Jaime Parada Dear Chris I am inspired by you and what you do and learn everything what you do cause I practice mixing music production and techniques I have on my you tube Playlist of sound samples and mixes
(Sharing my Notes) 1. Eq before compression depending on what your trying to accomplish 2. CLA Master buss on the Master Buss with an Aux (pre master ch) feeding the Master Buss to hit Vu meter at -3 of reduction 3. CLA 76 blue is more gritty Black is cleaner choose the one that your tasting 4. Gain Staging use a meter and stage accordingly 5. Mono to stereo is useful to add efexcts like in CLA effects sections of the plug-ins 6. Color Code your tracks before you start so you can mix not search . 7. Parallel Compression is more used by CLA in the analog world because it's harder to get that extra 5% vs in the digital world. Parallel is sending the group or what ever element you want to add top or bottom feel to it, and sending it to an Aux with a compressor that is compresing hard and re adding that signal back in to taste. 8. The trick to add depth and demention and with, is don't compress everything and if you do, do it so it's un noticed, Eq to serve the song, put affects while the track is playing not in solo, 9. LCR 10. To create interesting sections in a mix you fool the listener to focus on subtle things before the next section comes in. 11. CLA unplugged uses a lot on Pianos by CLA it has two reverbs and it's sexy on Vocals and creates huge image 12. Dancing while mixing is a must when your having fun like CLA Recap - set your self up for success, have a vision, have great gain structure, CLA plugins can get you there faster.
The tone of virtually every statement he makes seems to suggest this is actually obvious. That positively amuses me. Thanks, Chris. You do your part to get us going.
Chris has helped me take my mixes from just awful and falling apart on different stereos to very listenable, especially with drums. His mixdown plug i got on sale for 30 bucks and its worth so much more. Between him and steven slate drilling 'there's no wrong way to make a sound' a record i have been working on for years with frustration has become enjoyable, fun and better sounding. Chris is my basement and i build from there. I'm no longer overwhelmed and lost. Thanks Chris for making music fun again.
Legend! I love how he’s sorta pissed off through the whole video like before he came, his dogs pooped all over his carpets but didn’t have time to clean it all up to get to the session on time, so in the back of his mind he’s thinking about how he’s gotta go back home to clean it all up while the situation is coloring his temperament.
To think im watching this legend for free giving a mix class blows my mind. This guy is the god of mixing, be grateful he takes time to do this for us starting. Thank u CLA !!!
Why so much hate? Every mixer is different. Chris goes on instinct. He didn't finish pedagogy. He just mixes awesome music and tries to show us how. Try to learn something from anybody that comes into your path instead of judging. Judging takes RAM and buffer up. Just sayin'.
Exactly, people saying that he can't teach or that this was garbage are completely missing the point here. He isn't trying to sell us on these plug ins, he just simply states that he uses them because he's familiar with what they do. The questions he is being asked are pretty stupid for the most part and the big point here is that none of that even matters, and that's what I learn the most from CLA. It's not about overthinking and worrying about stuff that ultimately doesn't matter. CLA has nothing to teach, he just simply knows how to EQ and balance extremely well, shit he can hardly even use Pro Tools and yet, his ITB mix is still better than yours :)
It’s not hate, it’s called teaching and if you feel insulted maybe you’re guilty of what he’s trying to preach. There’s absolutely no reason to have a ton of tracks. All the old records sounds amazing and they had limits.... big time compared to today. He’s just trying to preach the bridge between the days of tape and the present of infinity.
Awesome as always! CLA rules. As for the ppl who are complaining: 1. this is free, 2. waves wants to promote their plugins and the cla bundle is quite powerful anyways, 3.it's not about how you use the plugins, its about the end sound, cla has a sound he wants to achieve and this is what he tries to explain, this is the useful stuff.
The difference between mixing professionally recorded tracks and amateur tends to be big enough that many "rules" change. For example, if I'm mixing a song that was tracked here or another pro/commercial quality studio by a professional engineer, I use solo as I'm loading and prepping each track just to know what I'm labeling amd get an idea of what's going on. After that, I probably won't push the solo button much if at all. Sometimes I only have to process the busses and very little, if anything, to any of the tracks. Amateur recordings sent in to the studio are a different story. Most of the time I need to go through each track 1 at a time before I start and correct issues with editing/automation/processing before I can begin mixing.
Maybe he is not the greatest teacher, or a perfect man, but he proved so many times, that he is a great mixing engineer. I am always glad to watch him working, or hear some of his tips, because I always learn something new. And to all the nobodies, who just have their big mouth and nothing else : CLA doesn't give a shit about you, or your comment. Peace.
My gosh. I watched this a few months ago, and his trick: EQ into compression is amazing. I started doing that and then all of a sudden I didn’t need to de-ess anymore haha.
Thank you, CLA! I was told that you have to "solo" every clip and mix like that but when I did it, it sounded awesome in solo but horrible in the mix. I like your simple, yet powerful tools that can transform our mixes to another level.
Victoria Villanueva I started thinking of the whole mix as a single instrument. So when I try to solo, I just hit solo on the master buss and nothing changes lol. But here’s the thing: That means that every change I make sounds great in the song. Eq, compress, effects, all with the whole mix going. I had a bass that sounded great, and a vocal that sounded great, and a guitar that sounded great, and a drum set that sounded great. Okay, fine, but I played them all together and it all sounded washy and gross. After an hour of fiddling with crap I realised that the bass was interfering with the vocal at about 2k. So I low-passed the bass at 1.5 for so, and the whole mix just bloomed. BECAUSE: I made the correct eq move for the overall track. That one low-pass that one day changed everything for me.
@@zachary963 these big masters don't know any secret. The experience "tells them" more than "what is wrong", it shows "how to fix it". Let's say "oh my vocals sound so muddy, idk why". It happened so many times to CLA for example. He hears it "well, needs boosting here at the mid high range". For some of us (like me) still learning the craft, I would probably spend days going in and out. He fixes that in 10 seconds
I really enjoy the video, clarify some curiosity about his sound and way he works. There is no secret, it's experience that gives the concept and sound of each one.
Hey - Y-O!! YES!!!!!!!!! Is the only answer to if I want more from CLA. I learn more from CLA in 15 min than I do from hours of watching pretty much anyone else. And, Im from Jersey too, so I get his no BS attitude. Thanks, great stuff. SUPER helpful!
Love this guy. Watched him work on the Slate stuff before I recorded my band and it was a huge eye opener. To the point, no nonsense and in plain English. Great methodology esp for hard rock.
I'm a big fan of his. Humility. For me he is the Steve Jobs of audio. His entire family did everything good that our generation heard. Waves is to be congratulated for trusting its brand in the genius hands of this great talent. I have this plugin package in my home studio and I'm very happy. Thanks Criss for the lessons! And WAVES for its product. My Dream meet Califórnia one day and Studios and Criss. 😅 Greetins from RJ Brasil. 💘🇺🇲💘🙏 GOD Bless. 🎸🎶
Thank you so much, that was Good! I guess it's pretty pleasent when after years of release people still say thank you for your work. Once again, it was an educational pleasure.
Awesome.. Guys get the others come in that have made signature series as well and have them discuss the plugins in a mix session just like this one. Thanks..
Thanks Waves. Love these. Looking forward to more. I hope the concepts can be better articulated and questions more thoroughly answered in the future, but still a pleasure to watch a legend at work!!
I have so much respect for this guy - he's mixed so many of my favorite albums growing up - but sometimes the guy just sounds very boomer with how he talks about computer technology. It has come a long way since the 1990s.
CLA contradicts himself. Here, he's tauting the creation of sub-mixed stems. In his Rick Beato interview, he's bashing it. But perheps here he's actually the one who DID the creation of those so .... my take away from him is... find what works for YOU and keep your organization as streamlined and simple as possible. Keep your originals safe. Get buy-off at each step! haha whatever.
I originally thought that too, but actually what I think he's saying is that if you are going to send him a project to mix, don't give him your stems with "your" mix baked into it, because he doesn't want the version that has "your" mix baked into it. He wants the raw tracks so that he can mix it (and not have to fight any of the moves you made), but if you can clean up the project and combine stuff together into cleaner comps to reduce the track count, then do it, just don't add a bunch of plugs to it to mix it and then run off the stems. Ideally he would want raw tracks that are as condensed as possible. I think thats what everyone probably wants. He was ranting because people have started cutting stuff into individual tracks based off the section of the song. So the same rhythm guitar part that plays throughout the entire song gets broken up into 20 tracks that each have only a 10 second clip on them, even though they are all the same guitar and amp and sound. Guitar intro, guitar verse 1, guitar chorus 1,...etc. and since there is 2 mics probably on the guitar plus a di, you can X3, at least. Just because there's 300 tracks doesn't mean it's the new Bohemian Rhapsody. It just means it's a disjointed mess.
I use parallel compression on drums in the box all the time. It works great. Gives me that extra attack without bringing up the cymbals. And because it's parallel, it still sounds natural enough.
Young people used to clean toilets just to catch a glimpse of what engineers were doing and to hopefully hear words of wisdom. Many here are quick to make snark, rude, and condescending comments...but you watched and listened to what he shared didn't you? No appreciation. No respect. Now I understand why engineers only passed down knowledge to the kids willing to make them coffee and clean toilets. Those kind of people deserve to have a master share their knowledge.
Many of us "old guys' only came from the "Big Room" era and had to adapt to ITB. But music is music. Studios with rooms and guys like CLA who came in knocked that shit out and kept it moving. If you were lucky and doing your job all you got to do is watch them work you didn't ask questions mostly unless you wanted to piss them off. when they got done check out their mix notes hope you were paying attention after you printed mixes maybe you picked up on how the mix came together it took time repetition and a thick skin. A lot of people bitching here would never have made it past interns at places like Unique or Hit Factory or Quad. You couldn't be a whiny bitch about what the big guy engineer did or didn't do for you. You came in on your off hours while rooms were down and "practiced". If you were lucky and these guys came in and asked for you to assist in time you're doing the work they couldn't and then BAM you are first chair and doing it on your own. These days everybody wants quick fast emasculated solutions to music. Fuck creativity and talent even for mixing! I never got a chance to work with him or his brothers but thanks to the likes of Bob Power Frank Filipetti Charles Alexander Ron Banks Mike Barbiero Thom Panunzio Phil Ramone Gerry Brown Mark Harder and many many more thank you for letting me know how records are really done. And yes I know times have indeed changed but talent and creativity requirements are the same hard work on your craft no shortcuts.
I'm the same as CLA when it comes to tracks. I started on 24 track analog. A session going to mix shouldn't have more than 32 tracks unless there is a specific reason. It doesn't help a mixer to have 12 stereo tracks of a guitar recorded with the same mic setup playing in different parts of the song. One of the producers jobs is to bounce those 12 tracks down into something meaningful and with the purpose to make the song complete. Delaying those decisions and just handing it off to someone else to deal with is what's called doing a half-assed job.
I guess the more you know, the more you can learn from a master engineer/ producer/mixer like CLA. I found this entertaining, informative AND inspiring. It's true that half the battle to getting a professional-sounding mix is... (drum roll) MAKE A PROFESSIONAL RECORDING!! Since the early days of audio, mixing was the icing on the cake - not the meat in the sandwich. That said, CLA mixes, as he said, mix to the song, not to your damn plugins!!
Been watching CLA all week... caught myself saying "wham-O, Zipp-O" during my sessions... This brought me here....Now I will keep saying "Northpole to the Southpole"...and "Okay"... - CLA is definitely interesting - even just the way he speaks....
Hi Chris, Laurence Here, From Century One Records..on your demo plugins I would recommend putting a hiss on the sound every 10 seconds. or there could be a low end demo with low end out put in terms of sound quality altough a hiss is a good way of getting some one to upgrade ..to the pro version with out the hiss and eliminates software fraud..or pirating.
Awesome tutorial! love your section about mixing vocals. You did a few small things to bring that vocal to life with the reverb, EQ, and delay and it improved so much. Just goes to show how you don't need to do crazy things to make it sounds good.
That was amazing Chris! thx for sharing all these workflow ideas and tips, I have seen every second of video that you've appeared in that I can find on youtube and it has payed huge dividends in my productions. the plugins are all great I've got pretty much all of them. /Jacob / Quickness
Thats what i thought too.. but the sexond time i see this video i realize that he is actualy calm.. and has this teacher feel that feels like that hahahaa
The questions pissed me off too. They were so dumb. The pan the guitars and switch phase he was even generous because the actual question was too stupid to even answer.
I do love Chris’s work he’s a master if not the king, he says not to over compress but that Piano at 55mins is squashed to the max. It’s actually the glue to the whole song.
I love all hater comments, I feel like they wish they could do 1% of what he has done. For me Chris is the best!!! I can’t believe I am having all his wisdom for free! Thanks always!
I always aim for my sessions to be organized like CLA's but end up with something looking more like a Schepps template with 12 parallel chains and 20 busses 😂
if we gonna be honest... i'm new to CLA's ideas, but all those "takes" are bounced. He talks a lot about old school, but this whole session is made pretty for youtube. i'd love to see what is more accurate in a real world setting
What many see as “annoyance “ is just him being cavalier about how much a non-event certain things are. Many mix applications are very simple/basic. There’s no magic, people. Just skill and experience...
