A few ways to get better at mixing...and not just hip hop
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- In this video I discuss mixing, gain-staging, Swizz Beatz sampling, Rick Beato coming undone and a few other caffeinated topics...happy Friday!
tip bucket:
buymeacoffee.c...
venmo @tonyblacknyc
TONY BLACK is a Grammy-winning music producer, mixer/engineer & songwriter/musician. He has contributed to recordings totaling more than 80 million units sold or downloaded.
He won a GRAMMY AWARD for his contribution to the album “THE DIARY OF ALICIA KEYS” for BEST R&B ALBUM.
He also mixed and recorded “RIDE OR DIE” on the Grammy-winning album JAY-Z “HARD KNOCK LIFE VOL.2”
Lots of really interesting comments...I just changed the title because I'm not trying to pile on RB...and really, its more about production, mixing and uh-oh hip hop.
Tony can’t tell u what it means to get even the simplest advice from a TRUE professional & not some random TH-camr w no credentials. The gain staging def went right along w the other comment about how mixing advice in general is way too mathematical online & it rly does kill the creativity for in the box producers/engineers trying to figure it all out. Hearing that it truly is all about the feel & creativity (while just bearing in mind not overloading) is very reassuring. Might sound stupid but for those of us who never had any real in studio experience & are searching to make sure we’re setting up our sessions correctly etc this is rly like being the intern & getting that small talk tutelage from the main engineer. Ur simple words to focus on the creativity/experimentation mean more to a lot of us than u can imagine. Thx man!
all good! I'll try to keep going.
You words are gold Tony.
love your work!!!
Your storytelling has inspired me to start a similar series of my own (posted the first video on my channel today).
Thanks for that Tony!
Finding this channel was like finding a gem in the vinyl stack! Much appreciated 🙏 💎
Loving these stories ❤ more pleeeeease 🙏🏼
Thanks for the Swizz Beats story. I’ve never heard much about his process before.
Haha….thats exactly how I’ve always recorded my keyboard sounds on my beats…and bass lines. I guess I’ve always been too lazy to figure out how to use the plug in sounds and assign them to pads.😁
I’m very out of the loop of all that my MPC 1000 and MPC X do. 😁
Another awesome vid, I do the same thing….play the riff, assign it to a pad and then press the pad to play the entire riff. Very cool
Before console recall was a thing I was told a trick. To track it on tape so each track was at a volume that would get you a decent level mix with all faders at zero. The idea was, you put on a 2" to work on, let the faders sit at zero, and the mix is already good. Keep working...
I do this in Cubase now too, a gain plug-in as my last insert so my mix fader is around zero. Super easy to adjust +/-1 dB compared to a fader that sits around -20. Never seen ANYONE on TH-cam talk about that 😂
Would love to hear more how and when you approached distortion. Tape, console channel, guitar pedals...
Thank for sharing!
I remember that, or a variation of it...I need to dig in the memory banks, or check with a friend on it...I think that was a jingle house trick
When it comes to distortion, I'll say this, treat it like hitting a compressor. Some devices are slow and gentle, others are stiff, and I find that it helps set the gain/drive level more accurately to listen to the overall compression. Then it's just picking a device you like the timbre of (and we can go into all the technical details like pre and de-emphasis EQ, etc)
Amazing video. My new favourite channel. Thank you for sharing your invaluable thoughts and experience
As far as the Swiss beats thing you’re exactly right about what he was doing . I still donthatbtodaybasndo other producers . It’s awesome to hear all this insight . Greatly appreciate your views and all the gems you give the community .
cool. whats up with that long word in your comment?
@@TonyBlackNYC haha . Let me try that again . What I meant to say is that myself as well as many other producers still use that technique to this day .
Tony, your dedication to "feed the beast" on a hot, humid July 4 weekend is truly impressive. Keep up the good work!
nyc was a sticky jungle today
Love the hip hop channel!
where?
Thanks for all your thoughts and reflections, Tony.
Tony - these are the best videos on TH-cam man
As a long time mpc user I love stories like this.
you might appreciate this article that Complex put out 10 years ago called 'Cipha Sounds Presents the 75 Greatest Tunnel Bangers'. One of the best articles written on New York rap from the 90s. (there's also a playlist on spotify).
You could really write a book with all these stories and call it "This is not a book about 90s hip hop" hehe
Enjoying these, thank you.
Gain staging in a modern DAW is fairly simple:
• TRACKS: In terms of distortion or avoiding it, one can have them as loud as one wants, as one cannot distort the tracks per se due to the mega high headroom for the tracks (thanks to floating point audio engine) even if they hit the red a lot. Red is never good practice, but just saying.
• PLUGINS: Level going into plugins is a different matter. Not all plugins mind the level, but for example analog-emulated and input-sensitive plugins will distort if you go into them loud. So watch the input level and use moderate input levels for plugins.
• MASTER: Don't run it red.
I mix and master for my living, and people do actually ask about those levels for kicks, snares, etc., and I couldn't teach them those if they paid me.
Reason is, I've only ever listened to the elements and felt them. Even in referencing songs (I do that a lot), I don't watch kicks/snare levels etc., but I simply listen and compare and go by that.
People would love to paint by numbers but I say, it's not like that, necessarily, and especially peak levels could be so misleading (a fat, clipped kick would peak much less than a flimsy, pokey, quiet one so they'd use different peaking numbers in a mix and couldn't be compared).
thank you for the knowledge
Thank you for everything that you do! I love listening to you tell these stories and share your point of view. Do you have any memorable stories about the sessions from the Ghost Face Killah album you worked on?
Thanks so much for the advice on my comment :) I appreciate what you're saying and I'm gonna do that!! Gotta make up for some lost time lol
I really feel you on the gain-staging part. To me it was so normal to “gain-stage” before I even heard of that term 😅
Just my thoughts on the phase issue thing. Take it with a grain of salt.
What a lot of people don't understand is many things (techniques, EQ, parallel processing, etc) can cause phase issues, but at the end what matters is how the whole song sounds as a whole, phase issues don't matter when the song has the vibe it is suppose to have even with phase issues happening within it.
The only step that should be taken if concerned with phase issues is checking the song in mono to make sure the low end and stereo field doesn't disappear and things don't sound odd when in mono.
Man Tony you make me realize things.
When rap was on the rise rock was on the outs. (Not really but kinda.)
Houses like S.I.R. With all its rock group glory looked down their noses at rap and new school RnB.
I’m wondering if you as an engineer caught any of that. (rhetorical.)
My how the tables have turned!
Rap seems to be the longest running genre and has outlived them all. 50 plus. (Rock is like 1955 so add 40)
Now the rap engineer (yuck 😂) is the only guy this generation wants to hear from.
I been shouting you out on a couple of producer videos.
Keep em coming bro!
Another comment brought this up also...I'll get into it. I appreciate the shout outs...I'm like a little over 4m behind beato.
Wondering if you can speak about another topic I've been thinking about: You mentioned the "colliding of worlds" between the pro studios and the basement hip hop producers -- I get a sense (from interviews from guys like like Bob Power, etc) that there was this kind of resentment coming from the established audio engineers, who would get these projects across their desk, but just couldn't stand having to argue with these hip hop guys about what sounded the best. So many of these concepts would have been so preposterous to someone like an old 60s/70s/80s established engineer... Do you think there were a lot of engineers that missed out on great opportunities, and possibly got pushed aside in the industry altogether because they were too unrelenting during that time period? Or did you find in your experience that there was a lot more collaboration and understanding between the two generations?
Interesting indeed!
Excellent question
big can of worms...I'll get to it. Its probably not as bad as you would think...or its probably worse.
@@TonyBlackNYC 😄 sounds interesting either way, thanks!
Tony Black and a cup of coffee = Great Sunday morning! Just 1 question about Swizz sampling from the headphone port. I'm guessing that was not the ideal place to sample from because he was by passing the better output converters on the actual outs?
maybe 2 cups
also the headphones is a stereo output
i go out the box to a mixer and push it from the board
I have a friend that is a hobbyist, and once saw him do the headphone thing for a sample. Isn't the issue there impedance? Like something about the volume being different for the output for the headphones?
Rick Beato seems all right to me. Fan of jazz, but not so much boomer rock. Had my fill from my parents growing up. I really like the Police though. Read a comment on a music forum about the state of music. It said something to the effect that it feels like the beginning of the end of an era. Didn't Coletrane say that he thought music was a universal language? This quality may be the thing that keeps people interested in it, if not consumers of it.
Gain staging, just do not overload each channel, leave headroom = Straight forward.
Anyway, on another note, what ever you do try not to contract You Tube Celebrititus,
their is fine line. One minute everything's all cool and then suddenly its not alright, its
a bit like gain staging. Keep up the good work, till next time, peace.
I broke down and just bought three of those Bic pens instead of any new gear...
best gear decision of 2024
Thanks for another informative video down to the nitty gritty details.
What camera/filter are you using to film these? Looks really good without being over processed..
1st gen dji osmo, and resolve
@@TonyBlackNYC Thanks!
Totally feel like the more I try to think like an old school engineer, the better my stuff sounds. Advanced metering and all of that data is useful but obsessively staring at it utilizes waaaaay too much attention. Gotta use that brain power on the ears instead!
You is one groovy cat! Daddy Oh!
As much as people like to dunk on him, Swizz actually has a handful of classic beats. Appreciate the story, Tony.
Even this idea that dilla never quantised is preposterous and based in a fundamental misunderstanding of his approach to groove, midi programming and especially THE SONG.
If a dj can mix his tunes, it would prove that either he did indeed use quantise (but probably not the same way most would) or that he was a superhuman able to play all instruments without quantise yet remain precisely enough on a grid that it lines up with another fully quantised record 😂 these sayings are entertaining and have an element of validity just not across the board.
If anyone here was active Hip Hop artist, especially performer in the 80s/90s they will likely remember the rock engineers and their disdain (often even sabotage) and Rick’s occasional overly rigid views echo that for me.
Thanks for the thoroughly enjoyable and engaging videos, Mr Black
It is correct that the mpc has to have a tempo and that is not avoidable. If he laid his beats to tape without a click, then we'd be in another territory.
@@TonyBlackNYC indeed, and another thing the people making those assertions are forgetting is that there are plenty non Hip Hop records with sequenced or even unnaturally achieved elements (Sledgehammer = Fairlight / Sweet Dreams + Fade To Grey = CR78 perhaps / Trans Europe Express = all synths / Wannabe Startin Something + ALL of Prince’s catalogue = Linndrum which is basically the same as an SP12 in terms of quantise / Owner Of a Lonely Heart = Synclavier with chopped and sequenced drums FOR an intentional purpose as stated by Trevor himself)
Apparently not real music and have absolutely no feel, groove or validity… that’s where those assertions tend to logically end up by the same metrics.
I spent some years digging into the rhetorical question of “what is sampling” which took me much further down a rabbit hole than I expected or intended whereby I came to the conclusion that all recording is essentially sampling and “cheating” compared to say actual humans reciting a composition in a physical space (to be flippant and hyperbolic about it).
🫡
Dope video
how much do you think crosstalk affected the sound of 90s hip hop mixes? the crosstalk function of the softube tape plugin is addictive for me
It seems like these producers often made the beat/instrumental at the studio. I assumed you'd have it ready before going into the studio. Was it that pretty common?
VERY...or they would "finish" it up in studio. Rarely did we just hit record after they loaded up the beat
While we're in the 'gain-staging' ball park, do you have an order in the way you apply processing on individual channels? For example, I've seen lots of talk about EQing before you compress, or not to add efx before you do x or y process. Is it as dogmatic as that or is it more intuitive or loose?
intuitive, AND loose...keep in mind, once you put in the reps, with reasonable effort, you can make almost anything work.
@@TonyBlackNYC Understood. One thing that I really miss from back then is what I like to call that 'baked-in' sound. The music was like a toasted sandwich. everything was sealed in and glued together like it was sculpted out of one piece. It sounded great but it FELT amazing. It had so much atmosphere. I could even appreciate music I didn't like because of it. Now it sounds like those trendy, gentrified 'open sandwiches', all lose, disjointed and not memorable at all. Sounds more like a signal captured more than a performance.
First thing I assumed was this was because it was done on tape but I heard a new song from DJ Muggs and Sadat X-'Wild Cowboys Revenge'-which I've played all weekend cos it has that sound/feel on the vocal. What is that-compression, saturation, analog summing...? How do you achieve that in the box?
Rick ain't wrong
About what? The claims and veracity change when you move location to a different continent and/or even different time period where the mass attitudes would be informed by altogether different sensibilities. He isn’t the arbiter of all music, there’s been plenty (if not more than a few) musicians who have brought game changing contributions without any academia. Even Mozart and Stravinsky had angry academia obsessed critics claiming “it’s not proper! 👺” and the same attitude was raging on for years about synthesis then sampling - where nowadays most people make/record/.mix all music inside a glorified sampler now called a “daw” (good lord I hate that term). But it’s not analog tape 😱 how ever will we music properly?
People who come out with weird “axiomatic claims like “nobody should ever quantise” or “music should be X” and such tend to forget, before there was an academic clip board holder, and even instruments as we know them… there were animal carcasses & tree stumps cleverly fashioned to make a drum or strings to make an early lute etc which later became known for playing a 12 note scale here in the west. This rigid no true scotsman” fallacy forgets that music was also looked upon as a cute little toy hobby by ‘real academics” 😂
The Stones & Funkadelic or even village shamans wouldn’t dare play a note without a skull full of psychedelics and the recording techniques were famously deemed as wrong at the time / or Grandmaster DST wiggling a record to make a rhythmic scratch on Rockit… I doubt they were only allowing recordings out after they passed the academia vibe check. It’s there to help inform craft & artistry not for gatekeepers & naysayers to lock it in a box.
"academia vibe check" is epic
maybe you just gave him a t-shirt idea? I'm hoping you were referring to my last bit at the end of the video,ha.
@@HarryLoveTV thanks for taking the time to respond with such a well thought out and insightful post
Tony, you are good at what you do, where is your recording studio at brother ?
I'm NYC
@@TonyBlackNYC No, I am sorry, I did not ask that question right. I meant where is your recording studio at in tha video, like, where is all of your equipment ? :)
When I started this video it had 128 likes... It's likes are at "Full Velocity". (Production Nerd Humor) 😂
Its a quiet holiday weekend on TH-cam...
Thanks for sharing these stories Tony - I love the context you put things in! I cover 90's hip-hop, check it out if you get a chance!
I agree with Beato a lot of the times, but he comes off as an art snob.
he's so in touch with the american pop music industry that he's lost touch with reality. music is thriving. the recording industry is redundant and only existed to hoard technology in the first place.
Hey Tony are you using any sound treatment for your homie studio that is being shown in this video?
I have 3 ceiling panels from GIK on the ceiling(huge difference), theater curtains out of view on sides. Nothing fancy but it sounds great. Back wall has some diffusion
Okay I'll stop asking about the sub bass frequency process.
I may stop watching all together
Not sure I understand the question.