Hey, what’s up, guys? I’m David Glenn with The Pro Audio Files and davidglennrecording.com, home of the free mix training bundle. If you haven’t done so yet, head over to my site, davidglennrecording.com.

When you jump on the e-mail list, I’m going to shoot you an e-mail with free multi-tracks, impulse responses, exclusive tutorials, all kinds of stuff. I think you’ll love it.

Go to davidglennrecording.com.

Today’s tutorial comes from my latest course, it’s called Mixing Pop Ballads, and it’s going to be some good stuff. We’ve got some bass tutorials, low end, and a couple of drum tutorials for you.

So we’re going to fade in, I wanted to share with you a before and after sample of the song. It’s called “Save Me,” it’s by Jeremy Rosado. Jeremy was an American Idol finalist, and is an awesome guy. I loved working on this song, and I think you’re going to love it.

So whether or not you check out the course, I think you’re going to gain a lot from the tutorials. I hope you love it, and stay tuned for that. Thanks again for checking it out.

[mix, before and after]

I don’t know that we’re going to need parallel compression on this one, but we’ll see — for now what I want to do is turn on my Pro Q here. I have this on my master fader, and I’m just going to take everything out above, like, 20Hz, and we’re going to listen to our mix, and then we’re going to go back and forth between ours and a reference track.

[David Glenn’s mix]

Okay, so here I — with the M2, I can feel the kick. Really deep lows. I mean, we’re talking — you probably don’t even hear that unless you have a great system, a sub, an M2 sub pack, or just an incredibly treated room that can reproduce with speakers that can reproduce the lows like this.

26Hz, I’m only really hearing the kick drum, for me. So I’m going to click over to the reference track…

[reference]

I hear more in ours, but Use Me Too has got a little bit of kick pulse down there. Hope for Tomorrow…

[reference]

Yeah, a little bit. Beautiful.

[reference]

This has got kick and bass.

[reference]

So we’re going to open that up a little bit. Back to ours.

[switching between reference mixes and own mix]

So, my bass is resonating a little bit more than theirs. Probably safe to say, I can use a high pass filter with a gentle slope, and I’m just kind of touching up the bass subs a bit.

I’m not going to do that from the subs track, I’m going to do that from kind of a master EQ over here. Let’s use this one. So I’ve got it set to 20. I could probably take that up to like, 30 or 40Hz, and then make it like a softer slope here.

So let’s see…

[mix]

That’s not going to hurt anybody. So I’m in the ballpark. Now we’re going to go back to the 2buss, I’m going to open that up a bit. See if we can get the computer to cooperate. May need a restart, but for now, we’re just going to keep rocking. Let’s go here. Let me turn this little guy there.

We’re about 35. Cool. I’m going to open that up. So the Jonny Diaz mix is letting the bass win that sub battle a little bit more than the kick. There’s still some kick there, but Beautiful is definitely giving it to the combo. It’s sidechain compression, I can hear it all day.

[reference]

Very EDM-esque in the Beautiful track.

[mix]

There’s ours.

[swapping between reference and original mix]

And I’m not mad at that. Our kick is a little less impactful — it’s a little less attack, and a little more fitting I think to the song. You’ve got to remember, these are different songs. Beautiful is a little more driving. Save Me, the one we’re working on is a little more — it’s a ballad. It’s a little more relaxed. Very intimate.

So we’re going to leave that and just keep opening it up and see if we have any problem areas. I think around 100Hz is going to be messy.

[mix]

The kick at 100Hz for us — I don’t think it’s bad, but I need to be careful. So I’m going to throw an EQ on, and at least touch up 100Hz or so. Kind of in this range right here. But I’m notching out just a couple of dB, just to be careful. I don’t want to go too low there, but I don’t want to overload the 2buss. So kind of in this range right here. Something like that.

Let’s see.

[mix]

Barely. Just a little bit. Just massaging it.

Okay, back over to our reference.

[reference mix]

Just go all the way up to 150 or so.

[reference]

Here’s us.

[mix]

Reference.

[reference mix]

We’ve definitely got more punch in the kick, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing, because Beautiful probably has more than us. Let’s check it out.

[reference]

I think we’re in the ballpark, low end wise. It’s feeling a little bit better now. I’m going to bypass — maybe if I can just make this inactive for now, and let’s hear it. I’m going to turn it down a bit and see if anything stands out in the drums.

[mix]

[kick drum]

Okay. Just a little massage work for the kick. It’s a little bit loud, I may not need it to be that loud. I wanted a little bit more room from it.

The snare needs some love.

[snare drum]

[mix]

Little papery thin for my taste.

Eh, we’ll see.

For now, we’re going to leave that. Our low end is feeling a little bit better. Let’s come out here to where the crash ride is going.

[mix]

Okay, so not too shabby at all. Let’s check the drums against this Jonny Diaz track.

[switching between mix and reference]

You just have to remember, Jeremy’s vocal is going to be much louder than it is right now. I’ve just kind of got it in the mix so I can hear it and feel what’s happening.

But I’m pretty happy with that. We’re going to check this a little bit later. I’ll check it in the car, I’m going to listen on smaller speakers, go to my buds, and I’ll listen again for the low end, but I feel pretty good about it. We’ve got the subs broken out, and not too dominant. The kick is pushing it down a bit. We’ve got that working well.

I think we’re going to go ahead and move on. Let’s do the next video. We’re going to — I’m thinking either the vocal or the music, but I’ll see you in the next video.