thank you so much for the video, Mike. indeed there is a easier way to treat those clip gain automation: first you place mouse cursor at the bottom part of the clip you want to adjust - it will turn into a selection tool, then, you creat a selection of the part you want to change, by draging the mouse around. After creating the selection, move the cursor to the very top part of the clip and it will change again to a "clip line" tool (i really dont know how to call it. hehehehe) then you can clic the mouse button and cakewalk will adjust just the gain inside the selection. hope it helps.
@@pubmgr Can you explain it to me? First go to clip gain automation then moving the cursor to the bottom part but it doesn't change into the selection tool.
Notes for myself Using only stock plugins. The dearest microphone isn't always the best for the job. With cheaper mics you might have to do more work such as EQing to get the sound you want. Try and get the sound you're looking for during the recording process. Chorus and verses recorded onto separate tracks. Both tracks are routed to a bus where the FX are applied. Check the gain levels. For vocals he likes the RMS to be about -18 db. For plugins with saturation effects, it's a good idea to have this RMS level. 4:35 A mock situation where the recording level is out of control. Fixing the Gain level. 5:24 How do we fix a section being too quiet. 6:04 Clips > Clip Automation > Gain. Create 4 nodes, Shift-select the two inside nodes and drag them up to increase the section volume. 7:28 You can fix transients and peaks and it still sounds natural. Mike looks through the waves for anything standing out. Doing this doesn't unnecessarily trigger compression (going to be used later). 8:41 Starting the FX chain with a high pass filter, to get rid of low end rumble. And to fix plosives. 10:01 Open the ProChannel and its EQ. HP (high pass) button. 10:50 It's fixed the plosives. But when altering the sound, you should be listening with the other parts of the music too. 11:43 Apply the high pass filter just before the point where you can hear a difference. You need decent monitors to hear the low end well. 12:22 VX-64 Vocal Strip. Utilities > Cakewalk Plug-in Manager, VST Audio Effects (VST) > Show Excluded > select the plugin > Enable Plug-in, perhaps you'll need to restart Cakewalk to see it. 13:21 VX-64 Vocal Strip is great. Saturation control for warmth, texture and colour. Demo with plugin on then off. It's subtle. Slight grittiness and growl added with plugin. 14:51 De-esser. Listen tool - allows you to only hear what's being removed, demo. 16:09 Compand, an expander and compressor in one. An expander is for getting rid of very quiet noises such as between vocal phrases. An expander has a gradual cutoff. 17:14 Get rid of microphone bleed. 18:06 Compressor. A compressor allows you to turn the peaks down so you can turn everything up without clipping. 19:04 Set a threshold. But this compressor has automatic make-up gain. Bring down the vocal, squashing the dynamic range of the vocal, narrowing the difference between the louder and quieter parts - so it makes the whole thing louder. 20:14 Ratio (how much it squashes the peaks) and Attack control. Attack set low so it grabs the transients quick and squashes them. But remember you should be listening to the vocal along with the rest of the music. 21:07 Tube Equalizer (called that because it has a saturation feature). It's a 3 band EQ. If the track is sparse, such as having just a vocal and guitar, it should have more low end and warmth in there. But with a track with more instruments low end can make it sound muddy. 22:23 Mid frequencies. This is where things can sound harsh and nasally. Demo of it turned down. 23:25 High frequencies. The airiness/breathiness. If you go too far with it it'll sound harsh and piercing. Think about the relationship between the high end and the low end. Sometimes it's worth reducing the low end instead of increasing the high end. 24:04 Can add saturation on individual bands. 24:22 Doubler, demo with it off then on. But Mike tends to double the vocals manually. 25:41 Delay. Mike uses it with a short feedback, demo. Puts the vocalist in a bit of space. 26:48 You can add saturation at the end (right side of the window). In this plugin you can change the routing, you can change the order of the modules. 27:30 Adding next 3 FX using separate busses so the FX can work independently and not feed into eachother. You can ruin the vocals with reverb, they can make the vocals sound further away rather than up front. 28:54. Delay to put the vocals in a bit of space. Slightly different delay time for the left and right but both are very small. Feedback and Crossfeed settings down to 0. Mix turned up to 100% so only the delay FX is heard through the bus - the original sound is sound on the original vocal channel. 30:12 A low cut filter set at about 550 Hz, so the repeats have the low end cut out of them to prevent a muddy low end build-up. Demo without and with delay. Control it with the Send dial or the bus fader. 31:24 Reverb. Using it in a stylised way, mimicking an older style with heavier reverb than more recent stuff. 32:11 Using the ProChannel Berverb 2 module. Wet 100%, Dry 0%, using the Hall preset. Use EQ before it to apply a high pass filter to prevent it sounding muddy. Everything cut below 1k. 33:13 Demo with reverb turned down then up. 34:03 Parallel compression. Keeping the vocal more present than the other instruments. Using the ProChannel's compressor. Input up full, Ratio up high on 20, Attack very quick, Release up pretty high so the compression stays on for a long time, so it crushes everything. Blends the compression in with the bus fader. 35:48 It's effective at keeping the vocal up front without you hearing that anything is going on. Demo with other FX on and in context with the track. 36:27 Doubling. Demo of the vocals doubled. 37:54 He leaves the duplicates dry of delay, reverb, etc, he thinks it helps the presence of the vocals. But experiment with FX on them if you want. 38:22 How he sets the levels of the vocals. Starts with the loudest part of the song, sets the vocal level first then brings up the other instruments underneath it. This way he keeps the vocal prioritised throughout the song easier. 39:43 After setting the levels with the chorus, the other sections of the song will be out of balance, you need automation to fix this. 40:29 Wrap up.
I play keyboards in a cover band and downloaded cakewalk last week, I've found your video tutorials soooo so so helpful, I'm a complete noob when it comes to recording and I've managed to create a professional sounding demo just from following your videos. AMAZING, thank you so much.
Oh man, I've been using cw for a couple of years and never knew that level of functionality of the pro channel, vocal strip etc, even existed! You just totally changed the game for me - THANK YOU!
Mike, somedays I just like to go to your channel to feel your warm and easy going vibe. Great musician as well as human being. Tank you so much for your work and sharing! Blessings
Thank you Mike for this video. Especially for making us discover the VX-64 plugin which I didn't know yet. Great, indeed, for vocals. It can replace many other plugins I used in vocal chains
There were so many lightbulb moments that it felt like a Christmas tree was over my head! I learned a lot and I have a lot to try on my next mix. What is nice is that all the tips apply with other plugins as well. I love these long tutorial videos! Thanks!
Hi Mike. You probably already know this, or somebody may have pointed it out below, but I noticed that you always select both points of the line segment you want to move up or down and then click and drag on one of those selected points (7:05). At the time of this writing, you can hold down CTRL and hover over the inner line segment itself and the cursor changes to a four-way arrow, with which you can click and drag the segment itself, regardless if either or both points on either side are selected. When doing it this way, the line segment is constrained to its horizontal position, and will only go up or down. The way you do it by using the points actually allows you to move it up/down as well as horizontally. So, if you want to maintain accurate time positioning, using the segment itself might a better approach. Your approach does allow more flexibility with positioning. I only tried this because I knew I could do it in other DAWs I've used, and expected that CW should be able to do it too. Hope that makes sense. Also, the pinned comment by Frederico does in fact work as described, but the change in gain is (or appears to be) instantaneous, not gradual like it is when creating 4 points as you describe (and as used in what I describe above). I don't know if that would cause artifacts in some situations or not, or what CW might be doing behind the scenes to compensate for it. Cheers!
This has been a great lesson, not to mention a great reference to which I can return when I'm not exactly certain as to how to work with a certain effect. Thank you for sharing! I truly appreciate your knowledge and wisdom.
Hey dude, just wanted to leave a quick comment, just wanted to say thanks for this vid and many others, been writing and recording music since the dawn of time and always had issues getting a decent vocal sound, like every time I would play a song to friends they would always be like 'great, that's awesome, not sure about the vocals though', super annoying but this vid has taught me so much and has made my latest track sound amazing, never knew there were so many things involved in getting great sounding vocals so yeah, just wanted to give due praise, legend, peace (-:
It's funny: Even bass male voices--- whose selling point you'd think would be the rich lower frequencies--- nevertheless also have to receive a good bit of High Pass. It seems to be in the high frequencies that we can RECOGNIZE who is singing and identify their unique style. I had to learn this the hard way....
Been a Cakewalk user for 20 years. Butt still learning. Great fun when you actually use the plug ins from the DAW and whats coming with Cakewalk! You got a new fan in Sweden and Godemanstudio :)
Thanks Mike. The music I create is WAY different than what you do, but the tools and methodology are easily transferable. This video in particular has been extremely helpful, as I've been struggling lately with vocal processing. The music I create is generally epic/aggressive metal, and I have a terrible recording environment to work with... so subtlety has little value to me. What was important here were the things where you talk about crispness, saturation and vocal "space". That's where I've been struggling - not easy to find space when you have super heavy guitars, epic keyboards and blasting drums to compete with. I had this down really well years ago, but took about 10 years off from composing/recording, and am still trying to find my footing again in a whole new technology world (back then I had almost no VSTs, now everything but my guitar and vox is VST!) I've made progress though, and this video has given me some great new ideas to try... especially helpful with you using the same DAW as I do.
Another good vid. Yes! I always start with the star of a track. Usually vocals, but sometimes I'll mix in tandem with a harp solo, guitar solo and other prominent aspect of a song when mixing. Crescendos, deafening silence and other oddities like live feedback, squeaks and rattles in live or mimicking background noises you find in a live song really make great music shine. Peppering a track with imperfects as a whole is an art. Thanks!
This video is just amazing and so helpful! I can't wait to try all the tips I learned to my vocals! I also love your clear and week speaked English! I am italian but I haven't missed a word! Thanks a lot! Love Cakewalk so I'm so happy I found a channel that makes videos about it! 🙏🤘
havent even finished the halfway point of this video and already had to scramble for paper to take notes, ive been messing around with cakewalk and making my own music here and there, but the sheer amount of helpful information available (that i had no idea how to even start googling) is insane! you've showed me ways to streamline what i DID know and have shown me multiple things that i DIDNT know how to do. you're a lifesaver my man
This fantastic!! Solution to my current song. I thought in the direction you went, but didn't know exactly how to go about it. It has changed my outlook on my newest release!! Thanks Mike!!
Always a great watch for those of us who write and record...but really struggle with all the dynamic elements...and leading on to the mixing. Vocals in particular are extremely important to me and achieving a clear crisp vocal that still contains warmth and can cut through what is often a full production is difficult and often frustrating.
I learned mixing busses will be helpful in making the vocals smooth. I have felt busses would be complicated to use. Using busses will be new to me but practice, practice, practice. Thanks for these videos Mike.
Mike, vocal “doubling” which is actually trebling or tripling as we Americans say it, is THE tried and true way to add a good dose of humanity to the right song ( assuming the singer “has the chops” to carry it off ). And yes, I like them dry too - whether panned as you have for stereo or summed for mono (which may involve a different set of “tricks” for singer and mixer).
Thank you. I find it hard to find cakewalk tutorial like your videos. I'm completely beginner at mixing vocal and I don't know how to start. This tutorial is easy to understand for beginner like me.
When i watch you video's i really actually learn and feel less overwhelmed thank you sir🎉😅others talk too fast amd overcomplicate and show off instead of teaching a beginner
Again, an excellent and thoroughly useful video. I really enjoyed the runthrough of the VX-64, which I already love. I use the desser and I've used the doubler before to create a fairly extreme tannoy effect and loved the results. I haven't really dabbled with the rest of it so far. Turns out a lot of what I've been doing with other plug ins can be achieved here.
You are such a cool guy Mike! A true master, both in the pro audio as well as in the communication area. You´re skills are superb man. So thankful for all your work and sharing!
This was highly educational and motivating. I still need to understand on your flow of routing and busses in this mix. Seems like a lot of busses but not sure of the order, I'd like to simulate this for some of my tracks.
great video! i ususally have a hard time sticking around long enough in these kind of videos to actually learn something hahah but this was so nice to follow. thank you so much!!
I like it when you say " If you don't like this video then hit that dislike👎 botton twice". Nice tutorial though! Very informative! Btw, I hit that 👍like botton once.
Thanks for this, Mike -- for me this was less about lightbulb moments and more about getting a better sense of priorities. You inject a note of sanity and clarity into an inherently confusing process. And best of all (for me), you often do it using Cakewalk, so I don't have to do any translation.
definitely learned a lot from this video, very informative. I use cakewalk because I can't afford paid expensive DAWs but I did not know much about basic music, but after applying all you mentioned in your video, it completely changed by Audio response. Thank you so much. I subscribed to your channel.
I just recently found you videos and they have now become my go-tos for learning new ideas. Mike has such a natural teaching style, he makes it really easy for me to learn.
Another great vid Mike beautifully explained I have used Cakewalk at times but your vids make me want to go back to it, it really does have a lot to offer. Even an old hand like me can pick up new tips about tackling vocal tracks more effectively good job!!
Thanks a lot for this video, I'm beginning to learn how to record and mix my own songs, and your channel is like a gold mine. Wonderful explanations, and straight to the point. Thank you!
Excellent stuff, Mike. Definitely learned a few things, but also was encouraged to see I'm on the right track with others, like getting into the weeds, if necessary, with the automation. Thanks very much, your the best at this in my book.
Great stuff Mike! Loved the "long" video. Even though I've been recording for a long time, there were a few "aha" moments (stuff I forgot, stuff I've tried but strayed away from, etc,.). Always love watching.
Very informative video with so many great tricks to mix vocals. Brilliant starting point for vocal mixing. Cakewalk has indeed very good stock plugins. There is even Saturation Knob built in on the pro channel. However I still found Cakewalks EQ somewhat uncomfortable to use.
This is such a good tutorial thanks! Please advise in the sonitus delay the delay times in left and right channels are not highlighted, cant increase/decrease...
Can you please show us how to record mix and master a whole song done with just acoustic guitar and vocal. We singer songwriters are in great need of that.
Actusly, add a bass guitar to fill it out. Perfect. I would be extremely greatfull cause I'm trying to do a version of my songs with a vocal, acoustic guitar and a bass to let people here them.
@creative sauce : would you mind doing a tutorial about sidechain compressed reverb by/on vocals? can`t figure out how to do it with an FX/reverb bus in cakewalk.
Hi Mike, during the selection Gain between two point, you can put the mouse upside the Clip ( on the property of it) and it select the 2 Point automatically ;) nice tutorial mate
I'm certainly struggling with what seems to be a basic issue. I can't get rid of this "tunnel" sound when singing. It's as if I have the 'doubling' effect of the vx-64 on, but I literally have no fx on. Tried multiple mics, headphones, cables. Using a scarlet solo for mic input. Anyone with some tips?
Thanks for the video. I have found a lot of your videos to be very helpful, and this one is no exception. I'm wondering if there is a less expensive version of melodyne out there.
