Hey, another very informative video. Your writing process is interesting and I understand that you don't have much time to mix and master your tracks. A few things I learned from people like you from many resources and plugin manuals. 1. Cut all the frequencies below 30hz and above 18k(approx) in your master chain, they aren't really observable. 2. Use saturator from ableton live more often, It's pretty awesome and turn on the soft clip mode to avoid clipping, it works like limiter but in a better way, you can preserve transients by using this(unlike limiter, you may lose some transients while using limiter), I think glue compressor has it too. 3. Use groups for efficient mixing and glue them together using same effects like reverb,compression. Using same effects on a bus makes instruments sound more cohesive. 4. Use a click sound ( generated by Operator/Analog ) to sidechain your bass frequencies with kick(or snare). You can have more control over your sidechaining this way, You can increase/decrease the length of the click(Envelop settings) so that You get desirable amount of that pumping effect. 5. Use Bass mono preset from utility on master chain to keep frequencies below 150hz(approx, till 200hz is suggested) in mono. For widening the other frequency ranges try using ozone's imager(I think there's a free version of it). You can split the frequencies using multiband dynamics and widen them differently using imager. Btw You're very inspiring for beginners like me, Keep up the good work. Hope this helps, thanks!
These are some great ideas and suggestions! I'll definitely check out the Bass Mono Preset for the master chain and I will certainly be looking into the saturator more often! Cheers!
This is a great tutorial and I really enjoyed watching. Your system is remarkably similar to mine in that my mixing and mastering skills are by no means at expert level; however, over time and many tracks later I have developed my own style and techniques that result in a very decent finished product, or so I’ve been told. The major differences in our techniques, however, are that I convert all midi to audio as I go along. Once I have converted an individual midi track to an audio track, I save that entire midi track to to separate Ableton file for safekeeping in case I need to re-record it later. I find audio files much more stable to work with, plus getting rid of the midi track and it’s related virtual instrument free up memory resources. The other major difference in our techniques is that I work in mono right up until the very last mixing step. I drop a Utility on the master channel set to mono throughout the entire mixing step. Mixing in mono will help identify any phasing issues. If you can get a killer mix in mono, imagine how it will sound in stereo. A really nice video, two thumbs up. 👍👍
You make me feel really comfortable cuz, i guess, you are some years older than me and you don't have any problems to admit that you not have that knowledge about mixing reminds me that i just stay true to myself and that we all start somewhere. I'm really surprised I thought you were much deeper into that but yeah your stuff sounds always good to me and I like your arrangements! I wouldnt high pass every single track, always use your ears and try to avoid solo. Thank you Great Video!
amazing man! thanks for sharing your workflow, I personally find my writing process as my weakness, nonetheless I find mixing and mastering flow more naturally. I'd like to remark that you're already using EQ in a very good way, by filtering frequencies (both low and high) you help redistributing the energy towards the fundamental frequency content of the instruments. Since you're already halfway there with the EQ I'd suggest you try identifying masking issues between two or more tracks, I do this this way: 1. Once I have my starting balance between all instruments, I mute one by one and write down in a notebook which instrument are more intelligible when I mute a specific instrument. 2. Once I have this notes, I start facing each instrument (using EQ) with the competing once, I do this by boosting with a broad Q a certain band of the frequency spectrum, and do a quick sweep from 20 up to 20kHz. You'll notice one of the instruments will get lost when you boost the other one in a certain range. 3. Once I know where they are competing, I do a 2 or 3db cut (sometimes it's more aggressive) in one of the instruments and boost the same region with the same Q in the other instrument EQ. 4. I repeat the process boosting the other instrument and finding where it shines the most, then I'll do the cut and boost in both instruments just like before. I've heard this is called the puzzle approach, if you can check some videos from Matt Weiss from TheProAudioFiles.com, he's the man when it comes to EQ and compression. Once you've finished, compare the PreEQ and PostEQ mixdown, you'll notice more clarity and separation when masking is properly addressed. You can ease this procedure with the iZotope Neutron software, it has an amazing masking feature built on its EQ. I hope this information is helpful for you man, keep the hard work!
Well, whatever you're doing it always sounds good to me. A tip I will offer is to switch your mix in mono before you master. That way you can see if all the parts translate well and to check your stereo feilds. Great video as always.
This is legit one of the few videos on RUclips about Ableton that actually gives practical advice/useful information. I guess you would need some prior knowledge of Ableton to make the most out of this video, but this is by far the most straight forward tutorial I've seen. There's too many vids of people taking 2-3 minutes to explain how something works, where here you demonstrate perfectly how something is used (and I can pretty much just figure out the rest). If YT still had ratings I'd give you 5 stars my friend :).
Honestly I have a very similar mixing workflow to you ! it doesn't have to be complex at all (unless youre trying to brickwall some edm or metal) ! Mixing is really as simple as giving headroom, cutting frequency extremities, maybe a little bit of tube compression / saturation and sprinkling reverb.
Wow thank you for this Clear concise and straight to the point as an artist myself you see so many plug-in so many fancy things on the Internet and feel like you just won't be able to make a music but watching this video inspired me and definitely help me I can't wait to apply these tactics to my own mastering mixing process and also I will definitely take some tips for your creation process as well thank you !!!!!
I actually learnt some things from this specific video, because I never use laptop or PC or anything completely digital when recording... My tip might be useless for you and the instruments and your genre, but you can use a mixer when recording guitar and bass because by using it you can actually learn about EQ without reading or searching or whatever... And tis happens because analog mixers like the one I'm using write details about what the knob you're using does so it might be very useful... The mixers I own are the Mackie Mix12FX and ,if you want something more digital, the Boss BR800 that's actually a recorder with EQ enabled... Hope to helped you
Thanks for the informative video. It's always interesting to see how others work. The best tip I learned awhile ago that really helped with the overall quality of my productions was to high pass everything except the sub bass. That was definitely one of those light bulb moments for me. I'm glad you called it out in your video. Peace \/.
I was better at using an EQ before i learned to use an EQ. These days from extensive mixing I basically start of by listening to what i don’t like, what i want to get rid off. And then I listen to what i want more of. The second part is the hardest in my experience. It builds a lot on experience, just like playing an instrument. I believe its good to have an idea what different frequency regions roles could be. But I believe its important to not mix using those ideas as a template. It has been said before many times, but really, for everyone new to mixing. Trust your ears, not your eyes. :-) Its all about finding balance, and since all tracks are different, only your ears can be used to find balance.
sorry I'm late to the party ! good to mention markers ! What I do is create all the markers, then click on the first, then cmd+r rename, then "tab" rename ect ; tab works also when renaming tracks, it goes to the next field so you can keep typing the names of everything ;
Now that you upload more frequently could you make a detailed video explaining how to run any signal (guitar, mic, etc) through the monologue or any synth? Thanks
Nice to see your process! The "make the arrangement as soon as possible" tip is great! I would just add that you should actively try to stop yourself from soloing tracks when mixing, it's much easier to cut unimportant frequencies in the context of the full track. Also, regular breaks :)
Hey, great video! My main tip for mastering would be always checking for the low frequency content of the sides, and probably getting rid of them. As for the mixing, I don't know if the dry vocals are something that you're attached to, stylisticaly, but I'd really like to hear them with a bit of ambience - a nicely EQd reverb, focusing on the high mids, and possibly even a delay set to 1/16 and no feedback. You're always doing a good job, nonetheless... Love the two-way-learning approach of the video, especially at this stage of the channel when you can really hear your audience. Keep at it, my dude!
It’s not “wrong” to work entirely with midi like you’re doing, but the larger the project the more helpful it will be for you to start converting stuff to audio in ableton, especially when you start getting more into mixing.
I do almost exactly the same mixing as you do ; gentle EQ and slight compression if necessary ; but I process also a bit outside the box, some track goes into effect (typically, either into reverb, delay, compression or distortion) and into some mixing console for EQing, before I record them ; but nothing extreme ; however I don't do the master stage ; I'll try that ; thank you for sharing :) :) :) !! Cheers
YESSSSSSSSSSS!!! thank you dude. As a visual artist myself, I'm not sure why I hadn't thought of approaching it this way. Stupid is as stupid does, I guess :D
A really small suggestion-- You don't seem to be using scenes to launch clips. You could minimize that space and have more room for your channel strip controls and plugins.
One thing I do is mix in mono. In my ableton template I have a utility (in the master chain) where I bring the level of each channel down and then set the utility to mono (on the master chain). I then do the appropriate eqing volume redux etc.... once im satisfied I just turn the utility off and im usually happy with the sound
Bro i have gone through your videos...your working stuff are really impresive...i have learned most of the stuff from you...actually i wanted to ask you that i want to learn ambient making stuff from you,if you could give a lesson on these ambient stuff than it would be much easier for me to learn....so hope you make one video...please do reply..
Very practical guide. Thank you. I'm using Ableton Live 11 Lite and I have a problem which I hope you can help me with. When I listen to my recording, it seems perfect, volume-wise. However, after export, my mp3 turns out having reduced volume. Why is that? Do you know how I can rectify this? -Alma
Pleasant vid, man. I like that warm and wide mastering plugin myself. No expert here just going for what my ears tell and how the track flows where it wants to be. Working on midi tracks I'd flatten them then bounce as audio stems for "mixing" phase. Does help tremendously on CPU load as well (esp if you use an old MacBook like me lol). I then export all stems to master track before "mastering". Interesting channel.. Cheers!!
Best advice I got for mixing/mastering is to reference other music. Not to copy but just to make sure you’re in the same ballpark as what people are used to hearing. Also, I started using Izotope Ozone to master my music and noticed a big jump in quality and it was much quicker. I think there’s a free trial if you wanna just try it out.
stepnotes for me and you (mixing and "mastering", starts at 05:44) 1. zero volume every track 2. session view 3. bring all in till it everything peak around -12db 4. panning for effect and maybe reverb 5. high pass on every track (except for the drums or the bass) 6. maybe glue compressor on the bass 7. vocals: standard compressor and eq very high (08:48) 8. listen on monitors and headphones (tweak around) 9. export the mix with loopbar trick (11:15) 10. New Project: 'Wide and Warm Master' Rack on the Track (11:34) 11. Even the EQ first and go from there 12. Change Threshold, let the gain reduction not be to crazy only a bit 13. Increase the Gain Compressor till Limiter peaks a little bit (to bring up the volume of the track)
Thank you for sharing your workflow! Why not just apply the mastering effects on the master track of the original project? I mostly use hardware mono-synths so I usually record both audio and midi (at once, by enabling recording on both tracks): audio so I can use the synth to do something else, midi so I can tweak it later and re-record audio if I need to.
Found this very interesting. Currently tossing up whether to ditch cubase and go to ableton. Ableton appears to be more straightforward It could just be me though.🤔
My problem is the fact that the CPU useage gets very high and everything starts crackling. Especially with synths. Any tips? I'm using ASIO4ALL and it should be fine??
Guess people watch this long after it was uploaded so I come with this solution to mixing and mastering: Use up to 4 return tracks with for example :A compression, B EQ, C Eq and D mix channel with dynamics and limiting and eventually de-clipping, you can also use eq for vocals hereor in another return track for example B. But if you use snares for return track B you can for example use Bass in another😄 But it is probably not a single waytodo it sbletons basic return tracks are delay and reverb, butyou can do so much moreandit is easier to have mixing return channels so you know what you are doing and easily can glue together
Hey. I just wanted to know if your unmastered track sounds good on your phone after you export it.... Will a good master make it perfect? Cuz my unmastered tracks sound good but I think my mastering is bad so it just makes kicks and 808s muddy. This happens to most of my tracks. I just wanted to know if my unmastered mix sounds good on small speakers will a good master make it sound good too? Or is it that the mix is just bad if the master (be it only limiting till you get some gain reduction) doesn't sound good?
First of all, great video! I wonder if your process changed much since you recorded it? Particularly when it comes to mixing and mastering. Is it more complex now? I'm asking because everything in this video looks very simple and I dig it a lot as I'm not and probably won't ever become an audio engineer. I just want the music I make to sound decent, and I feel like there's a gigantic discrepancy between what listeners care about and what other producers care about. The former group just wants the song to sound good no matter how it was made, mixed or mastered. The latter... frankly doesn't matter :)
Don't forget to use smexoscope or a similar tool to check for high peaks in the kick drum and other pop like sounds. Maybe use saturation to get rid of the peaks so your mix can be mastered for higher volumes. Let's say you want to get rid of a peak from the meat of the sound at -12db. Take the saturator effect in Ableton and bring down the output to -12db and raise the drive to 12db. it may distort your sound if you over do it but play with the soft clip on and off function. Hope that helps get rid of peaks in the mixing process. Also use a sprectrum analyzer like Span for monitoring your volume levels. Both of these two tools I mentioned are free and help a ton!
Rain mStand. If you're interested, I my other gear is listed here (using these links helps my channel out a bit): kit.com/onceuponasynth/home-studio-recording
I run my dynamic mics through a Cloudlifter and then into an Audient iD22 interface. So it depends on your mic + audio interface. Dynamic mics are often more quiet. Some interfaces have weaker preamps than others. If your interface gain is max and it's still too quiet maybe look into a dedicated mic preamp with more gain. Otherwise it could be a software setting (either in DAW or in the audio interface program). Hope that helps.
Hi maybe someone here can help me, I'm using Ableton 10 standard thinking to update to suit because I don't have any plugins and its kinda struggle are there any free plugins maybe
Super noob question, how can I use headphones with Ableton? With no interface, just instead of coming out of my laptop, i want to hear it through my headphones!
That tip about sketching out a complete song as opposed to building up 4 bar loops-that is game changing advice. Thank you for that
Hey, another very informative video. Your writing process is interesting and I understand that you don't have much time to mix and master your tracks.
A few things I learned from people like you from many resources and plugin manuals.
1. Cut all the frequencies below 30hz and above 18k(approx) in your master chain, they aren't really observable.
2. Use saturator from ableton live more often, It's pretty awesome and turn on the soft clip mode to avoid clipping, it works like limiter but in a better way, you can preserve transients by using this(unlike limiter, you may lose some transients while using limiter), I think glue compressor has it too.
3. Use groups for efficient mixing and glue them together using same effects like reverb,compression. Using same effects on a bus makes instruments sound more cohesive.
4. Use a click sound ( generated by Operator/Analog ) to sidechain your bass frequencies with kick(or snare). You can have more control over your sidechaining this way, You can increase/decrease the length of the click(Envelop settings) so that You get desirable amount of that pumping effect.
5. Use Bass mono preset from utility on master chain to keep frequencies below 150hz(approx, till 200hz is suggested) in mono.
For widening the other frequency ranges try using ozone's imager(I think there's a free version of it). You can split the frequencies using multiband dynamics and widen them differently using imager.
Btw You're very inspiring for beginners like me, Keep up the good work. Hope this helps, thanks!
Utsav Kaushik thanks for breaking it down for us!!
@@maxexodus thanks, you beautiful person!
These are some great ideas and suggestions! I'll definitely check out the Bass Mono Preset for the master chain and I will certainly be looking into the saturator more often! Cheers!
@@codyrathman you're very welcome!
thanks for sharing these tips!
Thanks for sharing such many helful tips
Video helped me a lot! I like simple first, going into details later. The locators come very helpful.
Learned me some sweet tips. Thanks.
Just what I needed. Thank you, bro. Earned a sub.
this video is...incredible
This is a great tutorial and I really enjoyed watching. Your system is remarkably similar to mine in that my mixing and mastering skills are by no means at expert level; however, over time and many tracks later I have developed my own style and techniques that result in a very decent finished product, or so I’ve been told. The major differences in our techniques, however, are that I convert all midi to audio as I go along. Once I have converted an individual midi track to an audio track, I save that entire midi track to to separate Ableton file for safekeeping in case I need to re-record it later. I find audio files much more stable to work with, plus getting rid of the midi track and it’s related virtual instrument free up memory resources. The other major difference in our techniques is that I work in mono right up until the very last mixing step. I drop a Utility on the master channel set to mono throughout the entire mixing step. Mixing in mono will help identify any phasing issues. If you can get a killer mix in mono, imagine how it will sound in stereo. A really nice video, two thumbs up. 👍👍
thanks for the tips! Looks like a lot of people are suggesting working in mono, so I'll definitely have to try that out.
Love the mono tip. Game changer for me and so simple!
You make me feel really comfortable cuz, i guess, you are some years older than me and you don't have any problems to admit that you not have that knowledge about mixing reminds me that i just stay true to myself and that we all start somewhere. I'm really surprised I thought you were much deeper into that but yeah your stuff sounds always good to me and I like your arrangements! I wouldnt high pass every single track, always use your ears and try to avoid solo. Thank you Great Video!
amazing man! thanks for sharing your workflow, I personally find my writing process as my weakness, nonetheless I find mixing and mastering flow more naturally. I'd like to remark that you're already using EQ in a very good way, by filtering frequencies (both low and high) you help redistributing the energy towards the fundamental frequency content of the instruments. Since you're already halfway there with the EQ I'd suggest you try identifying masking issues between two or more tracks, I do this this way:
1. Once I have my starting balance between all instruments, I mute one by one and write down in a notebook which instrument are more intelligible when I mute a specific instrument.
2. Once I have this notes, I start facing each instrument (using EQ) with the competing once, I do this by boosting with a broad Q a certain band of the frequency spectrum, and do a quick sweep from 20 up to 20kHz. You'll notice one of the instruments will get lost when you boost the other one in a certain range.
3. Once I know where they are competing, I do a 2 or 3db cut (sometimes it's more aggressive) in one of the instruments and boost the same region with the same Q in the other instrument EQ.
4. I repeat the process boosting the other instrument and finding where it shines the most, then I'll do the cut and boost in both instruments just like before.
I've heard this is called the puzzle approach, if you can check some videos from Matt Weiss from TheProAudioFiles.com, he's the man when it comes to EQ and compression.
Once you've finished, compare the PreEQ and PostEQ mixdown, you'll notice more clarity and separation when masking is properly addressed.
You can ease this procedure with the iZotope Neutron software, it has an amazing masking feature built on its EQ.
I hope this information is helpful for you man, keep the hard work!
good points for beginners
I liked the tip that stops you getting stuck in a 4 bar loop! Easy to do if you're using a lot of sequencers
Yes very easy to get carried away with a couple of cool riffs on repeat! Does anyone know how to set something like this up in Logic?
Thank you so much for this video man! You just kept it simple and easy to understand.
So many amazing tips packed into this. Thank you for being so thorough and helpful.
Wow, this is the best video I could've asked for
Well, whatever you're doing it always sounds good to me. A tip I will offer is to switch your mix in mono before you master. That way you can see if all the parts translate well and to check your stereo feilds. Great video as always.
Good tip - I tend to just stick a mono Utility on the end of the mastering chain too to ensure I'm not cutting anything out during that process too.
GREAT TIP!!!
This is legit one of the few videos on RUclips about Ableton that actually gives practical advice/useful information. I guess you would need some prior knowledge of Ableton to make the most out of this video, but this is by far the most straight forward tutorial I've seen. There's too many vids of people taking 2-3 minutes to explain how something works, where here you demonstrate perfectly how something is used (and I can pretty much just figure out the rest).
If YT still had ratings I'd give you 5 stars my friend :).
Honestly I have a very similar mixing workflow to you ! it doesn't have to be complex at all (unless youre trying to brickwall some edm or metal) ! Mixing is really as simple as giving headroom, cutting frequency extremities, maybe a little bit of tube compression / saturation and sprinkling reverb.
Yeah saturation is definitely something I need to get more into, cause I hear that tip a lot.
Coming from different music and daw, Ableton sounds so alien. Yet, it sounds less like a daw and more like the most amazing mpc. Thank you
Wow thank you for this Clear concise and straight to the point as an artist myself you see so many plug-in so many fancy things on the Internet and feel like you just won't be able to make a music but watching this video inspired me and definitely help me I can't wait to apply these tactics to my own mastering mixing process and also I will definitely take some tips for your creation process as well thank you !!!!!
Nice view behind the scene. I like the simplicity. Thanks for this Video.
I actually learnt some things from this specific video, because I never use laptop or PC or anything completely digital when recording... My tip might be useless for you and the instruments and your genre, but you can use a mixer when recording guitar and bass because by using it you can actually learn about EQ without reading or searching or whatever... And tis happens because analog mixers like the one I'm using write details about what the knob you're using does so it might be very useful... The mixers I own are the Mackie Mix12FX and ,if you want something more digital, the Boss BR800 that's actually a recorder with EQ enabled... Hope to helped you
Thanks for the informative video. It's always interesting to see how others work. The best tip I learned awhile ago that really helped with the overall quality of my productions was to high pass everything except the sub bass. That was definitely one of those light bulb moments for me. I'm glad you called it out in your video. Peace \/.
it is a great tip about the drafting and not starting with the details
I was better at using an EQ before i learned to use an EQ. These days from extensive mixing I basically start of by listening to what i don’t like, what i want to get rid off. And then I listen to what i want more of. The second part is the hardest in my experience. It builds a lot on experience, just like playing an instrument. I believe its good to have an idea what different frequency regions roles could be. But I believe its important to not mix using those ideas as a template. It has been said before many times, but really, for everyone new to mixing. Trust your ears, not your eyes. :-) Its all about finding balance, and since all tracks are different, only your ears can be used to find balance.
Excellent video and great tips. Love your process.
sorry I'm late to the party ! good to mention markers ! What I do is create all the markers, then click on the first, then cmd+r rename, then "tab" rename ect ; tab works also when renaming tracks, it goes to the next field so you can keep typing the names of everything ;
Now that you upload more frequently could you make a detailed video explaining how to run any signal (guitar, mic, etc) through the monologue or any synth? Thanks
Diego Ortega i second this
I really like your process off putting down locators first. I’ve gotten a bit better, but I still get stuck on loops often.
Nice to see your process! The "make the arrangement as soon as possible" tip is great! I would just add that you should actively try to stop yourself from soloing tracks when mixing, it's much easier to cut unimportant frequencies in the context of the full track. Also, regular breaks :)
Thanks for sharing your experience! Helps a lot for own projects 😀
Hey, great video!
My main tip for mastering would be always checking for the low frequency content of the sides, and probably getting rid of them. As for the mixing, I don't know if the dry vocals are something that you're attached to, stylisticaly, but I'd really like to hear them with a bit of ambience - a nicely EQd reverb, focusing on the high mids, and possibly even a delay set to 1/16 and no feedback.
You're always doing a good job, nonetheless... Love the two-way-learning approach of the video, especially at this stage of the channel when you can really hear your audience. Keep at it, my dude!
It’s not “wrong” to work entirely with midi like you’re doing, but the larger the project the more helpful it will be for you to start converting stuff to audio in ableton, especially when you start getting more into mixing.
I haven’t used any other DAW besides FL and this has to be the best “HOW TO” video when it comes to ableton. Pretty basic but I understand a lot .
Really great video definitely going to have a play around with that mastering chain
Thanks for the amazing content. I would love to see more regarding music theory, chord melodies etc. Your songs have a certain vibe...
Thanks! I will plan on doing something similar focused more on the music.
I do almost exactly the same mixing as you do ; gentle EQ and slight compression if necessary ; but I process also a bit outside the box, some track goes into effect (typically, either into reverb, delay, compression or distortion) and into some mixing console for EQing, before I record them ; but nothing extreme ; however I don't do the master stage ; I'll try that ; thank you for sharing :) :) :) !! Cheers
YESSSSSSSSSSS!!! thank you dude. As a visual artist myself, I'm not sure why I hadn't thought of approaching it this way. Stupid is as stupid does, I guess :D
can you please do separate detailed video on mixing?
A really small suggestion-- You don't seem to be using scenes to launch clips. You could minimize that space and have more room for your channel strip controls and plugins.
Thank you! fantastic, easy and very useful video!!!
One thing I do is mix in mono. In my ableton template I have a utility (in the master chain) where I bring the level of each channel down and then set the utility to mono (on the master chain). I then do the appropriate eqing volume redux etc.... once im satisfied I just turn the utility off and im usually happy with the sound
your workflow is very respectable and i learned alot from this video.. so thanks :)
This is going to help my workflow a lot thanks!
Very gooood!
Bro i have gone through your videos...your working stuff are really impresive...i have learned most of the stuff from you...actually i wanted to ask you that i want to learn ambient making stuff from you,if you could give a lesson on these ambient stuff than it would be much easier for me to learn....so hope you make one video...please do reply..
Thanks! I'm not sure I'm qualify to teach ambient music making because I'm not very experienced with that genre. But I might give it a shot one day.
Utpal Kalita which software that is pls reply iam interest in music
Very practical guide. Thank you. I'm using Ableton Live 11 Lite and I have a problem which I hope you can help me with. When I listen to my recording, it seems perfect, volume-wise. However, after export, my mp3 turns out having reduced volume. Why is that? Do you know how I can rectify this? -Alma
awsum video really big help as starting with ableton live 10 thank you
dude... I get stuck in a 4 bar loop like 80% of the time. Planning out your song just flipped my world upside down lol.
Pleasant vid, man. I like that warm and wide mastering plugin myself. No expert here just going for what my ears tell and how the track flows where it wants to be. Working on midi tracks I'd flatten them then bounce as audio stems for "mixing" phase. Does help tremendously on CPU load as well (esp if you use an old MacBook like me lol). I then export all stems to master track before "mastering". Interesting channel.. Cheers!!
This is what I wanted to see
Thanks for the amazing content. I would love to see more regarding how to compose aong in ableton cheers
This video is amazing thank you
Hey .. bro .. u r doing great job . Just loved ur all work . Can u please tell me best VST for baseline or to make powerful chord progressions
Awesome.....just have 2 Basic questions....from how long are you learning music and this software?? Which keyboard is that??
Best advice I got for mixing/mastering is to reference other music. Not to copy but just to make sure you’re in the same ballpark as what people are used to hearing. Also, I started using Izotope Ozone to master my music and noticed a big jump in quality and it was much quicker. I think there’s a free trial if you wanna just try it out.
stepnotes for me and you (mixing and "mastering", starts at 05:44)
1. zero volume every track
2. session view
3. bring all in till it everything peak around -12db
4. panning for effect and maybe reverb
5. high pass on every track (except for the drums or the bass)
6. maybe glue compressor on the bass
7. vocals: standard compressor and eq very high (08:48)
8. listen on monitors and headphones (tweak around)
9. export the mix with loopbar trick (11:15)
10. New Project: 'Wide and Warm Master' Rack on the Track (11:34)
11. Even the EQ first and go from there
12. Change Threshold, let the gain reduction not be to crazy only a bit
13. Increase the Gain Compressor till Limiter peaks a little bit (to bring up the volume of the track)
Great vid!
Thank you!! Very informative!
Thank you for sharing your workflow! Why not just apply the mastering effects on the master track of the original project? I mostly use hardware mono-synths so I usually record both audio and midi (at once, by enabling recording on both tracks): audio so I can use the synth to do something else, midi so I can tweak it later and re-record audio if I need to.
thank you! i'd have enjoyed and understand better if you have had played more of the music through the video :)
Great video! Subscribed.
I don't have a clue what I'm doing in Ableton but I try every day and I make tracks that I think only I would like.
Found this very interesting. Currently tossing up whether to ditch cubase and go to ableton. Ableton appears to be more straightforward
It could just be me though.🤔
Hey..love your attitude.. I sse you're using the key step 32, how is it for you?;)
What is your go-to Valhalla Room settings/preset? Interested to know if its something you find good enough to leave alone most of the time!
Thanks!! This helps me alot! You are great!
ayyy been waiting for this one
My problem is the fact that the CPU useage gets very high and everything starts crackling. Especially with synths. Any tips? I'm using ASIO4ALL and it should be fine??
Guess people watch this long after it was uploaded so I come with this solution to mixing and mastering: Use up to 4 return tracks with for example :A compression, B EQ, C Eq and D mix channel with dynamics and limiting and eventually de-clipping, you can also use eq for vocals hereor in another return track for example B. But if you use snares for return track B you can for example use Bass in another😄 But it is probably not a single waytodo it sbletons basic return tracks are delay and reverb, butyou can do so much moreandit is easier to have mixing return channels so you know what you are doing and easily can glue together
Thanks.
Hey. I just wanted to know if your unmastered track sounds good on your phone after you export it.... Will a good master make it perfect?
Cuz my unmastered tracks sound good but I think my mastering is bad so it just makes kicks and 808s muddy. This happens to most of my tracks.
I just wanted to know if my unmastered mix sounds good on small speakers will a good master make it sound good too? Or is it that the mix is just bad if the master (be it only limiting till you get some gain reduction) doesn't sound good?
First of all, great video! I wonder if your process changed much since you recorded it? Particularly when it comes to mixing and mastering. Is it more complex now? I'm asking because everything in this video looks very simple and I dig it a lot as I'm not and probably won't ever become an audio engineer. I just want the music I make to sound decent, and I feel like there's a gigantic discrepancy between what listeners care about and what other producers care about. The former group just wants the song to sound good no matter how it was made, mixed or mastered. The latter... frankly doesn't matter :)
how do you put your music on spotify.. are you signed
any electric guitar try cutting out the 4k range with an EQ.
Don't forget to use smexoscope or a similar tool to check for high peaks in the kick drum and other pop like sounds. Maybe use saturation to get rid of the peaks so your mix can be mastered for higher volumes. Let's say you want to get rid of a peak from the meat of the sound at -12db. Take the saturator effect in Ableton and bring down the output to -12db and raise the drive to 12db. it may distort your sound if you over do it but play with the soft clip on and off function. Hope that helps get rid of peaks in the mixing process. Also use a sprectrum analyzer like Span for monitoring your volume levels. Both of these two tools I mentioned are free and help a ton!
Why is it better to export the project to a wave file and finish the mixdown in a new project??
I want an official once upon a synth "vanilla" plugin pack
what software program you're using?
Pretty good video. Quick question, was just because you were quickly showing your workflow and skipped it or you do not use automation?
I use automation from time to time, but in this particular song I didn't. That's definitely something I need to explore more too.
V A N I L L A
Thank you for this! Picked up a few things :)
Reading your gear page and wondering how you survive with only 256 gigs of storage??
Hey, what is that MacBook stand you're using?
Rain mStand. If you're interested, I my other gear is listed here (using these links helps my channel out a bit): kit.com/onceuponasynth/home-studio-recording
very helpful video! how do you record vocals? whenever I do, it's so quiet. Any tips?
I run my dynamic mics through a Cloudlifter and then into an Audient iD22 interface. So it depends on your mic + audio interface. Dynamic mics are often more quiet. Some interfaces have weaker preamps than others. If your interface gain is max and it's still too quiet maybe look into a dedicated mic preamp with more gain. Otherwise it could be a software setting (either in DAW or in the audio interface program). Hope that helps.
@@onceuponasynth thanks! 😊
What midi keyboard is that
nice video!
Hi maybe someone here can help me, I'm using Ableton 10 standard thinking to update to suit because I don't have any plugins and its kinda struggle are there any free plugins maybe
Super noob question, how can I use headphones with Ableton? With no interface, just instead of coming out of my laptop, i want to hear it through my headphones!
David Alonso just connect them into to the laptop
@@danewav1 Well i've already tried that, but it doesnt work straight away maybe i have to do something else
@@davidal2175 Make sure the output of your pc or mac is the same as the one you choose in your DAW
woh, so small amount of processing! I never end with it...tasty thing maybe
Where did you find the 808 rack?
Came with Ableton Live. I have Suite, so I'm not sure if it comes with the other versions though.
very helpful! thank you :-)
Disco mode!
thank u master :)
Cool computer stand.
I have learnt more in the past 13 minutes than I have in since I began recording.
Sir, what this name keyboard?
Please sir
I think it's a Arturia Keystep
thanks!
"latin cha cha cha rap kinda song" hahaha. made me laugh. great tut btw
nice channel bro!
Great video, Steve Jobs. XD