Multi-platinum mixing and mastering engineer Luca Pretolesi takes you step by step through his entire mixing and mastering process for Major Lazer’s hit single “Light It Up (Remix)”
Luca is Major Lazer’s “Finisher” and helps Diplo and his team combine multiple sessions into one sonic masterpiece.
Learn Luca’s hybrid workflow and see how he takes a great static mix, applies stereo bus processing and then digs into the details it takes to create a hit-sounding EDM record.
Luca teaches you his tips and tricks for mixing modern electronic/pop music including:
Mixing with the final master in mind
Create a present midrange on a dense mix
Analog and digital stem mixing process using analog EQ, compression and summing
Add thickness and a more organic sound to electronic ITB productions
Removing reverb from a synth stem
Add top-end clarity and mid-range punch heard on every modern pop and EDM mix
Sidechain filtering for a focused bus compression
Multiband stereo image processing to open up the top end with the perfect amount of dimension
Automating the master bus for maximum impact on the drop
Hear countless before and after comparisons to learn the sound and attitude that’s required to create a killer mix.
When it comes to mixing EDM there are no rules and now is your chance to see how Grammy nominated mixing/mastering engineer Luca Pretolesi breaks the rules and delivers a slamming sounding mix!
BONUS: The artist and their label were gracious enough to allow pureMixers the chance to try their hand at mixing a portion of the song using the same raw multitrack stems Luca mixed.
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.
00:00:10 Luca Pretolesi here in Las Vegas,
at Studio DMI.
00:00:13 That's the place, that is the place
where I mix every single day.
00:00:17 Today we have something special,
it's Major Lazer,
it's a project that's here
in my heart,
I'm involved with for many years,
over five years,
many albums, singles,
remixes.
00:00:28 What really makes special
Major Lazer it's a collective
of producers and artists,
and singers
and my role on the project
is I'm the finisher,
I'm involved in the early stage
of the record,
I'm collecting stems and I do
a final mix and master of the record.
00:00:45 Today we are covering one song,
it's called "Light It Up",
that was part of "Peace is the Mission",
big album, with "Lean On" and
other big records,
came out two years ago at this point
but still really relevant.
00:00:58 This song is being produced
and mixed in some way during
the production
but there's always room to improve it,
and make it cohesive, and
make it glued together,
and today that's what I'm gonna do
again,
I'm gonna glue this song together
again.
00:01:13 Alright guys, let's listen the rough
first.
00:02:18 There are a few important elements
for me that I need to address,
even before I go on specific parts
of the mix, and
I wanna make sure that's been addressed
again from the stereo bus approach,
I wanna have a very tight,
centered low-end
with a kick and bass
really sit in the center.
00:02:36 I wanna make sure that the vocal
is not suffocated by the rest
ok, if it makes sense.
00:02:42 At the same time the bass has a movement
when it goes in the lower part,
it starts to compete, it starts
to just go against the kick,
so I wanna make sure that I keep a
good control of kick'n'bass relationship
but the main thing is I need to feature
the main part with the trumpet,
and I have in mind some ideas
as far as coloring that part,
in some way unglue the trumpet
but glue the rest.
00:03:06 Also I wanna have a mid-range
compression going on,
I wanna set up this
from the real beginning.
00:03:11 To me an important element
to set up a loud master later on,
is to have a very balanced mix
when at the crest factor is really
under control I have like
the average level kind of high,
so in the mid-range,
the 1k, 5k, 4k to me
is the part I want to bring in front
of the speakers,
and if I do this from the real beginning
I'm gonna find myself
fight later less on getting
the mid-range come up in front
so I'm gonna use my techniques
to do that.
00:03:40 At the same time I wanna leave
space and headroom,
to have the extreme-low and
the extreme-high move
but retain the mid-range in the front,
if it makes sense.
00:03:49 This song is made by 28 stems
in Logic, assigned to different busses,
in-the-box,
and then from there spread
through the console;
all the drums is handled by the 2-Bus+,
and the bass as well this time,
the rest, the synth I use
some old hardware gear for some parts,
main lead of the song through the Ramsa
console, next to me on the right
and then a lot of elements are going
through a stereo bus process
that I'm going to go over
with you guys in a bit.
00:04:20 In Logic essentially, stems to
internal bussing of Logic,
from Logic to the Convert-8
which is the D/A that I choose,
from the D/A to the 2-Bus+.
00:04:32 Between the Convert-8 and
the 2-Bus+
everything goes in the patch-bay,
from the patch-bay I can choose
where to go.
00:04:40 I have my go-to, in this case
Neotek for the kick drums
for sure, the Ramsa console for the trumpet
and the guitar
and I have also inserts on the
entire 2-Bus+ for the drum and bass
with an old broadcasting compressor
called 1202 that I love so much.
00:05:01 This is a 2016 EDM approach of
again, a lot of people starting
to get the best possible sound
built in the actual song so
if I'm a producer in Jamaica
and my job is to vocal produce
the actual vocal for my singer
I try to maximize my using
and try to just give the tone
that I want,
the personality that I want, EQ-wise
and compression-wise, and etcetera.
00:05:30 So in each one,
somebody's doing the synths,
in another country, is doing the same,
so for me as a finisher/mixer,
is to take the best and
the initial vision
and amplify that vision,
and just make it as a record.
00:05:44 And I try to,
with respect to the song,
to add my personality
and my input.
00:05:51 The actual zero level, besides a few
changes that I'm doing on this song,
it's a starting point for me.
00:06:00 My starting point ten years ago
was faders down coming up
now my starting point is zero,
and from there make adjustments,
that's very important.
00:06:11 To start my mix for a track that
has been prep'd in a proper way,
even leveling and everything,
is going over again, one more
time, to make sure
that level-wise there's something
that I might address before I touch
my stereo bus processing.
00:06:25 If I don't do that I risk to go make
some EQ decisions
just because something was
too loud or too low,
I wanna go over and make sure
that level-wise everything feels ok,
from the real beginning.
00:06:38 So I play two parts of the track and
jump between the drop and the verse,
really quick, I wanna find something
that just hit me in the wrong way
and just fix it level-wise.
00:07:01 Those synths are super loud.
00:07:10 2dB sometimes
save you hours later,
I find also on the verse some
percussions are a little bit distracting.
00:07:54 Fine, just wanna check some elements
on the second part of the hook.
00:08:15 Feels ok.
Vocal.
00:08:44 Since my compression in the mid-range
is going to affect everything
I wanna make sure that I've the
best possible leveling
before I go into compression.
00:08:54 I was a little concerned about
the relationship between
the main lead vocal and
the background vocal
so now I'm checking, making sure
that I have like more an organic
thinner approach between
those two parts.
00:09:17 Feels pretty good.
00:09:19 Just some minor things that really help
to make my life easier
going into the next phase
which is,
again, the approach of
the stereo bus on the entire song.
00:09:27 Like I mentioned earlier,
my point is to make sure
this song, from the real beginning,
has some air on the top
but not too harsh,
but mainly I'd like mid-range to come
right in front of me a little bit,
I wanna have a little bit of movement,
a little bit of like groove on
the low-end,
without getting too bloomy,
just give a little bit of personality.
00:09:47 This allows me to do less on the
annoying part that you risk to deal with
which is a million EQ doing,
trying to do the same thing,
when I can do one-time only
and just give the right shape,
less phasing, less problems,
less CPU usage as well.
00:10:01 Plugin-wise as you can see
this session
is pretty much empty
at the beginning
but it's pretty common right now to deal
with stem that have been pre-processed,
and especially because it's not
even mixing,
it's sound designing and writing
with a sound that inspires you
to make a good song,
I wanna respect that.
00:10:21 Again, my job it's like
a borderline co-producer,
mixer, mastering guy so
my brain works in a different way.
00:10:32 Technically, one thing that I am on
looking is to make sure
that there's no damage on the
actual stem
when is a stereo stem.
If it's a stereo stem
there's a synth plus reverb
plus distortion,
I wanna make sure that
it's clean
so I am able to add my extra work,
I wanna make sure that I have
headroom on those stems,
so if this comes to place in the right
way then I am able to do my job.
00:10:55 When I have my mix properly
balanced, ready to be treated
as far as the stereo part,
my next step is actually compression.
00:11:08 I wanna my compressor to be extremely
transparent,
and what it does,
it enhances the mid-range
to give a tiny bit of movement,
but mostly to bring it
in front of me a little bit.
00:11:18 My techniques are very simple:
I use a Dangerous Compressor,
and I use a BAX EQ
dedicated to the external side-chain.
00:11:26 I love the internal side-chain
but I wanna be able to
not touch the top, not touch the low,
just touch the mid-range
so I use a filter and a shelf
to smooth the top,
and I do the same on the bottom,
and I just concentrate everything
on the mid-range.
00:11:43 And then I'm going to make
a decision
as far as the vibe of the song,
usually a 108 BPM song like this
allows me to have the song
to breath a little bit more,
compression-wise, so I can get
a little bit more aggressive;
if I've 128 BPM song then I have
less room for that.
00:11:59 My first step is,
before even going into compression,
to get the space that I want to
compress.
00:12:05 So on the Dangerous Compressor
first things I do
I activate my external side-chain,
and I wanna monitor my side-chain
so that I really listen
what I'm going to compress.
00:12:18 The BAX EQ is hard-wired to the
Compressor in this case,
let's check it out.
00:12:31 Brutally I completely
high-pass and low-pass,
and then I need more so
I'm going to enhance the mid-range,
I wanna shave the 300 down,
and then as soon as I set up my EQ,
it's gonna be temporary,
so I'm going to start to compress,
and then I might gonna tweak
a little bit,
just to find the sweet spot
as far as the compression.
00:13:08 I wanna have some needle moving,
I wanna decide my ratio,
and maybe go back
but that's my starting point.
00:13:14 Now I'm gonna deactivate my monitor
so I'm gonna actually listen to
the Compressor
working with the detector that is getting
what the BAX EQ is filtering.
00:13:40 My starting point is 2:1,
and I might gonna end up to have
a little bit smooth,
like 1.7:1
but I start with 2:1
and I'm gonna exaggerate on purpose,
I wanna do maybe 4 or 5dB
or 7dB
just to get the right vibe.
00:13:56 Most of the time I stay on manual
attack and release mode, just because
I want to shape the groove that I want,
and then after that I'm gonna
find my sweet spot
as far as the level of compression
that I want
and go into EQing.
Let's do it.
00:14:44 If you focus on the trumpet relationship
trumpet, synth and bass,
and think about the 1k that
we push here
you gonna feel that it's coming right in
front of the speakers, a little bit more.
00:15:00 Let's check it with and without.
00:15:14 Sometimes I go ratio 1.4:1 even
and I do a little bit more of
compression and it's good as well,
what I'm looking is organically to bring
the mid-range a little bit in front of me
with all those elements and
the transient
happening in the mid-range,
especially the trumpet.
00:15:31 So it's not an EQ decision,
it's just a compression decision.
00:15:35 I wanna just bring that in front,
without touching the low and the top.
00:15:39 I want you to focus on this
extreme low-end,
when the bass is moving
on the lower parts,
that's the part the side-chain really
is gonna be really beneficial.
00:15:48 What I'm looking is to make sure that
when it goes in the lower part
is not gonna trigger my compressor
and just pull the volume down ok,
has to be consistent.
Let's check it with and without.
00:16:17 What I feel is there's a big dipping
on the low-end, the 100,
so the bass is taking the entire song
and just pull it down.
00:16:26 It's important to have a side-chain
that allows you to re-shape
the way the compressor behaves for you.
00:16:32 Part of my process on the stereo bus
is EQing.
00:16:36 Another question is: why you want to EQ
after compression?
Because I don't want to change the
balance of my compression,
I want to control the detector,
meaning where it's going to compress
but I don't want to EQ into a compressor
on the stereo bus.
00:16:49 I wanna shape what I'm listening
after compression so,
I used the Bettermaker for a few years,
for this purpose. Why I do that?
Because it allows me to have
different EQing in one piece
essentially,
I have the Pultec side,
I have a very clean side.
00:17:09 My approach initially is
with the Pultec side,
to give some very smooth shape
where I want if I feel that needs
the top and the bottom.
If I want to address the mid-range
I go on EQ1 and EQ2
which it's more surgical
and I keep some parts
on the mid-range.
00:17:27 I feel as now, I am kind of happy
about the mid-range
because the compressor, the way
it's breathing, comes in the front,
I just wanna give a little bit of
shape on the top,
a little bit of air on the top,
and a little bit of bump on the bottom,
without being too boomy.
00:17:42 The Bettermaker EQ232P is not a plugin,
it's a great analog EQ that has a plugin
for the purpose of automation, control,
saves settings and recalls
the actual hardware
which it's pretty amazing.
00:17:59 Another interesting part is that
it's a real stereo EQ
but also works on mid-side
so very versatile.
00:18:06 Usually on the stereo bus approach
I try to stay away from mid-side EQing
from the real beginning,
I don't wanna change
the nature of the track and reverb,
placement and everything,
it's just on the stereo mode.
00:18:17 I might gonna end up
towards the end of the mix
to do tiny corrections then
I'm gonna go on mid-side mode.
00:18:22 Let's start as a stereo.
00:18:38 So for me to get the low-end right
I know it sounds painful
but I like to loop the worst part
and just focus on that.
00:18:57 I'm looking at a high-pass filter,
a little bit of low-end.
00:19:30 So I am able to open a little bit
of the 100
and keep under control the 30 and down.
00:19:35 If you bypass the high-pass filter
you're gonna feel an extension of tail,
of decay, of the combination of
kick and bass that takes a lot of space
without a purpose.
00:19:48 I'm not having any transient
in movement,
it just takes a lot of headroom
for no reason.
00:19:53 Let me play a few bars with and
without the filter
now that I've the low-end set up
on the Pultec side.
00:20:11 In some way I feel that I'm
losing a little bit of the transient,
and I get a little bit out of control.
00:20:15 It's very subtle but it's very important
for me.
00:20:18 The approach on the top is smooth
so I'm not looking
to re-shape the top-end, I'm looking
to open a little bit of air
that is gonna be a very big deal
when I go into plugin EQs,
I just want open air, reach the top-end
that I like,
and then in-the-box, doing more
mid-range stuff,
more technical, more surgical.
Alright, let's do it.
00:20:41 I try to stay away from looking at the
screen too much and I try to really
go by feeling and that's why I like to work
on the Bettermaker with my hands.
00:21:12 Kind of like that 8K with like..
really broad band so that
I feel it gives some air without
giving spikes.
00:21:18 Let's listen to two bars with EQ and
compression and two bars with nothing.
00:21:22 Let's do it.
00:21:39 Pretty obvious to me that the
initial idea has started to take shape,
and come to life.
So
bring the mid-range in the front,
shape a little bit of top,
a little bit of air,
tighten a little bit the low-end,
without changing the nature of the
low-end but tighten it up a little bit
and start the mix, we kind of
like the final destination
right like closer to us.
00:22:01 That's gonna be my sound,
everything is gonna translate through that.
00:22:04 This means that the compressor
is gonna do its job,
the drums, even the drums processing
we are about to do right now,
they're gonna benefit from what
we just did on the stereo bus.
00:22:14 Drums is played in few busses:
kick, low percussion,
high percussion.
00:22:19 What is for me low percussion and
high percussion, that's very important.
00:22:23 Frequency-wise it's about
1k down, 1k up.
00:22:27 So, clap, rim, snares,
toms, everything is low percussion.
00:22:33 Ride, any cymbal, crash,
anything happening,
tambourines,
those are high percussions.
00:22:40 I like to split those on two busses,
in-the-box,
and then from there,
on the 2-Bus+.
00:22:48 So my first approach is
going on the analog side
and shape the way I want
color-wise in this case,
I'm gonna use the Parallel Limiter,
then go back to the box,
and on Logic do some surgical approach
of separation, spreading and
anything I wanna do
again, based on what I'm hearing,
from the 2-Bus+.
00:23:12 So that's my approach,
there's no right or wrong
I can just do in-the-box first and
then color later,
I like to do it in this way first.
00:23:18 For this song I decide to route the bass
with the drums.
00:23:23 Sometimes in different songs,
I keep it separated,
but I felt the benefit of kind like
glue the bass with the kick
and I kind of like what the 2-Bus+
is doing, especially with the insert,
to kind of like glue together
kick and bass.
00:23:36 So I'm gonna play just the drums
and the bass, first
to get an overall like compression
on my drums and bass
plus the compression EQ
we're having on the stereo bus.
00:23:48 For doing this I use a very old
compressor which is a broadcasting
compressor from I think
the late, mid-late 80s, the 1202
that has a very slow everything,
slow attack, medium-slow release,
but what I really like it's the tone
in the color and what I'm going for
is in some way I'm gonna go
little hard in the input,
and just do maybe a 2dB of compression
and what I'm gonna feel
is gonna be this kind of like lifting
on all the parts that sit before and
after the kick,
before and after the snare,
before and after the percussion.
00:24:28 It's almost like a massage of
the entire drums.
00:25:00 I like to go for slow attack,
medium-fast release,
I don't wanna kill the transient,
I just wanna lift a little bit.
00:25:20 5dB compression, it has a tone,
the transformer has a really thick tone,
so let's go before and after.
00:25:42 With the same concept of
dealing with the analog side first,
go back in the box,
I go in the kick drum.
00:25:49 Now, what's gonna happen?
The kick drum is translating from
this drum compression, the stereo bus
compression and the EQ,
on the stereo bus.
So everything starts to make sense.
00:25:59 So what I'm looking for the kick is
give a tiny bit of the kick
the top-kick, the attack, a tiny bit
more of that, and try to give
a little bit of mid-range, I want the
kick to have a little bit of mid-range,
because we're getting thicker from
the compression
but I want just get a little bit
of mid-range.
00:26:18 What is gonna help me to do is
to go back on my DAW
and pull down maybe like a dB
less on the kick
so I can get more headroom on the
entire mix with the right tone,
and be able to re-shape the kick
just a tiny bit.
00:27:17 Great, what I did essentially
is a little bit of 10k,
a little bit of 80, weird
I thought it was pushing more
on 300, 500 but just like
the tone was just grabbing,
this 80 was really good,
pull down a little bit of the 20
but the 20 is very shelved
50, 60 down to 20,
a few dB of that.
00:27:38 Now I wanna try to mono the kick
that's something special about the
2-Bus+ to me.
00:27:43 The real mono after you spent
years to make mono in-the-box,
in order to do something more
organic as far as putting left and right
like this in the hardware domain.
00:27:56 So what's gonna happen?
It's gonna go up about 3dB so
I'm gonna try mono and then just
go back into Logic
and pull down a few dBs to kind of
match it.
00:28:23 The little re-shape really works
so I wanna go back and
listen to everything together, I don't
wanna get stuck to solo too much
because then I lose perception
where the song is going
and what eventually you're gonna
hear is the actual song,
you're not gonna hear just the kick in
solo when you go on YouTube, alright?
Check it out!
Now what happened?
I feel too much compression
because the kick is punchier,
is bigger so I wanna just
go and step down a little bit
on my compressor on the drums.
00:29:11 A little bit.
00:29:26 I love the tone of this compressor,
everything gets thicker and
and the relationship between the kick
and the compressor
is very effective to me.
00:29:35 So let's listen with and without
the EQ on the kick drum.
00:29:55 Obviously what I feel is a little bit of
top and that was I was looking for,
a little bit of top, the shape of the kick
sits better with the rest of the drums.
00:30:06 I have my drums right and
I have my kick right,
now I wanna approach my low percussion
and high percussion.
00:30:11 So when I go on the range-mid, on the
more dense part of this mix where
a lot of instruments play
at the same time.
00:30:18 I am looking for not separation,
I'm not looking to go and do
individual EQ and compression
anything like that in Logic,
I'm looking for tone
and placement from the analog side.
00:30:31 So is more working with
Parallel Limiter
on the high percussion, on the
low percussion, we'll find out
and then go back on Logic and
adjust the level, ok?
So let's solo drums.
In this case I wanna
mute the bass, I just wanna focus
on the low percussion first.
00:31:08 Love it!
So what I'd like to do
is go in Logic, on my bus,
just give a little bit of headroom,
lower a little bit my
low percussions from Logic and just
push a little bit the Paralimiter
from the 2-Bus.
00:31:31 Now I'm bringing some
side information up,
the low-level information
is coming up,
I'm not worried about that,
we're gonna do a little bit of expansion
in-the-box to kind of control what
happens on the side,
and let all those nice transients
have this amazing compression,
in parallel, and apply some plugins
on the low percussion stems.
00:32:26 I'm not looking for low-end
because I'm bringing a lot of
low-level information
I have from the Parallel Limiter
so when I do
some expansion,
I'm controlling my transient
on the lows,
120 and down.
00:32:51 Exactly here.
So again,
think about it like as the Parallel
Limiter and the plugin are one thing.
00:32:58 So I'm controlling, I'm expanding
and then I'm compressing.
00:33:02 What happens is when doing this way
I'm able to find the right ratio between
excitement on the transients
and control of the side information.
00:33:13 And all these tails happening
on the mid-range
can get really cloudy on the mix
Same thing on the top
so 2k and up.
00:33:27 This is very confusing for me so
I wanna reduce the sustain.
00:33:34 Let's play with and without,
Alloy 2.
00:33:48 I like it but I think I took too
much off from the mid-range
so let's give it back a little bit.
00:33:58 Now the Alloy 2 has an amazing,
terrible limiter.
00:34:03 When I say amazing terrible
it means is
not good for anything besides
low percussion.
00:34:08 Check it out.
00:34:25 Let's do a little faster.
00:34:55 With and without Parallel Limiter
and Alloy combined, ok?
I'm gonna do "Boom"
at the same time.
00:35:22 I'll repeat multiple times, I wanna make
sure that you guys feel the difference.
00:35:25 So now we retain the shape,
we are not doing any alteration
about the relationship between tail,
transient, side,
everything is still there but there's
this organic, thicker, open sound.
00:35:39 There's certain ideas that I have as far as
side and placement I'm gonna do now
but first there was like for me
the initial approach of this.
00:35:46 Step 2, I wanna replace side-wise
the top-end,
I wanna bring the top-end and
open the top,
not everything, imagine a tree,
so the side of this is
the tree is very stable and then opens
the top and closes it again.
00:36:03 We don't wanna have too much
side information on the extreme top,
because 10k and up, the little tweeter is not
able to translate well the side for me,
but I wanna have sides on the right part
which is the 3k-4k and get some
excitement on the side,
and then get a tighter low-end and
then there's gonna be low percussion.
00:36:21 I love to use the old Ozone 5
and people say: "But why don't you use
Ozone 7, it's much better, it's new!"
The Ozone 7 is missing one important
element which is Band Delay.
00:36:33 So I can literally take Band 4 and put
that band late over the other bands, ok.
00:36:41 So let's focus on the side-information
on this.
00:36:50 Let's blend with the rest.
00:37:09 So there's some excitement on the top.
00:37:11 We're gonna use two stages of Imager
and I'll show you why.
00:37:14 I wanna make sure that I don't have
any side-information
on the low-end, absolutely.
00:37:31 As the tree we mentioned, we open a
little bit the big belly of this, sides a little bit
we open on the top and we're gonna
close after this.
00:37:41 Unfortunately I don't have another band
that I can close the sides so
usually what I do, I take an EQ,
I work on mid-side.
00:37:55 I'm gonna use a high-shelf and I like the
high-shelf better than a low-pass filter
because I wanna reduce energy,
I'm not gonna cut completely.
00:38:05 I'm gonna do a 72 dB.
00:38:23 Ok, let's bypass just the
plugin side on what we did
as fas as the side information.
00:38:44 I'm building this song mixing-wise
from the main priority first,
and then I go on little details, later.
00:00:00 As far as the high-percussion,
the song
is very simple,
has an high-hat, has a crash.
00:00:05 I wanna make sure
that it sits right so,
low percussion is gonna win as far as
placement, drum placement,
the high percussion
is gonna sit around the
low percussion, and
that's my point.
00:00:16 It's not a track where I wanna have
the high percussion
to be in front of you,
I want the high percussion to
come sitting around the main
element of the mix.
00:00:26 High percussion is made by
an high-hat and a crash, very simple.
00:00:29 I just wanna make sure that is grooving
enough with the low percussion,
so first level-wise.
00:00:45 I feel totally comfortable pushing
4dB,
and have the high-hat working great with
the low percussion.
00:01:02 I hear like a horrible ringing
on the crash
that I need to address right away
if not it's gonna drive me crazy,
and there's like these 5k or something
that really pierced my ear.
00:01:12 Sometimes when there is urgency to fix
something in order to feel good, and
for a proper mix something that's
important to do it, that's the case,
there is like a weird side stuff
happening there,
I wanna kind of like to address
right away, feel..
00:02:01 turn it completely off, and then
say "well, great, but now it loses
a little of energy".
00:02:05 - Not a problem, I wanna just give
back some air,
very simple, 2k.
00:02:32 Since the high percussion part
is very very simple,
I don't wanna find myself to add
additional layers or reinvent the percussion,
I just wanna give a little more
of excitement on the high-hat.
00:02:43 I like to use the very inexpensive
but great plugin for that
the StereoSavage, what it does,
I use to do like one thing only
as the LFO you can sync, let's do
like 16th note, and then do a rotation
because essentially you're not
fooling left and right panning,
but then you can eventually have
a little bit of this movement
so retain the center and just do this,
a little bit.
00:03:22 Let's try 1 note
1/8,
Definitely 1/16.
00:03:38 It's moving around,
now let's open the top.
00:03:42 So what I like a lot about the
Curve Bender is 10k
So sweet.
00:03:58 And with the rest of the drums.
00:04:10 Alright, I think I like it.
00:04:22 Let's jump around the track
and make sure that everything
feels alright
as far as low percussion and high
percussion, and then I start to do some
placement of individual parts,
especially some claps
that to me are a little bit
too centered.
00:04:55 I wanna give some personality and
lead role on the low percussion,
on really what it makes I think
Major Lazer unique, which is
this extreme approach on
certain sounds rhythmically,
especially when..
00:05:08 in all Major Lazer songs we have
this snaps coming to your face,
you have these extremely wide parts,
we took risks,
I wanna do the same on this track
where there's one element
just coming out of the box, like
"Wow, I didn't expect that!"
So the Clap 2 I think it's the one
that gets rid of the grooves,
so let's mute this,
the track just collapses.
00:05:55 Let's duplicate this clap
and let's treat
one to stay in the center so
we don't lose the center at all,
and then the second one with Parallel,
just to give
some extreme type of approach and
movement, a little bit of saturation
on the side, and just have this
groove and relationship between
center, really like one place,
steady and side with movement, alright?
Let's try that.
00:07:09 So I wanna approach these two claps
in two different ways
Clap 1 is gonna be side-only
on the mid-range,
and try to shave side on
the bottom and the top,
we're not using filtering,
I don't wanna use high-pass/ low-pass,
I just wanna take energy away
on the side on the top and the bottom.
00:07:26 Clap 2..B,
the side one is gonna go crazy,
just jumping around on the side a lot.
00:07:32 So when you go mono, you don't
lose completely the clap
which is an important element,
but then we listen in stereo
you're pleasantly surprised by
this side that just
floats around and
moves around the mix.
00:07:43 I treat the 2 claps in a different way and then I am gonna create
a little small Bus,
just to grab those and
do some final
tuning as a one element so
that those 2 claps become one.
00:08:23 So we put those completely
out of phase
and that's what we liked,
in this case because, again,
it's just an effect the way
they're sitting with the mono one.
00:08:30 Alright, let's check.
00:08:39 Now we wanna enhance this one and
we do a tiny bit of reverb.
00:08:42 The purpose of the reverb
it's not the actual reverb,
it's the pre-delay.
00:09:35 Just blend the two and
we're gonna work on Multi-band on this,
let's create a new Bus,
the new Bus feeds to the
Low Percussion Bus
which is the main bus
for the low percussions,
so we call this Crazy Claps,
we make this going totally nuts.
00:09:58 So I'd like to use the PRO MB
for creative use, not for technical use.
00:10:03 One cool thing the PRO MB has
is that you can assign the side-chain
in a Free Mode, essentially one band
side-chain the other.
00:10:24 Let's take the peak of the transient
of the clap, first.
00:10:31 Now, let's make this going
totally crazy.
00:10:46 Band number 2,
it's gonna be like the mid-range.
00:10:51 That's the fun part.
So let's take..go on Free Mode..
00:10:56 Now let's take
this area, which is all the main peaks
of the transient
to trigger this band.
00:11:10 I kind of like, actually this..
go back to this.
00:11:21 Let's do a crossover point
that is going
overlapping a tiny bit with
the other band.
00:11:28 Give it more range.
00:11:36 Bounce around, play with the kick.
00:11:43 Let's have the right relationship
between Clap 1 and Clap 2,
which is..let's call them
Clap 2A and 2B.
00:12:03 Just a little bit of parallel so we can
get some dry signal coming through.
00:12:12 And then
still on the Crazy Clap Bus
let's open air.
00:12:26 There's only one peak that I wanna
control right away,
and I think we're fine, then.
00:12:41 With the right side of the mouse
you can close and open the band,
which is pretty cool.
00:12:54 I kind of like.. shape the way I want it,
and I take what I don't like and
just pull it down.
00:12:59 Now that I've processed my clap,
my Lead Clap, on the low percussion
I just wanna go and check
the initial phase on the actual rough,
how was the first intention,
and see
if we're going on the right direction,
again
my idea was to feature that clap,
I wanna people just
clap hands and be on the dance floor,
and just feel it.
00:13:18 It's a percussive element,
especially on the hook when
all the energy is dropped,
we don't have the percussive element.
00:13:24 Why don't we wanna bring
such a main element
right in front of the mix instead of
keeping it in the back?
We talk about this clap.
00:13:42 Totally fine to leave something right in
the center since we're spreading so much,
I just wanna have a tiny bit more
bite, if it makes sense.
00:14:01 Check it out now
with an open..
00:14:03 the high percussion relationship
with low percussion is pretty good.
00:14:14 There's a moment overlapping of
claps and toms.
00:14:18 Let's see this part.
00:14:24 My goal when I have something
that is so close
I want it to sound like
there's a drum-kit in front of us and
the guy is playing at the same time
snare and tom, I don't wanna feel
totally detached.
00:14:35 So I kind of like the idea
even in certain cases, to do like this:
just grab those two, the clap and
the tom,
and create a little bit of
glue between the two, go back to
the Low Percussion Bus,
and marry those parts..
clap and tom.
00:14:56 I love to use what I call
vintage plugins.
00:14:59 The vintage plugins..
there's Renaissance Axx
that looks not really pretty
but sounds extremely well.
00:15:06 And also there's RVox which is
a very old Waves plugin for vocal
that I love using on drums.
00:15:14 So what about if we put those
in series, one after the other one?
The tone is super, super cool,
it has like..
00:15:38 it's almost like in your face mid-range,
just need to shave a little bit the top.
00:15:57 Alright, let's play them
together.
00:16:21 The two plugins I see them working
as a one plugin,
so if we solo just this,
brings everything up front
and just kind of like gets snappier.
00:16:36 Now if we add RVox..
00:16:43 Say: "Hey wait, relax,
don't snap too much!"
Bring the body up and that's what
it does the combination of the two.
00:16:48 Now for my taste, it gets a little
out of control on the top.
00:16:55 And again, rarely we're gonna listen
clap and tom solo
ever on a commercial record,
but then the combination with
the rest of the song
I think it makes the difference,
let's check.
00:17:17 That's the way to bring those
elements back into the mix,
give a purpose,
sit in a certain place.
00:17:23 I wanna go over on
the rest of the percussion.
00:17:39 So I wanna find a space for the
thin snare
that makes sense, it's getting
completely lost in the mix.
00:17:44 So I wanna enhance
a little bit the transients,
eq the mid-range, just
get a little bit of tone,
and then make sure that
they sit on the mix right.
00:18:15 Ok, what I just did,
I essentially enhanced
broadband everywhere the attack,
the transient
the yellow part
you see on those transients
has been enhanced,
so, it's expansion..
00:18:27 Now, I use a limiter to kind of like
give
some sustain that I can't probably use
the same techniques with the sustain
but it's gonna affect the limiter
the limiter has a sound, for some reason.
00:18:38 So, it's cutting through the mix
with the drums,
the drums is really dense
with a lot going on,
but I can't hear it.
00:18:45 Let's see if it's necessary to add
a little bit of mid-range EQ
or we are good in this way.
00:18:50 Now, I like the idea to add
a tiny bit of mid-range EQ,
Ok, let's see how it works.
00:19:02 I like it a lot,
it's just very loud,
so what about if we clip?
We can either use an old L2 or
a very new StandardCLIP,
for clean I like to use
the StandardCLIP,
we're going overrating so
I'll put a ceiling on,
and I'll leave to 0,
and I do Hard Clip.
00:19:23 Crazy loud but not clipping,
I am not going red,
now I can pull down my level and
find the sweet spot.
00:19:37 Let's play with the rest of the song.
00:19:51 Even with high percussion,
even with the trumpet,
I still feel it, so that's pretty good.
00:19:56 Before, if I go back to the rough,
I don't remember to actually hear
that sound.
00:20:01 We are re-addressing the bass
placement a little bit because it's
glued with the kick, with the 2-Bus+,
with the Compressor,
it's doing its job.
00:20:09 My vision from the beginning is to have
the bass very tight in the middle.
00:20:14 But the bass has some elements
on the side, on the top,
on the higher octave, I believe.
00:20:27 This bass is made by probably
three or four synths combined,
I just wanna make sure it's
tight on the low-end,
very simple techniques,
I wanna use a PRO-MB
to control right from the beginning
these lower notes
that tend to go a little bit crazy.
00:21:10 I am gonna lose a little bit of body
I know,
but I can control it, and
then with eq
I can give back some tone,
but without this jumping around,
we have this jumping between
higher notes and lower notes,
so let's play the entire bar.
00:21:29 I wanna make sure also that
the top-end is not going
out of control with too much transients
on the top.
00:21:46 So I wanna do slow/medium-slow attack
and medium-slow release, I wanna avoid
this cutting or jumping,
and I wanna do Soft Knee,
has to be really gentle,
I wanna imagine that there's a fader
that you have on that band,
that frequency, and
you pull the fader down.
00:22:02 So let's do two bars,
with and without multi-band.
00:22:05 Again, it's very subtle,
I want you to focus
on the extreme low and
extreme top.
00:22:19 There's almost a resonance,
like a boomy part on the low
that is taking too much space.
00:22:24 So I control those and
I compromise a little bit of tone,
but I can give some,
that tone back
so let's do a nice, old-school,
good Pultec 100, just a tiny bit.
00:22:44 Very nice. Let's open the 3k,
just to give a little bit of air again.
00:22:50 No, more like 8k.
00:22:57 Let's check before and after
the combination of the two.
00:23:00 And once again,
we need to think about it
this is one, big plugin,
they're not two,
they work together,
so they make sense because
we're compressing, we're pushing
a little bit the low-end,
compressing, we're giving
a little bit of top-end,
so we give tone,
we control dynamics.
00:23:27 As you can notice, the low-end
go totally out of control,
so what about if we check now,
with the entire drums?
Almost feels that without Multi-band,
and with the Pultec the bass is just
moving and it's not tight enough.
00:23:51 Now I wanna make sure that
as far as the image,
that I'm completely mono up to,
probably 300, 400
just to make sure that there's no
problem, no phasing,
no fighting
on the club subwoofer.
00:24:06 It's always this really bad effects
happening when you have a lot of
stereo information,
on the low-end.
00:24:17 Mono up to 500.
00:24:19 Maybe a little less, 400.
00:24:23 And now because I made mono up
everything up to 400 I wanna
open even more the side
after the 400, ok? So now we have
a little bit more side information
on the top, but it's very
tight on the center.
00:24:49 Now to give even more a sense
of thickness on the mid-band,
I just wanna do a little bit of
this type of bump, on the lows.
00:24:58 And maybe filter just a tiny bit.
00:25:01 Again, for the same concept,
take away some energy on extreme-low
and just a little bump.
00:25:21 Yeah, in this room there is
a resonance when I hit the lower note
that's a big red flag to me.
00:25:26 So let's check the whole
concept approach
with the drums and
see how it works.
00:25:46 I create the foundation of this track
stereo bus, drums, bass.
00:25:51 That's the foundation.
Now we need to approach synths.
00:25:55 So the question is:
synth high first or synth low first?
What is the difference between
synth low and synth high for me?
How can I describe the difference?
I call synth high everything that has
like short, fast-attack transients,
stabs, leads,
guitars, everything that is like
(makes a sound), like this,
that to me is the high,
I call high synth.
00:26:17 The low synth has slow attack,
pads, piano, strings,
anything that is slow,
and I divide those two colors.
00:26:26 In this track absolutely the high synth,
it needs to be the leader, and
I wanna have the low synths - so
the pads and everything that
sits around - the lead.
00:26:36 I wanna focus more on those
three elements
which is..there is a pluck,
marimba effects and
the second layer of the pluck,
so let's check it out.
00:27:00 Dope, pretty sounds and
I feel that
what I try to do is retaining
the relationship between them,
because they feel so well put together
as far as levels.
00:27:11 What I didn't, don't have is
the transients ending like..
00:27:16 be able to almost feel that you
play chords on a guitar,
you enhance certain parts more
than others, they're too even.
00:27:23 They're like great level-wise,
but dynamically they can be improved.
00:27:28 So a good way to do it,
even before we touch transients,
is to give a placement
as far as the stereo field,
that is precise, that has a purpose.
00:27:49 By the nature of the sound
we really can tell where the..
00:27:52 has to be placed to me,
it's mid-range,
and it's top.
Top side-open,
mid-range centered.
Let's do this first.
00:28:21 So what we just did is essentially
take the 3k and up,
and just put completely on the side,
open the 1k and up on the side,
it makes entirely mono
the 1k and down that's gonna be
covered by the pluck,
the more mid-range pluck
that we just mentioned.
00:28:47 You have a feeling of more
high frequencies when I switch,
but essentially is not more high
frequencies, it's just like a placement
on high frequencies in an area
that is paced to listen.
00:29:15 It's a sense of more like
transients placement.
00:29:18 As far as the other pluck
I like the distortion which is
another
kind of signature sound of
Major Lazer project where
there's always some distortion,
saturation on the pads that makes
kind of more warm and unique,
but at the same time I feel that
it's going too low,
and I wanna make sure there's not
side information placed
on the lows, so I wanna
address this really quick,
I can use any type of eq,
I just wanna control with a shelf,
so I'm not completely cutting.
00:30:03 And then I kind of like the side-effects
on the mid-range,
but I don't wanna have less energy
on the low-end.
00:30:15 And then if you guys remember,
we left the top for the second layer
so I'm gonna make entirely mono
on the top parts.
00:30:22 In this case I can also use
a cut.
00:30:28 Let's combine the two.
00:30:39 Ok, let's check it out,
two bars on, two bars off.
00:30:57 If you noticed, we got rid of the
distortion that we had on the low-end
because it was placed
on the side on the pluck.
00:31:03 So get rid of the side,
get rid of the distortion.
00:31:06 Let's play this part with the rest
and just level
those two elements with
the rest of the song.
00:31:31 I like it level-wise and I feel
it starts to make sense.
00:31:36 Now moving forward what I wanna do I wanna go on the low synths,
and there's a main pluck
that needs to sit around the
top pluck, which is this.
00:31:53 And this to me has to be
thicker and nice,
round lows, with almost
nothing on the top so..
00:32:10 I don't really like a little bump
that I see here, let's control this one.
00:32:28 Let's give some color, this has
already some distortion but
it's not gonna hurt to give a
little bit of color,
especially in the 400 part down.
00:32:47 Even lower.
00:32:56 Then let's blend like 50 50,
wet and dry.
00:33:12 Let's play it together.
00:33:27 What I'm doing right now essentially,
is when I have the main element
into the song done
as far as priority, placement
I work with the rest to just sit
around
and just build the color,
I just
put a little bit of red here, a little bit
of orange, a little bit of brown,
so I color the mix.
00:33:44 One thing that makes really
Major Lazer, like..
00:33:47 I'd say his signature sound or print,
or how you wanna call it,
is the fact that there's
no traditional placement
on the side information,
in the mid-range.
00:33:56 Even if you go on "Lean On"
or other records,
they all have this kind of sound
where
there's a lot of side information
in the mid-range,
but then effectively in the record
is really impressive, especially
if there's a contrast with a very
tight low-end.
00:34:12 So this open mid-range
happening on the synths
it doesn't really fight with
other elements,
besides the synths,
so that gives you this like
sense of really wide track,
it's not really wide.. the track,
it's wide in the right place,
and the rest is really tight
in the center.
00:34:29 So this contrast between black and white
gives you the sense of space.
00:34:35 From now I am gonna mute
literally those trumpets
that happened on the drop,
which is the main melody of the song,
and I'm gonna just keep working
on the synths,
and make sure that I have all the
synths sitting on the right place.
00:35:03 I love this marimba,
this high marimba that's..
00:35:06 the only job is to do
the arpeggio.
00:35:08 I wanna make sure the other parts
have the same type of approach.
00:35:19 But I wanna cut the arpeggio
that happens towards the end,
create a new track on my session,
and just dedicate a treatment
for this arpeggio.
00:35:32 And keep those other parts
with a different treatment.
00:35:38 The arpeggio part has to be
dreamy
so I wanna add a tiny bit of reverb,
work a little bit eq-wise
to just place it and make it flow
on that part a little bit better.
00:35:52 And because there is a reverb,
I'm gonna take it off from the stem.
00:35:56 Let's talk about that because it's
doable, I had to learn the lesson..
00:36:01 they ask me sometimes: "Can you send me
the synth without reverb?"
It was not doable,
so I had to learn how to do it.
00:36:08 There are different ways to do it.
00:36:09 I find a combination of two
elements.. very effective.
00:36:19 Tame a little bit of reverb,
but it's under control,
so I can just re-shape it later.
00:36:27 After I do this,
I am going to
pull the side down
a little bit,
so I have even less reverb.
00:36:33 I used a Brainworx EQ
to control this side information,
so I have the Mono Maker, very simple
and allows me to go mono up to
whatever I want,
so let's go entirely mono.
00:36:52 About 700 is fine so if we go
before and after let's see what we have.
00:37:05 Now we gonna put the reverb back,
but the reverb that I want.
00:37:08 So we're gonna have
a little bit of tail,
I'm totally fine to do
an insert reverb,
as long as I have a parallel approach
where I can control
dry and wet.
00:37:26 I feel that pre-delay with
a short decay
it's a way to deal
with reverb,
in a way that they're not cloudy,
they've a rhythmical approach
instead of be like..going
and just sit on top of everything
you need to kind of have the actual
transient cutting through.
00:37:43 So let's check before and
after.
00:37:55 Takes a lot of space,
let's play this with the other parts.
00:38:00 See if we're going
to the right place.
00:38:11 Just do a send,
and send a reverb,
I like to start 31 to reverbs,
bus back to the synth low,
do a little trick that I like to do,
which is very simple,
get rid of the top,
get rid of the lows,
just on the reverb, and
just get the mid-range,
the pre-delay cool effects
that we like,
and we have the mid-range on
the reverb that might work.
00:38:36 So smooth the top,
smooth the bottom,
I kind of like the EMT 140,
it has a nice tone to me.
00:39:05 So we kind of like both
the best of both worlds,
so let's play with the rest.
00:39:31 Now as a finisher role,
there's something I'd like to do
that's a borderline production
but I think it's gonna make
total sense,
which is we like so much
this pre-delay
why we don't do an automation
that essentially does this?
Now let's enhance this
with volume, if makes sense to
compensate it in this way,
I think it's gonna be probably good.
00:40:45 Because we towards the end,
we don't have reverb anymore
from the Valhalla part
I like to bring those elements up.
00:40:52 Just going like before and after
take back to reality the way
the rough was playing.
00:41:14 It's a good way to bring an element,
give some organic approach, I don't
feel it's pushed to be there, I feel
it's meant to be there in some way.
00:41:23 On the same part there is
the piano bridge
that kind of like feel the same way
I felt about the marimba part,
it's there but it's actually not doing
nothing in a way that I want,
I want that to touch my feelings,
there's somebody playing
piano in front of me,
maybe some parallel compression,
extension of the notes,
maybe a tiny bit of saturation but
something that I can visualize on stage.
00:41:46 Let's check the stems first.
00:41:57 It's actually a good sound, with filtering,
there's a lot of processing going on,
I feel this is not thick enough,
I think we can solve the problem
with one single plugin,
if we do a little bit
of saturation,
and we use one of my new favorite
which is the Zener Limiter,
and then we do this little chain,
let's find a part that's not
filtering much.
00:42:24 I wanna go on the Zener
on mid-side mode,
don't really touch much the side
so I don't wanna distort
the side information of the piano,
so I don't wanna distort the reverb
I wanna give a little bit
of color on the mono,
and just bring the level,
match the level with the side.
00:42:57 There's something happening
on the top, would be nice
to do a little bit of
saturation,
Clean Tube.
00:43:09 Then we're gonna eq, there's a little
bit of dirt, the way I call it,
on the top that is happening,
but we can deal with it later.
00:43:21 One thing that I wanna point
that's really important:
mid-side processing unlinked,
not limiting, just color,
just saturation, and essentially
color but doing nothing
on the inputs, I'm not gonna distort
the input, I'm not gonna
clip the input or
do anything,
just output the levels to match,
so let's check.
00:43:53 With and without.
00:44:04 Pretty drastic but
I think it's gonna work
because there's a place for
this and again,
I vision this like be big,
in front of me, in your face.
00:44:14 Let's check it out.
00:44:25 I feel that we're covering the
500-600 Hz in a really good way.
00:44:31 And there was the piano on the bridge.
00:44:33 Do you wanna play the entire bridge?
Let's check it out.
00:45:02 After we process and we
in some way make the synth high
and the synth low
work together and
just work with the song,
it's time for the main lead
of the song, the trumpet,
that on purpose we left
at the end,
to just really sit on top of
everything that we just did.
00:45:20 So the trumpet..I like to use an
external
mixer for color purpose,
specifically.
00:45:27 And on the original mix
we used the Rasma
side-car that we have here
next to the rack,
and what I'm going to do
essentially is
use the magic mid-range on the
Rasma
with a little bit of saturation
on the input.
00:45:43 This fantastic Rasma from 1978,
the model was the A20,
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" from Nirvana
has been mixed on this board,
believe it or not.
00:45:53 So usually I use four channels:
two channels for organic
elements.. guitars, trumpet,
synths, lead and sometimes
channel 1-2 for snare, claps
or entire destroy, crazy saturation
for other types of sound.
00:46:13 So in this case let's run through
our trumpet.
00:46:16 First I'm gonna find the sweet-spot
between input and output,
I wanna clip a little bit, I wanna
see the red flashing a little bit,
and then I am gonna find the eq.
00:46:25 The way the eq behaves on this
mixer is really strange.
00:46:28 When you in some way
distort your input,
your mid-range starts to go a little
crazy, starts to get a little thicker,
and just distorts again on the
mid-range, in a weird way.
00:46:39 I can't go too crazy because
I can't kill the transient on the actual
trumpet, but I wanna give
this little bit of attitude.
00:46:46 So let's play.
00:47:39 Essentially it's this:
just a little bit of saturation
overall on the input,
a push in the mid-range
about 3k,
a little push on the 500,
and then lower the output level
to match in some way,
but retain the tone.
00:47:56 So let's play the rough
against the mix just to get
a sense of what we just did.
00:48:18 I wanna make sure that I'm doing
right as far as placement, so
I wanna check
what I'm doing on the side,
what I'm doing on the mono part,
I use a very simple bx meter
that allows me in a very simple way
to solo the side information
on the rough in this case, and
solo the side information
on the entire mix,
taken from the console.
So essentially
we're going back with an A/D,
and post-conversion,
so after we convert in real-time
we are able to solo
the side information, the entire mix
on the analog, in real-time..ok
So let's check between the two.
00:48:56 My goal was to make sure there's
no much side
on the low-end information going on
and just confusing,
I wanna have a tight low-end,
in the center.
00:49:17 On the rough we have low-end
on the side information.
00:49:20 Let's check mono.
00:49:33 Mono, now the trumpet is really
kind of like lost and low,
and there's like a hole
in the mid-range,
so we're in the right place
as far as the overall shape of the mix.
00:49:45 There's this guitar that on purpose
is route to the same bus on the Rasma,
because on the previous mix
it was really cool
to have similar tone, similar
placements, similar colors,
for both stems, the trumpet
and the guitar.
00:50:04 Feels almost like an extension of the
trumpet, with the same like dirt and..
00:50:13 and it's kind of cool that is glued
in together with the trumpet so well.
00:50:19 This happened because it's saturated
together
on the Rasma, they saturate and
they glue together in a good way.
00:50:26 As far as FX on this track, you want to
talk about FX, let's talk about
white noises and just like
color effects,
there are two simple stems,
one..
00:50:39 EDM riser and there's like splash
that's happened
very simple, right?
So I'm not gonna do much, I just
wanna make sure the level is right.
00:50:57 Actually there's something
I wanna do on this big splash,
which is a very old-school technique,
with a sample delay of Logic,
and it's gonna happen this..
00:51:07 instead of being..
00:51:12 Yeah, that's cool.
00:51:14 One good effect, using sample
delay on Logic or any other DAW,
I delay the right channel
or the left channel,
and especially on any sound
that has really
a very short decay,
you feel there's a little (sound)
like this, like (sound), left and
right, it's very simple, no feedback,
it's not a delay, it's not
an echo, it's just a simple
right channel laid after left channel
or vice versa.
00:51:40 And there's another stem
that has an effect.
00:51:44 I don't wanna touch it in volume,
I just wanna make sure there's
no noise, nothing sitting
on the stems.
00:51:52 No, it's pretty good.
00:51:59 A touch of top-end
on that.
00:52:13 The Millennia is always to me
between the Maag EQ4
and Millennia as far as the
air-band or the top-end,
the 4k, so smooth,
these are shelf
that I feel have like a
console lift,
where there's no like a
big bump, it just opens the air
in a really musical way.
00:00:00 This track originally was a big session
with a lot of layers of vocals
but then it went through a lot of
hands, and
each one did his job and
ended up having
essentially three main lead vocal
stems,
a couple of background and a couple of
samples, so some "hey", some "go"
some other type of sample
elements.
00:00:25 As usual I start from the
main lead vocal,
There's a technique that's been used
on this vocal -
I know because I remember it
when it was completely naked -
that essentially has
side-chained the reverb.
00:00:44 The lead vocal, what it does,
it's sent to a reverb
and there's a compressor
after the reverb
side-chained to the lead vocal.
00:00:53 When the lead vocal stops singing
the reverb comes to the surface.
00:00:56 When it sings again,
pulls the reverb down.
00:00:58 It's a very simple technique
it's really effective.
00:01:00 You can notice it on solo,
because the reverb comes up
as soon as it stops singing.
00:01:13 I wanna do some very technical,
simple things
after the enhancement
that we got from
analog EQ and compressor;
I feel we're getting some low-end
in some other parts that are
a little bit out of the right place,
EQ-wise, so I wanna just fix
this really quick.
00:01:30 I usually like use Natural Phase
on vocal,
as long as it's not full of
background vocal and reverb,
in other cases, in that case I work
Linear Phase to just make sure, but
Natural Phase works pretty well.
00:01:59 That's exactly what I do
not want.
00:02:06 Also I feel some tail,
it creates a little bit too much
weight on the low-end so..
00:02:24 There was like a ringing,
literally,
especially in one part, here.
00:02:33 There's a little bit of ringing
that we get rid of it this way.
00:02:43 I don't wanna add additional
compression, if not I am gonna bring
up again what we just took.
What I wanna do
I just wanna open some air because
this part that we're dipping down
it's fine but takes away a little bit of
air,
so we do this to be a good..
if we think of it as a one plugin,
we're doing this and then
we open a little bit of, with the shelf.
00:03:10 Now it's exaggerated,
just to give you an idea.
00:03:16 I feel it's more on a 8k part.
00:03:21 Now because we do this,
we can control this even more.
00:03:40 I am gonna take some
weight from the side information
and I am gonna keep - this
is what I did on left and right -
I feel there's something
going on here I don't like
so let's check.
00:03:56 There we go,
there's more here.
00:04:00 I wanna take some side information
on the mid-range because what happened
they probably had
some compression going on
after some reverb and
it just feels to me not natural enough,
so let's see the combination
of the two.
00:04:18 Now it's getting a little nasal,
a little small,
but we're gonna re-open this part,
let's see how.
00:04:39 Mute the background vocal.
00:04:47 There's almost like essing problems
and a little bit of resonance,
a little bit of ringing.
00:04:52 The only thing I wanna do,
I wanna do a Tilt,
so after we have re-built in some way
a good balance on the EQ,
I just do a very simple Tilt,
which is..
00:05:10 It's getting too loud
so I pull it down.
00:05:15 I'll play four bars if not we're gonna
be hypnotized but one word.
00:05:32 It feels now it's just more
in front of us,
Ironically, with additional processing
feels less processed.
00:05:39 The Millenia has this really thick and
nice low-end
it just sits really well on the vocal,
after that a little bit of Tilt
that just everything..
00:05:48 move on the top and pull down
the lows, to re-balance the two parts.
00:05:53 Let's play the first part of the verse,
with and without the process.
00:06:35 What I feel happening a lot
was kind of like going up, she was here
so, essentially, going higher,
was getting really nasal,
and there was some dirt on the
bottom, I feel vocals now sound
really more open.
00:06:47 I am gonna jump between
the hook, so the 3,
and the verse is the 5.
What it means is 3 and 5
is on my active transport so
I can move it really quick.
00:07:06 The Fuse vocal is missing some
excitement,
he has a very similar process
as the female vocal
so first I wanna make sure
that level is right.
00:07:29 There are too many element
on the track vocally so
I wanna create some
something that when this vocal hits
in the middle of the song,
there's a sort of surprise.
00:07:39 If it's so centered,
as the other lead vocal,
I feel there is no surprise.
00:07:45 Let's give some excitement and
a purpose on this.
00:07:54 So I wanna try to push the top
and compress the top.
00:07:59 So what it really does,
you take the tone
on the top and so, like
5k or 6k,
and then you put a multi-band,
like a Pro-MB.
00:08:07 You compress the same area
so you're like compressing the top,
the top is coming in front of you,
and you enhance like the tone of the EQ,
and then after we do that,
we're gonna do a little bit of
spreading, just give a little bit of
stereo,
feel of that part
and see how it works.
00:08:26 I know, exaggerated
at the beginning,
but there is a reason.
00:08:37 Everything up so
we do about 5k and up.
00:08:45 Medium-fast release because
I don't wanna have pumping
and just jumping so
soft knee..
00:09:04 So we're adding color from
the Millennia on the 5k,
and then we're compressing the
same 5k range
to just bring in the front,
that's a technique I love using
where
you wanna bring like emotions
from the vocal,
you give a color
and you bring that in front.
00:09:39 There's a little bit of ringing,
I wanna use another insert
I can use the Dynamic EQ, other things
but
it's a spot I wanna deal with
right away.
00:10:11 Give some excitement as far as
I place some stereo information
and let's see how it works.
00:10:18 For me a good way to do it,
and really quick way
it's duplicate what we just did.
00:10:22 I can use an insert, a Bus
but
I think it's just faster to do that
on the second EQ, the same where
we just did the correction.
00:10:31 Great.
And then on the second one,
focus on the mid-range only.
00:10:37 If not we risk, again,
to exaggerate on the top.
00:10:44 Two options,
first:
I like to use always the same techniques
on this thing.
00:10:57 So pre-delay
is working as a delay
mixed with reverb,
even less open,
so let's..High cut.
00:11:18 Ok, let's play a bit of music.
00:11:28 Let's take only the Parallel,
see without.
00:11:40 And now, compared to the previous one,
the other parts of the vocal
Let's jump between these two parts.
00:11:58 Just a bit too loud so I grab both
tracks, pull down 2dB, should be good.
00:12:25 Great, we wanna jump between the
whole rough
and the new mix, just
to have an idea of
everything with the new change
on the vocal, how it sounds.
00:12:47 Let's do the same
on the first part of the verse.
00:12:58 Here the verse needs
a dB or 2 more.
00:13:07 Let's focus on the vocal,
there's a ringing going on,
there's like a lot of loose,
cloudy part on the mid-range
on the rough,
let's check that difference.
00:13:26 Let's do the same on the
second verse.
00:13:39 Cool, and we have a second part
under the hook, this part.
00:13:48 First was very low.
00:13:54 That's a bit thicker so I want to do
a little bit of parallel compression
and I think it's gonna work
really well.
00:13:59 Especially to thicken up
the low-end,
and just bring up we do some
EQ and post-compression in parallel,
I think it's gonna be
really good.
00:14:08 All the switches are down, makes a lot
of noise that makes no sense.
00:14:25 Let me solo just the Parallel.
00:14:36 Essentially what I'm looking is
extending and make even all
the tail, the decay of each word,
and just give like thickness,
some low-end and blend this
with the original vocal.
00:14:53 Let's do the level between the two.
00:14:57 The output is too loud,
I'm clipping..
00:15:07 There's a lifting part going on,
especially on the low-end.
00:15:14 With the music.
00:15:34 Really good. I think I lost a tiny bit
on one element that I just realized now
which is this pluck.
00:15:43 Let's balance that.
00:15:51 Excellent.
00:15:53 Let's go back and
check verse to into the hook.
00:16:28 I feel the combination of the two
it's pretty solid between the two.
00:16:32 And then especially
when is going back to the
Fuse lead vocal,
and then we have a little
insert of vocals here.
00:16:54 They're fine, we're gonna
do a double check later as far as the
overall vocal level and automation if needed.
00:16:59 And now it's time to go
on relationship with
background vocal,
especially on the first verse.
00:17:13 Besides those "Hey" that I wanna
take maybe off this Bus
I do have an idea.
00:17:21 I wanna make sure that
those samples
they're out to a separate Bus.
00:17:27 All the samples.
00:17:30 This is now part of the
background Bus so
let's talk about this.
00:17:35 I don't see a reason to separate
on another Bus the background vocal
when they're doing essentially
the same thing,
so what I'm going to do is to route
the first background vocal
to the same Bus as
the main vocal.
00:17:48 Then I am gonna take the "Hey"
and keep it on a separate Bus.
00:17:53 The reason why is because
I wanna glue and blend
the main vocal/lead vocal
with the background vocal.
00:17:59 So I wanna do a little bit
of compression
that includes everything
so
essentially when we have
this combination of these parts
I want to have a more solid,
cohesive, put-together sound.
00:18:11 I go to my main vocal Bus.
00:18:21 And after doing my individual levels..
00:18:32 A tiny bit of compression.
So
for this I used two compressors,
the
CL 1B from Tube-Tech that I like,
or the 33609.
00:18:40 The Tube-Tech is tinily more transparent
and for this purpose it's a great
glue-type of compressor for vocal,
I exaggerate a little bit with threshold
to find the right attack and release,
and ratio.
00:19:00 Looking to 2:1.
00:19:05 I don't wanna have too much
pumping
so I'm looking like for a medium-slow
release, medium-slow attack.
00:19:22 Compressing 3dB gives back 3dB.
00:19:28 There is a little bit of technical
things to do on the background vocal.
00:19:34 Yeah, no need on low-end
I wanna control,
and I wanna open the mid-range,
that's the way to bring
in some way
the body of the background vocal
up in the mix.
00:19:43 So get rid of 270 down.
00:19:49 This takes a lot of space.
00:19:57 I'm gonna do 750.
00:20:09 Let's blend with the lead vocal.
00:20:23 Great.
00:20:24 Now the combination is getting
a little bit too loud
so I just need of lower my
full vocal Bus,
I love to do levels on vocals
at really low-volume on my speakers
and I like to use this small
LS50 for that.
00:20:40 I don't wanna get distracted/excited
about big speakers or even the Focal
that have a lot going on,
I just wanna focus
on small speakers for that.
00:20:58 The vocal has the mid-range that I want.
I wanna able to follow the lyrics
at really low volume,
and
I wanna find the right balance now
between vocal and the entire music,
and I wanna move around the track
for this part.
00:21:33 Just to be organized,
I'm gonna color
the parts of the vocal that are working
together with the same color,
so now they're part of the same Bus,
and the dark pink now it's
a separate Bus.
00:21:53 They're very low.
00:21:58 Very good.
00:22:03 Their "Light It Up" is really low.
00:22:20 Much better.
00:22:21 We have another sample here
I'm sure..
00:22:31 Great. I just wanna open
a little bit the top..5k.
00:22:47 Now let's listen, I am kind of detaching
myself a little bit from the mix inside,
and just listen better, and just
have the overall feel of this track.
00:22:56 Let's do it.
00:25:07 Very good. And the second
part is gonna repeat this,
I just noticed one thing I wasn't sure,
which is this snare.
00:25:20 What I did, I gave a little bit of
enhancement on the attack,
to just cut through the mix
a little bit better.
00:25:29 And I wanna give a little bit of color,
I just..
00:25:31 to blend a little bit more,
so what I do is 50 50.
00:25:45 One of the modules on the Alloy
is the Exciter
that's a combination between the
tape, the tube, the warm and the retro,
it just overall like
taking it up a little bit.
00:25:59 Without.
00:26:09 Great. It jumps around a little bit too
much so I wanna limit this a bit.
00:26:13 Fast Soft mode, very effective.
00:26:25 Now enhancing these transients
allow me to -
without pushing too much
the level -
to have this snare cut
through the mix.
00:26:31 The mix is very dense,
the track has a lot of
dynamics now,
so it's hard to have this
type of sound to cut through the mix
well, so let's check it out now.
00:26:47 Very good.
One red flag that I just noticed,
we're clipping the low percussion,
I don't like that.
00:26:53 So we might gonna end up
with
pulling down a little bit
the faders
on the entire low percussion,
and just pull up a little bit
the Bus.
00:27:06 Thanks God it's an easy fix.
00:27:08 We grab all our individual parts,
pull down 3dB or even 2dB for now,
it might work.
00:27:22 Needs a little bit more.
Let's do another one, here you go.
00:27:34 I just have a point with a lot of
transients,
I used just to be safe and
that's happening really
only when we have maybe 1dB over,
16 times.
00:27:46 Essentially what I'm doing is
I place the clipper,
with a Ceiling on to 0dB,
just I don't wanna have the over
to do some internal nasty clipping so
I trust more this kind of clip
than the standard clipper.
00:28:05 We talked about just the full clip
but I'd rather have those
and cut the top of the hill
but just leave the sound intact
that we have.
00:28:13 Alright so, guys, let's play
the drop one more time,
before we dive into the second and
final stage of the mastering side.
00:28:42 I think we painted the picture the way
that it was planned so
bring the mid-range in the front,
control the low-end,
and make the track overall
sit in a way that
it's more natural, it grabs us,
there's more emotion,
00:00:00 Now the question is: what you're
going to do on the mastering side?
And the answer is
beside making sure that the track is
naturally louder but
not over-compressed,
not over-limited.
00:00:15 Trick your ears in some way,
make it very loud but don't let you
feel that it's loud in a bad way,
but at the same time I wanna enhance
everything a little bit more.
00:00:27 Now the first stage of mastering
is essentially an additional EQ,
a parallel compressor,
a final EQ which is the BAX and
kind of like shape the final
part in the master,
and a touch of limiting.
00:00:41 Before I go into EQ, additional EQ,
I like to set up my parallel compressor
on the mastering side.
00:00:50 Now the way I use this on the console,
on the insert 4
I have the possibility to go straight
insert on the bus,
or parallel on the bus,
which is essentially
assign this to this parallel
control where I am blending to 100%
to 100% and I'm adding.
00:01:16 The way I set up my compressor
at the beginning is
no parallel,
find the right movement, the right
groove, the right color, the right
everything, and then
go back on parallel mode
and blend that in.
00:01:29 Now on my patch-bay I set up 2 channels
of the Rasma which is very unusual,
as an EQ pre-compression
insert 4 goes into two channels
of the Rasma
from the two channels of the Rasma
I go into
the compressor,
the compressor back to insert 4,
insert 4 I'm gonna use
in parallel.
00:01:51 So, first thing that I do is
bypass the EQ,
and find the right type
of compression.
00:01:58 So I'm using a VCA compressor
and I try to be fast,
I wanna also breathe a little bit
with the groove,
Let's do it.
00:02:12 On purpose I exaggerate the compression,
just to find the right groove
that I want.
00:02:27 I find RMS mode really fast,
snappy,
when I work on RMS
the attack is
is not working essentially,
it's auto attack.
00:02:43 Again, I am not
on parallel right now,
now I'm going on my EQ
that is set
pre-compression, and I'm gonna find
what I really wanna compress.
00:03:23 About 8dB of compression
and again,
gain staging gives 8dB back,
and the I'm gonna parallel this.
00:03:36 Essentially, when I go
on parallel mode,
there's no compression yet
here,
it's only activated, now I have to blend
how much compression I'm going to do.
00:04:01 The low-level information
is coming up in the mid-range,
I don't wanna overdo it,
if I go 100%
which is something ridiculous
because there's no low-end,
and I take the dry
or 100% has to be even,
so that's what I'm looking.
00:04:40 Of course I'm starting
to gain and push up levels so,
I don't wanna clip my converter yet,
so I pulled down a little but my output
stage of this.
00:04:57 Now, the insert before
is a CharterOak that has..
00:05:01 essentially I don't like to use
anything in the middle,
and even the 5k,
it's just not my sound,
but the top and the extreme bottom
are really magic,
especially on tracks
that you wanna
at the end, give back again
some sort of dynamics on the
extreme low and extreme top.
00:05:32 So listen this 50,
it's kind of crazy what it does.
00:05:50 Feels almost like there's
a new hi-hat on the track.
00:05:52 Now I wanna do this, I wanna do
the two octaves, so the 60 and 120
or the 40 and 80s,
let's see.
00:06:18 I feel the 60s are totally
under control, they need
to do that, but I like the 120,
just a little bit of bump on that.
00:06:32 A touch of the 60 too.
00:06:44 Let's move to the next.
00:06:45 Number 5 is the BAX EQ.
00:06:47 The BAX EQ is my final stage of EQing.
00:06:50 It's the last step to make the decision.
Most of the time
for me is low-pass and hi-pass filters,
it's pretty amazing,
super smooth
especially
when I am kind exaggerating on purpose,
to give like this big belly
and big
bump on the lows, it's always to control
to me usually is the 24
and the 28 or the 18
and I do maybe a little bump
on the 2k, so let's try.
00:07:36 A lot of people are big fan of
84, 98 Hz
I like to use the 230 or 300
because I feel it gives
an overall space on the low
that
it's pretty amazing.
So let's see what it does on 300.
00:08:00 Maybe down to 200, 230.
Let's see.
00:08:10 So let's analyze what happens when
we add
the first stage of mastering.
00:08:31 I feel like it's getting a more
hi-fi sounding
but retain the integrity of the song,
I feel there are
in some way I lost a little bit of like
clinical mid-range
that I can definitely do in
here,
because again, think of this EQ
has 3 EQs, we used the
Pultec side,
we filtered a little bit,
we have the EQ 2 completely free,
Yeah, I feel like those 3k
just helped to
compensate what we did on the
bottom and the top.
00:09:21 Now we're clipping the converter
a little bit, we don't
care yet because we're not capturing
this mix,
but I wanna control the levels
so
a different way to do it for me.
The best way is to use the PL2,
which is a limiter,
which is on insert 6
and then do two things:
do gain post-limiter,
so now the gain is being placed
after the limiter,
or place before the limiter
and decide
how much we're gonna actually
limit it or clip,
in conjunction with the input
of the PL2.
00:09:51 The PL2 has 1dB step,
this has 0.5 dB step so
I can only find the sweet spot,
so let's try.
00:10:27 My goal is to control the peaks,
try to stay
not going red,
if I do a little bit of clipping
because I want it fine,
but I wanna be able to control it.
00:10:38 Let's find the sweet spot on that.
00:11:10 I wanna raise up to 0dB,
make the limiter do its work as far as
glueing the drums, the way it does is
very natural.
00:11:18 Let's check in two parts I'm interested,
I wanna make sure that I'm not
pushing up too much the vocal,
with the limiter,
and I wanna make sure that the
relationship between the verse
and the drop is there.
00:11:39 Push a little bit the top
end, so I wanna control that little bit.
Too much 50, so...
00:12:03 Let's go to the drop.
00:12:20 So I set up my ceiling
that has about 3dB limiting
but is
very unique because it's kind
of like.. not transparent,
but has a tone, has a sound,
doesn't feel
when I do the same in-the-box,
so it's kind of cool to be able to
capture..we have a high RMS level,
the crest factor is gonna be kind of low
so I have like
the average part really loud.
00:12:43 The relationship of the final stage of
the mastering side, or 'capturing the mix'..
00:12:48 whatever you wanna call it,
it's the same concept, I'm going
back to the box with the final result of
the analog side,
I'm just ready to record,
let's do it.
00:14:02 So we have a print, let's analyze
a little bit what we have as far as
RMS level or the ceiling.
00:14:10 Usually about -9,-10,
let's check.
00:14:18 Between -10 and -8.5.
When I say between is just because
it's still a dynamic track so if we go
in the loudest part of the track,
let's analyze this part.
00:14:35 About 7dB dynamics,
-8.5/-9.
00:14:40 I like to set it up in a way that I have
my print channel and my master channel.
00:14:45 I wanna have the freedom to go
one step back,
and just be able to do automation
through the final mastering process.
00:14:52 I'm gonna lower the level of limiting
in-the-box,
and that's the way for me to
create and retain dynamics
on the final stage of limiting.
00:15:03 First thing I wanna do now
I wanna do two stage of additional
limiting, clipping to raise
a little bit up,
One clipper, which is the StandardClip,
in a very transparent mode,
and I use a very old
multi-band compressor.
00:15:18 So this is my first step.
With the StandardClip
I am going to work in oversampling,
I did some tests, it's a big difference,
big deal.
00:15:26 I always wanna remember to put offline
x16,
when I gonna bounce offline
I wanna make sure to retain the
same oversampling that I chose.
00:15:35 Initially I am not gonna put
any ceiling,
my initial approach
is essentially
finalize how much I wanna gain,
and then pull it down instead of using
the ceiling so, let's try.
00:16:10 I am gonna do it really quick
to have any difference on the sound.
00:16:22 Then, second step,
I used a Multi-band
Linear Phase that has the
a pretty amazing internal limiter,
you'll be very surprised.
00:16:30 And I always asked myself why..when
I don't know 12, 13 years ago I guess,
they did this limiter,
they never really made clear
about this function, I don't know,
maybe they forgot to
tell or they don't even know that
they could do that.
00:16:45 So what I'm looking is
essentially
to raise the level multi-band and then
solo the band post
limiting and compression,
to make sure that I don't have
any distortion on different areas
of the mix.
00:17:01 So initially I wanna match the level and
look at the meter
when I am gonna start to test
of the RMS, ok?
Once again, we're close to 0,
we're not clipping,
we raised 1.20 dB, we lowered 1.20 dB
so we're still at 0,
now we're close to clipping,
we're not clipping.
00:17:25 Now, the way this behaves
on my master channel,
if you look at the level
now I'm gonna start to raise the level
a lot and look what happens.
00:17:52 Essentially it's not clipping,
it just starts to compress a little bit,
it's very transparent so I'm going
-3/-4 without any problem,
I'm not going to do it full-band,
I wanna make sure how much I can push
with the LinMB before
adding a nasty distortion.
00:18:27 I'm pretty clean on the bottom.
00:18:37 So what I do multi-band,
I create a little bit of compression
on the part that I
after clipping internally,
it creates distortion,
be able to monitor post
I used the threshold to lower
a little bit that band to go
before nasty clipping,
if it makes sense.
00:18:56 Now, when I find the way to retain
a clean sound on that area,
I am gonna go close to clipping
again,
and use attack and release
I am gonna maybe slow down the attack,
and just make sure that I can maximize
my RMS and retain
the clean sound that I'm looking for.
00:19:29 Let's see if I compensate a little bit
on the output.
00:19:42 Pretty clean.
Mid-range.
00:19:48 Pretty clean.
Top-end.
00:19:55 Tiny bit.
00:20:02 Now my concern is the top-top.
00:20:08 Let's see where we are right now.
00:20:15 Now I take everything that I did so far.
00:20:18 And with my master-gain I pulled down
a dB.
00:20:30 I pulled down 1dB so I was able to push
even more.
00:20:35 But then
now that I have the safety zone
between the bands and everything
is under control,
I know for sure if I pull 1dB down,
now I have another dB
that I can gain again
with the final clipper.
00:20:48 I am gonna essentially reach
my point, which is -5
on this track, totally clean,
I went to the loudest part of the track,
and I wanna achieve using again,
multiple tools to do that.
00:21:17 In this case I used the same
clipper that I used at the beginning,
but I use this "Ratio 2:1" that is
part of the new update
feels it's between clipping
and limiting
and has almost like a
hardening effect,
that when you push
it has like a bump.
00:21:34 Now, if I did a good job
with the multi-band
to retain
the borderline close to clipping part
that is on the low-end,
a little bit on the top, now I have
even a more balanced
waveform that I can push one step up.
00:21:47 So essentially my goal to stay on -5
is gonna be achieved with multiple tools
so I can totally do it
with Linear Phase,
a multi-band, yes I can,
but I like the tone, the final tone
of the StandardClip on ratio 2:1.
00:22:03 So let's check.
00:22:28 I feel because I am gaining,
as you can see, on the waveform
a very flat waveform,
I feel that
this additional limiter
it gives back some
limiting, something in between
that clip in the limiter that gives like
a nice tone.
Now my concern is
I don't wanna clip in a wrong way
in a different
part of the track, the track is
very dynamic,
especially on the builds.
00:22:50 So I have the luxury to have a
print track which is empty,
with no plugins,
the only job that the track does is
how much I feed into the master track.
00:23:01 So if I could do automation,
I am able to give less limiting
and just have the track to breathe more,
with the same peaks.
00:23:09 I'm only reducing the RMS level,
if it makes sense.
00:23:12 Let's play one part and see
how we're doing here.
00:23:24 We're clipping this part,
on the first
plugin, and by default we're gonna
do the same on the other plugins.
00:23:29 What about if
on the part that I wanna have the track
to breathe a little bit more,
and just be able to give a
sense of dynamics,
if I do an automation
where I literally take
the few dB that I give
on the mastering stage
I'll take it back,
build a dynamic buildup.
00:24:07 A little too much,
it's fine.. I think.
00:24:10 Think if pull down
little by little to go down
probably total 2dB,
should be good.
00:24:31 No more clipping on this part.
00:24:44 Now we're gonna have a very
loud drop.
00:24:54 Now a little too exaggerated.
00:24:56 But that's the concept.
I wanna do the same, little less,
we take about a dB from
a before/after,
I can apply the same concept
on the verses, so now we have
a dynamic verse that is breathing,
is going a little bit back on the stage,
they're not in the front fighting,
but then when the drop hits,
confetti (makes a sound),
laser, strobo,
everything is in your face,
if it makes sense, so
let's do that.
00:26:22 And now we're clipping.
00:26:24 On purpose once again.
00:26:25 And let's remember that we captured
this track
pretty loud already so
we're not reducing much,
we're reducing the digital portion
post mastering side,
and we're gonna do this
to complete the song
pretty much everywhere.
00:26:42 -5dB RMS
on the drops,
and more breathing room
on the other parts.
00:26:53 I kind of like to have this part
more in the front so
just a tiny bit, 0.5 dB,
and then we bring down,
we bring
up again on the drop.
00:27:48 Alright, so that's my dynamic
approach on mastering.
00:27:52 What makes me unique is
the fact that I mix and master
in one round, one process.
00:27:58 And from me the master is
the final stage of the mix
dynamically, EQ-wise,
it's the last chance for me to reshape
the mix,
but retain some way
the organic part of the mix, and
as far as
the way that I finalized my master
has two stages: I master
from the analog side, going in,
and then do my final stage of
in-the-box, if I need.
00:28:21 I delivered the master in two versions:
dynamic and loud.
00:28:26 The dynamic to me is the version
that has
only the analog side of limiting
and clipping, and then
essentially no additional
processing in-the-box.
00:28:38 The loud version is
pushing one step up,
to deliver a louder version,
adding internal plugins,
and reach about an extra 4dB.
00:28:50 So if I usually stay about -10/-9 RMS
for the dynamic,
I go to -5 for the loud version.
00:28:59 And I do my best to keep it
as clean as possible.
00:29:03 Alright guys,
we've been working a lot,
lot of hours on this mix,
I'm excited, master is done,
let's play the final version.
00:31:57 Well guys,
questo era Luca Pretolesi da Las Vegas,
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Luca Pretolesi is an italian born mixing / mastering engineer who currently lives in Las Vegas where he works at Studio DMI.
Luca specializes in Electronic Dance Music where he strives to bring fresh perspectives and focuses on bringing out the emotions behind unpolished sounds, demos and future hits.
After 20 years of experience in the industry, Luca managed to build a unique hybrid analog / digital mixing setup where we successfully blends the best of both worlds. Plug-ins allows him to work with the precision that EDM and mastering often require and his custom made pieces of hardware and high-end pro equipment help him bring a final analog touch and warmth to his sound.
Luca has worked with the biggest artists of the EDM scene such as Diplo, Major Lazer, MakJ, Lil Jon, Savoy, Gareth Emery, and Snoop Lion and more.
Watch Luca's videos on pureMix and see for yourself how Electronic Dance Music hits are made.
Major Lazer is an electronic music trio composed of record producer Diplo, and DJs Jillionaire and Walshy Fire. A conceptual EDM act based around a fictional character, Major Lazer launched in 2008 as the digital reggae/dancehall project of Diplo, the globetrotting, taste-making DJ/producer whose previous collaborations included work for M.I.A. and Santigold. Recorded at Jamaica's Tuff Gong studios.
Major Lazer is an electronic music trio composed of record producer Diplo, and DJs Jillionaire and Walshy Fire. A conceptual EDM act based around a fictional character, Major Lazer launched in 2008 as the digital reggae/dancehall project of Diplo, the globetrotting, taste-making DJ/producer whose previous collaborations included work for M.I.A. and Santigold. Recorded at Jamaica's Tuff Gong studios.
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.
I'm loving Luca's approach and neat tricks! Truly a master. But genuine question, why does he bother going to the ruff mix when its a thousand dB lower? What is he going for with that? I mean, can he really compare and evaluate his moves with that big of a difference?
Alexandre Si
2022 May 17
Woooow ! He is too technical, like scientific lol
YogiPaj
2021 Nov 28
Luca is brilliant. Precise, clear, and knows how to make sounds musically sit in the mix. Has many great ideas and concepts. Hope we have more of him.
Pisko Music
2021 Feb 16
Grazie Luca, sei bravissimo!!! I learned a lot, I have just three questions please it would be very meaningful that you take a minute to answer them:
1. What's the difference between reducing 5db on each track of the Low Perc Bus + boosting 4db on da Low Perc Bus fader Vs. directly reducing 1db on da Low Perc fader?
2. How do you mix the automated Print with the Print on wich you added Cliping/MB Compression?
3. This Print with cliping/MB Compression at some point was inadvertidly renamed Master and the previous Master bus was disregarded?
Pisko Music
2020 Nov 21
Sarebbe stato bello che questi poche stems fossero presti per laborare, uno debe ordinargli e en tanto il tempo della memebership transcorre...
Formula7
2020 Oct 17
This is one of my favorites, what happen to the rest of the video it just stops at 38mins?
belangerjp
2020 Aug 16
I learned so much in this video! Soooo much good thing are getting learned in this amazing video. Also, it gives you a chance to have a reference mix for the future! Best learning experience ever! Thank you so much for this opportunity!
giovanni.ta
2020 May 07
Ciao Luca, ho notato solo adesso dopo mesi che c'era la sezione dei commenti.. come posso non farti un saluto? ;) Bellissima puntata! Ciao ciao paisà!
Complimenti
JorgeZM
2020 Apr 26
Amazing job! Hi from Peru
Danbouch
2020 Apr 06
Great but most folks don't have all those juicy plugs, nice that your song is Aprils mix competition. I'll enter, why not... maybe my new Sugar plug will help me win this thang... yaaaaaaa
shaman
2019 Aug 23
Anyone still having doubts in edm mastering being acoustical warfare should watch this episode. Ridiculous really.
lcechman18@gmail.com
2019 Jan 10
How would I go about using his mid range compression technique in ableton???
george.n
2018 Nov 13
great video Luca
i hear so much distortion in the mastering section i think the track is being destroying.
what a pity!!!!
Stephen Moniz
2018 Nov 08
Good stuff. Does anyone know what the size of his room is in this vid?
paul.thorne
2018 Sep 11
What's the use of the "clipper" on the snare/clap sound at around 19 minutes into part 2. I see that the track is peaking in logic, but why not just lower the output, or track volume?
Casperfren
2018 Aug 07
Excellent up until the mastering, there is no loudness war in streaming anymore, im certain if you would rms volume match with a mix that was -10 instead it would sound better not squashed to -5, everything except that was done in good taste and impeccable technique.
davpla
2018 Jul 30
Luca's mixing approach is really unique. To me this is one of the best tutorials on puremix.
Please, do more content like this one - I mean modern music oriented.
alon.a
2018 Jul 19
Thanks I've learned so much! Very professional . The end totally killed the song in my opinion since there was so much audible clipping.. still learned from it in order to compete with loudness but fortunately most platforms now fight the loudness.
AMP Tracks
2018 Jul 18
I wish there were more video by Luca Pretolesi - he's showing excellent techniques with ease, even needs to slow himself down cause he's doing it so fast. I lean so much from this series!
jessrho
2018 May 25
Thanks Luca, that was amazing and your generosity of spirit is inspiring. I learned a lot from this video, maybe more than from any other video so far. Blessings.
Marko93
2018 May 08
Hey guys, anyone know what kind of speakers Luca is using?
BeBopALuba
2018 Feb 04
Not my style of music. Watched it. Learned a lot.
Thank you.
soupiraille
2018 Jan 26
Everything went fine until... ITB limiting and clipping. What a disaster. Sorry Luca but that was not engineering but destroying. Nobody cares about loudness anymore by the way. This song had better stay at the -8 RMS level, it was so much enjoyable than that final soupe; as other puremixers said too. Anyways the mixing part was really interesting and thanks a lot for having shared some of your thoughts, techniques and tricks!
juan_ignacio.m
2017 Oct 25
Simply amazing. The use of the Pro MB and Pro Q2 for thighting and putting the sound on the mid center was amazing. Thanks for your knowledge!
vitek
2017 Oct 21
Hi Luca,
thanks for the awesome tutorial! I've learnt a lot, although I'm with the other guys and find the final result sound extremely distorted.
V.
johangolster
2017 Sep 12
Awesome video except that the final mastered version did not sound like the finished product at all. Also, I think that Diplo and Major Lazer could be a little bit more generous and give full stems.
exe.cutor
2017 Sep 09
Biren, he is compressing the side chained signal (filtered) to increase the perceived loudness, but do not touch the bass and air of the track, which quite important for that type of music
illya20
2017 Aug 23
There are not all tracks in this pack... Not everything is clear!
birenmpatel@gmail.com
2017 Aug 22
anyone understand what he is doing with the mid-range compression on the hardware? is he basically doing multiband compression of the 300hz-10k? or is he parallel compressing that mid-range?
benlindell
2017 Aug 17
From the pureMix Crew: Luca is demonstrating a how to achieve a super loud master which unfortunately is very popular in EDM. To get this extreme loudness level he's using a mixture of limiting and clipping which of course causes some audible distortion. Our audio capture for this video was a digital signal and an exact copy of what was being fed to his monitor path.
morgot21
2017 Aug 16
Ottimo tutorial, uno stimolo e un approccio interessantissimo. Bravo Luca!
pablo.e
2017 Aug 15
Sounds really, really distorted in the last steps of limiting. Not clean at all!!
janiq
2017 Aug 14
like the other guys said. some good ideas running through the course but the final master sounds way to distorted lost a lot of punch...
rami2013
2017 Aug 11
some very good ideas ...nice way of mixing approach.
* there is too much differences between youtube version and this one for sure YOUTUBE version is much better .
valtonx
2017 Aug 10
It's a great video What I wanted to want the gain mixing how loud is the master ??Before he makes mastering.
Has anyone of you with tracks in logic worked mixing mastering ???
If yes has someone of you template by logic where I can look.
Thank you very much
steven961302
2017 Aug 09
What's wrong at the end of the video......? The song is almost distorted.....
SimL
2017 Aug 04
Super nice video!!! Not into EDM much, but curious about how's mixing that genre can be different. Luca has nice and inspiring tricks, he's very professional, intuitive and has good taste, Plus, he explains very well every decision he makes. The only thing that turned me down so bad at the end, is the last 4 dB louder master... For my taste, it spoiled all the details, dynamics and delicacy of the mix. The -8dB master sounds, by far, SOOO much better!!! Some punch got lost, and some ugly distortion came up even if, for his taste, it was transparent enough. Anyways, thanks for this class! :D
bataleo
2017 Aug 02
Thanks Luca
PoPe
2017 Aug 02
So wonderful and punchy music. Thanks Luca.
rrstudios
2017 Aug 02
Why was it so distorted at the end? Something must have gone wrong during filming, or was it intentional? Either way, back to square 1: Mixing 101 - Clipping is bad. It's especially bad on this video.
DoctaDro
2017 Jul 31
Thought it was a really well done video, extremely great job by Luca. With that said, that is some of the most distorted, unnatural, robotic music I have ever heard.
jmag02
2017 Jul 31
Absolutely wonderful to see a master work his craft on modern EDM music. Would love to see more videos in this style in the near future, especially on a song in the 128 BPM range. Thank you, Luca!
sixthagod
2017 Jul 31
Awesome session! Amazing how it sounds in such a short time. Thanks Luca, for taking the time to share this wealth of knowledge!
salmud
2017 Jul 31
Thanks Luca!
Really Nice :))
rickdrumss
2017 Jul 30
thank you!!
Best.
istewart
2017 Jul 30
That's clean?! Or dynamic!? Yikes...
The distortion on the raw tracks was noticeable enough, but after mastering, holy crunchfest batman!
Thedavidcote
2017 Jul 29
Interesting to see some people mix new music with analog gear!
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