Create a “master” bus for all of the instrumentals and a bus for all of the vocal tracks. Then mix with a limiter on the actual main output. This allows top down mixers to treat the sum of the instrumentals and the sum of the vocals differently. When it come time to send the mix out for mastering you can simply turn down the volume until nothing is being trimmed by the limiter. Also really helps if you decide to release instrumental versions of the songs.
I almost always use tape saturation on bass guitar to control the transients instead of a compressor, it just sounds more even to my ears without something clamping down on it
Using a transient designer on something other than drums. I used it to tame a very attacky piano track so it would play nice with attack but not driving it completely into your ears.
Sometimes I play my whole mix pitch shifted: a little bit - up or down, it shows me something that I missed in EQ, Balance or relationship between instruments, that I would otherwise missed because my brain adjusted to music after I heard it too many times. I never saw anyone using this trick.
Hey Anita, de-essers have become such an invaluable tool for me! They solve so much more issues than just vocal esses. Sometimes I even use them (side-chained) on a bass to let the low-end breathe a bit when the kick hits (the de-esser set to the fundamental frequency of the kick in that case, or just low-shelving or something).
I was doubting my high tones today, since I had some hi-hat problem slipping my attention last week. But after this I feel they are quite adequate that 12k was just horrid:D Great tips as usual!
Eric Stewart of 10cc often did his higher guitar solo's at half speed with great results. As did Les Paul of course. Some great info as always. Thanks.
1. Recording in half speed 1:07 2. Using half speed playback (can reveal problems in the mix) 3:56 3. Using a snare sample to trigger the reverb 6:37 4. DeEssing things other than the vocals 9:32 5. Using Saturation in different ways 11:12
Superb tips. I often have the snare played later and just use the reverb. Not samples, just get the drummer (sometimes me, not a drummer) to play the snare part, solo. Add splosh to taste and bingo!
I discovered the De-ess trick just this year when I had a stereo drum part recorded on a Roland E-kit with a 16th note high-hat part that was just too harsh and overwhelming. Since it was a stereo mix I couldn't do anything to just the high hat, and tried all kinds of EQ, compression, anything I could think of. Eventually it dawned on me to try a de-esser and that did the trick perfectly!
@@Producelikeapro Hi Super Warren could you show "on a video How to change Tube Valve correctly on the most common studio compressor such as L2A and so on? " Many Thanks !!! I love your channel.
Ooof. Guess I'm still young and sensitive haha, that 12k was most definitely not "just buried in there" for me, it was almost louder than the rest of the track
Produce Like A Pro Good example for a trick I wouldn't even have thought of trying, but you're right if there's problems you can't hear this is invaluable. Thank you so much!
AAAHH MY EARS!!! I had a session recently where I was getting headaches and dizziness - turned out some programed drums had some super hi frequency that was basically making me ill! HA! I'm really sensitive to those higher freqs
I used to low pass around 10 k cause of that and my tracks sounded dull. I am sensitive to the high frequencies as well. I just started recording drums in January. Im still in the learning process. So need to address cymbal harshness.
@@SheaRecordmetal I recommend trying to pinpoint the frequencies early on and EQ them out. I've noticed some sibilances around 13-14kHz in my vocal recordings and I always have a 3-6dB dip on that area. But to still have that air in there I let the other frequencies strive in there and I'll maybe use a multiband compressor and squash the fuck out of >10kHz with medium attack and fast release. Also some type of tube or tape saturation could help.
Warren is an absolute master! Pulling off the wild hair cause he’s a true rockstar. I can’t believe the amount of creative wisdom that is up here for free; delivered by someone who makes you feel like you’re hanging out in the same room. I’ve learned so much over the years that I was inspired to start my own channel watching stuff like this! Thanks!
I loved the saturation tip! The one big thing I've learned this year is that many of the things that used to be considered 'wrong' are actually what makes the best songs sound right. If somebody would have told me a year ago that adding distortion to something that already sounds crystal clear and clean would make it sound better I would have thought they were nuts (despite the fact that I've been striving for distortion on my guitar since I was 15 :-) )
One of my favorite mixing tips is taking a dry signal and pumping it through sizable speakers into a hallway or large room, walking around the space to find the sweet spots, throwing up mics, and recording for a verb/room track to go alongside the dry signal. Drums, guitars, vocals... it works on everything and really gives a unique timbre to the mix!
My cat didn't understand the warning about the 12Khz :D Great tips, thank you Warren! I use de-essing a lot on guitar actually! Just to tame the annoying freqs
that would be interesting jack ....i have often thought about using my E kit- kick , toms and using my real snare- and cymbals .....as i find the cymbals and snare are often a bit sterile to my ears ...so i have not tried it yet ...but i am hoping for good results
Michael Seymour - I mix a radio program every week that uses an electronic kit - using Slate Trigger 2, saturation on the cymbals, and a good “live room” reverb really help!
I use half speed playback all the time to check timing (even tuning) of fast or intricate parts, great tip! The look on the band’s/artist’s face is priceless when they hear playback at half speed not expecting it! 😂
What I love about these videos is how they get my mind going into creative overdrive when it comes to recording, mixing etc. These tips are always planting seeds that I can't wait to put into practice!
Your interview with Jacquire is what turned me on to LoFi. I use it on room mics for drums (and overheads sometimes) almost all the time now. Eq-> LoFi->Compression -- mix to taste. Beautiful.
04:08 - Haha that triggered off my tinnitus. My left ear is much better at hearing higher frequencies, as I had a stroke one night and completely lost hearing in my right ear for almost 2 weeks. Took months to get 95% hearing back. Really cool techniques Warren. Thanks for sharing them! I do actually use the half-speed technique here for mastering, although I have to export it first. Cubase doesn't let me play at half speed. Something I'd love for them to implement.
"Let's hear it one more time" - thanks for that after my ears started bleeding the first time 🤣 But seriously, that seems to be a useful trick that I'm definitely going to try.
These are all great tips I have mostly never heard about or tried. The first 3 are interesting and something I will have to give a shot. I have done 4 and 5 unintentionally just messing around trying to get the sounds I wanted; never the less, great advice! Something I have done on all my recent mixes is use the softube tape plugin on my master buss. The crosstalk and high frequency control in particular, in conjunction with the saturation of the tape emulation. I find the crosstalk really widens a mix out while at the same time giving a "smearing" feeling to the sounds where everything runs into each other nicely without muddying things up. It's hard to describe but sounds great. It really helps the verbs and delays in particular gel with the dry sounds better in my opinion. The High frequency control is really cool too. I roll it back one notch which dampens all the high end by a few db (probalby like 1 db or 1.5 db) from what sounds like about 10khz and up. When I master or before sending to a client I use the maag 4 channel eq to boost 40khz with air and I find that together it has a sort of de-essing effect that controls without eliminating any errant sibilance, fizz, or other weird thing in the high end while keeping all the air. It feels like a super bright mix without actually being super bright and then hurting the ears or being fatiguing.
I've added a reverb plugin to a snare drum, twice. The second was tuned to add reverb to draw out the snare sounds and the first was to tuned to add some verb to the drum shell.
That de-harshing saturation tip is pretty much a lo-fi thing.Very hard to do with any other saturation plugin. The closest thing is the decapitator with the tone knob a little bit to the left, but its a totally different sound. Anyone knows other ways of doing it?
I use Tonebooster Ferox and it does this brilliantly. Balancing the drive and saturation controls actually allows for transient control too. Their Track Essentials 3 pack is a must have IMO; best basic gate plugin out.
Hi, try to low pass or lowshelf before saturation. And to get this 'vintage' sound from lo-fi plugin i would use both high and low pass. I use this technique really a lot and it makes perfect sens. Saturation adds the higher harmonics that were turned down before. I think it is pleasing because we are used to it. Old times gear used to eat up a lot of high freq so the engineers tended to use saturation to make up for it. And many times this "artificial" high end from saturation sounds better than high frequencies that have been acutally recorded (especialy when we are talking budget microphones). I do it mainly on vocals and overhead tracks. It is crucial not to overdo it, but can give some plesant effects. Give it a try and good luck! PS. For more extreme effect I love to put emulation of tube screamer on some tracks. But that is another story :)
@@tarkus3004 I'm sorry but I don't have that kind of budget. Maybe I should have clarified that beforehand. Anyways, considering money, I'd rather go with a low shelve, tbh. Thanks for the response, though!
@@ChrisDN Thank you for the suggestion! I'm not totally sold on toneboosters plugins but I will make sure to demo them when my budget expands a little. Cheers!
Unfortunately, you're right with tips one and two. Studio One cannot do this. For playback, I use SOX to at least check. Well, limitations bread creativity. I think I have an idea how to do the half-speed recording as well using SOX. Great ideas!
The workaround is easy, but disturbs the creative workflow quite severely. For checking a mix, that's not a problem, but for recording at half speed or may not be the best solution. In both cases: 1. Create a mix at full speed to check or to record to as a wav file. 2. Reduce the sample rate but a factor of two and increase the length by a factor of two using the SOX to get a half-speed mic. 3. Import the half-speed mix and eventually mute everything else. 4. Record the additional part or check the half-speed mix. 5. (record only) Export the recorded track, speed it up by a factor of two and reduce its length by a factor of two and, finally, import the sped-up recorded track. You may speed up this procedure by using batch files. I'm not aware of a GUI capable of controlling SOX. If I remember correctly, SOX is available for Windows and Mac.
I once had a mixing session with a singer/songwriter. As we were mixing analogue, I had only one de-esser. Since he sang damn good but insisted on recording his acoustic via the piezo pickup. I used the de-esser on the guitar and got rid of the papery quality these pickups produce. Used this trick ever since. Right now I'm working on a rock production with quite some crappy drum recording. I will try some of these ideas, they might rescue me, so thanks for this awesome video.
This is great, but I thought it was going to be about dispelling some common tips you will likely receive that no pro would actually do. I didn't know what those might be, but it had my interest! Maybe a future topic.
I can't recall exactly where it was that I read, (I guess classic tracks from SOS) that John Fogerty from CCR would record his vocals in a lower speed so at normal playback it would sound sharper... Beatles's "in my life" also used half speed... Cheers from Brazil, love your content!
damn warren you’re blowing my mind! i have pretty bad hearing loss in my left ear and that half speed trick can help me find those accidental annoying 10k+ frequencies. cheers!!!
Reminds me of my first approaches with sampling pink noise and tune it to the song for some fake snare bottom sound, when I had no samples available. Sending it to reverb as well could make it even better. Thanks Warren :)
The tip about using saturation to control cymbals was just what I needed currently. Thank you!! I've just joined the Academy because I've learned so many helpful things from you here and can't wait to dig into more.
Is Protools recording at half speed and then time stretching it to fit the track? So there will be some quality loss? TIP:: Find a part you are struggling to eq to fit in the mix. Take a couple measures of that track and reverse it. Play that part in reverse while the rest of the track is playing and you can really hear what you are Eqing much better. Reverse the part back to normal and you may surprise yourself. Great video btw!!!
Not a mixing tip here but I got my band back together over this Pandemic period and have started mixing and mastering to Cassette Tape. Wow it sounds so good! Tape has become popular again with the kind of crowd we aim our music at probably 30 plus at least in the UK don't know about America. I will have to put some of your techniques to our production and mixing now! Cheers.
Off subject a bit but here's what I do to thicken up vocals: I send my vocal to another buss, put a pitch corrector ( ReaTune, in Reaper, for example) and set it to maximum or near maximum correction (think Cher and that song she did ages ago). Then I put a stereo simulator on that buss to widen it up. I mix the original vocal with the pitch-corrected stereo-simulated vocal and it's huge. Then I can send the "treated" buss to the reverb or delay send for some really spot-in-tune reverb. It also gives a sort of phase effect due to the differences in pitch between the two tracks. Sometimes I'll throw some high-pass EQ, saturation or (why not ?) a leslie simulator on it. MDA leslie, for example. It can get pretty overwhelming if you mix in too much of the treated buss signal but, used with discretion, it's great. Works great for background vocals as well though you start getting a whole bunch of tracks to mix.
Thank you, Warren. I have a live recording from last year that I'm mixing now and needed something to smooth out the cymbals because of the leakage through the 4 vocal mics. I grabbed a saturator plugin and took the zing away. Cheers, Perry aka Techboy57
I've used De-Essing on cymbals, overheads and rooms as well as acoustic guitars. I've used saturation on acoustic and in fact this is a personal favorite for making up for crappy sounding piezo pickups and/or ugly sounding preamps when I've been I trusted with live performance tracks and re-cutting is not an option. I however have NOT tried saturation on cymbals, overheads or rooms. Nor have I tried or even thought of playing my tracks back at half speed. Furthermore, I am in the midst of writing a new song and there's a particularly finger twisting lick on the change that will benefit greatly from recording at half speed! Great stuff as always Warren, cheers!
For me dessing the snare for high hay leakage is great. Another thing is using saturation to not only take that high smashed hat, but to give the snare more sizzle on the snares, and after smashing the 1176 all buttons in on the DBuss to also give it a little extra elongated sizzle, after that saturation and it twin tube spl... Great plug for that among many others! Can also try an amp sim on snare top on the buss as well for similarish quality! Another fun thing to do, especially with an awesome bassist is 5 band eq your mics for recording the cab! Had an Accugroove 5 speaker cab, where is had 1x15"sub, 1x12"woofer, 1x6"midrange, and 2x2" silk dome tweeters! So micing just 1 speaker sounded ok, but not Accugroove! Using an Accugroove can is like hearing bass for the first time! It's that awesome! So next step mic the woofer and 6" mids, better... But why not treat it like a 5 sand eq with crossovers for each speaker... I mean we've got Autoalign now so phase shouldn't be an issue.... Hmmm. Well needless to say after many failed attempts it finally worked! The most amazing bass sound since sliced bread! Imagine bass from the center, mid bass from the back center and high bass from the sides... Holy shit! Then.... U guessed it. Computer crash, drive fail, and forgot to switch my empty drive for my full backup drive, so no fucking backups! Well on to the next one! Ate that session! Live and learn they say... And never buy Seagate HDs! Or Lacie as their just more expensive Seagate drives!
Great stuff as always Warren. One thing I like to do a lot is to layer a different sound under an instrument like a pad under some BGVs or a Cello under an electric bass. Something that similar in range and tamber but a bit of a different tone yet still compliments the original part and I layer it under so you don't really notice what it is.
You're right, half-speed recording is rarely used! VSO in the digital world! Fun fact -- 80% of the production of Fleetwood Mac's "Tango in the Night" from 1987 heavily used this technique at various speeds. Most of the hooky parts sound like they were recorded on a synth / Fairlight, but they're actually multi-layered guitars using various speeds on a VSO to achieve this weird harmonic effect. I LOVE artists who use strange techniques to achieve sound! *Subscribed*
Awesome tips as always Warren. I also use to slow the playback rate in Reaper to fix timing mistakes more efficiently. Using a snare sample to trigger the reverb is just great! Exactly what I needed for a song I'm working on right now! Thanks.
Had myself checking if my Deluxe Reverb & Neve Channels were left on and feedingback with the mic setup. They certainly were not running. Fantastic example. Still a bit jarring over my monitors though. Well done!
Two of the most recent tricks I've been using: 1) Dynamic EQ for deessing to allow for multiple points and control over the curve. 2) A compressor with mid-side AND parallel for boost+width with a single bypass automation for choruses.
Funny, I always knew I could record my bass at 'half speed', play back at full speed & it'd sound great! But I can't do that because then it's not 'me' who played it... I'm only up to 1:24 😊
Remember my drummer in a band years ago looking at me like I was crazy because I asked if he could hit the drum heads harder and bring down the cymbals. Little did I know, I was right!
Wow, great tips. De-essing OH and hihat was already familiar, but saturation hefty room mics sounds awesome. I was used to compress those sounds, and it would only aggravate the problem. Expanding - no go. Thx!
Used to "tune" the old multi track tape recorders by using the pitch change knob, to a keyboard note, up or down to create harmonies! Half speed recording a Bass for example and speeding it back up kinda got a surf guitar tone! Easier to do these things now days.
What are your favorite mixing tips?
The one were you isolate the low lows too hear if the bass is dominating the kick around 50-60 Hz, very usefull...
Create a “master” bus for all of the instrumentals and a bus for all of the vocal tracks. Then mix with a limiter on the actual main output. This allows top down mixers to treat the sum of the instrumentals and the sum of the vocals differently. When it come time to send the mix out for mastering you can simply turn down the volume until nothing is being trimmed by the limiter. Also really helps if you decide to release instrumental versions of the songs.
I almost always use tape saturation on bass guitar to control the transients instead of a compressor, it just sounds more even to my ears without something clamping down on it
Making a separate Parallel Bus for Kick + Snare (sometimes Tom's) only, squash it and blend it back in the track for more smack on Rock/Metal track
Using a transient designer on something other than drums. I used it to tame a very attacky piano track so it would play nice with attack but not driving it completely into your ears.
Sometimes I play my whole mix pitch shifted: a little bit - up or down, it shows me something that I missed in EQ, Balance or relationship between instruments, that I would otherwise missed because my brain adjusted to music after I heard it too many times.
I never saw anyone using this trick.
Very smart thinking Daniel!
That's a cool idea! It remembers me when I'm drawing I flip the page to see it from another angle and catch errors.
@@superhadouken EXACTLY!!! .) Mirror helps too.
This is what I love about mix checks in mono, the back and forth, the change from switching to mono is a nice perspective.
I've used de-essers on harsh guitars, cymbals and overheads. Haven't tried saturation on room tracks. I'll have to try that one. Thanks!
Fantastic! Thanks for sharing Anita!
Hey Anita, de-essers have become such an invaluable tool for me! They solve so much more issues than just vocal esses. Sometimes I even use them (side-chained) on a bass to let the low-end breathe a bit when the kick hits (the de-esser set to the fundamental frequency of the kick in that case, or just low-shelving or something).
Its a more immediate and perhaps graceful way to remove harsh shit
Man, i paused and played back that high pitched thing so many times cause i thought it was something in my room 😂😂
Haha I hear you! Sounds like someone left the TV on!
same here 😂
My dog absolutely hated it lol
I was doubting my high tones today, since I had some hi-hat problem slipping my attention last week. But after this I feel they are quite adequate that 12k was just horrid:D Great tips as usual!
Eric Stewart of 10cc often did his higher guitar solo's at half speed with great results. As did Les Paul of course. Some great info as always. Thanks.
Yes, agreed! I stole that idea from working in Tape!
Lindsey Buckingham probably did close to half of his guitar fills at half-speed as well :)
1. Recording in half speed 1:07
2. Using half speed playback (can reveal problems in the mix) 3:56
3. Using a snare sample to trigger the reverb 6:37
4. DeEssing things other than the vocals 9:32
5. Using Saturation in different ways 11:12
Thanks! It is also under the video!
@@Producelikeapro oh I must have missed that, thank you!
Hi@@anybody4802 not problem at all! Thanks ever so much
Thanks
Superb tips. I often have the snare played later and just use the reverb. Not samples, just get the drummer (sometimes me, not a drummer) to play the snare part, solo. Add splosh to taste and bingo!
I have also written in volume automation on faster rap vocals in reduced speed, very nice result actually...
That's a great tip!
Great tip indeed! Wow.A Norwegian Warren junior here?
I discovered the De-ess trick just this year when I had a stereo drum part recorded on a Roland E-kit with a 16th note high-hat part that was just too harsh and overwhelming. Since it was a stereo mix I couldn't do anything to just the high hat, and tried all kinds of EQ, compression, anything I could think of. Eventually it dawned on me to try a de-esser and that did the trick perfectly!
You are The Best !!! Best Music Inspiring Channel Ever !!! Keep up the Great Work !!!!
Yes he is!
Thanks ever so much Ivan! You Rock!!
@@timbrown7652 thanks ever so much!
@@Producelikeapro Thank you and i still enjoy watching what you did at the Blackbird Studios with the drums True Rock On !!!
@@Producelikeapro Hi Super Warren could you show "on a video How to change Tube Valve correctly on the most common studio compressor such as L2A and so on? " Many Thanks !!! I love your channel.
Ooof. Guess I'm still young and sensitive haha, that 12k was most definitely not "just buried in there" for me, it was almost louder than the rest of the track
Haha yes, it's pretty horrific! Haha That's why I wanted everyone!
Produce Like A Pro Good example for a trick I wouldn't even have thought of trying, but you're right if there's problems you can't hear this is invaluable. Thank you so much!
(also reminds me of in the 90s cathode TVs would emit this 15-16kHz buzz. My father never understood why I got annoyed even with the sound muted haha)
@@Fanafranky that shit drove young me half-insane! twEEEEEEEEEE
Crazy loud. Actually worse than the slowed down version tbh
AAAHH MY EARS!!! I had a session recently where I was getting headaches and dizziness - turned out some programed drums had some super hi frequency that was basically making me ill! HA! I'm really sensitive to those higher freqs
SAME
I hear you! Exactly! 12-15k is like an ice pick through your skull! Even at low levels!!
@@ShinyShinyBlack yes! Horrid
I used to low pass around 10 k cause of that and my tracks sounded dull. I am sensitive to the high frequencies as well. I just started recording drums in January. Im still in the learning process. So need to address cymbal harshness.
@@SheaRecordmetal I recommend trying to pinpoint the frequencies early on and EQ them out. I've noticed some sibilances around 13-14kHz in my vocal recordings and I always have a 3-6dB dip on that area.
But to still have that air in there I let the other frequencies strive in there and I'll maybe use a multiband compressor and squash the fuck out of >10kHz with medium attack and fast release. Also some type of tube or tape saturation could help.
These are great tips!! I love the saturation tip at the end!! Thank you!!
The Beatles recorded the keyboard solo to "In My Life" at half speed. Wonder what key command their DAW used... ;)
E+M+I
Hi Benj, it must have been 7.5 IPS rather than 15 IPS!
@@mick5137 haha indeed!!
No one uses? I used half-speed recording with a Tascam 424 cassette 4-track back in the 1990s! Glad it still works with Pro Tools.
Yes I did!!
Warren is an absolute master! Pulling off the wild hair cause he’s a true rockstar. I can’t believe the amount of creative wisdom that is up here for free; delivered by someone who makes you feel like you’re hanging out in the same room. I’ve learned so much over the years that I was inspired to start my own channel watching stuff like this! Thanks!
Aw shucks! Thanks ever so much my friend! That's very kind of you!
Thank you so much Warren ❤❤❤
I loved the saturation tip! The one big thing I've learned this year is that many of the things that used to be considered 'wrong' are actually what makes the best songs sound right. If somebody would have told me a year ago that adding distortion to something that already sounds crystal clear and clean would make it sound better I would have thought they were nuts (despite the fact that I've been striving for distortion on my guitar since I was 15 :-) )
One of my favorite mixing tips is taking a dry signal and pumping it through sizable speakers into a hallway or large room, walking around the space to find the sweet spots, throwing up mics, and recording for a verb/room track to go alongside the dry signal. Drums, guitars, vocals... it works on everything and really gives a unique timbre to the mix!
or you can either use a good condenser mic and add good reverb
Awesome tips and great fun watching haha 🤘I heard Frank Zappa recorded some of his crazy parts on half speed and doubled it later as well 👍
Super awesome tips Warren! Thank you so much! Some of them I’m gonna try tomorrow in my mix :)
My cat didn't understand the warning about the 12Khz :D
Great tips, thank you Warren! I use de-essing a lot on guitar actually! Just to tame the annoying freqs
Haha sorry to your cat!
Ha, it triggered my dog right away too. He thanks you though because it resulted in a trip outside and then a treat.
Hi warren, I wondered if you could make a video on recording with an electric drum kit, thanks
that would be interesting jack ....i have often thought about using my E kit- kick , toms and using my real snare- and cymbals .....as i find the cymbals and snare are often a bit sterile to my ears ...so i have not tried it yet ...but i am hoping for good results
Could you use it to trigger midi instead?
@@HowardCharlesUK That's probably what he means
That's an amazing idea!!
Michael Seymour - I mix a radio program every week that uses an electronic kit - using Slate Trigger 2, saturation on the cymbals, and a good “live room” reverb really help!
Thank you, as always, Warren! I enjoy different perspectives and new techniques to try!
I like the side chain reverb on the snare. Excellent tip. It's the simple things that make the difference!
Thank you for being so open about passing on knowledge to further the craft🙏🙏🙏
You’re very welcome!!
Thanks again Warren!!!
I use half speed playback all the time to check timing (even tuning) of fast or intricate parts, great tip! The look on the band’s/artist’s face is priceless when they hear playback at half speed not expecting it! 😂
That’s a very smart idea indeed!
great tips. back in the day i used to speed up the tape speed on my porta 2 - record a room reverb and then slow it down again.
Me too George! Thanks for sharing!
@@Producelikeapro ive really been enjoying your channel especially the in depth studio tours. What youre doing is an important document
Thank god that was the lesson in tip #2. I thought I had something wrong in my system at first! LOL!
Saved my mix before the release....Thank you so much Warren...
btw im new to your community but I already feel so much connection with everyone here ❤
That’s amazing to hear!!
hey man, always happy to learn something new from you! Informative as always!
Great tips as always!
Thanks everyone!
What I love about these videos is how they get my mind going into creative overdrive when it comes to recording, mixing etc. These tips are always planting seeds that I can't wait to put into practice!
thanks, now i can do Zappa voices !!!!!
Yes! Amazing!!
That tip on sending the snare sample to a reverb rather than the snare mic itself is a game changer for me. More control!
Exactly! Thanks to Andy Wallace for that one!
Your interview with Jacquire is what turned me on to LoFi. I use it on room mics for drums (and overheads sometimes) almost all the time now. Eq-> LoFi->Compression -- mix to taste. Beautiful.
Hi Billy, that's great to hear! Yes, Jacquire is wonderfully talented!
04:08 - Haha that triggered off my tinnitus. My left ear is much better at hearing higher frequencies, as I had a stroke one night and completely lost hearing in my right ear for almost 2 weeks. Took months to get 95% hearing back.
Really cool techniques Warren. Thanks for sharing them! I do actually use the half-speed technique here for mastering, although I have to export it first. Cubase doesn't let me play at half speed. Something I'd love for them to implement.
"Let's hear it one more time" - thanks for that after my ears started bleeding the first time 🤣
But seriously, that seems to be a useful trick that I'm definitely going to try.
"You can play audio at half speed."
Oh, this is going to be interesting.
Haha yes, indeed Geoff!!
wow these tips will actually help me a lot !! i love the idea of triggering the reverb with a triggered snare
nice tips also i love boys don't cry lol
Yes! Masterpiece!
perfect timing 😂
You beat me to it, bro. lol
Thanks ever so much my friend!!
@@bobbykanemusictube thanks ever so much!
@@bobbykanemusictube haha 😂 have you started mixing, Bobby?
These are my go to videos. You genuinely have made my mixes killer
Thanks ever so much Cole! That means a lot!
@@Producelikeapro I wish I could share the EP with you but its not out yet!
And we so appreciate you Warren.
You’re truly an amazing Mentor.
These are all great tips I have mostly never heard about or tried. The first 3 are interesting and something I will have to give a shot. I have done 4 and 5 unintentionally just messing around trying to get the sounds I wanted; never the less, great advice!
Something I have done on all my recent mixes is use the softube tape plugin on my master buss. The crosstalk and high frequency control in particular, in conjunction with the saturation of the tape emulation. I find the crosstalk really widens a mix out while at the same time giving a "smearing" feeling to the sounds where everything runs into each other nicely without muddying things up. It's hard to describe but sounds great. It really helps the verbs and delays in particular gel with the dry sounds better in my opinion.
The High frequency control is really cool too. I roll it back one notch which dampens all the high end by a few db (probalby like 1 db or 1.5 db) from what sounds like about 10khz and up. When I master or before sending to a client I use the maag 4 channel eq to boost 40khz with air and I find that together it has a sort of de-essing effect that controls without eliminating any errant sibilance, fizz, or other weird thing in the high end while keeping all the air. It feels like a super bright mix without actually being super bright and then hurting the ears or being fatiguing.
11:06 Forgot a cut, hehe! Good stuff though. Loving these tips mate.
Haha certainly not perfect! I'll leave that for the experts! Haha
I've added a reverb plugin to a snare drum, twice. The second was tuned to add reverb to draw out the snare sounds and the first was to tuned to add some verb to the drum shell.
That de-harshing saturation tip is pretty much a lo-fi thing.Very hard to do with any other saturation plugin. The closest thing is the decapitator with the tone knob a little bit to the left, but its a totally different sound. Anyone knows other ways of doing it?
I use Tonebooster Ferox and it does this brilliantly.
Balancing the drive and saturation controls actually allows for transient control too.
Their Track Essentials 3 pack is a must have IMO; best basic gate plugin out.
Hi, try to low pass or lowshelf before saturation. And to get this 'vintage' sound from lo-fi plugin i would use both high and low pass. I use this technique really a lot and it makes perfect sens. Saturation adds the higher harmonics that were turned down before. I think it is pleasing because we are used to it. Old times gear used to eat up a lot of high freq so the engineers tended to use saturation to make up for it. And many times this "artificial" high end from saturation sounds better than high frequencies that have been acutally recorded (especialy when we are talking budget microphones). I do it mainly on vocals and overhead tracks. It is crucial not to overdo it, but can give some plesant effects. Give it a try and good luck!
PS. For more extreme effect I love to put emulation of tube screamer on some tracks. But that is another story :)
@@tarkus3004 I'm sorry but I don't have that kind of budget. Maybe I should have clarified that beforehand. Anyways, considering money, I'd rather go with a low shelve, tbh. Thanks for the response, though!
@@ChrisDN Thank you for the suggestion! I'm not totally sold on toneboosters plugins but I will make sure to demo them when my budget expands a little. Cheers!
@@grandmaenjoysmusic Wow, this is a really great suggestion! I'll make sure to try this! Thank you very much for the tip and also the explanation!
these are very useful tips that I wouldn't think of otherwise. Thanks Warren!
That half-speed recording trick was really neat! It makes the guitar sound as if it's played through a whammy pedal. Thank you!
I feel proud because I used every single one of these tips beside 1 today before I even saw the video.
Unfortunately, you're right with tips one and two. Studio One cannot do this. For playback, I use SOX to at least check. Well, limitations bread creativity. I think I have an idea how to do the half-speed recording as well using SOX. Great ideas!
That sucks! Sorry to hear that
Sorry to hear that Jürgen!
The workaround is easy, but disturbs the creative workflow quite severely. For checking a mix, that's not a problem, but for recording at half speed or may not be the best solution. In both cases: 1. Create a mix at full speed to check or to record to as a wav file. 2. Reduce the sample rate but a factor of two and increase the length by a factor of two using the SOX to get a half-speed mic. 3. Import the half-speed mix and eventually mute everything else. 4. Record the additional part or check the half-speed mix. 5. (record only) Export the recorded track, speed it up by a factor of two and reduce its length by a factor of two and, finally, import the sped-up recorded track. You may speed up this procedure by using batch files. I'm not aware of a GUI capable of controlling SOX. If I remember correctly, SOX is available for Windows and Mac.
You made me laugh with your reaction to the song being played at half speed 😀😀👏👏
I once had a mixing session with a singer/songwriter. As we were mixing analogue, I had only one de-esser. Since he sang damn good but insisted on recording his acoustic via the piezo pickup. I used the de-esser on the guitar and got rid of the papery quality these pickups produce. Used this trick ever since. Right now I'm working on a rock production with quite some crappy drum recording. I will try some of these ideas, they might rescue me, so thanks for this awesome video.
Jesus Christ your 12k sine absolutely shredded my ears
Nice vid, very interesting tips!
Haha yes, pretty horrid!!
I won't be sad if I never hear that again...
Reverb trick is worth the price of admission. Thank you Warren via Andy Wallace.
Thanks ever so much Mark!
This is great, but I thought it was going to be about dispelling some common tips you will likely receive that no pro would actually do. I didn't know what those might be, but it had my interest! Maybe a future topic.
That's a great idea my friend!
I can't recall exactly where it was that I read, (I guess classic tracks from SOS) that John Fogerty from CCR would record his vocals in a lower speed so at normal playback it would sound sharper... Beatles's "in my life" also used half speed...
Cheers from Brazil, love your content!
"I've got a sample as well, which is really aggressive" All of a sudden I'm hearing "In A Big Country" in the drum part 😊
Hi Rob Burgess who doesn’t love some Big Country!
@@Producelikeapro Some of biggest drums in music.
damn warren you’re blowing my mind! i have pretty bad hearing loss in my left ear and that half speed trick can help me find those accidental annoying 10k+ frequencies. cheers!!!
That "buried" 12kHz was clearly audible for me.
Yes, I know! I could hear it too! However, as I explained if I had gone to 15k many people wouldn’t had heard it!
That room mic trick is ace, definitely going be using that!
Reminds me of my first approaches with sampling pink noise and tune it to the song for some fake snare bottom sound, when I had no samples available. Sending it to reverb as well could make it even better. Thanks Warren :)
The tip about using saturation to control cymbals was just what I needed currently. Thank you!! I've just joined the Academy because I've learned so many helpful things from you here and can't wait to dig into more.
Great tips, I’ve actually always used subtractive hi freq eq on my rooms and overheads to do the same, but that lo fi seems pretty slick!
Thanks ever so much! Gad to be able to help!
I love Saturation, specifically on drums. But I have used it on every source you could think of.
Thanks ever so much Blake for sharing!
Love to see the tips back! One of my favourites is ducking the initial vocal effect with a super fast compressor keyed from the source vocal..
Is Protools recording at half speed and then time stretching it to fit the track? So there will be some quality loss?
TIP:: Find a part you are struggling to eq to fit in the mix. Take a couple measures of that track and reverse it. Play that part in reverse while the rest of the track is playing and you can really hear what you are Eqing much better. Reverse the part back to normal and you may surprise yourself.
Great video btw!!!
Likely no quality loss for a full double-speed playback.
Some very useful tips there Warren. Thanks!
Thanks ever so much Cris!
Not a mixing tip here but I got my band back together over this Pandemic period and have started mixing and mastering to Cassette Tape. Wow it sounds so good! Tape has become popular again with the kind of crowd we aim our music at probably 30 plus at least in the UK don't know about America. I will have to put some of your techniques to our production and mixing now! Cheers.
Off subject a bit but here's what I do to thicken up vocals: I send my vocal to another buss, put a pitch corrector ( ReaTune, in Reaper, for example) and set it to maximum or near maximum correction (think Cher and that song she did ages ago). Then I put a stereo simulator on that buss to widen it up. I mix the original vocal with the pitch-corrected stereo-simulated vocal and it's huge. Then I can send the "treated" buss to the reverb or delay send for some really spot-in-tune reverb. It also gives a sort of phase effect due to the differences in pitch between the two tracks. Sometimes I'll throw some high-pass EQ, saturation or (why not ?) a leslie simulator on it. MDA leslie, for example. It can get pretty overwhelming if you mix in too much of the treated buss signal but, used with discretion, it's great. Works great for background vocals as well though you start getting a whole bunch of tracks to mix.
Great tips, Warren, as always!
Thanks!
These were such useful tips! Thanks again Warren!
Thank you, Warren. I have a live recording from last year that I'm mixing now and needed something to smooth out the cymbals because of the leakage through the 4 vocal mics. I grabbed a saturator plugin and took the zing away. Cheers, Perry aka Techboy57
Some awesome tips & tricks there, thank you!
Thanks ever so much my friend!
I've used De-Essing on cymbals, overheads and rooms as well as acoustic guitars. I've used saturation on acoustic and in fact this is a personal favorite for making up for crappy sounding piezo pickups and/or ugly sounding preamps when I've been I trusted with live performance tracks and re-cutting is not an option.
I however have NOT tried saturation on cymbals, overheads or rooms. Nor have I tried or even thought of playing my tracks back at half speed.
Furthermore, I am in the midst of writing a new song and there's a particularly finger twisting lick on the change that will benefit greatly from recording at half speed!
Great stuff as always Warren, cheers!
For me dessing the snare for high hay leakage is great. Another thing is using saturation to not only take that high smashed hat, but to give the snare more sizzle on the snares, and after smashing the 1176 all buttons in on the DBuss to also give it a little extra elongated sizzle, after that saturation and it twin tube spl... Great plug for that among many others! Can also try an amp sim on snare top on the buss as well for similarish quality! Another fun thing to do, especially with an awesome bassist is 5 band eq your mics for recording the cab! Had an Accugroove 5 speaker cab, where is had 1x15"sub, 1x12"woofer, 1x6"midrange, and 2x2" silk dome tweeters! So micing just 1 speaker sounded ok, but not Accugroove! Using an Accugroove can is like hearing bass for the first time! It's that awesome! So next step mic the woofer and 6" mids, better... But why not treat it like a 5 sand eq with crossovers for each speaker... I mean we've got Autoalign now so phase shouldn't be an issue.... Hmmm. Well needless to say after many failed attempts it finally worked! The most amazing bass sound since sliced bread! Imagine bass from the center, mid bass from the back center and high bass from the sides... Holy shit! Then.... U guessed it. Computer crash, drive fail, and forgot to switch my empty drive for my full backup drive, so no fucking backups! Well on to the next one! Ate that session! Live and learn they say... And never buy Seagate HDs! Or Lacie as their just more expensive Seagate drives!
Great stuff as always Warren. One thing I like to do a lot is to layer a different sound under an instrument like a pad under some BGVs or a Cello under an electric bass. Something that similar in range and tamber but a bit of a different tone yet still compliments the original part and I layer it under so you don't really notice what it is.
You're right, half-speed recording is rarely used! VSO in the digital world! Fun fact -- 80% of the production of Fleetwood Mac's "Tango in the Night" from 1987 heavily used this technique at various speeds. Most of the hooky parts sound like they were recorded on a synth / Fairlight, but they're actually multi-layered guitars using various speeds on a VSO to achieve this weird harmonic effect. I LOVE artists who use strange techniques to achieve sound! *Subscribed*
Dear Warren,
thanks for the great video! I have a question for the mix competition: will we get a chord sheet if we want to do a remix?
Nice one! Love to hear about "thinking different" ... applying things the not obvious way - just to get more ideas and options! Great! Thanks!
Awesome tips as always Warren. I also use to slow the playback rate in Reaper to fix timing mistakes more efficiently.
Using a snare sample to trigger the reverb is just great! Exactly what I needed for a song I'm working on right now! Thanks.
Had myself checking if my Deluxe Reverb & Neve Channels were left on and feedingback with the mic setup. They certainly were not running. Fantastic example. Still a bit jarring over my monitors though. Well done!
I love the half speed tips. Cheers
Two of the most recent tricks I've been using:
1) Dynamic EQ for deessing to allow for multiple points and control over the curve.
2) A compressor with mid-side AND parallel for boost+width with a single bypass automation for choruses.
Loved that room trick👍!
Thanks ever so much Chad!!
As always, MARVELOUS!!! Thanks Warren!! :)
You always have the best recording tips! Thanks for sharing.
As always, thank you so much!!
Funny, I always knew I could record my bass at 'half speed', play back at full speed & it'd sound great!
But I can't do that because then it's not 'me' who played it... I'm only up to 1:24 😊
Love it. Keep up the 5 tips theme in repertoire....Thank you, Warren!
Thanks ever so much my friend!!
Great tips for sure.. will definitely have to try them!
Thanks ever so much Charles!!
Remember my drummer in a band years ago looking at me like I was crazy because I asked if he could hit the drum heads harder and bring down the cymbals. Little did I know, I was right!
Exelente lo del Lo-Fi. Gracias!
Wow, great tips. De-essing OH and hihat was already familiar, but saturation hefty room mics sounds awesome. I was used to compress those sounds, and it would only aggravate the problem. Expanding - no go. Thx!
Used to "tune" the old multi track tape recorders by using the pitch change knob, to a keyboard note, up or down to create harmonies! Half speed recording a Bass for example and speeding it back up kinda got a surf guitar tone! Easier to do these things now days.
🙏. Thank you I’m learning a lot
Thanks ever so much
Thank you for these useful tips
Great insights
Thanks ever so much Michael!