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  • What's going on, my name is Justin, and I come from the wonderful world of modernmixing.com,

  • and you're checking me out on The Pro Audio Files. How cool is that? So, what I wanted

  • to do is I wanted to show you how I was able to mix this e-piano/pad. I kind of view it

  • as more of a pad, it sounds like a combination between the two, but for the sake of this

  • particular tutorial, I'm going to call it a pad.

  • I just want to sort of conceptually help you understand what I was trying to do when I

  • was mixing this. So, with this particular record with this pad, I wanted it to be sort

  • of a mysterious type of sound, because the original sound was cool, it already gave me

  • this haunting kind of mysterious vibe to it, but I just wanted to enhance that a bit and

  • just accentuate it and sort of make it more obvious that this is sort of a haunting type

  • of sound.

  • I'm a very visual mixer, and what I mean by that is I don't mean like with an EQ graph,

  • and like, “oh, look, I can see what I'm doing.” I don't mean it like that, I mean

  • that I can visually see the sound in between my speakers, and sitting in between my speakers,

  • and I view that as my canvas.

  • So to give you a visual perspective, let me just quickly go into Photoshop here, and this

  • will give you an idea of what I'm trying to do.

  • So this green circle represents the vocal. This blue egg shape kind of represents that

  • pad or e-piano thing that I was talking about, so right now it's kind of in the center, it's

  • very direct, you know where it's coming from, and the vocal sits out just in front of it,

  • and that's why I've put this blue circle just behind it.

  • But again, it's two sounds that are very direct and very present and very obvious sounding,

  • coming straight from the middle. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to get rid of that

  • one and create something like this. So I'm trying to go for something that kind of takes

  • up a wider spectrum in the stereo, but also kind of wraps around the vocal, and then to

  • take it one step further with some EQing and some shaping of the sound, what I'm trying

  • to do is I'm trying to carve out some space so that vocal is even clearer now.

  • So now, you can see that green circle is really really obvious where it is, it's in the center,

  • and then everything else is kind of around it. So this is your focal point, and this

  • blue stuff over here is just your ambient, haunting, mysterious sort of vibe that's going

  • on the record.

  • So, let's show you what I'm talking about from the start and finish.

  • [e-piano pad without processing, then with processing]

  • Okay, so let's see what this sounds like when I add the vocals

  • in now. First, we'll start it with the plug-ins off.

  • [vocals and pad play, pad without processing, then with processing]

  • Okay, so you should be able to hear it now. It's really, really sort of wrapping itself

  • around the vocals now. It's hugging it, it's giving it more of a mysterious type of vibe.

  • I've also done a lot of cleaning up to it, and I've done some leveling off as well, that

  • way it's not sort of bouncing up and down so much dynamically, and then it's a little

  • bit easier to place in the mix.

  • So let's just go through one at a time, I'm going to try to explain them as best as I

  • can.

  • First is the Q10. Pretty self explanatory, I'm just taking off some of the bottom end

  • here. I used two of these slopes here for the high pass, just so it makes it a bit tighter.

  • You can see it sort of steepens the slope a bit. I set them to about 100 Hz or so, that's

  • where the frequency cut-off is.So let's take a listen to it. The reason why I'm doing this

  • is because this particular sound had a lot of junk, and I don't want you to get too excited

  • here about the high-pass filter stuff, because I'm not a huge high-pass filter type of person,

  • but in this one particular situation, there's a lot of bass in the kicks, and in the actual

  • bass itself. It was just really really deep sub, so in this case I decided to use a high-pass

  • here because this sound was very dynamic, especially in the bottom end. Mixing that

  • with the bass and the kick kind of got a little bit sloppy. So let's demo this, before and

  • after.

  • [pad, before and after Q10]

  • Okay, so you should really be able to hear that bottom end. It got cleaned up, and it's

  • not quite as boomy anymore. So it's a little bit more focused in the mid-range, which is

  • sort of what I want.

  • Then we have this S1 Imager, and this is really doing all the work as far as spreading things

  • out and making things a bit phasey. This is sort of the crux of what's giving it that

  • sort of mysterious sound. So I have it basically cranked all the way up to width 100 and 2.94.

  • I don't know why I decided not to go all the way, but whatever, it happens.

  • And then I have the asymmetry here, it's set to -18 as you can see, and what it's really

  • doing is making the left and right channel not quite as even. Again, there are just some

  • of these things where you really can't explain, but when you twist them around and you flip

  • the knob or whatever it is, it just kind of gives you a cool sound, and that's exactly

  • what happened here, so I left it.

  • Basically what it's doing is not making it quite as even in the left and right channel,

  • and helping along with that kind of mysterious type of vibe. So let's play this before and

  • after.

  • [pad, before and after S1 Imager.]

  • So, really opens up the sound and it's not quite stereo where it's just left and right,

  • there is stuff in the center still, but again what it's really doing is creating that blanket

  • so it can surround the vocal around the center, and it really phases out that center channel

  • a little bit so it doesn't sound quite as direct.

  • So then we have this C1 Side Chain here, and what this is doing is around 250, there's

  • a little bit of a bump. I don't want to call it a resonance, but every time this thing

  • peaks, like you'll see here on the transients, it just sort of peaked up around that 250

  • zone and was really resonant and boomy, and was stopping me from getting it to really

  • really gel with the rest of the sounds on the record, so I added one of these things.

  • I started with the preset that I have called MM vocal low resonance, and ratio is set to

  • 4.7:1, attack is really fast because I want this thing to hit it really hard, and the

  • release is really just set to as much as I can get it set to the waveform of this particular

  • sound, so it will kind of bounce off of it in a musical way. It just releases it just

  • in time as that sound is sort of starting to dissipate a little bit, so it doesn't hold

  • on to it too long, because that's what I don't want.

  • But anyways, let's check it out.

  • [synth pad, before and after C1 Sidechain]

  • And again, this is used for cleaning. It's really just helping place it in between the

  • speakers. It's not really helping with the haunting sound, it's more of a corrective

  • type of thing. Then we have the R-Compressor. Similar thing,

  • it's just helping smooth out those peaks. Fast attack, fast release, 3.5:1 ratio, I'm

  • knocking off about 3dB. Again, this plug-in, though I wouldn't call it a transparent compressor,

  • it also allows you to sort of hit a sound pretty hard. In this case, I'm only doing

  • 3dB, but you could go as high as 6dB of reduction, and as long as you set the parameters up properly,

  • it doesn't sound like it's really killing the sound, which is what I like about this

  • thing.

  • So anyways, I'll show you what it's doing. Again, this is more for a smoothing out of

  • a thing so it's easier to place it between the speakers.

  • [pad plays, before and after R-compressor]

  • Again, it's really just focused around the peaks, like the tops. I'm just trying to shave

  • off just a little bit. As much as I can get away with, anyways.

  • And then we have the L1, and this is just kind of the last line of defense. I'm not

  • trying to hit anything too hard with this, but it's just there just in case something

  • gets out of hand. So let's play it.

  • [pad, before and after L1 limiter]

  • Then we have the Camel Crusher, and this is really just to add a little bit of color.

  • Adding some tube and some mechanical distortion here, so a little bit of lower-mids and some

  • upper harmonics, and again, it's really just for some color, just to make it a little bit

  • more gritty. Nothing too crazy with this, but I can do the before and after, check it

  • out.

  • [synth pad, before and after Camel Crusher]

  • So, I really tried to let this one play quite a bit, because I wanted to see if as I'm flicking

  • it on and off, if you could actually hear that mid-range color that it's adding. Again,

  • it was just to give it a little color, a little clarity, and some grit.

  • That's it! That's how I was able to achieve that sound, and hopefully my explanation and

  • everything was able to help you understand why I was doing it, and why I did what I did,

  • but that's it! So thanks for watching, and I will check you on the next tutorial.

What's going on, my name is Justin, and I come from the wonderful world of modernmixing.com,

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