All language subtitles for (2016) MAKING THE MIX w MATTY AMENDOLA - Part 2 of 5 Drums & Bass (1 of 2)

Oh

all right so let's talk about drums and

bass we'll start with the bass so we

have some context of what's going on

let's hide everything that we don't need

to be looking at because we're artists

and life's already hard right let me

start off by saying that as we go

through these raw tracks and then put

plugins on nothing's really level

matched and I don't have everything

grouped I don't have things bust out the

way I like to I don't have my VCAs over

here this was a let's get the sound

let's make it sound good let's see what

happens sort of situation I went into

logic I think alchemy and just found

something really low in subby that that

worked for the song and the range of

where it was being played on a keyboard

and then use that in correlation with

the Native Instruments Rickenbacker bass

so I like that because it gives me that

thump of a Rickenbacker and then it

gives me that modern subby low-end of

just your run-of-the-mill stock D aw

synth bass and then what I did on top of

that was through an arpeggiator on so I

could be real lazy and just let it go

right after I did that I then reamped

the bass so what do I mean by reamp it

sent the output of my D aw out to the

amp miked it with an re 22 grab all that

sub low-end frequency and then a 421 to

grab the bite and I that's typically my

two favorite mics on a bass cabinet in

this room the live bass your low-end is

just gonna go it's gonna feel so dull

and so lame

so reamping synth bass for me is really

cool because it puts that air in between

the source the speaker and the

microphone and then when I go to record

live bass we're still gonna need to jack

up the low end to get it to to balance

out however they're gonna have a very

similar quality with that air so here's

the react

synth bass which we bounced out once we

liked and this is what it sounded like

cool so we got a lot of ambience on

there and that that might get scary

right as we start going into our mix we

have all this low frequency crap right

just taking up too much room

we'll see so the first thing I put on

here it was just a logic channel EQ and

basically I am just taking out a whole

bunch of highs because I felt like when

I put it through the bass amp the bass

amp was giving me a grit that I didn't

like so here it is without

here it is with

and to hear the difference pay attention

to the very top end of the bass here it

is again without and then I'll put it on

with and listen to the very top end and

how it just gets scooped right out

so that made a big difference for me

right after that in the chain we're

using one of my favorite plugins and you

guys know about it if you've watched my

other making the mix series track spacer

by waves factory this is an unbelievable

sidechain plugin that does so much more

than just key a signal to another signal

so I'm basically I set this up in a way

where it's keying the soft kick drum and

we'll get to what that's doing later but

for now you can actually just see on

here that whenever that kick drum that

I'm side chaining at two hits

the bass is going to drop pretty much

just by a ratio of 23% so it's not

dropping very much but you'll see it

so it's not going out some of those

frequencies in the kick drum in the bass

so the kick can kind of win the battle

just a little bit okay after that I have

a transient designer and the attack is

almost on stun so why am I doing this

let's listen with and then without

so with it on it brought back what I

lost by putting that initial EQ on with

the EQ I got rid of that grit and the

graininess that was on the base but it

kind of made me lose the fact that I had

an arpeggiator on the base without the

transient designer the base third of

just becoming room instead of I wanted

more of those transients so the attack

on the SPL which I loved

well sometimes crap out when you go this

high and it's not we're doing all right

so it's not being used subtly but it's

doing the trick next I have one of my

favorite eq's in the world hardware and

software at n73 and I can see we're

doing a little low-cut here right at

around 50 Hertz we are boosting 60 which

for me is kind of like that meat and

potatoes bass frequency we're also

boosting a little bit of 3k which is

going to give us a little bit of

presence and then we're doing very

something very similar than what we did

with the initial EQ on our fixed top-end

knob here which I believe is 12 K we're

knocking down a whole bunch of that

again so I'm I could only assume the

reason I did this was because the

transient designer brought out a little

bit more of that green Innes so it's a

lot of going back with trial and error

here's without and then with

so it's interesting that I'm cutting

some of the lows out but because I'm

cutting so much of that 12k out it is

starting to seem fatter however now the

tone is more appropriate to what I was

hearing in my head right we have the

arpeggiated thing we had this in your

face low sub but we feel the movement

okay

now what I did was put a big no-no on

this bass track and I made the executive

decision to bring out the mids in the

center and then bring up the side so

that way I can start sculpting things

inside of that bass right because if I

put it right in the middle that bass now

might not be as cool as it was however

when you know that you're gonna do it

and then you're going to sculpt things

inside of it instead of around it on the

outside it's okay so here's with it and

then without

so I'll play it again with it and if you

don't hear the difference then you

haven't quite mastered the fact that the

vocal is the most important thing ever

in any mix that you do because what

Center did was give us just enough room

in the center that it will not be taking

up any room of a vocal and even though

our vocals a lot higher of a frequency

it's not going to be in the way at all

especially Giuliana who has a really

nice husky low-end quality to her voice

so here it is again with the spread

next in our chain we have an s1 imager

and what I'm doing now is I'm taking

those sides that we just brought out and

I'm just closing them in a little bit

right because when it comes time for our

chorus and we want everything to explode

and we start putting guitars left and

right we have symbols room mics we don't

want all this room taken up so I made a

very specific decision here and I can

only assume that this was done once I

had more elements in the mix I made the

executive decision that okay the spreads

great I cleaned out the center however

now it's too wide let's rein it in a

little bit and you'd never be able to do

something like this in solo which is why

I say I had to have made this decision

once we had other things in the mix and

I know I made the next decision as an

afterthought as well because the next

plugin that we have in the chain is

Guitar Rig and I'm using the tractor 12

the Gator and the beach slicer and I

have basically you know a little bit of

dry a little bit of wet on each and what

they're doing they're creating a stutter

so I can only assume again that after my

drums were in my guitars my vocals I

felt like I was losing that our Peggy

ated movement again right it's all trial

and error you know every single piece of

the puzzle opens up your mind to seeing

something else or hearing something else

in this case so here it is without

either one of these and then I will put

the Gator on we'll listen to the

difference maybe talk about it and then

we'll put on a beet slicer

so now we're really emphasizing the

beach that we want here's where we

started

here's where we ended up

cool so we have one more two more base

tracks in this song actually I knew that

I wanted live bass for the chorus

because I knew I wanted to put live

drums in the chorus and I was just

feeling that I wanted I wanted to hear

some human interaction in there

this is bounced which tells me two

things number one like most of my live

bass tracks was recorded through an

ampeg with an re 20 and a 421 and once I

got the balance of these of those two

mics I bounced it and it also is showing

me the waveforms look pretty good listen

let's enhance them a little bit there is

no doubt that I ran through a

de-stressor either during tracking or

directly after and then bounced it

because I knew I was gonna want to use

my distress errs for vocals now this

bass is interesting because I used the

compressor like an instrument let's

check this out for a second and it'll

make more sense once we have some drums

in

as I said before I'm using the

compressor if you can feel that pumping

action I'm using the compressor as an

instrument everyone knows we contain

Peaks bring up lower sounds with a

compressor but some people forget that

we can also make things move certain

ways we can make things feel like

they're there we can make things feel

like they're here and what I'm doing

here is I'm doing a little bit of all of

that and I'm giving it this motion that

it's actually

wow-wow-wow swelling up in volume and

I'm doing that by kind of crushing the

attack on on a de-stressor I'm crushing

that attack and then I'm really setting

the release I wish I still had the

settings I do not but I'm setting the

release in a rhythmic motion so it

probably was a lot of listening and a

lot of watching the meters just so I can

get that feeling doom-doom doom-doom

let's listen again you'll feel it so you

really feel that release letting it open

up in a rhythmic kind of way so that's

what I did for the live bass there was

probably not much going on I probably

recorded both mics through outboard

going in with a little bit of

compression EQ

which is why there's no plugins on this

track and then in our bridge we have a

distorted bass so let's hear what that's

doing naturally

I love that love it so right off the bat

it was tracked with distortion we don't

have any plugins on right now one of my

favorite pedals for bass is actually a

guitar pedal by an emphasis pedals from

Italy they make a pedal called the muff

sorry I have a lot of fuzz pedals and

the names sometimes become one the muff

is a great fuzz pedal that it's not too

fuzzy so I love it on bass and emphasis

thought I was crazy when I told them hey

I want one of those for bass and they

said it's not a bass pedal doesn't

matter

sounds great something else listen to it

again

love it alright let's see what's going

on on the chain here so we've got our

waves factory track spacer again this

time it's being side chained to our live

drums and again I'm not using a high

ratio at all 18% so it's it's working a

little magic it's letting the the kick

drum and those lower frequencies and the

drums win the battle but not too much

and then I have a little bit of a room

simulator on there and I'm using ocean

way Studios for that let's listen with

it on and then we'll disengage

you

so what that's doing is pushing it to

the back a little bit we're using just

one mic the mid mic we have it in in in

re mic mode and we're completely wet on

that

so we're basically remaking this this

bass output I'll put a Laundering while

we're listening to it and you'll see it

just go whoo just push the back of the

spectrum a little bit

big difference it's not like in your

face and probably because there was a

guitar going on in there so I wanted to

give the the low-end a little bit of its

own room and then after that you ad

Ocean Way I have just a little bit EQ it

seems like I'm knocking out to 40 a

little bit of the boxiness

yeah so we're just we're thinning that

out a little bit that's typically I

don't know if it's just my room or if

it's a thing in general you know between

200 and 300 if there's some kind of

buildup that's a little nasty that's

where it's gonna be

especially on base so that's our that's

all our base and now the fun stuff let's

move on to drums so going back to our

first verse now that we have some bass

in context there's a lot of really cool

things going on so let's start with our

808 kicks which we call soft kick

okay so we're creating a heartbeat right

we're emphasizing the beats that we want

to on that arpeggiated bass with this

soft kick EQ wise as you can see I don't

have much going on I put a little point

on it pretty much at like two and a half

K I'm putting that point on it so it put

pokes out a little more let's listen to

it not much and the reason why I don't

have to do too much is because we're

keying the bass with that remember so

let's open up our synth bass again now

we can actually really see what track

spacer is doing and why the kick drums

not not necessarily winning the battle

but it's working and it's actually

audible and it's pretty much same

frequency range cool nothing that

exciting going on there one piece of the

puzzle are soft kick right there after

that we have a delayed kick so we're

using ultra beat see what's going on

here in context with the base and this

soft kick cool alright so it's bringing

back a little bit of that knock effect

that I had in the demo right now I have

a bunch of stuff going on here so let's

see crystallizer is the first one by

soundtoys

I'm using a preset a doubler let's see

what that's doing okay it's not doing

too much except for just spreading it

out a little bit I also have the track

panned over there so it's totally away

from our other kick drum cool so it

seems to me like this was a just a

production call you know we're

emphasizing that okay the ones coming

around we got some other stuff going on

here

we have a channel EQ we're giving it

some low-end we're cutting out a lot of

mids and then we're taking out some

highs

so it almost seems to me like we gave it

a little bit more of an 808 feel we got

some compression after that I love this

tube tech buy you a DVI the way cool so

that's kind of just controlling our

Peaks here I think it pushed it back a

little bit let's listen again yeah

exactly so this compressor kind of made

it feel a little bit more like the

heartbeat kick the soft kick so here it

is without and then I'll put it on

yeah so it's taming the peaks and it

also made it gel a little bit more with

that other kick and then we have our

trusty stereo delay from logic let's see

what that's doing

cool so just a very simple sixteenth

note delay here it is in solo and it

works nicely with our soft 808 kick

pretty cool something's coming together

don't know what yet here we got some

snare so let's see what's going on there

again in context with the bass so we

know what's going on okay so it's not

just a snare we should relay bolused

call it ultra beat hit because that's

essentially what's going on there so we

got some different sounding snares I'm

bringing back that knock thing that

knock effect sound from the demo again

but now we got some movement with the

hi-hat I'm using crystallizer again on

this same exact preset the great doubler

let's see what that's doing

cool so just spread it out big time so

now again we're getting frequencies away

from our Center I'm using the tube tech

again and it looks like all these

settings were actually just copied and

pasted over same thing with our stereo

delay so let's listen so I'm being very

subtle right production-wise mix wise

I'm just giving it some ambience I'm

giving it texture I'm giving it its own

space it's all gelling together really

well and it's you know a lot of this is

low frequency information so it's really

just about managing that to get it to

work well the one thing I did add to

this is this awesome plugin

it's the Butch Vig vocals plug-in I'm

using the Butch Vig telephone one preset

and I'm sure I went in and fumbled

around if I might not have also because

the presets are great let's see what

that's doing

so basically we just made it loaf I

write which I'm all about here it is

without and then with cool very nice and

then we are sending this out to our EMT

plate a really short one actually let's

hear what that's doing here it is on so

it's pretty short but it's very wet

let's hear it in so low for a second so

what I like about it it's smoothing out

a lot of the delays that are on there

and it's also because we spread it out

using that crystallizer the reverbs kind

of gluing it all to be kind of like a

nice like smear across our spectrum

still with a nice spread though okay

well that's cool and there's not much to

it here's the sound nasty it's not a

great sounding thing and then we have

another one right underneath that

however on this one I am using AHA so

instead of putting a delay on it and

automating it I just copied and pasted

the track and then put this Manny

Marroquin reggae delay on it

and to me it sounds like it's totally

wet where is that happening is it

totally yep

here we go it's totally wet so we have

the dry signal coming from this lo-fi

snare hit and totally wet signal coming

from this low v snare effects definitely

a nice echo call-and-response kind of

thing here it is in context with all our

other elements of the kit it's just a

really nice little puzzle that makes you

want to rock your head back and forth

okay there's one awesome thing left here

in the verse I'm gonna let you in on a

trick of something I do a lot there's a

lot of this in this in the song and

we'll get to it in other sections it's

reverse drums and here's what they sound

like so load so it seems like they were

processed with a little bit of very

bottom and then I spun them backwards

here's what they sound like with

everything else

awesome I love putting things in reverse

so let's see what's going on here plugin

wise whoa are we gonna get some YouTube

comments about that alright let's listen

with it on and see why this multiband

compression is ridiculous

alright there's a lot of things going on

so let's solo basically what I'm trying

to do here is make this have its own

space

knock it in the way of any of our other

elements right and because we're using

something in Reverse we're gonna get a

lot of not artificial but a lot of

things that we didn't expect or we

couldn't really troubleshoot beforehand

right like when symbol starts swelling

in and out and cutting off really

tightly those are things you really

can't control before you record it

especially if you know you're gonna turn

it in reverse right

so let me solo what the the low bands

are doing so this is pretty much a

hundred to three hundred four hundred

range this is so load

so we're bringing up a lot of the lows

in there but it's definitely a higher

frequency than our base let's see what

the mids are doing so that's the stuff I

was talking about before that you can't

troubleshoot that before you record it

if you're gonna put it in reverse that's

just a lot of really hard transients on

the snare cutting in cutting out

swelling up swelling down we're

controlling it let's see about our top

end here and just like I mentioned

before so as wacky as this looks it's

doing everything we needed to do we're

controlling all of our elements of a

sound that is not natural live drum

track spun in Reverse here's the before

and after little harsh here's with it

a lot more pleasing okay so when I go

this surgical with an EQ that's telling

me that it was done after the fact I

already got the sound with my multiband

but now there's some frequencies I

either need to boost or cut depending on

what's going on around it so we got this

boost here at around 40 Hertz which

there's a lot of things being boosted in

some of these tracks that I wouldn't

normally go for but that's why I know I

put this on after the fact it was fixing

something else or putting it in a place

or beating the Battle of something else

that was up there we're cutting out some

boxiness again it's like between 200 and

you know 300 and then I'm completely

notching out 3k so I'm basically there's

something else going on in this mix

where 3k needed to win and it wasn't on

this reverse drum track and then on top

of that I have again a trusty logic

stereo delay and we're using this in

quarter notes actually because as you

know we're trying to vary all these

sounds we have our kick drums with a

sixteenth note delay we have our base

with an eighth note delay arpeggio it

only makes sense now that we have a

stereo delay with a quarter note so

let's listen to what it's doing

smoothing everything out okay and I just

want to point out you'll see me send

things out to delays and reverbs and

then you'll see me put them directly on

the track in this case the stereo delay

is on this track because I consider this

track and effects track I think that

what I'm creating with this stereo delay

is part of the sound of what I'm

listening to there is no reason to send

it out it's a very specific delay doing

something very specific I'm not going to

use it for anything else because these

reverse drums need their own space so

let me play you some other reverse drums

because they get a little crazier later

on okay so I love I love turning things

in Reverse if you're a drummer you

probably love checking this out let me

teach you if you don't know basically

how to get this vibe let me teach you

what I did