Plugin Alley is a Music Production RU-vid Edutainment Channel focusing on equipping Audio Engineers, Producers & Mixers with the Tools & Tricks they’ll need for a fullfilled and sustainable career in Music Production.
ML Sound Labs rules. I love most of their amp sims. A couple other companies I don't hear talked about enough are Nembrini Audio and Scuffham Amps. Nembrini has several awesome Marshall and Fender-based amp sims. Scuffham is kind of its own weird modular thing. I use it a lot for guitar solos and more big reverby '80s sounds.
Composing music and mixing are one and the same for me, I think it's the best way to learn your way around. Apparent most people don't get you have to know where a great tune is before making it happen. Even mastering as some would have you think really is not a magic trick, experience is definitely a major plus.
Loool wrecking!? Easy there bro, if a channel strip 'wrecks' your mix there's only one person to blame. Channel strips are an amazing tool, but they take years to master. Once you've got the hang of them, there's no turning back! Sounds amazing and really easy to dial in the sound you want quickly.
Good video. I don't think the electric guitars improved, quite the opposite. Always been the case for me, as well; Decapitator usually makes them fizzy and spiky. For guitars, there are better saturators today that I prefer. But Decapitator is still a classic, overall.
We shouldn't forget that Pros (which means they do it for a living, which means they get paid for what they do) get paid to use paid plugins in their videos.
Me? I liked the psycho video style 😅 Kinda entertaining........ Learned about a couple plugins, too 😊 Better than watching some boring dork pretending to be an expert
That song is absolutely terrible and was the worst example you could've possibly used to show off Decapitator with! I literally would've rather heard the "I LOVE YOU" song from Barney & Friends over and over than this! At least that song actually has some low end to it!
Who decides what’s professional. It’s this attitude that’s keeping all the modern output sounding the same. It’s sad the way the young are always looking for rules. Find your own path. Do it for love not clout.
Prospective mixers, do you get tired of all the adjectives used to describe how to mix, which really don't give you any truly useful work strategies? The pros aren't going to just give away their secrets, but only hint at them enough to get you to buy their instructional videos. REAL MIX ADVICE: 1. gear quality DOES matter. There's a reason why the pro's still use mastering studios with the best quality digital converters, and outboard analog gear. If you're using digital samples, they should be of the best quality you can afford. Same goes for your audio interface, and ability of your computer for sample storage and processing, like with multiple drives (i.e., DAW runs on Main OS drive, audio recorded on a separate drive, and samples stored and accessed on its own drive.) 2. a good mix always begins with good recording and song arrangement. It doesn't make sense to have multiple instruments playing in the same music range overlapping each other when they can be played in separate ranges. You will spend more time than it's worth trying to separate them in the mix. 3. about 1/3 of all mixes that sound 'muddy' is because of not addressing phase issues between instruments, especially with instruments recorded live. If a bass guitar was recorded live while next to the drummer's snare, etc., there will be mike bleed in both instrument's mikes. If their waveforms are not in the same direction, they will cancel each other out, ie, reduce their volume. Flip the phase on one of those instruments and if the volume gets louder, then you know you had phase cancellation. Trying to mix balance instruments with phrase problems means chasing your tail trying to get them to sit right in the mix. You will wind up applying all kind of FX and wasted EQ settings, and it will still sound 'muddy'. 4. Listen to each raw track and clean up any digital artifacts (pops, etc.). Setup an Instrument Bus for each category of instruments and send those instruments to them (like a separate Bus for the guitars, another Bus for the drums, another Bus for the bass, another Bus for the vocals, etc.). Then send all those instrument Buses to the Stereo Bus. (I often create a Mix Bus to send all those to, and then send the Mix Bus to the Stereo Bus). 5. Find the lowest frequency of each track and do a low cut from there below. Even though you might not hear much in those low areas where instrument is not heard, playing all the tracks together can show up things like electrical hum (50 or 60Hz), etc. It will waste your potential use of the low end with unnecessary noise. Also, with the low end of the mix, be careful of boosting anything below 30Hz. Majority of Pro monitors only cover low range to around 30-35Hz. 6. Do a 'rough' mix of the tracks first, volume balance and panning ONLY. No FX yet. Put a Limiter on the Stereo Bus, and set it to take care of the 'occasional' over, 1-2dB (i.e., anything above 0.0 dB Peak is an 'over' and will cause digital distortion). Use the Gain function of your DAW for each track that is either too loud, or too soft. With analog mix desks they had a volume pot for each fader so as to get each fader volume in the middle of its mix range. You want the fader volume to stay in the yellow. If your rough mix is driving your stereo bus into the red, then find the track that is causing it, or select all the faders and bring the whole mix level down. Shoot for -3 to -5dB on the Peak meter. You want to leave headroom for mastering. It might be even less for Jazz or Classical mixes. Should pick an area of the waveform where the highlight of the mix is, or loudest section. 7. Apply EQ next with your first track in Solo. Do 'subtractive EQ' first. Start with a track that is the driving source for the type of song. Some only go for the kick or bass track and drum kit first. Some start with the vocal. Try different mixes starting with a different track. What this does is that you will focus on that first track like it's an anchor for the rest of the mix. You will at times do this focus naturally. Sweep the stereo range with a narrow Q on the EQ and cut out (or reduce) noisy areas, with a narrow Q, starting with a -3dB reduction so you can hear it. 7.a. Getting your kick and bass balance -- mute either the kick or bass, and play the mix, then adjust the volume of unmuted one until it fits in the mix. Then mute that one, and play the other and adjust it to fit into the mix. Then unmute both and listen, both bass and kick should sound in the right balance with each other. If not, then's it's subtractive EQ time. 8. Pick the next track and Solo it with the first track, so they are hear together. Then apply EQ to the 2nd track. If the 2 tracks 'mask' each other (in same freq. areas), might have to swap cuts between them, to make space for each one. Continue the mix like this, adding one track at a time, gradually building the mix with all tracks mixed. 9. Some mixers do the above while listening in Mono. It is sometimes easier to hear 'masking' between instruments. One should sometime during the mix check it in MONO, because phase issues also show up easily in Mono. 10. Apply 'creative' EQ. This is where you tweak your tracks in special frequency areas that you want brought out more for the mix. It may be dependent on the point where a certain instrument is playing in the song, Your EQ boosts should be with a wider Q. 11. Gain staging -- on your plugins, you have an option for bypass or turning them off so you can compare the sound before and after applying the effect. Notice the volume 'before' the effect, and set the plugin output volume to match that. This is the only way you will hear what your plugin did to the audio. Reason why to do this is because our ears are sensitive to volume changes; everything appears to sound better when the volume is boosted, so it can fool your ears when applying FX. Same goes for using any plugin. The idea is to keep the volume balances of your original 'rough mix'. 12. Apply compression. The general rule is "compress often, but only a little". If a vocal needs taming, it's better to use more than one compressor in series with each hitting only a little, like 1-2dB. Just using one comp on a strong signal can overcome that compressor and cause it sound like it's pumping. But if that pumping is what you want, on purpose, go for it. Not every track will need a compressor, so try to resist the desire to setup an EQ and compressor on each track when starting the mix. It is common to have a compressor on an instrument bus, like a Bus where all the drums are sent to, and also a compressor on the Stereo Bus. 13. Vocals -- special consideration is required to edit a vocal track. If certain vowels or consonants are not heard you can edit the vocal track specific spot with use a Gain function on that spot. Anything you don't want in the vocal you do the same with cutting that spot with a Gain function. I did editing in Pro Tools for a producer once that didn't like the breath noise of a certain vocalist, and he had me cut all the breathing spots out of the vocal track. I didn't agree with doing that a lot, but that's what he wanted. Sometimes a compressor just won't be enough for vocal processing, so this editing is what you have to do. 14. Reverb and FX -- at this point you're ready to add stereo FX. Doing a rough mix, EQ and compression are your main mix stages though. Create a Reverb Bus for each of your reverb(s), and put an EQ plugin on each Reverb Bus. Use your DAW's Send feature of each track to point to whichever reverb you want. That way you won't use up as much computer resources. Reverb, especially convolution reverbs, are resource heavy. So putting a separate reverb on each track is a waste of computer resources. With EQ, cut out frequencies of the Reverb that aren't needed. I hear the mistake of those who just slap a reverb on an instrument and set it, and the track's full stereo range is heard at the reverb output. (But if you're going for that sound, then go for it.) For example, with an instrument recorded close-miked, there's not much of the room recorded with it. So it's important to simulate the instrument being back a couple of feet from the mike. Use a short reverb for this, with some of high freq. range of the reverb cut back, and the bass end of the reverb cut up to around 300hZ. Then for more 'room' sound, you might cut those reverb ranges a bit less, still using a slightly longer reverb. For a concert hall reverb sound, you'd boost (wide Q) the high range of the reverb a little, while still cutting out some of the low end of the reverb. Raise the level of the reverb until you can just begin to hear it, then back off a little.
He basically did. Because each plugin uses a different internal reference level, -18bfd for waves, -12dbfs for Ik the input and output knobs aren’t gonna match unless he volume adjusted the audio playback going in. But the attack and release were set the same. But even then there is so much variation between 1176 models in the real world, the plugins numbers probably won’t match cause they modelled different units. So 1 to 1 parameter matching is never gonna be a truly useful comparison. The best thing to do, and he probably didn’t do it, is preset the sounds he was running to each compressor so that the playback was 6db hotter for the t racks 76. Then use an external utility gain plugin after it to bring it back down 6db. Then you are getting a closer idea of the THD each model would ideally impart. But even then, you’re gonna fine tune by ear once you’re in the ballpark. Every 1176 plugin is as different as every 1176. It’s best to use a combination of settings and your ear to judge, like he did.
Простите что говорю на русском, новы можете это перевести. Я вот скачал бесплатно пак плагинов, в котором был tse 50. Я зашел в него, атам говорят "нутд жно вписать email и password". Я написал правильно, неработает, потомвторой раз, также(пишет chek email qnd password). Ну и в общем так и не получилось, подскажитекак им пользоваться, пожалуйста
les deux sont presques similaires. Mais pour moi le 2a de tr5 est plus propre , il ne colore pas le son comme le cla 2a. Et je pense que le 2a de tr5 a legerement une attaque plus rapide que le cla 2a . si je veux rendre une voix colorée et un peu agressive je choisis le cla 2a et si je veux une voix propre je choisis le 2a de tr5
I just bought the T-racks 5 Max bundle for €49. Maybe they made a mistake 😂 Crazy deal. Really impressed with how they sound and they’re pretty light on CPU.
I did the same thing a few weeks ago. Great bundle! I did a bunch of test running 32 to 128 instances and feeding white noise at -6 db on each track to see the CPU toll. Their own processors like the Classice Compressor, Opto Comp etc seem to be the lightest, excluding the brickwall limiter. Then the next in line are the compressor and EQ emulations like the White 2A, Black 76, 670 and the 33609 Emu - these seem to be quite light, but slightly heavier than my cubase native plugins, then the Distressor and Brickwall limiter seem to be fairly CPU intensive and all of the Reel to Reel and Tape Emulations are insanely CPU hungry, where 4 instances of the Teac or Tascam, use my full CPU power at a Buffer Size of 2048! I know these were emulated very well from a component perspective and when you disable internal chains like the Transport Modeling they free up some CPU resources, also as far as im aware, all of the IK plugins are oversampling by default and the only way to turn off the oversampling is to run your project at 96khz, however I did a test and at 96Khz they use the same amount of CPU even though the oversampling is off. While the Reel to Reel and Tape emulations are oversampling much higher, I read somewhere up to 8 or 16 times to get that sound quality and they really do sound amazing. PS: im running a 2021 Intel MacBook Pro with the strongest i9 in the series (The one with more cash and slower clock, when compared to the previous year model, which was running more cycles but was overheating in the tight chassy and was actually slower due to this) , 32gb DDR4 and a PCIE SSD, so its easy to say some of these are incredibly CPU intensive but when used correctly shine bright.
@@phadrus Sounds like a PITA. While the deal is good, I should probably play with what I’ve paid for already. Collecting plugins I’ll never use is probably an addiction we all have.
I would argue that if you don't know how to listen to your mix or any mix and know what sounds like shit and what doesn't then why are you trying to become a mixer? That would mean that you have no ear for music and lack the passion for the intricacies in nuances present in a good mix engine good music in general to drive someone to become hungry to explore that. Did you just see someone who was a mixer or hear about mixing or something like that and get romanticized and you're trying to become this idea you have of a mixer? Or are you doing it from the ground up starting with your passion and your desire to work out the essence in the magic in the music and in the mix. If you need explanations like the ones in this video to help you understand how to listen to a mix or what to listen for and I would argue that you're barking up the wrong tree to begin with. Not everything is for everyone.
