He’s got a WELL recorded piece of material to work with from jump. That’s HUGELY important! It’s about a clean, undistorted recording to start it off, then the mix is a pleasure!
You can also tell that the producer (Blake and co) did a lot to pre-mix or clean up and added the fx (reverb and delays) that they wanted to get roughly the sound they were looking for before turning it over to the engineer.
This is pure gold right here. Forget about any plugin settings that he's using... the real takeaway is understanding how these guys "think". It's those things that really make you understand the art behind getting a great mix.
I feel like he's genuinely amazing. when he's adjusting the ssl channel strip, he acknowledged that sometimes small eq changes are not noticable instead of saying something that makes it seems like only he can hear the difference because of his pro status. I love it.
i watch so many of these kinds of videos and it seems like the top mix guys get the best stems to work with, which makes sense. Id love to see a video of one of these top engineers get a bag a shit and have to make it sound good no matter what
This is one of the most informative mixing tutorials I've seen. So many subtle decisions adding up to an excellent overall result. Also, it helps when the source material is super well recorded and arranged to begin with.
It's not as in-depth as it may seem. The mix was already dialed in, he spent most of his time advertising Waves plugins lol. This is a video about plugin overviews with a little bit of common sense mixing tactics thrown in here and there
@@mgmg116 Well, of course there is a 'sponsor' and there was either great recording and/ or pre-mix track editing ... and the tracks are labeled 'Stems.' But, note that the title is 'How to find the groove in your mix.' I think this video well demonstrates his approach to this as the builds the mix from drums to vocal to bass, etc. A lot to learn here.
@@dftweedie3021 How the mix was built is based only on what we're being told, as the mix was already done before this video was ever made. Waves simply got him to overview the session, demonstrate some of the mixing practices used, and above all else, highlight the specific Waves plugins used (and to be honest, not necessarily every Waves plugin shown was actually used on the real mix - it may just have been added only for the video to increase hype)
@@mgmg116 Pretty much what I said I think re pre-mix editing and finished stems. If you, I or anyone were given finished stems from a professional studio a few Waves plugins on group busses and a dash of master fader automation might be all that's needed, no? So yes, this isn't the whole story of the journey from raw tracks to submission to a mastering engineer. It's basically the final step. If anyone want's to get serious about gain staging, eq and compression, static mix, parallel compression, routing, etc., then take some courses form Mike White, or David Glenn, etc. Anyway when it come to free internet content my philosophy is 'take what you need and leave the rest.' Happy mixing in 2022!
I love the way this man just explaining as his go in real Time! Very intuitive i can feel the passion Man! I would study and give attention In his presence for days! Nice one... Thanks Waves
@@yoelwww Because his mix is already pretty dialed in and there's probably a lot more going than what's shown here. But it's still cool to watch nevertheless!
@@TheJohnnyjean spot on haha love the part where he goes on about the vocal rider whilst you can see the manual volume automation on the track right behind the plugin, and apparently all you need is the waves ssl channel strip too :)
@@ThatChrisChap haha my thoughts exactly but tbf he does explain that he does not use the volume fader in the mix he uses....wait for it....WAVES VOCAL RIDER. That automation looks hectic. This is for the non-novice me thinks!!
"Use your ears" has become a crutch with the real meaning "We don't know either, but if you act arrogant enough, since clients know even less then you, you'll look confident and they will think you know a lot" that's why high quality now is a much lower quality then some time ago
This was exactly what I needed to get an understanding of workflow and technique. Lots to learn but this video def helped set a direction to experience and build abilities.
One of the best videos on this channel so far. Absolutely brilliant. And I was familiar with this (good) song, so it made it even more enjoyable. Thanks a lot, Waves and Rob!
and humble to like when he did the slight bump to the mid range on the bass and then played it down saying it's not doing anything but that little lift to the strings went a long way in the full mix... he's a fuckin Sorcerer
I do end up with the SSL strip on almost every track but I don't think it adds anything console-like in reality. I just like the EQ and the interface so I reach for it as often as Pro-Q, and in the same way. For console emulation I'm actually using Airwindows Console which is unique among console plug-ins in that it is actually doing something to model the summing itself and not just adding a sonic stamp to each track. I think if you're getting good results it's because you're paying attention and taking care. Rarely this or that tool, but rather which tool was I paying more attention while using. Channel strips are great for maximizing that. And not even Airwindows Console makes everything better all the time. Sometimes I check with it off and prefer the result. It's so subtle, but I do love what it adds. Last time I A/B'd with it on/off, I thought "Wow, that is helping more than I thought and I'm not sure how I'd get its effect without it." Bitch to use though!
It seems like the higher the quality of the music production, the less the mixing engineer has to do. Because a lot of the effects and EQ and stuff is already printed on the files that they receive. All the vocal delays and reverbs seem to be given here as audio tracks so no need to really worry about those. More about setting levels and fine adjusting things to getting everything to work well together.
Tends to be the case at that level as the producers are world class and very clear on their sound deign choices. So the assumption is that purpose made something feel a certain a way or with a certain tone
and yet he still made it better, could you do the same or just end up overdoing it and fuckin it up just saying... mastery is knowing what not to do as much as what to do
I mean… when you’re a high end mixer you’re not getting shitty stems. And you’re usually starting from where they left off. Your job is to take it to the next level, not completely redo it.
This is great, Rob is the man. However, i'd have liked to see his whole vocal processing chain regarding reverbs and delays, panning, stereo widening tricks, etc. I imagined that's because they're not Waves plugins though!
can someone explain to me why the vocal sounds way, wayyy more compressed than just the -2dB the puigchild is doing? does he have a lot of compression going in, beforehand? or (and i just realised this), the producer sent the stems over with quite a lot of their own work on it, including some compression on the vocal? when he plays the "raw" vocal, it still sounds pretty tight, to my ears. would love some illumination on the subject!
Interesting. I try to never have my vocal rider bottom or top out. But I guess if you know how loud or soft you want your vocal, you can just set it there so the level doesn’t fall below or go above.
15:52 Impressive difference introduced by Master Fader Automation. Does this Automation amount to just riding the Master Volume up and down within a small dB range according to the feel of the engineer, or is there anything more elaborate going on under the hood?
Yes, only "elaborate" aspect to consider would be whether you are pushing into anything non-linear (saturation, compression). You can do the master automation before or after such processing. Either can sound good, and of course the handling will feel different.
I just want to find the groove he's talking about, I find it sometimes but after listening to a song for about 10-15 minutes straight the groove just die out.
He’s probably already mixed it. And he’s just showin a few of the steps where he used waves plugins. I doubt that he’d only use waves plugins especially the fact that he used vocal rider. That’s like a cheat plugin that amateurs use
what exactly was he saying . people learn the anatomy of stuffs not the finished product . you start to learn to drive by the manuals before you move. so I feel you should elaborate on the process not showing of the finish .
No disrespect. But I knew this was BS when he said he uses “Vocal Rider”.. The plug-in is for amateurs looking for an easy fix. This is strictly a waves advertising video.. Also, all of his gear looks like mastering equipment. Not stuff a mix engineer would typically use.
