Oh, man, mixing is like a whole universe. I discover a new thing every damn day...and I love it! I was naturally using a kind of micro-automation but now I'll emphasize it so I can get the most of my mixes!
Your content is enabling me to bring music back into my life in a significantly satisfying way. Thank you so much for putting this stuff out for the world to learn. Cheers.
Automation and, as you say, micro-automation is absolutely critical, and it's what separates an amateur mix from professional one. I recently uploaded a short overview of a death metal drum automation where you can see level, aux send and even eq automation being applied on this micro level. It really helped make the drum, and overall sound, more organic and dynamic.
Allowing processing to do your mix for you is a mistake. Even early automated consoles, yes I was part of that, we always used tons of automation to mix. We had only a few processors so that was printed to track. This sounds like things coming back around with even more control. Great video
Great info. Relying heavily on dynamic tools can never be as good as fader chasing for that artistic and zesty feel to the mix. You can hear it on all the classics.. Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons, Steely Dan, etc. Also, it is present in Motown, jazz, and tons more genres, new and old
I follow Jordan's channel for cool tutorials like this and I don't even mix metal music. I dig various metal styles tho. Thanks for this awesome tips, J!
Thanks for the tip. Sounds really daunting... Whenever I've tried automating with a control surface I feel like I need to edit it anyway. And doing this on every track... Whew. Anyway, I'll try it. I loved that Silverstein album btw!
This works very well with a lead vocal as well. I will do volume automation or send automation very lightly to the leading phrases up to the impact part of the vocal. Small raise in volume before the impact makes it huge difference. Also automate a long reverb swell in vocal pauses just a tad.
Yea. U can also send the mix into a limiter that has a not too fast release based on the bpm time. (60000 ÷ bpm) Then if u dont put it too much into it, or the release too fast, you can make a cool pumping sound that is in sync with the tracks bpm. Its good for making a mix sound ghetto, or doing a pumping effect on purpose for dance or edm/rave or rage type songs.
This was really cool, and helpful! It made me think of when I program drums. I start with the same velocity just to get the initial idea down. And then go through and fine tune the velocity hits to make it more dynamic. Broad strokes first, then fine tune.
Great stuff that many mixers ignore because it's "too much work". For me it's an essential part of the recording/arrangement stage, it's like being a conductor of an orchestra (and for orchestral music especially if you ignore this stuff the VSTs/sample libraries just sound beyond fake and lifeless).
So does anyone know how to automate that fast?For me even automating the vocals only takes 1-2 hours,kinda painful if every track should be automated this detailed...
You should grab a midi controller with faders and record the automation with it. Have in mind that long ago when mixes were made in big consoles you still could grab a couple of them at the same time
@@hardcoremusicstudio any suggestions? is a trackpad good I think a trackpad that you could assign all 10 fingers to automate 10 different tracks if needed would be cool for extra control. Also as a reaper user there's no easy way to select all the automation on all tracks or a group of tracks to make those all important balance moves without selecting the whole automation on each individual track then moving dB where desired, remembering the dB change and applying it on each individual track .....and when your mixing and constantly balancing groups of tracks without an easy solution to this it will take huge chunks out of your time what's your solution to this?
I disagree. A control surface isntaccurate enough for this kind of thing. Unless you feel like having to redo it over and over and again until you like it. I just use my mouse. After awhile it gets really quick. This way instead of all those little points being left. Its easy to adjust anything you need to after when its just a few points. Trying to hit .5 and then .9 exactly with the fader is pretty much impossible.
Hi Jordan. Automation is necessary for making a static mix to breath again. But if you enhance the dynamics with automation, wont they be flatten again in mastering?
I also had the same thought... but I think that besides the kick (and the snare perhaps), the rest won't trigger the master bus limiter. And if to be used a limiter on individual track, the whole automation would make sense to me after the limiter... And even for the kick and snare... if the limiter won't gain reduce as much as the dynamic range of the automation, it would still make sense to do it... This is my theory. :)
Thanks a lot for your tips, really great job! I have a little question, do you automate the volume of the fader or you're automating the gain volume of the trim plug in?
This is wizzardry man! I mean, not at all, but it is lol. Been trying to add that to my mixes since you taught me that in your courses (Mario Torres) but I still look at your tracks and some are micro automated from start to finish. Can't grasp well how you can even think about so many points to automate. I guess is practice. Need to mix more indeed.
That is very interesting and I'm gonna try this in my next mixes. It seems to be a very creative process. I would like to know yout opinion about the "rear bus compression". Maybe you could make a video about this?
Question about volume automation in Logic: If you volume automate a track you can’t use the volume slider anymore afterwards right? Because it will always jump back to your automation curve. Does anyone have a truck for that? Is it the write mode of the automation? Or gain automation instead of volume?
There’s two solutions, either automate a gain plug-in and use the slider after the fact, or automate the slider and use the gain plug-in as your volume control.
Is there an automation mode similar to Touch mode, but where if you let go of the fader it automatically moves back to unity gain? So you can have a baseline volume, and do these small movements of automation. I'm using a presonus faderport.
Not sure about your hardware, but when editing the automation in, in the daw, you're doing basically that. Set a point to raise it and then another point to bring it back down. I use reaper and it's pretty simple to edit in the volume and pan, etc automations with a few mouse clicks. It doesn't graphically show my faders going up and down to match the automation but you can hear it happening
@@Spoofaged Reaper can show the movement of faders too. You have to set automation mode to "Read" on the track itself and then arm the automation track. Both the track and mixer faders will then move while playing back
@@timokurka8742 oh cool, thanks for the info Timo! I knew it worked in the background easily so I never did any digging to figure out if I could make the faders move.
Jordan, it’s so cool, thank you, for what’s you’re doing! Btw did you find any plugin... “Maker” to create and develop plugins? If “yes”, PLEASE think about to make SansAmp PSA emulation like in Pro Tools. For me, it’s the best emulation of sans amp
Dude, I'm using Cubase and there's a plugin I had that emulated the SansAmp....I think it was called AXP SoftAmp. It was great but now I use STL Tonehub or Neural's Parallax.
I never thought expansion would be rebranded with more syllables. "Micro automation". That's very Bay street. The PR types always make phrases of existing words: Customer "brand ambassador" .......... I bet if you add an "ality" at the end you will achieve supreme influencer status. Example: "Your track's dynamic range is squished due to it's micro automationality. You should probably redynamificate manually instead of using the tool as old as a compressor that happens to be on damn near every console in Toronto." Or is micro automation a thing you do to bump up hours spent on a project?
The word "automation" seems like a misnomer. It is not automatic. Really, you are deciding in details the volume and tracing it up or down by hand. I started doing this on my vocals a long time ago, but not so much on all instruments.
Cool, I'd like to know what kind of criteria you have when you use automation on vocals. Like turning some dbs down when it's too loud or adding a couple dbs when you want to emphasize a specific sentence?
it's automation because you're automating the faders, they automatically move on their own after you "set" them instead of trying to have 18 fingers for every track you want to automate. it's a quite literal name.
@@rmv2333 I record at home, so I edit it by ear after I'm done singing each section of the song. I use my mouse and the automation lane in my DAW, no faders. First, I look for the loudest peaks and softest parts and listen to see if they sound too extreme and use my ears to correct them syllable by syllable. I usually try to make the first word of the section loud and clear. Sometimes the proximity effect of the mic can make one word sound louder than I expected. I may record some parts again or comp. I am a dynamic singer. Then I solo the whole thing again listening for noise in empty spaces and remove them with the automation. I also listen in context of the mix if I have all the instrument tracks to make sure all the words can be understood, but that is better to do later if there is a mixing engineer.
Plenty of solid mixes and mixers without automation, shouldn't be a crutch. In my opinion, it should be decided or driven by the artist's decisions. You could end up influencing what "they" don't want influenced, and it is their art, specific intentions should be decided by them not you.
:) a thing I kinda don’t like, is when a title of a video let’s me click on it, and you need almost two minutes in a 7 minute video to get to the point, where the title already got me in first place.
yep. it's called riding the faders. when did this go away? oh yeah never. it has and will always be done in studio and live. it's a shame you present this like it's new to sell your courses.
That's not accurate at all. With in the box mixing becoming so popular (esp without control surfaces), taking the time/knowing to do this kind of automation is a lot rarer than you'd think.
@@readysteadysteroids good thing your fact checking. stupidity or lack of gear is no excuse. it was still presented like this is a new thing with no reference to how it is\used to be done. all in the name of making a buck by selling a course.
