Member Dana Nielsen
MemberForum Replies Created
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Jesse!! Man, this is so gorgeous and creative and fresh and cool! I love it!!
Love the vocal sound and textures – amazing work man! I especially dig the low voice that comes in at times to punctuate certain lines. There’s such a nice rich bottom on those vocal moments that’s really effective (a la the “warm hug” treatment!).
In your upper register voice you kinda sound like Chris Martin – super cool. Like if Coldplay did a collab with Nick Drake.
And Sara on the bone? Come ON! What an incredible tone and texture for this record, and I really dig how hearing you both on this piece together brings even greater meaning to the lyrics. Also when her low notes came in halfway through – daaaaamn! That was so cool.
LOVE your surprise reharm moments at the end with your great bgv textures!! Way to keep “the party” moving and evolving, continually drawing the listener in, taking us on a journey, never stagnating. As a listener I feel like you’re gently guiding me through the rooms and hallways of your mind, and behind each door there’s a little gift on the floor of a sunlit room, and you’re like, “go on in. open it. that’s for you.” And I’m like, “really?? another gift? for me?” And when I untie the bow and open the little box new colors and sounds emerge, swirling and dancing around my ears.
I promise I’m 100% sober. haha. All I’m saying is, what fun sonic journey and a beautiful song! Bravo!!
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Awe, I’m so glad, man! And I can’t wait to hear the results of your experimentation (i.e. COMPRESSION DOMINATION!!!)
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Daniel!
Such a keen observation, man. I notice the same thing and for YEARS I avoided using the lookahead feature for that very reason. However, that has changed in recent months as I’ve found the lookahead is really quite useful! (Albeit not my go-to initial setting)
My Pro-L2 “user default” setting, called DN START, has pretty much no lookahead enabled; attack around 2:30; release around 9:00. I raise the gain/threshold as high as I can push it until the mix starts to break up, then back it off slightly to a more reasonable setting. I often hold the Shift key while finding this “break up” point so that the output volume remains constant and I can easily keep an ear out for compression artifacts and distortion without being fooled by loudness.
Once I have the gain set I preview all the different modes (transparent, dynamic, punch, etc.). Each of those modes sounds quite unique and I find that for each song I find one that feels like magic and helps the mix in some way.
This would be my baseline ideal setting. If the mix sounds awesome and is loud AF and punchy and awesome then I’m done! But … if it’s not loud enough and starts to distort or crumble when I add more gain, THAT is the point at which I start messing with attack, release, and/or lookahead.
I might turn the attack faster, say 9:00, and see if the crumbling distortion artifacts disappear. If not, I’ll slow the release, say 3:00 or whatever feels appropriate for the tempo of the song so that the gain reduction returns to 0-ish by the next snare or kick.
If those adjustments fix the crumbly artifacts yet I feel I’ve lost too much transient punch and snap, THEN I’ll crank up the lookahead, say btwn 9:00 and 12:00, while increasing the attack time as much as possible — back to 2:30 if possible, or more — to recover those transients. I’ve been happily surprised by the result!
By following this process I get to keep my precious “loud AF” volume, without crumbly compression artifacts, while maintaining most of my glorious snappy transients.
Give it a try and lemme know whatcha think!
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HOLY MOLY!! A+++ @joerobinson – Bravo!
Such a treat to hear and watch u all play. Such burning cats you all are! And that is some high level video production and lighting too, to top it all off!!
Absolutely incredible, homey!!
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Just added to the MP Playlist, too!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Hur30TN833YNBj6auawtf?si=55cb5f0103af457f
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Dylan!
What an excellent and thoughtful question.
I get files of all kinds – some great, some not so great haha. Here are a few things that come to mind.
I love it when:
– Files and tracks have been named thoughtfully and thoroughly (no “Audio_01” please!
)– Tracks are laid out top-to-bottom in some kind of organized fashion
– Same goes for track and clip colors – they don’t need to be MY preferred colors, but seeing some type of system helps me to understand the production more quickly and easily.
– Limited options, or no options — just the finished product please
You aptly mentioned this concept in our Member Meet-up Zoom the other day!– Waveforms that are nice and loud! But, obv, not clipping. I can’t tell you how many kick and snare and lead vocal tracks I’ve applied +20db of clip gain to. “Bro, your snare track looks like an egg shaker” haha
– If you’re sending a folder of multi-track audio files – as opposed to a Pro Tools session – I love it when people are mindful of their folder names and file names. Such as … Instrument_SongName_mix#_24bit48k_STEM (or MULTI if multitrack file)
– Bonus points if multi-track exports have a 2-digit number upfront to maintain their top-down track layout:
01_Kick_SongName_…
02_Snare-Top_SongName_…
03_Snare-Btm_SongName_…
– And lastly, since you mentioned “uh-the-playing” … I do love excellent playing (and/or editing) that doesn’t require further editing on my part.
Re: Phase … I’m always appreciative and surprised when drums and other things are in phase, tho I don’t expect them to be, and I don’t get riled up if they’re not. After all, phase is a pretty advanced thing to understand and be able to hear and/or adjust properly. And that’s part of MY job to fix that stuff! Plus … if they think their song sounds good with everything out of phase, well that’s an easy “win” for me, as their mixer, haha.
Further resources and fun:
Here’s a brand new blog post and video I made that’s very relevant to this great topic: https://mixprotege.com/2025/02/15/batch-rename-audio-files-with-a-better-finder/
Here’s my Stems Checklist I send to clients who are getting ready to export multitrack audio files: https://dananielsen.com/stems-checklist/
Thanks again, @dylanmandel, for the great topic!
I hope to hear additional responses from others here – and your own as well – that I can learn from! 
mixprotege.com
Batch Rename Audio Files with 'A Better Finder'
'A Better Finder Rename' is a powerful MacOS batch renaming tool that has revolutionized my audio file workflow.
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Fantastic, @barrose!! Huge congratulations!!
Thanks so much for sharing the links, and for sharing your musical journey with us all!
I’ve just added these two songs to the Mix Protégé Member Spotlights Spotify playlist
Hope you and @sexton are doing great!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Hur30TN833YNBj6auawtf?si=d1439bc182b84aed
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Right on, man, my pleasure!
I definitely do a lot of transient shaping and “management” on my individual tracks and submasters before anything hits the Pro-L2 on my loud print bus. Things like compression, console- and/or tape-saturation, and occasionally distortion or clipper plugins help me contain and shape extreme transients at various places along the signal path before the master limiter does its thang.
It’s possible that accounts for the difference in our fav Pro-L2 settings.
Also … this thread has a Pro-L2 video I made which shows my typical workflow, and also includes some good discussion on the topic! Enjoy!
https://mixprotege.com/forums/discussion/limiter-mastering-question-please-advise/
mixprotege.com
Limiter/Mastering Question - Please advise
Dearest Mix Geniuses!I have a question that I’m hoping you all can help me understand more clearly.It is my understanding that it is generally good…
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You bet, Joe! And yeah, you’ll dig that Streamliner plugin – it’s super revealing when you toggle through the different algos, even simply as a tool to compare the sound of different music services for someone deciding which one(s) to subscribe to!
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DUUUUUDE! This is genius! Thanks for this great tool tip!!
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yeah usual go-to is the Trim plugin, tho I also use this free plugin called Flipper, which is simple and effective (and shows me without having to open the plugin whether the phase has been flipped or is normal (bypassed)
refusesoftware.com
reFuse Software: Tools for music and audio creation, including the Lowender and Bucketverb plugins.
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Oh just remembered another “I love it when….”. This one’s on my stems checklist on the link above:
I love it when mono sources come as mono files (i.e. bass DI), and stereo sources come as stereo interleaved files (i.e. Poly Synth DI).
Using my ears and meters and mono button and phase flip to determine that this “stereo” kick track is actually mono, then splitting the stereo track into dual-mono so that I can delete the original stereo track plus the left side of the newly-created multi-mono tracks … welll … it’s a giant waste of time. Heck, it’s a waste of time to even write about that tedious, mundane, and unnecessary task, lolol.
Ok. Rant: over!
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We missed ya, homey! But glad u got the replay!
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Thrilled u could be there Dylan, and to learn more about what ur up to, man!
Hop on into the forums here and make urself at home!!
