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  • Hey, what's up, guys? David Glenn of davidglennrecording.com, and theproaudiofiles.com.

  • Coming from a little bit of a different setting today. I just got done editing a video that

  • I'm about to play for you. One of my members over at themixacademy.com, Ross Galvin, took

  • advantage of my service where I get on kind of a Skype call, but it's a thing called Go

  • To Meeting, and we do a one-on-one training session, and he pulled openactually,

  • he sent me a session, and I opened up his session, and we opened it up, started going

  • through it.

  • He asked about vocals and the stereo buss, and I went to mixing his song right in front

  • of him for an hour, and we recorded the whole thing. With his permission, he was kind enough

  • to let us share that.

  • So, I'm sharing it with you for free here on the internet. Davidglennrecording.com,

  • and the YouTube channel for The Pro Audio Files, and I hope that you enjoy it. All kinds

  • of gems in this one. It's a little bit hit or miss with some stuff. These are not typically

  • the plug-ins that I would use, but I wanted to make sure I used the plug-ins that he had.

  • A couple of paid plug-ins, but mostly stock plug-ins. I think you're going to get a lot

  • out of this.

  • It's free, I think it's about 45 minutes or so. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to share

  • this, spread the word. We would love for you to tell your friends if you think that this

  • could bring value to them. Thanks for hooking us up with more eyes on it and more views.

  • Feel free to leave a comment below. I'd love to hear from you if you dig it, and we will

  • see you in lots more to come, from davidglennrecording.com and theproaudiofiles.com.

  • Thanks, guys.

  • So, the Pro-Q – okay, the first thing you're looking at here, let me pull in your Pro-Q.

  • This is your stuff here, right? And you pulled open a vocal preset, you're dipping out a

  • little bit of the lows, you found some harsh stuff you're getting rid of. You liked something

  • in the 5,400, and you've got another one here doing some stuff.

  • Do you want me to listen to this and mix it and talk to you while I'm hearing it and doing

  • my thing to it? Is that something that might be helpful?

  • Okay, I'll try to stick to what you've got available. I'm actually going to try to stick

  • to what you've got available. So I'm actually going to get rid of these both. I'm going

  • to put this back to the stock preset here. I'm just going to pull out the low kind of

  • like you had.

  • Okay, I'm going to listen to it

  • and see what we're working with here.

  • [song plays]

  • Okay, so you hear that, right? It sounds good? Okay, cool. I'm going to do my thing, man,

  • and I'll talk, I'll stop it, I'll listen for it to cut out on your end and I'll talk about

  • what I'm thinking.

  • The first thing is, I noticed that the vocal satdid you record this?Ross: Yeah. It's

  • not in the best recording environment...

  • David: Naw, man, I'm not worried about it. We're going to work with it. This will be

  • super helpful for you. It's dark, you know, compared to what I hear that it could sound

  • like. It sounds a little dark to me, so my firstthe first thing I'm going to do

  • is I'm going to dial in this parallel compression. You saw I kind of did that, just vibing to

  • it. Maybe even step it up a little faster.

  • I'm just going to listen to that, and then I'm going to make some EQ choices. So I will

  • clean up the low end a lot of times, but with multi-band, I don't know if you've seen me

  • do that, where I compress against the low end, so that if a singer goes to falsetto

  • and is singing high, and I've already removed all of the lows, well, they might need those

  • lows when they're singing high.

  • So, compressing against them when they're full and thick will control them, but in this

  • case, I hear that EQ is going to be good, because it sounds pretty consistent.

  • I'm all over the place a little bit here, but I'm thinking clean up the vocal and try

  • to get it to sound a little bit brighter and a little bit clearer by controlling some of

  • this stuff, and then I'm going to look to see how that sounds.

  • We'll go on here. So, I'm just going to try cutting some stuff out, and see what it is

  • that I don't like and move it.

  • [song plays]

  • Okay, so let's see. Do

  • I still have you? Okay, cool. So the first thing that I'm listening for is just trying

  • to make that microphone sound more like what I want it to on this artist. So, you kind

  • of were on the right track for this, cutting out some of the lows. I wanted to emphasize

  • this is pretty common for stuff that I do, is I like to find a spot in this mid-range

  • between 800 and 2kHz, and I felt like 1021 sounded pretty good, so I brought that up

  • just a little bit right now. We may boost it more later, and we may even boost some

  • more up here later, but I'm just trying to make it sound a little more classy.

  • This may or may not be what you want, but what I'm hearing in my head is to clean up

  • the mic, boost a little top end – I'm thinking I mix a lot of Christian, LeCrae type stuff,

  • and people, whenever they come to me with that, they'll reference stuff like Rick Ross

  • and Drake, and stuff like that, so sometimes, there's a ton of top end in the mic, and sometimes,

  • there's practically none. It just depends on taste and style.

  • So, for me, I'm just trying to clean this up similar to what you're doing. 1KHz is the

  • sweet spot. I'm going to listen one more time, and I'm going to try to make sure that's the

  • one I like.

  • With the Pro-Q, you can hit this.

  • [song plays

  • There's kind of a honky tone right in there, so I'm going to try to pull just a little

  • bit out of some of those so that by dipping a little bit in here, we're obviously emphasizing

  • the stuff that's above it.

  • So, that's pretty straight-forward there. I think that already sounds a lot better.

  • Let's bypass it and make sure.

  • [song plays]

  • So, pretty straight. Just cleaning it up a little bit, and so we may take out more, but

  • right now, I think that sounds pretty good. This compressor, it's working. I think that

  • sounds great. I moved it a little bit faster, I may even push it a little harder.

  • [song plays]

  • So, what I did there, is I linked the threshold and the ceiling, so it's like a Waves L1,

  • so as I pull it down, we're getting gain reduction, but I'm also pulling down the output, so it

  • doesn't get louder or softer. The character is just changing, we're just adding compression.

  • I don't know how much we have there...

  • [song plays]

  • So, it's not alwaysit's just kind of like a last peak limiter. Anything that gets

  • through just a little bit, it's getting knocked off, two, three, four dB.

  • So, that's cool. Just flatten it out a little bit. Now over here, we've got some cleanup

  • EQ. If I heard the esses bothering me, I would pull in a de-ess here. With the stock de-esser,

  • it's cool. Just a male high frequency, but I won't just leave it like that. I'm going

  • to go find some esses.

  • [song plays]

  • It would help if I bypassed it. I'm going to look for esses.

  • [vocal plays]

  • Sss, sss.” My name'Sss.

  • [vocal plays]

  • Make sure Loop playback is on. It is, so I just have to make a longer selection.

  • [vocal plays]

  • So really, that “s” is coming in at like, 7kHz. It's a little bit higher. So I'm trying

  • to find where the harshness is in the “s,” and now I can pull that back out, and I just

  • want to get this a couple. 12 is ridiculous. This is doing nothing now, and I'm going to

  • listen, pull it down, just to where it controls that a little bit.

  • [vocals play, adjusting de-esser]

  • So, that's quite a bit. So maybe even pulling that back, just touching it, and then I can

  • take that same de-esser and duplicate it, and throw it on this back-end here. I'm going

  • to bypass it for now, because I haven't boosted any more top end to need that necessarily.

  • Alright, so we've got it compressed, we've got it up front. The mic actually doesn't

  • sound too bad, I don't feel like there's any crazy room sound. I don't feel like there's

  • any crazy room sound, it's just a little bit honky and muffly in the 500-600 range, so

  • we dipped just a couple dB at that, but opening, this right here, boosting 10kHz was like taking

  • a blanket off of it. It just gives it that classiness, it just gives it that modern sound.

  • So, I'm going to hit play, and just kind of listen and see what else I hear.

  • [music plays]

  • That sounds pretty good! What was the reference that you're going for with this one?

  • Ross: To be honest with you, I don't reference anything onthis is my stuff, this is

  • my music, and to be honest, I don't reference anything directly, but if I did, it would

  • be something like, you know, like you mentioned, Drake, LeCrae, you know, Little Wayne, all

  • of that sound, you know?

  • I really like Drake's mixes. His vocal is just – I don't know, they stand out like

  • crazy. His vocals are just... That's really what I'm going for, you know?David: Well,

  • I've got Lord Knows, featuring Rick Ross. I think it's in my system here. I'm going

  • toif you're cool with it, I'm going to reference, because I want to know what this

  • sounds like up against this. I usually drag it in, I call itref,” and then I stick

  • this bad boy at the top. I make it red and put it up here just above our libs, because

  • we have stuff.

  • Okay, and then I solo safe it. Are you familiar with Solo Safe-ing? Like I taught you with

  • the Aux tracks? Command+Click, so that even if we have something soloed, it will play.

  • I'm just going to drag it out to the right.

  • Okay, so I'm going to listen to a couple snippets of this.

  • [reference plays]

  • Okay, so now I can hear. We've got some more cleaning up to do. His vocal is still much

  • brighter than ours. Do you have the Virtual Mix Rack? The free

  • one that I told you about?Ross: Yes, but it's not working for some reason. I'm on [Pro Tools]

  • 10, I've been using 10, Pro Tools 10, and for some reason it's not. It was working at

  • first. I've got it, I can get it, I just have to uninstall and reinstall.

  • David: Well, here's what I'd say. I'd say to come in here to the Virtual Mix Rack, and

  • to give that classiness, you're going to hear it, and then what I'll do is I'll show you

  • another option, like a frequency, but this is doing all kinds of stuff behind the scenes

  • that I almost wish I knew, because there's some secret stuff going on. It's boosting

  • top end, but then it's adding analog circuitry, like harmonics and stuff, so I would put this

  • on this vocal. I think it would do big things.

  • Actually, and I would put it after the compressor, so it's post-parallel compression. So, we're

  • sending a really hot signal into it, and then, we're going to get a nice, forward, Drake

  • type vibe. What I hear from him, I feel like this is a good option, so let's hear what

  • happens.

  • [music plays]

  • Do you hear that? That's pretty nuts. So, let's go back to him and let's hear it.

  • [reference track]

  • Okay. So, we've got the top end, but now I feel like we could use a little bitsome

  • of the warmer mids that I hear in his voice, so I'm going to go over here to Pro-Q.

  • Okay, so now, I'm going to try to find those frequencies that I hear in Drake's voice,

  • and I'm going to try to accentuate those in yours, and see what happens. So, something

  • I like to do, I don't know if you've seen me do this or not, but I'll come over here,

  • I'll use the Pro-Q one so it's the same concept.

  • So, I'll pull this up. Have you seen me do this? Pull stuff out. Okay, so, see what I'm

  • doing here? I'm putting filters on both the top, and the bottom. So now, if I hit play,

  • and Drake's our reference...

  • [reference track plays, low-passed]

  • I'm only listening to this frequency range.

  • [reference plays, band-passed]

  • So, I can hear his low end, and I can listen to his low end, and then I can listen to my

  • low end.

  • [low end of songs playing]

  • And so what I'll do, is I'll actually take this sucker, and right now, I have them both

  • selected. I just clicked around them like that. So, you could do it like that, and you

  • can get real detailed. How I start this process, I usually rough mix in the beat, the vocal,

  • I get everything in the mix, and then I leave the low end alone, but this again is on the

  • Master fader here. I'll pull inif you double-click on the top, it creates that.

  • The high-cut/low-pass, and I'll take it all the way down to 15Hz, or 20Hz.

  • [plays reference track]

  • See, you feel him just shaking down there. And then, what is yours doing?

  • [plays song]

  • Not bad, right? You can hear the kick, but then you can't feel the low end, so then you

  • just have to think, well, okay, do I have 808s in at that moment, and just kind of think

  • about your song versus theirs, and listen to what the low end is doing, and if you don't

  • hear enough low in your bass or your 808s, then you know you can go in, and you've got

  • work to do. You've got to boost it below 25Hz.

  • The Pro-Q2, they changed the way it looks a little bit but... Okay, so then I'm going

  • to slide this up a little bit.

  • [song, low-passed]

  • So, pretty good stuff going on. So, I'm just going to listen, take note, reference, and

  • I'm going to work my way through the frequencies. So, I'm listening for like, the kick. Just

  • the thump and the punch of the kick. Anywhere from that 70, 60, 50, to 120.

  • [reference track, low-passed]

  • So, that's a good spot. I'm going to put a marker there, and then I'm going to come over.

  • [song plays, low-passed]

  • I'm going to put a marker on your song too, so I have yours and his.

  • Something I noticed about our low end versus his, his is all right down the middle. Every

  • frequency in his sub-region is centered, and you have a little bit out of the center. I

  • like it out of the center. I don't think it always has to be out, just stylistically,

  • they chose to be out.

  • So, anyways, those are just a couple of things I noticed when doing that.

  • Well, the cool thing about this is once I work on my low end, I will add this other

  • band here, so now I'm cutting out the lows, and I'm only listening to this frequency range.

  • I'll select them, and then I'll move them up above the lows. I'm done working in the

  • low end now. I'm going to listen to mine and his.

  • [song plays, then reference plays, band-passed]

  • I can hear he's got a little more power in the 100-200 range there up against us.

  • My whole point I'm leading up to is I want to know where his vocal comes in.

  • [reference plays, band-passed]

  • There we go. Okay, so let's move that marker to where Drake's actually in.

  • [reference plays, band-passed]

  • And you're in there. So now, I've got a couple more markers.

  • [song plays, band-passed]

  • You hear all the extra lows in our mic? So, we're a little more muffled than he is, at

  • a frequency somewhere in there.

  • [song plays, band-passed]

  • So now, on this EQ on the master level, remember, we're compressed now, I'm going to clean it

  • up. This is a little more surgery. You can probably see it here.

  • [song plays, band-passed]

  • And there we go. So I know I wanted to clean that up.

  • [song plays, band-passed]

  • A little bit tighter, right? So, it may be a little bit too much, which is what I was

  • saying about multi-band compression. It's kind of a hot thing right now for mixers.

  • We're using that to control it rather than get rid of it. We EQ it out, it's gone. But,

  • I'm going to just work my way through.

  • [song plays, band-passed]

  • And so, I've still got some of that which you had cut out in yours, but this stuff down

  • here, you could use a shelf, you could use a filter, chances are, he's filtering it kind

  • of above 150 or so. There's probably not much going on for his vocal.

  • [song and reference play, band-passed]

  • Cool. But, you may like a little more meat in your vocal than Drake's, but I think that

  • sounds kind of cool. So, I'm going to fast-forward a little bit, you get the point of what I'm

  • trying to say. Then I'm going to slide this guy up here.

  • [reference plays, band-passed]

  • So, it was a little bit of work to do in there. We come over, I'm going to click this little

  • guy so that this EQ is going to stay on top for us now. I'm going to click and add this,

  • so now I can see both. I don't have to keep going back and forth.

  • [song plays, band-passed]

  • Okay, so now I know the second marker is where he's in with the beat, which is important,

  • because I don't think I've heard a spot where it's just the vocalist on your track. So now

  • I'm listening for that.

  • [song, band-passed]

  • So, we're getting a little bit closer. It's not going to be exact. It's not the same mic,

  • not the same room, not the same gear, but we're just trying to get the sonics overall

  • to get a little bit tighter.

  • [music, band-passed]

  • Okay, so it's getting a little closer. Probably open it up a little bit.

  • [song, band-passed]

  • So that's kind of the harsh frequency range, that 3-5kHz.

  • [song, band-passed]

  • We need a little bit more of that top, so I'm thinking...

  • [song and reference plays, band-passed]

  • Okay, so you're probably hearing it. This is a process that could drive some guys nuts,

  • because you may hear something different than what I'm hearing on my headphones, versus

  • what your speakers are, but you get the point of it.

  • Ross: No, that's good, I think it's right on.

  • David: Okay, two more clicks here.

  • [song and reference track, band-passed]

  • And then I can hear some of his de-essing going on.

  • So, at that point, I'm going to put this guy away, and I'm going to reference...

  • [song and reference plays]

  • And there's still probably a little bit more of the 10kHz classiness that we could boost

  • in, and OTT is actually a really good multi-band. It sounds like he's got multi-band compression

  • on his vocal. I'm going to pull this in and see if we can't get a little bit more energy

  • from the vocal.

  • [song and reference]

  • So, now it's sounding a little bit thin, so I'm going to come back here and just kind

  • of tidy up. Maybe not take out so much. Back up a little bit.

  • [song and reference plays]

  • So yeah, there's definitely frequencies that are not working right, but you get the point

  • of how I would sit here and trial-and-error and go through a vocal. Keeping in mind the

  • whole time that we're dealing with a different track. The track we're working with isn't

  • whatever, but it sounds like there's some.

  • [song and reference]

  • So from there, it's pretty much taste decisions.

  • Ross: I hear it man, that's good stuff. That's really good. That's really helpful.

  • David: Cool, man. Well, I just recorded all of that, so you'll have that to go back and

  • watch. So, one more time, let's recap. The first thing was just cutting out some of the

  • lows, finding any of those muddy frequencies that were getting in the way of the vocals

  • sounding clear. The thing that I picture, I don't know if you're a visual learner, but

  • for me, there's a quote. I can't remember what artist, but he looks at this rock, and

  • he – I wish I could remember how it is, but instead of creating something, he chisels

  • all the parts of the rock that don't look like an elephant. He wants to make an elephant,

  • so he chisels all the parts that keep it from looking like an elephant, instead of chiseling

  • to make an elephant. That's the way I think about it with EQ is to find the stuff that

  • yeah, man, and just kind of shaping and do my thing to it.

  • 1kHz is usually a sweet spot, and then the 2-3kHz is usually a spot where the vocalist

  • is, depending upon who you're listening to, is the pop, classy. 10KHz is that air. That

  • 10-20kHz is going to beit'll take you from using a dynamic mic to a U87. You think

  • classic condenser mic has got more air on the top end.

  • 3-5kHz, you got to be tricky on. I will usually use a multi-band compressor and hit 3-5kHz

  • and hit the lows, to make sure the lows stay where I want them, and to make sure that the

  • 3-5kHz doesn't get too harsh. But then I'll also have a de-esser like I showed you.

  • There's a couple things in there. I hope you dig that. Do you have any questions on any

  • of that stuff?Ross: Nah, it's pretty good, man. I'm right on with you on that.

  • David: Cool, cool. So, you have these effects over here. You have a gentle chorus?

  • Ross: Yeah, I pulled some stuff up and I ended up just dropping a few of those out, because

  • I didn't think they were really having--

  • David: Yeah, hip-hop stuff, a lot of it sounds best dry. The other stuff, like a pop vocalist,

  • I use the gentle chorus a lot and whatnot, but if anything, just a hair of it to give

  • it a little bit of a silky, smoother, modern sound. That's not necessary. The vocal slap,

  • the same thing.

  • I like for Hip Hop, I prefer to use slap delays wide, opposed to reverb. I'm not a big reverb

  • guy for Hip Hop, but so you have this D-Verb right here. Were you trying that out a little

  • bit?

  • Ross: Um, I'm not using that, no. It's just there. It's the template. I just didn't take

  • stuff out.

  • David: Okay, cool. Well, I don't think Drake has much reverb. If anything, he has that

  • reflection type stuff, but it sounds pretty dry and in your face, and anything you add

  • effects wise is going to take that away, so you're on the right track.

  • Cool, man. What are you thinking? Any question on that? And you have the CLA-3A, you're going

  • to get more character out of the 3A than over here with like, Maxim and Bomb Factory. The

  • 3A, the 1176, this 1176 that you have on here is gold onDo you have the L1?

  • Ross: Yeah, I have the L1 and L2

  • David: See, what I would put a CLA-76 right here to replace what this is doing, and then

  • theseokay, so two things. First thing, I would put CLA-76 here, followed by either

  • the L1 or L2, and how I use this is exactly how I would use the L2, except the L2 and

  • the L1 have a little thing right here down the middle. If you click it and drag it down,

  • both of these will move together, and you just watch for two or three dB at the peaks

  • to make sure it's knocking them down and controlling it.

  • So, CLA-76 into an L1 or an L2. They do the same thing, pretty much. Then, from there,

  • the other thing I want to note about this parallel compression chainswitching between

  • 4, 8, 12 to 1 and 20 to 1, or hitting select and gettingall buttons in,” I think

  • the CLA-76 has an All button, but those become tone knobs. If you listen, you can hear it

  • go from a little more open, to a little bit more in your face, to smashed to death and

  • in your face. Just depending upon your song, click through those and listen for which one

  • you dig character wise.

  • For whatever reason, I chose the eight, but that's a good step as far as using the parallel

  • compression chain.

  • Ross: What would you do, like, so... you've got compression, limiter, and then, what's

  • the thirdwhat's on the third one? What would you do? Would you just compress and

  • then do some limiting?

  • David: It depends on the singer, and it depends on how much room soundif you have a vocalist

  • where they've been recorded in a closet, and there's a lot of reflections and room sound

  • coming up, by parallel compressing the crap out of it, you're going to increase the sounds

  • of those, so I may throw an EQ on that parallel chain, and hunt down for that resonant frequency,

  • and cut it like crazy in the parallel compression chain, because we're boosting it with all

  • that compression. So I'll try to find – I may do some surgical EQ on the parallel compression

  • chain, I may use lo-fi, I may use a guitar amp. It all is up to your taste, and what

  • you're digging.

  • But, don't be afraid to throw all kinds of stuff on here. You could throw effects, and

  • you've got a flat-line signal on this, you can send that to effects, and automate them

  • from there. There's just all kinds of stuff you can do with it.

  • What I typically do, is get this clean sound like we're talking about now, where I'll clean

  • up the vocal, I'll de-ess it a little bit, smash it with compression, go for the overall

  • sonics that I'm digging, but then at the end of this chain, like we did with OTT, this

  • may end up being a guitar amp, or a phaser, or a flanger. Like, it just depends on the

  • foundational tone.

  • Clean is fun. Clean and in your face is modern, but this, at the end of this chain is where

  • I would put anything like, aggressive, or something that changed the sound completely.

  • Ross: In what instance would you use something like modulation? Would you use it on this,

  • or would you use it up here on the lead on the side-chain? And what would you be trying

  • to gain from that?

  • David: Well, I would use it from here first. Effects for me would go over here, so if I

  • wanted chorus or flange or something, I would do it over here first. For me, if there's

  • a reverb or something that I know I want to be like, completely compressed and no room

  • for it to breathe, I would send the parallel compression signal into a reverb or something

  • so that I get a consistent level from those effects.

  • But remember, we're using a lot of this parallel compression in hip hop and modern music. For

  • me, this is almost always as loud, if not louder than my lead vocal as it is. Like,

  • the vocals are just compressed to death and back. So, the lead vocal level is almost always

  • more than appropriate for effects, or compressing on the actual effect. I think we talked about

  • that a little bit last time.

  • So, we cleaned it up, compressed it, got the sonics. That filtering technique, man, I cannot

  • recommendyou're going to learn more by referencing people's music like that than

  • anything I can tell you in an hour. What their low end is doing, all of that.

  • Then it just becomes what tools are you going to use to accomplish what you hear different

  • in the two, or if you even want it to be the same.

  • You have questions on that, man?Ross: No, that sounds pretty good. Could you just quickly

  • touch on the sub-master and master buss? Just kind of look at what I've got there, and kind

  • of say what you'd do differently as far as plug-in use?David: Yeah, sure. For me, EQ

  • wise, I would – a lot of times what I do on this band here, is I do a really steep 48 dB/oct low-cut, and then

  • I put it at 25. Nothing really below 25 worth. Anytime I reference, I'll listen to sometimes

  • 20, but just down here, I'm going to clean up the lows of everything in the mix coming

  • into this right here so that the limiter, none of that is reacting to anything below

  • 25, 30, whatever. It depends on the song.

  • So, you're boosting with the Pro-L, going into a Pro-Q where you've got a little bit

  • of love, you did a little bit of EQing, and Maxim for your limiter.

  • I wouldn't use Maxim, I would use the L1 or L2. I think that was just because I had it

  • in the template, huh?Ross: I think so, and mainly the only thing I've noticed, is that

  • plug-in usually when I use it, I don't add anything, I'm just knocking off maybe 0.1,

  • 0.2, or 0.3, because that seems like it does a pretty good job of knocking things down

  • and not letting things past.

  • What do you think? I think even on the L2, it seemed like that did better on knocking

  • things down.

  • David: Yeah, that's cool. I used Maxim years ago, but I haven't used it since they updated

  • it. I'm sure it's better. But yeah, honestly, you can't get too picky about what's on here.

  • The only thing that I would recommend about your 2-buss is get Revival on your 2-buss.

  • So, throw this to theso, yeah, okay. I would have this guy. I would find a way

  • to get it fixed. Call Slate, e-mail them, do what you have to do, because for this being

  • free, man, this is a beast.

  • I think they might still be doing $149 for everything, so watch the difference in this.

  • [song plays]

  • Yeah, so you can hear the difference it's making to the overall track, and so what I would do in my

  • big template, my main template, I've got this dialed in I think to about 16, and it's there

  • when I start mixing, so I mix into that sound as opposed to boosting at the end, because

  • now, I would say, that's probably a little bit too bright.

  • You don't happen to have

  • Ross: I hear that for sure. I hear what you're saying. So that's kind of a good question

  • about mixing in. How much do you mix in, too, because I kind of have done it both ways,

  • and I kind of feel like mixing into those plug-ins seems to work pretty well.

  • David: It definitely works well whenever you've got repetition and time, and you kind of know

  • your gain staging. Like, for me, almost all my tracks, I know where the kick is going

  • to end up, because my assistant goes in, and pulls the clip gain up to hit it where I want

  • it, so when I get a session that's already set up, I'm a little bit spoiled, because

  • I've been doing it for awhile, I hired myself an assistant, but the thing that I would recommend

  • for you would be to have this same setting here on. Get rid of the EQs, you don't need

  • those right away except for this one. This first one is important. Cutting out the subs,

  • because you don't want that to be triggering your limiter, and have your limiter set here.

  • If you like this, go ahead and pull in your limiter. Get the mix rough mixed and as hot

  • as you can as soon as possible, so that you can then work backwards, as opposed to keep

  • pushing things up, and you're running out of headroom and all of that. If that's making

  • sense.

  • So, what other plug-ins do you have fromdo you have any like, character plug-ins, like,

  • FabFilter Saturn?

  • Ross: Yeah, I've got all of the FabFilter stuff, like Volcano.

  • David: Check this out man. I've never done this, but FabFilter Saturn is one of my favorites.

  • Ross: Yeah, I've just been messing with it, because I just got these plug-ins. That plug-in

  • is awesome.

  • David: This plug-in is ridiculous. I use this on kick drums now. I'm going to show you how

  • I'm using it on kick drums. Like, I'm just going tothis is how I'd typically do

  • it. I had a band here, and I'll go below 50Hz or so, then I'll add another band above 110

  • or so, 115 is cool. Then I'm going to go below 1kHz. Then, I'm going to go up top, and actually,

  • I may even move that other one. I'm going to go above 10kHz, about there.

  • So, anyways, you get the point. So now, these are individual faders for each of those frequency

  • ranges. It's nuts.

  • There's so much you can do with it. I'm going to put it back to the factory default, and

  • let's go throughbecause then you can have different character for different frequency

  • ranges.

  • See, warm tape, for me, might be a godsend for you, overall on your mixes, and as well

  • as your vocal to give your vocal some character as well. I think Warm Tape is going to be

  • probably the best one for the 2-buss, but they even have presets that might even, like

  • mastering, big bass, clean tape, clean final, hip hop puncher... I mean, some of this stuff

  • is nuts. You can see, that's pretty insane. I don't know what that's going to do to our

  • ears.

  • [song plays]

  • I

  • mean... That's a bit crazy.

  • Ross: I hear the character that it's adding to it. Would you

  • David: That would be a judgment call. I would work with your output. But, if you like something

  • like that, I would start with that preset and mix into it. This is going to be trial-and-error.

  • I don't know if I'd do that with a client until I found the one that I like. This just

  • depends. Do you want to boost below 110? Or whatever you want to do to it. This could

  • be cleaning upthere's some cool stuff here.

  • So I'm going to show you what I would do right out of the gate for your overall mix, is I

  • would just add Warm Tape, and I would drive some saturation.

  • So, here's before.

  • [song plays]

  • So, for me, that sounded awesome, and it drove the mix forward, but it pushed distortion

  • into your bottom end. So, what I would do instead of Warm Tape, I would go clean tape,

  • and I would pull the drive down on this one. See this low end?So, below 105, now I'm barely

  • doing anything. Maybe 5-10%. Let's hear that.

  • [song]

  • Ross: Man, the vocals are just 20 billion times more standing out than they were.

  • David: It's pretty nasty right now. This, I mean, FabFilter Saturn is a beast. If you

  • have it, I would use this on everything. The Warm Tape sounds incredible. The only thing

  • is to watch out on the low end, you want to make sure that you go clean, unless you're

  • in like, an indie rock song, or you want it to be nasty and distorted. I mean, use your

  • ears, but the cool thing too is you can solo and only hear the lows.

  • [song, lows only]

  • And you can really tell if you're driving too much distortion into it, you can back

  • it up.

  • Now, here's another thing that's awesome about it. I'm kind of going all over the place with

  • this one, but you have the Mix knob to whether or not you're going to drive.

  • You could drive the junk out of this, boost it up, but then pull back the Mix knob for

  • just that band, and you're only touching the lows. Probably if we took more time, we could

  • dial in a sweet starting point, but overall this plug-in is a beast. I think we're going

  • to be going a little bit too far. I want you to remember just the basics of it having a

  • little bit of drive, 20% above 105, keeping your low end clean, and having just 20% of

  • the Warm Tape. That's just emulating an analog tape. That's it.

  • It does a darn good job, especially – I would put this up against the Slate and UAD

  • stuff. Saturn is a beast.

  • Then, you could always use it as an EQ if you wanted to. I would just stick to using

  • it for the Warm Tape and go from there, so.

  • Anyways, man. That's my two cents on it. Okay, cool.

  • So, dude, my bad, I'm all over the place, but we covered vocals, we've got your 2-buss

  • with a little bit of character with this Saturn, your limiter, and then we've got VMR. Let's

  • take off Saturn and VMR, I want to hear the difference of those two.

  • [song plays]

  • Ross: Yup. Loving the character. Yup.

  • David: Brings it forward. So, cool man! With free plug-ins for the most part.

  • Ross: That's definitely cool. That's some good stuff there. Alright, bro. Well, I appreciate

  • your time.

Hey, what's up, guys? David Glenn of davidglennrecording.com, and theproaudiofiles.com.

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