When Fab got the call to come record one of America's musical legends he brought his sense of thoughtful and deliberate sonic shaping to the tracking sessions. He knew that this record was going to be special and wanted listeners to feel as if Croz was sitting in the room with them but with a magical sounding backdrop that surrounds him and sets the tone and space for each song on the record to deliver it's emotional message.
To create such an intimate, rich and lush mix with such sparse arrangements is not as easy as it sounds. In this 2 hour long tutorial, Fab walks you through step-by-step how he took the raw, super clean, tracks from great sounding rough mixes to an incredible sounding record.
Learn how to:
Treat a lead vocal with both subtle and extreme sonic decisions
Create width and dimension to a single guitar using just one mic and a DI
Set up and manage an entire album's sonic palette using templates and referencing
Use plugins and gear for the perfect amount of color without over saturating the sound
Interface with analog reverbs to create an unique and vintage tone but also easily switch to plugins as needed
Remove the walls from a vocal sound without defaulting drastic EQ
Process stacks on stacks of vocal harmonies and backgrounds in a way that supports and enhances Croz's lead vocal in a special way
Automate and refine a mix so that every moment is something special
Watch how the entire mix comes together and then download the raw stems to practice mixing it for yourself
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
00:00:00 Good morning children!
Today we are going to mix David Crosby's
first single from the Lighthouse album.
00:00:05 Just like that. It's no joke, so no joke.
Let's go.
00:00:17 I had two options for this video.
I could... One...
00:00:20 Document the existing mix from
the actual record.
00:00:23 Two, use the stems you all got
and try and mix it in real-time
in front of you
which was option 2 because
that's the kind of people we are.
00:00:30 I'm going to import the stems using....
00:00:33 Pro Tools' amazing workspace environment.
00:00:38 I'm gonna import all those stems
straight into my session this way.
00:00:42 Boom!
I have to make sure that they go
to and output that we can actually hear.
00:00:47 And in this system the output
is D 15-16.
00:00:50 It's the rightmost last
output of the whole rig.
00:00:54 This is a slightly unusual setup.
00:00:56 Basically, the way it works is
I have a HDX card,
I don't use the DSP plug-ins that much.
00:01:02 I use the HDX card for the real-time
tracking if I need to overdub something,
that's why I have a HDX in this rig.
00:01:09 Then it goes to a pair of Lynx Aurora 16s.
00:01:12 I use the digital outputs of the
Aurora 16s
to hit a pair of Convert 8s
by Dangerous Music,
which are my favorite DA right now.
00:01:19 And then, the output of that
goes into Dangerous 2-Bus+.
00:01:23 And then I go into my trusty
Universal Audio 2192
which is my AD.
00:01:28 The final monitoring,
that's after D 15-16,
goes to a Dangerous Music Convert 2.
00:01:35 Which is my monitoring DA.
00:01:36 And I listen to everything through
that converter.
00:01:39 Let's listen to the raw tracks.
00:03:21 What you just heard is every mic
raw in mono, no processing.
00:03:27 This was recorded at Groove Masters
which is a studio that is now
defunct in Santa Monica.
00:03:34 It's Jackson Brown's studio.
Good place, lots of good gear.
00:03:37 It was tracked with...
00:03:39 Kind of odd combination of things.
00:03:42 Because I was not familiar with the place
I brought some of my gear,
so I have a little blankie
so I don't get too scared.
00:03:50 So I brought a pair of
Focal Solo 6s.
00:03:53 So at least I know what I'm listening to.
00:03:55 And then I brought
my Eden microphone,
a couple of Atlantis.
00:04:00 And then I brought.
00:04:02 A Dangerous Compressor,
a Dangerous Bax EQ.
00:04:04 A Dangerous Source to monitor to make
sure that what I hear is what I get.
00:04:08 And so I was able to combine
this kind of shipped in gear
from my personal stash
with the insane collection...
00:04:17 Well, first there were like
two Neve consoles in the control room.
00:04:20 One eighties 78 I think and
then one BCM 10.
00:04:23 All 1073s and 1032s.
00:04:26 I was sitting on a rack and
there were two Fairchilds in the rack!
So I got up and went to a chair instead.
00:04:32 It was that kind of a place,
a time-machine of a place.
00:04:35 And so I was able to combine
vintage equipment,
some of the Neve preamps,
some of the...
00:04:42 I don't compress much but...
00:04:43 Some of the colored pieces,
maybe a Pultec here and there
with these super clean new gear,
to create this very neutral sound.
00:04:52 And so now at the mix I have the choice
of being able to do whatever I want.
00:04:55 Michael League who is the main producer
on this record and who incidentally
co-wrote most of the songs with
David Crosby,
originally invited me on this record
I think, because he wanted someone
to reflect upon the sonic direction
of this record
as much as he reflected upon
the musical direction of this record.
00:05:13 My idea and what I wanted to achieve
is to have all the good stuff
from the vintage records
and none of the bad stuff.
00:05:22 What would that be?
Good question.
00:05:24 Sixties and seventies records
benefit from a lot
of extra sauce,
meaning...
00:05:31 They allowed themselves
a lot of reverb
There were a lot of transformers,
there was tape going on,
there was a lot of softening going on.
00:05:39 It wasn't really documentary like,
it was very very much pastel
Hollywood like.
00:05:44 That's cool, but...
00:05:47 To me it's always created...
00:05:50 On most of, not all those records,
but on a lot of those records,
A little bit of a distance.
00:05:55 I didn't feel the connection with
the performer
as much as I do on some modern records
the way I like.
00:06:02 And so I told myself...
00:06:04 It would be awesome to be
able to have something very present,
very very clean,
but still have some sauce.
00:06:11 That what I'm gonna try to do.
00:06:13 'Things we do for love' was not the
first song I mixed for this record.
00:06:17 The first song I mixed was probably
'Paint you a picture'
because it's just guitar and vocal,
and because there were no
distractions,
just David and his guitar
so I could create the space
and create the environment for
the whole record and then
I used the same reverbs
and the same processing system
across the whole record.
00:06:36 So that I could have
a common denominator
and a common sound for the whole record,
created...
00:06:42 One album as opposed
to just a bunch of different songs.
00:06:45 At least that was the intention.
00:06:48 What I'm gonna do now is import
those reverb tracks
and Stem Busses and the Sum bus and...
00:06:54 The Print track so that I have
the framework in which I mixed the
original record to start with.
00:07:01 So I'm gonna import that
probably from the original track.
00:07:04 It's good, when you mix a record,
to actually always go back
to the original track.
00:07:13 The temptation is, since all your mixes
get better and better over time,
the temptation is:
"Ok, I'm gonna mix Song 1
and that's cool. Then when I mix Song 2
I'm gonna import the processing,
the reverbs
the Sum Busses and all that stuff
from Song 1".
00:07:27 Awesome!
So now on your second song you're
getting a stride,
song 2 is gonna sound better.
00:07:33 So when you start song 3
you might wanna import the
stems from Song 2.
00:07:38 That's the logical idea.
00:07:40 What I've found over time
is that if you want an unified tone
for the whole record, that's a
really bad idea.
00:07:46 Because the drift between
Song 1 and Song 2
is significant.
00:07:51 And the drift between Song 2 and
Song 3 is significant.
00:07:56 It won't jump to your ears
but it is significant.
00:07:59 When you get to Song 6, which you
referenced from Song 5
which you referenced... etc... etc...
00:08:04 Between 6 and 1 there's a
canyon of difference.
00:08:08 And so I found that when mixing
records, where it matters to me
that there's an unified sound
I always refer to the first song.
00:08:15 And then,
even though every song gets better,
at the end of the mix
I recall the first song
and bring it into the fold
of the rest of the mix.
00:08:24 That's what I usually find
works best.
00:08:27 Just saying.
00:08:28 What I'm gonna do is...
00:08:30 Choose the last mix
by date and import the things I want.
00:08:34 BX20, EMT, BX10,
250.
00:08:38 A Spread, Bricasti
and then the percussion stem,
bass stem, guitar stem, lead stem,
back stem.
00:08:45 EFX stem.
00:08:47 Sum and 'Picture for you'.
00:08:49 The mix.
00:08:50 So now...
00:08:51 Here, in my settings I'm gonna
import playlists
and the reason why
I'm doing that is because.
00:08:57 This is an Aux with reverb, reverb,
reverb, reverb
and this is the song.
And the only track
that has audio on it
is my Print track.
00:09:06 And I want that because I'm gonna be
able to use 'Picture for you' as a reference
and I'll be able to AB
and make sure I'm making
the same record,
not another song on a different record.
00:09:15 Here we go.
00:09:17 It's restoring tracks.
00:09:21 I'm gonna mute everybody on the left,
the context stems
so there's no interference
and I'm gonna show you
and explain to you
what I just imported.
00:09:30 On the right side is the print track.
00:09:32 Right now, on this Print track,
there is 'Picture for you',
the last mix of 'Picture for you'
which will be our reference,
it sounds a little bit like this.
00:09:47 So this is gonna be my
level and tone reference.
00:09:50 I know this is good because it
was approved by David,
and by Michael and by myself over
four revisions.
00:09:57 So we know this is a good point
and a good amount of reverb
and good amount of
and brightness and bottom
and bass and stuff like that.
00:10:04 So this is gonna be my template,
if you will,
my ABing, my referencing.
00:10:09 Just so you know you don't get confused.
00:10:11 When this 'I' button here is grayed
that means I'm listening
to what's on the track.
00:10:19 And when it's on 'Input'
I'm listening to
what's going on in my mix live, right now.
00:10:23 So that's easy to compare.
00:10:24 On my Sum Bus which is my final
return from the 2 Bus,
I have a bunch of plug-ins.
00:10:30 And usually when I start a new song,
I make sure there's nothing
outrageous on the settings.
00:10:35 Nothing that was designed to compensate
for some mistake on another mix.
00:10:39 So this is a tape standard.
00:10:43 There's nothing crazy.
00:10:45 There's nothing going on the Pultec,
except a little bit of a bump at 200,
and a little bit of a bump at 30,
that's fair.
00:10:53 There's no high-end tweaking.
00:10:55 On the Fairchild you noticed that
the threshold is pretty high.
00:10:58 This is basically nothing,
so this is not that much.
00:11:01 And the reason for that is that
I'm using
the Fairchild probably more
as and EQ than a compressor.
00:11:06 Because I like the way UA
modeled
the transformer on input and output
and the inter-stage tube stuff.
00:11:14 I like it.
00:11:16 The maximizer...
00:11:17 I really like this thing.
That is a bit of a saturation,
a bit of a crunch thing,
and yes, I said that I wanted
the record to be clean
but I also want the
record to sound modern.
00:11:27 Modern and vintage at the same time.
Go figure.
00:11:30 So this is key to that.
You'll here that in a while.
00:11:33 And the limiter is there to make
sure that, you know...
00:11:35 my converter doesn't cry and also
it's a final kind of offset in case,
you know.
00:11:41 Let's just say that maybe sometimes,
the gain stage is not 100% perfect.
00:11:47 Like 99% perfect... ish.
00:11:49 So this helps, I'll show you.
00:11:51 To the left of that are my stems.
00:11:53 So everything in this session is gonna
go through the stems.
00:11:56 And the reason why I do that is two fold:
For tone and for organization.
00:12:01 The tone...
00:12:02 It's nice to be able to have a little
bit of limiting,
I like the way the Oxford Limiter sounds,
it's fat sounding even if you don't limit.
00:12:09 It adds a certain color which I like.
00:12:11 And also, sometimes,
when you are in difficulty...
00:12:14 you can kind of tame things.
00:12:17 Or, if you're making a pop record,
and everything has to sound like pancake,
this is a good way to do it
without it sounding like a pancake.
00:12:24 Here, on the Lead Stem I have,
a Tape Machine and a Supresser.
00:12:30 I'm gonna bypass those because
those are probably specific way
to fix a problem on a different mix.
00:12:38 And I may not have the problem on this mix.
00:12:40 And I don't wanna start the mix
with leftovers.
00:12:43 I only want the positive side
of importing the template
not the negative side,
and to do so,
I always review what's on the template,
and I always try and figure out
why did I do that.
00:12:52 So here, the Oxide, which is a
UA Tape Machine,
on the Back Stem, is a softener.
That I think, I can leave on.
00:13:02 To the left of that is
the reverbs.
00:13:05 I'm using a slightly different
system for those reverbs
because I had decided,
as a way to get the vintage vibe, to use
originally,
all analog vintage reverbs.
00:13:17 So we have a BX 20 which is
right back there.
00:13:21 We have an EMT 140,
which is in the shop over there.
00:13:26 We have a BX 10 which
is right back there.
00:13:29 And then, I don't own a 250,
but sometimes, you need a 250.
00:13:34 And then, the Spread thing
that's just because I like things
to be wide
and I'm using a plug-in for that.
00:13:41 And then, I have a Briscati here,
which is in the rack over there.
00:13:44 The reason why I added a Briscati
and that's kind of
broke my pledge to use all
vintage analog reverbs,
is because I kind of felt
that I need a Chamber
and the Chambers on the Bricasti
are badass.
00:13:56 And if that's a problem,
send me a postcard.
00:13:59 These are the reverbs that are
common to the whole record.
00:14:02 Am I gonna use all of these?
I don't know, maybe yes, maybe no.
00:14:05 All those reverbs are routed
to the FX Stem right here.
00:14:09 And the FX stem is going to the 2-Bus
back in through the whole thing.
00:14:14 The way I am feeding these reverbs
is slightly unusual,
I'd like to show you because
it's pretty cool.
00:14:20 Instead of having an Aux here,
for example, and sending.
00:14:25 To BX 20 and that goes
straight to BX 20,
what I'm doing is I'm calling
a bus the name of the reverb,
a physical I/O insert on that track.
00:14:37 Why am I doing that?
For several reasons.
00:14:41 Instead of using the direct send,
using an insert guarantees that
your reverb is delay compensated.
00:14:48 So say, if your reverb is a delay,
in time delay,
now instead of going
straight to the box
the physical box,
you're going to an Aux, which
we named the same name as the box
so that your brain know you're going
to that box,
because your brain needs
to be taken care of.
00:15:04 And the insert here, the I/O,
the Pro Tools I/O insert,
takes care of all the latency for you
because it delay compensates the
whole thing, which is pretty awesome.
00:15:13 The other advantage is,
say you open this mix on your laptop
or say your BX 20 dies, because they do.
00:15:20 You could replace this insert,
which is essentially
kind of a plug-in abstraction
of the physical unit,
you could replace that by
an actual plug-in.
00:15:30 So now I could go the UA
and put the BX 20 in it.
00:15:34 And now I just replaced my physical BX 20,
by a virtual BX 20.
00:15:39 With just one click.
How nice is that?
If I didn't have the insert,
I would have to go through
a lot of steps to try
and match this.
00:15:47 Where's this is one step.
00:15:49 So I'm gonna return this to
my I/O Setup, which is B 1-2.
00:15:54 So for this to work, obviously,
I have to patch
the reverbs on B 1-2,
B 3-4 for the EMT Plate,
B 5-6 for the BX 10 and
B 7-8 for the Briscati.
00:16:06 Which I should do now, so let's.
00:16:19 My next step would be
to organize my tracks.
00:16:21 I have an upright bass here.
00:16:24 I'm gonna feed all that to
a mono Aux input.
00:16:30 And I'm gonna call it Bass...
00:16:33 Sub. There you go.
00:16:37 And I want that to go into
the Bass Stem obviously.
00:16:41 Great.
00:16:43 And then, the first thing
I'm gonna do is...
00:16:47 Solo safe the Sub so that I can listen
to all the different
microphones separately.
00:16:52 But I may reverse that
later, I'll show you.
00:16:56 This is super important,
this is the Crosby guitar.
00:16:59 I have a microphone, which
was an Atlantis, and then I have a DI.
00:17:02 I'm gonna send this directly
to the Guitar Stem.
00:17:06 Then, these are harmonies.
There's a...
00:17:11 Croz harmony, I'm gonna color
them orange,
And then that's Crosby's Lead vox.
00:17:17 So I'm gonna make that red
and send that to the Lead Stem.
00:17:21 And the way I like to do
background vocals is I like to
submix them so I can have control over
several little submixed
background vocals.
Here I'm gonna call them
the same as the tracks, Croz.
00:17:36 CH Harm Sub.
00:17:40 And I tend to leave the bus black.
00:17:43 Because that allows me to
know that it's a bus, at glance.
00:17:49 And I color the tracks the
same way I've always done it.
00:17:51 These are two electric guitars,
I'm gonna move them with the other
guitars and put them in the guitar stem.
00:18:00 Boom.
00:18:03 And then, probably
while I'm here,
do a little bit of panning,
just because, you know...
00:18:12 I pan, therefore I am.
00:18:15 Extra falsetto.
00:18:18 Let's make a sub for that.
00:18:19 Call it: Extra Falsetto Sub.
00:18:24 And that's gonna go to the
Back Stem.
00:18:33 Etc, Etc. I'm gonna do the whole thing
and then I'll summarize quickly. OK?
In the process of organizing
all these background vocals
I actually found a pair of 12 string
guitars which I moved promptly to the left,
in my Guitar Stem environment.
00:19:03 And then we have, one lead vocal,
which sings on the verses.
00:19:08 And then we have 3 Croz
Lead Vocals,
a single and then the double
and the triple.
00:19:16 We have, Croz's chorus harmonies, so that's
David singing harmony with himself.
00:19:21 I'll put that there into
the background vocals.
00:19:24 This extra Falsetto is just one little thing
at the end so I'm gonna move it down.
00:19:30 We have, Falsetto harmony.
00:19:33 And then we have high voice
doubles of sorts and then we have,
Aaah, 1, 2, 3, 4.
00:19:40 Which that's how it's gonna be
and then we have and extra falsetto.
00:19:43 It's rather simple.
Isn't that wonderful?
We've spared you the noise
since the beginning
because we are that kind of people.
00:19:50 Let's turn it back on.
00:19:58 That is the sound of vintage gear.
00:20:00 So, my BX 20 is very noisy.
00:20:03 Let's listen to the reverbs and see a
little bit what we can do with them.
00:20:07 What best to listen to the reverbs
than to listen to David's voice
since most of the reverbs were designed
to give a wrap around David's voice.
00:20:20 OK, so this is raw.
00:20:22 Let's try and assign the busses in
order of appearance here
so we have BX 20, EMT, BX 10,
Tail, Spread, Bricasti.
00:20:29 Let's listen to the BX 20.
00:20:34 So, raw.
00:20:39 With the BX 20.
00:20:45 A little less.
00:20:50 So smooth.
00:20:56 Pretty awesome right, but very noisy.
00:20:59 So what does one do in these situations?
One has two options:
not use the BX 20, option A.
00:21:06 But listen to this!
That's not a good option.
00:21:13 One decides to use the plug-in
but then one has self-esteem
issues with that.
00:21:18 One decides to de-noise the reverb.
00:21:21 Let's try this one.
00:21:23 I like to use the Izotope stuff for this.
00:21:25 It's rather simple,
it kind of works by itself.
00:21:28 You turn it on and the noise
goes down.
00:21:30 What does it do to the sound?
It nukes it, but you can learn the noise.
If you hit learn...
00:21:40 The plug-in will learn what
you considered to be noise.
00:21:45 And then you can decide
how much of this noise you're
willing to allow.
00:21:51 Say about, this much.
00:22:03 Magical!
You could also not be a hooligan.
00:22:06 You could hit a little harder.
00:22:17 And then lower the return
so you lower the noise further
without having to use
as much of the de-noiser.
00:22:31 Fantastic.
00:22:33 Of course, this is what it
was without the de-noiser.
00:22:41 This is nice!
So that was a side-note
so that we don't go insane
listening to that reverb noise
all the time.
00:22:47 Since we're here,
let's listen to the rest of the reverbs.
00:22:51 The next one is the EMT plate.
00:23:04 How cool is that?
Very different, right?
BX 20.
00:23:12 EMT.
00:23:19 The next one is the BX 10.
00:23:39 Completely different, which is what
we're looking for, we want options.
00:23:42 We have the 250 tail, that is
a super clean,
plug-in based,
250.
00:23:51 I probably added this later in
the process of mixing
that other song because I needed
a little bit of a
cleaner tail with less character.
00:24:08 That sounds just lovely.
00:24:11 The next one is the Spread
I believe. Yes.
00:24:18 Also an add-on.
00:24:24 You've heard this sound.
00:24:29 Maybe not that loud but you've
heard that sound.
00:24:31 Let's add the sends because
you can't have too many sends.
00:24:34 And after that is our
good friend the Bricasti.
00:24:38 We're friends.
00:24:46 I love that Chamber.
00:24:56 Pretty awesome. OK.
Great, so that happened.
00:25:00 Now we have choices.
00:25:02 But if you noticed,
this reverb, the Bricasti...
00:25:08 Is cool.
00:25:09 This reverb...
00:25:14 Is pretty right heavy.
00:25:20 I noticed that I had
an imager here.
00:25:22 The reason for this is
it's and old piece of gear.
00:25:26 So we're gonna change
the rotation
or the symmetry to try and
get a feel for the reverb being centered.
00:25:44 That's better.
00:25:55 I like that.
00:25:59 So smooth. OK, great.
I'll take that.
00:26:04 The noise is still bothering me.
00:26:07 There you go.
00:26:19 OK. Let's listen to that.
00:26:29 I like it.
00:26:30 So we have these 800 reverbs
but none of them matters if
the tone of the vocal is not what we want.
00:26:37 I like the tone of the vocal by itself.
00:26:47 After a couple of days of doing vocals
I told myself:
OK, this sounds great but
I'd like it to be more dreamy
and more A located, meaning
no location to me.
00:27:00 And so to that I wanted to
remove the walls
and to remove the walls I had
to move David out of the vocal booth
into a big area so you don't
hear the walls.
00:27:08 But this song was already recorded
and the performance is great.
00:27:12 So we're not gonna ask him to re-sing
the song just because I changed my mind.
00:27:17 That's not how the world works.
So, I'm gonna try and remove the walls
using EQ.
00:27:24 The first thing I would do
is high-pass this.
00:27:33 You can hear the room influencing
the bottom of the vocal.
00:27:36 So I would just try and find a place
where the problem is,
probably 200 because
let's not forget that 200 is the devil.
00:27:47 Can't go too far.
It's a small devil.
00:27:58 I'm liking this.
We started here.
00:28:03 There's a little bit of a mask
here because of the room.
00:28:08 Better.
00:28:10 Let's check that nothing is
going crazy in our 2-bus processing.
00:28:14 Remember, we imported a template.
I don't know what the gain staging is.
00:28:18 I wanna make sure that my gain
staging is right, here.
00:28:21 See, remember there was 2 dB
of gain here for some reason.
00:28:24 Let's see if that is still valid.
00:28:33 That's cool.
The vocal hits at about...
00:28:35 -18 which is 0 dB VU.
00:28:38 Let me show you as
VU meter in Pro Tools.
00:28:49 Not bad, nobody is gonna die.
00:28:54 This does absolutely nothing
gain wise, but if I mute it.
00:29:00 A lot lighter, right?
Check it out.
00:29:09 Transformer texture. Nice, I like it.
00:29:11 OK, cool. Let's not agonize
over this, it will change.
00:29:14 I'm gonna create a little bit
of space around it.
00:29:17 I like the BX 20.
00:29:27 So good.
00:29:28 Bricasti.
00:29:32 Less.
00:29:37 A little bit of the Spread.
00:29:48 And then, the super smooth EMT.
00:30:11 If you look at the reverb returns,
I have and EQ on them.
00:30:14 They're high-passed and
they are made brighter.
00:30:17 It's hybrid of analog reverbs and digital
processing on the way back.
00:30:21 Especially with the de-noiser
and the imager.
00:30:24 But it's working. I like it.
00:30:26 How did the EMT behave stereo wise?
Let's see.
00:30:34 Extremely badly and left heavy.
00:30:37 Bad, bad EMT.
00:30:52 Yeah, that's good enough for jazz.
00:30:55 Sorry David.
00:30:57 Here we go.
00:31:06 Smooth. A little bit of BX 10.
Let's see if I like it.
00:31:12 I don't.
00:31:22 The combination of all
those different colors
creates this kind of cushion
that I really like.
00:31:27 I don't think I need the tail
on this, let's see.
00:31:37 That's too much. I'm gonna not
have this right now.
00:31:40 We'll see what happens later
00:00:00 So this record is basically a mix
of David singing and
David or Michael playing guitar.
00:00:08 And that's it.
00:00:10 I really consider this record
this plus this.
00:00:13 And everything else is decoration
so we're gonna mute the rest for now.
00:00:16 And because the songs are great
it works as just guitar and vocal.
00:00:22 And everything else is
just an extra ticket.
00:00:25 Let's see.
00:01:06 So, this is what the guitar sounds like.
We have the Atlantis.
00:01:22 And we have a DI.
00:01:32 The guitar with both lines.
00:01:41 Without the DI.
00:01:52 I like it better with the DI.
00:01:55 It's got a little more presence.
00:01:56 I had a dilemma on this record.
00:01:58 On a lot of the songs, David
and Michael play the same part.
00:02:02 On two different guitars,
on two of...
00:02:04 David's 1969 matching identical
bought the same day
Martins.
00:02:11 Which is totally unfair agreed
but quite wonderful.
00:02:13 So that's easy.
00:02:16 You put Michael on the left
or David on the right and vice-versa
and you have a nice stereo spread.
00:02:20 Now, what do you do when you have
just David singing in the middle
and just David playing on the guitar?
It's kind of like very mono and...
00:02:29 boring may not be the word but...
00:02:32 Unstereo. How's that?
That really bothered me.
00:02:36 I wanted to create an immersive
environment around David.
00:02:38 On the other song it was easy.
I had two guitars.
00:02:42 This song shows up and
I'm like... "Ahhh!"
We decided to not double
this part because the part
is so intricate
and it's so tied to the vocal
that trying to double all that stuff
would have been hell on earth.
00:02:57 And also probably not serve the
song very well.
00:03:00 It would have made it stiffer.
The idea was to let David play naturally
and then fix it in the mix.
00:03:07 So that's what we're gonna do.
00:03:08 I wanna make this thing feel
all encompassing with this thing.
00:03:25 So what I'll do is...
00:03:28 Actually use the DI for what it's worth.
00:03:36 Fingers, intelligibility
and keep that in the middle.
And then use the Atlantis.
00:03:48 For the texture and the color
and make that stereo.
00:03:52 How?
This way!
Since I'm gonna use both,
I'm gonna create
a Sub, I'm gonna make it stereo
because obviously
I wanna create a wrap around.
00:04:10 Boom!
And that of course has to go
to the guitar stem
otherwise we won't hear
what we wanna hear.
00:04:18 I wanna solo safe the sub
so I can
solo either of the two tracks
going to the sub
without having to also
solo the subs.
00:04:24 Pro Tools is not like Cubase.
00:04:26 When you click on solo it doesn't
know that there's a Sub downstream
and it doesn't solo it for you.
00:04:32 And what I'm gonna do is
use and EQ
and hi-pass it.
00:04:37 I'm working on the Atlantis right now.
00:04:47 Without.
00:05:01 It's a very gentling taming of
that little bunch at the bottom.
00:05:03 I wanna use a delay.
00:05:06 The built-in delay, I like it,
it works great.
00:05:09 I'm gonna make one side very dry.
00:05:13 And the other side 100% wet.
00:05:17 And I'm gonna use a very short.
00:05:19 Hass effect style delay
to great the stereo spread.
00:05:40 The idea is to adjust
the amount of delay
to really create a stereo effect
without creating something that's
unpleasant to listen to.
00:06:00 I have this wider sounding thing
and this is what it sounds like with
the DI put together.
00:06:08 I wanna put everybody back up
at zero to start
and I lower
the Sub when I wanna mix
with the vocal.
00:06:15 So this is just the Atlantis with our
little stereo trick.
00:06:25 Same with the DI added.
00:06:32 Less DI would be nice.
00:06:45 See how the DI pulls it back in the center
but doesn't have the plastic
quality to it.
00:06:49 I panned a little bit to the right
because the Atlantis
is pulled to the left.
00:06:55 Now with the DI.
00:07:02 As a reminder we started here.
00:07:10 Which is not as much fun at all.
00:07:13 Now I have this.
00:07:20 With David, I'm gonna lower it here,
it sounds like this.
00:07:34 As opposed to this without the
stereo effect on the guitar.
00:07:49 So that's old school but
that's boring to me.
00:07:52 This is one area where I can
bring a little bit of modernity
to the mix without
painting it pink.
It sounds like this.
00:08:07 So, the next thing I wanna do is...
00:08:09 Because there's a lot of dynamics,
which in theory is a good thing
but sometimes, you know,
you can't have too much of the
good thing.
00:08:28 So to even out the levels a little bit
I'm gonna do it in stages.
00:08:31 The first thing I'm gonna do
is add
a compressor-limiter here.
00:08:35 The Oxford. I'm putting the compressor
on the Atlantis and on the DI.
00:08:39 Because...
00:08:40 I don't want the Atlantis to duck
on something
and the DI not to because that
would change the tone. It'd be weird.
00:08:45 To not have to do the same thing twice
because we're extremely lazy,
I'm gonna create a group called...
00:08:51 "David Guit Controls".
00:08:54 Not make it follow globals.
00:08:57 Look at this Christmas tree.
I'm gonna remove all these.
00:09:03 Get rid of all these.
00:09:06 The control that I wanna keep
together is... 1, 2, 3.
00:09:09 So, insert 3 I wanna be able to control
and bypass
at the same time.
Now, if I bypass this one
this one happens to bypass too.
00:09:17 The reason why I'm using 2
compressors on the separate tracks
as opposed to one compressor on the
stereo bus is two fold.
Number one,
with the stereo trick,
the fact that they react a little
differently, I don't know
where it's gonna go. Might as well
control the dynamics at the source.
00:09:34 Second, if the DI is a little
pinier,
the compressor will react to that,
and will not bring the whole thing down.
00:09:42 Just the DI, that's actually
beneficial, I think.
00:09:45 Just to prove that this happens
I'll put this one here.
00:09:47 I do something on one,
it doesn't on the other. It's magical!
Obviously that was too much.
00:10:15 We're gonna give it a little
gain so it sounds the same.
00:10:19 Well, it's actually gonna
raise the verse a little bit
because there's no gain
reduction on the verse. Right?
The chorus is where I'm gonna suffer.
00:10:25 I wanna make sure I have
confidence monitoring on the chorus.
00:10:34 Without.
00:10:38 Listen to that.
00:10:44 With the compression.
00:10:48 Tiny bit more would be great.
00:10:57 Just that little detail
is making a world of difference for me.
00:11:00 The next thing I like to do
is to soften the whole
thing by using
our trusty Studer
from the good people
at Universal Audio.
00:11:09 Hi Studer.
00:11:10 This is one my
favorite UA plug-ins.
00:11:12 I use it on everything
and their mother.
00:11:15 I'm gonna cut the noise because
we have enough noise
from the BX-20.
00:11:18 I like the 250 and I like it at 30.
00:11:21 To soften transients it's really
efficient.
00:11:24 This is where we were.
00:11:34 Listen to this bit...
00:11:36 Listen to this note.
00:11:45 A little bit of a girth thing.
00:11:48 And also listen to the high-end.
00:12:07 It's a lot gentler.
00:12:09 No, it's a little more gentle.
00:12:11 It wants to be gentle.
00:12:12 So, we're gonna do another
layer of "gentleness",
"gentledon"
"gentling".
00:12:18 Hi gorgeous.
00:12:19 I like this plug-in because of the
transformer emulation.
00:12:23 And I like to hit it hard.
00:12:30 Compress it a little bit still.
00:12:32 Because we can use the compression.
00:12:42 This is before.
00:13:09 The Fairchild is a little bit
like driving a marshmallow.
00:13:12 It's like... kind of vibe.
00:13:15 I like marshmallows,
for driving only.
00:13:17 This is good, it softens
the vibe, it makes it a little more
marshmallow-like.
00:13:23 But it does effect the tone a
little bit. Check it out.
00:13:51 It's good.
00:13:52 It does make things a little more soft.
00:13:55 And I like the shine
we had before.
00:13:58 So let's add a trusty Pultec Pro legacy.
00:14:01 Which is a nice way to open
the high-end of anything
without it hurting your eyes.
00:14:16 Before.
00:14:39 As a reminder we started
the guitar here.
00:14:57 You may notice that...
00:15:05 That tends to urke me.
00:15:08 There's not a lot you can do about it.
00:15:11 But you could do a little bit.
00:15:12 I'm gonna use a de-esser that I like.
00:15:15 Just on the Atlantis because
on the pick-up, obviously...
00:15:23 There's no problem.
00:15:24 So, it's just on the Atlantis.
00:15:28 This de-esser let's you solo what
you're affecting.
00:15:31 This is the guitar.
00:15:34 And there's the solo of the detector.
00:15:38 Obviously not exactly what I want.
00:15:40 I'm gonna go a little higher.
00:15:43 I wanna solo the detector
and try and
zoom in on the 'zzz' thing.
00:15:50 Lower the frequency.
00:15:55 See what that does.
Does it detect it better?
Not bad.
00:16:03 Not as good.
00:16:07 OK.
00:16:08 Lower frequency.
00:16:12 What if I go higher.
00:16:17 Not very discriminatory.
00:16:19 It's a little too, you know...
00:16:21 'All transients matter'.
Let's go a little higher.
00:16:28 That's better.
00:16:29 And then, what I wanna do,
now that I have them well separated,
I'm gonna go turn it into a shelf.
00:16:38 And actually lower the gain.
00:16:39 And I'm now eqing just the...
00:16:44 And if you put it back in the sauce.
00:16:48 Without.
00:16:51 With.
00:16:54 It can lower the level of just the
transient a little bit.
00:17:02 See the difference in velocity
and how much it hits you.
00:17:11 And it doesn't hurt the
rest of the sound.
00:17:13 Magi, magi.
00:17:21 Now if I turn everything back on,
with the DI, you get a
real benefit from it.
00:21:24 Let's match levels.
00:21:53 See how it anchors the guitar
and the bottom.
00:21:56 Like, when I removed it I felt like
the guitar is elevated and coming up.
00:21:59 Which I don't want that because I like
to be able to put
Croz up there and have the guitar
kind of tuck under him
so you can have the mental picture
of him sitting
and playing the guitar as the same
time as he's singing.
00:22:10 This helps do that. I helps me
ground the guitar.
00:22:15 I'm gonna put a little bit
of the BX-20 and of the EMT
so that David and his guitar
hang in the same area.
00:22:48 Let's check out the chorus
and make sure everything is
cool with the compression.
00:23:02 The same segment without
that last compressor.
00:23:26 You know what this does?
It allows me to lighten up the original
compressor on the source tracks.
00:23:58 We started here.
00:24:21 Bananas!
Let's go back to the verse
and make that vocal sound
as good as the guitar.
00:24:40 What I'm gonna do is compress it a little
more than I planned to because
of the densitiy of the guitar.
00:24:47 I recorded this with the
Dangerous Compressor on it.
00:24:50 It's already compressed.
00:24:51 It doesn't sound compressed because
you don't hear the Dangerous.
00:24:53 But here what I wanna do...
00:24:55 I wanna raise the overall level
and density of the track further
but I'm too lazy
to do it by hand.
00:25:01 So, the solution for that, lazy people,
is called the compressor. Here we go.
00:25:27 The Oxford tends to do
what it's suposed to do
at all times which is why it's always
my first choice.
00:25:33 I wanna add little bit of that thing
they call 'warmth'
which is really saturation.
00:25:39 Hear that? Without.
00:25:47 OK. Great.
00:25:48 I know I'm gonna want to use
the Pultec Pro
to match the tone of the guitar too,
enhance the vocal
so the guitar and the vocal
hang in the same place.
00:25:57 I know I'm gonna want some 5K.
00:25:59 And I know I'm gonna want some 10K
because I've done this before.
00:26:26 There's still a little bit of
a mask there.
00:26:28 But I like the warmth of it.
00:26:30 And the mask is fine by itself.
00:26:41 If I remember I had
the supresser over here
and that's a high-end suppressor.
00:26:45 I don't have a problem
with the high-end.
00:26:47 The problem is elsewhere probably
because of a different key.
00:26:49 And this Studer was making things
even fatter.
00:26:52 I'm not gonna need that.
00:26:54 Now I know that I'm not gonna need
those things, so they're gone.
00:26:57 Thank you for coming.
Thank you very much.
00:27:01 I don't wanna change the tone,
I like how fat it is.
00:27:04 I just to want to find
that little rub.
00:27:07 And I wanna use...
00:27:10 The Supresser,
listen to just the inside.
00:27:13 When you use the Supresser,
it's a good idea
to not compress while you're
looking for the frequency.
00:27:25 And then, go back to the mix
which is both
the targeted frequencies
and the rest of the sound
and start compressing just that
only when it's a problem.
00:27:59 I can help a little
further here.
00:28:01 There's a little bit of
a mask in the middle.
00:28:16 This is the time where
it's good to A/B.
00:28:20 Because, we have the tone of
the record already. Well, I do.
00:28:24 And I have to respect that,
otherwise it's gonna sound like
a hip-hop record where one
track is mixed on the West Coast
and one track is mixed in Patagonia.
And they're trying to sound the same.
00:28:32 And the master engineer is willing
to kill himself by track 3.
00:28:35 This is not what we wanna hear.
00:28:37 What we wanna hear is a
unified piece of work.
00:28:39 This is where I am right now.
00:28:49 Which is wicked loud.
00:28:50 It's really hard to compare the two.
00:28:53 In those cases you have
two options.
00:28:55 You can say: "OK, how loud
is my current mix?"
It's very reasonable.
00:29:15 It's about a couple dB louder.
Guess what?
Let's go up to 4 here.
00:29:20 See what happens.
00:29:30 I'm gonna point this out
to you again.
00:29:32 The first thing I heard is that
it's still a little wooly,
a like the thickness tough.
00:29:37 I don't know how I'm gonna do that.
00:29:38 The other track was recorded in
a big room,
this track was recorded
in a small room.
00:29:42 Big difference. Check it out.
Ref mix.
00:30:18 The vocal is not that far
I'm just gonna let it sink in.
00:30:21 The guitar should be louder.
00:30:23 And the ratio should be the same.
00:30:25 So that you feel this
unified record sound.
00:30:28 I'm gonna raise the guitar.
00:31:07 I feel compelled to do
two things.
00:31:10 A...
00:31:12 I hear the Studer tone on the
other one.
00:31:16 So, I'm gonna put the Studer on.
00:31:20 That's gonna bring me closer.
00:31:23 And same thing, I don't
need the extra noise. 30.
00:31:26 Maybe a little bit of that shine on there.
00:31:54 The other thing is now
I have Ss, right?
Why do I have Ss?
The Ss where fine but now I'm using
the Pultec to bring the top up
to match the other mix and to complement
the guitar, so I have S problems.
00:32:07 So I wanna use probably the
Fabfilter Desser.
00:32:12 And see if that gets
me where I wanna be.
00:32:46 I like. I wanna move the Studer
to the back.
00:32:49 It feels a little flat.
The reason is because,
since I recorded him in the small room,
I had them come pretty close.
00:32:56 I don't have the same distance.
I wanna use a delay...
00:32:59 Here.
00:33:00 And I'm gonna go on time,
and using the Haas effect realm,
not use a lot of it,
but just give a little bit of vibe.
I'm gonna solo so you can hear.
00:33:09 And I'm gonna look for my sound.
00:33:20 A little longer.
00:33:38 I'm gonna high-pass it a little.
00:33:39 So it's not so thick.
00:33:40 Can you hear what it does?
I’ll show you again.
00:33:42 You know what, I'm gonna mute
the reverb so you can hear what's going on.
00:33:45 This is all flat.
00:33:55 Hear how it feels like he's in
a bigger room?
I'll do it again.
00:34:06 I wonder how it would sound like
if it was a little dirtier.
00:34:08 This.
00:34:13 Flat.
00:34:20 This is great.
00:34:21 I'm gonna...
00:34:23 Bring the reverbs back on.
00:34:29 In the sauce.
00:34:51 As a reference.
00:35:08 Nice.
00:35:10 Could use a little
more of this, maybe.
00:35:32 Alright, not bad.
00:35:34 Let's leave the
referencing for a while.
00:35:36 I'm thinking it's time
to add some more stuff.
00:35:39 I'm gonna close this so you
can see everything going on.
00:35:43 This electric guitar here, what
does it sound like?
It's a little too thick.
00:36:00 As most things tend to be.
00:36:06 A clear candidate for
a phenomenal amount of reverb,
including the tail.
00:36:11 EMT.
00:36:40 It's a lot of difference
between the two interventions.
00:36:44 Let's adjust the levels.
00:37:18 There's an octave guitar here which
I assume is gonna get the same treatment.
00:37:27 Gorgeous. Let's do the same thing here.
00:37:57 Nice.
00:37:58 What else do we have?
Besides the 40 tracks of vocals
we have two 12 strings.
Let's listen to those.
00:38:08 Going to the left, what are you doing?
Go to the right.
The two of them together.
00:38:15 Gorgeous.
00:38:16 For the sake of OCD,
we're gonna put the number 1
on the left and number 2 on the right
otherwise it's just not gonna
feel quite right.
00:38:24 There's a little bit of a nose on this.
00:38:26 It's a little mediumy.
00:38:30 I'm gonna EQ them together using the
same trick as before.
00:38:33 Create group, call it 12 string.
00:38:36 In this case,
I'll still not gonna follow globals
but I'm interested in volume,
probably the sends, also.
00:38:45 Pan, no.
00:38:47 LFE, I can even spell LFE.
00:38:50 And then the inserts should
be together.
00:38:52 Automation mode, life is good.
00:38:54 What I'm gonna do now is...
00:38:57 Go here.
00:39:02 That thing there is just not good.
00:39:06 Better, maybe actually...
00:39:08 Let's listen to it in context.
00:39:16 Needs some shine.
00:39:18 Here comes the shine.
00:39:28 It may be a smidgeon too shine.
Let's see.
00:39:38 Obviously these are prime
candidates for the EMT.
00:39:40 I'm gonna copy the EMT.
00:39:42 Let's not forget that the EMT is mono.
00:39:44 So, there.
00:39:46 Let's try that.
00:39:50 More.
00:39:55 But I also want
some discrete left
and right reverb.
00:39:58 I'm gonna take the BX 20 here.
00:40:01 And put one to the left
and one to the right
because the BX 20 is really
two springs in a big
extremely tasteful wooden box.
00:40:30 Not bad, not exceptional.
00:40:33 How about we just put a little
bit of the shine with
our shine specialist right here.
00:40:38 In the 12K realm.
00:40:39 By the way, remember
since they're grouped
this guy is gonna follow.
00:40:42 Give it some energy.
00:40:44 High bandwidth.
00:40:48 To sound more like that.
00:40:54 Maybe we could use a little
5K too.
00:41:01 Without.
00:41:19 A little bit of bunch in the middle.
00:41:21 What if I use this to remove it?
In the context.
00:41:30 It's a little too much here.
00:42:02 Maybe not make them as loud.
00:42:05 I may have to automate this
to get the first...
00:42:07 Rocking and then tame the rest.
00:42:11 So why don't we use some reverb?
How about this guy?
Large theater.
00:42:27 I like that.
00:42:37 Let's see in stereo.
00:43:03 Without the extra reverb.
00:43:30 Something going on in the bottom.
We're just gonna...
00:43:33 off the stereo 12 strings which
is gonna be...
00:43:36 holy ungentle about it.
00:43:58 Let's see with the vocal.
00:44:00 From the top of the song
because this is...
00:44:04 All the guitars that are.
00:44:07 What's left is a bass...
00:44:09 And a whole bunch of vocals.
00:44:11 Let's see how this feels.
00:44:13 Let's listen from the top
and get a vibe for it.
00:45:00 I lowered the 12 strings
and I ducked them in a little bit...
00:45:04 It seemed like a good idea
at the time.
00:45:07 There's still something bothering me
with the vocal
but I don't know what it is yet
so I'm just gonna move on.
00:00:00 Bass.
00:00:02 Three microphones.
00:00:04 A ribbon.
00:00:09 A 451 in the bridge.
00:00:18 An actual 251 a little off the bass.
00:00:27 That's the one that sounds the
most like a bass
but it's a little far away.
Let's see.
00:00:32 Let's listen to all three.
00:00:45 Oh yeah.
00:00:47 At this part.
00:00:52 There's a little resonance there.
00:00:54 Let me collapse...
00:00:56 the sends so that we can see
everybody at the same time.
00:00:59 This is the 251.
00:01:05 That part.
00:01:09 The worst offender.
00:01:10 So why don't we...
00:01:14 How about the ribbon?
Probably a resonance in the
room at that moment.
00:01:24 Let's just get rid of it at about...
00:01:28 Here.
00:01:38 Let's go down.
00:01:43 Of course that sounds thin
and awful but...
00:01:50 The 251.
00:01:55 Without those 2 EQs,
which I kept the same to
keep the phase happy.
00:02:09 What if I put more of the 251?
It's not gonna do
much for the bottom.
00:02:17 Let's add some RCA.
00:02:23 OK, not bad.
00:02:24 This Michael League playing by the way.
00:02:26 Let's listen to him play...
00:02:27 This.
00:02:32 Let's high-pass the whole thing together.
00:02:37 Maybe it gives a leeway to
use this guy
to fatten the whole thing
elegantly.
00:02:58 Still a little bit of resonance
but it works.
00:03:00 This is where we started.
00:03:16 I'm gonna solo safe
the individual tracks
and turn the sub back
into a normal sub
so I can solo it at peace.
00:03:40 So, the hell knows I'm working
but this is a mess.
00:03:47 We could automate it
down level wise
but that would create a hole.
00:03:52 I think we're gonna
have to multi-band this.
00:03:54 I'm gonna use the
Fabfilter Pro-MB.
00:03:58 I bet it's around here.
00:04:03 At the bottom there.
00:04:09 Solo that.
00:04:13 Lower.
00:04:22 That is ugly as sin.
00:04:24 I'm gonna lower the threshold.
00:04:29 In context.
00:04:42 It needs to stay in compression longer.
00:04:44 I'm gonna slow the release down
so it stays...
00:04:46 It clamps on that frequency for
a longer time.
00:04:50 I'll have a very fast attack so we
can just go...
00:04:57 It could even be longer.
00:05:02 Without, by the way.
00:05:12 Let's hear in context.
00:05:23 Let's see the rest.
00:05:40 Not perfect, getting there.
00:05:42 I'm gonna compress it a little bit.
00:06:09 That anchors the song nicely.
00:06:12 Let's start listening to those vocals
because that is the tone.
00:06:16 First, we need a chorus vocal,
that would be useful.
00:06:19 This.
00:06:27 It sounds beautiful.
00:06:28 I wanna use...
00:06:30 This chain, we like this chain, right?
I'm gonna copy it over
because it's the same gentleman.
00:06:36 I'm not gonna use the Echo.
Definitely gonna use the Tape.
00:06:48 I'm gonna de-ess a little bit
out of habit.
00:06:57 I'm gonna use the same reverbs everywhere.
00:07:00 This is really an extension of the verse.
00:07:02 So, I wanna try and make it feel
like an extension of the verse
by using the same kind of processing.
00:07:08 So everybody is one big happy family.
00:07:12 Here's the end of the verse.
00:07:29 They're a little too fat.
00:07:30 Why they're too fat?
They're too fat because
they take me out of the dream.
All of the sudden
they kind of like, feel very....
00:07:38 'undream' like.
00:07:39 Very present, very in-you-face.
00:07:41 I don't want it to be
in-you-face like that.
00:07:44 I'm gonna lower the presence part,
like the below 400 Hz.
00:08:05 Without that, when it comes in...
00:08:09 This is the same with this EQ
right here disabled.
00:08:25 Above the guitars and everything.
00:08:27 And then here I can just go
a little higher and more overt
in the opening up of the high-end.
00:08:37 Maybe not that much.
00:08:46 More reverb.
00:09:11 What I'm gonna do is lower
the threshold on the compressor on
the whole thing
and speed the attack up a little bit.
00:09:17 So it catches the transients
and glues the stuff a little more.
00:09:29 To much threshold but that's the effect.
00:09:48 Let's keep that for now.
Let's listen to the harmony.
00:09:53 That's David too. I'm gonna...
00:09:55 Use the same processing because...
00:09:59 It's the same dude.
00:10:01 On the same microphone.
00:10:03 And what I did here
is I actually automated between
two microphones.
00:10:07 It was the main, the Eden,
and then when I had to do a double
or when I had to do a harmony
I would have them switch
to another microphone,
a 47 I think.
00:10:15 What happen is, we A/B
the Eden
versus the 47,
and the Eden won.
00:10:24 And so the Eden became the main
microphone for the record
and then we kept the 47 to
have a different tone
so that when you stack up
a lot of vocals,
which, it's David Crosby
so you know
you're gonna stack up a lot of vocals.
00:10:34 So you don't get that bump
at the bottom
where everything has the same
resonance at the same place.
00:10:39 So, there was a....
00:10:40 pretty elaborate system
where we had
two different microphones
in two different positions
allowing us to stack four layers
without having too
much of the build-up.
00:10:50 It worked out pretty well.
00:10:52 Let's copy the processing.
00:10:54 And see where it leads us.
00:11:02 'These are the things'
I set up the Bricasti for. Really?
So I'm gonna raise the Bricasti.
00:11:12 That's awesome.
00:11:14 And with the lead.
00:11:21 The backgrounds could be even
thinner and less mids too.
00:11:49 Let me switch everybody.
00:11:51 Here.
00:11:53 Change the solo safe environment.
00:11:55 So now I can listen to these guys
as a group.
00:11:57 And listen to these
guys as a group.
00:12:04 What is this like?
That's Michael.
00:12:10 Pretty breathy this one.
00:12:14 This one.
00:12:17 The breathy one is the only one
so I'm gonna put that in the middle.
00:12:22 And then...
00:12:28 And then soften that.
00:12:30 What I'm gonna do is definitely
use the Studer
to soften all those transients.
00:12:36 And make it kind of thin.
00:12:43 Together.
00:12:44 A little EQ to make sure
there's nothing at the bottom.
00:12:53 How about too much reverb?
What does this sound like?
The BX 20 is wonderful.
00:13:03 EMT.
00:13:10 It's starting to sound a little bit
like it should.
00:13:13 Let's see with the other.
00:13:20 It seems to me that the first set
of tracks, the roots,
are still too fat.
00:13:28 Let's see in context.
00:13:40 All that stuff would benefit
greatly from the spread.
00:13:43 Let's add some Spread.
00:13:54 A lot of Spread.
00:14:02 Spread is set up this way, really
standard edition.
00:14:05 It's the fantastic Soundtoys MicroShift
which I use on everything.
Style 3.
00:14:10 You know what, why not change
the focus a little higher?
Maximum Detune,
no Delay, I just want that fuzz.
00:14:24 And I'm changing now
the solo safe position
so that I can solo all four
of this falsettos.
00:14:30 And then I wanna do something else.
I wanna create a group.
00:14:33 Is anybody singing that stuff?
It's just them.
00:14:38 And there's this thing here.
What do they do?
That's gonna want some of that 250 tail.
Check it out.
00:14:57 That's awesome.
00:14:58 I wanna create a group
that I'm gonna call "Chorus...
00:15:05 Backs".
00:15:07 And I'm gonna call it VCA.
00:15:08 Because, I'm gonna use this
just for the VCA.
00:15:11 And it doesn't need to follow global.
00:15:13 It doesn't need to do anything.
00:15:15 I can remove everything so
I don't make mistakes.
00:15:19 There you go.
00:15:21 This group now exists and does
absolutely nothing.
00:15:23 The point is now I can create
a VCA object, here...
00:15:27 Call it...
00:15:29 CH Backs VCA...
00:15:33 Assign that group to it
so now I can offset all three
sends...
00:15:38 with one button I can mute them,
I can solo them,
life is good.
00:15:55 I'll put the Bricasti on the...
00:15:57 High.
00:15:58 And let's see what my changes
just did to the chorus.
00:16:08 Maybe I'll have to automate that 250 tail
so it sounds really dreamy on the verse
but doesn't do that mess on the chorus.
00:16:21 Put this in full stereo.
00:16:25 It was better before.
00:16:46 What else do we get?
We have this.
00:16:50 Let's see.
00:16:58 OK.
00:17:02 So that is
probably meant to associate
with these guys
at the end.
00:17:17 That's gorgeous.
I'm gonna copy the reverbs
and probably just
the EQ and the Tape.
00:17:25 To give it a sense of family.
00:17:28 Tail, EMT.
00:17:31 Bricasti and definitely...
00:17:34 The Spread.
00:17:41 This one here...
00:17:46 This one here wants to hang out
with the other thing called...
00:17:50 Ahhhh.
00:17:53 Let's solo-safe.
00:17:59 Too fat but that sounds pretty.
00:18:04 Same thing.
00:18:19 In context.
00:18:32 And there's an extra falsetto right here.
00:18:37 And it says...
00:18:39 That it's doing...
00:18:41 This.
00:18:45 Falsetto, I'm gonna make it stereo.
00:18:49 Copy this.
00:18:51 Copy this.
00:18:53 Copy this.
00:18:55 Etcetera.
00:19:04 I think this one deserves more...
00:19:06 Of everything.
00:19:10 It sounds like this in context.
00:19:22 Nice detail. Alright.
00:19:24 Electric guitar is definitely
under utilized.
00:19:26 Let's see what we can do with it.
00:19:34 Because the main guitar
is a little left heavy
I'm gonna put this on the right.
Just a little bit.
00:19:56 The noise on the guitar
really bothers me.
00:20:04 Everything is so otherworldly
and this buzz is so very Fender.
00:20:07 So, why don't we,
don't tell anyone,
get rid of it?
I'm gonna learn
the noise, it's very consistent,
so I can learn it.
00:20:25 And now it should be fine.
00:20:50 And it removes all that gonk.
00:20:52 And let's us dream.
00:20:56 I'll make it a little brighter
because the noise is
no longer a factor.
00:21:47 Now that I have
full use of the guitar, there's a little
bit of resonance here, in the low...
00:21:54 let's see.
00:21:59 With my EQ here.
Let's see if I nailed it.
00:22:33 The vocal should be
steadier and fatter
and usually when I have
that urge
it's because I wanna hear
the sound we've been listening to
for many years, which is this sound.
00:22:48 On the vocal too.
00:22:49 Let's see if that works for me.
00:23:42 I'm really digging it.
00:23:43 I think I could use
the Pultec here,
around 100
to tame a little bit of that grab.
00:24:38 A little bright but not bad
and we're a little loud.
Let's go back down.
00:24:56 The problem is I actually went
too far on the 12 strings
which made me make the
vocal too bright.
00:25:01 It's nice on it's own but
we're straying from the record.
00:25:04 Not good.
00:25:17 The other thing that bothers me
is that I don't like the space
around the main guitar.
00:25:21 So, I have one reverb left that
I haven't used much.
00:25:24 It's the BX-10. Let's see how it sounds.
00:25:35 The BX-10 always works on guitar.
00:25:51 It's so fat and discrete.
I love it. Listen.
00:25:53 Let's see in context.
00:26:42 I trust you'd agree that
this line right here
has to be louder, right?
That's just so good. Let's try it.
00:27:47 And this...
00:27:55 Actually there's another part
of the 12 string
that's so good, it's this.
00:28:10 Let's be wild.
00:28:14 Another crescendo, for entertainment.
00:28:47 And there's a replay here.
00:29:18 That part, because he plays
a little harder,
is kind of pinny.
00:29:21 I don't wanna change the EQ,
so I'm gonna try and control
the transients
with our trusty Studer and see
if it works.
00:29:29 So here it is.
00:29:31 And these are ganged so I can
do it on just one.
00:29:34 Like this.
00:30:15 It still feels a little dry.
00:30:17 Not dry as not enough reverb
but dry as not exciting enough.
00:30:22 I wanna try something crazy.
00:30:24 I think I'd like to try.
00:30:27 An automated reverb, or
a dynamic reverb on this.
00:30:29 Let's call it
Dyn Reverb.
00:30:32 I'll create it.
00:30:34 And this guitar...
00:30:37 I wanna it to be the lushest
guitar
in the history of guitar universe.
00:30:42 If that's possible. Let's see.
00:30:45 And I wanna put it in the Sub so that
everybody is in the same
vibe for when I do automation.
00:30:51 That's cool. This is bright.
00:30:52 Where I mean by a dynamic reverb
is I don't wanna it to be on
all the time.
00:30:56 I've used this trick a couple
times before
and I really loved it.
00:30:59 And I think it's gonna
work great here.
00:31:01 I'm gonna put an expander...
00:31:02 This guy.
00:31:05 On the...
00:31:06 return of the reverb
before the reverb and then I'm gonna use
the Oxford Reverb.
00:31:12 Because it's great and easy.
00:31:16 There you go. I want something long.
00:31:19 This is what it sounds like
with the guitar in solo
and just...
00:31:25 Just the microphone.
00:31:32 It's a mess. Let me get rid of
the other
reverbs and just focus on this
one for a second.
00:31:43 I like what it does, this
grandiose thing.
00:31:45 But...
00:31:46 The noise is exciting it too much.
00:31:49 I don't wanna have to deal with that.
00:31:51 I'm gonna move over to
the...
00:31:55 DI that doesn't have that problem.
00:32:19 The expander is already doing
it's job on this one.
00:32:21 Let me play it again
without the expander.
00:32:33 Now the trick is to set the
expander so that the reverb
only gets fired on
the notes you want.
00:32:37 So, first, I don't want it to be
fired up on the bottom of the guitar.
00:32:42 Only the high-end of the guitar.
00:32:43 The first thing I'm gonna do is...
00:32:45 I'm gonna make this pre,
so we can mute the direct signal
and it's easier to show you what
I'm doing.
00:32:51 This is just the return
with no reverb.
00:32:54 I'm gonna lower the threshold
so you can hear it.
00:32:57 I'm also gonna make the range
pretty heavy.
00:32:59 But the ratio
pretty soft so that
it doesn't go...
00:33:02 So we kind of like gently
enters into...
00:33:06 Expansion.
00:33:09 And of course I want it
to catch quickly.
00:33:18 What you hear right now is just
what the reverb is gonna hear.
00:33:22 There's gonna be a little bit of
reverb on this.
00:33:29 And a lot on that.
00:33:31 I'm gonna slow down the release
so you don't have that
grain quality on that.
00:33:45 That's exactly what I wanted.
If I turn the reverb back on...
00:33:47 So now, there's just the reverb
no direct signal.
00:33:51 You're gonna hear the
reverb just expanding.
00:34:01 And with the direct signal.
00:34:12 So it's microphone + DI
with the dynamic reverb on.
00:34:15 I haven't fully figured out
the level yet.
00:34:23 Could use more.
00:34:31 As I reminder, without the reverb
that section sounds like this.
00:34:50 I'm gonna shorten it a little bit.
00:34:52 And make it a little louder.
00:34:55 That's kind of fun.
00:34:56 If we turn the other reverbs on
it's all gonna blend
into one gorgeous part.
00:35:15 I loved it.
00:35:16 Let's go back to the top
and check out what it
does to the overall vibe
of the song because this kind of
space change is gonna change
how I feel about the vocal
and how I feel about everything else.
00:35:27 Let's listen.
00:35:45 Now with this
I wanna refine it a little more.
00:35:48 Just a little more.
00:35:49 I think I'm gonna put
a little bit of a...
00:35:53 tuck in around 130 here.
00:35:56 And high-pass a little further.
00:36:12 The way it was a second ago.
00:36:37 This is coming together.
I want the first...
00:36:41 12 string to...
00:36:44 Push me off my seat.
00:36:53 I'm really liking this.
00:36:55 I think it's time to
automate more things.
00:37:14 That's good enough for jazz.
00:37:16 Speaking of jazz...
00:37:18 This upright is
a couple fries short of a happy meal.
Let's fix that.
00:37:29 We go below.
00:37:33 Add some 'ummm' thing.
00:38:09 The Studer the 'Repro' EQ HF thing.
00:38:13 I don't know what it
does, it just adds air.
00:38:16 Sounds like and EQ without
sounding like and EQ.
00:38:18 It's really gentle,
it's really awesome if you wanna
make something more present
without being brighter.
Does that make sense?
The bottom note of the upright works,
the upper note is awful.
00:39:08 This should be a little better.
00:39:33 Since we raised the high-end
on the 12 strings,
what would happen if we
made them a little...
00:39:39 better fed?
Check out the chorus.
00:40:56 With and without the UAD Maximizer.
00:40:59 This is with.
00:41:39 I'll do it again, trying
to level match this thing.
00:41:51 Listen to the 'haaa' in between
'These are the things'
and all that energy there.
00:41:55 This is without.
00:42:10 Just very gentle
beautiful enhancer.
00:42:13 I like it.
00:42:14 There's one more thing I wanna
try since I'm using the 2 BUS+.
00:42:17 Usually it works to add
a little bit of the paralimiter
and or a little bit of the transformer.
00:42:25 To get that...
00:42:27 softening yet beautifying thing.
00:42:30 Part of our vintage versus modern project.
00:42:33 I find that, on a mix that's hovering
between -18 to -14,
I find that the Paralimiter sounds great
on 2 or 3 clicks on the whole mix.
00:42:42 Let's how it feels on this.
00:42:45 This is flat.
00:43:01 And with the Paralimiter.
00:43:14 It's denser
and it's more filled.
00:43:17 Check it out.
I'll play it again flat.
00:43:37 And I love what it
does on the vocal.
00:43:38 And then on the chorus
it's probably awesome.
00:43:40 Check it out.
00:44:08 Sold. I liked it.
00:44:09 It makes it fatter,
removes a little bit of the mud
by adding some energy in the
bottom that's more
'strong like bull'.
00:44:17 I like.
00:44:19 Let's try the transformer too
because I have a feeling it may work.
Just smidgeon.
00:44:23 I'm gonna turn the transform on and
add like one click, maybe.
00:44:26 This is without the transformer.
00:44:40 Listen to the attack of:
"These are the things".
00:44:42 "These are the things".
Listen to that.
00:44:44 Without the transformer.
00:44:58 It's softens that attack
and makes it more blended together.
00:45:02 So now, the whole mix without transformer
or Paralimiter sounds like this.
00:45:43 Adds the weight that pushes the mix
over the edge
and makes it a little more like
the original intention which
is, a mix of super present,
super modern, very clean, but
with a nod to a glue
and the texture of older records.
00:46:00 Let's print.
00:46:06 Create a playlist.
00:50:20 Et voilà!
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Fab Dupont is an award-winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has received many accolades around the world, including wins at the Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards, US independent music awards. He also has received Latin Grammy nominations and has worked on many Latin Grammy and Grammy-nominated albums.
Legendary singer-songwriter and social justice activist David Crosby is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, inducted as a member of both the iconic folk-rock band The Byrds — with whom he first rose to stardom — and the iconic Woodstock era-defining group Crosby, Stills & Nash.
David's most recent release, Lighthouse is an intimate, stripped-down set that highlights Crosby’s instantly recognizable voice, incisive songwriting, and incomparable guitar work. The palpable joy in the 9-song collection captures the iconic artist in an unexpected burst of inspiration.
Legendary singer-songwriter and social justice activist David Crosby is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, inducted as a member of both the iconic folk-rock band The Byrds — with whom he first rose to stardom — and the iconic Woodstock era-defining group Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
Amazing stuff! Loved how you presented the details, use and sound for each reverb. And the expander/gate thing...
Looking forward to driving a marshmallow... ha haaa!
Merci, Fab
jens.s
2021 Mar 27
Watching the recording process chapter. No information about mics used, preamps used etc...
jens.s
2021 Mar 27
One man, one guitar, 21 plugins...
jlantrip
2020 Jun 11
Just so you guys are aware you can go to later chapters, just click on the chapters section and go to the 2bus say, then you can rewind for the full hour.
Eric …..
2020 Jun 08
This was great...I just had a hard time with the sound of the mic Fab was using...in beginning listening to subtle differences i had to turn it up or go into headphones, but then when Fab speaks its harsh on the ears. Thanks Again ..i will watch 2x
beau.s
2020 Feb 04
Fab, that raw playback gave me chills. Croz is such an artist. I love the way you captured him.
dimitritoonen
2019 Aug 08
Nice video, but unfortunately chapter 2 and 3 are not playable. Chapter 1 works fine. Tested it on multiple devices and got the same result.
jonlibra
2017 May 06
Amazing. Great song and superb mix. Pure gold.
charliej01
2017 Apr 13
Hi -- the haas effect on the atlantis guitar should be straightforward in Logic too - but I' tried to replicate it with sample delay and soundtoys echoboy with little success.
Can you suggest a way of doing it with any of Logic's native FX that might deliver similar results to the pro tools delay you've used.
Thanks
bennetthughes
2016 Dec 24
I just watched a David Crosby mix... yep, David Crosby! Thank you puremix gents, that was cool.
bgrichting
2016 Dec 09
Don't want to swear but d**n, Fab really got the magic touch, very subtle changes make up a great sounding mix. Learned a lot, i knew subscribing to Puremix would be worth it. And the tip with the synchronised plugin controls in groups was gold ;-)
viccieleaks
2016 Dec 06
etheral composition, silky mix!
dupont.romain
2016 Dec 04
Hey! I'm a huge fan of what you guys are doing! really I love to take some rest in my studio watching all those fantastic stuff. Plus it's often inspiring!
While watching (hearing) this particular video, I felt the need to leave a comment for the first time in more than two years. Are you really okey with the 30ms Haas effect you applied on the lead vocal? I really understand the need of such a trick in this particular case but I do hear this annoying "processed" vibe afterward, even in the context of the song. Why not just turn it down to 25 or 20 ms?
Again! Thank a lot for doing this!
R.
Mtbowe
2016 Dec 03
Did anyone catch the BPM. I'm stumped! Thanks
Jorge.Costa
2016 Dec 03
Outstanding!
KamilW
2016 Dec 02
Amazing!
fozy6000
2016 Dec 01
I really enjoyed the presentation and insights into mixing and the application of multi-layered fx. My only critique is that I wish the narration volume was lower in proportion to the musical examples because I found myself doing manual gain riding just to hear the examples more clearly.
Gary Ambrosino
2016 Nov 08
Question.
Fab, you did a very nice job taking time to explain the bussing setup - very clear and easy to understand.
As far as the stems - a lot of the lessons you have you primarily use subs and sometimes a VCA - one or two lessons on stems WRT to using a control surface.
Question is do you always have this stem bussing on your sessions. Did you do it this time because of the setup in the other studio your were using to make it easier to transfer over ? Or was it dictated by the material and what you were trying to achieve. Also first time I've seen a bank of limiters.
Finnius
2016 Nov 07
Agreed your best video. Well done!
Kevin Gobin
2016 Nov 07
Impeccable.
69bluesman
2016 Nov 07
Lol...the marshmallow reference had me literally laughing out loud. Good shit!
zangiamit91
2016 Nov 03
Your best video fab. All the explai about the chain and the hardware and all the little dots that u remind through the lesson . Keep and do it more!!
CharlieM
2016 Nov 02
Fantastic! Thanks very much Fab.
G.MICHAELHALL
2016 Oct 30
Edit: Magical Marshmallow Sauce..sorry about my colourful typo!!
G.MICHAELHALL
2016 Oct 30
The dynamic reverb gate stunt was worth the price of admission alone!!..having spent some time with these raw tracks, its undeniable that the mix decisions by "Mr Voila'!" and his magical mushroom sauce sprinkled so tastefully are what turned this content into something really special. Excellent mix
composermikeglaser
2016 Oct 30
I love that Fab starts from the stems and arranges everything for us in real time. It's an excellent way for everyone to see how to stay organized and keep everything easy to find.
The tricks that Fab uses are top notch, those that make you say "huh, that's how he does that?"
I also enjoy that he decides right off the bat to keep the vibe of the song in context with the time period but also adds modern elements to make it relevant.
Great work as always Fab!
nikostudio
2016 Oct 30
Souperrrr !!!!
odrybenj
2016 Oct 30
Superb! The arrangements are splendid and the amount of tricks that Fab gives makes this video a must-watch! Thanks for taking the time remixing this for us. Really appreciated it.
