Audio Mountain is an educational channel for audio engineers. From mixing basics to advanced techniques, my goal is to share my decades of knowledge with others. As this channel grows I plan to offer interactive online courses for Patreon members. Please leave requests in the comments section of the videos for any topics you'd like me to cover.
If you would like to hire me as a mixing engineer please email me at: audiomountain777@gmail.com
I'm glad to see you put the EQ before the reverb. That's the way I've always done it because it makes more sense to me. Why feed the reverb frequencies you don't want? But I swear, every other YT channel I've watched puts the reverb after. I don't get it. Imo, it only makes sense to put the reverb after if you're boosting certain frequencies.
A great side-benefit of this video starts at 17:06. It is the best explanation I've heard of how to dial in attack times and release times on a compressor--and I've been looking for this type of succinct explanation for two years!😀
Love it! The drum bus one and trying the attack release to help keep it natural/subtle is gold! Loved the SC for the air in the piano too, something i wouldn't have thought of but really helps that vocal sit so clearly.. as always so much to catch up on! Thanks AM!!! 🙏🕊️
CONGRATULATONS ON 2K SUBSCRIBERS!!!!!!!!!!! I should be keeping all this great stuff to myself (including Patreon where you do Questions and Answers) but this is the best source on the internet for clear, informative explanations on audio mixing by far! Please keep it rollin' in!
Thanks for the feedback. Have you watched the full tutorial that this Short is from? In the tutorial I purposefully do a few things incorrectly, including swapping one problem for another, to help viewers learn. Sorry if the Short is disappointing. I'm glad you like the channel. Thanks for watching!
Now I understand why the old Pultec EQs had the odd ability to dial in a notch and a boost simultaneously in the upper range! Cool. Maybe this question is better for Patreon, but is there something about the harmonics of a Pultec emulation plugin that makes it particularly good to reach for when utilizing this technique? In other words, when using the high shelf boost/ narrow bell cut you demonstrate here, will using a Pultec generally get a better result than other EQs?
Loving this series of vids! Apart from eq'ing I didn't realize saturation played such a big part in separating freq masking! So much to learn.. Thank you AM!!! 🙏🕊️
Sometimes I'll get stuff in my home studio recorded well enough that mixing is pretty straight forward. Other times you'll get the drums done, then add the bass with them and have them good together...but then you might add the acoustic guitar and now the bass sounds swamped out or the kick sounds too tubby. Remove the acoustic guitar and you have nice clear drum and bass again. It's funny what the addition of one instrument can have. And even trying to remove frequency content from the acoustic guitar where you think it should be interfering with the bass or the kick just doesn't seem to work too good. I tell you what there's a lot to be said for arranging and then tracking as smart and as good as possible. Saves you headaches mixing.
Great video, great plugin!! And thank you for demonstrating with some really good music. Sometimes I just can't watch videos like this when terrible music is used (I know, it's subjective.....!!)
I loved it :-) Thank you for making this video. I am going to practice with it. Question: when the instruments are not freed from masking and you add the vocal. Let's say you use the Izotope unmask feature to unmask the vocal from all the instruments - if I understand your video correctly the vocal can still fight the music because the music itself is competing as well. Would that mean such a feature is not really helping and one should learn to first how to get the music instruments not competing before adding the vocal or does such a feature as Izotope unmask do work? Of course when you use an instrumental track there are other methods needed I guess to make it sound as 1. I compose orchestra and add the vocal, that means a lot of instruments are playing - should all the instruments go through the example you show in the video or would you do that from a bus where a group of the same instruments come together like 1th violins, 2nd, celli, violas, basses ect...Thanks in advance
I haven't used the unmask plugin, and I think you're question requires a longer answer than I can give here. But the lead (vocal ) should obviously take unmasking precedence, and subtle eq on busses is a good way to do that . Hope that helps!
@@AudioMountain777 Good morning, I understand your answer and that it takes more steps to make a good mix 🙂 I will make a start following your video on piano and guitar and will then implement your tips to other instruments. Thanks for the fast reply...
You're welcome! I have a video on dynamic EQ sidechains explaining a method that would help your instrument busses and the vocal: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2KasLAZMHNc.html
This came at the perfect time. I'm learning orchestral mixing and frequency masking has been a huge issue with so many competing ranges and timbers. Thank you very much
The more I watch your videos the more I learn...I think🤣🤣🤣🤣😆😆😆😆😆 My drowning incident as a child has had a major impact on how I learn and retain information, but I refuse to give up because I love music. Thank you for your simple yet efficient teachings.
Never seen/heard it explained so clearly as this.. will definitely take some practice! Knowing and hearing the lower frequencies affect the higher like that with these two instruments is a great example! Learning to cut rather than boosting is also another habit I have to get into.. Thanks AM! 🙏🕊️
Thank you! I have recently noticed when using MIDI orchestral instruments in stereo, that they go in and out of phase. Now Im wondering if that is whats making the whole orchestration sound thin.
Could be, especially if you have steep high pass filters or multi band compression going. Have you tried bypassing all the plugins and see if it sounds fuller?
@AudioMountain777 it seems to be on the samples themselves. I'm using Spitfire's BBCSO. If I turn the mics to mono and turn the mix mic off in the plugin, the phase shift goes away.
Gotcha . It's hard for me to speculate without seeing it of course, but I'd be interested to hear how you resolve that issue. Did you try a sample delay adjustment or phase alignment? Thanks for sharing.
@AudioMountain777 I think I made a mountain out of a molehill (no pun intended 😄). It sample only ducks in and out occasionally, and sounds fine. Changing the phase just makes things worse. Thanks for your help and these great videos. I do have one question: is there a way to widen stereo without causing things to go out of phase?
Mild stereo widening shouldn't cause significant phase issues as long as your low end is mono. If you keep everything below about 150hz in the center you shouldn't have problems. What are you using to widen the image? How bad is the phase discorrelation on the meter?
