Your videos are really clear, concise, and informative. I appreciate the straightforward instruction you offer, and the lack of rhetorical flourish. I often find that some other recording how-tos provide 5 minutes of information in a fifteen-minute video, but your sizzle-to-steak ratio is 100%. You are a born teacher, and I am subscribing to your channel now. Thank you!!
Much thanks. For years, I have been researching and studying compression on and off. A lot of tutorials just give an oral explanation of how compression works but still i could not understand what would be wrong were I to just keep a fast attack always for everything. And in the last example, due to there being a fast attack, the vocals were ultimately too muffled...AND FINALLY, I understand why it is not good to always keep a fast attack on something. All my years of studying and in just one video, thanks to you, I finally understand compression a bit more. Much thanks.
Everyone has a different way of communicating resonating with different folks good bad or in inconclusive. So happens this is one the one to ingrain the knowledge needed. Thanks
Brother, as always, you are absolutely AWESOME, knowledgeable and selfless for you service teaching others how to make one's music better and worthy of being listened to by others in amusement!!!!!! 💯
Good, so you already have a strong foundation. But it refreshes my memory too, as I'm doing it. Because now I have to actually explain it! Thanks for the comment.
10 years of mixing in my homestudio, I’ve learned everything « alone » (with tutos and courses) and I have yo say this video is one of the best if not THE BEST about this topic 👌🏽
@@lifepath7741 you didn’t read my first coment entirely, you are just searching excuses to pick at somebody else. I wasn’t bragging about my brains, I was telling everybody how much time I wasted by learning by myself and that it would have been better and faster to learn with a teacher like the one in the video ! Don’t answer to somebody with hat comment before understanding what he is saying 😒🙄🙄🙄
pure brilliance!!!! An 8 minute video and now I totally get it. I've been doing It by what sounds good and with this now gives me the science to it. YOU ARE THE MAN. I've literally been sucking the life out my mixes.
In logic, on the compressor he’s using, I liked using the graph view instead of the meter view to visually learn what the attack and release we’re doing. Using my ears alone helped the most of course but this video is solid info as usual.
You have a good mentor! Attack is a very underated, often ignored function that is just so vital to get right. So... nice Aaliyah type beat on your channel. I would just tighten up that bass and maybe give the overall mix a little more compression. But that's just my humble opinion. Thanks for the comment :)
Been trying to figure this out for a while and always got confused. I love how well you explained everything and it really stuck to me. Overall an amazing video. you got my sub! cheers!
In my personal opinion I feel like for this comparison to be accurate you would also need to adjust the threshold so that you are getting the same amount of gain reduction for each attack setting. On each one of the comparisons in this video There was a huge difference in gain reduction. If you have 15 dB of gain reduction happening on a signal it does not matter what the attack time is, it is going to sound like trash because it's being decimated.
This guy understands the old adage of "a picture is worth 1,000 words". He SHOWS the knob, its setting, and whether it is Slow or Fast! Simple stuff. Not not for some of his peers. I just watched a YT vid for 18:20.....ALL TALK, no Pictures! No Vst examples on that one. This one was GREAT!
With regard to drums, percussions, one MUST use one's EARS and even FEEL the "vibration" felt from either one's mixing speakers cones, listen with headphones, even feel the vibration on one's desk or whatever platform where one's speakers are placed in order to decipher that density of the SMACK or THUMP, as he said. Vocals and instruments should ALWAYS retain NATURAL sound yet with dense crisp resonance
Thanks for this brothahood! It's been a blast learning all the nuances of audio engineering! Because of many hours on TH-cam and discussing with friends in real time, I finally set my clubs system up to a great standard! THANKS!
Glad you got something from it! I appreciate the comment. Checked out your short film on Cereal. What did he say to his father? (english interpretation)
Another awesome one Arty!... Please more like this.. It took me forever to understand this, wish you would have started doing this years ago.. Thank you none the less, many will benefit from your knowledge
Thanks Pibay. Glad it's helping you! Seriously. So we have a long list of what to do next. But I think it's going to be a full anatomy of a song. Stay tuned, The next one should be good episode. 😁
Hey Mystic. You should check out our video on Mixing Background vocals. Some of the techniques also apply to lead vocals. th-cam.com/video/ZxGItx2cPh0/w-d-xo.html
@@franciscohurtado3357 So I just checked out your channel! wow, You're so good!!! The animation and the 3d figures are amazing! Is that what you do for a living?
And, especially according to this engineer mixing tutor's lesson, the defaults of these applications at time MAY have a better setting than what one may manually set, depending on one's ear and experience.
Hey Drose, the defaults depend on what you're looking for. So when they design these, they often make the default the most used settings for the plugin. (if it applies) On compressors and eq, it's usually going to start out flat. But on effects like reverbs, modulation and delays, you never know so I always check it out first. Thanks for the comment. 👍
I always use on the masterchannel an multiband compressor . and i always set the attack for the lowband on 10ms. , and on the mids and highs on full fast attack . is it wrong ??
fast attack results always count after make up gain (for the db matching) and slow attack don't need make up gain I kinda confuse by this duality can you help me to understand these better, is there any wrong believe in what I said?
That's an excellent question! Different for a compressor or a gate. A gate is easy. You want to set it high enough, so it only opens for the sound you want to hear. Then you use the release and hold to determine how long it stays open. You have to do a lot of fine tuning until you get it just right. Or sometimes, like with live drums, it just might not work on everything because the dynamics are too wide. With a compressor, you have to first determine WHY you're using a compressor on this sound. Is it to subtly control the peaks of a vocal? If it is, then you would set your threshold high enough so it only engages when the vocal is nearing the peaks. But if it's on a guitar that you may want to smash and limit the whole dynamic range, then you would set the threshold low enough so it engages constantly. And make sure you pay attention to your ATTACK settings :)
What would you recommend if you were stem mastering and the producer used too fast of an envelope attack on the bass, which caused some unwanted clicking? Would you have to automate a fader for every click or..? I was thinking maybe using a transient shaper but so far I haven't had any luck with finding the right sound. Kind of stumped at the moment but I'm probably just not thinking in the right direction lol happens sometimes when I'm caught up with a busy mix and have a lot going on. I also tried using an LFO tool to kind of do that automation for me but the effect was just too much. Just trying to avoid having to automate the entire bass track but I may have to?
Frequency based, multi band compression, like a de-esser might work. See if you can use an analyzer and isolate the frequency of the click. If worse comes to worse, yes, automate it. Tedious as f@#$ but sometimes that's the only way. And I probably won't take you more than 15 minutes. 👍
Not necessarily, but it could be. It depends on the mix, some have one to several busses for guitar, drums, vocals, etc. The Master bus is typically everything.
I thought I understood compressors, I've made several albums at this point; then the other day when I was brushing up on the difference between downward/upward compression and expansion -- I realized something, there is something about compressors and how they are used that literally makes NO sense ... You set a threshold, but then everyone says to set a medium release so the transient can pass through... OKAY?? (anyone else see a fundamental problem here?) The threshold is set according to the peak of the transient... which you don't want affected... but you use that peak to then compress the part that is already quieter????? If that's literally what one intends to do that would make sense... but that's not what people's stated purpose tends to be... they claim they are controlling dynamics, controlling transients... buuut, to do that you WOULD have to affect the initial transient.
![RULES OF MIXING AND MUSIC PRODUCTION [2020-CAN YOU BREAK THEM?]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ffmAREAc_vk/mqdefault.jpg)
![RULES OF MIXING AND MUSIC PRODUCTION [2020-CAN YOU BREAK THEM?]](/img/tr.png)
![How to Mix Background Vocals and Harmonies like the Pros [2023] Step by Step Tutorial]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZxGItx2cPh0/mqdefault.jpg)
Your videos are really clear, concise, and informative. I appreciate the straightforward instruction you offer, and the lack of rhetorical flourish. I often find that some other recording how-tos provide 5 minutes of information in a fifteen-minute video, but your sizzle-to-steak ratio is 100%. You are a born teacher, and I am subscribing to your channel now. Thank you!!
Sizzle to steak ratio! I love that analogy!!! Thanks for your comment. Cheers 🍺
Much thanks. For years, I have been researching and studying compression on and off. A lot of tutorials just give an oral explanation of how compression works but still i could not understand what would be wrong were I to just keep a fast attack always for everything. And in the last example, due to there being a fast attack, the vocals were ultimately too muffled...AND FINALLY, I understand why it is not good to always keep a fast attack on something. All my years of studying and in just one video, thanks to you, I finally understand compression a bit more. Much thanks.
Everyone has a different way of communicating resonating with different folks good bad or in inconclusive. So happens this is one the one to ingrain the knowledge needed. Thanks
Brother, as always, you are absolutely AWESOME, knowledgeable and selfless for you service teaching others how to make one's music better and worthy of being listened to by others in amusement!!!!!! 💯
Thank you. You are definitely one of the best teachers here on TH-cam. I hope you get back to putting out videos
Maestro I love these videos as they help me refresh my memory
Good, so you already have a strong foundation. But it refreshes my memory too, as I'm doing it. Because now I have to actually explain it! Thanks for the comment.
10 years of mixing in my homestudio, I’ve learned everything « alone » (with tutos and courses) and I have yo say this video is one of the best if not THE BEST about this topic 👌🏽
Your comment make me very angry.
@@lifepath7741 I don’t see why 🤷♀️ I’m telling this teacher that his course is one of the best existing. So there is no reason for you to be angry 🙄
@@lifepath7741 Why?
@@teamoseguela4072 Because not all the people had your brain.
@@lifepath7741 you didn’t read my first coment entirely, you are just searching excuses to pick at somebody else. I wasn’t bragging about my brains, I was telling everybody how much time I wasted by learning by myself and that it would have been better and faster to learn with a teacher like the one in the video ! Don’t answer to somebody with hat comment before understanding what he is saying 😒🙄🙄🙄
pure brilliance!!!! An 8 minute video and now I totally get it. I've been doing It by what sounds good and with this now gives me the science to it. YOU ARE THE MAN. I've literally been sucking the life out my mixes.
Great! Glad it helped 👍
so many years after... i really understood that i did wrong in compression... thanks a lot for the video!
In logic, on the compressor he’s using, I liked using the graph view instead of the meter view to visually learn what the attack and release we’re doing. Using my ears alone helped the most of course but this video is solid info as usual.
You are awesome brother!
Thanks a million for enlightening us. I'll now look for all other video clips of yours.
NICE AND STRAIGHT FORWARD. EASY TO UNDERSTAND . THANKS
Facts 👌🏽 my mentor pointed out this mistake to me personally. Good content.
You have a good mentor! Attack is a very underated, often ignored function that is just so vital to get right. So... nice Aaliyah type beat on your channel. I would just tighten up that bass and maybe give the overall mix a little more compression. But that's just my humble opinion. Thanks for the comment :)
SkyeLab Music Group thank you 😊
Learned more than most of the time in Tutorials and im high af Great Vid!
Been trying to figure this out for a while and always got confused. I love how well you explained everything and it really stuck to me. Overall an amazing video. you got my sub! cheers!
Thanks Ren. Glad it helped! Cheers 👍
really great video i was doing it backwards before this video!
Finally. Glad to see you are back. 💪🏽 🔥
Yep, so we have 3 new videos in the past month, so we're getting better at putting out steady content. So please stay tuned ! 🎸🍺 Cheers
In my personal opinion I feel like for this comparison to be accurate you would also need to adjust the threshold so that you are getting the same amount of gain reduction for each attack setting. On each one of the comparisons in this video There was a huge difference in gain reduction. If you have 15 dB of gain reduction happening on a signal it does not matter what the attack time is, it is going to sound like trash because it's being decimated.
Well said 💯
Thank you! it makes more sense now. Can't wait to go back to my studio later tonight and mess around with my compressor!
Thanks for the detailing ,it's very well explained
This guy understands the old adage of "a picture is worth 1,000 words". He SHOWS the knob, its setting, and whether it is Slow or Fast! Simple stuff. Not not for some of his peers. I just watched a YT vid for 18:20.....ALL TALK, no Pictures! No Vst examples on that one. This one was GREAT!
Ah, thanks! It takes a lot of work to throw in all the graphics, So I really appreciate that you appreciate it! Cheers!
Wow thank you very much for this great teaching Sir I am new to digital mixing and this has helped me a lot already 🙏
Thank you SkyeLap, learned an awesome lesson❤️👍😎👏👏👏
Very good advice
Thanks for the lesson!
Hey Corey, Glad it was helpful!
Awesome thank you. I just found this out about Attack a few months ago.
Yeah, such an underated ignored knob, but so important!
good tutorial! Thank you
With regard to drums, percussions, one MUST use one's EARS and even FEEL the "vibration" felt from either one's mixing speakers cones, listen with headphones, even feel the vibration on one's desk or whatever platform where one's speakers are placed in order to decipher that density of the SMACK or THUMP, as he said. Vocals and instruments should ALWAYS retain NATURAL sound yet with dense crisp resonance
Thanks for the great tips!
Great video
Awesome 👍 thanks
Finally, I grasped this. Thanks so very much.
Please mix huge drums
Very informative and love that you’re using stock plug ins.
Thanks for this brothahood! It's been a blast learning all the nuances of audio engineering!
Because of many hours on TH-cam and discussing with friends in real time, I finally set my clubs system up to a great standard! THANKS!
Thank you! Great insight about less attack on compressors making the sound brighter!
Thanks great video
Thanks. This has helped a lot
Finally some real wisdom! Thanks for your time on teaching this knowledge...
Glad you got something from it! I appreciate the comment. Checked out your short film on Cereal. What did he say to his father? (english interpretation)
Thank you for your help thanks 🙏
Another awesome one Arty!... Please more like this.. It took me forever to understand this, wish you would have started doing this years ago.. Thank you none the less, many will benefit from your knowledge
Thanks Pibay. Glad it's helping you! Seriously. So we have a long list of what to do next. But I think it's going to be a full anatomy of a song. Stay tuned, The next one should be good episode. 😁
Thanks to your videos Im learning a lot
Glad to hear that! That's why I'm doing it :)
I love your channel your tutorial’s are always straight to the point and easy to understand I totally appreciate you
Thanks Tony! I really appreciate the comment :)
Thanks!
Thank you sir...😃
perfect, thanks. Just what I needed to know
You are great !
Thank you
Amazing. Straight to the point and very insightful. No more guessing for me! LOL
Awesome tutorial ❤️🔥
Great tutorials Arty! So effective, easy to understand, straight to the point. Keep it up! Best regards from Johan
Stockholm-Sweden 😊
Thanks for sharing Arty!
*Awesome!! Thanks for this*
you such a great teacher you will live long ❤🇳🇬
Thanks it really helps me!!!! 🤗 I'll try to get more good sound with my vocal!!
Hey Mystic. You should check out our video on Mixing Background vocals. Some of the techniques also apply to lead vocals. th-cam.com/video/ZxGItx2cPh0/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for your great advice!! I've subscribed your channel so definitely I'll go through your tutorials!!😆
I love your videos Arty. Thank you!
Thanks Freda! I do appreciate the comment. 👍
Love it, Arty!
Thanks Lara. I appreciate your help with it. 👍
Thank you buddy.
thanks ! Good explanation again!
Glad you liked it!👍
Such a good channel - I've learned so much from watching your vids man
Great to hear that! Then I'm doing something right :)
dude you're weird af and I love every second of every video, thank you so much!
Hey Francisco, Weird is a compliment I greatly appreciate! Thanks, and glad you like it. More on the way :)
@@SkyeLabMusicGroup one of the best compliments, you have no idea how you've helped me
@@franciscohurtado3357 So I just checked out your channel! wow, You're so good!!! The animation and the 3d figures are amazing! Is that what you do for a living?
SkyeLab Music Group yea I’m a 3d sculptor and renderer. Thank you for checking it out, I do a lot of work for the US🤘🏼
very helpful sir
What’s your recommendations on vocals ? Fast attack / Fast Release o Slow Attack and Slow Release ? 🤔 ! Thanks for your amazing videos
And, especially according to this engineer mixing tutor's lesson, the defaults of these applications at time MAY have a better setting than what one may manually set, depending on one's ear and experience.
Hey Drose, the defaults depend on what you're looking for. So when they design these, they often make the default the most used settings for the plugin. (if it applies) On compressors and eq, it's usually going to start out flat. But on effects like reverbs, modulation and delays, you never know so I always check it out first. Thanks for the comment. 👍
i wish i found this tutorials years ago. what have i been doing with my life 😂
Could you do a video on Delay ?
Yes, absolutely. Thanks for the suggestion. It's a great subject, and as I'm thinking about it, there's a lot to discuss.
thanks daddy...u saved me ..
It wouldnt be fair if i dont comment. You videos are Gold. I hope we meet and work one day
Hi what’s your attack and release. Thanks on a stereo track ,, thanks
compressor is so misunderstood Thanks
Thank you! What do you do with the non-compressed attack transients if there's an undesirable variability in peak levels? Limiter?
You can use a transient shaper to tame those peaks. Or a limiter, depending on what sounds like. 👍
Can we get this same video with a limiter please?!
With a limiter I would take a whole different approach. But yes, I'll try to do a video on Limiting. Thanks for the suggestion :)
@@SkyeLabMusicGroup Amazing, already waiting for it :D !!
Just to assume that:
The higher the frequency the slower the attack should be?
I always use on the masterchannel an multiband compressor . and i always set the attack for the lowband on 10ms. , and on the mids and highs on full fast attack . is it wrong ??
fast attack results always count after make up gain (for the db matching)
and slow attack don't need make up gain
I kinda confuse by this duality
can you help me to understand these better, is there any wrong believe in what I said?
How do you determine the threshold??? I can’t seem to find a single video talking about how to set the right threshold.
That's an excellent question! Different for a compressor or a gate. A gate is easy. You want to set it high enough, so it only opens for the sound you want to hear. Then you use the release and hold to determine how long it stays open. You have to do a lot of fine tuning until you get it just right. Or sometimes, like with live drums, it just might not work on everything because the dynamics are too wide. With a compressor, you have to first determine WHY you're using a compressor on this sound. Is it to subtly control the peaks of a vocal? If it is, then you would set your threshold high enough so it only engages when the vocal is nearing the peaks. But if it's on a guitar that you may want to smash and limit the whole dynamic range, then you would set the threshold low enough so it engages constantly. And make sure you pay attention to your ATTACK settings :)
@@SkyeLabMusicGroup - that makes sense. Thank you!
i do by ear...
same with all other settings, ratio, hpf/lpf, etc
What would you recommend if you were stem mastering and the producer used too fast of an envelope attack on the bass, which caused some unwanted clicking? Would you have to automate a fader for every click or..? I was thinking maybe using a transient shaper but so far I haven't had any luck with finding the right sound. Kind of stumped at the moment but I'm probably just not thinking in the right direction lol happens sometimes when I'm caught up with a busy mix and have a lot going on. I also tried using an LFO tool to kind of do that automation for me but the effect was just too much. Just trying to avoid having to automate the entire bass track but I may have to?
Frequency based, multi band compression, like a de-esser might work. See if you can use an analyzer and isolate the frequency of the click. If worse comes to worse, yes, automate it. Tedious as f@#$ but sometimes that's the only way. And I probably won't take you more than 15 minutes. 👍
Awesome. Subscribed I'll check fb page rn!!!! 🔥🔥🔥
what about the release time. you didn't talk about it
master buss equal mix buss ???
Not necessarily, but it could be. It depends on the mix, some have one to several busses for guitar, drums, vocals, etc. The Master bus is typically everything.
Still NOTHING TO UNDERSTAND!!!
I am stupid or the rest of humans
super
I thought I understood compressors, I've made several albums at this point; then the other day when I was brushing up on the difference between downward/upward compression and expansion -- I realized something, there is something about compressors and how they are used that literally makes NO sense ... You set a threshold, but then everyone says to set a medium release so the transient can pass through... OKAY?? (anyone else see a fundamental problem here?) The threshold is set according to the peak of the transient... which you don't want affected... but you use that peak to then compress the part that is already quieter????? If that's literally what one intends to do that would make sense... but that's not what people's stated purpose tends to be... they claim they are controlling dynamics, controlling transients... buuut, to do that you WOULD have to affect the initial transient.