I forgot to mention if you have a stereo bass that collapses badly to mono, remaking into stereo with any of these methods still doesn't improve the mono, instead you can use a utility plugin to playback only the left or right side as the middle instead of the mono sum , that is a usually a big improvement, and then you can re-stereo it I also totally forgot Steve Duda (Xfer) made a free dimension expander plugin, I had already figured it out by that point and have just been in the habit of using a delay to do it. You can just go grab that instead. At least you know how it works now though!
I watched probably 100 hours of music production tutorials on RU-vid. I normally don"t write comments, but this just hits different! Thanks for sharing your hard earned knowledge, with the people.
*Important: please bare in mind when I say things like "parallel distortion is not going to work", My advice is largely intended for beginners and these are initial guidelines that will help you (or rather keep you 'out of trouble' ) in a majority of scenarios. I break these 'rules' all the time, because I know why , where , when and how through experience. Until you gather that same experience my advice always errs on the side of caution.
Any chance you might do a video breaking down tracks like “1949” by Honey and Badger? Maybe explaining what elements of those tracks are beginner friendly vs not beginner friendly etc? Hopefully that question makes sense in a way that is relevant to the purpose of your channel 😂
I’ve been watching tons of tutorials for the last 7 years, and man, let me tell you, you are the best so far. I wish I had learnt from you since the beginning. Keep going!
4:26 one thing to note about the phase shift comment... you're using a 24db per octave slope on your highpass! This creates two points of 180° phase shift! One of those points occurs ABOVE the cutoff, so that filter is actually rearranging the phase quite a bit! Not that it matters. The phase relationship of a bass sound is not as predictable as "phase shift bad". Phase shift is bad, but ONLY if the phase has been carefully tuned to maximize headroom previously. Phase shift is also bad if you saturate your bass before you use the filter. It's simple enough to find a good phase relationship between your bass fundamental and its overtones. Just buss the synths, just tweak the phase of the sub, while inspecting the waveform through an oscilloscope, until the peaks are minimized. The reason it's a good idea to separate sub-bass instruments SPECIFICALLY is because when the notes combine, they can cause really long cancellations. Its the same phenomenon as dissonant notes creating "beating", except low frequencies' beating sounds way more noticeable.
I just came back from Hard Summer 2024. While I think I have a pretty diverse taste in music, I’m mainly a Hip-Hop/Rap head. Hearing so much House music in two days while dancing nonstop has literally made me realize how sick the House genre is. Been producing, mixing, and mastering my own music for 4 years now and you were the first channel I came across when I looked up tutorials on House (cause at this point I’m addicted lol). I gotta say, I feel lucky AF to be listening to your years of knowledge and experience. I’m remixing all my old songs into house mixes and it’s about to be so much fun cause of you. Thank you!
That "energy pool" analogy with the pink noise has to be THE BEST explanation I have ever heard... and I have studied audio production and engineering, attended many masterclasses (including several tutored by some of the world's biggest producers), and, of course, watched a three billion RU-vid videos on the subject, over the last 25 years. Fair play! First vid of yours I've ever seen, and you have a new subscriber 👌👌👌
it feels like like im in the club, but im also learning how the beat is working too. Never have i wanted a dj set where the dj explains everything they're doing, this is great!
Watched countless music production channels (and some are actually very good), but I now consider this one as the best. Straight to the point, simple and clear explanations, also very good tastes, no endless "hey guys thanks for blablabla" introduction or 1min VPN advert. PLUS you spend a moment to show your presets and sometimes share patches for free. Experience sharing and generosity at his best, HATS OFF for Bthelick.
Been watching vids/producing for nearly a decade and can confirm tutorials like yours feel like they consolidated years…if only I had these back when I started. Newbies you don’t know how good you got it with this dude
I have the impression I have just discovered the Holy Grail of “how to” shape sound tutorials. Dude, if I can cal you like this😅, you are the most clear, informative teacher I've heard on YT. THANK YOU for sharing your knowledge.
Being an expert is one, but true mastery is shown in the way someone is willing to, and being capable of transferring knowledge in a way learners are able to follow throughout the process. Coffee ☕️ it is! Thanks 🙏🏻
Such a great way of explaining ! Easily the best source of knowledge on this platform. Would love to see a video on stereo width in piano house/tech the panning and where certain instruments belong in the mix.
Regarding panning, I just don't tbh. It's a personal choice but for anything essential to the groove I don't pan for the reason that I don't want people on one side of the club getting a different thing to those on the other. If I have lots of backing vocal layers I usually pan those across the spectrum. For the rest I usually just let stereo things be stereo and that's where the track gets its width from. As for where stuff "belongs" , that's up to you, Do what feels good to you! There's no rules in art (although most might tell you to keep the kick and bass down the middle haha)
I thought I had everything under control, but the low end still felt a bit of a mystery at times. The scientific explanation in this video made everything super clear. And it is really obvious when you think about it. The STFU tool also made it much better as I used to sidechain everything to the same control. Thank you, now my low end is groovy! :D
20:02 quick correction. Sample rate reduction doesn't cause any ringing! When you just reduce the sample rate to introduce aliasing (which is those higher, metallic tones), it doesn't have any effect on the timing or length of the tones. It simply shifts the higher frequencies (already present in the signal) around the spectrum, similarly to frequency shifters. Still a good tip to use the transient shaper & gate on the aliased harmonics. It sounds unnatural for these high frequencies to sustain so long, because in nature, high frequencies decay faster. So this technique reintroduces some natural sound.
Love the tutorial. Would love a tutorial that explains more in depth phase issues, especially with bass and kick. You mention in this video about how LP filters can cause phase issues. Would love more explanation into that.
19:07 to clarify: distortion ITSELF does not destroy phase relationships. When the plugins have their own mix knob, they just blend in the regular dry signal. However, if a plugin has OVERSAMPLING, then that's what destroys phase relationships. The plugins blend the parallel signal before the downsampling step, which is the part that causes phase shift. If your distortion plugin avoids oversampling, it will be OK to use for parallel distortion. It will produce exactly zero unintended consequences. Most plugins let you have your cake and eat it too, though. Mix knobs that work with oversampling are fairly common in well-built plugins. Interesting, distortion itself actually changes no existing phase relationships. It adds new harmonics, whose phase relationships are perfectly tuned to decrease peak levels. Distortion is the best louder-maker tool available, even in parallel!
Yes. But even with no oversampling many processors use eqs / crossovers and other tools pre/post to shape the distortion behavior, and not always in a clean pre/post emphasis relationship. For those new to this I just find it easier to tell them to steer clear unless the drive itself has a mix parameter (although I've heard of few of those get it wrong too) because they won't have the ears to spot the comb filtering. Thanks for the clarifications though 👊
I’ll never forget the time I played my new track to a massive crowd in front of my peers and there was no synth on the drop, just kick and bass 😅 Trust the video, ALWAYS check in mono!
You are literally the BEST. From the format, to the content, and the way you articulate it all; beautifully done good sir. I would go to say you may be the GOAT in 2023. With 14 years of producing experience, I am finding your tutorials super informative and helpful. Thank you brotha
Maybe you could boost the music a bit in the "listening" section, so i wont have to turn up the volume to listen, and then get my ears blasted by your crispy delicious voice
Sorry yeah it's always a tough balance. I have it set so It does boost when I stop talking but it can't adjust for subtle sounds. If you're talking about those sub only sections that's a sign your listening environment might need some improvement, the levels to my ears are mostly equal.
Voxengo sound delay is really good for stereo manipulation. I have been using it for many many years to add a we bit of stereo offset to higher frequencies. It can require more filtering to keep Bass clean but i find it works well instead of stereo touch many times.
Are you saying you add it back to the dry signal? Because Sound delay just delays the signal in time. Stereo touch is just a delay too, but added back to signal and phase inverted per ear. So sound delay does exactly the same thing , minus the wet dry mix, phase and filler options.
@@Bthelick I just enjoy the "hands on" options of sound delay. It's a handy tool for many things and does one thing very accurately. On a send or duplicate track it's very handy to add some stereo information to whatever a person may wish to along with an EQ etc. Just figured I'd mention it when I saw you using stereo touch. Good videos.
@@Bthelick oh yeah but using sound delay on only one channel or on only the mid or side channel was the way I meant. It's the only way I use it so I guess I didn't mention that. The channel routing and controls are changeable in a menu.
Hey B! Regarding stereo imaging of bass, I have a (probably) noobie question. Let's say you have a bass top layer that is pretty wide and sounds great in stereo, but sounds weak in mono. However, upon checking for phase issues, you find there there are none at all. What would be your solution in a situation like this? A) Use a mid-EQ to boost centre frequencies (this makes it a little muddier!) B) Use an imager to simply reduce stereo (but this will come at the cost of making it sound less nice when playing in stereo) C) Its a top layer bass (with barely any frequencies below 100Hz) - there are definitely no phase issues! If there are no phase issues, then it shouldn't sound "weaker" in mono - you're overthinking! Little MCQ for ya! Many thanks from Canada 🍻
@@Bthelick The bass in question is a Serum bass roll/pluck with a soft HPF (Ableton EQ8) at 147Hz (so not too many low and likely phase-cancelling frequencies). It is a pretty wide sound, generally speaking. What I did to check for phase issues is solo only the bass roll + my sub, pan one all the way to the left, and pan the other all the way to the right, then observe SPAN's correlometer. It hovers at around negative 0.20 to positive 0.10 when I do this. This indicates no phase issues right? My method could be wrong - you know best! I also repeated this for my kicks, toms, and any other instruments that produce low frequencies (and compared them to my bass rolls). Same results - more or less hover around 0 in the correlometer. The only thing I can think of that may be causing phase issues is the Serum sound (bass roll) itself, since I have a lot of delay and reverb on this sound. But I can't pan/solo Serum's reverb effect or delay effect to test it this way. Here, I rely on keeping the bass roll as is (no panning), and observing SPAN's correlometer - it hovers at around 0.50 to 1.00. Is this indicative of phase issues? In your opinion, what is the best way to look for phase issues? Am I doing it wrong? Thanks again!
I was going through this one more time and I can't stress enough how well the content is structured and how you build up from the bass fundamentals (literally) to the stereo field. There are subtle and simple notes (e.g. chorus is practically a delay or distortion energy distribution) that add up to the huge difference in comparison to other similar content out there. Again, happy new year! I am personally looking forward to your future recordings.
I rarely comment on the videos man, but this is pure art. One of the best music production videos I have ever seen. Would love to see you do a track in style of Terminal Underground. Keep up the good work
hey man i just want you to know. you're giving insane advice and for free. plus its so simple to understand. you dont get enough credit, THANK YOU!!! KEEP MAKING TUTORIALS
A Free widening plugin with a Freq cut off for mid/side, is Wider 2 (polyverse). I've metered it with Span mid/side set up, and it definitely is doing what it says on the tin (albeit with a fairly relaxed slope...)
I’ve been loving watching your videos. Your commentary makes them so valuable! Super impressive how you clearly explain what and why you’re doing things. To clarify your comment about distortions and phase, I’m guessing you’re only talking about distortions that apply some type of eq/filtering under the hood? Simple distortion processes like soft/hard clipping or any sort of waveshaping shouldn’t affect phase whatsoever, yes? Distortions that don’t apply colouring via filtering should be A-ok to mix in parallel, I believe.
Clippers are usually fine yeah. Regarding distortion there are just too many cases, usually more bad than not to blanket recommend trying it that's all. It's just a rule of thumb to save beginners from getting into trouble, there will always be exceptions. 👊
I would like to add one interesting detail. Before you can navigate the pink noise on the spectrum analyzer, it must be properly configured. The analyzers have a Slope parameter that allows you to rotate the spectrum. And it must be adjusted so that pink noise shows a flat horizontal line. This is due to the fact that in pink noise all frequencies with the same time fall into our "zone of attention". And by adjusting the analyzer in such a way that the noise is horizontal, we make the analyzer work as our "zone of attention". What will be the correct display of the operation of frequencies. That is, we will see them as they are read by our perception. Meld's analyzer works like this by default, by the way. After such manipulations, you can already turn the noise itself, balancing between high and low frequencies to our taste using the Tilt filter in any good equalizer, be it Pro Q or Kirchoff. And as always. Great video!
Thank you! I thought white noise was supposed to measure flat? I have the slope on my Span set to 0 for that. Well that and to be it always looked more like what I was hearing.
@@Bthelick It's quite interesting that you use white noise. For my taste, it sounds quite aggressive in the upper frequencies. And pink is very close to all sounds in nature. It is enough to go outside in this wonderful summer and listen to how the leaves rustle with the wind, and you will find that everything is suitable for pink noise. In general, this gives a more matte sound. But in your case, a very good technique would be to raise the upper frequencies on pink noise, which will sound the most pleasant.
@@young_neal5947 I agree, that's why I used it, pink is much closer to a natural distribution. I meant using white noise to calibrate a meter only. Because that resulting slope on sound is how I perceive it irl , in a good room with flat calibrated subs I perceive more bass at equal level naturally, probably because bass vibrates the body too.
@@Bthelick I got you. This is a detail I didn't know. In any case, I'm very glad that I found your channel and have already watched a lot of stuff you've made. It's nice when everyone understands.
A little bit of compression can help too. But I agree that soundesign + tone shaping using effects, stereo effects are the more important part of anything music related actually
Sure, for a live bass guitar player, but what is there to compress in edm? Most bases produced by a synth don't have any dynamics to compress at all. I haven't needed to compress a bass (or drums) for over half a decade now. I find most who think the compression is helping are usually just getting fooled by the fact it's simply been made louder by the make up gain.
Amazing video as always! For me Voxengo Span displayed completely wrong frequencies for the spikes. Was so confused but switched to ableton's spectrum analyzer plugin and got it working. 😀
Damn. What an amazing teacher ! May god bless you. Amazing explanation your advise is gold ! Thankyou sir. Enjoy a coffee on me. Never change like the other teachers blinded by money and adverts and talking nonsense for extra length videos for more ££££. Taking in and advertising sponsors they don’t really believe in.
It's downward slope ONLY if you set span slope to 0, Span and most EQs have +4.5 slope by default so noise is straight line. Downward slope is "old" way of displaying spectrum and most youngsters use only default settings.
I like the approach... Laying out conceptual groundwork can be done just fine in the simplest of manners, then work out the technical details when people understand what the hell is even going on :D This is lost on many well-intentioned mentors. I've been fiddling with FL on and off, and being a wise-ass (ironically speaking anyway) I never gave much thought to the concept of actually trying to learn something. Since getting more serious I've been swimming in big ideas I'm not even ready for with all the info I've been taking in, but this video somehow made a lot of stuff click. Really took a lot from a 22 min clip and will def be checking out the rest! Plus, this vid had a groovy groove to it all along the way. Be careful, or people will start calling you hip! Pew-pew-pew!
Ok, official now, watching this on my iPad and EarPods, they suck in separating base sections. Next time listen this again on my monitors or hd650. I once learned everything below 200hz can’t be recognized in means of direction, aka stereo in that frequency area would be useless. Not sure if it’s true, however subwoofers are single speakers. Quite funny actually, people paying huge amounts of money for mono stuff like Sonos and yelling it’s suberb audio. I can remember us all having stereo sets when I was young, what progress 😂
Well, very high end systems do have stereo subwoofer set ups , but that's for audiophile grade playback of audiophile recordings. Or cinema format. For club music, and anything for consumer systems or vinyl release we have to be mindful of sub coherency in mono
@@Bthelick I know a guy with such a system, he hates everything digital. If I show him all the options in Ableton, stuff like eq's, compressors and other digital mangling of an audio signal he's gonna get a missfit. Completely different kind of animal ;) I'm happy with my mono subwoofer next to my monitors. It's probably a blessing not to have a to good (audiophile) hearing, what you can't hear can't annoy you 🤣
who are you and where did you come from? your knowledge is astonishing. this will for sure be one of my favs music production channels. question: did you program the bpb saturator plugin to automatically reduce the output or does the plugin do it by itself? if you did it, how?
Thankyou. Yes I used the rack system in Ableton to assign both parameters to 1 macro knob (with opposite value ranges) You can do similar in logic, reaper, and FL studio too as far as I'm aware.
I love your videos! One thing I was confused on... In the beginning when you were explaining pink noise the track was playing in the background and because I didn't know what pink noise was it took me few watches and some googling to figure out that the background music had nothing to do with what was on the screen lol
wonderful stuff really helpful man! would love to see this kinda indepth look into how u process drums!. already liked, subbed and hit the bell! keep going bro!
Eq can be ok , in higher frequencies, and very much depends what's in the sound already and what part it is playing. . Eq on the low frequencies can only really work if the bass is on 1 note, otherwise as soon as the bass moves note the eq is no longer in the correct place, and you just end up with some notes louder than others.
@@Bthelick Yeah, i kind of "figured out" that bass parts packed with notes must be eq'd veeeery carefully. And also "kind of" coming to terms with changing bass or kick or whatever entirely for the sake of track working better. Can't eq the ego though yet)
