Final Mix Tweaks (+ Free Hip-Hop Multitracks)
02/15/2017
Final Mix Tweaks (+ Free Hip-Hop Multitracks)
Today we have an excerpt that’s going to come from themixacademy.com. This is a song — I mixed this, I want to say a couple of years ago for my man Pablo. Incredible artist, he’s formerly of Group One Crew. Those of you guys in the CCM, the Christian Music industry, you’ll know Group One Crew. Pablo killing it.
In this one, this is from still an unreleased debut solo album. He’s got a couple of singles out that we put together, but my man Victor Encarnacion, I want to give a shoutout to him, for Pablo, producing it, and then I was the mixer/team mate, we’ll call it. Some production and miscellaneous stuff here and there.
But anyways, back to the message, I’m going to lead this into an excerpt that I’ve taken from a full start to finish series that I’ve done mixing this song. It’s called Vintage. You can check that out in the link in the description below. That’ll take you to where you can download the multitracks for free, you can get your hands on this, mix it, use it on your resume, full license to do that. Just make sure you give the credit where it’s due.
I’ve got the details in the email that comes with the multitracks, but I just wanted to kind of lead that in. Free multitracks, link in the description below. This is a video where I’m going to take you through mix tweaks, so lots of little bits of information here, I think you’re really going to dig it, where I’ve referenced, I’ve listened to some other industry mixes, I’ve taken the mix to the car, I’ve got some smaller speakers here in the studio, the iPod buds, iPhone buds, and then listening on like, laptop speakers and stuff.
So I’ve done that, come back, and then this video is going to take you through some of the things I felt like needed to be changed before sending it off for artist and producer approval.
That’s a mouthful. Again, free multitracks, link in the description below, I hope you’re doing amazing, I hope you enjoy the tutorial. Feel free to like, subscribe, tons of new content coming your way. Also, last thing before I shut up, don’t forget to go check out David Glenn Recording on Facebook. Facebook.com/davidglennrecording.
Like, comment, post questions, I’m going to be trying to drive some traffic over there to get some free videos up there, some interaction, Q&A, I get a ton of emails, and I’m so thankful for them. I’m way behind, but I want to start answering those questions via Facebook Live and miscellaneous videos over there.
So thanks again, and I hope you enjoy the video.
Alright, guys, so I checked this in the car, and listened on my Apple headphones, the buds that come with the iPhone here, and I listened to some Uptown Funk, I listened to the Lupe Fiasco, kind of went back and forth, did my thing, and I’ve got a couple of major notes, and then a few minor things.
One of my major notes was this kick, and I feel like this is just kind of too much, having these two kicks at the same time, and the low end is just a little bit much for me, so I’m going to tighten up this one.
[mix, adjusting kick]
That low end is still just a little bit much. I can’t — I’m not sure if I want to just tighten the sustain and release, or if maybe it’s too much low end that’s driving the woofiness, but it’s a little bit too much, so I’m going to back this — I’m going to almost choke it.
[mix, adjusting kick]
Okay. That’s a little bit tighter. Quite a bit tighter, actually. Now let’s hear the kicks altogether.
[mix, all kicks]
Okay, and even that live kick can maybe come in just a little bit.
[mix, editing live kick]
Okay. I had a few vocal notes, but we’ll get to those. The snare trigger. Um…
[synth and snare]
I felt like it was just a hair bright, and then even — I’m thinking maybe I could tighten it up just a little bit. Let’s see if there’s a snare bottom mic going on with this one.
[synth and snare]
So not really. So we’ll take and pull this in, we’ve got sustain, release, and let’s pull this all the way down, try to get a tighter tone from it.
[synth and snare]
I’m already digging that.
[mix]
Snare bottom.
[synth and snare bottom]
Pretty sure that’s what’s going on. So I kind of like it on the ghost — the ghost notes, so we may automate this, but I think I’m going to go with the multiband transient designer, and pull back some of the sustain from it.
As we wait for the plugin to load… Okay, there we go. Multiband. I probably could just go single band. Let’s instantiate that.
[synth and snare bottom, adjusting multiband transient designer]
Cool. Get a little attack to it as well. Let’s hear the difference.
[mix, before and after snare adjustments]
Okay, lastly I’m going to take a little bit of that — I call it air, sizzle, whatever you want to call it — from the snare bottom.
[synth and snare bottom]
I think that’s going to work better.
[mix]
Okay, so a couple of those issues worked out. Less top in the snare, the kick tighter, verse guitar on the right up. Let’s go find that guy. Scroll in here. There’s some guitar going on there. Hm… Wah guitar, Lead wah, okay. So it’s one of these. Let’s go here.
[electric guitar]
[mix]
[electric guitar]
[mix]
Okay, I’m kind of digging that back in the mix. Such a nice rockin’ tone there with the lead wah, so we’ll let that live, and then let’s move on to another note. Lead guitar up, we just did that, verse guitar on the right, the last verse, “wasted on a bluff,” drop that verse line. Where everything kind of drops.
[mix]
Okay, it might sound kind of cool. I heard this in Uptown Funk. We’re going to steal a little bit of one of their drops.
[mix]
Hm… There’s a couple of ways we can do this. I want to emphasize that drop. So let’s find some of the stuff that’s — I’ll go to Slip mode, find some of the stuff that’s…
[horns]
Okay, so we’re going to go to a break point. Do something right in there. We’re just going to cut. Actually, I’ll mute it for now, just in case I don’t like it.
[horns]
Okay, what I do probably need to do before I get into too much of that is find the effects right here…
[mix]
So that might be the point there, and then the chorus is the one.
[mix]
Yup. Okay, so in between these two, let’s go back to Grid mode for a second. I’m all over the place. I’ll make sure that this snaps to a grid. Okay. That’s on the one, so we’re going to select that region, come down here to all effects. Hm… Should we just lower it or mute it? Let’s get rid of it for a second and see what it sounds like.
[mix]
Okay, that worked. There’s still something sustaining in the music.
[mix]
I can’t get rid of everything, because that guitar kind of sustains over. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at…
[mix]
I don’t really want those, so I’m going to break, mute, and we’re going to come here, I’m going to drop down and put a fade on all of those, come back over here, zoom in a little bit. Put a fade on all of those guys. We’ll see what we get.
[mix]
Okay, what else is going on there. A little bit of the organ.
[mix]
Nothing really happening here. I’m going to delete it. Bring it in on the one.
Cool. What else is happening. That wah guitar is sustaining over, that’s cool. We’ve got everything else dropped. We might need to choke the high end where the cymbals are ringing out. Let’s go here and we’ll see what that sounds like.
The high end, just drop it all the way down, and then if you guys — I haven’t mentioned this before, but if you’re not familiar with the keyboard shortcuts in Pro Tools — if you have a numeric keypad, which I highly recommend, the shortcuts are 1 is reverse, if you tap it once, 2 is fast forward, so if you just kind of hold it, whenever I want to make an edit or something, I’ll double tap on 1 and hit play.
[mix]
Okay. Then it might be cool on his vocal. Getting a little bit dry for that section, maybe automate a little effect real quick. Let’s go to the room, let’s pull him all the way up, and let’s hear what that sounds like at just the…
[mix]
I didn’t hear it.
[mix]
Oh, we’ve got all the effects muted there. That’s not going to do anything for us.
Okay. So maybe we leave that alone for now, we could always add one at the end here and do like a — I guess we can show that. Let’s show reverb, I see people have bragged about these digital plates, and these aren’t very resource heavy, so let’s give it a shot. I’ll solo and listen to this.
[vocals, plate reverb]
I want that to be really short.
[vocals, shorter plate]
I want it to be a little darker.
[vocals, adjusting plate tone]
Hm. I’m not sure.
[vocals and plate]
Ah, I’m not digging it. We’ll move on. You guys kind of get the point. What I was thinking was to have an effect there that will kind of give a little bit of an ambience to that right there. Let’s see… Maybe if we boost what these guys are doing.
[mix]
I think that line needs to come up though. What do you guys think? I’m talking to myself now. We’ve got this section here, maybe not 4dB, but like, 2 or 3.
[mix]
Yeah, it’s kind of cool. Alright. And then one more little thing, I’m going to go to volume automation and…
[mix]
I’m going to put a break point before there, I’m going to put a little bit of a boost to that line, so it kind of gradually gets louder and in our face.
[mix]
Maybe just a little bit too much. I’ll pull that back down. That could be cool.
[mix]
Okay, but now our hook vocal is coming in a little weak. So let’s pull that up.
[mix]
Alright, that’s a little bit too loud.
Okay, so back and forth a little bit. Let’s go to the next note. Wasted on a bluff, we’ve got that. “Jams tonight” is missing the lead vocal, so let’s see if we can find the mishap here.
[mix]
I’m trying to figure out what I want to do there, if I want to copy from the other section, or… Hm…
[mix]
Let’s try boosting this a lot.
Yeah, that’s what we need to do. Not quite that much.
[mix]
Still down a little bit. Let’s hear that section.
[mix]
Man, that whole thing is just kind of low, isn’t it? Once we put it up, I kind of like it.
[mix]
That last line is pretty impactful, let’s go ahead and pull up every last line for this one. Another two and a half dB. We’re going to Control+Shift+C to copy that automation. Back it up.
[mix]
Down just a hair. We’ll go out here, do the same thing.
[mix]
Now let’s come over to this section.
[mix]
Okay, that’s kind of cool. I like that last phrase coming up. What’s this, I think that is the same phrase.
[mix]
Let’s bring that up three.
[mix]
I’m going to bring that guitar in just a little bit more central for when it starts rocking that solo, and I’m going to even boost it up volume wise, and I could use my Presonus FaderPort, but it gives me trouble when I do these videos, so you haven’t seen me use that before.
[mix]
I might need that volume dip — er, boost.
[mix]
But what I do want to do is show a little bit of delay love to it, so we’re going to come grab that — actually, that slap delay might sound kind of cool. Let’s go — man, all over the place with these — let’s go vocal slap, let’s try that.
[mix with vocal slap on lead vocals]
[wah guitar]
That might just be doing a volume increase. Let’s try the delay 1.
[wah guitar]
That’s kind of neat. Don’t know if we’ll keep it, but give it a little widening vibe to it. Let’s check this vocal slap, I think that’s the one. What’s going on with that? Is this going to — nope, good. Okay, come down here, check our effects, vocal slap.
Doesn’t look like any high cut… Did we put that on the — we do have some of that on the lead, don’t we? Yeah.
Okay. I’ll try one more time, I’ll find something cool. You know what, stomp 2, I have a spring reverb on this one. Let’s see if we can move that there and put a delay. Oops. Not distortion. Delay. There we go.
And let’s see what that gives us. Lead wah.
[lead wah with delay]
Okay, a little bit wasn’t bad. Not bad. Okay.
Jam tonight, we fixed. Ending lead guitar, up front and center.
Okay, so those were my notes, and I think at this point, this would be what I would consider my rough mix. There’s going to be some more automation to do. We’ll break into those with the tutorials this month. I’m going to do a little more referencing. I’ve got to meet with Pablo, the artist.
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