Lessons

Lesson Info

Bass and Guitar Mixing

You look at the base and we used way used a little bit of drive on the base in this particular case whatever we had he's the the key lamont itude screamer and it keeps him low in uh you know solid on there but if you look there's not a lot of dynamics in the base this is the same rift the whole song and is that this is the when we've already done and you know, it's it's pretty uh pretty blocked out I like phil too bass ale one's great for drums I think its bills a little crunchier these like detail type things l two's got out you know, for for basing guitars got auto release control function that I think is really useful similar deal there's of you have waves and have missed with waves new is this a r c you don't have to ah, you don't have to experiment with the uh the you know, the release of the actual limiting or compression is doing to the to the file you can actually, uh it actually does a great job of just figured out we should be on its own course there again, you'll see you wan...

t to listen to it so you don't want absolutely crush it I'm just kind of like said I'm just kind of maximizing the level and just trimming down these I guess you wouldn't call it necessarily the transit of the note but the loudest portion of the base this makes you know it's really essential to base a lot sounds with brock especially distorted guitar stuff that the base is really control dynamically so you can always hear the bass notes so that it sits solidly in the mix and it plays well with the drums and stuff and a lot of people are like, you know, I've heard people that man you're just really killing all the dynamics and like you doing exact same thing when you're on your compressor you know, a lot of people turn that compressive showing like twenty g b b again reduction and it's like it's the same thing just compressors less efficient and it's also changing the sound I'm doing the same work and not changing the sound hardly at all I probably should have let you here before sounds the same it's just louder in utah are also you notice there's no dynamics and distorted guitar now obviously if you're doing a style of music like acoustic, you know orient stuff that you know no distorted guitar you know, jazz or ah I don't know like you know, piano type music orchestra or something like that you really need to preserve the dynamics this dis approach a big ring for that you might be able to tighten up the louder portions just to give you some control or whatever but a compressor would probably work better on that was going on something that the compressor expander you know in some that brings the quiet moments up a little bit and brings up well among was down this way this is kind of does that but it's not you know this is I think more appropriate for this application and to maximize the overall volume of the mix you know, the big the big difference here are the big aspect of why this works and why this is good or whatever is because you know loud distorted guitars no dynamics so you have to treat everything else accordingly to make it play well listen to the sounds the same just louder and by the way says he likes it after we've annoy stripped all the guitars I think I've already talked about that and I've cross faded all my puncheon's and let's pretend that I checked all that too much listen to this you know that even that those attacks I want to leave some dynamic and because I don't want to completely crush out the sustained it's part of that saying because it's a cleaner type tune maybe too much looks good to me this is also really good thing in terms of er but someone else ends up mixing the record he processed these types of things uh let's work for them because it's actually are any like when you bounce the tracks yeah it's going to be in there yeah when export the tracks is already in the process and by means and you'll see how mixed or whatever like I actually processed the game instead of wood automation somebody's using logic obviously you know, without um did the digit change letters software if you want to import files from, say, pro tools in the logic or into q base or something like that the automation might not transfer and things of that nature but this eliminates the automation is important it's like ok, these kind of things they're in the ballpark you know? So it za timesaver overall like did you designs maximum for locals? Seems strange, but I've done I did a lot of just trial and error to figure out what plug as I like best on the I said these are very subtle differences, but I feel there's little blow people's minds we were like what? Check out the vocal look how much on actually yeah quite a bit makes him kind of even so jordan had a question about the guitars why wouldn't you just turn up the charge rather than limiting them? They didn't seem to have a dynamic range anyways yeah go back up here and say the yeah, this really doesn't do a lot to the tone but it does like said if you look at the regular signal yeah, these bumps here ah, it looks like the louder amplitude this the low end information and actually it it actually tightens up the low in when you compress the loud with what looks amplitude was on the guitar track there's very little dynamics materials a little bit you know, when you paul mute and things like that a strong there's actual boost in the lows so when you actually compress or limit just a little bit tightens those lows makes them more controlled in the mix. I know andy sneak, he uses a a c four limiter with like, you know, with just a little bit of compression on the lows to do the same thing. Um but this like said, since this doesn't change the tone, I can actually run this on this and it's pretty much is only compressing the lows and make it a little tighter. Um so you know, it's it's turning up the guitar and is compressing the lows a little bit as you noticed. Like I said, this is ah quite extreme looking on the vocals it's really even unit every evening out the vocals which is really going to help us in the mix and makes the I think the question in the last segment so I or someone was asking about the pronunciations bringing those up this is what this does and a lot of people were doing this by running hard compressions on their vocals on their vocal bus or their individual tracks they just don't see it but the cool thing about this let me just for demonstration I'll bring up a regular compressor and I'll show you what it does and should it and you can see how these two are different still regular did you was it called she's a c one here what would you go section by section instead of going like per track oh, you can go protract the only problem is, you know, is downside to that it just makes more space like said that this is data yeah computer yeah it's just that make sense here so it just makes the year, you know, you know, I come from the old school he no like when I started with proposals like, you know, I had a you know, a seven hundred dollars, three gigs cozy drive yeah. So, you know, I'm just I'm sealing that mindset. Well, I need to say you've hard drive space and you say cpu and nowadays, you know, with the technology we have now it's not as necessary and you think because you run the whole session one you were the whole record on one session, yeah, that's another reason why they should really pay attention to see people possible. Yeah, I think the new modern computers I mean, they can handle grand stuff. I mean, we're just saying there may be video videos since tents and like the rendering and things of that nature, so computers these new, especially the max and, you know, the really super bill pcs, I mean, there they can handle, like, a large processing and stuff like that, but it's still, like I said, I mean, I try to still keep the cpu load just so everything works efficiently. And if you get a lot of trial files, big files, a lot of pull against going on it's just going to start bogging down your session and, you know, you might loosen productivity because see what this does to see here's the like said here's, a classic compressor and it doesn't necessarily is not doing the audio something we have to. We have a program to make that we have to, like manually, like, you know, saying, but I just guessed that it was pretty much right, but we'll check out one thing it does with the transit information see these spikes so we're doing the same thing by compressing with a traditional compressor, it's even, but it's got these spikes because the the attack, if we speed up the attacks the same thing a lot of people were they run these on the bus and they freak out when they see me doing it so I might do just the same thing you know, it's a you are doing this it's the same type of deal or whatever you're compressing and but like said this will actually have more of a sound and character than this cluster seventy other settings you have to take in consideration and deal with we'll go through this quickly so we can get the shakes and do you leave dither on when you process the tracks uh in the um and you're talking about the specific plug ins or yeah yeah uh usually I only run dither on in my mastery. Okay, um like master and effects yeah. What the hell to whatever we'll have this type one together uh I think I understand dither correctly whatever like it it takes away the non linear aspect of the audio. Like said if you look if you zoomed in super close I mean it's also ones and zeroes with digital. So if you looked at the way form in this you know, even if it looks kind of jagged or whatever like say, if you really zoomed in this looks like a clean line but really it's like stair step and dither kind of introduces distortions and stuff to that information that kind of makes it more like analog analog is not stair step you know it's jagged and signed round in the human ear that sounds more pleasant or more natural to what we have recovered company you know, like I guess mostly just think it sounds better that's what dealer actually does so you know the poll against that have it I don't feel like it's necessary toe ad together and then together again and together again I feel like if you do multiple stages a dealer it might actually take away from your clarity and I don't know because I honestly can't hear a big huge don't turn together on and off like oh that's crazy different but I just leave it on the mat on the finer final uh yeah final maximize or whatever and that's one thing about of course we get in this tone assumed pseudo master, but there's devices out there like you know bebe sonic maximize er that adds that emulates what tubes and transformers doing ads harmonic distortions but that particular product actually does a low in phase alignment where delays I think it delays the high end some of the lows and highs meet your ear at the same time because naturally high end hits your year first or something, I think, and so you definitely don't want to do like a sonic maximize on one track that does the phase correction thing and then use it again later on the master bus that it's back off time the other way, you know, like the phase it's a subtle thing, but it makes a difference in the final got to really know what you're dealing with, sometimes with some of these specialized processes like there's some, you know, the arl excited, I think, uh, someone was nothing. Zak was joking about that or someone the other day. Or maybe maybe spanned. I think finn was joking about that, but like, nobody knows really what it does, this has a cool name. Yeah, this tracks pretty several due to dio is that I've gone through pretty much to even out the dynamics took out the loud volume said, you know, abortion is hard to demonstrate on this song, like because there's not a lot of dot, you know, like a low, super low dynamic parts is pulling pretty rides pretty evenly throughout or whatever, but, you know, obviously it with a song like you attract, like between the very to me is what we got eight minutes songs and you've got, you know, various dynamics you get, you know, you know, it starts off super soft. You know which hardly any of this would be going on, you know, any of this limiting and then you break into a rock in part, you know, out of nowhere, and then, you know, it's going to be pretty little limited, even whatever that, you know, so you won't allow some dynamics to be there, but this big a saw a lot of dynamics, so outside the first kind of dialing back or whatever and, like said, tom is achieving this also in is the choice of, ah, texture and layering of guitars like he's got the full blown distortion guitars, you know, in the in the er, you know, in the in the mode of introduction of the song, and then he's got the same riff coming back in the course, and then, you know, he's actually isn't a thinner, cleaner guitar, a little more dynamic type of ah, you know, instrumentation in the verse, so you get the dynamics in the selection of the tones in a select in the amount and the layering and also here in a minute, like we'll get dynamics will actually build in the dynamics in the mix just by simple attorney stuff, up or down.