Thank you this is super helpful, I always naturally end up creating blended, soupy, wall of sound type mixes which sound good to me. Afterwards though I often then think it sounds 'wrong' or bad as it doesn't sound as clear and as seperate as other really clean modern mixes I listen to. I then try to create more clarity in the mix but it then loses it's appeal to me and the elements sound too disconnected and clean - so I totally get this paradox. I'd love to have total self confidence in myself but finding another proven artist / engineer who mixes with the same taste is key to realising there are many ways to skin the cat!
I can completely relate !! The compromise that worked for me is using a mid / side eq on the master buss , to separate for example guitars in the sides from the bass and drums in the center. You cut the bass on the sides and boost them on the mids ( if you need a boost) . It gives it that professional clarity and you don’t need to cut and over eq every instrument in your mix
Great. Another Y.T. mixing video calling us to think about the juxta positioning of melancholy and hope of youth. Alright Angst Lee...direct my attention to details! I would have maybe tried to bring the verse section a little closer to the intro; maybe not 'meeting in the middle', but a little more sparkle on the dirt place it goes to. But I don't know where that was going bc I don't know the song. It made me think of a Flaming Lips song. Every move you made was one that blended the sections better, to my ear. I like these kinds of exercises and framing this question as choosing the ratio of clarity/glue, instead of here's how to get glue, or clarity, is a useful consideration for me. Thanks!
Love it! Kind of a philosophy Friday on steroids! Keep it up and thank you so much for providing such intereresting vids that go to the heart of the mix instead of stopping at the technicality!
Thanks Dario! I'm going to try to incorporate a bit more of this video style onto the channel. Basically just depends how much longer videos hold people's attentions overall.
I feel like genre also really informs how to apply this mindset. I've been mixing high track count projects with real instruments recently and I think that really pushes me to fight for separation. However, I just opened some stems for an electronic pop project and suddenly realised that I can totally apply the glue techniques in this video to that!
Very, very interesting. I’m a glue-er and thanks for helping me realise that. I would do exactly what you did with the acoustic. I preferred the API or the Trident saturation - just a bit more flowing. Great work and not rambly at all!
Maybe an interesting way of thinking of the distinction between Glue and Separation is as two extreme ways of telling a story: one, like the type of orchestra arrangement mentioned, want's to lead the listener and point at the central protagonistic elements, kind of forcing u to acknowledged a single emotion is certain, which suggest some what more of a passivity on the listener part, while the other, like British folk-rock of the late 60's, would tell a story of multiple protagonists existing in parallel... So philosophically speaking, one might suggest to see those ways of telling a story not as dichotomies, but as a scale with two edges which one can choose his/hers own point of balance on the scale for how to tell an interesting and actively engaging story through music, no matter the genre. Makes one think of the some of the properties of "pop" music definition as not so enabling for a listener the effort on his-hers part in order to notice the multiplicity and complexity of the story via mixing framework/mind set that is maybe to some degree under evaluate the listeners ability at active listening to multi layered focal points in conversation with each other, and under evaluate the music itself as underlined by complexity. Thanks for the video on all it's layers. Sorry for Digging!
Don't apologize at all! I think you're 1000% spot on, glue and separation are the extremes and what we glue, what we separate, and to what degree is a big part of how we tell the story. I think what you wrote is extremely poignant and eloquently put!
Some great thoughts there. Love it. The only thing I take issue with here is I don't think it should be our personal "mix style" that should dictate where we sit on this gluey/clarity relationship. It should be the genre, vibe and artist vision that dictates this. The music. I don't think we should decide what mix engineer we want to be. The only mix engineer we should be should be the one that accurately presents the artist and producers vision for the track in the best possible way. Everything should be viewed through the lens of being aware of the various mix styles that are out there and competent to achieve them be it a gluey mix or a clean clear mix with great separation or any number of variations in between, so that when called upon (by the artist or producer) we can achieve it. But that's just my opinion. Each to their own I guess.
This was a fantastic lesson. I've always been a very separation based engineer. I love Serban's work and don't really care for Tom Elmhirst's work all that much, but I also have this sense that I've been undervaluing vibe and have been under-saturating, so I tried to force myself to entertain some of your viewpoints. Predictably, I felt polar opposite from you on about 80% of your immediate reactions, with my favorite settings on the saturator being your least favorite, BUT, I totally heard the connectedness you were talking about on that section handoff, and I know for a fact that that kind of cohesion you achieved is something that much of my work lacks, and when you finally dialed back the input gain on that Neve saturation on the piano, it had all of the separation I wanted with some vibe and cohesion that I never would have arrived at on my own. This is going to be a fun challenge to implement and I super appreciate you drawing our attention to it.
I think it's also important to play to your own aesthetics. Serban is able to make things still feel connected while achieving a lot of separation. But, personally, Elmhirst is much more my flavor. It's not so much about how we see things, but how well we achieve what we see.
This was an absolutely beautiful presentation and topic! I am all for exploring your sounding as an artist, producer and engineer and finding your unique sound. Similarly, I've been trying out the different saturations of my plugin alliance channelstrips and really enjoying what each of them bring to a mix. SSL J is my favorite because it adds such a beautiful extension to the bottom and top end that is to die for lol
I like the SSL J quite a bit as well. Actually, I really like their Focusrite saturation but I find the rest of the channel strip not as useful. SSL J and Amek are easily my preferences there.
Thank you so much for this video Sir, really helpful. Quick tip, I think you would really benefit from using visuals in your videos! Such as the photos (cutouts) of the mixing engineers youre speaking about, or if you mention a certain compressor, you could maybe should on the screen for a sec. It would make your videos stand out even more. Sorry if I said anything offensive and again great content!
Whenever I'm auditioning different distortions (especially with the slate stuff) I almost always land on neve type distortions. Sometimes I think I'm fooling myself with placebo (I'm as big a fan of Rupert Neve as the next engineer) but maybe there is just something comfortable and pleasing about that 73 preamp distortion. Either way, I try not to think about it too much and usually I just run with it!
Wow, this is one of the best mixing videos I've ever watched. You also made me thought that we can have both in a mix by choosing the right things to glue and the right things to separate. What do you think?
Everything you're afraid of doing - do on purpose. Try to make the absolute worst mix you can. Stash that to the side and then do a real mix of the record after.
I thought this was really interesting! I imagine you could also use this technique to get more separation and depth too. If you can glue relevant instrument groups together then you will have less total elements that need to be separated.
Hey, that is really creative thinking and I like it a lot! It's also a really practical way to look at some of the things Matt brought up in this video! I'll be having my own go at this mix and I'll definitely be thinking of some of these ideas as I do!
You dropped a major "aha!" moment with the masking comment! My mouth just fell open. A tricky equation reduced to pure simplicity by that realization. The technique of using EQ to marry tracks is genius, and I can't imagine why it wasn't obvious to me before? Great channel, Matthew! I always learn important stuff on here.
My style of mixing is more open ended (I try to do whats good for the song), but I would say I wasn't really all that crazy about Brit N, felt too "serious". I thought USA was better cuz it was lighter feeling, hopes and dreams aren''t heavy to me, theyre light, when they're heavy, they become fear based insecurities and desires to prove ourselves worthy. Thats how I see it though!!!!
Just found you. I like what you're saying and I like your interpretation of the music. But, your mic sounds distorted to me. Hard to listen to. I'll try some of your other videos. Might just be this one or it might be YT. I am listening in expensive headphones so probably more critical than others. IDK. Thanks for the content.
Awesome stuff.. I’ll say this, I didn’t like that sour note on the electric guitar at the very end of the intro but after the processing it felt more intentional. So I guess the glue worked! 😂. I’m assuming the vocals probably cover it up a bit too because I don’t recall noticing it yesterday.
It's kind of funny actually! I was going to take that guitar out but 2 things made me keep it in. 1 was a friend who said that the guitar part was their favourite part of the intro, especially the little run at the end. 2 was the slide that leads into the drum fill. It happened really organically and whenever I tried to recreate it, it just didn't feel as special so I just kept the original take. I agree it's a little wonky but the intro is supposed to sound like a bunch of drunk friends all singing together so "a little wonky" kind of works with the theme (that's how I justify it to myself anyway)
@@joshrichensproducer2201 no, your right! I went back and listened to it in context with the vocals and it does sound good. It just stuck out like a sore thumb in this situation. And the main thing is that it was a kon-shuss decision. (See what I did there?) 🤦🏻♂️. But yeah. It’s definitely cool with the sloppy good time vocals. It adds character.
@@WeissAdvice well, this video put it out of context for me. Without the vocals it definitely sticks out but like Josh said, it complements the sloshy drinking vibe that the vocals give the section. I don’t know if I would go as far as turning it up though. But I’m sure it sounds great.
man am I tweaking or was he tweaking the soft piano on mute instead of the bright piano he was listening to? 😂😂😂 13:30. happens to everyone . great sound nonetheless!
I recently added a gain plug in before a distortion and added +30db because for some reason I just couldn't hear the distortion. Once I did that and it still wasn't distorting I realised I probably overlooked a mute button. Boy was it wild when I unmuted it...
Some great thoughts there. Love it. The only thing I take issue with here is I don't think it should be our personal "mix style" that should dictate where we sit on this gluey/clarity relationship. It should be the genre, vibe and artist vision that dictates this. The music. I don't think we should decide what mix engineer we want to be. The only mix engineer we should be should be the one that accurately presents the artist and producers vision for the track in the best possible way. Everything should be viewed through the lens of being aware of the various mix styles that are out there and competent to achieve them be it a gluey mix or a clean clear mix with great separation or any number of variations in between, so that when called upon (by the artist or producer) we can achieve it. But that's just my opinion. Each to their own I guess.
'The Mixer's Paradox' soon to be a major motion picture.
It's just 7 hours of me turning a snare up and down 2db.
@@WeissAdvice 😂
Id go watch it ! 🎉🎉
I liked the "playfullness" of the Trident (?) first, but the glueing of the N when changing the part of the song also convinced me.
Great title, great video.
Thanks Joonatan!
Thank you this is super helpful, I always naturally end up creating blended, soupy, wall of sound type mixes which sound good to me. Afterwards though I often then think it sounds 'wrong' or bad as it doesn't sound as clear and as seperate as other really clean modern mixes I listen to. I then try to create more clarity in the mix but it then loses it's appeal to me and the elements sound too disconnected and clean - so I totally get this paradox. I'd love to have total self confidence in myself but finding another proven artist / engineer who mixes with the same taste is key to realising there are many ways to skin the cat!
I can completely relate !!
The compromise that worked for me is using a mid / side eq on the master buss , to separate for example guitars in the sides from the bass and drums in the center. You cut the bass on the sides and boost them on the mids ( if you need a boost) . It gives it that professional clarity and you don’t need to cut and over eq every instrument in your mix
Great. Another Y.T. mixing video calling us to think about the juxta positioning of melancholy and hope of youth. Alright Angst Lee...direct my attention to details!
I would have maybe tried to bring the verse section a little closer to the intro; maybe not 'meeting in the middle', but a little more sparkle on the dirt place it goes to. But I don't know where that was going bc I don't know the song. It made me think of a Flaming Lips song. Every move you made was one that blended the sections better, to my ear. I like these kinds of exercises and framing this question as choosing the ratio of clarity/glue, instead of here's how to get glue, or clarity, is a useful consideration for me. Thanks!
LOL - "Angst Lee"!
Thanks Run Da Jules!
Great video and well explained. Love the way you see things. Cleary a lot of experience coming through you. Thank you.
Thanks for this!
Maaaannnn this was a great video. Can’t believe this is free.
Just trying to stay a step above the rest :)
Not too much ramble - just a fascinating insight into process in real time. Lovely track too btw. Thank you.
I agree! I'm certainly fascinated but also admittedly biased!
Thanks Alpha!
Subtle but huge changes in sound. It's great hearing about the psychology of music, plays a big role. Thanks
I really appreciate your considered opinion and the way you are talking about your choices and reasons
Thanks Paul!
this is artistry in mixing, what a legend you are!!
He's one of the best to do it for sure!
Thank you so much Meti!
Love it! Kind of a philosophy Friday on steroids! Keep it up and thank you so much for providing such intereresting vids that go to the heart of the mix instead of stopping at the technicality!
Thanks Dario! I'm going to try to incorporate a bit more of this video style onto the channel. Basically just depends how much longer videos hold people's attentions overall.
Bru stacking a bright piano with a mute piano is a great idea that I had never thought about
Josh knows his stuff!
I feel like genre also really informs how to apply this mindset. I've been mixing high track count projects with real instruments recently and I think that really pushes me to fight for separation. However, I just opened some stems for an electronic pop project and suddenly realised that I can totally apply the glue techniques in this video to that!
ABSOLUTELY. Another great observation.
I really really needed guidance with this, ty.
Thanks for tuning in Angelo!
Very, very interesting. I’m a glue-er and thanks for helping me realise that.
I would do exactly what you did with the acoustic.
I preferred the API or the Trident saturation - just a bit more flowing. Great work and not rambly at all!
Thanks Jon!
Amazing Just love this transition glue it created through saturation. Very subtle but it feels glued . You taught me a whole new thing today.
Blown away by it too, respect
Glad you dig it Vilgax!
Maybe an interesting way of thinking of the distinction between Glue and Separation is as two extreme ways of telling a story: one, like the type of orchestra arrangement mentioned, want's to lead the listener and point at the central protagonistic elements, kind of forcing u to acknowledged a single emotion is certain, which suggest some what more of a passivity on the listener part, while the other, like British folk-rock of the late 60's, would tell a story of multiple protagonists existing in parallel... So philosophically speaking, one might suggest to see those ways of telling a story not as dichotomies, but as a scale with two edges which one can choose his/hers own point of balance on the scale for how to tell an interesting and actively engaging story through music, no matter the genre. Makes one think of the some of the properties of "pop" music definition as not so enabling for a listener the effort on his-hers part in order to notice the multiplicity and complexity of the story via mixing framework/mind set that is maybe to some degree under evaluate the listeners ability at active listening to multi layered focal points in conversation with each other, and under evaluate the music itself as underlined by complexity.
Thanks for the video on all it's layers.
Sorry for Digging!
Don't apologize at all! I think you're 1000% spot on, glue and separation are the extremes and what we glue, what we separate, and to what degree is a big part of how we tell the story. I think what you wrote is extremely poignant and eloquently put!
@@WeissAdvice 💚🙏
Some great thoughts there. Love it. The only thing I take issue with here is I don't think it should be our personal "mix style" that should dictate where we sit on this gluey/clarity relationship. It should be the genre, vibe and artist vision that dictates this. The music. I don't think we should decide what mix engineer we want to be. The only mix engineer we should be should be the one that accurately presents the artist and producers vision for the track in the best possible way. Everything should be viewed through the lens of being aware of the various mix styles that are out there and competent to achieve them be it a gluey mix or a clean clear mix with great separation or any number of variations in between, so that when called upon (by the artist or producer) we can achieve it. But that's just my opinion. Each to their own I guess.
Thank you legend your advice and tutorial is best.
Thanks Saeed!
This was a fantastic lesson. I've always been a very separation based engineer. I love Serban's work and don't really care for Tom Elmhirst's work all that much, but I also have this sense that I've been undervaluing vibe and have been under-saturating, so I tried to force myself to entertain some of your viewpoints. Predictably, I felt polar opposite from you on about 80% of your immediate reactions, with my favorite settings on the saturator being your least favorite, BUT, I totally heard the connectedness you were talking about on that section handoff, and I know for a fact that that kind of cohesion you achieved is something that much of my work lacks, and when you finally dialed back the input gain on that Neve saturation on the piano, it had all of the separation I wanted with some vibe and cohesion that I never would have arrived at on my own. This is going to be a fun challenge to implement and I super appreciate you drawing our attention to it.
I think it's also important to play to your own aesthetics. Serban is able to make things still feel connected while achieving a lot of separation. But, personally, Elmhirst is much more my flavor. It's not so much about how we see things, but how well we achieve what we see.
Great content Weiss, as always!
Thanks Emanuel!
great concepts and topic, thank you for all you do Matt
Thanks Jon!
This was an absolutely beautiful presentation and topic! I am all for exploring your sounding as an artist, producer and engineer and finding your unique sound. Similarly, I've been trying out the different saturations of my plugin alliance channelstrips and really enjoying what each of them bring to a mix. SSL J is my favorite because it adds such a beautiful extension to the bottom and top end that is to die for lol
I like the SSL J quite a bit as well. Actually, I really like their Focusrite saturation but I find the rest of the channel strip not as useful. SSL J and Amek are easily my preferences there.
Thank you so much for this video Sir, really helpful. Quick tip, I think you would really benefit from using visuals in your videos! Such as the photos (cutouts) of the mixing engineers youre speaking about, or if you mention a certain compressor, you could maybe should on the screen for a sec. It would make your videos stand out even more. Sorry if I said anything offensive and again great content!
If I can speed up my workflow to incorporate visuals like that I absolutely will.
Awesome Video ❤
p.s. notwithstanding what you said at the end I really liked the Brit-N you landed on too!
Whenever I'm auditioning different distortions (especially with the slate stuff) I almost always land on neve type distortions. Sometimes I think I'm fooling myself with placebo (I'm as big a fan of Rupert Neve as the next engineer) but maybe there is just something comfortable and pleasing about that 73 preamp distortion. Either way, I try not to think about it too much and usually I just run with it!
Maybe I landed on the Neve because you were landing on Neve-like. Hmmmm.....
Coming out of the verse, the B in the 2 part guitar melody ( F,E,D,B, D,C,A ) , i'd be inclined to raise that B to a C.
I love that dissonance. But that's why we have to stay true to our own aesthetics.
Wow, this is one of the best mixing videos I've ever watched. You also made me thought that we can have both in a mix by choosing the right things to glue and the right things to separate. What do you think?
Brother, I’m scared to start mixing my own rap vocals for my music. Would you be able to give me tips. Pleaseeeeee
Everything you're afraid of doing - do on purpose. Try to make the absolute worst mix you can. Stash that to the side and then do a real mix of the record after.
@@WeissAdvice awesome advise
I thought this was really interesting! I imagine you could also use this technique to get more separation and depth too. If you can glue relevant instrument groups together then you will have less total elements that need to be separated.
Hey, that is really creative thinking and I like it a lot! It's also a really practical way to look at some of the things Matt brought up in this video! I'll be having my own go at this mix and I'll definitely be thinking of some of these ideas as I do!
@@joshrichensproducer2201 Sounds good, I look forward to hearing it!
That's a VERY good point!
Nice.
Thank you!
You dropped a major "aha!" moment with the masking comment! My mouth just fell open. A tricky equation reduced to pure simplicity by that realization. The technique of using EQ to marry tracks is genius, and I can't imagine why it wasn't obvious to me before? Great channel, Matthew! I always learn important stuff on here.
Thank you so much Giselle!
My style of mixing is more open ended (I try to do whats good for the song), but I would say I wasn't really all that crazy about Brit N, felt too "serious". I thought USA was better cuz it was lighter feeling, hopes and dreams aren''t heavy to me, theyre light, when they're heavy, they become fear based insecurities and desires to prove ourselves worthy. Thats how I see it though!!!!
👌
Thank you SOS!
Just found you. I like what you're saying and I like your interpretation of the music. But, your mic sounds distorted to me. Hard to listen to. I'll try some of your other videos. Might just be this one or it might be YT. I am listening in expensive headphones so probably more critical than others. IDK. Thanks for the content.
Awesome stuff.. I’ll say this, I didn’t like that sour note on the electric guitar at the very end of the intro but after the processing it felt more intentional. So I guess the glue worked! 😂. I’m assuming the vocals probably cover it up a bit too because I don’t recall noticing it yesterday.
It's kind of funny actually! I was going to take that guitar out but 2 things made me keep it in. 1 was a friend who said that the guitar part was their favourite part of the intro, especially the little run at the end. 2 was the slide that leads into the drum fill. It happened really organically and whenever I tried to recreate it, it just didn't feel as special so I just kept the original take. I agree it's a little wonky but the intro is supposed to sound like a bunch of drunk friends all singing together so "a little wonky" kind of works with the theme (that's how I justify it to myself anyway)
@@joshrichensproducer2201 no, your right! I went back and listened to it in context with the vocals and it does sound good. It just stuck out like a sore thumb in this situation. And the main thing is that it was a kon-shuss decision. (See what I did there?) 🤦🏻♂️. But yeah. It’s definitely cool with the sloppy good time vocals. It adds character.
It's funny, I actually loved that note and I thiiiiiiink I automated it up LOL. I was like "ooo, spicy". This is why music is magic.
@@WeissAdvice well, this video put it out of context for me. Without the vocals it definitely sticks out but like Josh said, it complements the sloshy drinking vibe that the vocals give the section. I don’t know if I would go as far as turning it up though. But I’m sure it sounds great.
man am I tweaking or was he tweaking the soft piano on mute instead of the bright piano he was listening to? 😂😂😂 13:30. happens to everyone . great sound nonetheless!
Oh SHIT, I think I was LOLOLOLOLOL. Definitely not the first time I've done something like that.
@@WeissAdvice still sounds great tho 😤 love the tones 🙌🏽💪🏽
I recently added a gain plug in before a distortion and added +30db because for some reason I just couldn't hear the distortion. Once I did that and it still wasn't distorting I realised I probably overlooked a mute button. Boy was it wild when I unmuted it...
Some great thoughts there. Love it. The only thing I take issue with here is I don't think it should be our personal "mix style" that should dictate where we sit on this gluey/clarity relationship. It should be the genre, vibe and artist vision that dictates this. The music. I don't think we should decide what mix engineer we want to be. The only mix engineer we should be should be the one that accurately presents the artist and producers vision for the track in the best possible way. Everything should be viewed through the lens of being aware of the various mix styles that are out there and competent to achieve them be it a gluey mix or a clean clear mix with great separation or any number of variations in between, so that when called upon (by the artist or producer) we can achieve it. But that's just my opinion. Each to their own I guess.