All language subtitles for Mixing Masterclass_ Heavy Mixing & Perfecting Your Mix Template with Marc Urselli.mp4

[Music]

how are you guys doing all right I want

to get to introducing our first

presenter his name is Mark Araceli and

he's hanging out in the wings back there

can we give a round of applause to mark

clearly you guys have heard of mark so I

don't need to say a lot but I got it

mark Araceli I think he's been nominated

for Grammys five times and has won three

times

mark is a terrific career up into this

date he's worked with a lot of really

kind of experimental artists we're kind

of experimental meets accessible I mean

he's worked with Lou Reed Nick Cave

Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth Mike

Patton of Faith No More today he's going

to be presenting a mix from a really

heavy band called work and really

excited to hear this one he's gonna take

us under the hood of a real working mix

and show you his process the tools he

uses how he thinks about approaching the

mix and Mark not only is even

engineering for a long time he's been

teaching this stuff for a long time too

so I think we're in really good hands

with mark a couple big thank-yous I want

to give one to the Manhattan Center for

having us here and letting us check out

their studios can you give a round

applause one more time to Manhattan

Center super psyched to be here

and I also want to give big thanks to

Mick DSP for each of these events we

have a sponsor and the sponsors are the

reasons we can give you guys free

tickets to come and check this out

and that we can have free video

afterwards so big thanks to Mick DSP for

sponsoring this going to give a round of

applause to Mick DSP as well mark is

going to be using a lot of their tools

and others to take us through his mix

let's have me stop talking and give a

warm welcome to marker Ozone hello thank

you so first of all I want to also thank

Justin Coletti Paulo de Gregorio and

David Weiss from sunny soup Sonic scoop

and the deli for having me here I want

to thank Pete Auslan with the

Hammerstein Ballroom or the Manhattan

center I don't know what to call it for

having us here it's a beautiful room I

want to thank Mack Diaz fee Colin

McDowell there and all the other plug-in

makers that have have us all here so

today we're gonna talk about the heavy

mix I do a lot of different kind of

mixes and work with a lot of different

kind of people and I'm gonna these are

some of the people I worked with and the

thing I'm most proud about in this list

is not a specific artist because I'm a

big fan of a lot of those artists but

the diversity I'm really all about

diversity I'm Nisha's great and I'm

gonna talk about niche versus diversity

but I do like working with different

kinds of styles it's really the main

reason why I became a mixing engineer a

recording engineer because when I was

playing in Ben's age 15 to 17 18 I

couldn't really figure out what genre

took place so I I joined a metal band

then I join a hip hop band or a rock

band whatever so this allowed me to work

with all these different kind of people

in different kind of genres and not have

to fidget all myself in wanjeon and so

you'll see there's a lot of rock and

metal we're going to talk about that

mostly today pop singer-songwriter jazz

blues world music experimental new music

I do a lot of that

and the reason why it says john zorn

four times times seventy is because i've

made to this day the last one was

yesterday seventy three records with

just john zorn alone that's one guy

that's you know that's a testament to

him more than to me i just press record

and mixing but yeah that's basically

some of that these are the three things

i want to talk about today other than

showing you how to mix one of these

things analog and digital and it's not

an analog versus digital for me it's an

analog plus digital I'm actually a child

of the mixture of the two

I love hybrid so for example I work in a

recording studio called East Side sound

in the Lower East Side of New York City

it's been there for forty four forty

five years this year we have an analog

console with digital control and digital

recall so there's one example of the

hybrid of the two worlds joining now

because I work in that beautiful studio

and I'm happy and lucky to do so I get

to do most of the stuff that I mix these

days on an analog console even though a

hazarded you'll recall digital

automation but obviously today we're

going to talk about a mix in the box but

really I think it's the crossroads of

those two worlds together that give us

the greatest opportunities today's so

whether it's whether you know it

translates to a home set up which I know

most of you might be more interested in

than an old school analog studio it may

be having an analog summing box along

with your digital i/o I think that's

really where where magic happens is when

you can take advantage of all the power

ful tools and the power of flexibility

of digital along with the sound of

analog studio versus live is something

I've wrote on there because I do both

I'm a live sound mixing engineer and a

studio mixing and recording engineer and

the reason why I mention this is because

I've successfully in the years

incorporated a lot of studio techniques

into my live mixing process and vice

versa some things

I've learned wildlife mixing I've then

applied in the studio and so the again

it's you know niche versus versatility

it's kind of all of these things

together you can absolutely decide this

is what I'm gonna do and there's a great

advantage to that which is primarily the

fact that people are gonna get to know

you much quicker they're gonna know oh

that's the guy that does all of that I'm

gonna call him because this is what I'm

doing but if you are able to learn from

different worlds and apply all of that

knowledge into one place into one

knowledge then it encompasses all those

opportunities then I think you have the

fifth year that everyone is looking for

and that that's basically why I like to

not be pigeonholed in wanjeon rrah

even though today we'll do the heavy mix

but I also like to not only John row

wise but technology wise and experience

wise work in different kind of worlds

less is more

there's one of the three main things

that I'm going to try to drive home

today except when it's hot not because

obviously if the client calls you and

says I need more scenario not going to

be like well really less is more so

we're gonna do this mix it less than air

but no less is more because I'm a fan of

keeping things simple and streamlined

now you can have a thousand plugins you

can have a thousand tracks you can have

six kick drums in the same songs these

are some of the things that I've

received in the mail doesn't really mean

that it makes it better because those

six kick drums are gonna give you some

phase issues even you know at such

etcetera there's always a reason why I

could say less is more but if you keep

it simple you're gonna have the most

amount of fun doing what you do we had

this conversation repeat from the

Hammerstein when Pete makes ac/dc

something I'm jealous stuff and I didn't

get to do he was like he was telling me

how easy and great sounding there

and why in his opinion that was because

there were four people on stage so if

you have four people on stage I just

want to see you two the other night at

MetLife same thing you have four people

the amount of power out of those four

guys is so massive and it's not just

because they have a big PA it's because

there's one kick drum and one bass and

whatever two guitars that's that doesn't

mean that you should always do the four

that you shouldn't do overdubs for

example I'm not advocating that just

means that if you keep in mind what the

end result should be you can use that to

not be distracted by the possibilities

of having too much going on whether it's

number of tracks or whatnot the other

point I want to make is this and this is

really my personal philosophy everything

that I do in a mix has a reason and I do

it for a specific reason I don't really

do things just to do them I mean I'm all

about experimentation and I do

experiment but once I've decided what

I'm gonna do I'm gonna do it because it

has a reason and a purpose so if at any

point today you have a question I don't

know if we're set up to do questions

during or only after but feel free to

ask because chances are if you see

something on my screen it's because

there's a reason if you see a certain

routing that you don't understand

there's most likely a reason for it and

it's not just there by chance and then

the last point I'm gonna make is this

that might be because I was born in

Switzerland but organization is

absolutely key in everything I do

my mixing sessions are nicely organized

whether that you know that means color

it means naming it means everything and

the reason why that's so important is

because I do like you know sometimes I

work on four or five records in the same

week if I don't keep things organized

even down to where it's stored where

it's backed up where the backup of the

backup is I'm not gonna know by the end

of the week what I'm doing so that's the

session that I mixed a couple months ago

it's less than four minutes long

has less than 10 tracks so you know even

if you're not that organized you're not

gonna get lost in that but in the same

week I was mixing that I was mixing this

now if I'm not organized in this I'm

gonna get lost very very quickly that's

more than 120 tracks I don't know if you

can see it but you can see it up here in

the bottom left and that's more than 80

minutes long it's because it's an opera

piece but I do you and Cheney's composer

which actually won a Pulitzer Prize for

this

so again organization is absolutely key

so today I'm gonna show you two things

I'm going to show you the template that

I've made for myself to mix in the box

of course and then I'm gonna gonna open

a session by a great band that I think

you're gonna enjoy if you're here at

this panel even if you don't know the

band so the path the template that I'm

gonna show you is something that I've

put together in the last maybe 10 years

ever since I started mixing in the box

I'm very proud of this template because

it has a lot going on and it allows me

at any point to start a mix and know

that I can get anywhere I need to go

with that mix regardless of what

questions or requests are coming from

the artist so my template is ready for

5.1 it's ready for stems it's ready for

anything that the client might ask and

I've a lot of the things are inactive in

it and I just make them active as I go

but the fact that it's all there ready

puts me in a position to be ready for

whatever I need to do and puts me in a

position to be versatile and flexible

while still keeping all my stuff

organized the reason this is my template

right here the reason why I have a 4.3

it's because I've been working on this

for 10 years every time I make an

adjustment to it I make a new version of

it so that if I need to go back to an

old template or something I'm doing in

my current template doesn't work

I still have that option so when I

receive a mix from clients the first

thing that I do is if it comes from pro

to often produce session obviously I

don't need to do much to it but if it's

a logic session the first thing that I

do is I use this software called stereo

mono Iser which I recommend you use cuz

a lot of people that use logic and send

me their tracks will send me stereo

tracks of everything even though it's a

mono kick drum and so that's a software

that will allow you to just drag all of

those tracks in here it will check phase

and stereo image of the of the files and

depending on the settings it will spit

out mono of everything if it's a mono

track and it'll keep its Terry of course

if it's a stereo track I'll show you

later we'll open a session and I'll show

you my process in doing that but I'm

gonna start with the with the template

I'm gonna open that and show you what it

is that I do so this is my template as

you can I'll make it smaller so you can

see all the tracks it basically has your

regular sort of what would be your

groups or VCAs in a session or in on a

mixing desk and then it has a couple of

extra things which are this print VCA

and this PCB CA print is is basically a

Visia you guys are familiar with DCA I

assume that if you're not be CAS are a

way for you to control multiple tracks

in Pro Tools without having to adjust

volumes on all those tracks individually

so or even as a group so you can make a

group assign a BCA to a group and then

you can change the volume of everything

the reason why it's called print is

because that's gonna be the level that I

send to the final mix to the final print

and the reason why that's important is

because the final print has some degree

of compression and I want to make sure

that I don't push the compressor too

hard or that I push it hard enough

so to speak PC is my BCA for parallel

compression if and when I do that I

don't do it all the time and then like I

said these are all the tracks there's a

sign track that's for when I use sine

waves to fatten up kick drums something

that I do often but not always

and then there's reverb returns for

drums reverb returns for instruments for

vocals for background vocals delay

returns effect busses and then there's

these three final trees for final tracks

which are basically two arcs Traxxas and

two tracks that I print my mix too

now what's important about this and why

I do this is because there's always

going to be a mix that's a reference

which is what I sent to clients and then

there is a mix that I sent to mastering

engineers which has to give them enough

Headroom and therefore is a lot quieter

so Mack DSP which sponsors this panel

makes this ML 4000 which is a multi band

limiter basically which I use on the

final stage and then as you can see I

don't know if you can see the trash hold

on the - I mean this is not this is just

a factory default but what I usually do

is I start with a threshold of -10 on

one and then of half on the other and

again that can change and can also

change with the level of the print VCA

so basically to be clear all of these

tracks that you see in green they all

sum to these two busses at the bottom

that's why there's that Sigma in the

name the Sigma sign in Greek is the sign

for some and that's why these those are

to my to summing busses that and that

which print now let's talk about plugins

plugins are of course everyone's

favorite tool and so as you can see I

have many they're all inactive because

what I do is I start I import this

template

into whatever makes them doing and then

I decide based on the music the genre

the what the track needs what to use so

I'm gonna have different choices of

priam of I mean sorry of reverb for

drums I'm making these all active for

you guys but obviously would only be one

or the other so I have avid space

I have revolver by neck DSP and I have

the waves Abbey Abbey Road plates so

these are three of the reverbs that I

use most often for the instruments and

by the way less is more

meaning I'm a fan of keeping the reverb

counts to minimum I'm not really a fan

of using one different reverb for

everything sometimes that works but if I

think about things in terms of what it

would sound like if I was doing this in

the room and if I was doing this in the

one room which a lot of my recordings

are this day still like there will be

one reverb or two there wouldn't be like

10 different reverbs so for the

instrumental tracks which can be

whatever saxophones guitars whatever I

have again my revolvers with different

settings and then for the vocals I

usually start from a revolver as well

I'm making them all active so you get as

you can see what's happening lead vocal

some de-essing always useful almost

always useful

then there's my delay vocal chain which

it's not really chained it's one or the

other but a lot of these plugins are our

plugins that allow you to really hone in

on what what kind of delay you want to

do sometimes often more often than not I

just want to repeat so I don't go fancy

I just use Avid's

great delay because that if I just want

a repetition of a word of not I don't

need to go all out but if I want

something all out or Spacey's you know

echoboy by soundToys is one of my

favorite

this is this I just recently purchased

and haven't used much but I'm a fan of

tape delays so that's a great tape delay

by waves crystallizer is another thing

when you want to have really spatial

effects with delays or whatnot and then

this is a multi delay also by avid same

thing will be here on the delay of the

background vocals and then ultimately

there's my effect to effect channels

these are basically wild cards that I

use when I want to have a special effect

on something and really my first choice

for that is the great effect track by

soundtoys really if a client says go

creative on this mix or give me some

crazy delays or give me some crazy

effects that's my first choice because

really you can't go wrong with that but

there's many others that I also use to

make up some of these active again some

of that this is another company I really

like it's called Melba productions it's

a German company that makes great

plugins stutter edit iZotope one of my

favorite for special special like

breakdown effects and things like that a

little bit of enigma and then my other

delay that I like I mean not delay

plugging that I like is this you saw I

just made this active and it starts

counting that's because I want to be

honest to my customers so when my

clients ask me to charge them by the

hour I run this so any time I work on

this session whatever session it is it's

gonna start counting down and I don't

know exactly how much time I've spent on

this mix this company this plugin is

made by a company called Hoffa also

German company I use their plugins

mostly for mastering when I do mastering

which you know I'm primarily a mixing

engineer but these days doing some

mastering as well they have a software

that allows you to make a DDP master

which is the final stage after you mix

and the MLA ties 8,000 which is the big

brother of the ml 4,000 is an 8 band

multi multi band limiter if I need a

little bit usually the ML 4000 does the

trick for me but if a little need a

little bit more control over something

then I use the ML 4000 so that's my

basic template to start a mix with any

song I'm gonna show you the rest of the

tracks that are currently inactive so

you see what other possibilities I'm

reserving myself

these yellow tracks here are the stem

tracks so when a client wants stems then

I have this already ready so that I can

send to all these yellow tracks here

currently inactive and again stem bus

here all of these these are already pre

routed for recording just with the

tracks s so the drum stem will just

record the output of this drum track up

here okay the way I do that is with the

additional sins so if you look at these

additional sends routings that's what

I'm doing all my stem routings so it

says your drum stem because I got this

drums drum bus going to this drum stem

track and then all of these I'll make

these active real quick so you guys can

see them all of these Sigma called

tracks are making TV mixes and

instrumental mixes so when I'm done with

a mix and the client has approved it I

can simply record enable these tracks

press record and in one pass make all my

stems make all my instrumental mixes

make all my acapella mixes make all my

TV mixes in one pass I don't need to

rerun everything and

need to commit I can just press record

and have everything done at the same

time and then these blue tracks at the

bottom are my 5-1 tracks ready to go

obviously this is you know you can't

really do it on a two track setup were

like we're doing here but I'm ready for

that I can make your front your back

your your sub everything from one

template I load this in the tracks that

I don't need will stay inactive the

tracks that I do need I'll make active

and I can do everything the client wants

I'll show you the eye input output set

up for this because like I said earlier

everything has a reason and I'll check

I'll give you a couple of examples of

that for example I have a hundred and

twenty eight busses do I need a hundred

and twenty eight buses no nobody in

their right mind us but I'll show you

why I have 128 buses when I have a track

I just made a new track I'm gonna want

to send this track to one of my buses

whether it's a drum buss if it's a drum

track or the percussion bus if it's a

percussion track now if you make a

hundred and twenty eight busses in your

eyes iö set up when you go here you'll

see them all here and the advantage of

that is that I can simply go to my

second page and have all the buses that

I have set up for me if I didn't do the

hundred twenty eight tracks I would have

to I would see only the first of these

two menus and then I would have to roll

down here and look for mine and go back

up because I probably went past it until

I find my drum bus

that's one trick of why everything has a

reason I open this I ignore the one

through 128 I only use those if I do

some other stuff that it's not already

covered by my template but my template

covers everything I need to do here's

all my all my busses so if the stuff the

the audio one track that I'm currently

working on is a bass I'm gonna send it

to my bass stem I mean sorry bass bus

which is also going to my bass then so

everything is constantly wired up and

working that's one example

back to the IO another thing that I've

done is using little special characters

to make it easy for me to identify

something without having to look in on

my computer so I told you about the

Sigma symbol for for summing stuff all

right but I've also used the circled P

and the Circle C of copyright for my

peril compression

I've used the circled are of the

registered trademark for all my reverb

and this little three-star symbol that I

have no idea what that is

but that's my delay symbol the reason I

do that is because when I'm in the track

I often work in you know you can work

with different zoom levels but I work

with with small I like that so I don't

have to scroll too far between the

hundred tracks that I'm usually saying

so let's say this audio one track is

what I'm currently working on and I when

this and I want to send it to a reverb

when I send that to one of my reverb

let's say it's an instrument and I'm

going to send it to the reverb

instrument when the track is small all

I'm gonna see is the R so I know that

that's a reverb send not a delay sing if

I'm also sending it to a delay send that

little star symbol that I had I see the

three little stars so by naming my IO

set up in that way I I can see in

instantly if it's reverb or if it's a

delay or what other instrument is if

it's if I'm sending it's that special

effect bus that I was telling you about

then obviously I'll see the first letter

effects but that allows me to add a

glance know whether on that track I have

a reverb I have a delay or have

something else and what that might be

same goes for those stem tracks and for

the parallel compression tracks and the

stem tracks and I have this little arrow

here at the end of those and

these kind of arrows at the beginning of

the 5:1 all of that translates into

being able to see what's going on oh and

I have the little note symbol on the

output as you can see that means that

that's an output that will actually make

music everything else is internal it's

digital it doesn't make music until I

see the little symbol which you know

I've added in the i/o setup and then

here again this will make music and it's

the sum of everything that's just an

example of how I use different

characters to make my mix readable to me

at a glance another thing that I do and

you know because I said everything has a

reason is prepare these two tracks in

the way they are you'll see they're the

only tracks here that I'm gonna hide

these real quick so you guys can see

these real well these are my four main

tracks that I record too and as you can

see it says NC mix V dot zero one and

the bottom one says C mix V dot zero one

the reason why I have the dot zr1

is because that's gonna be the first mix

that I send the client when I'm happy

with it when the client sends me

requests for changes that I need to do

I'm gonna save my mix as mix two and I'm

gonna on these two tracks create a new

playlist and this will automatically say

V dot zero two so I don't have to rename

everything because it's already named

correctly by the way NC means non

compressed

C means compressed that's just my you

know my way of calling things so let's

say the call is this song is called song

one I'm gonna call that song one and I

call that song one so now this and this

have two names

song one non-compressed mix version one

song one compressed mixed version one

when I make a new mix the song title

will stay there nothing will change

except

version number of my mix and then I can

easily just export that to an mp3 send

it to the client and everyone's happy

any questions about that before I move

on yes very good question the question

for those in the back who haven't heard

it is how I handle reverbs assigned to

multiple instruments say a drum and a

guitar when I run stands it's an

exception and to answer your question

I'll I'll have to run those separately

but the reason why I have those set up

that way is that I have a reverb

specifically for drums and so I'm never

gonna put that on the guitar and then I

have a reverb specifically for

instruments which is going to go on

everything else but the truth of the

matter is I'm not gonna add reverb to

everything and so usually the

instrumental reverb that I have set up

it's probably only used on the guitars

or whatever the precaution something and

if it's a chance where I use the same

reverb for say the percussions and the

guitars then I'll rerun one or the other

after I've done the final pass but it

usually doesn't happen I also have by

the way a reverb stem here when I run

the stems so I can actually run those

reverbs

run those tracks dry and also run the

reverbs for posterity

yes everyone her

or should I repeat it so he was asking

he was asking how to handle levels of

mixes that I sent to clients and that I

sent to mastering engineers because he

was running into problem of sending

tracks that are too hot for mastering

engineers and how to handle a correct

the answer to that is these two buses

right here did the first one the two

selected tracks will handle my mix that

goes to the mastering engineer and so if

I'm using the ML 4000 I'm gonna have

this threshold set much lower than on

the next two tracks which are least two

selected now where my ml 4000 is set at

minus 10 so I'm compressing this a lot

more this is the mix that I'm and this

is the one caught with a c4 compressed

this is the one that I'm gonna send to

the client exactly what I'm sending to

the client is a hot nice and hot mix

that's gonna give him a good idea of

what a master mix will sound it's not

meant to replace the master mix although

there have been instances where clients

of mine have gotten in math rooms like I

like your mix better I was like use it

you know it's there if you like it you

can be your the only judge of that but

in general I make the two mixes so that

the client can hear what it will sound

like for two reasons a you have the

client that goes like oh I just put in

my iTunes and it doesn't sound as hot as

the jay-z track you know that's why I

send them the hot track and be more

importantly sometimes you'll send your

mix to an engine to a mastering engineer

he'll do is mastering and that will

really alter the balances of the

instruments within your mix so if you

give the client a mass of a mastering

preview of what the mix will be they'll

already know how compression will apply

to the different instruments in the mix

because if they don't hear that you know

the the resulting dynamic of a non

compressed mix might give you a

different impression of what the mix is

iMac

really listening to the hot mix because

I want to know how the decisions that I

make will play out in the final stages

and so if you noticed here there's two

things that you can notice one is that

my non-compressed

track output track is muted and if I

even have the volume down the reason why

I do that is because I find myself

sometimes during mixing like muting a

bunch of things and then option on

muting and then everything on mutes

including that one track that I don't

want to hear because if I do hear that

it sums with this and obviously distorts

everything so as a double safety I have

it muted and I have the level down so

yes I mix by monitoring my compressed

mix the whole time eventually I'll check

it at the end but the actual decisions I

make by monitoring the compressed mix so

that I know how my moves will translate

if I'm mixing at home or in the studio

in both instances I use speakers that

I've had professionally calibrated and I

use them with or without sub at the

studio have three pairs and home I have

two pairs one pair has subwoofer the

other pair doesn't and I make sure that

my my decisions are you know as correct

as they can be in an untreated space

which is my home obviously the studio is

is treated very low how the question is

how loud do I mix I mix very low for two

reasons a obviously I don't want to go

deaf and B my mixes my I mean mixes in

general will be more how can I put that

the human ear come is acts like a

compressor it's the only organism you

know biological organism that acts like

a compressor if you send it too much

volume it will compress what you're

hearing I don't want that I want to hear

my mix uncompressed I'm already

compressing it I don't need my human ear

to over compress so

if you mix low and I'm not saying I'm

never gonna turn up the volume it's

especially important when you're mixing

low end because low end like kick you

know kicking bass you can't really feel

or hear the same way as when you have a

subwoofer or when you have it turned up

so I'll start my mix do it if it's a

drum you know if it's a rock band with

drums and bass etc I'll start it loud

I'll get my kick and bass balance I'll

add the drums at that point I will turn

it down and I will stay at that low

level the whole mix whether it's two

hours where it's ten hours I will stay

on that lower level and it's especially

important for ear fatigue because if I'm

mixing a song for 10 hours my judgment

is going to be clouded by the ninth hour

or by the third really if I'm mixing at

a loud volume so yes by all means mix

low you'll hear everything better you

will not be changing your perception

with the compression than your human ear

adds and you last longer not just that

day but in life I don't know I've

honestly I don't know if there's a

difference between bouncing and printing

I I didn't know there was an argument

about that I would assume that it sound

the same so I didn't know if there's

different people that think otherwise

I always print for two reasons number

one is that I'll end up with two down

here on this track and on this track

I'll end up with two waveforms which

will give me visual feedback as to

whether I'm compressing too much if I

start seeing everything squared off even

if it sounds good um that's too much you

don't want to see a block of you know a

square wave waveforms so I'll turn my

threshold you know a little bit and the

other reason why I print is because if

I'm mixing that 80-minute song that I

was showing you before on the screenshot

and the client wants a change and mean

it's 75 I don't have to reprint the

whole 75 you know 80 minute long P

I can just print from minute 74 to

minute 78 whatever whatever section the

client wants a change on and then I can

crossfade consolidate and I have a

finished mix now this this argument is a

little bit less important today that you

have that you you're you're able to

commit the tracks on Pro Tools 12 or

whenever that started but until Pro

Tools came up with with that feature

with the commit feature you had to

reprint the whole thing you in real time

and so imagine how many passes of that

80 minute opera that I mixed I had to do

how many times I would have had to if

the client asks for seven changes eight

times seven that's like you know hours

and hours just printing mixes so that's

obviously if the client wants the whole

violin up in the whole opera and then

you have to reprint it anyway but that's

why I print I well I have the multiband

limiter is set to minus 0.5 so that's my

very upper limit I never go to zero if

that answers your question but I on the

non compressed version

I don't even approximate that that's

really just my safety ceiling the reason

why I have minus 0.5 is I went to this

great panel at the last IES in New York

I forget the guys name but he will he

made a demonstration as to how tracks

that are sent at 0 DB mastered at 0 DB

will end up on streaming services like

Spotify it's etc and will sound worse

than tracks that are mastered at at live

or you know the ceiling is minus 0.5

since that panel which was 2 October's

ago I started putting that as my ceiling

for everything I don't go to 0 DB

anymore if the client wants to go to 0

DB with the master engineer so that's

you know that's with them but I want to

make sure that if stuff if my mix

doesn't get mastered and goes to iTunes

and and whatnot sounds as good as

possible so that hence hence that

Celie but to better answer your question

when I open the song you will you will

see what the two way of waveforms look

like and you'll see that on the non

compressed version

I actually don't push that hard at all

that's for the mastering engineer to

decide and I primarily look at the

waveform but also look at the the gain

reduction meter in the ML 4000 or

whatever I'm using as my final stage so

on my compressed version this will this

will go down to probably around here

minus 4 but on the non compressed

version i barely want to see that like i

don't want to see gain reduction kicking

at all and the reason i still have it on

it's just so i have it's the safety of

not ever going above point zero 5 but

really i'm not doing much gain reduction

at all on that mix well this is why i

have the print VCA i'm gonna the first

thing I'll do is Alice I'll once I

import my template into the song that

I'm mixing first thing I'll do is I'll

make an all group that has all the

tracks all of them I'll assign that to

this print VCA and then if it's hitting

anything too hard before I even start

mixing I can take everything down and I

want to make sure that that way I can

always control my gain stage at any

point so you I don't want to start too

usually I start at minus 10 on all the

track's you know that way I know I have

Headroom if I find myself pushing too

hard against that Headroom then I'll

enable that you know I'll use that print

VCA

to bring everything down a little bit

more and another thing since you

mentioned that I'll show that I have an

extra safety net in this other the

inserts F through J I keep those hidden

because I don't use them much but if I

if I do want the extra sealing of

protection in my inserts f2j I have my

favorite compressor which is an active

speech Channel G set are very very

a small ratio of two to one you can see

where my mouse is and a treshold of

minus six so basically I'm barely

compressing but those instances that

I've just multi enabled are on all my

busses drums percussion bass guitars

keys strings horns vocals whatever is on

the track by the way obviously I have

not every track and XS strings and horns

so I'll delete or make inactive whatever

tracks I'm not using so that's an extra

to answer the gain staging question

that's an extra step that I take in

making sure I never go too hard on any

of these buses individually the reason

why this is also important is because

when I'm eventually we're in the

comments it says drums stems that's

that's creating a stem so I want to make

sure that that stem is not gonna be

distorted on its own you know so that's

why I also have that extra channel G

when I'm when I'm making stems these

tracks are currently inactive here which

where all the names have the word PC in

it that's for parallel compression

I don't do parallel compression all the

time but when I do this lightly shaded

light green shaded tracts are already

ready for me to do the parallel

compression so if I want to enable these

I can make them active let's say I want

to just just enable them all but let's

say I want to do parallel compression on

the drums I already have this enact this

you see on sense 8 through E I have on

all of those tracks

I have sends ready for that again I want

everything ready to go I don't want to

waste time thinking about rile routing

that's why I spent so much time on this

template throughout the years so I want

to do parallel compression on drums

great I'm gonna make this PC drums track

active I'm gonna make this send active

the PC drums send this is the amount

that I'm sending to the parallel

compression bus which is right

underneath and then I choose how to do

my parallel compression and again I have

a slew of plugins that I like

for that I have the Mac TSB ultimate

Chan ultimate I think it's called

ultimate channel strip then I have the

this also by Mac PSP MC 404 I have

soundToys Decapitator which is great for

parallel compression I really like that

I have the ozone 7 and I have the

dynamics limiter by that German company

meld the productions that I mentioned

these are all my favourite compression

plugins that I use for parallel

compression only although my favorite

compressor as a you know for a regular

channel is usually the channel G and to

that extent I want to show you something

else which is really cool

some of you might not know but you

there's two places in proto's where you

can set up a preferred plugin that you

use all the time will show up here so

these are my two plugins that I use the

most

on any session channel G is my Mac DSP

has everything compressor gate

Equalization I pass low pass so I can do

anything that I need me to do on any

regular track I do on that and then I

really like this end dynamic EQ made by

Melda productions the reason I like it

it's hard to demonstrate without audio

but if I had any audio you would see

basically as you can choose to see a

sonogram or just an analyzer and you can

see that here and then choose the bands

that you want to compress or excite by

at what degree want to compress and this

is an active compressor next ESP also

makes one that I they just that I just

got from them and I'm testing out but

until I use that full time this has been

my go-to and it's really great because

of the visual feedback you get you'll

see on this on this

Eliezer you'll see you'll see two

actually waveforms one is the one not

waveform but whatever you call or comes

out an analyzer you'll see the one that

that's before and the one that's after

and you'll see how the active eq @

you're doing affect the way the the

signal that you're sending in yes

well the question is this is all in the

box if I'm using hardware to track a

bend well first of all I'm gonna say

that when I track I'm a purist I'm for

least amount of signal possible short a

signal path possible so when I track I

go mic preamp Pro Tools I don't even go

through the console to for my printing

but for my printing of the tracks I will

go through the console for the analog

summing of all the returns of Pro Tools

some summing through the console and if

I'm summing through the console I'll

also do some EQ in on the console but I

print as cleanly as sorry I record as

cleanly as possible so that I you know I

don't make any decisions that I might

regret later yes on when I'm mixing in

the Box let me open us a song and I'll

show you that because it's easier to

answer these questions I'm gonna open

this song twice because we're running

short on time but I want to show you the

two versions that that I was sent this

is the version you know this is

basically what the band sent me before I

did anything to it and the reason I'm

opening that is to answering the

gentleman's question over there if it's

like I said I'll use a stereo mono Iser

if it's a if it's a session if it

tracts from logic but if it's tracks

that I'm sent like this the first thing

I do is to look is to look at what the

band the group the artist has if the do

they have plugins on the proto session

do they have inserts do they have volume

moves that have mute automation anything

like that sometimes I've been in of open

sessions where you know there was

something they didn't want and they

didn't shade it they just made mute

automation and then I make the mix with

something that they didn't want us like

you sent it to me it's like yeah but it

was meaner and I looked at the tracks

and it's not muted but it's got some

weird mutilation whatever so the first

thing I do is I look I scroll through

volume I do that I'll make my waveform

as small as possible so that if there is

a volume automation of any kind I know

it's there I'll look at the mute I'll

look at the pans after I looked all of

that assuming all those lines are

straight to answer your question I know

the band hasn't done anything that they

want me to to maintain if I see any

volume automation I'll make a judgement

of its whether it's a volume automation

I want to keep or not and why do I want

to keep it like because if it's just

volume automation say to make the guitar

solo louder I'll redo that myself but if

it's some kind of weird like special

effect automation that the artist is

really attached to I'll ask you want me

to do that exactly the way you have it

or you attach to that or you're open to

other things but not if they say they're

attached to it then I'll know that when

I import mice my template that's the one

track that I don't want to alter the

volume for once that's done I make

everything I said everything to no

output and once a by saying once that's

done I mean once I see that there's no

automation of any kind that I need to

retain and if there is I'll make sure I

do retain it I'll set all my outputs and

inputs to no input and no output that

way I can start fresh

then I'll click on the math track the

reason I do that is because when I

import my template it will go there

after that track I click on import

session data as I'll click on that I'll

click on option all this will import all

these tracks and that's when I can

really start mixing now of course I've

saved my template so it will have all

those plugins made active but the point

is when I open that it will start with

everything inactive with these yellow

tracks hidden those are my tracks

you know I saved the template I

shouldn't have but okay I have black

backups for everything but the point is

I would see just the green tracks come

up and my - and my 2-buss tracks come up

this is kind of what I would see with

all the plugins made inactive and then I

can start mixing I can what I do is I

select all the drums I go here I see my

I see my drums and I can start working

on stuff okay so this is this is now the

same mix then I'm gonna be opening after

them I've done all of that this is a

band called orc then I'm gonna play I'll

play the track first

you guys can rock out to it and then

we'll discuss what questions you have

the band is called orc they're a great

band that if you don't know you should

check out their past

it's Pat Mastelotto from King King

Crimson on drums calling Edwin from

porcupine tree on bass this guitar

player called Carmelo pbut one on which

he plays with a band called Marcus we to

be in Italy pretty popular there I don't

blame you for not knowing them here in

the states and the singers name is

called his name is left or Lawrence is

positive for Nazari and played in a band

called Ibaka

so the four of them got together this is

their second record came out two months

ago song is called dirty rain

the record is called soul of an octopus

came out on a British label called rare

noise and it's a really good band

[Music]

justice tree

all my dreams have been covered up my

soul

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[Applause]

one

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[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

- soul bwong Stingo

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this man around wived it out

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Walter

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- real

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[Music]

he was steamed

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his mother drain

why

this is that

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[Music]

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see

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[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

[Music]

so the first thank you you should check

out this record because it's a really

great record so the first thing I do I

did or at least in this track when

mixing drums is I made sure that they're

in in phase so that there's no kind of

faith' cancellation happening for that I

use this plugin called M auto-align

made by Melba productions it's a great

plugin that there's a couple of plugins

out there that do this so I have this

plugin across all the tracks and then I

have my faithful channel G across all

the tracks doing whatever I need it to

do on all these separate tracks of this

drum set this is one of the rare nah I

don't want to say rare cases but these

days I record most of the stuff that I

mix because I work in this beautiful

studio downtown in New York called East

Side sound this is one example where I

didn't record the tracks I think Pat

from King Crimson recorded the drums at

his home studio because he lives in

Austin and bass player lives in the UK

and the other two live in Italy so it's

definitely one of those projects that

came across you know I came together

across the ocean so in when I don't

record a stuff myself which is the point

I'm trying to make I'm even more careful

making sure stuff is faced coherent face

aligned because when I do record in

myself I'll you know I'll take

precautions to make sure that everything

is in phase this is the drum

[Music]

and you'll see I have a little bit of

reverb on the snare and a little bit of

reverb on the hi-hat and I have this

sine wave on the kick and on the floor

tom and that's really all there is to

this other than of course the

equalization that I did through the

channel G on the different sections of

the drums I'm a big fan of muting toms

with sidechain sidechaining

to make sure that you're muting based on

frequency and not just on level so you

don't miss hits and that's that's why

that looks like that I'm it's kind of

weird-looking because it looks like I'm

cutting off all the high end and around

150 which is obviously not true that's

just a the sidechain filter for the gate

there's a little bit of electronics in

this track there's bass there's this

bass delay at the beginning which they

printed because they were happy with it

that's just the intro in the middle part

bunch of guitar tracks very less is more

as I said in at the beginning as you can

see very minimal automation the most

busy automation you see this one is it's

just a reverb sent to make sure that or

the delay sense they to make sure that

I'm that I'm hearing the delays on the

words that I want to hear repeated and

not just on everything but other than

that it's very minimal there's a little

bit of automation here for those who are

lucky enough to be sitting in the middle

you'll hear it the others tough luck

that's just your you know when the organ

solo starts and the organist there's

this little slide through so that it

actually goes left to right in your in

in your mix which is

things like that you know for taste but

not I'm trying not to overdo anything so

now the session is open you have

discussed I believe all the plugins that

I've used wonderful mark thank you so

much for walking us through your process

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