0:00

Hey, it's Justin. Welcome to the to the

0:02

Sonic School We have got one of

0:04

our MixCon masterclass presenters for you today,

0:06

an interview that I did with them

0:08

as part of Mixcon. hope you

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out .com. and out our our

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courses at mixing .com. Without any further ado,

1:22

let's get right into it. it. Here's

1:24

this week's episode. episode. Hi,

1:27

it's it's Justin Coletti of Sonic and I

1:29

am joined here by Phil Weinrobe, who

1:31

just did a great a great for us

1:33

on us mixing on the Sonic Scoop Sonic

1:35

Scoop part of as part Phil, thanks so

1:37

much for being with us. How are

1:39

you doing today? us. How are you doing great.

1:41

Thanks, Justin. Thanks, Justin. right, Phil is

1:43

in my old haunt of Brooklyn, New

1:45

York. And what neighborhood of Brooklyn are you

1:47

in there? you in there? I'm in Bed Bedsty.

1:49

All right. I -Stuy? All right. I lived in in

1:51

and I lived in Williamsburg slash Bushwick in

1:54

the back in the day. nature Now I

1:56

am out in nature surrounded by trees instead

1:58

of buildings, but I definitely enjoyed by there.

2:00

And we're going to be talking about

2:02

your approach to mixing, which involves digital

2:05

and analog, kind of the best of

2:07

20th century and the best of 21st

2:09

century combined. You're surrounded by fun analog

2:11

toys, but you're also using a bunch

2:14

of plugins. You're also reliant on your

2:16

dog. But I think you have some

2:18

ingenious ways to take the dog more

2:21

out of the equation so you can

2:23

be more creative. And we'll talk about

2:25

some of those. Before we get into

2:27

it, I'm going to give the briefest

2:30

of shout-outs to our sponsors. We're able

2:32

to make MixCon free to the public.

2:34

And the sponsors on his presentation were

2:36

SoundToys. They're one of my favorite creative

2:39

mixing effect companies in the known universe.

2:41

Try out anything they make for free

2:43

for 30 days over at SoundToys.com. So

2:46

again, big out shout-out and thanks to

2:48

those guys. If you have any top

2:50

sound toys plugins, I know that on

2:52

this particular mix I saw you using

2:55

CQ Echo Boy and Super Plate, if

2:57

you had to pick three favorite sound

2:59

toys plugins, are those the three most

3:01

used or are there others that would

3:04

be in that grouping? Those probably are,

3:06

well. Yeah, Echo Boy, I use all

3:08

the time. It's just so vast and

3:11

it's, it's an echo, it's a reverb,

3:13

it's a flanger, it's a, it's a

3:15

stereo tool, it's just a straight distortion

3:17

box, EQ for me. So Echo Boy

3:20

is probably my most used sound toys

3:22

plug-in. I use Super Play a lot.

3:24

I love the new features that they

3:26

brought over from Little Plate, that they

3:29

added in addition to Little Plate, especially

3:31

the, what's that thing? It like auto

3:33

adjusts the decay time based on the

3:36

input dynamics. I love that. And then

3:38

I guess my other most used tool

3:40

is probably Little Alter Boy. which I

3:42

use a lot. It didn't quite make

3:45

it into this video because it just

3:47

wasn't appropriate on this song, but I

3:49

use altar boy all the time, especially

3:52

via MIDI. I am constantly playing. into

3:54

Little Alter Boy, which I'm happy to

3:56

talk to. Interesting. Just because I think

3:58

that one's a little bit more of

4:01

a sleeper than Echo Boy, which is

4:03

probably, you know, the most robust delay

4:05

plug-in ever made. And you've got Super

4:07

Plate, which is a great sounding plate

4:10

that has, like you said, this amazing

4:12

ducking feature. It's not exactly ducking. It's

4:14

like automatically from short ducking. Yeah, yeah,

4:17

exactly. It's like decay. It's better than

4:19

ducking. Yeah, it's, it's, it's dynamic decay,

4:21

essentially. It's dynamic to be on a

4:23

side chain, but the side chain is

4:26

fixed to your input signal. Yep. But

4:28

out of all these that we've been

4:30

talking about, I think Little Alter Boy

4:32

is more of a sleeper. It's the,

4:35

they call it here a monophonic voice

4:37

manipulator. What is a monophonic voice manipator?

4:39

Why does it do? Why do you

4:42

use it? Why do you use it

4:44

on? Why do you use it on

4:46

and why do you use it on

4:48

and why do you use it on

4:51

and why do you feed Midi? And

4:53

why do you feed Midi? And why

4:55

do you feed Midi? Yeah, okay, so

4:57

the monophonic is an important thing on

5:00

there. Don't send its stereo information. It

5:02

really does sound very good. It's an

5:04

auto tune tool, but it's a simple

5:07

auto tune tool in that it really

5:09

just like does a few little things.

5:11

So it'll either hard tune you via

5:13

like a quantizing mode. or it'll transpose

5:16

you so you can just take the

5:18

whole performance and move it up or

5:20

down by various degrees of pitch. You

5:23

can then like adjust the form and

5:25

to either follow that or not follow

5:27

it, which can give you some really

5:29

cool effects. But the thing that I

5:32

really like to use it for is

5:34

what they call robot, which robot just

5:36

takes whatever signal you're feeding it and

5:38

just keeps it at one pitch. That's

5:41

really useful because if you send Midi

5:43

into Little Alter Boy while it's in

5:45

robot mode, you can play new melodies.

5:48

So what I do is I send

5:50

vocals into Alter Boy and I make

5:52

up my own new harmony. So when

5:54

I'm mixing, depending on the music I'm

5:57

working on, if I'm feeling a little

5:59

salty, will just... add

6:01

a bunch a bunch of

6:03

harmonies on on there using a little

6:06

and robot and it's usually

6:08

a great success. The

6:11

success. The last hand

6:13

habits record. features heavily.

6:16

the Meg Duffy only really sent me one really

6:18

sent me one vocal on

6:20

the whole record, like it

6:22

was just a single lead

6:24

vocal on almost every song.

6:26

And so so just, generated own

6:28

harmonies using the harmonies boy and MIDI it's

6:31

a really It's a really cool

6:33

tool. It doesn't necessarily sound

6:35

like like supernatural like not like going not

6:37

like going into doing doing

6:39

that process, which I think

6:41

can yield like like some maybe believable

6:43

natural results. But I think it's think

6:45

because it's so it's so weird. it's

6:47

mixed and depending on how it's

6:50

the depending on the you might not

6:52

You might not even notice that it's like this weird. weird,

6:54

auto robot, mitty thing. It's really fun.

6:56

really fun. a I I'll send

6:59

a lot. things I'll cents, like

7:01

things into monophonic any other I

7:03

do thing, but I do

7:05

it a lot with

7:07

vocals for and harmonies. Sweet. Well, I don't

7:09

I don't want to talk to you

7:11

about you all day all you do do much

7:13

hardware stuff stuff too. I'm to ask ask you one one

7:15

more, which is another one That was another

7:17

one that I saw you bring up in

7:19

the session. It's such a simple EQ. You have

7:21

You have your all over your studio and

7:23

hardware a and you have a zillion to choose

7:25

from. Why to choose from. Why bands It's just

7:28

three bands and the only adjustable band

7:30

is this Why would this be a useful

7:32

EQ that people should use? should use? Yeah, so

7:34

so that's actually the reason it's useful

7:36

it's it's only three bands and the

7:38

only adjustable one is mid and it

7:40

would be even better if you couldn't

7:42

adjust the mid. And in fact, the is

7:44

mid, it would be even which it's modeled after,

7:46

is cut and boost, but the W295

7:48

is only boost, which is even better. after,

7:50

is cut and You know, the W295

7:52

a boost, which is even of

7:55

guy. know, I'm a like

7:57

broad. of guy. I like broad shapes

7:59

my each. like to have

8:01

too much control. I'm like, make it brighter,

8:03

make it darker, is like usually what I'm

8:05

thinking. Make it brighter, make it darker, make

8:07

it louder, make it quieter. That gets you

8:10

there 95% of the time. And so CQ's

8:12

a really cool plug and because it's like

8:14

built for that. You just got your low

8:16

ban, which is said at 100, it's really

8:18

gentle, I don't know, might be like 60B

8:21

per octave, I've never really measured it. The

8:23

10K I think is the top end and

8:25

probably maybe more like 12 DB proactive. And

8:27

then the mid bell is quite wide, especially

8:29

at the low DB numbers. Yeah, and then

8:32

it's got that nice drive on there, which

8:34

is cool for just turning things up and

8:36

down. So it's just a really useful tool.

8:38

And it like doesn't, you don't have to

8:40

think too much with it, which is something

8:43

I really appreciate, because I don't like thinking

8:45

very much. So it's really nice for someone

8:47

like me. If you really like to think

8:49

a lot, then you can open up, you

8:51

know, a Fab filter ProQ 3. But if

8:54

you want to just like stay in the

8:56

flow, CQ, CQs, really, really, really, really, really,

8:58

really useful. Yeah, I am the kind of

9:00

guy who likes thinking a lot, but not

9:02

in the context of when I am mixing

9:05

or when I am mastering. Like I like

9:07

to do my thinking before and after, which

9:09

I think is something that you do as

9:11

well, because you have this very thoughtful process

9:13

that has made it so you can turn

9:16

your left brain off and turn your right

9:18

brain on while you're mixing. And so much

9:20

of the stuff, I was curious because when

9:22

I was talking to you, you said, oh,

9:24

let me write this email to my assistant.

9:27

And I'm like, oh, you even have an

9:29

assistant? Because it looks like you have all

9:31

these automated processes to do everything for you.

9:33

Does your assistant do any of this stuff

9:36

in the mixing stage? Or is that all

9:38

automated? And your assistant's helping you really in

9:40

the tracking phases? What's that relationship like with

9:42

your assistant? Actually, the assistants doing all of

9:44

that, the whole beginning of this video where

9:47

I'm prepping the track, it was actually kind

9:49

of interesting because I had to relearn how

9:51

to do it because my assistant does that.

9:53

And it is fast. So you would think,

9:55

How do you pay

9:58

someone to do that?

10:00

That's crazy, but. It

10:02

takes five minutes and why I don't takes

10:04

five to ten minutes and then I have

10:07

to context shift for every track So instead

10:09

of burning an hour on prepping a record

10:11

What would really be two hours with like

10:13

the inefficiency of going between the tracks and

10:15

like waiting or accidentally looking at my phone?

10:17

It's just much faster have my assistant do

10:19

it, but he I've set him up with

10:21

all the same tools So he does it

10:23

very fast So it's efficient for both of

10:25

us My

10:28

my I want to,

10:30

like, if Basically, my thinking is

10:32

like, I just want to

10:34

have my hands on faders like all

10:36

day. So anything that's not hands on

10:38

faders, I'm just thinking like how can

10:40

I change my workflow, change my habits

10:42

to like keep my hands on the

10:45

faders. But yeah. yeah, so.

10:47

yeah, he does that.

10:49

In tracking, I actually do

10:51

have less assisting because tracking

10:53

is like, is manual labor

10:55

that has to happen. And

10:58

so I'm just in the room and it's just easier for me

11:00

to like the mics up. Fair enough.

11:02

And And question question

11:04

here is the hands -on faders thing is big

11:06

for you. You have two different sets of

11:08

faders though. It looks like you have an

11:10

analog kind of console there as well as

11:12

a digital motorized control surface. How do those

11:14

two work together? Are you using the faders

11:16

on both of them or only on one

11:18

of them? And if you use them on

11:20

both, what kinds of tasks are you doing

11:22

with each? Yeah, they're

11:24

really clear kind of delineations

11:27

in my workflow as to

11:29

what I use and when.

11:31

So, So maybe I'll start with,

11:33

so I have to my left

11:35

here, I have a Studer 962,

11:37

16 two bus, analog console. And

11:39

then to my right, I have

11:42

Avid S3, which is now discontinued,

11:44

but you can still get them

11:46

on eBay, and they're great or

11:48

reverb. It's a 16 channel version

11:50

of kind of the S1, which

11:52

you can still get. So

11:56

the, In my

11:58

mixing workflow, Studer

12:00

is a return routing

12:02

system. I have have

12:05

a bunch of

12:07

reverbs, delays, and

12:09

different effects, All time

12:12

-based effects kind of

12:14

return into the

12:16

Studer into the then 962. And

12:18

then I... I I have on

12:20

on every channel can pre-EQ any of can pre

12:23

-EQ any of these effects and then

12:25

I have those and those faders go

12:27

to the dots, and those go straight into

12:29

Pro go straight into Pro Tools. and the

12:31

the board is fed from Pro Tools, and

12:33

then the insert contains all the effects that are

12:35

on the board that are on the

12:37

the normal. pre-patched in the will use

12:39

the faders on the board

12:41

to set the level of level of

12:43

my of the the effects that I'm

12:45

using that day or for that

12:47

song song and then I will

12:49

do rides on those faders while

12:51

I'm doing commits if I

12:53

have like moves to make on

12:55

those on those reverbs or I'll do

12:57

if I'm doing a more complex

13:00

I'm delay more complex like delay looping like of

13:02

really complicated thing. kind of

13:04

really complicated thing. All the automation and

13:06

fader moves moves of everything else, even

13:08

honestly, including a lot of those time

13:10

-based effects, happens on the S3. on the

13:12

S3. were all S3 is where all my like

13:15

detailed automation is happening all the

13:17

automation of plug -in parameters the automation

13:19

of the returns and the sends to

13:21

those sends to those hardware effects all happening in

13:23

Pro on on the like run that I

13:25

can like that's a bunch of automation

13:27

that's gonna go to my to return, I

13:29

might have automation on the return I might have

13:31

automation on the return I don't that

13:33

all lives there So I don't have

13:36

to like be touching the board

13:38

and touching the the ,000 all the time

13:40

touch I do touch everything one time

13:42

to like write the automation Yeah, that's how

13:44

I use it. So effects that's how I use

13:46

it, everything else on the S3. Yeah, that makes a lot

13:48

of else on I also want to Yeah,

13:50

that makes a lot of sense to me. And I

13:52

also want to remind folks that you guys can ask

13:54

questions. We have questions from the audience that came in

13:56

during the premiere of those and then I'll start with those and

13:59

then I'll get to questions coming. now via the

14:01

live chat Um Before

14:03

we do, my other question for you is there

14:05

something I cut out of the demonstration. This is

14:08

going to be just for Pro Tools nerds, but

14:10

you kind of did a quick aside of,

14:12

oh, here's a group that's called to be deleted

14:14

in my Pro Tools template that I brought in

14:16

and then I deleted it. And I'm like, I

14:18

know what that means. I know why you're doing

14:20

it, but I feel like the average person without

14:22

more explanation are going to be like, wait, what's

14:24

that about? That important. I didn't know what it

14:26

was. So when you create groups in Pro Tools,

14:29

can you tell us how you use groups and

14:31

why you have this group that you bring

14:33

in and delete in your Pro Tools sessions. This

14:35

might not be relevant to every day but at

14:37

least it'll give you an idea of just how

14:39

granular you are and how nerdy you are about

14:41

getting this stuff really operating well. Yeah.

14:43

So I'm obsessed my template, which

14:46

has almost nothing in it, but

14:48

it like has to be right.

14:50

One of the things is I

14:52

have like over the years, like

14:54

added more and more stuff to

14:56

my global group setting. So Pro

14:58

by default, I think only has

15:00

like volume and mute maybe in

15:02

the on as far as

15:05

like what happens when you group things and

15:07

I keep adding like insert a insert B,

15:09

I was like I'll just do insert a

15:11

through e and I'll leave f through j

15:13

ungrouped out fuck that put them all in

15:15

there And then I'm like okay also group

15:17

all the insert send

15:19

mutes and everything so now

15:21

I just have everything essentially grouped.

15:23

All those parameters are like being

15:25

affected by the grouping. And

15:28

I was finding that like wasn't like

15:30

Trent, like it wasn't like working every time.

15:32

So I made this to be deleted

15:34

group, which had all of those settings saved

15:36

in it. So I would like bring

15:38

that into the session. Turns out that also

15:41

didn't work, which is funny. Uh, out

15:43

group, group global settings

15:45

are inherited from the actual

15:47

session. It's not importable. So

15:49

actually, since just last week,

15:51

two weeks ago when we

15:54

made this video, I finally

15:56

figured this out. And now

15:58

I actually realized I can't

16:00

import my template into a prep

16:02

session. So my prep prep might be a be

16:04

a week before I get to

16:06

it. I I might have changed

16:09

my template since then. I can't then.

16:11

I my new template. I actually

16:13

have to make a new session make

16:15

template and then import everything into

16:17

that. That's the only way to

16:19

get group settings to hold in

16:21

the global position. the global position. Now if

16:23

this went over some people's heads, I mean I

16:26

understand this, if went over some people's person, this I

16:28

understand this, but if you're not a to person, this

16:30

might not be relevant to you. about I still want

16:32

you to see you talk about that because of how

16:34

passionate you are about your template. I And this is

16:36

something that's common, the I think amongst a lot of

16:38

the great mixers I talk to is like, one of this

16:40

is one of the most important things I do. I

16:43

do is having having a template that works for

16:45

me. yeah, it's just great it's just great to see

16:47

how much you've thought through that. that. Now I

16:49

have a question on the other end of the spectrum that

16:51

came in from an audience member here, in from an I'm gonna

16:53

see if I can pronounce your last name, Casper. to see

16:55

if I can pronounce your last name,

16:57

Casper, Bejirka Hagen, I think, I think.

16:59

if I got right, Casper, he asks, isn't he

17:01

isn't he stressed all use all

17:03

that tape degrading the tape degrading

17:06

after each recording? worried Is that

17:08

something that you worry about recording and re-recording onto tape

17:10

or how how often do you change tape?

17:12

If at all, what are your thoughts there?

17:14

there? I don't care. care.

17:16

I've had that real tape up

17:18

for months. It It gets tons

17:20

of use, gets things hit

17:23

really hard to it. to it. You

17:25

know. I mean, I'm mean, I'm

17:27

listening pretty closely if I'm

17:29

hearing like like ghost like poorly

17:31

erased erased would hear it

17:33

and I would like roll and

17:35

an erase pass over it.

17:37

and doing a race don't care it. I

17:39

don't care. The tape, know, tape

17:41

is different now now than

17:43

it. Well, okay, like the

17:45

purpose of tape is the purpose

17:47

of tape is no longer like

17:50

a storage medium, right? So I'm

17:52

not trying to to like store audio

17:54

audio onto my tape at

17:56

like full fidelity I that I

17:58

can retrieve it. later and trust

18:00

that it's the thing I put

18:03

on there. That's like. making an analog

18:05

record, that is true. And

18:07

I do also make analog records,

18:09

all of Adrian records that

18:11

we've made our pure analog, that

18:13

is tape storage. But when

18:15

I'm doing TAPAS processor, like, degrade,

18:18

not degrade? I don't know. that, It doesn't matter.

18:20

I'm just listening. Do I like the sound

18:22

coming back? If I like the sound coming back,

18:24

great. If I don't like the sound coming

18:26

back. fuck it, we won't use

18:28

it. If the tape starts sounding bad,

18:30

I'll buy a new real tape. It's

18:32

150 bucks or something, know, that's lasted

18:34

me months and months and months, maybe

18:36

even a year, maybe more. So it's

18:38

really not that expensive in the long

18:40

run as far as like how often

18:43

I use it. I don't

18:45

care about it. Um one thing

18:47

that that this kind of brings

18:49

up if I was like zoom out from this question.

18:51

Cause I think what this question is really kind of

18:53

about is less about like, aren't you nervous about the

18:55

tape? It's more like To me,

18:57

I think like, oh, what's important to

18:59

care about? know, and I think a

19:01

lot of the stuff that we think

19:03

is important to care about that we're

19:05

taught, like don't roll the tape too

19:07

many times, it's gonna degrade, like actually

19:09

it doesn't matter. You know, I have

19:11

a whole list of things that I

19:13

could care less about that we're taught

19:15

to care about, like like re -amping.

19:17

Like I use pedals so much in

19:19

my mixing process. I quit re -amp boxes

19:21

about six years ago and it was

19:23

the greatest thing I ever did. In

19:25

fact, I think reamp the biggest scam

19:28

ever perpetrated by the pro audio

19:30

industry um why can't you just run

19:32

a line and put into the

19:34

pedal quieter i know impedance wherever you

19:36

know what, it's not the fucking

19:38

same it i it does not make

19:40

a difference maybe if you're reamping

19:42

an electric guitar through an electric guitar

19:44

and trying to get the actual exact

19:47

sound. Okay, maybe you wanna impedance

19:49

match, but if you're putting a

19:51

piano through your Fairfield circuitry shallow

19:53

water pedal. impedance does

19:55

not matter it's just about what

19:57

it sounds like you could you don't

19:59

need this stuff. A lot of

20:01

stuff that we care about just doesn't

20:03

matter. Just doesn't matter it. try it. try

20:05

it that's I mean I to move fast. to move

20:07

fast if I was if I about concerned about

20:10

my tape over the course of

20:12

six months, and be moving slowly and

20:14

then. then you know, bad. Bad for the

20:16

music. I music. those are great think those are

20:18

great insights and it's exactly what occurred to

20:20

me when reading this question, is that purpose purpose

20:22

of tape today, like you said, is not storage,

20:24

not not perfect fidelity, You wanted to it to sound

20:26

different coming back from the tape, or else why

20:28

would you be using the tape? And I think

20:31

I think that's important to recognize, which is

20:33

funny, like of these super high end tape

20:35

machines, like if you ever have the

20:37

luxury of listening to a really good good half-inch

20:39

two-track tape machine at 30 inches per second, it

20:41

sounds almost exactly like what's coming off

20:43

the desk. off It's one of the best

20:45

recording formats ever, but it's like, why do

20:48

I need that? like You know, the that you

20:50

know D converter also sounds exactly like what's

20:52

coming off the desk. And if anything, off

20:54

I desk and if I'm curious, wonder I'm curious Are there

20:56

particular tape speeds you're more likely to

20:58

run at? you do do slower tape tape

21:00

speeds you are you driving things

21:02

purposefully harder Do tape? Do you have

21:04

thoughts about the technical side of

21:07

still using tape tape today? Yeah,

21:09

I'll mess mess around with tape

21:11

speeds. speeds. I use my 8 inch half

21:13

inch, half inch, sorry, track half inch a lot. I

21:15

lot. I like the sound

21:17

of those tracks. That's pretty

21:20

small. That's a, you know.

21:22

you know, was an eighth, eighth of

21:24

the, no, less than that. 16th of

21:26

an inch. inch. Right. Per track.

21:28

Per track. As opposed to

21:30

opposed to like quarter inch, two which is

21:32

an eighth of an inch so

21:34

it's of an inch. So it's half dynamic

21:37

dynamic bandwidth. But yeah, so I'll use that so

21:39

I'll use that. And I've run

21:41

that at 15 hips, I could run

21:43

could and a half. Honestly, I

21:46

don't because it eats

21:48

up too much of the

21:50

up too much of the delay

21:52

compensation engine improved because I

21:54

I've run everything delay So if

21:56

I had to double

21:58

up double up my delay compensation like,

22:00

it'll just keep automating at a

22:02

93 millisecond offset. And the more

22:05

delay competition I have, the further

22:07

off I am when I'm doing

22:09

automation. So like at 93 milliseconds,

22:11

which is about what this tape

22:13

machine is at 15 Ips, I

22:15

feel like pretty good about just

22:18

like, fuck it, I'll just keep

22:20

automating at a 93 millisecond offset.

22:22

But at 180 milliseconds, I don't

22:24

know, I feel a little weird

22:26

about it. So I generally say

22:28

15 of them for that reason.

22:31

And then, yeah, I do, I

22:33

do almost all of my like

22:35

moves are pre-tapes. So I'll go

22:37

really hard into the tape, boost

22:39

a lot of high-end into the

22:41

tape. I want the tape to

22:44

like really give me back something

22:46

new. And what I'm usually looking

22:48

for from the tape is just

22:50

transient rounding. I'm looking to like

22:52

knock transients down so that everything

22:54

like just fits better and can

22:57

be louder. Yeah, makes sense to

22:59

me. I'm realizing now that my

23:01

volume could be a little bit

23:03

louder. Let me bring that up

23:05

a tiny bit. Guys, let me

23:07

know how our audio levels are

23:10

compared to one another. I'm seeing

23:12

that Google chat turned me down

23:14

a little bit. One last quick

23:16

technical note here is I'm pulling

23:18

up the next question. The next

23:20

quick technical note here is I'm

23:23

pulling up to the next question.

23:25

We're starting to get a next

23:27

question. We're starting up the next

23:29

question. We're starting up the next

23:31

question. We're the most important part.

23:33

But yeah, you could. Let me,

23:35

there's only one little thing I

23:38

could do. Let's see if this

23:40

is running. The people can hear

23:42

you, which is what really matters.

23:44

Yes, yes. Okay, I've stopped one

23:46

thing that might be running. All

23:48

right, great. Let's keep on going

23:51

here. Next question. Here's another one

23:53

from the same person from Casper

23:55

who asks, grab it. Also, is

23:57

he sending stems to individual?

23:59

inputs on tape. or

24:02

or sending everything to the

24:04

same stereo inputs. So basically you

24:06

are doing stem. You are doing things are

24:08

things are hitting different channels of tape.

24:10

of tape. Yeah, yeah, I yeah,

24:12

I want to keep my flexibility

24:14

in the in the dot. The farthest all go is

24:17

go is like like a like mixed group or

24:19

group group I a STEM group, I

24:21

guess you would call it, like all

24:23

of the drums or all of

24:25

the keys all of the vocals.

24:27

But I'll do a lot of

24:29

just individual tracks, too, like just

24:32

sending too acoustic guitar or just

24:34

sending a tambourine or just sending or

24:37

just sending a you know, whatever, an

24:39

an electric base, you you know. not trying to

24:41

not trying to like. everything know, tape. everything

24:43

to the tape. That's not the purpose. I know,

24:45

I to keep want to keep my flexibility in the

24:47

DAW. So that's why I like using using the

24:49

that gives me that gives me little

24:51

bit more more channels for I've I've thought

24:53

a lot about getting a 16 track for

24:56

this very reason. That makes makes sense in

24:58

case anyone was in case anyone was confused

25:00

on the bit not was talking about not

25:02

using half and a half inches per

25:04

second of the of the delay compensation time, who

25:06

anyone who didn't understand that, basically the

25:08

slower you run the tape, it's almost

25:10

like the bigger the gap is between

25:12

the record head and the playback head. head.

25:14

so there will be more of a delay.

25:17

So So if you're ever trying to

25:19

get like to tape delay back monitoring your record

25:21

head and your play head separately, you

25:23

you get longer delay times slower the tape speed

25:25

speed goes. But the slower the tape

25:27

speed goes, the more the high frequency tends to roll to

25:29

roll off, where the head bump is to to change

25:31

because there is a frequency component to that as

25:33

well. that as well. All right, Jay and

25:35

Kiko Studio asks, what luff meters do

25:37

you guys like? do you guys like? care

25:40

about at all that something you care about at all

25:42

on the mixing or mastering side? are are you doing

25:44

any of your own mastering or you're working with

25:46

outside mastering engineers and you care about luffs when you're

25:48

mixing? And do you care about luffs care

25:50

about love mixing? I do I don't

25:52

luffs. So master much. I mean

25:54

I mean, I've mastered, tiny bit bit, just

25:56

like a some some friends if

25:58

they need a little something. something. I

26:00

don't master like, like really

26:03

my, certainly I'm not, not

26:05

a mastering engineer. Josh Panati

26:07

does almost all of my

26:09

mastering. Josh Panati is amazing.

26:12

Yeah, Panati mastering. So,

26:15

okay, do I care about luffs?

26:17

Yes, I care about luffs. I

26:19

care about luffs, mostly because I

26:21

care about people's experience listening to

26:23

my mixes before they're mastered. So,

26:26

my, if I just sent straight

26:28

off my, the output of my

26:30

two mix, you know, my, my

26:32

mixes might be peaking anywhere from

26:34

minus 10 sometimes, all the way

26:37

up to maybe minus three, minus

26:39

two, sometimes minus one. Certainly it's

26:41

not like, like loud enough in

26:43

my opinion, like you wouldn't be

26:45

able to like a, be it

26:48

at, I mean, certainly at like

26:50

a minus 10 peaking mix, you

26:52

can't be that. So I do

26:54

use a limiter and I use

26:56

the FabFilter Pro-L2 and I am

26:59

looking at that Luffs reading and

27:01

I'm aiming to get my integrated

27:03

Luffs somewhere between minus 14 and

27:05

minus 10. that feels like kind

27:07

of the zone at which you

27:10

should be able to listen to

27:12

this like you listen to other

27:14

music and it should kind of

27:16

soundish loud yeah as loud when

27:18

Josh is done mastering it he

27:21

might not even make it louder

27:23

than my limited mix he might

27:25

actually make it quiet or I'm

27:27

not really thinking much about like

27:29

the dynamics at the end I'm

27:31

just like turn it up get

27:34

it loud get it to the

27:36

client So that limiter is just

27:38

for reference, it's not something you're

27:40

mixing through and providing as your

27:42

mix, it's a separate pass, or

27:45

is it something that you're doing

27:47

in your final mix and baking

27:49

in some of that loudness to

27:51

the mix? No, the limiter is

27:53

not on the mix. So my

27:56

mix bus process is like, I

27:58

have like a master's folder, the

28:00

master's folder has. ox track called

28:02

VOC and an ox track called

28:04

Inced. And so everything that's not

28:07

a vocal hits the inced and

28:09

everything that is a vocal hits

28:11

the VOC. The VOC and the

28:13

Inced both feed another ox track

28:15

called To Mix. That's where like

28:18

any stereo processing is going to

28:20

happen. That's like part of my

28:22

mix. So that's like any compression,

28:24

any widening, any EQ, any saturation,

28:26

any clipping, and I'll do clipping

28:29

on my two mix for sure.

28:31

That's all going to happen on

28:33

my two mix. That is part

28:35

of the mix. But the... Absolutely

28:38

volume of that two mix is like

28:40

kind of not my concern in a

28:43

lot of ways. And so that two

28:45

mix then feeds another bus called Lim,

28:47

which has the limiter on it. When

28:49

I send the mix to the client,

28:51

I send them the Lim, track, a

28:53

track bounce off of Lim. And if

28:55

they approve it, I actually make at

28:58

the exact same time, so any randomized

29:00

effects will be identical, I make a

29:02

version called prod production and that will

29:04

be off to the mastering engineer. Gotcha.

29:06

So yeah, so the limiter is not

29:08

like, my limiter, which is where I'm

29:10

looking at Luffs, is not part of

29:13

the mix per se, although like the

29:15

experience of the artist, it is part

29:17

of it, but that gets removed and

29:19

then the mastering engineer does their own.

29:21

Final limiting and compression and EQ. Great.

29:23

All that makes a lot of sense

29:25

to me. Let's now go to some

29:28

questions that have come in during the

29:30

live chat. Casper says, yo, Benj says,

29:32

yo, LMC, says, hello from South Africa.

29:34

Thanks for joining us. Bradley Ward asks,

29:36

this is a great, because we were

29:38

just talking about mixed bus. He asks,

29:40

if you could only have one piece

29:43

of analog gear on your mix bus,

29:45

what would it be? What would provide

29:47

the most mojo, anything you're using on

29:49

your using on your mixed bus? Oh,

29:51

it's a great question because I am

29:53

extremely anti-anologue. You're on my two bus.

29:55

Interesting. All right, let's hear that. Never,

29:58

ever, ever, ever, I mean. I

30:00

mean maybe like once every hundred songs

30:02

I'll let something on to the two

30:05

buses and it'll be because I was

30:07

kind of asked to do it and

30:09

I protested and then lost. Yeah, I

30:11

don't like putting analog equipment on the

30:14

two bus because that means that every

30:16

time I need to touch the mix,

30:18

I have to recall that analog equipment

30:20

and it has to work exactly the

30:22

same. Those two things are never going

30:25

to be true. So like, one, I'm

30:27

never going to be able to recall

30:29

it identically. And two, It's just not

30:31

going to be the same because like

30:34

the temperature is going to be different,

30:36

the humidity is going to be different,

30:38

like things just change. Also like what

30:40

if it breaks and then I don't

30:43

have it and some of the mixed

30:45

touchups. So I'm extremely against analog gear

30:47

on two mix. I think there's so

30:49

much room for using analog gear in

30:51

your signal processing. before the two mix,

30:54

but on the two mix, no, no,

30:56

no, I won't. So therefore, I actually

30:58

don't, and I actually don't have much,

31:00

well, I guess I would say like,

31:03

the thing that I do end up

31:05

using, if I do use anything, would

31:07

be like tape, pushing it to like

31:09

a cassette machine or one of my,

31:12

tape machines but yeah I don't I

31:14

don't do that man sorry that's a

31:16

great answer so question here just so

31:18

we can get a little bit more

31:20

clear about what you're thinking of using

31:23

your analog console your stooter as part

31:25

of the mix so you're using your

31:27

stooter to do kind of rough volume

31:29

changes on some instruments. You're using this

31:32

kind of sends and returns to analog

31:34

effects and you're using some EQs, but

31:36

then all that initial analog outboard stuff

31:38

is kind of being printed. So it's

31:41

almost like a remixing process and then

31:43

you have a lot of analog gear

31:45

captured inside of your mix that you've

31:47

like essentially run and recorded them, even

31:49

the insert ones. And then you're finishing

31:52

it off of like a digital mix.

31:54

So you was premixed in analog and

31:56

then you're finishing in digital is that

31:58

a decent way to or

32:01

have I got confused about your process?

32:03

No, no, it's all, I call my

32:05

process fully in the box, but I

32:07

just use, I just use hardware inserts

32:09

only, so I never go like out

32:11

and then back into a record track.

32:13

I'm 100% insert, so pulling up Echo

32:15

Boy and pulling up. my prime time,

32:17

my lexicon prime time outboard gear, it's

32:19

the same exact workflow, right? It's still

32:22

instantiate an insert on insert slot A

32:24

and it's either going to pop up

32:26

on the screen with all the knobs

32:28

to turn on an echo boy or

32:30

it's going to pop up At my

32:32

rack here, and I'm going to roll

32:34

over, and I'm going to move all

32:36

the knobs on the prime time, but

32:38

it's exactly the same in the da.

32:40

Does that make sense? It does. So

32:42

the question there is recall when it

32:45

comes to that stuff. Are you printing

32:47

any of those inserts or are you

32:49

just keeping the same settings on that

32:51

hardware all the time for recall? I'm

32:53

printing them. I will never ever ever

32:55

close a session without all the outboard

32:57

being committed. And that's how I, yeah,

32:59

yeah, so you don't record in Pro

33:01

Tools for an insert you commit. So

33:03

I'm always committing and my philosophy is

33:06

that I don't ever recall because if

33:08

I need to change it, then it

33:10

needs to change anyways. So like if

33:12

I've printed, let's say, a lexicon prime

33:14

time as some, delay on a on

33:16

a background vocal right and then I

33:18

get a note back from someone like

33:20

oh hey can we like make that

33:22

delay longer or different on that background

33:24

vocal, great. I'll delete that prime time

33:26

and maybe I'll go back to the

33:29

prime time, try it again a little

33:31

different, or maybe I'll try a different

33:33

piece of output. I'm not, I'm never

33:35

in a situation where I need to

33:37

recall and that's a really big part

33:39

of my workflow is to like, is

33:41

I, I make sure I'm not in

33:43

a position to recall. So for example,

33:45

I'll be, I'm very careful about doing

33:47

analog processes on my like drums mix

33:49

or like bigger groups of because if

33:52

I do that and then I get

33:54

a note like turn the snare down

33:56

now I have to recall and I

33:58

don't want to do that or I

34:00

have to like it except that the

34:02

whole drum mix is going to change

34:04

so I'm thinking about that constantly like

34:06

what are the consequences of this analog

34:08

process I'm about to do and so

34:10

the more discrete I can make it

34:13

like per track instead of per groups

34:15

of tracks or on the two mix

34:17

which is the most like on discrete,

34:19

the more I can make a discrete

34:21

the better, the better for my workflow,

34:23

the quicker we're able to like get

34:25

through things, the, yeah, just feels better.

34:27

Yeah, all that makes a lot sense

34:29

to me. I made the mistake of

34:31

using the word record, but for people

34:33

who aren't familiar with pro tools, that

34:36

commit process for an insert essentially is

34:38

a recording process, right? It's like a

34:40

real time commitment where it's basically recording

34:42

back and forth onto the same track

34:44

without calling it that. Yeah, exactly, but

34:46

it has a lot of benefits because

34:48

you can like set a bunch of

34:50

different settings for how that commit happens.

34:52

What parameters of that track are baked

34:54

into the new piece of audio and

34:56

what aren't. So for example, I only

34:59

commit the inserts, I don't commit like

35:01

the volume, I don't commit sends, I

35:03

don't commit send automation, I don't commit

35:05

mute automation, and often I'll do a

35:07

lot of mute automation so that my

35:09

committed audio will have like processed the

35:11

whole piece of the whole track through

35:13

that piece of outboard, and then if

35:15

I don't want it to play at

35:17

a certain time, I'm just automating a

35:20

mute instead of clip muting, because if

35:22

I clip muted or edited or edited,

35:24

then someone's like, actually, can we have

35:26

that effect on the earlier part of

35:28

the earlier part of the earlier part

35:30

of the guitar, part of the guitar

35:32

too? I wouldn't be able to do

35:34

that. So that's why I've kind of

35:36

gotten in the habit of doing a

35:38

lot of mute automation. Yep, that makes

35:40

a lot of sense to me. All

35:43

right, let's keep on going with some

35:45

questions here. Benj asks question, if you

35:47

were to put together a chain for

35:49

tracking sample base drums from an old

35:51

MPC or maybe some other type of

35:53

sample or old drum machine, do any

35:55

particular choices come to mind? So he's

35:57

if you're going to use hardware drum

35:59

machines or samplers and record those. I

36:01

don't know if you do a lot

36:03

of this in your work, but if

36:06

you do, what kind of chain would

36:08

you be running those things too to

36:10

make them sound more better? Yeah,

36:12

I use a lot of

36:15

samples, samplers. I have a

36:17

Roland SP 303 and then

36:20

I have a bunch of

36:22

drum machines like I have

36:25

a modded 707 with a

36:27

ton of different sounds in

36:30

it. I have a DRM1

36:32

from Vermona. I use a

36:34

lot of different things for

36:37

samples and PC style kind

36:39

of playback stuff. My

36:43

answer to that is there

36:45

is no answer and anyone

36:47

who tells you that there

36:49

is is really someone not

36:51

to be trusted. There is

36:53

no such thing as like

36:55

the right thing to use

36:57

on any given sound. Like

36:59

there's no such thing as

37:01

a great compressor for an

37:03

MPC drum machine. There's no

37:05

such thing as the best

37:07

EQ for a base. Every

37:10

single tool. is like is

37:12

a bespoke, it should be

37:14

used as a bespoke solution

37:16

for a bespoke problem. And

37:18

so it's totally context dependent.

37:20

Is there a common problem

37:22

that occurs to you when

37:24

using samplers or drum machines

37:26

that you're often trying to

37:28

solve with them or is

37:30

it just so unique each

37:32

drum machine it's hard to

37:34

say? Yeah, I mean, what

37:36

a, by definition, what a

37:38

samplers can sample anything. So,

37:40

like, there's, there is no

37:43

common thread, in my opinion.

37:45

Yeah, I really stand by

37:47

that, like, there's no, there's

37:49

nothing. Now, if you were

37:51

like, now, if it, that's

37:53

the answer to a sampler,

37:55

like, is there something maybe

37:57

I do to, like, you

37:59

know, maybe it's like, okay,

38:01

the, set snare sound on

38:03

the 707 in particular. I

38:06

could say like how I like

38:08

to modify that but like that's

38:11

that's not really useful and even

38:13

that's context dependent. Yeah I really

38:15

I really strongly believe that there's

38:17

no there's nothing like that although

38:19

you know I like to saturate

38:22

and like EQ everything to some

38:24

extent but yeah it's going to

38:26

be dependent on where it sits

38:28

in the mix and what it's

38:30

role is. So here's some questions

38:33

that maybe could be adjacent to

38:35

this one that might be more

38:37

answerable. Do you have favorite analog

38:39

devices to record through specifically to

38:42

give things more saturation while you're

38:44

recording before you even do mixing?

38:46

Is that something you think about?

38:48

And are there specific EQs that

38:50

you like to record through if

38:53

at all? Yeah, I'm being, I'm

38:55

being very difficult here. That's fine.

38:57

So, so, yeah, I... Okay,

39:00

so like a little bit,

39:02

like I do like Neve

39:05

preamps. I like the sound

39:07

of Neve preamps. I have

39:09

a pair of V276 preamps

39:12

that I like. Those are

39:14

all like transformer-based preamps that

39:16

have some nice inherent harmonic

39:19

distortion. But honestly, I really

39:21

don't think about this very

39:23

much because when I'm recording,

39:25

like, just like mixing, right,

39:28

we have like, it's a

39:30

zero-sum game, so we have

39:32

like a limited amount of.

39:35

a mental bandwidth to apply

39:37

to the creative task at

39:39

hand. The creative task at

39:42

hand can essentially eat unlimited

39:44

mental bandwidth, recording musicians, right?

39:46

So if I'm thinking about

39:49

like the pream to use,

39:51

that like, that must mean

39:53

that I am thinking less

39:56

about something else. It's just,

39:58

it's just physics. I tend

40:00

to like to like never think

40:02

about it. I I plug. into

40:05

the, my cables into the. what

40:07

I here's what I do. my

40:09

I plug into into the closest

40:11

input panel to me, the and

40:13

then I choose the preamp, hopefully,

40:16

that's normal to that input

40:18

panel, so that I'm up and

40:20

running. the fastest I can

40:22

possibly be. If that's going through knee

40:24

pramp, if if that's going through one

40:26

of my of my stutter that's going through

40:28

an going through an avid preamp in my

40:30

pramp in I do not care. I

40:32

wanna focus on the other side

40:34

of that, what the performance is,

40:36

because if I can, if I can. be

40:38

useful helping shape the performance, shape

40:41

the mic placement, shape the vibe

40:43

in the room. That's gonna have

40:45

a much larger effect on the

40:47

final recording than like if I if I

40:49

went through the studer or the need

40:51

or the Avid preamp. So I'm, you know, I get

40:53

asked a lot from friends know, I get

40:55

asked a lot from friends like, oh, I need to

40:57

get some get. I which I get. like I say get

40:59

like the cheapest things that aren't gonna break is kind

41:01

of what I always say. And preferably the ones

41:03

that are in your that other way to go. other

41:06

way to go. But if you like twist

41:08

my arm, yeah, I like German and British preamps

41:10

British that have from the in have out. Sure,

41:12

yeah, out. Sure. is the biggest the biggest

41:14

thing there. I'm And I'm I you on

41:16

this where I think are are very

41:19

much overrated. And this is not

41:21

to say that say that. some preamps don't

41:23

sound different from others. Some do,

41:25

but slight there's some of the smaller differences

41:27

in the studio, know even know, even

41:29

when they are differences. And there's some

41:31

preamps that just sound so many of of

41:33

them sound so close to one

41:35

another. And it's really it's really just some that

41:37

do something significant, but even their significant thing

41:40

is so subtle compared to any other choice

41:42

you make in the studio. other is, in the

41:44

yeah, how much time do you want to

41:46

waste on that to waste on to to like a

41:48

connoisseur of preamps? Yeah, and my answer

41:50

answer I want to I want I to spend I

41:52

want to spend negative time on

41:54

that. on that with same with EQ going

41:56

to generally not even patch an

41:59

EQ EQ at tracking unless I'm a really

42:01

big problem and I'm like whoa

42:03

this problem is huge I think

42:05

I need to solve this with

42:07

an output EQ but usually I'm

42:09

just gonna solve it with a

42:11

with a zero latency real-time EQ

42:13

in pro tools I'm on an

42:15

avid carbon so I can just

42:17

use a DSP plug-in and I'll

42:19

just like pull up like a

42:21

metric halo channel strip and just

42:23

use that you know almost 99%

42:25

of the things that you're going

42:27

to want to do EQ-wise tracking

42:29

is just low-cut. So, you know,

42:31

you don't really need much there.

42:33

Sweet. All right, we have some

42:35

appreciative replies here. Casper says, thank

42:37

you. It's so awesome the stuff

42:39

you were telling you about tape

42:41

machines, because he's new to tape

42:43

machines. He has one now, and

42:45

it's so cool that I don't

42:47

have to feel nervous about them

42:49

now. Yeah, run that tape again

42:51

again, as long as things have

42:53

been, are sufficient level to erase

42:55

what was there before, and as

42:57

long as you weren't printing, so

42:59

incredibly hot on prior passes that

43:01

there's some ghosting. Yeah, I'm totally

43:03

with you on this. ghosting is

43:05

also fine if as long as

43:07

it sounds like like that's good

43:09

point I actually think sometimes I'll

43:12

print something and then the very

43:14

end I'll realize oh my god

43:16

there was this like there's like

43:18

another band's song playing at minus

43:20

85 degree right yeah you know

43:22

what that's kind of cool yes

43:24

like All this stuff is cool

43:26

if it's working. No one is

43:28

even going to hear the negative

43:30

85DB, but you'll know in your

43:32

heart that the track is haunted.

43:34

So that's just kind of cool.

43:36

Yeah. Indeed. All right, Sound in

43:38

the City says, I agree with

43:40

your conspiracy theory about reampping. Yeah,

43:42

so unless you're a, I guess,

43:44

guitar nerd trying to exactly recreate

43:46

the impedance of this guitar into

43:48

this amp for using pedals for

43:50

wild effects, particularly on our guitar

43:52

instruments, who cares? And I understand.

43:54

But I also like that you

43:56

caveat it ever so slightly for

43:58

the nosepickers out there. nosepickers, who

44:00

I call them, because John Congleton,

44:02

one of my favorite producers is

44:04

Joe, the St. Vincent stuff, he

44:06

calls them the nosepickers, and it's

44:08

stuck with you. All right, Ben

44:10

says L-O-L, he's the one who

44:12

asked you about his sampler advice,

44:14

and your advice that gave him,

44:16

got an L-O-L, and a thanks.

44:18

Pedro says, how do you approach

44:20

Reaver? Well, first I'll tell you

44:22

that he uses a superplate from

44:24

our sponsors over at Sound Toys

44:26

or Get Superplate or Little Plate.

44:28

They make great stuff. But how

44:30

do you approach Reverb? Do you

44:32

try to make everything feel at

44:34

the same space as if it's

44:37

alive or does it not matter?

44:39

And are there any favorite plug-ins

44:41

for specific goals? Thank you. Cool.

44:43

Yeah, let's talk about Reverb. I

44:45

have a lot of thoughts about

44:47

Reverb. Right. Okay,

44:49

I'm I think that creating a

44:51

sense of shared environment and ambience

44:53

and tone and like decay and

44:55

all that stuff is useful in

44:57

a mix. However, I find that

44:59

trying to achieve that with a

45:01

reverb plug-in post facto, While it

45:03

can sometimes be effective, I find

45:05

that that's actually like not a

45:08

great solution for me. And the

45:10

reason is because I don't like

45:12

to share effects in a reverb

45:14

plug-in or output reverb is in

45:16

effect. I don't like to share

45:18

effects across instrument groups. So I

45:20

don't want to like have a

45:22

single plate set up and then

45:24

a send called plate send and

45:26

then I don't want to send

45:28

like my vocal and my drums

45:30

to it because when later I

45:32

need to like affect the sound

45:34

of the reverb on the drums

45:36

I'm going to end up changing

45:38

it on the vocal too and

45:40

that is not Maybe other people

45:42

have great solutions for this. I

45:44

don't. The only solution I have

45:46

for that is just to make

45:48

multiple instances of that plug-in, which

45:50

I will do and I do

45:52

that a lot, but I've kind

45:54

of like come around to this

45:56

idea that like it doesn't matter

45:58

so much. Like I'll use a

46:00

different reverb on vocals than I

46:02

use on guitars, then I use

46:04

on drums. Sometimes I'm thinking about

46:06

them being related, but oftentimes... I'm

46:08

not. What I'm much more interested

46:10

in as far as like creating

46:12

cohesion is in the performance of

46:14

things. So like in a project

46:16

that I'm producing, recording, I'm using

46:18

spill and the room to be

46:20

my cohesive element. So I'm making

46:22

sure that the guitar and the

46:24

vocal and the drums and the

46:26

piano are all sharing the same

46:28

room literally that we're making the

46:30

record in and that the mics

46:32

are all going at the same

46:34

time that's going to be way

46:36

more effective than sharing in effect

46:38

later at the mixing stage. Okay,

46:40

so that's a little bit about

46:42

like cohesion and same reverb. So

46:44

I use different reverbs all the

46:46

time. I don't really care. Every

46:49

now and then I'll send two

46:51

things to the same reverb, but

46:53

I get very mad at myself

46:55

when I do that. And if

46:57

I really want to have cohesion

46:59

on a reverb effect, I will

47:01

duplicate that reverb and have a

47:03

superplate with the same settings in

47:05

the lead vocal mix and all

47:07

the different bus groups. And then,

47:09

yeah, and then everything after that

47:11

is just to taste, you know,

47:13

level decay times, all that kind

47:15

of stuff. I am really into

47:17

pre-delay these days, especially on vocals.

47:19

And yeah, I think the idea

47:21

that everything used to share a

47:23

reverb was one I remember here.

47:25

a lot when I was starting

47:27

out and I have come to

47:29

find that it's just not really

47:31

true. Right, right. Yeah, it's interesting.

47:33

I've been finding one person we

47:35

had on recently doing a master

47:37

class just on reverb. He's a

47:39

multi diamond selling mixing engine. He

47:41

was kind of talking about, he'll

47:43

have one reverb for the vocal

47:45

and it won't be the same

47:47

reverb for the snare drum. And

47:49

then he does have like an

47:51

everything else kind of room reverb

47:53

where I think he's trying to

47:55

do what you do naturally in

47:57

the recording space where the only

47:59

reverb for him that shared is

48:01

kind of a darker more room

48:03

like reverb but he doesn't have

48:05

one of them he has three

48:07

or four of them of slightly

48:09

different lengths right so one is

48:11

you know point five seconds, one

48:13

is you know 800 milliseconds, one's

48:15

one second. So he has three

48:17

or four of those because not

48:19

all of them want the same

48:21

length. So even though they're supposed

48:23

to be in the same space,

48:25

there's different lengths and different darknesses.

48:28

Some are longer and darker than

48:30

others, some are shorter and brighter.

48:32

So even he has this idea

48:34

of I want to share reverbs,

48:36

but it's not the same exact

48:38

reverb and it's only on some

48:40

things and not others. So I

48:42

think that's very close to what

48:44

you're talking about what you're talking

48:46

about as well. It's identical in

48:48

fact, it's identical, it's just a

48:50

recreation, right? So because when I'm

48:52

in the room, the distance of

48:54

the drums to the guitar mic

48:56

is different than the distance of

48:58

the drums to the vocal mic,

49:00

which is different. then the distance

49:02

of the drums to the piano

49:04

mic, which is also going through

49:06

the body of the piano. So

49:08

those are all different decay times

49:10

and different delay times to your

49:12

first reflections. So it's very, very

49:14

similar. We're trying to get at

49:16

the same phenomenon, which is how

49:18

do we make this sound like

49:20

it actually happened together? And that's

49:22

almost never about sharing a plate

49:24

reverb or sharing a RMX Ambien

49:26

setting. It's almost always about super

49:28

short times in the room. And

49:30

yeah, if you, if your production

49:32

didn't have that due to production

49:34

methods. yeah using some shared room

49:36

can be useful on something like

49:38

that. Yeah and I think the

49:40

context is different because rather than

49:42

getting great players together in a

49:44

room and recording them which is

49:46

what you do he's mostly getting

49:48

pop productions recorded by other people

49:50

in small treated studios one instrument

49:52

at a time or with synthetic

49:54

elements and then trying to do

49:56

that to them but that's why

49:58

his process is whole band playing

50:00

together at the same time so

50:02

there's real live spill in those

50:04

situations right? Are there other projects

50:07

you work on where things are

50:09

tracked more one at a time

50:11

and if so is there a

50:13

different strategy to getting room tone

50:15

on those or do record mostly

50:17

all track together stuff? No, no,

50:19

I mix lots lots of records

50:21

that are tracked like one with

50:23

brick by brick and and Yeah,

50:25

I'll I'll do I'll do a

50:27

little bit of shared stuff like

50:29

like the other gentleman Talked about

50:31

using some shared rooms in those

50:33

cases. I'll use more duplicative So

50:35

I'll just like, I'll take a,

50:37

I'll build a room, maybe I'll

50:39

use like an IR, an impulse

50:41

response of an actual room, and

50:43

I'll just make seven of them,

50:45

put them on everything in every

50:47

group and send everything a little

50:49

bit to it. And that way

50:51

I know what's happening. I'll also

50:53

use, I'll do like a lot

50:55

of shared processing in that case,

50:57

like maybe I'll duplicate, like a

50:59

stooter tape machine plug-in across the

51:01

whole, across every mixed bus, you

51:03

know, and that'll help. So everything

51:05

is sharing a saturation element. Yeah,

51:07

when it is much harder to

51:09

get good sounds when things are

51:11

tracked one at a time, and

51:13

so you have to do a

51:15

lot more stuff. Yeah, I will

51:17

tell you a favorite record that

51:19

I did. I'm going to give

51:21

you a idea and I don't

51:23

know, you seem like a kind

51:25

of guy who might use this

51:27

idea. I used this once and

51:29

I loved it on an artist

51:31

that does... stuff to I think,

51:33

you know, they were kind of

51:35

in that same vein of, you

51:37

know, Theo or Volpecker or something

51:39

where they were just like tremendous

51:41

players playing together, but they were

51:43

doing an album that they were

51:45

building brick by brick regardless. And

51:48

what I did with them was

51:50

I took, I think it was

51:52

a Royer 121 ribbon mic and

51:54

I used that as the second

51:56

microphone on every source I recorded.

51:58

So like I recorded the horn

52:00

parts and that Royer was in

52:02

the room with a null point

52:04

like pointed the horn so it

52:06

was just getting the splash of

52:08

the room, recorded guitar amp, that

52:10

Roy was there as like a

52:12

bleed mic and in almost all

52:14

cases it was pointing like the

52:16

null was pointing at them or

52:18

the back of the mic was

52:20

pointing at it and on every

52:22

single... thing that we recorded in

52:24

the same space, I had two

52:26

microphones, the actual direct microphone and

52:28

then a bleed microphone that was

52:30

supposed to emulate the idea of

52:32

bleed into another microphone. It's just

52:34

another way of creating reverb. It

52:36

was my custom bespoke reverb. The

52:38

only problem with this is recording

52:40

24 channels. You ended up recording

52:42

48 channels because everything has its

52:44

source and then the full bleed

52:46

mic that I would turn up

52:48

or down. The results were awesome

52:50

and I kind of loved doing

52:52

it and it was so much

52:54

fun to play with. in the

52:56

tracking process, like, here's our sound,

52:58

how much of this, you know,

53:00

bleed mic, am I going to

53:02

put in, essentially a glorified room

53:04

mic, but having the same exact

53:06

mic in the same exact room,

53:08

and then just putting the instruments

53:10

in different places in that room,

53:12

was so much fun, but it

53:14

was also maybe slightly more work

53:16

that I didn't do it on

53:18

any more than that one album,

53:20

but I told everyone about it.

53:22

after I did it, you know,

53:24

I was proud of that and

53:27

done it. And I think that

53:29

can be a fun thing of,

53:31

and that's essentially just room miking,

53:33

but I tried to look at

53:35

it through the lens of, let's

53:37

pretend that this is just an

53:39

open mic on another instrument, and

53:41

how would we deal with that?

53:43

Yeah, I've used that method before.

53:45

I've used it with like a

53:47

Norman SM2, which is a dual

53:49

diaphragm 56, and I'll record that

53:51

in like a midside, and I'll

53:53

just put that on everything. And

53:55

for the same reason that you

53:57

haven't done it more than once,

53:59

I don't do it anymore because

54:01

it just slows me down and

54:03

also I don't like to manage

54:05

multiple tracks of a source. So

54:07

if I was to do that

54:09

nowadays I would summit pre-plan. And

54:11

that way it's that way it's

54:13

baked in and then that would

54:15

actually not be that much work.

54:17

you know, depending on your like

54:19

workflow, if you're like, okay, everything's

54:21

gonna mix, everything's gonna be recorded

54:23

through the stutter, I'm gonna have

54:25

channel 16, it'll be my room

54:27

tone, and then I'll just pull

54:29

up whatever fater it is for

54:31

the track I'm recording, and I

54:33

record everything as a mono track

54:35

off the, off the bus. Then

54:37

you could do that, it would

54:39

be really fast, and you would

54:41

just decide right then how much

54:43

you want, but I don't do

54:45

that, because I'm much too lazy

54:47

for that. If you out there

54:49

in a TV land have enough,

54:51

have the time and patience and

54:53

energy for something like that, God

54:55

bless you. Yeah. That will work.

54:57

Yeah, it's something to do at

54:59

least once in your life. Yeah,

55:01

do it at least once. It

55:03

is fun. And it is very

55:06

fun to do. Yeah, right. We're

55:08

getting a lot of heart-emogies off

55:10

of that idea, so that's wonderful

55:12

to see. Let's keep on going

55:14

here. Steve B. says, with this

55:16

process, what time frame do you

55:18

shoot for to have a mix

55:20

done, including revisions? So... I

55:22

don't really have like a time that

55:24

I shoot for, which I think is

55:27

really freeing. I have an average that

55:29

I generally tend to hit over the

55:31

course of like a lot of songs,

55:34

but and any given song like i

55:36

can spend anywhere i could spend you

55:38

know four five six hours on revision

55:41

one sometimes i spend ten minutes on

55:43

revision one on on mix one i'm

55:45

not i i just kind of like

55:48

work until i'm like oh this is

55:50

cool i want to share this with

55:52

the artist because once i share with

55:55

the artist that's the start a whole

55:57

new process where we're like doing revisions,

55:59

we're talking about the sound, the balance,

56:02

everything. So yeah, I really try not

56:04

to have a goal because if I

56:06

have a goal, then I'm gonna like

56:09

not, I'm gonna work to the goal

56:11

instead of working to the creative part,

56:13

which is how the music sounds. However,

56:16

there obviously is a business consideration to

56:18

this, which is that like if I

56:20

can mix faster, my business is better.

56:23

And so like I am always trying

56:25

to mix faster, but I'm not trying

56:27

to mix faster like. like creatively like

56:30

cutting off something like I'm trying to

56:32

mix faster and like how can I

56:34

get rid of like tasks that should

56:37

be quick but are taking a long

56:39

time and I find that the more

56:41

I do that and the more I

56:44

do that and the more I'm mixing

56:46

just to generally faster I get it

56:48

mixing and then sometimes it mixes go

56:51

fast sometimes I go slow it's totally

56:53

fine if I work on a mix

56:55

and it takes four days per song

56:58

that's totally fine I know there's gonna

57:00

be some other mix that I'm gonna

57:02

do in an hour a song just

57:05

because that's just how things work. So

57:07

I would definitely recommend to everybody to

57:09

kind of like release yourself from the

57:12

idea that like a mix should take

57:14

a certain amount of time or a

57:16

certain amount of revisions. Mixes just take

57:19

whatever they take and as you get

57:21

more experienced and better at mixing it

57:23

will inevitably get faster if that's something

57:26

that you would like to have happened.

57:29

Sweet, all right. On to the

57:31

next question, which is from Nolan

57:33

Marshall, who says, Phil, can we

57:35

look forward to more courses in

57:37

the near future similar to those

57:40

you've done via School of Song?

57:42

I thoroughly enjoyed both the recording

57:44

and mixing courses. Yeah, so thank

57:46

you so much. I'm glad you

57:48

took them. I really enjoy teaching

57:51

them. They were an insane amount

57:53

of work and that work is

57:55

done. It is good to do

57:57

them more. Yeah, we will certainly

57:59

be doing more of those classes

58:02

like those classes at School of

58:04

Song, the Recording, and Mixing, I'm

58:06

not entirely sure if I will

58:08

develop a third course. It's, those

58:10

courses took in the, around two

58:13

to three hundred hours to develop.

58:15

So, yeah, that's a lot. they

58:17

are really fun i'm so happy

58:19

i did it but i don't

58:21

know if i'm going to do

58:24

different classes but i will certainly

58:26

do more sections of those classes

58:28

and you know hopefully i'll do

58:30

more things like this with tonic

58:32

scoop mix con and with other

58:35

you know media outlets that sure

58:37

this kind of stuff if someone

58:39

wanted to check out those courses

58:41

where would they find them i'm

58:43

not familiar with school of song

58:46

is that what kind of venture

58:48

is that where can people find

58:50

them So School of Song is

58:52

one of the most amazing communities.

58:54

It's an amazing community that's mostly

58:57

built around songwriting. You work with

58:59

a lot of great songers. Adrian

59:01

Lanker is taught there. Robin Pecknotive

59:03

Fleet Foxes, LaRaggi just did one.

59:05

So many amazing people have taught

59:08

courses at School of Song. It's

59:10

truly incredible. My classes are not

59:12

in the archive. You can only

59:14

take my class when I teach

59:16

it. And the reason is because

59:19

it's just so community oriented to

59:21

like this, it really is like

59:23

a group. To take it asynchronous,

59:25

I don't really think it works.

59:27

So yeah I highly recommend though

59:30

going and taking school of song

59:32

archive classes from the great songwriters

59:34

who've taught there. It's really some

59:36

of the greatest songwriters working today

59:38

have taught at school of song.

59:41

It's a really special special community

59:43

and I will certainly be teaching

59:45

my recording and mixing classes there

59:47

again probably in 2025. Right. I

59:49

can I can

59:52

understand the format

59:54

of it. Is

59:56

it Is it a part

59:58

and part live part

1:00:00

live an all

1:00:03

live format or

1:00:05

what's it what's

1:00:07

it like? live It's

1:00:09

an all live format. it So

1:00:11

it's a all live hour lecture

1:00:13

a three hour week and

1:00:15

then homework assignments and breakout rooms a

1:00:17

lot of like action in

1:00:20

a and yeah it's really fun a it's

1:00:22

really fun. A lot of

1:00:24

live Q and A just

1:00:26

like this, but in a

1:00:28

zoom with like with people.

1:00:30

It's really, really fun. right we go

1:00:32

go really deep. It's I people

1:00:34

from zero from zero way so it's the

1:00:36

way so it's all it's all I teach I

1:00:39

teach it as a almost like a

1:00:41

philosophical class class Gotcha? So is

1:00:43

it less demonstration, master like the you did

1:00:45

you did here and more like people

1:00:47

down is songs or is it a

1:00:49

little bit of both with a a

1:00:51

lecture portion and then let's hear your your

1:00:53

portion portion or? it's it's it's everything it's it's

1:00:55

all of that in all different

1:00:57

ways. ways um and yeah that i do a lot of

1:00:59

do a lot of like up up

1:01:01

mixing, but but but i approach it like

1:01:03

in this. master class i went for a like I

1:01:05

went for a, like, had a the

1:01:07

listener and viewer had a high

1:01:10

technical knowledge. talk talk just moved in the

1:01:12

school of song talk. In the school

1:01:14

of song classes, of I'm going to

1:01:16

avoid that kind of thing, although

1:01:18

I'm still going to be doing

1:01:20

but same moves, but I'm going

1:01:22

to be explaining things on a

1:01:24

very, very high level of of the

1:01:26

very low granular kind of like kind of

1:01:29

sand bus blah blah blah although we blah, blah,

1:01:31

although we do get into compression

1:01:33

ratios and we get into all

1:01:35

that stuff, but it's designed so

1:01:37

that experienced mixer experienced mixer and someone

1:01:39

who's never mixed before experienced recordist or someone

1:01:41

or someone who's never recorded before

1:01:43

before both at the end of

1:01:46

the class be like, be like wow I got

1:01:48

I got something out of that. I got a

1:01:50

lot out of that. of that and think and I think the

1:01:52

multi-level educational

1:01:55

level of all the educational

1:01:57

level of all the students actually

1:01:59

working with. each other is a huge

1:02:01

benefit too. So you get a lot

1:02:03

of beginners are in class with experienced

1:02:05

people and it's a lot of really

1:02:07

cool co-learning happening like that. Yeah, sweet.

1:02:09

Let me give you my quick sense

1:02:11

on that. We have a whole bunch

1:02:13

of courses like mixing breakthroughs, compression breakthroughs,

1:02:15

EQ breakthroughs, mastering demissified where I have

1:02:17

these pre-recorded courses and I like having

1:02:20

those because it's like everything that I

1:02:22

ever wanted to tell anyone is in

1:02:24

those courses. However, they're missing that component

1:02:26

that you're talking about, the kind of

1:02:28

student interaction component. So that's where our

1:02:30

memberships are for. And there it's all

1:02:32

about, like, let's listen to your tracks

1:02:34

together, like, let's workshop through, like, what

1:02:36

would we change in the mix? And

1:02:38

a lot of this live Q&A stuff.

1:02:40

I do like the fact that I

1:02:42

have the pre-recorded courses because it's like

1:02:44

I would just be repeating myself again

1:02:46

and again and again if I didn't

1:02:49

have them, but I like that that's

1:02:51

not live. But then I love what

1:02:53

you're talking about, the actual interaction, but

1:02:55

for me, where the interaction is so

1:02:57

helpful, is when we're actually listening to

1:02:59

real work from students. and that's where

1:03:01

the interaction I think is so useful

1:03:03

because you get to hear that stuff

1:03:05

in real time there's not like one

1:03:07

blanket answer I could give for how

1:03:09

would I approach the vocal sound in

1:03:11

this song or how would I tweak

1:03:13

the low end in this song and

1:03:15

that's where like you can't do a

1:03:18

pre-record it's so specific but the generalities

1:03:20

I like having them recorded so I

1:03:22

always wonder if whether you do a

1:03:24

school of song or somewhere else to

1:03:26

have your the opus of like here's

1:03:28

framework of this topic the way I

1:03:30

think about I'm saying it once or

1:03:32

I have to say it again again

1:03:34

that stuff's pre-recorded and then let's join

1:03:36

for the the the stuff that's more

1:03:38

personalized and that's the way that I've

1:03:40

approached it so I don't have to

1:03:42

invest 300 hours every time I do

1:03:44

the 300 hours once in the beginning

1:03:47

to create the thing and then have

1:03:49

fun with people for the rest of

1:03:51

the time but it is so much

1:03:53

fun when you're interacting with people live

1:03:55

like it really gives me energy. You

1:03:57

know, yeah, yeah, totally. And like, you

1:03:59

know, the 300 hours, we only has

1:04:01

to have them one time. It's just

1:04:03

on the development side. So, and I

1:04:05

see the, you know, when we're talking

1:04:07

about the generality stuff, I like the

1:04:09

performance aspect of. You know, I actually

1:04:11

like, I enjoy being like, okay, let

1:04:13

me for the third time in my

1:04:16

life do my compression bit. And every

1:04:18

time I do it, I get a

1:04:20

little better at it. And I can

1:04:22

also like relate texturally to the specific

1:04:24

things that have come up the week

1:04:26

before or in the discord. Like, and

1:04:28

I can like call out different people

1:04:30

like as I'm talking about the compression

1:04:32

and be like, oh, yeah, and then.

1:04:34

you know, Lisa had this question in

1:04:36

Discord, which I should mention right now,

1:04:38

because we're talking about ratio and blah

1:04:40

blah blah. So I think there's, one

1:04:42

of the things I love is that

1:04:45

there's so many different platforms and there's

1:04:47

so many different methods, and you can

1:04:49

do fully asynchronous community-based methods, you can

1:04:51

do fully independent, like just watching YouTube

1:04:53

stuff, you can do fully immersive, like

1:04:55

only happening in real-time methods, and What's

1:04:57

cool is that whatever works for the

1:04:59

learner at any given time, there's like

1:05:01

a platform that's probably going to be

1:05:03

serving their learning method. And I think

1:05:05

it's really beautiful to have all those

1:05:07

different ways. But that sounds like a

1:05:09

really cool thing you guys are doing

1:05:12

at Sonic Scoop, Justin. Hell yeah. All

1:05:14

right. Great. Now, we're going to get

1:05:16

into kind of lightning round here, because

1:05:18

I'm supposed to take my kid trick-or-tating,

1:05:20

because it is Halloween. Nicholas asked, despite

1:05:22

all the technical, how do you approach

1:05:24

bringing people together in a recording situation?

1:05:26

Asking, because like all of my favorite

1:05:28

musicians on the new Billy Martin single,

1:05:30

you produced. So he's saying that you

1:05:32

produced like all of my favorite musicians

1:05:34

who were on the new Billy Martin

1:05:36

single. I think that's what he's saying.

1:05:38

So what's your thing about creating vibe

1:05:41

and bringing people together in the studio

1:05:43

and making them like getting the best

1:05:45

out of them? What are some core

1:05:47

principles there? Yeah, I mean, that's just,

1:05:49

that's a little hard to describe, but

1:05:51

that's just being, you know, creating an

1:05:53

environment that people want to be in,

1:05:55

creating a focused environment, creating a detail-oriented

1:05:57

supportive environment, and making sure that the

1:05:59

people that you're bringing in are like

1:06:01

on board. I'm really picky about who

1:06:03

makes records in here as far as

1:06:05

like what about who the session players

1:06:07

are coming. It's like vibe first. I

1:06:10

mean everyone has to be a great

1:06:12

musician but like vibe is the whole

1:06:14

real way we I decide like and

1:06:16

I work with the artists to like

1:06:18

pick who's going to come in here.

1:06:20

So really just like it's all about

1:06:22

that. Nobody is a

1:06:24

good enough musician to like be good

1:06:26

enough that like their vibe isn't the

1:06:29

most important thing. So I would just

1:06:31

say always be thinking about the interpersonal,

1:06:33

the, and like making a record is

1:06:35

really vulnerable and it's really scary and

1:06:37

it's for keeps and the stakes are

1:06:40

high. So like it's so critical that

1:06:42

everyone is feeling comfortable, relaxed and supported.

1:06:44

And if that's happening, then it's going

1:06:46

to be great and if it's not

1:06:48

happening, it's going to suck. And that's

1:06:51

on the, that's, totally then. On the

1:06:53

vibe tip, Nolan Marshall says, is there

1:06:55

any favorite decor or vibe stuff like

1:06:57

to have in your studio, you've recently

1:06:59

picked up for your studio, how much

1:07:02

does the studio environment matter and are

1:07:04

there things that you get for vibe

1:07:06

or the feel of the space that

1:07:08

you're glad that you have? Yeah, okay,

1:07:10

so a few very important things. One

1:07:12

is the scent of the space. So

1:07:15

I like palisanto, I burn some palisanta

1:07:17

before people come in here. Another thing

1:07:19

is lighting should have warm, low, lamp

1:07:21

light everywhere. I have, you can't see

1:07:23

my room, but it's full of lamps.

1:07:26

There's basically almost no overhead lighting at

1:07:28

all. Those are really important. Snacks must

1:07:30

be present. No one should have low

1:07:32

blood sugar sugar at a studio section.

1:07:34

You need to have plenty of good

1:07:37

coffee and plenty of filtered water available

1:07:39

for everybody. And if you have assistance

1:07:41

or interns, they should be filling them

1:07:43

up without people asking. No one should

1:07:45

have to ask for water or coffee.

1:07:48

then the last thing, and this is

1:07:50

the most important thing, is nobody should

1:07:52

have a phone in the studio. So

1:07:54

I call it phone jail, and when

1:07:56

people come, they give me their phone,

1:07:59

and I put it actually over by

1:08:01

the coffee station, which is in another

1:08:03

room, and the rule is you're allowed

1:08:05

to go and look at your phone

1:08:07

whenever you need. No one will be

1:08:09

mad at you, but the phone does

1:08:12

not come into the studio. So when

1:08:14

we're in the studio, you never want

1:08:16

to create a situation where someone is

1:08:18

doing something really vulnerable, really vulnerable, really

1:08:20

vulnerable, They're scared. They don't know if

1:08:23

it's good or not. And they're looking

1:08:25

around. And someone's looking at fucking Instagram.

1:08:27

That is the absolute worst thing. And

1:08:29

you just can't have it. So no

1:08:31

phone to the studio. That's what those

1:08:34

are my main vibe tips. I love

1:08:36

it. You are. Yep, you are bold

1:08:38

and in the phone jail concept and

1:08:40

I think that is a concept that

1:08:42

more people should do. And also people

1:08:45

were commenting about how tidy your studio

1:08:47

look. And I was wondering if you

1:08:49

cleaned up just for us for MixCon

1:08:51

or if you're just tidier than I

1:08:53

am. But yeah, good, good. All right.

1:08:56

It stayed pretty like that. Now this

1:08:58

is a question that's a little hard

1:09:00

for me to decipher but I'm going

1:09:02

to try. Nelson Diaz says I'm struggling

1:09:04

with panning a sample in hard left

1:09:07

and right. So here is the deal.

1:09:09

It's a melodic art guitar sample stereo

1:09:11

but I want them to sound as

1:09:13

hard left and right. How can I

1:09:15

achieve it? I think what he might

1:09:17

be driving at the problem is the

1:09:20

kind of big mono problem of You

1:09:22

have a stereo sample and it doesn't

1:09:24

sound stereo enough. So probably what you

1:09:26

should do is make it mono and

1:09:28

then pan that and you can get

1:09:31

more stereo by taking something mono and

1:09:33

panning it hard. But do you have

1:09:35

ideas for stereo sounds that are stereo,

1:09:37

but they don't sound stereo enough in

1:09:39

what to do with them? Right, is

1:09:42

that, is that way, read it one

1:09:44

more time. All right. Much of the

1:09:46

later stuff was me adding my own

1:09:48

thoughts to it, but he says I'm

1:09:50

struggling with panning a sample in hard

1:09:53

left and right. It's a melodic art

1:09:55

guitar sample, stereo, but I want them

1:09:57

to sound as hard left and right.

1:09:59

I achieve it? So I guess he

1:10:01

has a stereo sound in there that

1:10:04

doesn't sound stereo enough for him. Yeah,

1:10:06

okay. So I mean, uh... I

1:10:09

have a few different methods for

1:10:11

this. You want, yeah, okay. So

1:10:13

one is I use Goodhertz, um,

1:10:16

midside plug-in, and I'll just crank

1:10:18

up the side channel only. Um,

1:10:20

or I'll use a tilt on

1:10:22

the side channel only. So processing

1:10:24

the sides only, and there's lots

1:10:26

of plugins, I can do this,

1:10:28

I like the Goodhertz one, just

1:10:30

because it's the nicest, UX, UY.

1:10:33

But, uh, so boosting and fucking

1:10:35

with your side channels, number one.

1:10:37

Split it into mono, so you

1:10:39

have control over both channels, and

1:10:41

then slightly delay one of the

1:10:43

channels, and slightly pitch shift one

1:10:45

of these channels. That will make

1:10:47

it go really wide, really fast.

1:10:50

When it folds down to mono,

1:10:52

you might get a little chorusing,

1:10:54

so you need to check that

1:10:56

and see if that's going to

1:10:58

work for you when it's folded

1:11:00

down me. I think chorusing is

1:11:02

a bonus, so I'd say, hell

1:11:04

yeah. But yeah. I'll do that

1:11:07

a lot. I'll do that a

1:11:09

lot. If I get a stereo

1:11:11

stem to mix, I'll just split

1:11:13

it out into two, and then

1:11:15

I'll start delaying and pitch pitching.

1:11:17

And by pitch, I mean like

1:11:19

point one, like tiny, tiny, tiny

1:11:21

movements, one cent, and a delay

1:11:24

of like, you know, ten milliseconds

1:11:26

is all you really need. It's

1:11:28

like the Haas effect. You know,

1:11:30

it's like micro shift is kind

1:11:32

of like that. But it's cool

1:11:34

to do it yourself. You can

1:11:36

get some really nice effects like

1:11:38

that. Sweet. All right, last two

1:11:41

questions. We'll see if we can

1:11:43

keep these tight so that I

1:11:45

can get the heck out of

1:11:47

here, but it's just so great

1:11:49

to hear the stuff from you

1:11:51

feel. It's hard to let you

1:11:53

go. Last two questions, Mike Farn

1:11:55

says, how do you achieve tonal

1:11:58

balance? So maybe good EQ distribution

1:12:00

across the whole track. Is that

1:12:02

a mastering step or a mixing

1:12:04

step? In fact, it would be

1:12:06

impossible to do it mastering. And

1:12:08

as far as achieving good total

1:12:10

balance, that's going to come with

1:12:12

experience. And that's going to come

1:12:15

with just doing it lots. But

1:12:17

one like little trick that I

1:12:19

did, I think in my video

1:12:21

for MixCon, two tricks is Mix

1:12:23

and Mono. mono is a great

1:12:25

way to balance tones, mixing in

1:12:27

full range mono, i.e. mixing sum

1:12:29

to mono and then pan the

1:12:32

whole mix to one speaker. So

1:12:34

that's a great way to hear

1:12:36

masking quickly, much easier than stereo.

1:12:38

And then the other way is

1:12:40

obviously in like a frequency limited

1:12:42

mono such as playing off of

1:12:44

a phone, another great way to

1:12:46

get tonal balance. Yeah, mixing in

1:12:49

mono is just such a cheap

1:12:51

code for balancing. And it's your

1:12:53

job as a mixer to balance

1:12:55

it. That's literally actually your only

1:12:57

job. All right, so Buckmeek. Balance

1:12:59

Engineers, in fact. That's right. So

1:13:01

Buckmeek gets to ask the last

1:13:03

question, which is, how would he?

1:13:06

Yeah, so apparently. Hey, Buck. My

1:13:08

best friends. All right. He asks,

1:13:10

how do you set expectations with

1:13:12

a client when you go into

1:13:14

a mixing session? Oh, yeah. You

1:13:16

know, Buck, you're the best, asking

1:13:18

the best question. Love you, Buck.

1:13:20

Okay, well. Let's see. So what's

1:13:23

really important is to anticipate the

1:13:25

things that you think are going

1:13:27

to potentially bum someone out and

1:13:29

let them know that ahead of

1:13:31

time and make sure what you

1:13:33

tell them is going to be

1:13:35

worse than the reality. So I'll

1:13:38

give you an example. You know,

1:13:40

I don't do any setup before

1:13:42

a band comes because I like

1:13:44

to do the setup with the

1:13:46

band and talk about where things

1:13:48

are going to go and like

1:13:50

use that time to, you know,

1:13:52

get to know each other a

1:13:55

little bit. But not everybody like

1:13:57

knows that like we might be

1:13:59

setting up for four hours. Right?

1:14:01

So if you walk in, you

1:14:03

think we're gonna start playing in

1:14:05

30 minutes, and it's four hours

1:14:07

later, you're gonna be upset. Expectations

1:14:09

are not set properly. So I

1:14:12

tell people, by the way, the

1:14:14

first day, we're gonna be setting

1:14:16

up for maybe six hours. And

1:14:18

then when we get set up

1:14:20

in three hours, they think I'm

1:14:22

amazing. Right? So you wanna be

1:14:24

anticipating all that stuff. Anticipate everything

1:14:26

that might. not be what

1:14:29

people expect and like let them know

1:14:31

ahead of time. Really like your job

1:14:33

is to set really low expectations and

1:14:35

then beat them. That's the job and

1:14:38

and and like through experience you'll learn

1:14:40

like what the things you to say

1:14:42

and how to do it but really

1:14:44

important setup time is a big one.

1:14:46

Just be talking people through things. Oh

1:14:49

hey I'm gonna this mic doesn't sound

1:14:51

good i'm gonna take 15 minutes to

1:14:53

get it sounding great ten minutes later

1:14:55

you're done now you look like a

1:14:57

genius if you had said hold on

1:15:00

a second let me just fix this

1:15:02

mic quick and it took five minutes

1:15:04

but you said let me fix it

1:15:06

quick now you look like a jerk

1:15:09

because you just wasted five minutes you

1:15:11

know i mean so yeah Yeah, really

1:15:13

important expectations. All right, this is unfortunately,

1:15:15

I lied. This is going to be

1:15:17

the last question because I'm curious. Why

1:15:20

take four to six hours to set

1:15:22

up while they're there in the room?

1:15:24

Why not do it beforehand? And why

1:15:26

would we need so long to set

1:15:28

up? These are somewhat devil's advocate questions,

1:15:31

but I want to hear how you

1:15:33

to address that. Yeah, so there's a

1:15:35

couple reasons. The first is that like,

1:15:38

I don't really want to like make

1:15:40

things the same every time. Like, you

1:15:42

know, yeah, if I knew, if I

1:15:44

knew like, hey, I know what's happening,

1:15:46

it's just a piano player coming in

1:15:48

playing. Yeah, I'll put the piano mics

1:15:50

up for sure. I'm not going to

1:15:53

like not do that. But if I

1:15:55

have like six people coming in the

1:15:57

room, they each play three instruments. There's

1:15:59

so many different ways this room could

1:16:01

be. up. If I set this room

1:16:03

up before they come in, there's not

1:16:05

a high probability that's going to be

1:16:07

the correct way to have it set

1:16:09

up because I wouldn't have been collaborating

1:16:11

with the artist on that. So I

1:16:14

want them to come in and I

1:16:16

want to collaboratively set the space up.

1:16:18

I want the base player's opinion on

1:16:20

if he thinks he should be there

1:16:22

or there. I want the drummer's opinion

1:16:24

on if they should be tilted like

1:16:26

this or like this. And it doesn't

1:16:28

really take four to six hours setup.

1:16:30

I set up this room much faster

1:16:33

than that. But I really believe that

1:16:35

setting up together is important. And it's

1:16:37

a way to like make co-create the

1:16:39

environment. Yeah, I just think I don't

1:16:41

know a lot of pre-tech studios if

1:16:43

I go to like, you know, a

1:16:45

different commercial studio maker record. you know

1:16:47

it's like always like six one half

1:16:49

dozen the other like i'm like oh

1:16:52

cool you set up the drums for

1:16:54

me i would like to now move

1:16:56

everything because now that i see where

1:16:58

the singer is going to be the

1:17:00

drums can't be there so now like

1:17:02

they wasted a bunch of time now

1:17:04

they're kind of bitter the assistance bidder

1:17:06

that they set it up and now

1:17:08

we have to move everything which is

1:17:10

actually more work than setting it up

1:17:13

from scratch a lot of time so

1:17:15

i don't know Some people might think

1:17:17

that that's wasting time, but if you

1:17:19

know what you're doing, you're fast, you're

1:17:21

in the studio, that's fast, then it's

1:17:23

good. And I mean, my studio, I

1:17:25

designed for speed. So everything's on quick

1:17:27

lock, everything's, there's no mics that aren't

1:17:29

already in a clip, you know, it's

1:17:32

just a quick room. So it allows

1:17:34

me to set up together. William is

1:17:36

begging asking the same question three times.

1:17:38

What about just his one top idea

1:17:40

to glue the mix together real quick

1:17:42

so you can start trick or treating

1:17:44

things triple exclamation point. Do you have

1:17:46

any ideas for gluing the mix together

1:17:48

which maybe isn't a problem you have

1:17:50

as much in your space but go

1:17:53

for it. Let's know. Yeah, yeah. Just

1:17:55

use a compressor. So the best way

1:17:57

to glue a mix together is to

1:17:59

have dynamic. moving dynamically similarly, right? So

1:18:01

if everything is moving up and down

1:18:03

together, your brain is gonna think these

1:18:05

sounds are related. That's what people mean

1:18:07

by like gluey compressors. They're saying like

1:18:09

the compressors moving in such a way

1:18:12

that like everything seems related to each

1:18:14

other. So you know, the classic SSL

1:18:16

style quad compressor, if I'll use that

1:18:18

for like gluey compressor stuff in my

1:18:20

settings for that, will be a super

1:18:22

slow release. I mean, I'm sorry, a

1:18:24

super slow attack, a super fast release,

1:18:26

and a super low ratio. And then

1:18:28

I'm usually trying to get anywhere from

1:18:31

one to four DB of compression based

1:18:33

on the production. And that really does

1:18:35

a good job of relating, right? Because

1:18:37

what we mean by glues, we mean

1:18:39

relation, right? We want to be related

1:18:41

to each other. And the easiest way

1:18:43

to get them to be related to

1:18:45

each other is to have their volumes

1:18:47

related dynamically. So, beautiful. SSL. Love it.

1:18:49

That's the last word. Thank you so

1:18:52

much Phil for doing this. I think

1:18:54

your master class was awesome. If you

1:18:56

guys haven't seen you should go check

1:18:58

it out. It was really a pleasure

1:19:00

different from the other MixCon master classes

1:19:02

in a good way. If you like

1:19:04

hearing him talk for this long, you're

1:19:06

going to love his master class. So

1:19:08

see it if you haven't ready. Big

1:19:11

shout out and thanks to SoundToys for

1:19:13

helping make this free to the public.

1:19:15

Try out anything they make for free

1:19:17

for 30 days over at SoundToys.com. Also,

1:19:19

I would say check out Phil's courses

1:19:21

on the School of Song, but you

1:19:23

can't until he does another new course.

1:19:25

So in the meantime, I'll tell you

1:19:27

to check out Mixing Breakthrough, compression breakthroughs,

1:19:30

mastering and mystified all of our great

1:19:32

full-length courses. They have a 30-day moneyback

1:19:34

guarantee on them. If you want to

1:19:36

support this channel, support this channel, that's

1:19:38

one of the best ways to do

1:19:40

the best ways to do the best

1:19:42

ways to do it. They will change

1:19:44

the way that you work forever for

1:19:46

the better guaranteed for your money back

1:19:48

So definitely check that out and check

1:19:51

us out on the members only section

1:19:53

also Check out Phil people if they

1:19:55

want to follow you and keep up

1:19:57

with what you're doing. What are the

1:19:59

best places to keep up with you?

1:20:01

Just jump up Instagram and follow me

1:20:03

over there. I'm posting, you know, all

1:20:05

the projects I work on there and

1:20:07

any news I have about new classes

1:20:10

will certainly be posted there or podcasts

1:20:12

or whatever. Great. Thank you, Sound Toys.

1:20:14

Thank you, Theo Catsman. Thank you, Bill

1:20:16

Weinrobe. Thank you guys. You guys. Great

1:20:18

song, great player, man. Guy can sing

1:20:20

too. Awesome stuff. And thank you guys

1:20:22

for hanging out with us. This has

1:20:24

been Justin Kaletti of Sonix Group with

1:20:26

Phil Weinrobe. See you next time. Hey,

1:20:30

thanks for checking out that whole

1:20:32

episode. Quick reminder for you. Mixing

1:20:34

breakthroughs is on sale right now.

1:20:37

Check it out. Mixing breakthroughs.com. Check

1:20:39

out any of our great courses

1:20:41

like compression breakthroughs that will teach

1:20:43

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1:20:45

totally new way. Or EQ breakthroughs

1:20:47

that will completely change the game

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for you on EQ. We've also

1:20:51

got mastering demy mystified if you

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1:20:57

pick up mixing breakthroughs. All these

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1:21:03

and absolutely nothing to lose. They

1:21:05

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1:21:07

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1:21:09

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1:21:11

better results, more creativity, and more

1:21:13

confidence than ever before. So check

1:21:15

them out, go to mixing breakthroughs.com.

1:21:18

Also shout out and thanks to

1:21:20

sound toys. They've got some great

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