | 00:54 | We look at our Long Delay.
| | 00:56 | It's a 8th note delay at 288 milliseconds.
| | 01:01 | So let's hear how we can use just
those three delays to layer a mix.
| | 01:05 | First thing we'll do is, listen to
what a Delay does to a Snare Drum.
| | 01:09 | Now you might think that you would only
add Reverb to snare, but sometimes you
| | 01:13 | would be surprise that what
a little bit of delay can do.
| | 01:16 | So let's move down here to our Snare
Drum and Solo it up, have a listen --
| | 01:20 | (Music playing)
| | 01:21 | And let's listen with the Delay.
| | 01:25 | And this one now is going to our Short
Delay which is 150 milliseconds or thereabouts.
| | 01:32 | (Music playing)
| | 01:32 | Okay, by itself it doesn't sound too good.
| | 01:41 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 01:42 | (Music playing)
| | 02:00 | You can hear it's very subtle, but you
can hear that the Snare suddenly gets
| | 02:03 | a lot bigger in the mix and you don't hear
the delay because it's timed to the track.
| | 02:08 | So we'll leave that there for now and
let's go over and look the most important
| | 02:12 | part of our mix which is the vocal.
| | 02:14 | It's always the focal
point and let's get a delay.
| | 02:17 | Solo it up first and listen --
| | 02:18 | (Music playing)
| | 02:19 | That's a Long Delay.
| | 02:19 | I don't know if that's
going to work for the track.
| | 02:32 | Let's go to the Short Delay and have a listen.
| | 02:35 | (Music playing)
| | 02:39 |
| | 02:45 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 02:45 | (Music playing)
| | 02:46 | Now you can hear what's happening here.
| | 03:08 | You barely hear the Delay itself, but
yet you can hear as soon as you turn it
| | 03:12 | off, as soon as that Delay is muted,
suddenly the vocal sounds naked.
| | 03:17 | When you put the Delay on, it just sounds
bigger and there's a sense of space and depth.
| | 03:22 | And that's what we're trying to do.
| | 03:23 | We're not necessarily trying to
call attention to the Delay itself.
| | 03:26 | We're just trying to put the vocal into
an environment, just give it a sense of
| | 03:31 | specialness, and the Delay does that.
| | 03:33 | So let's leave that right there for a second.
| | 03:35 | Let's go to the background vocals.
| | 03:37 | Let's have a quick
listen to them on their own --
| | 03:39 | (Music playing)
| | 03:40 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 03:48 | (Music playing)
| | 03:49 | What might work really well, is to
spread those out and put the Haas Delay
[00:03:56.24 on it.
| | 04:03 | Let's solo it up and that's on Bus 19.
| | 04:06 | Let's listen as we put
the Haas Delay in the track.
| | 04:09 | (Music playing)
| | 04:22 | Now the cool thing about this is it
makes this sound like there are more singers
| | 04:26 | than there actually are.
| | 04:27 | It actually beefs up the
sound of the background vocals.
| | 04:31 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 04:31 | (Music playing)
| | 04:32 | Now the other thing we
can do is stereolize this.
| | 04:48 | Already the Haas effect is
panned at 45 to the right.
| | 04:52 | Let's take our main background vocal and
we'll pan that about the same. Have a listen now.
| | 05:11 | (Music playing)
| | 05:12 | You can hear suddenly there's a sense
of space, there's also a space just for
| | 05:17 | the lead vocal up the middle.
| | 05:19 | When we pan the background vocal
suddenly, we never have to worry about them
| | 05:23 | stepping on the lead vocal, and
that's the beauty of using the Haas effect.
| | 05:26 | Let's go to our guitars and see what it
sounds like with the delay on a guitar.
| | 05:32 | Let's go to our Guitar number 1
first of all, have a listen, Solo it.
| | 05:35 | (Music playing)
| | 05:36 | Now this is Bus 16.
| | 05:46 | Bus 16 is the Long Delay.
| | 05:48 | Let's hear what it sounds like.
| | 05:48 | (Music playing)
| | 05:49 | That's pretty good.
| | 06:00 | Let's listen what it's like in the track.
| | 06:01 | (Music playing)
| | 06:17 | Now again, it doesn't call attention
to itself, but all of a sudden, the
| | 06:21 | electric guitar sounds just a bit more special,
there's some space around it. It feels good.
| | 06:26 | All of a sudden, there's a sense of
polish that you feel not only on the guitar
| | 06:29 | but on the mix as well.
| | 06:31 | Let's go the other guitar and have a
listen to that as well. Solo it up.
| | 06:34 | (Music playing)
| | 06:45 | Let's try a different delay on this one.
| | 06:46 | Let's go to the Short Delay
which is on Bus 15, have a listen.
| | 06:49 | (Music playing)
| | 06:50 | Now let's listen in the track.
| | 06:58 | (Music playing)
| | 06:59 | Now same thing happened.
| | 07:13 | All of a sudden, there's a sense
of polish that comes over the track.
| | 07:16 | We don't necessarily hear the Delay
and that's what we're actually trying to
| | 07:20 | achieve by timing it to the track.
| | 07:22 | One more track that we can work on, and
that's the Hammond Organ, the B3 track.
| | 07:27 | Let's listen just by itself --
| | 07:29 | (Music playing)
| | 07:39 | This is obviously recorded in a small room.
| | 07:41 | What we want to do is put some space around it.
| | 07:43 | So what we'll try to do is put the Long
Delay on it and the Long Delay is on Bus 16.
| | 07:49 | Let's hear what it sounds like.
| | 07:49 | (Music playing)
| | 07:50 | Let's have a listen in the track.
| | 08:01 | (Music playing)
| | 08:10 | The other thing that might sound
good is to try the Haas Delay on it.
| | 08:15 | Let's go to Bus 19, have a listen.
| | 08:17 | (Music playing)
| | 08:18 | Let's hear in the track.
| | 08:29 | (Music playing)
| | 08:30 | I think that actually gets in
the way of the background vocal.
| | 08:40 | So let's go back to the Long Delay
which is on Bus 16 and have a listen.
| | 08:47 | And what I'm going to as we listen, I'm
going to mute the Delays just so you can
| | 08:52 | hear what it adds to the track.
| | 08:53 | (Music playing)
| | 08:54 | You can hear there's a sense of
polish that the delays add, and that's what
| | 09:16 | we're trying to achieve here.
| | 09:17 | By combining the three delays with
three reverbs, all of a sudden, you have not
| | 09:22 | only the sense of polish and space that
they'll bring to the mix, but all of a
| | 09:26 | sudden, the mix sounds complete.
| | 09:29 | It sounds full, it sounds real.
| | 09:32 | And as compared to the way it sounds
now where it's flat, all of a sudden
| | 09:36 | there's a sense of specialness and
that's what we're trying to do by
| | 09:39 | adding Delay and Reverb.
| | 09:41 | So that's how we layer a mix by
placing different mix elements in different
| | 09:44 | environments with the Delay.
| | 09:46 | As with Reverb, try to visualize if an
instrument is in front of, behind, or
| | 09:51 | with another instrument to determine
which layer the instrument should be in.
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|
|
14. Adding Modulation EffectsUnderstanding the types of modulation| 00:00 | Modulation refers to an external signal
that varies a signal of an instrument or
| | 00:04 | a vocal and volume, timing or pitch.
| | 00:07 | This includes effects like Chorus,
Flanging and Phasing, which are pretty
| | 00:10 | standard mixing tools, to trim along
vibrato, which you use mostly on Guitars
| | 00:14 | and Electric Pianos.
| | 00:16 | While all modulation effects certainly
don't sound the same, not many mixers
| | 00:20 | know the difference between them.
| | 00:21 | In this video, I am going to demonstrate
the differences between different types
| | 00:24 | of modulation effects.
| | 00:26 | So there are three main types of modulation
effects that you usually use during a mix down.
| | 00:32 | One is Phase Shift, one is
Chorus, the other one is Flange.
| | 00:36 | Chorus, is the most popular of all
three, but let's start with the Flanger.
| | 00:39 | First of all let's take a listen to it.
| | 00:41 | (Music playing)
| | 00:42 | Flanger is a pretty dramatic effect
and it was first derived in 60s by the
| | 00:56 | playback of a song on two
different tape recorders at the same time.
| | 01:00 | By slowing one of the machines down by
placing your finger on the tape flange,
| | 01:04 | it became known as Flanging.
| | 01:06 | Flanging is fairly dramatic,
so it isn't used all that often.
| | 01:09 | Sometimes it's used across the entire mix.
| | 01:12 | And occasionally, it's used on
individual instruments like this Guitar or
| | 01:16 | sometimes with keyboards,
electronic keyboards especially.
| | 01:19 | A modulation effect is
used even more as a chorus.
| | 01:23 | Let's look at that for a second.
| | 01:24 | I will bring up chorus have a listen.
| | 01:27 | (Music playing)
| | 01:38 | It's a nice, gentle effect that expands
the sound of the instrument across the
| | 01:43 | stereo channels so it's stereo rises
something that's kind of mono to begin
| | 01:47 | with, which is very nice.
| | 01:49 | Both the chorus and flange effect is
a modular delay that's mix back into
| | 01:53 | the original signal.
| | 01:55 | The difference between the chorus and
the flange is that the, flange has a very
| | 01:59 | much shorter delay time.
| | 02:00 | It's usually less than one second or so.
| | 02:03 | Phasers are somewhat less dramatic
effects and they aren't use quite as much.
| | 02:07 | Let's take a listen.
| | 02:08 | (Music playing)
| | 02:20 | You just don't hear this effect all
that much and when you hear it, it's
| | 02:23 | usually on an electric piano, where
it tends to work little bit better than
| | 02:28 | another instruments.
| | 02:29 | So those were those different
kinds of modulation effects.
| | 02:32 | Chorus and flange comes from a modulated delay.
| | 02:34 | That's mixed back into the original
signal, with the chorus having a longer
| | 02:38 | delay than a flanger, while Phasers
are a less dramatic effect and not used
| | 02:42 | as much.
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| Understanding modulation parameters| 00:00 | The parameters for a Phaser, Flanger,
or Chorus are somewhat the same, which is
| | 00:04 | why all three effects are sometimes
combined into the same unit or plug-in.
| | 00:08 | In this video, I'm going to show you
the various modulation controls and
| | 00:11 | explain what they are for.
| | 00:12 | The first parameter that we will
talk about is called Speed Control and
| | 00:15 | sometimes it's called Rate like it is here.
| | 00:18 | This control adjusts the speed of the effect.
| | 00:20 | It's usually set in low milliseconds
from about 0.5 up to about 25 milliseconds.
| | 00:26 | Have a listen to what it
sounds like here as we adjust it.
| | 00:29 | (Music playing)
| | 00:40 | So you can hear when it gets very, very low.
| | 00:42 | In other words, when the effect is
closer to zero, we hear less and less of it.
| | 00:46 | While you hear way too much, it just
wobbles a whole lot as it gets above 1.
| | 00:52 | The next control is Depth or sometimes
it's called Intensity, that adjust how
| | 00:56 | much of the effect that you hear.
| | 00:57 | Let's have a listen.
| | 01:05 | (Music playing)
| | 01:06 | And once again, as you get towards the
upper end of the parameter settings then
| | 01:15 | it becomes something that might
not be too usable on the track.
| | 01:19 | One of the most important controls is
the Mix control and that mixes the wet
| | 01:23 | with the dry signal.
| | 01:25 | In most cases a Mix of 50% provides about
the most intense effect that you can get.
| | 01:29 | Let's have a listen --
| | 01:30 | (Music playing)
| | 01:31 | Now when it's set to zero, what that
means is your only hearing the dry signal,
| | 01:41 | you're not hearing any of the effect.
| | 01:42 | It's quite the opposite when it set to
100, all you're hearing is the affected
| | 01:45 | signal and none of the dry signal.
| | 01:47 | (Music playing)
| | 01:48 | Doesn't sound that much different.
| | 01:54 | That's because it's really dependent
upon the mix to really get the effect.
| | 02:01 | A balance of 50% dry and 50% wet gives you
the most dramatic effect as you can hear now.
| | 02:13 | (Music playing)
| | 02:13 | Another parameter that you usually see
is the Feedback control, sometimes it's
| | 02:18 | called Regeneration which
basically means the same thing.
| | 02:23 | What this does is it takes a little of
the output signal of the plug-in or the
| | 02:26 | hardware unit and it routes it back to
the input of the device and that provides
| | 02:30 | a really unusual variation to the sound.
| | 02:33 | Let's take a listen --
| | 02:40 | (Music playing)
| | 02:46 | Once again, at its most extreme
settings and it just might be a little too
| | 02:51 | dramatic for most uses, but
nonetheless it's an effective parameter and it
| | 02:55 | something that you should consider playing with.
| | 02:58 | Sometimes there is also a Width parameter
that controls how wide the stereo field is.
| | 03:02 | As you can see we don't have a Width
control in this particular plug-in,
| | 03:06 | although many Modulation plug-ins do have it.
| | 03:09 | And last is the Delay control.
| | 03:11 | On many multifunction modulation
devices or plug-ins the Delay Control is
| | 03:16 | what changes the function from a
Phaser, to a Flanger, to a Chorus or
| | 03:19 | anywhere in-between.
| | 03:20 | Let's have a listen --
| | 03:21 | (Music playing)
| | 03:37 | On this particular plug-in you don't
hear a really dramatic effect going from
| | 03:41 | Phaser to Flanger to Chorus, because
it's not a multifunction device it's just
| | 03:48 | a dedicated chorus.
| | 03:50 | But if you do have a multifunction
modulation plug in, you'll find that it's the
| | 03:54 | Delay parameter that actually
sets the function of the device.
| | 03:57 | So those are the typical Modulation
parameters on a Chorus, Flanger or Phaser.
| | 04:01 | The Speed or Rate control adjust the
speed of the effect, the Depth or Intensity
| | 04:06 | control adjust how much you hear the
effect and the Mix parameter controls the
| | 04:10 | balance between the wet and the dry signal.
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| Modulating the guitars| 00:00 | Distorted electric guitars and
modulation seem to fit together like a hand in a
| | 00:04 | glove, although clean electrics
and acoustics benefit as well.
| | 00:07 | In this movie, I'll show you how
various modulation effects work on both clean
| | 00:11 | and distorted guitars.
| | 00:12 | First of all, let's listen to our
electric guitar number 1 soloed and let's
| | 00:17 | listen to what it sounds like by itself.
| | 00:19 | (Music playing)
| | 00:25 | Let's add a chorus.
| | 00:27 | because a chorus usually works
really well on most instruments.
| | 00:32 | We'll do that first.
| | 00:34 | So we'll go to our Modulation, we'll
use our AIR Chorus, just by itself, just
| | 00:39 | the way it is right now.
| | 00:40 | Let's have a listen.
| | 00:40 | (Music playing)
| | 00:41 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 00:49 | (Music playing)
| | 00:50 | Now as you can hear what happens is it
gets widened out, because of the stereo
| | 01:09 | effect that didn't have before and
this can sometimes work really well
| | 01:14 | especially if there is
only one guitar in the mix.
| | 01:16 | If there are several guitars sometimes
it just gets a little too wide, but in
| | 01:19 | fact, it's a really nice effect and
sometimes it works better than reverb or
| | 01:23 | delay in putting a sheen or putting it
in a nice space and that's kind of what
| | 01:29 | we want whenever we put an
effect on a instrument or vocal.
| | 01:33 | Now we don't even have to
adjust any of the controls too much.
| | 01:37 | It sounds pretty good just as it is.
| | 01:39 | Let's try something else.
| | 01:40 | Let's try Flange just so you can hear
the difference of what it's going to
| | 01:45 | be like in the track.
| | 01:46 | First of all let's listen solo.
| | 01:47 | (Music playing)
| | 01:48 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 01:57 | (Music playing)
| | 01:58 | You'll find that a Flange will work
better on other instruments than guitar,
| | 02:09 | although there is certain cases when it does
work really well, this is one of them though.
| | 02:14 | So what we'll do is we'll go back, we'll put
this on Chorus and let's move on to something else.
| | 02:21 | Let's listen through the acoustic guitar and
here what we can do with the chorus with that.
| | 02:26 | Let's listen by itself first.
| | 02:27 | (Music playing)
| | 02:40 | Now here we have chorus. It's already in.
| | 02:43 | It's bypassed.
| | 02:43 | Now let's listen what it sounds like --
| | 02:45 | (Music playing)
| | 02:46 | And it pretty interesting,
now let's listen in the track.
| | 03:03 | (Music playing)
| | 03:04 | Now you can hear the acoustic guitar
got wider in the Mix and it got a little
| | 03:21 | bit more interesting and a little
thicker sounding, but in fact, we can actually
| | 03:25 | make it sound like a 12-string if we
wanted to and the way we do that is with a
| | 03:29 | little bit of a boost in the Rate here.
| | 03:32 | Now let's solo it up and have a listen.
| | 03:43 | (Music playing)
| | 03:44 | It's not exactly like a 12-string, but
as close as you can artificially get.
| | 03:57 | So there you have it, various types
of modulation can be used on clean or
| | 04:00 | distorted guitars and make it sound
thicker or wider in stereo field or just
| | 04:05 | make it sound unique.
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| Modulating the keyboards| 00:00 | Modulation has been used on keyboards
almost from the time they were invented.
| | 00:04 | Adding a bit can take a boring mono
instrument and make it more interesting as
| | 00:08 | well as make it thicker and wider sounding.
| | 00:10 | In this video, we'll look at
different ways that modulation effects can be
| | 00:12 | use on electric piano.
| | 00:13 | First thing we'll do is we'll solo up
this electric piano and have a listen
| | 00:22 | to it just by itself.
| | 00:23 | (Music playing)
| | 00:26 | I can hear it has a little bit of
tremolo on it, just to differentiate tremolo
| | 00:30 | is a variation in volume while
vibrato is a variation in pitch.
| | 00:35 | Most instruments have the variation
in volumes so it's tremolo, even though
| | 00:38 | they may be called vibrato, what it usually is,
is tremolo and that's what is in this case.
| | 00:44 | So the first thing we're going to do is
try a chorus plug-in, so we're going to
| | 00:48 | go down in Modulation, go to our
AIR Chorus and let's have listen.
| | 00:52 | (Music playing)
| | 00:59 | You can hear it widens it out very nicely.
| | 01:01 | Some nice wide thickening effect.
| | 01:04 | Let's listen to what it does in the track.
| | 01:05 | (Music playing)
| | 01:14 | It's really nice. It keeps it out of the way
of the other instrument while widening it out and it
| | 01:18 | adds a little bit of a sheen
that we didn't have before.
| | 01:22 | Let's try something else.
| | 01:23 | Let's try another Modulation
effect. We'll try Flanger.
| | 01:26 | Let's listen what it sounds
like, first of all by itself.
| | 01:31 | (Music playing)
| | 01:41 | Let's listen in the track.
| | 01:42 | (Music playing)
| | 01:52 | It's not as good because it calls
attention to itself and it's not exactly what
| | 01:56 | we want for this track and
sometimes for other tracks as well.
| | 01:59 | Let's have a quick listen again and
let's Bypass it and then we'll put it in so
| | 02:05 | you can hear the difference.
| | 02:06 | (Music playing)
| | 02:13 | Let's try another one.
| | 02:15 | This time we'll go to Phaser.
| | 02:18 | Let's listen by itself.
| | 02:19 | (Music playing)
| | 02:24 | I can hear the effect is very pronounced.
| | 02:26 | Let's have a listen in the track.
| | 02:28 | (Music playing)
| | 02:35 | Once again, it calls a lot of
attention to itself and it's not necessarily
| | 02:38 | something that really sits in the
track well, so let's go back to our chorus.
| | 02:42 | Almost always chorus sounds better
than the other modulation effects.
| | 02:46 | That being said there is the occasion
where Flanger can work really well and
| | 02:51 | we'll see that coming up
in a movie about strings.
| | 02:53 | Let's have a listen.
| | 02:55 | (Music playing)
| | 03:04 | It sounds nice. So to sum it up, chorus,
Flanging and tremolo are frequently used modulation
| | 03:07 | effects on all sorts of keyboards.
| | 03:09 | Don't be afraid to experiment with Rate,
Depth and Feedback controls, but be
| | 03:13 | aware that it can cause tuning
problems with other instruments.
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| Modulating the vocals| 00:00 | Modulation effects are often used on
vocals to make them sound thicker and widen
| | 00:03 | them out in the stereo field.
| | 00:05 | Let me show you how that's done.
| | 00:07 | The first thing we'll do is
listen to a chorus on the vocal.
| | 00:10 | First of all let's
listen to the vocal by itself.
| | 00:12 | (Music playing)
| | 00:13 | Now we already have a chorus
patched in. It's in Bypass.
| | 00:23 | Let's take it out of Bypass to
have a listen of what it'll do.
| | 00:26 | (Music playing)
| | 00:32 | Now let's listen to the track.
| | 00:33 | (Music playing)
| | 00:48 | Now there is couple of problems when using this.
| | 00:50 | The first is that if we're not careful
sometimes we could actually cause some
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