Every Song On Earth Should Use This Vocal Mixing Trick
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- čas přidán 14. 10. 2023
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A before/after comparison would have been really cool
Agreed
Wanted to write the same. thx.
Literally at the 16 second mark is the before.
@@Hive5ive, I think you already know what everyone here is asking. If you can critically listen while hopping back and forth between precise timestamps, more power to you, but a simple A/B comparison at the end of the video would have made this great video even more helpful. Have a good day.
@@JoshuaTMagee The easiest thing to do is fire up your daw, implement the trick as he described, hear if it works, then come back here and thank the man for giving you literally pro level techniques for free. But sure, lets gather round and complain about an a/b comparison he didn't provide.
For those that don't own soothe but want to try out a free form of this (and simple), check out TDR Nova. You can sidechain with it, and use the dynamic eq bands to affect whichever areas you would like, with whichever q.
Very useful info to share for people learning to mix or producing their own Pop style tracks with loads of synths etc. Soothe is great but also so is Trackspacer for around £50. A thought I had which might be useful to share here: techniques like this are most relevant for 'modern Pop, EDM, Dance Pop' and genres that are super slick, sonically dense and full of layers of synths. BUT if you actually work on arrangements that minimise masking (the problem being solved by the technique in this vid), then side-chain EQ, dynamic EQ / multi-band compression etc don't really need to be used as much. The most experienced of the Pro mixers (and probably those close to dinosaur age) will always talk about the fact the mixing starts with the arrangement. Well-arranged tracks mix themselves - it's a principle that goes back to older times, but still holds true. Listen to the tone of the singer's voice and the other main focal points and choose other sounds (synths, guitars etc) the complement them and don't mask them. Also, if you leave space in your arrangement for the vocal to breath, the music is much easier to mix. But again, most modern Dance Pop isn't made like that - some is though. Just listen to Billie Eilish production. So clean!
i just cracked both lmao
When it comes to rap vocals it can be tricky at times
TRACKSPACER works with ANY genre (regardless of arrangement) because sound is sound and frequencies CLASH -- just the nature of the beast. It's an infinitely adjustable spectral effect that basically makes a traveling matte for AUDIO instead of images. I use it in every way imaginable, especially when setting up INTERACTIVE Sonic Hierarchies (i.e. Instruments BELOW Bass, Bass BELOW Drums, & Drums BELOW Vocals 😉). You can AUTOMATE it for more punch in the choruses & more impact in the Drops. I'm a film composer so I've used it seamlessly in jazz, Orchestral, Hybrid, Country & Electronic. I am not affiliated with the company @ all but absolutely swear by it. Of course Arrangement & Sound Design/Choice are CRUCIAL for Sonic Clarity & Emotional Impact, but TRACKSPACER is literally a Spectral Cheat Code for FAST & DECISIVE mixing. Definitely check it out -- it is completely UNDERRATED for it's Utility, Speed, & Flexibility 🔥😎👍🔥
@@shanonkiyoshi4784 Totally agree, good Sir.
@@shanonkiyoshi4784 amazing info, thank you! Do you happen to know if Logic’s new Mastering Assistant doubles on any Trackspacer abilities?
This is like the most important mixing tip ever. I feel like everyone should learn this right off the bat but almost no one does. Thanks for this.
Nah, this technique uses a 3rd party plugin and "yOu dOn'T nEeD tO bUy plUgInS. YoUr DaW dOeS eVeRyThInG." 😂
@@Skrenja laughed
@@Skrenja it just uses a 3rd part EQ, every DAW has an EQ that can sidechain like this no?
It's a huge trick I use, but I 100% think that if you're gonna be a mixing engineer, you should learn all of the basics first. If you just do this between every track, then things may fit, but it'll constantly be changing and lopsided in how, what, and when things fit where. Gotta get the mix going a good bit before using this to a great effect
@@user-io6iy6un7zthis trick is also reallr great when used on a reverb bus
Super good content man your videos are getting super pro as well....
Worth mentioning that if you use soothe 2 in 'mid side mode' instead of left/right for vocal carving, you could have your instruments 'wrap around the vocal' better. Just adjust the balance to be 20-30% side the rest mainly mid where your vocal sits 🧡🧡
This is amazing.....It does sound like the instruments are wrapped around! THANK YOU BOTH
Hey @tamashalo and @deceptionfighters , you guys use logic ? Or you guys used this trick in another daw?
@@souravsaikia2995 I use Cubase 12 but you can use it with any DAW
@@souravsaikia2995 FL Studio here 😎😎
Gotta try this haha
His editing to make the complex things seem so simple is underrated 🔥
truth
I’ve been mixing and producing for 15 years and this just blew my mind !
Thanks for this! It took me awhile but I figured out how to do this in Ableton:
Set up a Return Track, toggle the Post/Pre button to Pre
Turn down the Return track to -inf
Route your vocal track to the Return Track; all the way up to zero
Put Soothe2 on your Instrument Group
Sidechain it to the Return track, Post FX (this is in the Audio Effects bar at the bottom, not in the Plug-in window itself)
In the Plug-in view of Soothe2, turn on the Sidechain button
From there, you should be able to toggle the Delta button on and off to hear the vocals--this is easier to hear if you solo the Instrument group AND the Return track
nice find, thank you for sharing! Ableton gang 💪
Gangggggg
Easier way, duplicate vocal track and disable it, group instrument tracks and select side chain from the Soothe2 device at bottom - cheers!
Big thanks!
you literally just sidechain to soothe2, no return track or duplicate track nonsense necessary
havent seen your videos in a while and oh my god the production values and editing you've implemented are insane. the hard work is showing man! keep it up!
I would suggest turning the “quality” from 1x to 4x when doing this technique. I have noticed some artifacts in my instrumental channel while at 1x, but switching to 4x preserves my mix. Great video man! Keep it up!
nice, this is turning up oversampling? great point here
where can i do this? dAW or PLUGIN?
What do you mean by turning up the quality
@@nolanfontaine7973 In the plug-in there is a parameter called “quality”. It’s in the middle just to the left of the graphic eq
Super good tip. I just did this and it helped the reverb tails come through better. Thanks!
I use trackspacer. It's great. Send the vocal through a send to the backing music. Move the high and low pass towards the kids so you don't lose the sheen on top or the bottom, but carve out the kids you need for vocal clarity.
Please explain to a newbie what "kids" refers to here.
@@omnipop4936 haha I was asking myself the same.
I meant "mids" (damn auto correct)
@@michaelmennies1685😂😂😂kids
He's a MAP in disguise.
The mixing part of this is as excellent as always but the video production is also crazy good. The way you overlaid the frequency spectra was just so perfect! Sound effects, close-ups, zoom-ins,... awesome!!!
great eyes!
Same that stood out to me more than the effect like"how he did thatttt"
Seriously thank you so much for these guides, tremendously helpful and right to the point
I LOVE THAT YOU KEEP IT SHORT AND SIMPLE. IM TIRED OF CLICKING ON VIDEOS AND WAITING 10 MINUTES FOR SOMEONE TO EXPLAIN SIMPLE THINGS LIKE THIS!! THANK YOU
exactly
You have opened my mind to so much with your courses and training methods, thank you so much for the value you bring to the community. You are creating artists! It’s people like you that make the world a better place with better music. Nobody should have to struggle when it comes to learning music production. Thank you again!
this is the best use of Soothe 2 I've ever seen and I'm going to try this. Hats off to this man. I've rarely used Soothe 2 since I bought Pro Q 3.
:DDDD I am crying, what a great transition: "but if I were to do an AD...."
Love this trick, kinda forgot about it so thanks for the reminder! You are the most straightforward and informative mixing channel out there! 💕
Excellent explanation of one of my favourite techniques! More dynamic version of bus splitting and phase inversion of the copied vocal, or master bus compression/creating instrumental duck side-chained to vocal.
Love the way you slid that ad in there. Iconic.
Big Z you really are Great man! Thanks!
This is fire. It makes so much more sense to use soothe instead of a dynamic eq! Excellent tip!
Can't you just use side chain on another plugin?
I'm boutta bus 😫
NICE!! Thanks as always for the GREAT info!
Great lesson thanks!
Great tip!!! Works the same as trackspacer but with much more precision on the frequencies.
Thanks
You can do the exact same thing with "Trackspacer" just by adding a Sidechain Input from the Vocal to the Instrumental Group. No "Ghost Group" needed. But Soothe is such a crazy Plugin.
and trackspacer is way cheaper + actually goes on sale from time to time
I just use the stock sidechain plugin on Ableton, it's totally underrated for how good it is, especially if you layer it well ;)
How do you mean by this? Would the Soothe2 plugin go onto the VOX BUS and receive sidechain from INST BUS? Explain it out for me please
@@milo_maurer32 Curious as well
Soothe2 goes on the Instrumental bus and receive sidechain from the vox "ghost" bus thus carving out space for the vocal. The point of the ghost vocal bus as I understand it is that you'll want to include the full spectrum of the processed vocal in the sidechain signal for a more precise result. Great trick. @@milo_maurer32
really enjoying your mixing academy course!!!
literally the best technique!! Thanks
This is basically similar to what I do with TDR Nova. I send the vocal bus to unused channels in Reaper and use those as the sidechain reference in Nova. This will work with pretty much any dynamic EQ or multi-band compressor and it’s great for mixing to premade beats when you can’t adjust anything to carve out the space manually even if you wanted to. You only really need to do it on any frequencies that are actively obscuring the vocal too much and not every single space the vocal exists. I usually do somewhere in the mids and around 5khz since those are usually spots that clash with vocal clarity and depth.
I'm slowly figuring out how to do this in Reaper too. Do you recommend doing it on every project like BigZ said?
@@davelowry123 I usually find myself doing this on every project even if it’s just to kinda tuck the vocal into the instrumental a bit more. Not all projects will necessarily need it though. If you start to hear the vocal getting hard to hear or understand and raising the vocals makes it sound like the vocal is sitting on top rather than as a part of the whole piece, then you definitely want to use this. Otherwise use your discretion. Some genres or styles may naturally make room for a vocal pretty well in the instrumental mix and you may not need this.
Do you know how to sidechain it like he does here but in reaper ?@@tarastmichel
@@SAPhoenixat The main thing is Reaper works a little differently than other DAWs in that you don’t really have specific bus tracks or sends. What you’d want to do is group all your vocals in a folder track (which I like to think of as a bus) and send that track to the instrumental track or folder (depending on whether you have stems grouped in a folder or a pre-rendered track) on channels 3/4. This effectively makes a copy of the stereo vocal audio on channels 3 and 4 which are not used in a stereo mix and thus aren’t heard on the master track. Then you add your plugin to the instrumental track or folder and tell it to reference those channels (which may also show up as EXT, External, or Auxiliary in some plugins). This should work the same as what he does in the video but working around Reaper’s odd layout. There’s a ton of videos outlining how to side chain in reaper if you get stuck cause it’s not quite the same as a DAW where you have set busses and sends… instead your tracks become what you make them based on layout and usage.
Thanks I did exactly that and it works wonderfully @@tarastmichel
nice! I also like to use soothe to sidechain any reverb/delay i have on the vocal, really convenient way of carving out space for the vox especially in a wet mix.
Just insane ❤
As always, man
Awesome use of the plugin. Great idea. Love your stuff.
Your content is one of the best and precise. No long videos just to the point content that is easy to understand thanks for helping out the community ❤
Top notch content, as always. I always learn so much from you. Thanks Big Z! Much love from South Africa! 🎧
This has been one of the best and most useful things I've learned so far, and I thought it was such an important topic. I really appreciate you taking the effort to teach it for free. I'm truly a big fan now, thank you so much for your help, and I will definitely purchase your course. You're the man!! ❤👑🚀
thats pretty awesome!!
Hard ratios are key to making this work. In Rock music with heavy guitars, I tend to duck the high mids the most, but with a very high ratio so it pretty much dips -1.5dB with every part of the vocal rather than just the loudest parts. I like how you do this in Soothe quite hard then limit to 2-3dB reduction via the main knob. Same kinda effect but much more precise than dynamic EQ or multiband comp. I might have to get it!
Love this trick! Would you mind explaining the reason for creating a vocal bus with no output and why you wouldn’t just sidechain to the vocal track directly?
I was thinking the same thing too! But I came to the conclusion that this duplicate has all the regular processing without the effects (delay, reverb, ect), so it would be helpful in carving out the track only when actual words are spoken for intelligibility and then immediately going back to normal. If you side chained to the vocal bus directly, I feel like you would end up needlessly killing your instruments by messing up the EQ when the space isn't needed or adding a pulsing effect where this effect is being activated with the delay. That's the only answer that makes sense to me, but I do find it a bit weird that he doesn't directly explain why.
My guess is that creating the bus is more relevant when processing layered vocals, so he's just showing a 'best practice', even if a bus isn't required for a solo vocal.
He wanted to access the vocals after all the insert plugins are applied. In logic at least if you just use the track as the sidechain, it’s tapped before all the inserts.
can anyone explain how to do this in ableton, please?
@@jdrukmanThis is incorrect.
😲 wow!!! That's golden! Thanks ✨️
OH MY GOD, I really appreciate the way you teach ❤️
I like this approach. I'm more interested in using it strictly with instrumental music processing the guitars, bass, drums, or synths (etc.) in place of the vocals.
Could be a wash but experimentation will be done for sure.
Thanks for the tutorial fam.
You can go further by using mid side unlinking OR Stereo unlinking to focus the effect
What? How
@@Rocky2Up at the bottom right there is a left and right or mid side button and a link percentage you can turn down
@@happyshadoware u focusing your effects on mid processing I’m guessing
Awesome and simple. Much appreciated
wow ! this is pure magic, thxxxxx
This one is def a bit advanced but the result sounds amazing. I think I figured out how to do this a bit using Izotope plugins that let you unmask a track in the same manner. The plugin is chained throughout, so they can speak to each other in the same manner. Not familiar with the side chain process or what it does too well though, but I think I just gotta watch the video a few more times.
I do this with trackspacer for the same effect. Just really nice to have a tool in one's arsenal that can sidechain EQ duck one channel from another. Absolutely essential imo.
Btw you don't have to do the send bit in Ableton, if you're in that DAW, since you have an option of sending sidechains pre or post fx.
literally 😂
you don't need to do the send bit in Logic either idk why he did that lol
@@ScottThePisces he probably learned to do that in ProTools years ago and transitioned this "bad habit" to Logic? I guess?
I think he did it in this convoluted way because his vocal bus also contains backing vocals. He only wanted the lead vocals to be sent to Soothe's sidechain input, so he sent the lead vox to a separate channel first. You could have much simpler routing if the busses in your mixing template are set up differently.
true 100
Thats really cool next level stuff man. Thank you
Beautiful done
I use this technique with smart:comp's spectral ducking. It's an interesting idea to use Soothe instead, but since it's finding resonant frequencies rather than the straight frequency content of the sidechain, I'm not sure it's a better way. I will try the two side-by-side for myself. Always interesting to see a different take!
You've nailed my thoughts on this too. I went from using Soothe 2's sidechain to Smart:Comp's spectral ducking, because from my understanding Soothe is only sidechaining the resonant frequencies of the source. I could be wrong through, happy to hear other's findings!
Gotta try this out!
@@threeeyedtribe There's a new one that's just launched which I'm going to demo this evening: Techivation M-Compressor, which also does spectral sidechain ducking (and also upwards and downwards compression). Looks interesting on paper, so I hope it lives up to the blurb.
any luck? what are your thoughts?
i knew what this was going to be but actually that soothe Delta Vocoder sound is really sick i'm definitely going to try that as a vocal effect with different backing sounds LOL
i was gonna say lol i didn’t realize the delta would sound so cool i’ve never seen anyone use soothe like a voocoder but that’s def something i wanna try now 😅
Yeah, that was crazy
Amazing tutorial. So easy to understand. Thank you so much!
that is extremeeely cool and useful!!
Trackspacer.
Haha
I guess this method gives better results than trackspacer
@@djthope9710ofc. Because you can control the bandwidth and other parameters 🤓 🔥
@@djthope9710 why though?
@@robertsteinberger cause its cutting/filling precise frequencies instead of a band,
But I’d still stick with trackspacer, as it kinda literally feels like creating space and have some breathing room according to my need. And then fill it. (Resonances can however be controlled later by Soothe, creating a glued feeling)
until and unless there is a specific scenario where even minute differences matter(maybe bass or lower mids) then prolly I’ll use his method.
I've been doing this for years but this is the best explained video of it I've ever seen. I also use TrackSpacer for this instead of Soothe. Soothe only lowers resonant parts of the audio (as heard in your example) whereas TrackSpacer doesn't make that distinction. Any reason why you'd want only the resonant frequencies to duck?
Also, I'm always surprised as how hard I can push the trackspacer in this sidechain mode, if I mute the vocals the instrumental sound very wobbly and strange but with the vocals on it's perfectly natural :) One just needs to remember to disable this stuff when bouncing out instrumentals...
I’m also curious about this.
It's more precise this way, I normally use trackspacer too but you can't have it on too strongly or else it will just start to really do some wide EQ carving of your instrumental. With Soothe you can mess with the sharpness and selectivity knobs to really fine tune exactly how much it's cutting out. You can make it carve out the sharper resonances only, or if you turn both knobs lower you can have it do a wider carve like trackspacer would do. With soothe you can dial it as precise carving as you want before you start to hear artifacts which is nice. Every day I find more uses for that plugin. And it has oversampling which can help reduce aliasing distortion on the high end if you start to carve out a lot there.
Well actually soothe can do exactly what trackspacer does if you reduce the sharpness
Wow fire!!
Awesome advice!! 🔥
I like doing this with just vocals sc the chords and leads. Don’t want my bass getting any sidechain compression from the vocal.
Love your videos but not sure about this one especially with Rock or Pop. We should mix to make things sound like they belong together and not necessarily for separation. To me the before sounded more glued together. Sometimes dirty and clashing sounds better than separated. Love your content again and your course line was sleek as hell lol
Thanks for watching my vids man 👍🏼
I get ya. The modern desire to hear the vocals so far forward from the mix is a little irritating to me. I do like the vocals tucked in and enveloped by the track more than sitting right out on top. However, a lot of my clients want their vocals sooo far forward so that's what I give them.
@@BigZMusicThanks for the content and ideas 👍
@@elreyabeja4539 agreed, stands out like a sure thumb, but its hidden in the poor sound quality of what the majority people use to listen to music on like their cell phones and Amazon Alecia etc, even their flat screen huge tv. when was the last time you went to someones house and they played some music on a quality home system?? for me it was the 90s...
and these kind of techniques are needed on such tiny poor quality music systems (if you can even call them that)
DAMN. can't wait to try this.
ive been looking for this for ten years
Just like trackspacer lol
Just thought about that
Spectral sidechaining has become a LAW in music production, if you wanna go pro, you must master this!
Thnx for the content 🤓
Nope not all. Listen to rock music if you disagree.
@@Username_Invalid Any efficient technique can be used in every genre. Considering how busy rock or metal can be, i don't see any reason to reject an efficient solution to a problem that can so easily happen and save you some time. And it can be applied to other things than vocals.
@@tealeaf3210 It’s a great technique but definitely not a LAW.
Really amazing idea!
Awesome!
I'm curious about how this would be done in fl studio. Someone shine a light upon me please?
I believe that if you use Soothe for this, it would result in only the problematic resonant frequencies of the vocal being cut into the instrumental. Rather than the full vocal. Whereas something like trackspacer would make a space for the full vocal.
Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Maybe it was the goal to only cut the resonances?
Why would you want to "believe" anything when mixing?
what you said have sense unfortunely...
This is what I was thinking. I've tried this out in 2 projects myself this morning, and I am hearing 'improvements' in the overall sound of the vocals with the instrumental. It genuinely feels like it is tricking me into liking the result more.
But my brain is saying that I use this plugin to cut frequencies I don't want in something. Aren't I just highlighting the unpleasant vocal frequencies by making room for them on the instrument bus? It doesn't 'sound' like that's what it is doing, but how could it be doing anything else?
I'm gonna keep it one of the projects I visit often atm for the next couple days and then turn it off and see if I hear an 'improvement' again. Then I'll know my brain/ears are genuinely playing tricks or not as they so often do!
@@AckzellMusic it's in sidechain mode. It doesn't "care" about any of what you're talking about. It's simply ducking the frequencies it's receiving from the sidechain (vocal) out of the instrumental. Stop over thinking guys.
@@steppabanton9753 With plenty of experimentation done today myself I am agreeing with you that this is not something to worry about in the end. I already had other methods of doing something similar, so I wanted to be sure. I've settled on Soothe 2 for this as it really does seem to make the music 'wrap around' the vocals in a pleasant way!
I overthink everything, cheers for your input :)
Amazing Big Z
Trackspacer is a $60 plug-in that is specifically made to do this
Not that precise but basically yes
Yeah it’s not nearly as precise
@@BigZMusicgood for instruments not so much for vocals
One would argue that using a resonance suppressor (soothe) on all the instruments is too many notches.
It’s almost always on sale for $25-30.
If you ask me trackspacer is an better solution but both ways will work. For me personally trackspacer sounds better on such stuff.
Poormans neutron unmask
THAT was amazing!!!
Gonna try this, the man!
Thank you for the advice, Big Z. I didn't realize there was such a powerful plugin for mixing.
A small technical question: do you include your reverbs, delays, and other special effects in your instrumental bus before applying Dynamic EQ, or do you keep them outside of the processing?
I think it’s preference but a lot of pro mixers sidechain pre fx. So that reverbs and delays blend in and the vocal stands out.
How do you do this is FL Studio? I can't sidechain the plugin (soothe 2) to the vocals
any help would mean a lot, thanks!
Did you find out? I'm curious about this, would love to hear an answer!
@@Riv679 No, I didn't. I ran out of trail version before I could figure anything else lol
@@heleaven_music Ayyy, i see. Ty for answering though dude!
@@Riv679 no problem! please let me know if you figure it out, if possible.
@@heleaven_music Sure thing!
Nice ! thanks :) Very Useful
This is so sick bro! Amazing tips
why do you even create a send for the lead vocal at @1:29? Why not just add soothe2 onto your instrumental bus and sidechain it right to to the lead vocal audio channel "vox"?
Right, was wondering this too. Seems convoluted. But maybe I’m missing something?
@@Mopsie right? curious if you have a specific reason for this, or if its just how you have always done it @big z ?
More control...you can control how much volume you sent in and automate this if "needed" and you could make choices on which return tracks you'll include in the signal. For instance, you might not want a room, that you also use for the instruments to be included in the side chain.
That's so clever. How would you do this in FL Studio though?
Thanks enjoyed that great tip Big Z
Absolutely brilliant trick
Dude, you have to stop the upspeak. It's unbearable. DON'T trail your voice upward at the end of each sentence like you're asking a question. There are great videos on CZcams on how to stop upspeak. Your videos will be much better received and you'll sound like an adult versus a child's inflection asking for permission with your voice trailing upward like you're asking a question instead of confidently speaking a statement as all good speakers do. You can do it and you'll never go back once you realize this. Thanks for the good video.
@meungawa you should try therapy
that was so easy to follow and so concisely explained. thanks so much!
amazing!!! thank you for shared!!!
Great video as always! 🙏🏽
Great technique, explained well and executed concisely! :)
DUDE YOU ARE SO AWESOME THIS IS NEXT LEVEL - TRULY AMAZING DUDE!!
so awesome! thx for sharing
it sounds amazing
I NEVER would have thought to use sooth2 for this. I'm really impressed. Thank you
Nice just in time, exactly what I need tonight in mixing instrumental
Dope video!! Great song haha!
Quite a difference from start to finish. Well done😊
Thanks a lot for this tip!! I will implement it in my future tracks 🔥🔥
thank you so much!! this is so helpful and cool
This is amazing tip! Thank you.
oh man, your content is gold!!
Your content is amazing!
u nailed it well done
superb !
great technic !! awesome
great trick!