Hey, what’s up guys? David Glenn for The Pro Audio Files and davidglennrecording.com, home of the free VIP Mix Training Bundle. If you haven’t done so yet, go to davidglennrecording.com, sign up for the email list, you’re going to get five or six sets of multi-tracks, a ton of impulse responses, instructions on how to use those impulse responses — that’s a tongue twister — exclusive tutorials and more, all for signing up for the mailing list. Tons of free stuff coming your way at davidglennrecording.com.

Today’s video comes straight out of my latest course called Producing and Mixing Volume 1. The beast has been unleashed, it’s here, and I would love for you to check it out. These are videos that have come straight out of the course. I pulled them because I felt like they stood on their own as valuable content.

The last thing I want to tell you about with the new course is currently, I’ve got some exciting bonuses. We’ve got a free plugin, right? Free plugin for Pro and Elite bundle customers, and that plugin is Levels from masteringthemix.com, connected with Tom Frampton, the owner and developer over there.

Incredible guy, and I’m stoked to include that in the Pro and Elite bundle packages for Producing and Mixing Volume 1. Go check that out, I’ll shut up, moving on to the video, I hope you guys dig it, and we’ll see you soon.

Alright, what’s up guys? In this video, we’re going to take a look at a single electric guitar line that I think could work with the help of Output’s Movement. So to create something special out of just some basic chording. So I’ve got two ideas, two thoughts of which chords to play. Stupid simple and bold and full, or with the harmony part, so we’ve got the hook here.

I still don’t know if this is going to work, but it’s worth a shot. The more I listen to this track, the more I just feel less is more. Bass, acoustic, the beat production, the vocal layers, I feel like we’re good. Any other little things would be just ear candy.

Really, the biggest thing that I’m thinking with this song after having so much time away from it is the actual vocal recording. How much this would’ve benefited from one more vocal session to go and clean up a lot of the first phrases and tightening the timing and that kind of stuff, but we didn’t have a vocal coach on this one. I did my best whenever we tracked it, and we’re just going to do with what we have, so we will make do.

This guitar, basically, I’ve got — let me pull open the screen over here — I’ve got my Universal Audio Apollo Twin, and I’ve just got a — I think this is even a mix he made, Strat, I think so, I think this is like, a $700 or $800 guitar.

But the chain is Monster Cable straight out of the guitar, directly into the Apollo Twin, and the preamp there, it recognizes it as a high Z input, so you can plug in to your preamp, and you’ll do your gain staging there, but for me, it’s done for me. I’ve just got the ’55 Deluxe, pulled that open from the UA line. This could be any amp sim, I was just messing around with different amps, different tones, and I found something I like with this guy.

Let’s see, if we zoom in, I’m not sure if it’s going to zoom in on the video we’re recording here, but I’ve got the JP12 speaker, excuse me, tone is right down the middle, my pickup position is all the way to the neck, so you’ve got that fatter tone.

[guitar]

So. And then, I thought about driving it, and I just backed off. So I want it super clean, and I’ve got these both set really low. Mic volume is off, the instrument volume, just enough to give me — I think there’s a little, tiny bit.

[electric guitar]

I really have to dig into it to get any kind of grit from it. I just wanted it to be clean. I’m thinking clean, chorusing, reverb, with some Movement to it. Some kind of multi-effects that we can layer on top of this, but I went with the — I think it’s a U87, then what is that mic that I just switched… Yeah, whatever that is. I’m actually not familiar with that mic, so.

But just played with the combination, and there you go.

So that is the tone coming from there, and then I wanted this to be a compressed sound, and I didn’t have a guitar pedal compressor in the UA line, so I just went to an 1176, and I hit it pretty good. Check this out.

[electric guitar, sustaining]

Okay, and then without the compressor.

[electric guitar, no compression]

Obviously, I’m lowering the level with the compressor as well, which is probably unnecessary, but let’s push it back up a little bit. So with it off…

[electric guitar, no compression]

Actually, that’s on I think, right?

[electric guitar]

Okay, so anyways. Just a little dark layer there to get us all going.

Um, let me see, what… Okay, so the Orange is on. I was going to say, it was a little bit dry there. So this should be the…

[guitar]

Yeah. Okay, anyway, so that. Very simple. My point in doing this video, I’m super rusty on the guitar, we’re just going to do a stupid simple part here, chording, and then I think it could be cool with some Movement and delay, similar to what we’ve done with some of the other elements in this part.

So I’m going to record this and see if it makes sense here in a second. Let’s go back. Here we go.

[mix, recording guitar]

Okay. Again, stupid simple. That’s why I backed off that output. Maybe a little hot going into… Ah, we’re fine.

Okay, so now, the other part I was thinking was instead of just the two — so…

[guitar chords]

I was thinking the three, you know, adding that…

[guitar chords]

So… I told you, rusty. So that may be cool, but I don’t know. It might be cleaner just having this guy, so.

Alright, so now let’s put Movement on. I had this preset I was — excuse me, messing around with, and…

[mix, with Movement on guitar]

It needs tweaking, because that first — I think on the third or fourth bar, it goes on the up, so I need to — anyways, but…

[mix]

Yeah, I’m still thinking about it.

So anyways, a quick thought on simple guitar parts. Same thing, for a pad or keys part, if you’re not really a keys player, you may just kind of pad through the first — you know, find two or three notes that sound good together and hit them on the downbeat, but then grab you something like Output’s Movement or Auto-Panner and just layer effects to get something that could be just, you know, creative. Just messing around and coming up with something new.

So that to me worked. It sounded fine. I’m going to change that preset out a little bit, but just a really quick video on electric guitar, maybe, maybe, maybe as a layer in the hook. Still don’t know. May just let it live as 808s and vocal layers, but really, much more intimate that way, but a soft padded guitar sound, not too bad there.

So anyways, quick little video on this. I hope you guys dig it. We’ll move on to the next video.