00:00:03 Hey Steve, we are back. We are with different shirts indeed. Always the best color. The best. The only color. Black. Well, I love it. I tried colors. Didn't work for me. Nope. Same here. And I try. I try. But yeah, always come back to the black. Sometimes white looks nice. Sometimes. Ah, but like man, some people just look really good in color and me don't. It is what it is. Yeah. of all my problems accept this one. Now, we talked about uh vocal recording the past few episodes. We did. And now, since we love
00:00:38 talking about vocals, we're going to talk about mixing vocals or maybe editing vocals or, you know, everything apart from recording vocals. We're going to move forward to the next. We did a couple episodes of recording them. Yes. Now, we need to do what comes next. But first, but first you need to support us. If you love this podcast, even if you like it a little bit, even if you don't like it. Ah, it's also possible. Support us anyways. Talking to you, Mom. Hello. Support us anyway. Steve, it's a wonderful lady. I'm sure she is.
00:01:16 Oh, she must have been. So, please go leave a review on uh on Apple Podcast, Spotify, you know, whatever you can. Even if you don't watch the YouTube version of our podcast, jump on the YouTube channel anyways and subscribe. Who doesn't want to see this? No one. Black shirts every episode. Don't even worry. I love it. Don't do that again. Don't do that again. And that was just weird. You were so happy to do that. Like you were like like it was like in your heart. I could see in your heart you were like, "Oh, oh, I've
00:01:49 been waiting to do this and here it is." That was the move. The time is now. I went so long. Heart happy. Oh man. So, um, now we're going to answer some questions also. Yeah. If we have time, which we should have. Yeah. So, if you want to leave your questions, just check out the uh the show notes. There's a link you can submit your questions or you can go straight on the YouTube channel and after you subscribe and you like the video and you share it, you can ask your questions. What about that?
00:02:16 That was well done. Awesome, mate. You've done this before. Awesome. Yay. You've done this before. Yeah, quite a few times. Yeah, once or twice. Okay, let's talk about what comes next after we're done recording our So, we've got our beautiful vocals right there on our hard drive, ready to ready to work with. Sounds great. It sounds emotion sounds decent. The emotion is there. Sounds usable. There's no dog Bart in the background. No, there is. That's a That's a conversation. Yeah, but that it's only on the back vocals.
00:02:47 That's right. And who listens to those anyway? No one. Nobody. I do. So, yeah. I mean, I guess I guess Yeah. Where where do we go first? Right. Where do you go first? Do you find yourself do you immed so you've got your comp that you've for me comp first I usually check the comp I'll check the comp that I made sure the day of if I made one double check it and a lot of times just coming back and listening to it again immediately I'm like whoa I can't even understand that word I must have a better take and there's a better take or
00:03:18 or you just notice these glaring things but you were listening to something else that day and now you're hearing it fresh right so fresh comp listen is huge check against some other takes if you're not sure. Yeah. And I do the main like the main comp while I'm recording because it's in the moment. That's what I'm saying. That's the one you're checking now. That's the one you're checking now. You're double checking that. Exactly. And again, sometimes I've said it before, for me, a lot of times I'll I'll
00:03:41 just jump on Instagram and scroll while that plays and I'll see if something sticks out. There's there's a really cool trick in that. Not looking at the screen. I'll scroll it off the screen if I am and I'll just like watch the snare drum while I hear the v whatever. So that that's a a great one for me. So once we know our comp is good for you, do you start do you are you like oh man I got to get a compressor and an EQ on this right away so I can think or are you like I got to get to tuning this so
00:04:07 I can think or where's your like I have to do this. I'm in tuning mode at this point. You know, there's some stuff I did already, you know, like the main things, you know, but once uh everything is good, I'm going to bounce. I'm going to keep that comping track, but I'm going to still bounce a new version. And this is where I'm going to start doing the all the very audio or melodine, whatever you use, um vocal correction, like the pitch correction stuff. And uh once this is done, I move forward, you
00:04:33 know, with the back vocals and all that stuff. But yeah, I'm going to take the time to do it correctly. And I love the manual um pitch correction more than just you know the automatic one. Heaven help us. Always manual. Yeah. Always. It's I'm so I'm fast at it now. It's like I've been you know doing this. So different. It is so different. Uh interesting though you you you said this you added you added a step that I never do. Okay. Which is to consolidate the comp. I never do that. Yeah I do always.
00:05:02 I love knowing where my edits were for some reason. Yeah, there's something about that that comforts me. But for me, it's like in your ProTools language, it's in a new I bounce that on a new playlist. Yep. Which is a, you know, track version in Qbase. Yeah. I can always go back. Mine stays cut up at all times all the way through the final print. I can see every edit. Nice. The reason why I do so is when I I don't know why, but when I um you know when you use MelOdine or in Cubase very audio, it does create a new file
00:05:32 internally. Okay. Okay. So when you do like do the correction even if it's on one little event. Yeah. It's going to process the whole file anyways. So it's going to do that like for x amount of Yeah. recording tracks you have and it add anyways. It's just like I don't matter. But uh makes sense though you know but that's my logic behind it's like eh I don't know there is a reason there's always a reason. Yeah. Sometimes there's not a reason. In this case there was a reason. It feels seen. It that
00:05:58 reason feels acknowledged and seen. Feels like at least. Yeah. One of one of our phrases I always say with Julie is is she'll say something and I just say I I affirm that statement. And I've been saying that for so many years now. And that's just my like ADHD way of saying, "I heard you. I heard what you said. I didn't glitch and zone out." Yeah. Like I affirm your statement. It went in. That's all I have to say is that I affirm it. There you go. It exists. I validate. Um Okay. So you've got your
00:06:26 you've got your tuning. I do that for drums, too, by the way. Oh, interesting. I bounce everything before I start mixing. Okay. I do bounce drums, especially if I've done a even my comping everything if I've done but see for me the drums are then cut up into thousands of pieces a lot of times. Yes. Right. So that's a different thing and that'll just glitch the computer at that point. That many cross fades thousands at a time across 15 tracks. Uh but same new playlist consolidate. Okay. So when you start when you when you tune, are
00:06:55 you tuning to 100% of this is ready to go or are you like, "Ah, it's close enough. I'll I know I'm going to circle back to this." No, I go to the best I can right away. You know, when I'm in the editing, yes, stage, not when recording. When Okay, I'm going to get, you know, I know I can do something with it. I'll move on. Okay. But when it's time to do something with it, I just do it. When you're sitting here alone with a coffee? Yes. Let's get it done. Exactly. That's it. I don't know why come back after, you
00:07:22 know, like do it now. And if you take all the work you've done on that and then you go to the end of the mix process x hours or days later, what percent did you still have to do to that vocal? You know what I mean? Yeah. Cuz there's always something. There's always something. You estimate. Do you do you get it to what percent? 90 95%. You know, yeah, it's pretty close. We're talking about tiny little things, you know, to uh because yeah, sometimes the perspective is going to be different once a song is mixed. Yes, for sure. For
00:07:53 me, the big one in that last percent ends up being timing. Yes. I end up going back and I end up my timing has another 20%. Once the once the mix is humming along, I'm like, how? Because I was soloed or just listening to one thing. Once that drum thing happens, I'm like, oo, I got to So, timing I keep going back to of course. Yeah, that's a big Totally. Yeah. For drums, vocals, name it. Yeah. Okay. So, you've got your comp, you got your tuning. What's next? Comp tuning. Like, I need an EQ. Or you
00:08:22 like, I need a effects chain or like where do you go? A channel strip. Yeah. Is a good way to start for me. Yeah. I'm going to start with channel strip. Bit of filtering, you know, high pass, low pass, whatever I need. Um, a bit of tape emulation, whatever could could work also. Um, now I know this is not part of a channel strip, but you know, I work often with the the soft tube console one, so it's all in there anyways. But, um, yeah, a bit of EQ slightly. Uh, I like to DS right away if I need to, you
00:08:57 know, from the top and I often going to use a second DSer at the end of the chain. Same. So, um, yeah, this is something that's going to come very early in the chain. Same. A DSER. Yeah. Like without doubt, it's highass and DS. Yeah. Yeah. You know, sometimes the DSing is done manually also like depends on the person. Key command, you know, in uh in Qbase, it's very very quick for for some like the intense DSing, chop it off and just like Yep. turn it down, you know. Yep. And you know, right away. Oh,
00:09:26 yeah. As soon as you hear the first line of that song, you're like this kind of singer. Of course. You know, cuz compression is going to catch that up after and make it even worse. Make it even worse. Okay. What about you? Uh same. Okay. Same. Yeah. I I Yeah. Like my my thing is usually yeah melodine back before was arra was melodine and then autotune is there sometimes I'll do autotune at like the slowest lowest thing. So even while I'm working in melodine it's solving some problems for me that are really obvious big long slow
00:09:54 notes. I don't do it. I always do it low and slow like at it slowest and like lowest and so big long note. Now I'm not in melodine like doing this autotune will get that long note so it only gets long notes. Okay. So that's a that's a big one for me. It saves me time. Um, and then I don't even hear it in melodine because autotune's always on at a low and slow, right? So, it saves me time because it's getting the obvious stuff. Um, and then Yeah. And then highpass. Do you high pass when you track or only when you mix? While I mix.
00:10:25 Same. Yeah. While I mix. But I do something even before now that I think of it. I do clip gain my stuff, my vocals. I kind of thousand% visually. I kind of Yeah. Visually I kind of do it while I'm tuning. Yeah. Kind of like, "Oh, that got big." Exactly. I just visually just do it quick. But this is an important step. It is an important step. Especially, you know, you want to bring the verses, the choruses a bit more close. I almost want to start the whole podcast over I feel stupid not having said this cuz it is really
00:10:54 important. It is. It changes everything else we're talking about. The compressor is going to react differently. It's going to be way more smooth, way more transparent. And it can be done visually. It can be done visually. Yeah. Something I did also. It's something that can be done. I made a video on that years ago. Um, you know, the Waves plugin, the vocal riser plugin. Yeah. Writer. The is it not riser? Yeah. Rider. Um, yeah. I made a video on that. Uh, how I actually used to work with this one where I put I put it in at the
00:11:25 beginning of the train. Mhm. [Laughter] The reminder went off. It said take your pill. I remember last episode when you glitched and crashed. I think you forgot to set that reminder. I can't believe a reminder just went off in the middle of the podcast telling you to take a pill. I forgot to turn on the the alarm saying to disactivate the alarm to take my pill. But what if you don't take your pill now? Doesn't matter. You're going to explode or something. We'll see. Okay. This could be a fun episode. This
00:12:10 could be the one that goes viral. Chris's head just rolled off. He's picked him up by his beard live on the podcast. Oh god, that's amazing. Oh, I love it. Okay, you're going to be okay. I was saying this isn't the pill that keeps you going. No, I'm good. You're not going to turn into a 100-year-old witch man or something. You know what to do if that happens. I do. You know the drill. Yep. CPR. Mouth to mouth. No matter what. I didn't see it. What was that? I can't remember the movie. He was like, "I'm fine." Just
00:12:41 like pounding on him. It's not your time. It's not your time. Don't go towards the light, Slim. But if you die, can I have the channel one? You take it, Steve. You take it. You take my You take my hardware piece. Okay. Getting back to the vocal rider. So, you put this at the top of the chain. Yeah. Okay. And you write it off right away. Yeah. Okay. Does the same Yeah. you know, of doing some preggain automation stuff like that, you know. I don't do that anymore. But this is I used to fight with that thing so hard.
00:13:20 It made me so angry. Like I would be humming along and then the third time I heard it would just like do a thing. That was always my problem. I I used to do it and then print it. Yes. So So it became predictable when I used that thing because it would it would just like glitch out in the middle of a chorus. The bass one. There was the bass writer one. Yes. But it but when it worked that vocal thing was great for a like back vocal in a session. I love it. Back in the day I'd throw that on and it
00:13:44 would just it would just do the other guy's job. It was amazing. So, but you know, uh, now I just like clip gain stuff and that's it. Awesome. Now that's it. And now it's so easy with the new Cubase 14. It's like Yep. It's a charm. Yep. So very important. Um, yeah. The rest of your plug-in chain is going to thank you. Yeah. And and work better. Yes, for sure. And you'll thank it as well. So, okay. Next. Um, we're talking about the channel strip. What do you do next? Well, like I mean, and what do you
00:14:14 use inside the channel strip? For me, it's for me. Yeah. Like to me it's it's uh melodine, autotune, highpass, uh and then I and then I start to get into uh DS and then EQ. And for me there's a couple EQs. Mhm. And so for me there's kind of the the big EQ, in this case, the ProQ. And it does the first big heavy lift and then and then I usually do some kind of air thing. Okay. So what do you mean by heavy lift? Um, oh my gosh, I need to take 150 out of this whole vocal right now so I can think. So, more like subtractive type the big
00:14:51 booster cuts like the big moves. Yeah. That are going to affect compression the cleanup mainly. Yeah. It's mainly to affect compression, right? Sure. And so, yeah. So, then there's that move and then, you know, do some error or whatever and then and then compression. There's a couple compressor stages and then you know this is all getting paralleled out and it's all the layers of garbage that probably it's whole own podcast but yeah in in order though yeah it's that that I hit finally the compressor and then I start undoing the
00:15:19 compressor with more EQ and more DSing and you know as we do. Yeah. Yeah. Where it just Yeah. Where you just Yeah. You just look at it. I think it was Chad Blake, one of those guys was I was watching one of his mix of the masters and he just called it nonsense like what is all this nonsense on my what what was this nonsense right it's just that so now ever since then I've just started calling it the nonsense just where I'm adding something and cutting the same thing with a different plugin and like
00:15:42 it's just nonsense nonsense it's uh it's that standard and then all you know obviously then there's all the sends and things and busing and the stuff that I don't know how far we want to go into that today yeah but let's stick to the uh but the channel the channel itself yeah so the channel itself. Yeah. I mean, what are the other components, right? You you How many compressors you Yeah. What about that? What type of compressors you use? Yes. Yes. You know, cuz I do I do like you, you know, um the
00:16:07 the ProQu ProQ 4, whatever. You know, the frequency uh um EQ is going to come pretty early in the chain. Correction, you know, subtractive AQ. The one that will affect the compressor. Yeah. cuz I do tend to add a compressor after correct the first as opposed to the ones that are adding salt and pepper which come later for me like once everything's under control now I can play with it safely but that stuff that you can see it as soon as you boost that the compressor collapses or whatever those guys um and then for me I'm I'm I'm in
00:16:38 the habit now of you know like I have like the lead vocal and it's getting sent to three other channels now so I call it lead vocal 3 one two and three okay so and those are just loaded with garbage nonsense Right. And so it's just allows me literally 16 plugins is only in parallel. That's it. And then and then and then there's the parallels. So I've added the through channels just so I have more plug-in instances. I see. And they're kind of grouped, right? So I've got a group of EQs and a group of
00:17:07 compressors and and so then I can just turn them on. They're all bypassed. Okay. And I can just turn them on and off quickly without having to like find them and insert them. So it's basically just Yeah. It's just a whole It's a really big plug-in chain for one vocal. Yeah. But everything is bypassed and you just everything's bypassed and then all of that can then go to parallel which has more nonsense on it of course which is its own. Okay. So So what is your favorite compressor on your vocal? My my
00:17:30 favorite first stop for compression on the vocal template currently right now is the uh Fab Filter. Was it the C? Yeah, C2. Yeah, C2. Yeah, I use them so much I just don't even know what they're called. It's just the one. And then Yeah. Yeah. And then and then the but this is a ver very versatile compressor. It does everything. It's unbelievable from the opto the vocal preset or vocal compressor is fantastic like instant like just you know the industry glue. The most overused word in the industry glue. But it does do that.
00:18:07 So instantly just and I don't go hard but it does a thing that's pretty amazing. And so that's usually my first stop and then from there it goes, you know, and then parallel to the $176 emulation of the day, whatever the latest one is I bought for $29 on a Black Friday sale, of course, cuz I don't know if it's a black or green one or a blue one or whatever. They all sound amazing to me. And just push all the buttons and parallel snot out of it and I'm making records, right? It's like I'm the brown CLA or whatever. Like I'm
00:18:37 so excited. I'm so excited when I hit an 1176 hard. It is such a great sound. That's good. It's a beautiful noise. It is. And then Yeah. And then I'll I'll run like layers like even the C2, I'll have two or three of them in different modes at different ratios and and it's just an experimentation. Like they're all there. I typically don't even in my template uh intentionally I will go into the compressors and just zero them out. So, I'm forced if I turn it on and I love the sound at five to one opto.
00:19:09 Yeah. Attack release this. I don't want that. I want it all zeroed out. So, I have to go in and find what this thing needs. And so often it's different than what it would have been. Okay. In the template, right? I don't want to be happy. I want to find happy. Nice. And so, I've got in the habit of that same with EQs. They're always zeroed out when I when I byp unbypass them. So, yeah. Does that that answer that? It answers that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Now, on my side, it's uh I think
00:19:35 it always depends on what I'm mixing, you know, but usually I use a super fast compressor like an 1176 just to catch the peaks. Higher ratio like Yep. almost limiting at this point, you know, but just like one dB of gain reductions once in a while when the peaks are and then kind of a, you know, a CL1B type of thing or, you know, um, this type of slower tube type of compressor, you know, LA2A. Yeah. This type of thing, you know, just to kind of bring the whole vocal a bit more. A and if if my compressors are looking
00:20:11 angry, then I I have to go back to my clip gain. Mhm. Right. Like I don't I don't want the compressors lifting hard. Yeah. Because I can feel that. Yeah. It's changing. But again, it depends on the compressor. It's changing the tone. But yeah, it's doing something. Unless you want that sound. Unless you rock in your I'm going to say that on this CL1B, you can drive it pretty hard and it's going to still sound pretty transparent. Funny enough. That not funny enough. That's why it's cost $4.2 million for
00:20:38 one. Plus plus Canadian tax that you took back from Iraq. Yeah, I did. It's back in its shrine. Yeah, the one I loaned you. I drove it home with a seat belt on it. It was worth I was like, "Hey, I told my kid like, "Get back there. CL1B needs the airbag. Needs the airbag. Daddy has priorities for this car." Funny enough, you know, I you lent me this uh this one, you know, and I was like looking at the price. Yeah. On reverb, you know, how you can, you know, how much it is right now. I was like was like, "Oh, yeah." Okay. And
00:21:12 I'm not going to I'm not going to keep it here, man. Let What if something happens, man? Like, Steve, you want it back? Studio stuff with Chris. Exactly. Stephen, I don't talk anymore. I killed his child. Yeah. But that that kind of slowburn compressor is a beautiful thing. It is. And and on any vocal, like at first I was like, "Oh, I'm doing jazz." It went But then you put on a rock vocal, it does work and it does a different thing. and and and and layering compressors. I love layering. I have learned in my old age that this is
00:21:44 a neat thing. It used to be just like, oh, make that one red. And now it's like, no, make all of them light just a bit. You know, it's all and it sounds neat. Yes. Like you take one away and that's you don't you don't know you're doing something till you take one away and you're like, I feel sad. Yes. Right. Like that. It's doing a thing that I can't quantify. And that's back in the day you're like, why does this guy have 400,000 pieces of gear on the wall behind him? Right. He's got a He's got
00:22:07 an SSL. He's got a 9K and 42 compressors. And you're like, why? And you learn why? Because his patchbay is doing this through them all. Right. Of course. So, yeah, it is a it's a beautiful thing. Have you tried the Lray one? I have not. Okay. It's nice. Honestly, it's in the same type of vibe as the as the CL1B. Yeah. But very smooth. Yeah. Facebook really thinks I need to buy it. Yeah, you should. every time I was like, "Oh, it's like that list like why don't you have this?" It's not light on CPU.
00:22:37 It's nice. And what I do after my, you know, serial compressors, um, I'm going to go in another EQ like more to enhance 100% like a Ptech or something, something like that. Yeah, something like that. And it's interesting, and that's another thing I'm I've I've learned through just playing. And I I didn't play with it for years. I was always in that school of thought like just from a console where it's like oh we do the thing and then we add the EQ and then we compress and then we send it to the reverbs and then we turn it up
00:23:04 and down and print it. But this adding more EQ later thing and then yeah even adding compression again after that thing like those layers are really fun like EQs act totally different after they're compressed of course then you know what I mean. Yeah, I know what you mean. gets and then same and then I'm like, "Oh, I want to compress this again to bring out this thing." And it brings out this thing without bringing out the yucky cuz you've eliminated the yucky twice, you know? And it's so that that
00:23:32 that building of and just experimenting like copying plug like copying plugins down. Yeah. It's neat. It's very cool. That's cool. Yeah. Air type plugins. Yes. Like towards the end are just beautiful. Once everything's smoothed out, they're just reacting to the final and that's it. So beautiful. Ah, something I like to do also, um, you know, when you get a song where the verse is a bit lower in pitch or smooth and then you have like that high chorus, lots of energy, an octave high or whatever, you know. Um, what do you
00:24:06 do in this uh in this new track? That's what I do, too. Yeah. Yeah. They have like both copy track, vocal verse, vocal chorus. I'll just I'll duplicate track and then delete and then just make the little changes. Same here. And same. So compressors react different and you don't you need less high-end air when the yelling chorus happens than the soft low verse and that kind of those little moves. Tracks are free now. Totally. Yeahing. Exactly. Just make more tracks. And I think I think something you know
00:24:34 super important especially for vocals automation afterwards. Ah, you know, we talk a bit about, you know, preggain automation or clip gain, uh, to kind of level out the recording of the vocal, but there's also the vocal after processing, you know, by riding the fader. Turn the freaking monitors down when you do that. Yeah, that's my greatest piece of advice somebody told me early on. Yeah, like when you're automating vocals, turn the speakers down. And for me, for any types of automation, it's always when I got I get
00:25:05 back to a mix with a fresh pair of ears. Always. And and turning it down does a version of it, too. It's a new song. It is. Everything sounds great when it's loud. But But do you do you mix loud to begin with? No. No. Same here. Hurts my brain. It's always the same level, which is not like 21 on my thing. Oh, 21 is good. Yeah, 21. I go to 11. No. Well, it's cuz you're better than me. No, but honestly, mine goes to 21, although I think you lent me that. So, it's actually yours. It is either way. Yeah.
00:25:34 Okay. Yours goes to 21 and 11. Thank you. You know, like for me, when it comes to level, like for automation, even for mixing for that matter, you know, I can have a conversation with someone while I mix. Oh, yeah. That's at the level I I like to mix at. Yeah. And then when I automate, I go lower. There you go. Vocals cuz they things disappear. Yeah, you're right. Right. And that's for me that's the best way if they disappear. And then and then when automating I'm constantly making the decision, do I
00:26:02 clip gain this or get it at the end with the fader like there's there's a constant battle there. So at the very end I'm going back into clip. Oh, that got too soft. But you know that if you clip after you're done mixing your vocals, it will affect correct plug and chain. And that's why the conversation is always happening. Exactly. Is this soft and low and do I want it to be more intimate? So I'll go up here and get it. I remember when I first started to mix and I was working with this guy, client
00:26:27 of mine and he knew a bit about mixing of course, you know, and uh and I was adjusting the you were kind of tweaking the mix, you know, vocal levels and stuff and he was like, "Oh, the vocals a bit too loud here." So, I was clipping down the vocals and then at some point he was like, "Are you sure you're doing it the right way?" He called me out. That's amazing. Like, what? Yeah. You know, it's going to affect the whole thing. It's like, "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I know. Trying. That's
00:26:52 what I do. I know. I do I like to do it wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I know I I I want to hit like I wanted to hit the compressor in a different way and I went was full of crap, you know. I did not know. You didn't make a video about that, did you? That was in my first years. The early years. My goodness. The early years. I know. Okay. Now, uh before we wrap this up with this topic, Yeah. you were talking about you and we're talking about a bunch of different processing. We have like couple of even
00:27:21 sometimes three compressors, you know, all the all the compressors because I didn't say it, but sometimes even a multiband compressor can work pretty well after the two compressors that are already on, you know, but after all of this, does it happen? Does so does it happen that you don't have to do much on a vocal? Yes. You know, where you're actually bypassing most of your plugins. You only have like a couple. Yes. and where that where that has started happening and maybe because I'm just old and tired or what, but I find
00:27:50 myself doing that more and more. Yeah. Where I'm like, this just sounds good. Like what am I I'm going to I want to break this. Like there's some magic here. Uh it depends on the type of music, right? Yeah. Like if you're doing, you know, I'm just starting a big like metal project thing and I'm like studying metal vocals and I'm like these things are processed to a thousand%. Right. Like it's so cool. And then there's stuff where it's like just a beautiful jazz vocal and the person did what they wanted to do with the mic
00:28:16 because they've been doing it for 80 years. Where I was going to say where I find myself doing less up on this chain is I have everything goes down to my vocal bus. And I think next episode we can get into background vocals and stuff, but all the vocals get distilled down to this final kind of bus. And there's bigger moves I'm doing there now I'm finding that are affecting the whole thing. I kind and I'm getting better at going, okay, when when I get down there, I'm going to do this so I can leave this
00:28:41 now. Yes. Okay. Right. So, there's something that's going to bring this into the song better. Right. So, there's a thing there that's saving me a whole bunch of moves up top cuz I know I'm just going to smiley face everything and it's going to fit right into this track or whatever. Right. So, all that to say, yeah, there's a bit of like just knowing where I'm going that I'm gathering as I go through life in many aspects of life. Some some I'm getting worse at knowing what I'm doing. But yes, sometimes what
00:29:06 I do is I bring the level to I kind of copy like a non-mixed version of that same vocal. Sure. I compare at the end of the mix 100%. Just like, okay, am I doing things worse or better? The demo. Go back to the demo and you're like, that's really good. Yeah. Who's that? Who makes that? Exactly. It was me yesterday. sometimes not the amount of plugins and processing that you that you have on your on your channel that's going to make the vocals sound good for that mix. And the last thing I'll say to
00:29:36 this is uh emotionally, especially if you're just hired to mix, what was what were they going for on the demo they sent you? Yes. And and have I broken that? Mine sounds really neat, but there's feels different. So, there's something there totally that that that Yeah. is worth checking the demo because they're going to go back and go, "We love the way he sounded on the demo. Yours sounds weird." And I'm like, "But mine's technically perfect or whatever." I look at the meters. So, yeah. Technically and musical different
00:30:06 things. Where are we going with this vocal? Exactly. Oh, we always forget that. That's fun. Yep. That's fun. Okay. Uh, the question of the week. All right. So, this question comes from It just sounds neat. Jim Kelly. Nice. From Kilkenny, Ireland. Man, Kilkiny. Kilkenny. Kilkenny. I I'll go with that. But his name is Jim Kelly. Like that is such an Irish. So I want to be Jim Kelly from Ireland. Next life. Next life. Okay. So his his question is about um via it's it's a longer question so I I'm distilling it in real time.
00:30:40 He's asking about when you're using MIDI drums. Mh. Um regarding committing them to audio. Uh, he's saying, "I've watched all the videos Chris has made about MIDI drums and assigning output channels and then committing them to audio files." Yeah. He's saying, "When are you adding plugins? Do you apply the routing and and then EQ and stuff plugins to the initial channels or are you doing it after you've committed them to audio?" Yeah. After I I think so, too. Yeah. After you Well, especially like now
00:31:08 we're talking about VST drums that are mimicking correct an acoustic drum kit. Okay. Yeah. Um Yeah. And I will tend to work with VST drums where I can remove all the processing because most of the time they're going to come premixed and all that stuff, you know. So, so much smiley face EQ you can't even think. Always. Okay. So, I get rid of all of the processing. Make it as clean as possible. How much how much high EQ did you add to that kick? Exactly. It's amazing. I want the raw recording. That's what I want. And I bounce that
00:31:40 and I mix those drums as I mix regular live drums. That's my answer. That's a That's a really good answer. Yeah. Take all the stuff off and put your own stuff on. Exactly. Cuz your stuff fits the song. Yes. And you have more control. So you've got your you've got your performance MIDI and then you you've gone into your your software. You've moved everything and then you've bounced them as though they're real drums. That's it. And it just makes do my parallel stuff. All everything. And for me, I'll even drag them into my actual
00:32:06 template. Yeah. Yeah. As the kicks and snares and things like they were recorded. Same. They just happen to be recorded by somebody else in a really really really nice studio. These are, you know, based on real recordings recorded somewhere in a beautiful studio. But this is our the way we work, you know, because we're used to mix acoustic drums, record acoustic drum, all that stuff, you know, but a lot of people are not used to that. And what they know of is VST drums. Okay. So, so just to turn this on the head and make
00:32:30 this episode longer, what if what if the VST drum sound is what you're creating too, right? I've done that. I'll load in a loop or VST drums or something and now I'm building a song around that. Yes. sound and I'm bringing which is probably going to be the case of most people. Yeah. So that would happen a lot. I imagine that you're bringing your mix to those drums. Then you decide what you want to keep and what you want to then. Yeah. Cuz you could do it piece by piece. You could do piece by piece
00:32:57 because you know what? Like the like the tone. Let's keep the EQ on. Yeah. So I'll compress uh out of that VST uh ecosystem. Yep. So I would pick and choose. I would pick and choose. Pick and choose is a good answer. Yeah. That's a best of all worlds. Yeah, that's a politically non-committal answer. You're right. They are rarely going to keep the whole thing. Yeah. Even in that situation. Yep. You know, but is is it wrong to keep the whole thing? Not if it sounds good. No. Exactly. That's No, that's a good
00:33:24 answer. That is a good We should go into politics, dude. I think there's going to be some openings soon in every country. It's all about your good This is all about your good sounding forehead. Was that last episode? It was. We decided my has a nice dark tone. Ah, so great. Better than great. That was a good question. Yeah. Hey, should we go? Maybe we should. [Music]"
