Why Your Mixes Don't Sound As Good As Nickelback
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- Опубликовано: 8 июл 2024
- Get instant access to Nickelback multi-tracks and Chris Baseford's full mixing session ► nailthemix.com/nickelback
NAIL THE MIX is an online mixing school created by Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek and Eyal Levi - the guys who produced bands like TDWP, Chelsea Grin, Blessthefall, Machine Head, Monuments, Miss May I, Of Mice & Men, Reflections, Born Of Osiris, Asking Alexandria and dozens more of this generation's best metal bands.
Every month, NAIL THE MIX members get exclusive access to the REAL MULTI-TRACK SESSIONS from a REAL ALBUM, and a 6-8 hour live streaming class from the producer who mixed it. These are the actual sessions by bands like Gojira, Meshuggah, Periphery, Opeth, Fall Out Boy, Bring Me The Horizon, A Day To Remember and more - and NTM is the only place in the world you'll get access to them!
Get instant access to Nickelback multi-tracks and Chris Baseford's full mixing session ► nailthemix.com/nickelback
Nah, I am good.
@@stehfreejesseah7893 Such a great joke from 2010 bro! 😎
@@PeteLockhartTV What's more dated, the joke from 2010, or the band that peaked in 2001 amongst their audience of aging soccer moms from the 80s? Just like great music is timeless, Nickelback being watered down sludge for simpleton douchebags will also always be timeless.
I’d rather eat my own ear wax.
LOOK AT THIS EQ-GRAPH...
😂😂😂
WHERE ARE THE UPVOTES!?!?
Underrated comment
Every time I do enhance the track
God tier comment!
Your mixes do not sound like Nickelback for these reasons
- You do not have 4 professional musicians with decades of experience playing top tier gear who have rehearsed these songs to perfection
- You do not have a professional recording engineer who is capturing the best input tones possible with the right mic setups to fit the song
-Then all of this gets sent to a world class mixing engineer who now mixes a track that is already sounding like a record with a fresh set of ears
-Then a new mastering engineer gets the record and add's the final cherry on top also with a fresh set of ears
So if you are scratching your head on why you cant get your own songs to sound like this.... just realize the amount of talent that goes into these records is insane.
But then at the same time realize that if you can even get 50% of your song to sound this powerful by yourself you have done a great job.
I like to be positive and think I can do it all in my bedroom 😂
@@WillyJunior That'a boy
The goal is the best you. It might be a new standard.
Yep do your best with where you're at.
Don't be so discouraging
Even the guy who mixes Nickleback is a complete Chad
You do know there are 5 other people involved with Nickleback’s album production? But I agree one of the people that worked on Nickleback’s album is a complete Chad (the lead singer of Florida Georgia Line) as well the lead singer of Nickleback, he’s definitely a Chad 😋
I am not a Nickelback fan. But for what they do they are REALLY REALLY good at it. More so, the album Dark Horse sounds CRAZY. From a production standpoint it's directly responsible for how Devin Townsend mixed "Addicted" as he said "it sounds like they recorded it in a space ship" and he's right. Something about how that album is mixed is fucking ridiculous. I can't explain it but it nearly sounds futuristic for commercial rock at the time it was released.
Allegedly, every vocal was tracked individually and spliced together word by word
@@Kreverend520v2 That's common for pop productions tbh, a singer may do 40 takes of the same line, and then an engineer will pick the very best sounding example of each word and splice em all together.
Wasn’t that the Mutt Lange album ? Makes sense if it was.
yep it was@@rockinchippy
It really does sound insane. I love the sound they got on that album.
I liked what he said about choosing the right samples in pre-production at 4:40 . that goes for all sounds imo. mixing is easier when the tracks already sound fitting.
Great video! This makes so much sense, and I think the same approach works for a lot of other creative work as well, whether it's songwriting, video production, or whatever.
Never into nicklelback, but this song is a banger, and I love Chris Baseford's insight on decision making.
You should GET INTO Nickelback haha
I studied in sound engineering years ago and the drummer went to the drum fest in Montreal and he was not only a mad drummer but a pretty chill guy. I'm not sure he even wanted to be in the band himself lol
Nickelback has the best drum sound EVER. Drums are HUGE, so massive that you feel that BOOOOOOOM when the drummer hits toms.
Meh. Overbearing to overcompensate.
@@VVVY777 lolwut?
How many records have you listened to? Like 3? Lol
Bro, listen to some Van Halen. Nickel back have a generic drum sound at best.
ACDC even, nevermid.
This is refreshing because it is so easy to get trapped into looking for things. When mixing post, I figured out what I liked and just stuck with it.
There are certain ones you might like for different reasons, but I always have an REQ6 as an alt.
Building the mix from a strict plugin channel strip POV makes the most sense. Build the mix with one tool, and tools as you need them.
I mean, Andy Wallace is a pretty bare bones guy. Korn record he was mixing was basically being mixed by SSL compression. It was Untouchables.
Granted the recording already had a lot of the work done. Frank, Beinhorn and the Euphonix R-1. I remember when they came to the studio I was at to listen to the Euphonix converters analog ones. 703 and 713s. Tested the Lavry 4 channel converters as well with the 704/714 AES to Madi converters.
Beinhorn wanted the Lavry converters 24 channels for the drums. I'm pretty sure he bought it outright from his own pocket.
The R-1 was 100k.
Then I remember going to Conway as they were trying to figure out how to get 96k recording into PT which was 48k at the time still I think, via a Pyramix Madi card that wouldn't work.
Editing on the R-1 was almost like cutting tape. From what I remember, from what I was told, they split the 96k into 2 channels for editing and combined them back to 96k. It was a technique because Pro Tools wasn't 96k at the time.
I still remember 5.1 truncating the bit if you lowered a fader internally. We caught that on a John Powell score.
Be that as it may, having a console has the advantage. Because you have to make it work. Some outboard for when you need help. I think Nuendo got it right in that respect.
In the end, it’s all about the samples you choose.
Lol
You missed the fact that he used several samples, blended them, sculptured them to fit the specific song, bounced them down to one sample, and then blended that unique sample with the recorded kick in the final mix? 🤔
Did you have the sound on when you watched the video? 😁
@@Dave-Rough-Diamond-Dunn So, it's about the samples you choose then?
@@VVVY777 Yes, you just pick a sample, and put it on track. It'll sound just like the one in the video, no worries. 🙂👍
Or, learning to use mics, tune a set, and learn to play...but samples.. okay..
Lol. Samples suck. They'd are copies of a sound someone got.. get your own.
Yeah, this was really ... relaxant for me! I'm mixing quite fast and my standard track template is my well-know EQ and a SSL style channel. And it works out in 99% of the time. Sometimes adding some other comps or eqs ... when I feel to do something more / different. And I always felt bad because of this "habit" ... but I'm really happy to hear, that it's total "OK" to just drop your standard channel you know well and you are fast with. Thanks very lot! Thumbs up, Stefan
Great advice all around.
Sometimes as engineers we get wrapped around certain technical things and it distracts us from the fun, creative stuff. Obviously there are technical, science-based issues to worry about, but there still needs to be the artistic side of mixing.
Here’s another thing I thought was super helpful. Mixing quickly, but efficiently, will allow more time for creativity to flourish.
Workflow is the key in this regard. Presets, templates, defaults, whatever…should be setup well in advance of the mixing, so again we can have more time to JUST mix and enjoy that process.
This goes directly against the grain of the typical mix engineer mindset of "know your frequencies; know this; know that" and I love it. Use your ears, not your eyes.
Yes, there's a time and place though. If you're mixing, don't worry about which frequency is which, just use your ears. If you're listening in your car or headphones outside of the studio, it sure helps to be able to identify by ear at which frequencies there is masking, harshness/muddiness, or where you're like to make some room etc.
I believe the most quality way to professionalism is by learning and training to hear all frequencies, and mixing by ear. Only when you have established a good understanding of the sonic spectrum, by years of practice, can you truly release your self. This way you will have a masters understanding and ears, and know what and why to do, without going into details and searching for the perfect peaks and things that have nothing to do with the actual music.
That's literally not how it works though. It's a completely wrong take.
@@WardenOfTerradefine wrong take. Nils Rogers, and the guitarist of Gang of Four recorded their guitar directly in a mixer’s input, yet they got a good sound out of doing that.
I also really like that meter analogy, where making broad strokes frees room for making more decisions. I think Eyal has mentioned this too several times where it's sort of a mental RAM usage thing. I like all of that as a means to keep the work flowing
URM really kicking the proverbial hornets nest with that title and I'm all for it.
10/10 clickbait marketing
Amen...but, that being said. If people stopped doing helpful things, that made sense, due to the completely unjustified hate, coming from self-loathing, losers who don't revere anything....then, no one would open their mouths.
Wow that’s the first time I’ve ever seen or heard anyone say, “as good as Nickelback”
Seriously 😂 I’m so grossed out by jock rock
Great stuff, man! This kind of attitude/philosophy is very rare (I can think of Joe Barresi as another maestro) among all those frequency-number-plugin-gear people out there. Many times in my own experience it has been that the numbers show one thing, ears deliver the other (and vice versa). Go figure, huh?! So, ears are any producer's/engineer's most valuable plugin ever to be present in this business which should be utilized way more than it's being done. And these kinds of interviews help that to happen. Thanks again!
This is GENIUS. Thanks so much for this- exactly the tone I needed to be spoken to in. This man knows me
thank you both
I’m neurotic about speed, having lost my license over it a long time ago. But I would definitely AGREE that if you’re paying attention to individual things and not just enjoying song - absolutely… there is your clue.
Solid information, if only people were given this right at the beginning of their mixing journey (:
Not sure what I just watched. But what this guy is saying is if you can’t hear what you want it to sound like then you’re going to be wasting energy looking for it. There is a reason why he’s the best of the best, he has as much talent for hearing what he wants as the actual artist.
This guy would do well back in the analog recording days. He reminds me of how Rick Rubin produces.
Been using the API Console Emulation inside of UA LUNA, amazing. Can't wait for a NEVE or SSL.
Very cool mindset!
Great video, thanks
Great video. Great advice.
I suddenly feel a lot better about my own process having heard this guy talk. He's on another plane than me in terms of skill, but my buddies and I always talk about the "am I speeding?" test when we're mixing.
Very cool indeed my dudes
What I found after many years recording music is that each individual track, be it drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, vocals, HAS to be perfect before you ever mix the song. Tone + performance is everything. Don't skimp on any track. Spend as much time as you can exploring sounds and character for every single track. Every nuance. It will be worth it come mix time. Be anal. Learn how to spot what is not working. What is working. It takes time but it will pay off in the end. 8)))
wow thanks for all the insights, that was so thorough 😂 I’m newbie so cannot grasp them all yet but thanks for sharing.
Even the drums that already sounded ok live version have undergone tweaking with samples and all. No wonder in the final recording it’s awesome.
Metallica black is one of my fav drum mix heard in recording. Hope you can have another episode featuring that particular album mix.
Love this song, love this mix, love chris, the best NTM for me, pretty in depth and philosophical. Thank you guys!
Came for the click bait title, some of the best tips I have heard ever! Great methodology and breakdown of broad stroke moves that actually make a difference.
It’s funny that this vid pops up now. About a week ago I heard NB on the radio and thinking how great the mix was comparing it to the song before and after.
That was awesome
lol my most recent mix (for practice) i’ve been using Nickelback as a reference, and constantly feeling like their music is so huge and loud and mine sounds like a garage so this is perfect
Great video and lesson. It's not a out the plugin.
Love these tips he’s got something similar to Rick Rubin it’s rare to see modern producers who approach mixes like this anymore
In Schepps and Rubin I trust, in Young (as in Neil Young) I doubt
I hate to be the contrarian but the old Waves E channel is still absolutely one of the most versatile and greatest sounding channel strips for any genre imaginable. Choosing that specific one is going to streamline your process and guarantee results as long as you know what you're doing.
I don't lol
I’m with this guy ^^^
I’m going to use this as my excuse in court for my next speeding ticket.
i find that the people that give the whole spiel "have a really narrow Q and pull down 4.5k, 6.034k, by 3db" etc are often amateur or inexperienced, but have been impressed when they've heard another amateur or inexperienced person promote the same thing. thus creating an endless cycle of bullshittery and bad habits. this is really refreshing seeing a guy with a completely no bullshit approach, just getting stuck in. if it sounds good, its good. end of story.
Came for the thumbnail, stayed for the wisdom 🤘
His mentality is great. Even though he uses the exact same channel strip as most others I see mixing, but still. It's about the why. No one is going to know or care about what plug in you're using. The listener isn't on a honeymoon with the new plug in YOU bought and thought was the answer to every issue you have in your mix JUST because you want it to end up being worth the money. Your secret sauce can be established AFTER you get the basics down and understand why you're making whatever moves you're making in the mix.
"What freq did you cut?" who cares I fixed the problem lol
I love that. solve it, move on.
How do you add that channel topper to Logic Pro X mixer view?
This reminds me a lot of Chris Lake who basically writes massive dance tracks in 30 minutes
or Stock Aitken and Waterman (SAW)
the songs and mix are very strong
what little controller does he use? unfortunately I didn't see it in the video.
I don’t love NB’s music outside of Silver Side Up, but their mixes/production both studio and live are incredible.
I've always thought Nickelback had a tight sound even though they've been the subject of a lot of undue hate. They're a solid band that sticks to the basics.
Undue hate? Douchebag lyrics? Cookie-cutter buttrock arrangements ad infinitum? Basic, indeed.
@@VVVY777 That's what I'm saying. It's just music. Some people like it some people don't. You clearly don't and that's okay.
Ever notice when someone tries to praise something they know is shit, all these mid terms start flowing in water. Like I'm supposed to respect Nickelback for being "solid" and "sticking to the basics".
@@Afghamistam I'm not even a fan of Nickelback. I have some nostalgic memories of a few songs from my teen years but other than that I've never given one of their albums to spin but as a recording engineer I appreciate their mix and overall sound with no attachment to their lyrics or songwriting ability and it doesn't add value to anything to call something shit just because I don't like it.
@@schumannbeing I appreciate all the thousands of songs I've heard that have tight mixes without neanderthal lyrics and corny buttrock riffs. But that's me. Life is too short for Nickelback.
Basically make good templates this will help you save time and focus more on playing the instrument and performance
That was interesting.
Dude this guy rocks.
Hi Great video :) It would be great to know what plug in controller you use to control the waves SSl channel strip? So many many thanks :)
Control Strip 2 by Rocksolid Audio
this philosophy immediately reminds me of hardcore academys Jordan Valeriote
Sometimes we jus have to get our heads out of it.
I love the Nickelback sound. I love the final product. I am kind of disappointed in how they get there now. I used to stack sounds like this but have become way more of a "purist" which is kind of bs because after I put all my tweaks, comps, whatever-- its not pure, far from pure.. but ??? I guess if I need a radio hit to sound big, I better stack the hell out of it and sculp the sound.
I use the brainworx ssl channel on every single one of my tracks too. The EQ just sounds the absolute best compared to anything I’ve ever used. It’s so musical. It’s literally hard to make things sound bad with it.
epic thumbnail😝😝
The San Quinten music video clips really make this 💀
Sounds to me a lot like CLA's approach. Yeah given that your incoming tracks are amazingly produced, mixing it's always a lot simpler than most people think it is (and I said "simpler", not "easy")
I trust Andrew Schepps’s approach, but to each their own.
@@sawtooth808 what's his approach?
His is the same as CLA, irrelevant to us with the tracks we receive @sawtooth808
But that's the thing! Everyone is always saying that! "oh but it's so easy to work fast and simple with tracks that are recorded perfectly". But not everyone is trying to learn how to record and preproduce properly and just being lazy thinking their 1000 plugins will make it sound great. People should start trying to learn how to mic things and how to direct the musicians better to get the tracks perfectly before even touching a fader in the DAW.
@@sergio_grezhow does that help mixing engineers hired to mix stuff they didn’t record?
How does it feel?
sweet!
What plugin controller does he use to control SSL strip?
Fuckin' NICE.
I like this guy
Easiest workaround. Q3 on every track or Softube Console.
What device does he use to control the SSL Plugin into his DAW?
Control Strip 2 by Rocksolid Audio
Our hows
In the middle of the whys
That's it
yo that first few seconds sounded like a mathcore/hardcore riff for sure
Marketing has infected the production world for years. Ypu dont need every single plugin ever made or the best converters to get a good results.
I wish more reverb plugins had note subdivision times rather than ms so I didn’t have to bust out the calculator and divide the tempo by 60,000 or 30,000 to find a note subdivision for the song. I mean I do it to get that perfectly long tail he’s talking about but yeah I wish more plugins incorporated it
Niiiiice
What I love is that he confirms pretty much everything I've been saying about mixing for years.
I guess if you want a big, fat, larger than life sound, then you have to do things in the studio that aren’t possible with actual playing, like layering multiple samples together. I don’t remember Led Zep having to layer kicks, but what do I know. And I suppose if you layer kick samples then you have to have use a backing track when playing live to reproduce the layered kick, or have someone trigger it when playing live.
That really solidifies where I'm at right now. I've always been a believer of stock plugins. Keep it simple, does the job, move on
I like big drums and I cannot lie.
However, of course his mixing process is fast and little work is necessary on EQ or compression: he did all the work in pre-production.
Still amazing to see Nickelback haters in comment sections. The haters are a huge reason why Nickelback is a arena band these days and makes millions. Keep up giving free publicity and marketing for them.
Let them keep doing it😂 like you said just keeps the band huge, end of the day if I don’t like an artists I don’t go of my way to comment on videos or posts about that artist saying they are crap etc.. but the fact so many people go out of their way to comment shit on Nickelback crack me up😂
"The haters", are you a 13 year old wigger? Probably a 55 year old boomer. Nickelback is popular because they are simple & formulaic for their intended audience: Aging soccer moms blasting Rockstar in their SUV, Janitor14.
@@StefanP742I don’t know about others, the jokes I make about Nickleback are in fun. If Nickleback wasn’t as successful, Their label (Roadrunner) would have gone the way of TVT (an industrial label from back in the day) a rising tide floats all boats 🛶
Chris must use Auto Align 2
The answer is very simple - the quality of your mixes' input signals is not even 20% as good as Nickelback's.
That's probably true. A well recorded signal/sound has a dense imprint of frequency content that is very welcoming to plugins, boosts et al.
It's the most important and expensive part.
Anyone know what plugin controller he’s using?
Waves
Actually not. He’s using Control Strip 2 by Rocksolid Audio
Mega-Church vibes.
OMG! This guy get's it... This day and age, with the plug-in overload, and the fact that so much is digital, and plugins are now almost all on an equal level, he's taking the process back to "why", instead of what. The whole GAS epidemic has caused that. You can't tell what a piece of gear is when listening, whether recording, or instrument. It ALL sounds good today. You knowledge, workflow, and ears are FAR more important than what gear you own. The irony is that I'm not a fan of the drums, because they sound exactly like what it is...a bunch of WAY over-processed samples. They're high-and low-pitched thuds with tons of reverb. It works for Nickelback (whom I'm a HUGE fan of), though. So much of the recording today is digital, which means, as long as the signal being recorded is a fundamentally good sound, it shouldn't matter which "digital" piece of gear you use (theoretically). I'd like to see just how good one of the pro's could get a Presonus, or Focusrite piece of gear to sound, with high-end plugins. Because, there's literally no difference between a Neve, SSL, or Presonus mic-pre's (in and of themselves). Several comparisons have already disproven that. So, I'm trying to see where the quantum leap of bad mixes to good mixes takes place. I'm convinced, that once you get to a certain point of quality with gear (which is now VERY accessible today) it's the knowledge of the equipment.
...while using 4'kick samples.
Lol. So, no
"Who cares, what frequency did I end up on? I don't know, I fixed the problem, move on." - truer words have never been spoken. Stop fucking around, and get the job done.
What controller is he using to control a Waves channel strip in Pro Tools? I didn't think the SSL controller worked with anything other than their own plugins. He must have a generic midi controller mapped with Mulligan to control just the parameters he cares about.
Not sure but might be the one from Rocksolid Audio
I'm interested too. Never heard of Rocksolid before though. It looks nice.
Control Strip 2 by Rocksolid Audio
What's boom track?
Tommy Turtle is comin' out of the shell tonight!
I wouldn't know
Well… the title wins. Hooks you right in.
mostly it's how things are recorded. source material is crucial. you can't polish a turd.
Nickelback? That's a real mean burn, take it back!😂
He makes thing easier but its not easy at all.
Co signed
Me: let’s see how the pros do it.
The Pro: So I slap this sample on top of that sample then layer it with these samples.
Okay URM, this is much better than the previous crap you've been putting out!!!
I'm confused! On the one hand you're basically saying just adjust the frequency or gain and move on! But then you're talking about mixing all those kick samples together, which usually takes a lot longer to complete than it does just to turn a few knobs to get your sound! So, either way you're still spending roughly the same amount of time adjusting the kick versus creating a new one from samples! Which probably takes longer!
Good point, and nothing about all that lowend cancelation. ..
EQ is not gonna get you the same sound as layering multiple samples. It can't. He's saying when it comes to EQ and such, don't waste a ton of time, rather, spend it where you actually need to.
Amazing advises I 100% agree with.
But God I really don’t wanna sound like Nickelback tho ‘ x).
Because Joey Moi is an absolute animal. That’s why
HA! I see kallmekris, directly in front of the band, straight out of the gate. :) I know she's a Nickleback fan and friend of the band. Very cool.
this is epic to see one of the hidden heroes of modern music. nickelback is the pinnacle of modern music production.
🤘😎
he can talk
He seems like the guy who mixes Nickleback