You dont need a video. If sounds clash move them to a slightly different position on the frequency spectrum by using EQ filter making sure they are not the same and make sure you pan your sounds taking advantage of stereo for a wider sound.
im going to make a tutorial to help people not make the mistake of using Cubase.....cakewalk.. blah apps....., rather use cr@cks then Cubase....sounds ok....but the trouble is not worth it, price is even worse.😁
@@britishboxer6875 Cracked software often comes with built in boots or viruses. Also if you use cracked software then you dont have a license and cant sell your music without if being illegal. You might not get caught but you might.
Watching the vid - literally just pressed play. However, feel I've got to share this revelation... It's taken an embarrassing amount of time to realise this. Had a issue with a mix, couldn't see why. The audio tracks had all been EQd already. They sat nicely and played well with each other. Good start. 👍 As I started things still good, the low end compression for the kick drum - good, meaty but not overbearing. High hats fizzing nicely in the mix... Guitars and vocals again good - not pin point perfect, but good enough at this stage. Then we get to the meat of it... The main music (all digitally created, with a few analogue samples) and there was the issue. Much of it sank into the mix without a trace. I wasted a chunk of time (not client time - just mine, so not a disaster) with filters, EQ, compression, exciters, bass booster and so fourth. Everything fell short. I then, out of desperation put it through a spacial image visualiser. And had a shock. Pretty much everything in the mix,aside from effects (looking at the dB info) was from the effects such as delay. Was literally set to center. So, went back to the mix - put a widener on a few stereo tracks, set to full (100% wide), medium and narrow (25%). It was like a different mix - everything that got lost was suddenly there. Some aspects were too bright , so a bit of HF roll off but it's cool as I could now HEAR what was going on. Never ignore the stereo image. It gets messy
Excellent advice. Thank you for sharing. I knew about a few of these 7 tips, but many of them I had not considered before.These tips can spare us all from so much wasted time, effort and disappointment.
I went through this list proudly checking off each reason. It feels good to know what I'm doing when I mix and it's mostly attributed to the YT community at large but I'm particularly grateful to Dom. Wish he would put together a course (using Cubase as the DAW)...
Dom you are such a pro. Putting in the work for years and being fortunate or good enough to make a living at it, yields a unique and mature perspective. Bravo Maestro!
My favourite channel! Dom is very engaging and really loves what he does. His energy and focus really motivates me. Thanks again Dom!! You rock!!! 👍🏻🤟🏻
You're the Cubase guru Dom! I learn so much from these videos. It's insane how long I've not understood, for instance, inserts vs sends. I still don't completely get it, but way way more than I used to. Thanks!
Many thanks! Your video on gain staging changed the game for me on my current project, and the other 6 points are going to be helpful too. I'm not to the mastering stage yet, but I'd definitely watch a video on the process if you make one.
Dom, I love your truth! This is not about science, but this is about using your knowledge and knowing what you're doing and what you want to achieve... Thanks for this video!
Level matching (or unity gain) within plugins is actually pretty easy. Every plug-in has an input and output volume. For mixing, you only have one volume control to deal with (fader). It's impossible to A-B effects on a chain if the volume changes (even a little) every time you bypass something.
I love your point about sound selection and why that is so critical to getting a loud mix. Many times we always start talking about mixing solutions, effects - clippers, saturation - what not, before actually looking at the sounds. Reality is that I personally tend to unfortunately pick sounds in isolation to one another - great sounds on their own, but too great together. So I think professionals have this uncanny ability to use sounds that blend in the right way and create the right psychoacoustic effect when everything is put together.
I'm very new to this and your videos are exceedingly helpful! I am adding drums to classical music and I am struggling with making my drums sound good. I know that I'll get there but I wanted to thank you for doing what yo do here!
Lately, I've found that Tonal Balance Control and LCD-MX4 give my super accurate mixes and masterings. Sean Divine channel also taught me how to make perceived louder music, one of the methods is the using of multiband compressor on the mid-range during mastering.
Thank you for making this video. Mixing has been one of my challenges and your tips are extremely helpful. I’ve been trying to mix one of my tracks for the last two weeks and I feel that it still sound muddy. I have so much to learn. I really need a mentor on this. By the way, love your energy, your passion and wisdom that you put into making your videos.
First off - Dom love your channel, best tutorials on TH-cam IMO. However - I think level matching most/all changes as a beginner is a good thing to do. Otherwise you make a change, it's louder, sounds better and so you go with it, regardless of whether it was actually the correct move or not. When you're developing your ear, you really need the level matching to actually hear whether something is better or not. That will also help you determine whether the correct move is actually just turning up the fader vs. putting a CLA 2A on, getting 4dB of gain and getting the volume that's needed but now having more midrange and compression than it needed. Thanks for the video!
Absolutely. When you're experienced, you know your gear/plugins and know what you're doing, you can get away with not level matching, but it's bad advice for beginners. That's like a racing driver teaching someone how to drive and telling them to be brave and adventurous by driving as fast as possible and powerslilding around corners! A skilled driver can do that safely but it's very dangerous for a novice. I can't tell you how many times I've improved a sound with a plugin, then level matched it and found that it made hardly any difference or even sounded worse. Often it does sound better, but a novice can't be sure of that without level matching. Later, once you've trained your ears and know your plugins well, then you can drive like a madman!
If sounds clash move them to a slightly different position on the frequency spectrum by using EQ filter and make sure you pan your sounds taking advantage of stereo.
Thanks Dom - fantastic content as always. Appreciate your passion for sharing what you have learned through trial and error. (...and yes you have converted me into turning on the Control Room button and using that as a basis for experimenting with the sound.....caution out the window). Thanks.
Good to know the first two to come to my mind were your first 2 which are key. Gainstaging was a key moment for me awhile back - I didn’t even realize the difference between input and output on Cubase metering which definitely is necessary lol!
As a producer and mixer. I say always choose the best sounding sound, the sound that is as close to how you want it so sound in your final song....you can always tweak it and modify it in many ways, but the closer to perfection it sounds from the beginning, the better. Also pay attention to how it fits with sounds you've already chosen. A good sound depends a lot on the genre, and on what sounds are around it. A great kick drum for one song night be bad for another track. So consider the big picture, the vision, the goal, the purpose and role of the instrument, and the context
Thanks for the level match plugin thing, am kind of obsessed by it and what u said here just clicked something in my mind. I hope i break free from it soon couse its making my mixes take to damn long... Thank u 😊😊😊
Hey Dom, thank you for your video. Regarding the fourth chapter ("being overly conservative"), we all know that mixing is about emphasizing the emotional impact of a musical piece hence every action you take should improve the piece you are working on. From my experience and the way I learned, the 'bypass' button is one of the most important buttons in every plugin and you should always bypass and compare the changes you do to each track in order to be sure that you did improve the song by this change and not the opposite. Also, we all know that our ears tend to fool us and they would always prefer the 'loud' version. Having said that, I think that level-matching is a key to be sure that you are doing a fair comparison and not fooling your ears into thinking that you improved something while you actually just made it louder. I would be happy to hear your opinion about that.
Thanks for yet another excellent, informative video. A video on mastering would be great, even though (as you say) "mastering might not be for everyone". I always set up an separate "mastering" project for the mix of my songs. But I am always a bit unsure what chain of plugins to set up for mastering. Usually I end up with: compressor - frequency - a tiny bit of Quadrafuzz - Magneto II - Limiter - Brickwall limiter. But I am never sure if I found the optimum for the particular song.
Level matching is good to make sure that a particular plug in setting is actually making something sound better. Like hey, I out this compressor on and boom it sounds much better (and it went up 4 db)... But what if I never out the compressor and I just turned up the fadrer 4db, would it sound even better that way? You need to know the answer to that or you're kinda of just doing stuff to be doing it. But once you have more experience hearing compression or working with a particular plug in, it can be a waste of time to obsessively level match everything all the time. Level matching is a good diagnostic tool, but not a good final goal. You don't want sounds to sound the same after you finish mixing them, or you wouldn't want to mix them in the first place. And it's fine for levels to go up as you mix if you start with decent headroom to begin with. But I think a good way to guide yourself toward a louder mix is to be able to make sounds seem louder without making the level meters actually go up. If you have a kick peaking at -8db and you can use a couple plugins to make it sound and feel louder in the mix while peaking at -10db... you're definitely moving in the right direction
I use also cubase 11 pro The gain stage here is very good Every plugin have a weet spot and its something like -18 and 0db If you start at -20db ad 10 tracks eith eq and comp its allmost 0db Every step makes it louder Eq,comp,saturation,parallel comp Drive,preamp,distortion and so on and so on I mix audio 5 years now allmost everyday and its still a big trouble to make it at the end to -6db / -3db
Thanks for your realistic words about mastering engineers. Unlike with game music, for Pop/Rock-Music I never got into the luxury to work with professional clients only, and so quite often my work is writing "suggestions and issues" lists when songs come in instead of turning any knob. I always tell my clients that mastering is not a one-way road. I thinks that sums it up. When doing mastering for AAA titles, I'm sometimes simply a last QC, a bunch of additional ears to make sure everything works well, and sometimes I don't apply anything but levelling. For other clients... well... there might be a lot of discussion, and yes, I sometimes refuse to master stuff if the mixing engineer is not willing to cooperate.
Absolutely! This is exactly what I experience too. I don’t want to accept a master if I feel that the mix is problematic. Unless we accept this fact and still decide to go on! These suggestions and fixes are sometimes more valuable and critical than the actual mastering process itself! Mixing tends to be way more expensive than mastering so artists tend to perform it themselves sometimes so suggestions coming from a mastering engineer are of the utmost importance!
Gain Staging made the difference in my miXes being prepared for Mastering. The studio can make it so you can turn it on '10' without distorting. THANKS☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
One of the kindest men on youtube! Thanks for your knowledge
One of the most important video for Mastering
It would be awesome to see tutorials about mixing the midrange, with lots of guitars, synths and vocals. Thanks Dom!
You dont need a video. If sounds clash move them to a slightly different position on the frequency spectrum by using EQ filter making sure they are not the same and make sure you pan your sounds taking advantage of stereo for a wider sound.
im going to make a tutorial to help people not make the mistake of using Cubase.....cakewalk.. blah apps....., rather use cr@cks then Cubase....sounds ok....but the trouble is not worth it, price is even worse.😁
@@britishboxer6875 You want to make a video on how to pirate DAW software? I think anyone who wants to do that already knows how.
@@HOLLASOUNDS ask softube or pro tools programers, they are the best at it and cut their competitors out doing so
@@britishboxer6875 Cracked software often comes with built in boots or viruses. Also if you use cracked software then you dont have a license and cant sell your music without if being illegal. You might not get caught but you might.
Watching the vid - literally just pressed play. However, feel I've got to share this revelation... It's taken an embarrassing amount of time to realise this.
Had a issue with a mix, couldn't see why. The audio tracks had all been EQd already. They sat nicely and played well with each other. Good start. 👍
As I started things still good, the low end compression for the kick drum - good, meaty but not overbearing.
High hats fizzing nicely in the mix... Guitars and vocals again good - not pin point perfect, but good enough at this stage.
Then we get to the meat of it... The main music (all digitally created, with a few analogue samples) and there was the issue. Much of it sank into the mix without a trace.
I wasted a chunk of time (not client time - just mine, so not a disaster) with filters, EQ, compression, exciters, bass booster and so fourth. Everything fell short.
I then, out of desperation put it through a spacial image visualiser. And had a shock.
Pretty much everything in the mix,aside from effects (looking at the dB info) was from the effects such as delay.
Was literally set to center.
So, went back to the mix - put a widener on a few stereo tracks, set to full (100% wide), medium and narrow (25%).
It was like a different mix - everything that got lost was suddenly there. Some aspects were too bright , so a bit of HF roll off but it's cool as I could now HEAR what was going on.
Never ignore the stereo image.
It gets messy
I appreciate your expertise, Dom, but mostly I appreciate your passion for all things musical.
And Greg I appreciate you. I know I don’t tell you enough
I really like your videos,because you know what you are talking about!I know!👌😜
truth after truth after truth!!! master of masters! Dom's word!
Loved the cutaway at 10:36 lol Thanks for grounding us on some of these mysterious points :P
What an essential outline! Thanks Dom! You're the best!
Excellent advice. Thank you for sharing. I knew about a few of these 7 tips, but many of them I had not considered before.These tips can spare us all from so much wasted time, effort and disappointment.
Love your passion for the rudiments of music production Dom, Real talk. Nuff respect dude
Please do a video about sound selection. Thank you.
Thanks Dom about filtering the reverbs. I had purchased the spaced out effect plugin after seeing your demo so im trying to do that into the mix..
I went through this list proudly checking off each reason. It feels good to know what I'm doing when I mix and it's mostly attributed to the YT community at large but I'm particularly grateful to Dom. Wish he would put together a course (using Cubase as the DAW)...
Dom you are such a pro. Putting in the work for years and being fortunate or good enough to make a living at it, yields a unique and mature perspective. Bravo Maestro!
My favourite channel! Dom is very engaging and really loves what he does. His energy and focus really motivates me. Thanks again Dom!! You rock!!! 👍🏻🤟🏻
You're the Cubase guru Dom! I learn so much from these videos. It's insane how long I've not understood, for instance, inserts vs sends. I still don't completely get it, but way way more than I used to. Thanks!
Dom, Thank you for your knowledge, charisma and time, Good Man!)
The best video of 2022! lol! Brilliant advice, that’s opened my eyes on some things, and hopefully my ears now! 👏👏👏👏👏
Thanks!
Thank you so much my friend, highly appreciated ❤️
Many thanks! Your video on gain staging changed the game for me on my current project, and the other 6 points are going to be helpful too. I'm not to the mastering stage yet, but I'd definitely watch a video on the process if you make one.
Another great video Dom, thank you! 16:09, Yes please! Do make one about mastering. Cheers!
A big thank you Dom. I am learning every day......also from your videos. I love the way you explain things.
Dom, I love your truth! This is not about science, but this is about using your knowledge and knowing what you're doing and what you want to achieve... Thanks for this video!
Thanks so much, Dom! It's a joy to learn from you. 🍻👍
Dom, This is GREAT Info... I wish you were still teaching because Id take your courses...Keep em coming!
thank you dom... you helped me on so much through cubase 12 pro and it so easy when I though it was so hard. thank you
even good arranging tactics helps to fix things in the mix. you're so right
I knew as soon as you said headroom that’s why my final bass would not even be heard while playing the tracks. Makes sense, thanks
I truly love this video, thanks Dom
Level matching (or unity gain) within plugins is actually pretty easy. Every plug-in has an input and output volume. For mixing, you only have one volume control to deal with (fader). It's impossible to A-B effects on a chain if the volume changes (even a little) every time you bypass something.
Super helpful, Dom. You hit The right spot. Thanks so much
I love your point about sound selection and why that is so critical to getting a loud mix. Many times we always start talking about mixing solutions, effects - clippers, saturation - what not, before actually looking at the sounds. Reality is that I personally tend to unfortunately pick sounds in isolation to one another - great sounds on their own, but too great together. So I think professionals have this uncanny ability to use sounds that blend in the right way and create the right psychoacoustic effect when everything is put together.
Gain staging is everything. Dom is right to say that we should ignore people that say it doesn't matter.
Said like a true Master! Salute 🫡
I'm very new to this and your videos are exceedingly helpful! I am adding drums to classical music and I am struggling with making my drums sound good. I know that I'll get there but I wanted to thank you for doing what yo do here!
Lately, I've found that Tonal Balance Control and LCD-MX4 give my super accurate mixes and masterings. Sean Divine channel also taught me how to make perceived louder music, one of the methods is the using of multiband compressor on the mid-range during mastering.
Every of your videos helps always. Thank you Dom! I cannot wait for your full mastering video :)
This is golden knowledge.
Great video Dom. Thanks
Thanks for this...and yes... please, make a video about sound selection :D
Really helpful ideas and good service nole explanation. Thanks!
Outstanding Dom, thank you very much!
Maestro, looking fresh! Happy new year!
Dom, Invaluable advice, much thanks. Love the intermittent dream sequences for effect, funny!
me too. I really lol
12:35 it would be but most mastering engineers don't seem to volunteer any of that information.
Thank you, Dom!
Thank you for making this video. Mixing has been one of my challenges and your tips are extremely helpful. I’ve been trying to mix one of my tracks for the last two weeks and I feel that it still sound muddy. I have so much to learn. I really need a mentor on this. By the way, love your energy, your passion and wisdom that you put into making your videos.
GREAT video, Dom!
Of course we want "how to select propere sound" tutorial Dom. You are making good work. Keep doing.
Thanks very much dom
First off - Dom love your channel, best tutorials on TH-cam IMO.
However - I think level matching most/all changes as a beginner is a good thing to do. Otherwise you make a change, it's louder, sounds better and so you go with it, regardless of whether it was actually the correct move or not. When you're developing your ear, you really need the level matching to actually hear whether something is better or not. That will also help you determine whether the correct move is actually just turning up the fader vs. putting a CLA 2A on, getting 4dB of gain and getting the volume that's needed but now having more midrange and compression than it needed.
Thanks for the video!
Absolutely. When you're experienced, you know your gear/plugins and know what you're doing, you can get away with not level matching, but it's bad advice for beginners. That's like a racing driver teaching someone how to drive and telling them to be brave and adventurous by driving as fast as possible and powerslilding around corners! A skilled driver can do that safely but it's very dangerous for a novice. I can't tell you how many times I've improved a sound with a plugin, then level matched it and found that it made hardly any difference or even sounded worse. Often it does sound better, but a novice can't be sure of that without level matching. Later, once you've trained your ears and know your plugins well, then you can drive like a madman!
Thank You, great input!
Thanks, Dom. Learned again.
Oh yes Dom please hit us with the "how to select the right instruments" lecture☺ I'm sure many of us will need this lesson.
If sounds clash move them to a slightly different position on the frequency spectrum by using EQ filter and make sure you pan your sounds taking advantage of stereo.
10.37 😂crack up
Loving your videos. Learning lots. Cheers 👍
Great, as always 🔝🔝
Thanks Dom - fantastic content as always. Appreciate your passion for sharing what you have learned through trial and error. (...and yes you have converted me into turning on the Control Room button and using that as a basis for experimenting with the sound.....caution out the window). Thanks.
Thank you Dom .iam really learning a lot from you
Good to know the first two to come to my mind were your first 2 which are key. Gainstaging was a key moment for me awhile back - I didn’t even realize the difference between input and output on Cubase metering which definitely is necessary lol!
you can, top down mix post fader and start with the drums and bass hit the top then back away dont be afraid to use ears
Excellent Advice Dom...... Agree with the RTFM.......I also had a fully printed Cubase Manual.....Took for ever to print.LOL
Love all your videos thank you!
This guy is good!!
Dom, Please make that video about sound selection, I would love to know on what criteria you do that, besides style.
It was really helpful!
Great, Thank you so much!
Just found your channel and it's awesome, thank you. I really hope you will make a video on mixing mid range, it would be incredibly helpful
Please do a video on sound selection 🙏🏾
As a producer and mixer. I say always choose the best sounding sound, the sound that is as close to how you want it so sound in your final song....you can always tweak it and modify it in many ways, but the closer to perfection it sounds from the beginning, the better.
Also pay attention to how it fits with sounds you've already chosen. A good sound depends a lot on the genre, and on what sounds are around it. A great kick drum for one song night be bad for another track. So consider the big picture, the vision, the goal, the purpose and role of the instrument, and the context
definitely agree! this is what I find works the best
U are the best teacher ❤❤
midrange is magic !
Thanks for the level match plugin thing, am kind of obsessed by it and what u said here just clicked something in my mind. I hope i break free from it soon couse its making my mixes take to damn long... Thank u 😊😊😊
Sound selection, yes please
Thanks Dom . Very helpful 👍
Hey Dom, thank you for your video. Regarding the fourth chapter ("being overly conservative"), we all know that mixing is about emphasizing the emotional impact of a musical piece hence every action you take should improve the piece you are working on. From my experience and the way I learned, the 'bypass' button is one of the most important buttons in every plugin and you should always bypass and compare the changes you do to each track in order to be sure that you did improve the song by this change and not the opposite. Also, we all know that our ears tend to fool us and they would always prefer the 'loud' version. Having said that, I think that level-matching is a key to be sure that you are doing a fair comparison and not fooling your ears into thinking that you improved something while you actually just made it louder. I would be happy to hear your opinion about that.
Yes please do the video thankx❤
Thanks for yet another excellent, informative video. A video on mastering would be great, even though (as you say) "mastering might not be for everyone". I always set up an separate "mastering" project for the mix of my songs. But I am always a bit unsure what chain of plugins to set up for mastering. Usually I end up with: compressor - frequency - a tiny bit of Quadrafuzz - Magneto II - Limiter - Brickwall limiter. But I am never sure if I found the optimum for the particular song.
very good video, thank you!
Level matching is good to make sure that a particular plug in setting is actually making something sound better. Like hey, I out this compressor on and boom it sounds much better (and it went up 4 db)... But what if I never out the compressor and I just turned up the fadrer 4db, would it sound even better that way? You need to know the answer to that or you're kinda of just doing stuff to be doing it. But once you have more experience hearing compression or working with a particular plug in, it can be a waste of time to obsessively level match everything all the time. Level matching is a good diagnostic tool, but not a good final goal. You don't want sounds to sound the same after you finish mixing them, or you wouldn't want to mix them in the first place. And it's fine for levels to go up as you mix if you start with decent headroom to begin with.
But I think a good way to guide yourself toward a louder mix is to be able to make sounds seem louder without making the level meters actually go up. If you have a kick peaking at -8db and you can use a couple plugins to make it sound and feel louder in the mix while peaking at -10db... you're definitely moving in the right direction
Thank you so much Dom, you are incredible. Love from India. Please make a video about right sound selection and instrument selection.
YES! sound selection please
Good video...
Great tips
You're a gold, i wish to be part of your students❤
I use also cubase 11 pro
The gain stage here is very good
Every plugin have a weet spot and its something like -18 and 0db
If you start at -20db ad 10 tracks eith eq and comp its allmost 0db
Every step makes it louder
Eq,comp,saturation,parallel comp
Drive,preamp,distortion and so on and so on
I mix audio 5 years now
allmost everyday and its still a big trouble to make it at the end to -6db / -3db
dom is the future of a much bigger cubase community
Great video!
would love a video on sound selection!
Back Again 2022 Happy Newyear
Thanks for your realistic words about mastering engineers. Unlike with game music, for Pop/Rock-Music I never got into the luxury to work with professional clients only, and so quite often my work is writing "suggestions and issues" lists when songs come in instead of turning any knob.
I always tell my clients that mastering is not a one-way road. I thinks that sums it up. When doing mastering for AAA titles, I'm sometimes simply a last QC, a bunch of additional ears to make sure everything works well, and sometimes I don't apply anything but levelling. For other clients... well... there might be a lot of discussion, and yes, I sometimes refuse to master stuff if the mixing engineer is not willing to cooperate.
Absolutely! This is exactly what I experience too. I don’t want to accept a master if I feel that the mix is problematic. Unless we accept this fact and still decide to go on! These suggestions and fixes are sometimes more valuable and critical than the actual mastering process itself! Mixing tends to be way more expensive than mastering so artists tend to perform it themselves sometimes so suggestions coming from a mastering engineer are of the utmost importance!
These lectures are a pleasant oasis in a desert full of emptiness.
Thank you.
Brilliant!~
Love this, is it possible you could show example of dealing with the midrange? Thanks Dom
This is a very very very good video 👍🏼
Gain Staging made the difference in my miXes being prepared for Mastering. The studio can make it so you can turn it on '10' without distorting. THANKS☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Thank you so much
Very insightful.
Thanks, very good video 👌👍
Hey dom great video,out of topic question is this cubase 12 you're testing there ? :O