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Mix Breakdown Start to Finish: Mixing Masterclass with Chris Lord-Alge — Transcript

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0:04hey guys i'm here for the uh yeah
0:13[Music]
0:20g'day there my name is chris lord algae
0:22and i am an epic mixing master today as
0:26you can tell i'm at my console and in
0:28the studio mix la here in tarzana and
0:32i'm going to take you through one of my
0:34mixes and it's going to be absolutely
0:36epic i've got my assistant here he's
0:39going to be helping me
0:43what's going on here i'm cla what are
0:45you talking about sir this is my console
0:48my spot sorry we're going through my
0:50mixes i'm going to show you what to do
0:52okay how you doing now
0:54all right let's get into this g'day
0:56there everybody my name is mpa welcome
0:59to another waves audio shindig this time
1:03we are doing a mix breakdown
1:06start to finish with chris lord algae
1:09otherwise known as the legendary cla
1:12chris what's going on
1:15here we are in tarzan and i have a song
1:17up on the screen and we're gonna walk
1:19through your questions
1:20and we're gonna solve all your things
1:23here today and we're gonna show you how
1:24we break this mix down now one of the
1:27interesting things about this one is you
1:29might see if you look over chris's
1:30shoulder you're going to see a blurred
1:32out australian guy which is me because
1:35today we're doing this inside chris's
1:37studio i tell you it's like i banged
1:40down the door until he let me in uh
1:43well actually that's right the police
1:45let me in but you know
1:47who's who's being picky so chris we we
1:50we have some questions here that are
1:52from our users that i want to go through
1:54but first of all uh what i really would
1:57like to do is get you to play through
2:00this mix so people can have a listen to
2:01it and
2:02while you're doing it bring up some of
2:04the plugins so that we can actually see
2:05what's going on here can you exactly
2:08so i am sitting at my console but my
2:11console is just a really expensive table
2:13today as i have my keyboard my touch
2:16mouse
2:17and our pro tools rig
2:19and we're playing that session right
2:21inside the box so there's no console
2:23involved the original mix that you
2:25probably heard was obviously done on a
2:27console but we've got you know we're
2:30recreating it here in the box today so
2:32i'm going to play this song it's called
2:34hero by kurt deimer
2:37[Music]
2:51we're all in the game we all have
2:54potential
2:55[Music]
2:58good or evil is all influential
3:04[Music]
3:06they come in all shapes and different
3:09sizes
3:10in your face
3:12in disguises
3:14out of nowhere
3:16they surprised us they don't know our
3:18names but they're standing right beside
3:20us
3:22anyone's a hero
3:25come in to save the day show us a better
3:28way
3:29everyone's a hero
3:32someone you even know is always good to
3:35go
3:36somebody be a hero
3:50[Music]
3:54just be the sun
3:56when it's raining
4:00[Music]
4:02they come in all shapes and different
4:04sizes
4:06in your face
4:07in disguises
4:09out of nowhere
4:11they surprise us they don't know our
4:13names but they're standing right beside
4:16us
4:17and he wants a hero
4:20come in to save the day show us a better
4:23way
4:24everyone's a hero
4:35just lend a helping hand i know you
4:37understand
4:39somebody be a hero somebody
4:46[Music]
4:55[Applause]
4:59i dedicate this song to the frontline
5:02workers
5:04to our first responders
5:07to our military and our veterans
5:10without you we wouldn't be free
5:15you
5:16are all
5:19our heroes
5:34is
5:50[Music]
6:00[Music]
6:02man there's a lot going on in this mix
6:05well i mean there's not a terrible
6:07amount but there's definitely some
6:09layers
6:10um
6:11and as you see it's pretty simple
6:13plug-in wise what we're doing okay where
6:16we just have four returns as i circle
6:18them here
6:20literally vocal verb drum verb short
6:22delay long delay
6:23and we're just kind of focusing on
6:25notice the guitars are dry we're
6:27noticing on just drums and vocals
6:29getting effects
6:31um
6:31everything else is uh basically the
6:33compression is your effect
6:35and if you look at our mix bus
6:38i love this one
6:40going into mine
6:42so this is like the preheat
6:45pre-heats up the mix and then moves into
6:48my mixdown plugin
6:50and then obviously how we get it to you
6:52guys so um
6:54you know what i love about this plug-in
6:56as well uh i'm gonna i'm gonna gush over
6:58your plugins too but one of the things i
7:00love about this as well is that you can
7:02turn different modules on and off
7:06and actually choose exactly what parts
7:08of it you're actually using which is
7:09really awesome as well so actually the
7:11way the tg mastery works as soon as you
7:14touch anything in a module it activates
7:16yeah so which is cool but i really like
7:20the way it sounds and even though this
7:22limiter looks like it's it's really
7:24pounding
7:25it's not bad and i as you see i'm kind
7:28of using it as they came 50
7:30is really good on this you know and uh
7:33just this eq at the end is really silky
7:36so
7:36um kudos on the tg mastering chain
7:40but um
7:41let's take a question here to start our
7:43mix all right my friend so
7:46as we promised everybody this is a mixed
7:48breakdown so
7:50we break down we do have some questions
7:53uh the first question is
7:56how do you achieve this wall of
7:59sound effects with your guitars because
8:01it's like something that sticks with you
8:04with
8:05your your your talent and your tracks
8:08but it's it's very evident but in this
8:10track it's really evident that those
8:12guitars are just amazing and it really
8:14is a wall of sound so what what is it
8:16that how do you start to attack
8:19a mix with guitars
8:21to get that kind of full sound i mean
8:24first of all you start with a decent
8:26guitar sound now these are phil x
8:29guitars he's a great guitar player these
8:30are all done in his house
8:32so sometimes they're a little bit thin
8:35so don't be shy with eq i find that most
8:39people make guitars they don't put any
8:41any girth any any weight to them so if
8:45you look at number one all right i'm
8:47adding a hundred if i scroll down the
8:48guitar list i'm adding low end okay and
8:51look at this one i'm pounding the low
8:53end
8:54because a lot of the energy's coming
8:56from that right so and also the
8:59afterburner the la the cla 3a
9:02is is what i put after guitar's eq why
9:06because it takes all the harshness out
9:08of the guitars and lets you push them
9:10right forward um
9:12as i'll play this so let me make sure i
9:15have my groups back on here
9:17and um
9:19well they're on and let's just listen to
9:21a piece of it
9:23uh with vocals muted right i'll go back
9:26to here
9:27make sure that stuff is off
9:30and take a quick listen
9:37[Music]
9:39don't be afraid to push it
9:48it will fold if you add too much low end
9:50but you find that spot where the guitar
9:52tone isn't changing and you're really
9:54working with what the compressor does to
9:57the sound
10:00[Music]
10:18[Music]
10:28[Applause]
10:32plus part of it is if you set up your
10:34mix bus right which i have set up
10:37um
10:38then
10:39then you see how far you can go before
10:41the drums go away and remember for me
10:44it's like i push the guitars up until i
10:45start hearing the drums go away and that
10:47means that the guitars are taking the
10:50lead in the compressor because look your
10:52funnel your your two mix funnel your bus
10:55compressor whatever starts to get loud
10:57starts to be the thing that triggers the
10:58compressor so you try to keep them right
11:01under the punch of the drums
11:03that's so hopefully that answers the
11:04question i mean mpa it's it's just yet
11:07yet another song that i'm gonna get a
11:08speeding ticket to
11:10okay so uh next question are we talking
11:13about the guitars and the drums uh
11:16another question was how do you place
11:18your
11:19guitar tracks in the mix how do you
11:21place those
11:23very simple okay it's left right left
11:26right left right remember for me
11:29kick and snare and bass and and lead
11:31vocal are taking the center position so
11:34why would you you know put anything in
11:36the center but a guitar solo which is
11:38you know which is basically the vocal
11:40right the guitar solo is just the vocal
11:42continuing played by guitar so i keep
11:45them as wide as possible
11:47so they eat up the corners and then the
11:49center is driven by the punch in the
11:51vocal okay so i have a follow-on
11:53question here this is from uh user waves
11:56user todd pernick g'day todd uh is
11:59everything yeah is is everything left
12:02center right or are there elements that
12:05you place say 50 percent uh he has a
12:08hard time when he's trying to do left
12:10center right because it feels out of
12:12balance
12:13i'm a left center right guy the only
12:16time i start not lcr'ing is when i run
12:19into stuff that's not on this song which
12:22is usually like shakers or tambos or
12:24percussion
12:26or something that if you wrench it far
12:27left or right it might seem to poke too
12:29much but think about it look at your hot
12:32you're like okay well look at my drums
12:34they're all lcr because well why is your
12:36hi-hat's so far left but remember the
12:39hi-hat is just a direct mic in the big
12:42picture okay of the drums so when you
12:45start to poke it up out of the left
12:47corner it just
12:48comes out there a little bit
12:50over the top of the big stereo image so
12:53i would really start to just focus on
12:56lcr
12:57unless you get into
12:59percussion that it's either center or
13:02left and right so yeah if you put a
13:04tambo hard left or a shaker hard rice
13:06it's really obvious so you may maneuver
13:09it in between the clock somewhere so
13:11there's my lcr answer okay so while
13:14we're talking about that seeming as this
13:17is a breakdown from start to finish
13:21let's take a step back for a second
13:22because one of the things i noticed
13:24about all of your sessions and we've
13:26done quite a few of these uh these kind
13:28of
13:30events is your session organization
13:34and i rarely get the chance
13:36to sit here right behind you kind of
13:38breathing down your neck
13:40um take us through how you actually
13:44organize a session so obviously you said
13:46these guitars were recorded at home
13:49um so how do you bring in stuff that's
13:51recorded elsewhere
13:53bring it all together and organize it
13:55kind of like so it works in your kitchen
13:57and you can cook a meal
13:59let's talk about session organization
14:02that was a good analogy actually wasn't
14:03it yes
14:04it was a very good analogy thank you
14:06michael you know like i can always
14:07depend on you for bringing the brains to
14:09this operation well you know us i just
14:11bring the beef that's all i have
14:13um
14:14now
14:15i hate
14:16i dislike let's go there i dislike when
14:19i get sessions where the name of the
14:21track is longer than mississippi okay
14:24and it gives me hieroglyphics uh
14:27whatever i get whenever i get audio from
14:29anybody i change the names okay i make
14:31it the simplest name possible when i get
14:33guitars and they're all mono tracks i
14:35find i find the partners i find the
14:37double i find it and i make stereo
14:39tracks out of all of it okay
14:41i really prefer to have all stereo
14:43tracks except the model ones such as
14:45vocal kick snare bass because the main
14:48reason is once i balanced that stereo
14:51pair and made it a stereo track then
14:53it's one eq to worry about okay so then
14:55when i want to eq that stereo track i'm
14:57not trying to deal with two monos one
14:59left one right and 20 cues okay saves a
15:01lot of time in the big picture uh i
15:04change all the names i try to make the
15:05letter code as short as possible okay i
15:08don't really it doesn't really matter to
15:10me what the person's name is what
15:13they're playing we can write that down
15:15in a separate paper on a separate track
15:17later for me its vocal is v plus plus
15:21what is the plus plus mean
15:22plus one tuned plus two
15:25timed so if it's tube if it's tuned and
15:28timed and that's usually the lead vocal
15:30i'm talking about it's v double plus and
15:33then v double and then my background
15:36here fill x p x chorus okay it's already
15:40got the doubled here on the file itself
15:42and then i assemble the bv's
15:44bv1 bb2 who cares okay look if it's bv
15:49low it'll be bb space l or bb space mid
15:52i try to make the least amount of
15:53letters because when i flip the page to
15:55this and i go into view right and i'm in
15:59narrow mix i don't have a lot of parking
16:01for what the song what the tracks are
16:03called
16:04even down here where it's room near and
16:07room far
16:08it's like what am i going to call it rue
16:10like kangaroo i could but i try to get
16:13three letter names for everything or
16:15less and you're looking like what's foot
16:18kick drum i grew up with kick drum being
16:21ft ft1 fd2 well these are just my kick
16:25samples for this
16:27okay
16:28and um
16:29snare top snare bottom as you see it's
16:32as it's as short as possible that i can
16:35have and obviously this one stairs is
16:38called stella and tab these are
16:40nicknames because i know what they sound
16:41like aside from that i made it as short
16:45as possible
16:46and it's always vocals guitars drums
16:50bass and whatever percussion or loops
16:52are in the track the drums are always
16:54red guitars are always green vocals and
16:56backgrounds always blue
16:58and the final mix which is sitting up
17:00here is always purple with the bass and
17:02they're always in that order right
17:04they're always in that order the only
17:06thing that's above the vocals is if
17:09there's keyboards when there's keyboards
17:11on the record it's all keyboards then
17:13it's the vocals
17:14it's usually
17:15click
17:17then keyboards and then vocals
17:20it's funny because i think one of the
17:21things
17:22and i'm fairly positive you agree with
17:24this because i've heard you say it
17:25before one of the things that people
17:27struggle needlessly with when they're
17:30learning about how to mix
17:33and try and emulate what you do is in a
17:36part that's actually easy to fix which
17:38is organizing
17:40the session in a way that they can
17:42actually get around and know where
17:43everything is so that they don't have to
17:44think about it um this is also something
17:47that you teach a lot when you when when
17:49you were talking about your uh cla mix
17:51hub um and how you mix in buckets um uh
17:56and how to name it as well sorry buckets
17:58of eight i mean 100 michael i mean look
18:01if you look to the left
18:02you see some of the source tracks here
18:04okay
18:05see all these ones are not being used
18:07these were all the background tracks
18:09because i went out there i did eight
18:11tracks filled at eight tracks there was
18:13like a lot of gang tracks okay that i
18:16quickly comped that create all these bv
18:18tracks this way i have one two three
18:20four five six pairs
18:22and then all this stuff is just sitting
18:24there
18:25pre-comped okay if i ever need to redo
18:28it i'll say okay well look at this this
18:30was gang you know the gang bucket so
18:32i'll just go back and redo it it's not
18:35that hard you know but once you have it
18:37the way you like it the less real estate
18:39the better okay so if you go back up a
18:42bit go if you scroll back up on that
18:44track v plus plus yeah uh i do see
18:48a cla mix hub on that so what if you've
18:50got cla mx hub 76 and an l1
18:53uh take us through that combination what
18:56what what's what's that combination
18:57doing for you
18:59this is my go-to chain
19:01for vocals
19:04is it shift then as a command then pop
19:06the next one up yeah right
19:08no that turns it off it says shift to
19:10get the next one up there we go
19:11and there
19:13so this is the typical
19:16vocal chain that i have um
19:20eq and the driver now before i even say
19:23that let's look at the vocal okay if we
19:25look at the vocal tract we go to the
19:26audio suite and we look at normalize and
19:29we just oh we look at gain sorry
19:32we got to start here this is important
19:34let's look at the level of that vocal
19:36look at it at in peak right analyze okay
19:39it's normalized to zero okay what's its
19:41rms
19:43uh minus 20. okay
19:44so that means this vocal track's been
19:46normalized so once it's normalized then
19:49i know i can deal with that level i like
19:51to normalize all my vocals
19:53if i'm combining a bunch i'll gain them
19:55down three db or six or nine in that in
19:58that form but simply
20:00first thing is this okay this feeds the
20:03compressor which is always 3018 three
20:05and seven okay and then the afterburner
20:08which takes the which takes to uh takes
20:11some of the tree tops off uh some of the
20:13big problems i have with vocals there'll
20:15be some branches sticking out that
20:16really bite so this will hold that back
20:19in the mix okay
20:21so i will use
20:23this as my eq
20:26and as i'm looking at the song i will
20:27adjust
20:29i can either adjust the line trim or
20:31clip gain this down if i feel it's too
20:33hot but a lot of times i will just pull
20:35this back okay but if i'm you know when
20:38i'm driving this this is a plug-in that
20:40gets a little overdriven a little
20:41distortion which i like so it makes a
20:44bit of an analog thing
20:46so what i do to continue with that
20:49is
20:49the doubles the exact same settings and
20:51then my background vocals are getting a
20:53similar
20:54setup except these gangs i don't put the
20:57after burner on because they're already
20:58kind of compressed to begin with
21:01so
21:02can we hear them yep so let's hear that
21:05we can hear this in solo here um
21:10game
21:11let's just get you right at the
21:12beginning yes
21:15we're all in the game we all have
21:17potential
21:20and to me that's the excitement i'll put
21:22good or evil it's all influential
21:27and our reverbs are just muted just cuts
21:30through they come in all shapes in
21:32different sizes
21:34in your face
21:36in disguise is
21:38out of no way
21:39they surprise us they don't know our
21:42names but they're standing right beside
21:44us
21:45anyone's a hero
21:48come in to save the day show us a better
21:51way
21:53everyone's a hero
21:56someone you even know is always good to
21:59go
22:00somebody be a hero
22:04be
22:05a hero
22:14so inside the track you're like wow
22:16chris you're really compressing those
22:18vocals
22:19hey i'm just giving them the real estate
22:21they need because think about it if you
22:23want to be able to hear every bit of the
22:24vocal the smaller you make it
22:27the less room it's going to take up in
22:28the mix but stay powerful but the
22:30beautiful thing is here and this is one
22:32of those things that i i i hear a lot in
22:34conversation is you never hear anybody
22:37uh
22:38hear a song on the radio where
22:40you just hear the the vocal soloed or
22:43the drum solo you hear the whole song so
22:45you do what you need to do to get to get
22:47the sound that you need so it's it might
22:50sound weird solo but if it makes the
22:52song sound like you make your songs
22:54mixes sound then it's freaking awesome
22:57no one hears anything in solo okay ever
23:00so what does it matter if it sounds like
23:03it's blowing up or too compressed or
23:04whatever if it works in the song it
23:06works this song same and a lot of times
23:08that happens with the drums now in this
23:11song this song is a different animal
23:13drum wise why because
23:15because of this like tribal tom beat i
23:18had the drummer brian tishi who's an
23:20excellent drummer play this in two
23:23separate passes which means he plays all
23:25the wonder one pass and all the brass in
23:27the second pass
23:28that gives me
23:30the opportunity to have
23:32more compression on the rooms because i
23:34have no
23:35pesky symbols to deal with if you look
23:38here this is the package of just when he
23:40overdubbed hi-hat ride and symbols so if
23:44i mute this
23:45okay and then i play this
23:48over here so i'll mute these guys right
23:53um
23:56remember i'm the old man trying to drive
23:58the pro tools so i'm not as quick as you
23:59guys but i'll show you here's
24:04so when you go down here let's just turn
24:06let's go
24:08so there's nothing to worry about it's
24:10all
24:12there's no crashes in here
24:14all right they're muted okay all muted
24:16here because and there's just one loop
24:18i'll get rid of them
24:19so then you can say okay let's destroy
24:21the rooms
24:25and then if you go over here we have the
24:27drum reverb let's turn that back on
24:33like well of course it sounds a little
24:34bit long
24:36so then
24:39let's drop that back a little bit
24:41[Music]
24:43when it wants to work
24:50[Music]
24:53that's pretty good
24:57and then of course
24:59[Music]
25:04no reverb is ever correct you have to
25:06always eq it
25:10so make it work for the song but then
25:12you know
25:13[Music]
25:20what i'm saying and then if you're like
25:22okay well chris that's not sexy enough
25:23for me then
25:25jump on the old
25:28pg mastering train
25:30and just go oops let's add the
25:32compressor
25:34then oops let's add this
25:37[Music]
25:38and then even better let's had the
25:40spreader
25:42[Music]
25:44look at the spreader winds it
25:46[Music]
25:49that adds a sexy right there
25:51okay
25:53[Music]
25:57so what happens is when you have you
26:00know you specify as the producer
26:02engineer whoever is involved in the
26:05project if you have a song like you know
26:07what let's do this wood and steel
26:09separate
26:10then you can dig out a different kind of
26:12drum sound okay and it lets you
26:16have more control and since this is
26:18tribal and i want it to be like that i'm
26:20able to make the the kick and snare like
26:22you know big and ringy and affected so
26:25okay so uh with while we're dealing with
26:27reverb on snare
26:29one question that comes up a lot is
26:32people are asking about uh how to stop
26:36reverb on their drums sounding making
26:38their mix sound muddy
26:40um and one thing that you mentioned just
26:42then was eq'ing uh a reverb and that you
26:47can't have a reverb without eq'ing it so
26:49can you dig into that for a second right
26:52so i'm gonna unmute everything so let's
26:55dig into that for a second first of all
26:57do you see ascend off the snare top of
27:00the snare bottom
27:01no
27:02okay see here's the sends right the
27:04sends are on the samples okay the sins
27:07are on
27:08a little bit of the toms and the sends
27:10are on the rooms these rooms have no
27:13symbols in them okay and even when
27:15you're mixing something with symbols
27:16you're going to be careful about that
27:18having the symbols go into the room so
27:20when i listen to the song here let's
27:22play it in the verse somewhere i'll show
27:24you how we control the reverb
27:30[Music]
27:34or evil it's all influential
27:37[Music]
27:46you feather it in until it gives you the
27:48length you want but doesn't turn into
27:50the murky the muddiness that you're
27:52saying right and then also when it if
27:54you crank it up check it out
27:59you hear they go oh i see why it's money
28:01and then you go up to the eq
28:14and you adjust accordingly when you have
28:16it loud and then
28:17coming in
28:27you pull it back into the mix and you
28:29toggle it off and on you notice oh
28:31that's just what i wanted thanks cla
28:35[Laughter]
28:36you're so awesome can i have your
28:38autograph um
28:39so you're using cla mix hub lite a lot i
28:43noticed here uh
28:45there's going to be some questions about
28:47that that's a simple answer good
28:49tell us because i'm only using it as a
28:52channel strip right use the light one
28:54because
28:56it just takes less horsepower with your
28:58um
28:58with your daw and with your laptop so
29:01you can have more instances of it
29:03when you're using it as the when you're
29:05using the hub
29:07factor of it and using that portion of
29:08it then you use the regular but if it's
29:11just a if it's just a channel strip by
29:13itself
29:14let's pull some of that extra horsepower
29:16off it so you can use it just as eq
29:20okay and that's why cool okay beautiful
29:22okay so now let's go to another question
29:25we've got a
29:26a question here from uh doug doug wants
29:30to doug lansin wants to know how do you
29:32approach getting the vocals and guitars
29:34to sound good and cut through the mix
29:37independently from each other uh now
29:40that's an interesting question because
29:42you've just taken us through
29:44the
29:45the guitars and the drums uh the the
29:48and kind of the vocals but they all seem
29:51to kind of have their own specific space
29:53and everything sounds uncompressed as a
29:56mix but when you
29:58solo it it all sounds really compressed
30:01so it's like there's some really
30:04magical stuff going on here and i'm
30:06trying to
30:06work out how do we explain this to
30:08people
30:09well it's actually pretty simple let's
30:11think about it how do you make the
30:13guitars really exciting how do you make
30:14the vocals really exciting make them all
30:15cut through in the mix
30:17let's start with the fact that your
30:19guitars right here are all pads in
30:21stereo
30:22so
30:23like they're parked in the corners of
30:24the parking lot
30:26okay your vocals are generally feeling
30:27like they're in the center your main
30:29vocals so they're in the middle of the
30:30parking lot okay so they're not
30:32competing they can both be as loud
30:34the vocal the vocal eq range is going to
30:37really be focusing on the 1k
30:40you're really going to notice that 1k
30:41and top end presence okay
30:44where you're going to try to not you're
30:46going to try to make sure that the
30:47guitars have top end in the bottom end
30:50around that so it surrounds it so
30:53i mean the real science is when you
30:56compress the vocals into the same
30:58dynamic range as a guitar is they
31:01coexist a lot better if the vocals are
31:03too dynamic you're never going to hear
31:05them over the guitars okay
31:07it's like wearing a shark fin and
31:10swimming in the ocean okay the guitar is
31:12the ocean and the shark fin is the vocal
31:14just peeking out over it okay if the
31:16vocal is too dynamic you won't be able
31:18to breathe because you're not going to
31:19be above water so you make that dynamic
31:22small enough where there's no getting
31:24around here in the vocal that's why the
31:26compression's so heavy but when you hear
31:28it in the record it sounds natural
31:30it really does it's it's pretty amazing
31:32okay next question
31:34uh this is a question from henry din
31:39g'day henry hi
31:40how do you approach fader automation
31:43when you're mixing what's the philosophy
31:45about writing the fader
31:48well the philosophy is simple
31:51and you should only do this once you can
31:53get the song to almost mix itself
31:57right now the way you have the song set
31:59up you can play it from the top and it
32:01once i get the balance the balance is
32:03the most important thing once you get
32:05the bounce the song should mix itself
32:08okay
32:09then at that point because well i gotta
32:10use some fader automation well my fader
32:14automation is going to be simple it's
32:16going to focus around the lead vocal i'm
32:19going to chase this to make sure that he
32:22rises and falls with the dynamic of the
32:25record
32:26when the guitars start packing in the
32:28track well he might get swallowed up or
32:31she so my favorite automation is a lot
32:33of times vocals
32:35and it may also be let's make the guitar
32:38impact and the chorus hit harder
32:40so i'm less is more with fader
32:43automation if you think you're going to
32:45sit here and do pass after pass of
32:47riding one fader at a time you're not
32:49going to automate anything but a pile of
32:52poo
32:52so i really think that if you balance
32:55the song first
32:56then turn on your fader automation
32:59to write at that point
33:01uh that will help you
33:06oh
33:08oh yeah sorry
33:10that girl
33:12that girl back there anyway
33:15uh so to answer your question simply
33:18only engage the automation once the mix
33:21literally plays itself and all you're
33:23doing is the final seasoning
33:27the lesson there also was
33:29before you do any kind of event
33:32make sure everything else is muted
33:35chris
33:36sorry yeah i'm trying to rebuild my
33:38laptop okay so
33:39um
33:41this song you started you recorded this
33:44as well correct sure yeah okay so so now
33:48so you recorded this so you went through
33:50and you organized this and you directed
33:52all of the recording parts so wait let
33:54me let me correct you on this i only
33:56recorded the vocals on this okay
33:59because
34:01phil x did the guitars at home
34:03brian tishi has his own studio did the
34:06drums at home
34:07all i did was align them and and add my
34:11samples and then do my vocals and then
34:14clean up you know intros and outros to
34:17all the tracks now we're getting into an
34:18interesting area so we've got
34:21drums being recorded by one guy
34:23separately a guitar is being recorded by
34:25another guy separately and then vocals
34:27were done here
34:29so how does it sound so cohesive because
34:33that's the part that a lot of people
34:35uh online are looking at and going how
34:37do you make something like this sound so
34:39magical
34:40when everybody did it in their own home
34:44without other musicians around well
34:46here's what makes it cohesive michael
34:48very simply
34:49you go through all the tracks okay and
34:52obviously the ones that recorded we
34:54cleaned up as best as possible
34:56with the drums these are samples helping
34:58the drums we go through we adjust the
35:01level and normalize it and clean it up
35:03now
35:04brian sends me all mono tracks so i can
35:07form it into stereo pairs
35:09okay and i adjust the levels when needed
35:11cool so what plugins do we have on the
35:13drums again we've got i mean we're doing
35:14the same thing we're mix hubbing yep
35:1776ing
35:19and then we're even fairchilding these
35:20rooms we're double double hitting them
35:23okay but if we just go to the dry kick
35:25it's literally just
35:28yeah mix-up
35:30snare drum
35:31huh let me guess top and bottom why
35:33wouldn't i
35:34same here 76 on the snare bottom
35:38uh samples even no no was that was that
35:40a black key or that was a blacky right
35:42yeah the stair bottom why are black here
35:44not a bluey
35:45uh blackie's better for i like blueis
35:48for vocals and the black ones for
35:50guitars bass and uh drums got you
35:52now you notice that i have the mix hubs
35:55on every track
35:57except the reverb returns and if they're
35:59on there they're after the effects
36:02for me it's like this creates a console
36:05okay you see how there's a
36:07there is a mix hub on every channel even
36:09if it's doing nothing
36:10uh where i think like right here it's
36:13doing nothing right
36:15what it is doing is it's creating
36:18a phase coherence it's it's making
36:21everything be on the same line
36:23so if this plug-in's taking
36:26200 samples or whatever the delay
36:29compensation is with this
36:31everybody's on board the same way the
36:33audio is passing through it yeah i'm
36:35just passing through it but that means
36:37that my phase and the drum stays even
36:39tighter because everyone's on the same
36:40plugin okay so there's no shifting no
36:43phase shifting at all because
36:45everyone's like going through the same
36:47console for me it's like okay i'm just
36:49gonna make this a console so i put
36:50everybody on the same thing
36:52this way whatever this plug-in does
36:54delay wise inside of pro tools
36:57everybody else is on the same wavelength
36:59and then the song glues together better
37:01so whatever you're a fan of channel
37:04strip wise maybe it's the ev2 it could
37:06be any of these okay
37:08um
37:10anything on our list here's some of my
37:11shortcuts
37:13it could be you could be into the apis
37:15okay
37:16um
37:17but my point is that just that just
37:19helps
37:21make everybody line up right okay so uh
37:25i have another question here about your
37:28master bus um the the question is a lot
37:31of your mixes
37:33sound
37:34not so much like each other but there's
37:36a certain sound to a crystal algae mix
37:39sometimes that there's a has a certain
37:42character to it is there a consistency
37:44in what you do with your master bus on
37:49your mixers
37:50yes there is uh michael first of all
37:54when working directly in pro tools the
37:56first thing i do in the session is put
37:58the cla mix down on the mix bus
38:01this means no matter what i'm doing with
38:03the song it's already sounding like a
38:05record it's already compacting it and
38:08that gives me a judge
38:10on how i'm hitting the actual bus of pro
38:13tools so
38:14by using this in the default mode it
38:16works um so i put the mixbus in right
38:20away i don't do it later okay
38:22um
38:23now what i've done here with the with
38:26the abbey road
38:28the the tg live as we call it is
38:31i'm using that because you know lately
38:33i've really grown to love it the widener
38:36just the clarity of it and just just the
38:38way it's it's just analog sounding so
38:41i actually put that before the mix down
38:44um to start with
38:46so that feeds into it so you're using
38:48the spreader is that i'm using the
38:50spreader yeah
38:52and i love it
38:53yeah not right now on here but a lot of
38:55times i mean i should i should i can go
38:58a little bit more here why not i love
39:00the spreader on this i just love what it
39:01does with guitars and width so uh
39:04right there alone even if that's all you
39:06use that's very cool too
39:09so i just keep it simple i don't have
39:11i don't have this big cocktail of
39:13plugins you know uh
39:16and i don't really use a limiter okay
39:19now
39:20you can put an l1 after this or an l3 or
39:23any of the l's the double l if you want
39:25but then just be careful about what
39:27happens to your drums at that point so
39:29uh my mix bus is pretty simple
39:32okay so let's take a step back for a
39:35second and let's talk to
39:37the
39:38uh the guy or girl who's starting out
39:42and is looking at
39:45becoming the next chris lord allergy or
39:47the next
39:48legend that
39:49surpasses you which i know you said at
39:52different talks that you know one of the
39:54things you'd love is people to
39:56go big and beyond
39:58where do they start
40:00say for example i mean there's a lot of
40:01your plugins on on this session and i
40:04know for a fact that you do actually use
40:06a lot of the plugins that you actually
40:09help us help you make
40:11um
40:12uh it's not just your name you actually
40:14use them but what what would you suggest
40:16is a good starting point for a beginner
40:19who's starting to mix
40:22when it comes to
40:23sessions like this where do they start
40:26well
40:27i mean i think that's a
40:29that's a very good question michael and
40:31actually a very easy one i gave some
40:33good advice for that
40:34um talking about the plug-ins just what
40:36you were mentioning a second ago is
40:38i made the plug-ins for me first but
40:41with you in mind so
40:44when i came to creating plug-ins people
40:45think well you didn't you didn't even
40:47use them people said you didn't even use
40:48your own plugins i'm like
40:50well you're wrong i made the plugins so
40:52i can use them so i have those tools and
40:55then i thought about well let's make
40:56sure that people are going to aside from
40:58me are going to like them
41:00so for the beginner that wants to be the
41:02cla that wants to get jump in okay jump
41:05in with three here's three important
41:07things to do
41:09organize your session like mine because
41:11if it's not organized it's impossible to
41:13mix okay the less real estate it takes
41:16up on the screen the more you can manage
41:18it number one
41:20create your shortcuts with plugins and
41:22try to figure out how to use
41:25a half a dozen plugins
41:27just a half a dozen
41:28maybe you have an eq chain
41:31a compressor a limiter a vocal a delay
41:35and a reverb let's just start there okay
41:37that's five plugins okay
41:39um and maybe a bus compressor that's six
41:42so find one channel strip find one
41:44compressor
41:45start there before you start spreading
41:48out with all these varieties of you know
41:51like chocolate raspberry sprinkle go
41:53vanilla
41:54chocolate strawberry start with the big
41:57three okay eq compressor limiter okay
42:00and then reverb delay okay one plug-in
42:03you can have that on multiple instances
42:05you're lucky to be able to do that so i
42:08recommend doing that because this way
42:10you're focusing on the mix not
42:13conquering the plug-in
42:14most people that are mixing are trying
42:16to conquer the plug-in you'll never do
42:18it the plug-in always wins the plug-in
42:21is a tool so get a hammer a screwdriver
42:24and a hammer regular and a phillips and
42:26get started with that keep it simple
42:30you're very wise
42:32like yoda yeah yeah you like the yo-yo
42:35the yoda you like the yoder of tarzana
42:38the yoda of tarzana
42:40tarzani yoda here i like teasing it
42:43hey how many times do we get to do this
42:45in your studio with an annoying
42:47australian right over your shoulder okay
42:49so we've talked about those plugins so
42:51it's over my shoulder right i'm over
42:54your shoulder blurry but i've got my own
42:56camera too now um
42:58mix hub cla mix hub
43:03you're using the light version a lot uh
43:05the cla mix hub
43:07how do people go about using the actual
43:09hub version of that if they want to get
43:11into that as a beginner
43:13well there's a complete tutorial in
43:16video on how to use the mix up a
43:17complete what i'm sorry there's a
43:18complete video tutorial that you
43:20probably helped me do
43:21so there if you really want to learn the
43:23mix-up
43:25up on waves you can easily find that if
43:27you want to get into details
43:29um
43:30in this instance because the way i have
43:32it set up i'm not using it for that at
43:35all
43:36i am just using it as the guts and glory
43:40channel strip that it's sorted out by
43:42without a great channel strip the hub
43:44feature would have not been important
43:46because there's bucket view and i
43:48haven't even assigned anything to it so
43:50you can easily
43:52select you could you could assign tracks
43:55to to the bucket and look at all the eqs
43:58at once right
43:59um
44:00and i can just like quickly do that um
44:07okay
44:10um
44:11and then get to your bucket there
44:13oops sorry
44:15sorry sort by name sorry there we go
44:18and then i forget if i dragged him or
44:20not and then get a bucket view and now
44:22they're not there there we go
44:25um
44:26and we can look at it that way and look
44:27at eq okay
44:29you could easily do this if you want to
44:31see what you're doing in a big way okay
44:34um super easy so i i could play my
44:37guitars and then just eq all at once
44:39right here let's move this one over here
44:42oh let's put them in order right i love
44:44when it's in order i like things to be
44:46orderly and you could do the same thing
44:49with drums
44:50um
44:51i forget which bucket i did so i could
44:53just go here and i could assign
44:56and
44:58i'll just do
44:59one two
45:04six
45:05and
45:06i only need six for that because it's
45:09six i don't want to add more because
45:10it's going to go over
45:12and
45:14right and then
45:15channel view
45:16bucket view right
45:18and that's just the kicks and snares
45:21and if i really want to i can make
45:24just the toms and
45:28toms and this okay
45:30and leave these guys out
45:32okay
45:34and then now i have just i could look
45:37little so now you're looking at multiple
45:38now and now i see they go well let me eq
45:40the rest of the toms
45:42and i'm saying that that this kind of
45:44helps me if you've forgotten something
45:46let me go to bucket four let's assign
45:48that and i can put all the stuff that's
45:50making the noisy fun bits in there
45:53um
45:54which is just these four guys
45:58um you know what i've noticed chris but
46:01having me over your shoulder is a really
46:04bad influence
46:06i i think you actually work a lot slower
46:08with an annoying australian in the room
46:10oh
46:12it's accurate right it's totally active
46:14yeah
46:16it's way slower so
46:19so if i go back to a sign then i can say
46:21here's all the symbols solved there's
46:22only six perfect two
46:25five six and the loop and then back here
46:30and bucket few and then it's it there we
46:32go there's another bucket of all this
46:34stuff has nothing on it so if i want it
46:36this will you know this speeds up the
46:38process
46:39um
46:40well it one of the things i love about
46:42this workflow is it gives me the ability
46:44to actually
46:45mix
46:46a bunch of tracks without actually
46:48looking at multiple plugins and without
46:50actually even feeling like i'm looking
46:52at plugins i'm looking at a console
46:54um it's like i'm tweaking eq i'm
46:57tweaking compression
46:59and i'm tweaking knobs on a console
47:02from one interface and i'm closing it
47:04and then i'm getting on with the job
47:07well a hundred percent i mean
47:10the good the the really good thing about
47:13assigning stuff to the bucket just
47:15because
47:16sometimes you're working too fast
47:19and you don't realize if you've missed
47:21eq'ing something like i missed eq and
47:23the vocal double here i can look at okay
47:25here's bb12 here's gang okay well here's
47:28phil's chorus right all right let me
47:31just eq that to match him i can look at
47:34all these okay man low in here these bbs
47:37all sound right maybe this is too much
47:39i can actually go there and it's i could
47:41be an inspector like okay here's the
47:43guitars that all looks right or cares
47:45that one was really thin
47:46solo okay that's right
47:48i can move over to two and say okay
47:50here's kick this kick needed no eq snare
47:53top all right that samples fine
47:56these guys look good let's just put
47:58snare bottom you know next to snare top
48:01right or and then my three times i
48:03didn't notice that i didn't even bother
48:05with them and then maybe i can carve
48:07some of the low mid out here
48:09because that's what i normally do
48:11and add a little more
48:14a little more girth
48:15right and then off to four it's just the
48:17rooms i can just look at okay here's
48:18room near oh wait let's just add some
48:21low end to this guy because it needed it
48:23his rooms were kind of skinny so let's
48:25just let's just fatten them up a little
48:27bit
48:28and then look okay overhead same thing
48:31this just gives more gusto to the snare
48:33just the length of it right
48:35by using the hub you're going to do that
48:37this is all a decent balance of the
48:39hi-hat ride so i don't even need to
48:42really judge this i mean i can look at
48:44the dynamic of it i can look at the
48:45output whatever i can look at the input
48:49here
48:50you have control you have control so
48:52super easy so there's your bucket view
48:54so there's the mix up now it did not
48:57affect anything over here
48:59and i think i can look at any of them
49:02any of the mix-up i have and the bucket
49:03fee is going to be the same in all of
49:04them
49:05so what about your uh mix down what's
49:08what's what's the benefit of mixdown
49:12well the benefit of mixdown is that i
49:14modeled mixdown to mimic my mix bus
49:17right here
49:18so the when everything's at zero
49:21it's exactly the mix bus i use here on
49:23setting one okay
49:25and it's all it's really dialed in so if
49:28you have the optimum level
49:30in pro tools now i'll just i'll play
49:33this without you hearing
49:35any
49:36i'll turn this volume down a little bit
49:38this player will look at it
49:55so you just pulled up the output of
49:58because i'm driving that into this okay
50:00cool you know i'm driving the abbey road
50:02into this so if i turn this out put up
50:04the feet it it hits that okay
50:09[Music]
50:10when it's hitting threes it's perfect
50:14if it's just nailing the threes it's the
50:15heavy stuff it's it's it's perfect
50:17[Music]
50:19if it starts going all the way up here
50:21to 10 you're over driving you're you're
50:23hitting you're just your mix bus is too
50:25hot okay your faders are too high
50:28then you're i mean
50:29pro tools just completely has zero
50:31forgiveness okay it clips
50:34and not in a good way okay this is not a
50:37console this is a digital box all right
50:39so we've gone through your
50:42uh organization of mixing we've gone
50:45through
50:46uh
50:47how to make your drums cut through how
50:49to make the vocals cut through we've
50:51gone through how to make sure that your
50:54reverb on your drums and vocals doesn't
50:56create mud and we've gone through the
50:59difference between cla mix hub and clmx
51:02hub lite and which ones
51:05you guys out there should start with
51:07when you are starting out or when you
51:09want to mix more like chris now
51:12uh i think there's one question left
51:14chris if there was one piece of advice
51:16that you could give to people to
51:20get out to the world that you think
51:22you
51:24really need to kind of like push forward
51:26that people need to hear what would it
51:27be organize your session
51:30clean up the session
51:31don't even start mixing until it looks
51:33like this it's simple okay it's cleaned
51:35up organized and all the
51:37production decisions and arrangement
51:39decisions are done and you can get it on
51:41the least amount of faders without
51:43compromising the ability to have control
51:46over individual instruments
51:50okay and stuff like this go here right
51:54jack this waveform height all the way up
51:57do you see any crud do you see any stuff
51:59before the signal starts do you see crud
52:01here right oh you mean like noise just
52:04just like stuff like that just like
52:06guitar hum buzz all these you know
52:08people think they can just use strip
52:10silence to clean this up look there's no
52:12crud this is maxed out there's no noise
52:15look a tiny little tail here and there
52:16in a background vocal right okay but the
52:19beginning of the song
52:20okay
52:21when the drums come in there's no before
52:24it okay there's no anything and same
52:26with the bass like
52:28see this is maxed out so
52:30you could get rid of this but this is
52:32you know that's so low
52:35that's just in between the base but you
52:36see how it's all cleared and cleaned at
52:38the front here
52:39this is important okay
52:42look even you see this crud and it's a
52:44little loop right here but so low you're
52:45not gonna hear it so what do we do we
52:47just get here and get rid of it right
52:52buy whatever
52:53okay and then just you know it's just
52:56this stuff builds up so fast in a
52:58session
52:59that
53:01that you know you find yourself look
53:03this is being audio made okay
53:05don't start a mix unless the counters
53:07are clean okay start from a clean
53:09playing field have it organized okay
53:12and have it make sense i can visually
53:14look at this and say okay here's the
53:16song okay here's the guitars background
53:19so here's how it's going to go okay
53:21and then when i drop this
53:23you know i get more of a normal
53:26vision of the real estate of it and i
53:30always have my session set up to the
53:32lead vocal
53:33but not both just the lead vocal
53:36is okay i'm getting both anyway oh
53:38because the grouping so i just ungroup
53:40that and then the lead vocal is
53:43one one size bigger than everybody else
53:45oops
53:46that's smaller
53:48so i kind of look at my sessions like
53:50this
53:52what i'm mixing so the top top thing on
53:53the screen is the vocal so i'm seeing
53:55that so i know what my attention is
53:57focusing on and usually i'll even make
53:59this guy a little smaller
54:01so i'm getting the most out of it but
54:04also when you look through your session
54:05and i'm zooming in pretty heavily there
54:07for you
54:08is that you go through the vocal and you
54:10look and you look for okay where's the
54:12breaths
54:14is there a pop somewhere okay
54:17okay you can i guess i guess you can do
54:19this with this right you can just go
54:21okay what's this right here okay what's
54:22that is that a kick drum is that a pop
54:25on a vocal or something right
54:27so
54:29a lot of times i'll go through the
54:30vocals look for breath problems look i'm
54:33compressing it beyond normal you know
54:37beyond an inch of its life so any
54:39breaths that are in there that are
54:40unnecessary i'm getting rid of
54:42i get rid of all the breaths on all the
54:44background vocal tracts okay because if
54:47everybody's gasping at the same time
54:49well it's like a breathing contest
54:51so i clean all that up so there's a lot
54:53of homework to be
54:55done before you even start mixing the
54:56song
54:59that's my advice see there you go
55:01all right folks
55:03that
55:04is your education today uh from chris
55:07lord algae the man the myth the legend
55:09cla my name is mpa i'm sitting
55:12annoyingly over chris's shoulder
55:15and
55:16this has been a lot of fun you know what
55:17uh i think i'm gonna move her chris
55:21chris
55:22can i get into it
55:24hey
55:25it's been fun
55:27fun times yeah it's fun michael pa my
55:29partner since the beginning here in
55:30waves making it happen for you guys at
55:32home so keep mixing but remember
55:35organize first play later
55:43[Music]
55:51we're all in the game we all have
55:54potential
55:55[Music]
55:59good or evil it's all influential

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