Archive for 'Video'

Do you find yourself layering guitar parts in your sessions only have them wash together, sounding vague and mushy? Today I want to show you a simple way to bring some clarity and width back into your guitars. With nothing more than a little EQ we can subtly get that separation and focus you want when you have a dense mix of guitars.

In most cases the lead vocal is the most important part of your mix. The best mixes out there always seem to find a way to get that vocal to sit right on top of everything else. How do they do it? Well there are a lot of small steps to get you there: vocal compression, riding the vocal with automation, and of course proper use of EQ. But today I want to show a super easy “hack” to making sure your vocal always sits on top of the mix nicely.

When you mix, you tend to gravitate to one main EQ and compressor for the bulk of your work. I know I do. If that’s the case, then why go through all the trouble of navigating for and inserting the same plugins on each track? Setting them up as your default EQ and compressor in Pro Tools can speed things up and get you mixing faster.

Looking to make the jump from headphones to real deal studio monitors? You really can’t go wrong with the affordable Rokit series from KRK Systems. These guys make speakers for the pros and there’s a reason. Flat, accurate, and reliable sound in your studio.

Speakers Are All They Do

What I love about KRK is that building studio monitors (and more recently, headphones) is all they do. They do one thing and do it well. Today I review their super accessible Rokit 5 RPG2 model. This 5 inch speaker is a perfect studio monitor for the typical home/project studio user and I give it a big thumbs up.

Mixing in isolation can lead to bad mixes. No one wants to hear it, but if you don’t compare your current mix to something that’s already mixed, mastered, and certifiably awesome then you have no idea if you’re really in the ballpark. Bringing in a reference track to your sessions in either mixing or mastering can give you instant perspective. With a few quick adjustments you can get your mix back on track to mixing success!

Recording drums well is hard. Recording drums well at a live performance is even harder. With more bleed, less separation, and usually less time to get the sound you want, sometimes your drum tracks don’t turn out quite the way you hoped. Using something like Trigger, a drum sample replacing plugin from Steven Slate’s company Slate Digital, can go a long way to getting the punchy and polished tracks you’re after.

Looking for a way to bring that human element to your tracks? I know how you feel. You record and edit and polish your tracks as best as you know how only to discover that there’s no “life” left in them. One of the fastest and easiest ways to fatten up and humanize your mix is by laying down some simple gang vocals.

What if I told you one of the best ways to make your electric guitars sound better is to use an acoustic guitar? Crazy, I know. But that’s exactly what I’ve been doing lately. Taking lack luster electric guitar parts and bringing in some acoustic guitar (same part) alongside it to enhance what is already there. Watch this and you’ll see what I mean…

Most virtual instruments and samplers in DAWs these days sound awesome, a little too awesome. Have you noticed that the strings and pads and pianos sound almost a little too good, a little too clean? One thing I tend to do when mixing with sampled or virtual tracks is to bring in a bit of distortion or lo-fi to them, just to grit them up a bit and make them not so squeaky clean.

Whether it’s some hand percussion or a killer bass line, loops are a great tool for any Pro Tools session. But how do you navigate all the loops on your hard drives and find the best ones for your songs? Pro Tools has a simple window called the Workspace Browser that can do all of this for you. Today’s video will show you how to locate, audition, time stretch, and import loops into your Pro Tools sessions fast.