[Dana Nielsen]

The mixer is the artist that should make the ART as best he or she can. If master bus compression, tonal shaping, or intentional distortion of the electrical signal is part of the artist’s intent, it should be implemented before the mastering process. – @-PT

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Paul! Love this quote and also love the ART/SCIENCE line! Amazing stuff, man!

[Dana Nielsen]

Jesse!

Great question, man.

• First off, don’t spend $1k on headphones. Put that money toward better speakers and/or room correction (panels and/or software).
• I currently use Audio Technica ATH-M50x headphones. Pretty standard studio fare. Nothing glamorous or extra special about them but they get the job done.
• I prefer closed-back headphones, even though that’s not a popular opinion in the “stereo hifi” world.
• My go-to recco for nicer “mixing headphones” (if there is such a thing …) has been discontinued, sadly. But here’s a link to some options available on Ebay. BLUE Mo-Fi Headphones. They’re huge but comfortable and sound excellent. They have a passive mode and also an active amplifier mode (battery powered, rechargeable via usb connection). If using the powered mode they can get RIDICULOUSLY loud and produce a monstrous sound. That said, I forget to charge them and for the past several years I use them in passive mode and they sound killer just like that. But also … I use my AT headphones 99% of the time cause they’re smaller and are fine, and they look better on camera 😂
• I use Sonarworks Sound ID Reference on my speakers as a plugin within my DAW. I have their measurement microphone as well. Awesome folks, awesome product. I would buy this before splurging on fancier headphones. I check every mix on headphones toward the end of the mixing process, but headphones are no substitute for mixing on speakers — even inexpensive, software corrected speakers.
• Sonarworks also have “virtual mixing environments” in the software to emulate various studios, home hi-fi, car audio, computer speakers, etc. Waves as well as Slate also have products that do this. That said tho: I HAVE NEVER EVER FOUND A USE FOR THESE VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT THINGYS. Whenever I try that stuff it just sounds fake and creeps me out lol. But a lot of people swear by those virtual room tools. To each their own!
• There’s also this hardware option by IK Multimedia, which looks cool too, though I haven’t tried it.

Arright, I gotta run, but hope that helps! I’m gonna try to do a Sonarworks video at some point soon, especially since I need to run a new room measurement to utilize an exciting new feature they rolled out which integrates directly with my audio interface (Avid MTRX Studio).

💜

[Dana Nielsen]

WOAH! haha – this is the coolest “rap beef” I’ve heard of! Lighting crew vs. Audio crew, 😂 I love it. And, as always @-PT, so many super fun, quirky, unexpected sounds and sonic surprises! Here are a few very technical, very critical questions I have for you:

1. How was this “dis” track received by Lighting crew? Were they amazed?!
2. Did they retaliate?

[Dana Nielsen]

Hey Pete! Thanks for sharing this with us all! I’ll circle back soon with some helpful De-essing ideas and other thoughts when I have a moment to listen in the studio. 🤘 ⚡️

[Dana Nielsen]

Yo! Glad you found the @Dewey thread response!

To @-PT‘s point, I would leave everything “artistic” on the master fader, baked into the mix. When you send files to mastering, send two files:

1. Mix w/ all your master bus plugins INCLUDING your final peak limiter (pro-l2 or similar). Call it something obvious like “Song Title_mix number_FOR REFERENCE”, and tell the mastering engineer that this loud reference is what has been approved by the artist and what you’ve been living with.
2. Mix w/ all your master bus plugins EXCEPT FOR your final peak limiter. Call it “Song Title_mix number_ FOR MASTERING”, and tell the mastering engineer that this is the exact same mix but without your final limiter so there’s more headroom.

I always tell the mastering engineer to feel free to use either file for mastering (knowing that they’ll 95% of the time prefer to use the “for mastering” version).

Lastly, to answer your original question of whether the “pros” disable all their master buss plugins before sending their mix to mastering ….

[Dana Nielsen]

Ah, that makes more sense that a vintage EQ emulation isn’t completely eliminating frequencies below your Hi Pass frequency. Vintage EQ’s are full of mysterious idiosyncrasies – which is what makes them so fun! – and you often don’t know exactly what’s going on without looking at a spectrograph on the output.

I’m always looking at my VU meters and frequency spectrograph for useful information, much of which is easier to see than hear, such as a 23Hz rumble on a guitar amp that you can’t hear but is very much taking up valuable headroom in the mix … stuff like that.

These days there are GOBS of plug-in meters and spectrographs for your DAW master fader to keep an eye on things. For me though, rather than take up valuable screen real estate for a plugin, I use a wonderful hardware metering tool by TC Electronic called the Clarity M. It’s still a plugin you put on your master insert (making sure it’s the final insert in your chain*) but with dedicated hardware displaying a wealth of information at all times. I LOVE it and honestly I learn so much about my mixes and other people’s mixes I dig by constantly having that info available – spectrograph, LUFS, mono deviation, phase correlation, etc etc etc.

So … all that to say …. when I pop an EQ on any insert in my session (even a vintage emulation EQ with no spectrograph overlay) I can solo that track and look at my Clarity M and see exactly what’s going on under the hood, so to speak.

tcelectronic.com

TC Electronic | Product | CLARITY M

TC Electronic | Product | CLARITY M

[Dana Nielsen]

Deweeeeeey!!! Awe man, what a freakin TREAT seeing your name pop up here in Mix Protege! Love that you’re here man!

Pro-L2 is literally the only thing I have on my “loud ref” mix print track. In other words, when I send files to mastering I love being able to tell the engineer “here’s the loud mix the band has signed off on, and here’s the same mix with more headroom which you might prefer to work from. The only difference between the two options is a Pro-L2 limiter.” That way they’ll understand that there’s no “mystery sauce” difference between the two, and no need sending them down a rabbit hole trying to reproduce on their end.

That said, however, my “master fader” (which is in quotes cause it’s actually a stereo aux input which feeds into my 2 print tracks – see my Prep School course for a deep dive on that) sometimes has mystery sauce elements on it. Usually some harmonic saturation things like Waves NLS or Softube Console 1, maybe a touch of finishing EQ with Weiss MP, sometimes a little bx_masterdesk for to adjust stereo width and to mono-ize frequencies below 80Hz if needed … subtle stuff really. I prefer to get as rockin a mix as I can with absolutely NUTHIN’ on the master fader. Then I add a few favs mentioned above to see what helps and what doesn’t. And as I add master inserts (or any insert for that matter) I’m constantly adjusting the output settings to ensure I’m not adding loudness. That way, I can bypass anything in the insert chain and understand what it’s adding (or subtracting) without being fooled by loudness.

Ok, that was a bit of a ramble-y answer but hope it helped!

[Dana Nielsen]

Heck yeah homey – save them dolla-dolla billz! I’ll work on the Sonarworks vid soon as I can … 🤘

Also, I think they offer a free trial on their website if u wanna check it out. Tho you’d need a measurement microphone to get started. I ultimately bought their mic which pairs with the software via serial number, based on that exact particular individual microphone’s response graph. Nifty! But before I bought the Sonarworks measurement mic I did several successful room measurements using an inexpensive Behringer measurement mic I already owned. So for $35 and a free software trial you could be off to the races by Friday! 💥

a.co

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[Dana Nielsen]

Thanks for the reminder about this, @JLEW! I just updated all my Plugin Alliance plugins so I could get access to this bad boy!

[Dana Nielsen]

Hey Pete! Interesting. While I’m not familiar with the Logic nor Slate EQs you mentioned, I can say that a HiPass filter better not let any frequencies below the cutoff through! Haha. Unless, of course, the slope is gradual. I’m wondering if it’s your EQ’s slope that could be the culprit (measured in decibels per octave). I made a quick demonstration image, attached. Feel free to download the image for a closer look (click on the image and then the “download” button should appear below the image description)

Note: Not all EQs can create such steep slopes as the FabFilter, or the Weiss MP (which is another fav swiss-army surgical EQ I use a lot … and is on sale right now for $69 🤯).

Let us know if this sheds any light on your EQ situation!

[Dana Nielsen]

Thanks, Pete!

[Dana Nielsen]

Man, your post has inspired me to make a de-essing video but alas I’ve been swamped this week and it may have to wait …. meantime, here’s a shortlist of my fav de-essing techniques:

• Massey De-Esser is my go-to. In general, I’d say I hate the sound of de-essers at least 50% of the time, lol. They just make things sound unnatural. BUT … the Massey one is by far my favorite, most of all due to the mix knob. Plus, it’s simple to use, easy to tweak, and to my ear does the best job in the least amount of time.
• Using “clip gain” to manually turn down the volume of intense S’s is very effective. It’s certainly more time consuming than slapping a de-essing plugin on the insert, but it sounds more natural since you’re just manipulating volume, not frequencies.
• Adjusting the volume of S’s within Melodyne. If you’re already using Melodyne to adjust tuning and timing, why not turn down those pesky S’s while you’re at it? That’s what I often do. Pro Tip: even tho Melodyne now has a De-Essing tool, I still find that manually chopping the S’s out of the blobs and turning them down with the Amplitude tool sounds the best for some reason.
• All of the above. Sometimes throughout the course of a mix I’ll end up treating the S’s using all three (or more) methods, little by little, until everything is under control. Our ears are so sensitive to human speech and when those S’s get manipulated even the most casual listener will perk up and feel as though there’s a glitch in The Matrix. As such, I find that stacking several gentle processes often yields a more natural de-essing result than trying to fix all problems by brute force with one single tool.

Hope these tips serve ya well man! I’ll try to circle back with further thoughts on your other mix questions when I can. Great having you in the livestream today!

masseyplugins.com

Plugins for Pro Tools

Massey Plugins creates versatile, affordable and elegant plugins that have earned the status of 'must-haves' for mixing in Pro Tools.

[Dana Nielsen]

I love that! Amazing how those things happen.

And high paise in the comments from Jamie Lidell on that post. Love Jamie and his podcast – i’ll have to look that one up!

[Dana Nielsen]

Yeah that thing is so cool. I haven’t done any tracking with it, but I’ve used it to create trippy echo and delay with feedback fx, some of which can be heard on the Smashing Pumpkins album I recorded/mixed .. I’ll post an example if I can find it. I’d love to try recording to that machine sometime as a 4-track!

[Dana Nielsen]

@Muzz that is awesome, man, that you’re getting such great sounds right at home – killer! With the bass, if it’s getting too muddy when you turn it up, don’t be afraid to use some EQ to reduce the low end “mud” to your liking, and boost some top or midrange to help with the “definition.” I often find 800Hz gratifying on an electric bass to help with that. It sounds like “rrrrrrrr” to me 🤷🏻‍♂️😂 and sometimes helps poke it out through a heavy mix so you can distinguish the note/melody of the bass. Don’t get stuck on that specific frequency though if it’s not helping … just follow your instincts and your ears and you’ll find your way. It’s always super helpful to have a reference mix to compare to while you’re working — Cue up that ol’ Sevendust album! haha. Or maybe some Foo Fighters? Just be sure to turn down your Spotify volume fader to match the overall volume of your mix, otherwise you’ll be chasing your tail, blinded by loudness. And @-PT‘s suggestion is great as well: don’t do all of your EQ’ing while in Solo, otherwise you might not push (or cut) frequencies hard enough to make a tangible difference in the overall mix. Looking fwd to hearing your next update, homey!! ⚡️