Great Alex! This a tutorial that separates from all the others. Showing mistakes and how to solve them or prevent them. I love this. Keep on going with sharing your knowledge. Thanks!
Have to say as a starter producer, this is gold. I took so much new useful tips from it. Thanks for the video! You've got yourself a new subscriber :).
Just shows his knowledge and understanding of the topic, combined with a lot of enthusiasm and sprinkled with his personal taste which creates a very authentic and understandable presentation of the points he raises. In short: I love it, but ofc its possible to disagree with it in parts or do it a bit different out of preference, but everything he mentions has its logical point it's up to you tho how much you integrate it into your music :) All other tutorials have me bored halfway through but this is clearky thought through very well everything from presentation etc he clearly knows what he is doing. I dont wanna sound like an asscrawler but its actually that impressive to me how well structured his online presence is
When you were talking about how every time a big artist makes a new lead they at most don't make a brand new lead from scratch but rather use a preset to later tweak and make it sound a little different really helped, I always wondered if to be "good" you can and will make new leads every track you make. This point and other points you make are so helpful man! Thank you!
glad to hear that it is helpful! Unfortunately, there is a lot of miss-information out there and producers try to portrait themselves great than they are. I've been in the studio with a lot of them and also received a lot of sessions for mixing and all of them had a shit ton of presets. It's more about what you do with them instead of if you make them.
Or you could sidechain the reverb to the lead. It sounds really nice especially when you have some empty places in your melody, the reverb come in and fills it up.
absolutely! The ott after the reverb is kind of the lazy way to do it, since it's pushing everything away and once you got some space it's pulling the reverb and delay up. Like I said in the video...there are sooo many ways to do it and each one of them has a purpose. It really depends a lot on the material you're working with.
out the gate. you listed. KEY. its so vital. it comes automatic once you gain experience by learning, some of the best harder tracks have like two layers when the kick comes in, the preset settings in all u-ha synths have the turn off effects globally as you browse. so usefull. post synth effects are a better option, synth has a reverb and you add saturation or distortion or more commonly is OTT, it processes the reverb, so -6db verb becomes 0db verb with a looong tail etc. as you said. creatively its ok from time to time, i dont normally agree with some producers POV but you covered all i struggle to explain to people. good job man
thanks! glad you like it! There are some advantages in sound to put the reverb before the heavy processing. Not always a good idea, but sometimes you get a character that you wouldn't get otherwise.
There is always exception to the rule. There are some lovely tracks with stereo/positioning effects or phase turning on bass lines, that is absolutely awesome, but one shall not abuse it. There must be proper purpose to that. Creators make awesome effects. Last time I heard hight pitched tone creeping in, and then bass stops, leaving you with just the tone, implying ear ringing hear loss very faithfully. Darn good. Or in german music, out of nowhere, short stereo effect of shooting gun, barely noticeable, implying war. Or this turning bas, miandering from humming tail of the kick to hard beat on the kick. Magic can be done, just don't do it "because".
I just picked up producing, trying to get the hang of it and watching a ton of tutorials right now. I try everything i see, try to understand what it means but also letting go of some of the stuff before it gets overwhelming. I know i will pick it up at a later point anyway (when i need it probably). Your videos are amazing, i love watching them and it really motivates me to keep going and put time into this. Aside from this, its absolute fun to try all the things in Ableton, i'm loving it! Thanks for all your videos, keep up the good work!
Great tips mate, love your cut through the bullshit style! Thanks for sharing, it’s not always easy to find good clips with people who actually know what they are talking about
Thanks for the tutorial. I made the mistake of using each instrument individually and realised I had clashes with kick and lead (making hardcore music). There was reverb from the instruments causing a clash. Guilty of not focusing on 1 big lead and seeing it as smaller leads. It explains why I never got the right sound for what I needed. PS I like the honest no BS approach!
Thanks Guyble! I’m gonna try this approach and see how it goes. I definitely was making the mistake of not listening to the interaction of kick and lead in the low end
really good video and alot of tips taken on board, the main thing i have issues with is the layering and "treating them as a whole lead" ... some awesome advice in here mate thankyou! :D
Awesome Alex some good tips for helping me get my leads to sit right with my kicks. I'm probably guilty of having too much low end from using EQ out of context of the whole mix which is probably 90% of the issues I'm having so i'll be changing that approach. I feel I've always had a good choice of sound selection as never felt the need to add stereo enhancers to anything only using mid/side EQ to control things. Thanks man keep up the great work
thanks man! I don't have any Masterclasses. Unfortunately, most people are interested in Masterclasses by successful artists and not necessary by people who actually know something, but don't play the big stages.
I’m so grateful that you made a video on this! For a while, I’ve been trying to figure out in why my leads were sounding crappy. This video definitely gives a better insight on how to mix leads. Btw, one thing you didn’t mention on the video was sending your (reverb, delay etc) FX plugins through a return track (which is what I use in Ableton). What’s your opinion and experience with that compared to laying down the FX on the lead track itself? Just wondering.....
In the past years I kind of stopped using Send/Return Tracks. Computers are powerful enough and I like to have full control over the FX as well as being able to bounce out stems. Also it has a certain sound when you put an ott or saturator on the mixed signal after the reverb. In ableton you can still very easily make parallel racks and treat it as a Send/Return Track on the bus.
Average producer here, was not sure if this was mentioned in the video (sleepy). What about polarization? Is it wise to use completely different presets when layering to avoid same waveforms to stack eachothers? Anyone knows?This video helped me a lot! Good phase and clear speech.
well as already said in the video: it doesn't make sense to use similar sounding layers. No matter what you'll always have to deal with phase issues if you combine multiple sounds in the same frequency range. Just use your ears and do what sounds good ;)
im working in mixcraft but i wan a better daw for making hardstryle .. also doing hiphop but hardstyle is more fun .. any tips for mastering im woriking with loops taht i build from ,, and what ratio on the compressor on the master bus?
Excellent and very welcome these kind of tutorials. Have you ever thought about coaching or give some (maybe paid) feedback on tracks made by your followers too? Mfg von die Niederlände
@@generalguyble thanks for reply and interesting. I don't have Zoom or a webcam but if necessary that can be arranged.. Coaching by mail is for me also an option.. I noticed your livestream but you told us the change is almost 0,00009% you have time for new tracks after the 3rd livestream.. How can i find some info about coaching.. do you provide these info on your weppage?
Do you use different effect chains for the break and the drop? E.g. low freqs + transients will make a hugh difference in the break, while they don't in the drop.
usually I automate a low cut in the drop. Having some low end on the breakdown is pretty good...on the drop however many times it's masked by the kick and makes the mix somewhat muddy
What about some leads in mono? Promo does that in his tutorial. Or does that make the kick muddy because there is less space for the mono channel? And what about doubling some synth and pan them completly to the L and R?
There is nothing wrong with using a Mono Layer. Usually, it's not necessary, if you stay away from Stereo Enhancers. As I said in the Video, you got to listen to what you have. If you feel you're missing mono, you should absolutely add it. Just don't add it if you really don't need it. About panning the same synth Left and Right. It depends a lot on what type of synth you have. For instance if you use a mono synth with OSC Retrigger on there is no point doing this, since it's the exact same sound and doubling it and panning will just make it louder. Most of the times you won't gain anything by doing it with modern synths. However if you're using a real analog monophonic synth, it would make sense to record it twice and pan them left and right, since the individual takes will sound differently from each other.
You say dont use stereo enhancer, but is it fine to make leads/chords wider by using the stereo/mono button in the mixer track from the digital workstation (so from for example FL itself)? I thought leads/chords should be kind of more stereowide
Like I said in the video...with modern synth plugins it's perfectly possible to get wide and big leads without additional use of stereo enhancers. In my experience it always works better to start with the right source instead of artificially enhance it.
@@generalguyble Thanks for your reaction man :). Yes I understand, but I was doubting if you regard the stereo/mono separator of the DAW as stereo enhancer or not? Like normally I try to record my leads in another file due to CPU, and then in my ''main mix'', when the leads are recorded and processed, I give them more stereo, to fit in with claps, kicks, snares, drumrolls etc.
Creating leads: Beginners: Nice, lets use this plugin, and this one, this one, lets add 20 toplayers and widen the f*ck out of it with Fruity Stereo Enhancer Intermediates: nah, 3 toplayers will be enough. Want to add compression, but dunno how.. Experts: I only use a EQ and compression.
Notes from video: DO NOT make kicks or leads fat, thus sounding light on the speakers, also your track will definetaly sound like a low bpm techno track. We want and need those kicks and leads to be flat strong, hard dance music all the way.
Great Alex! This a tutorial that separates from all the others. Showing mistakes and how to solve them or prevent them. I love this. Keep on going with sharing your knowledge. Thanks!
thank you!!!
I agree, there is a lot of learning of this video
true words
Have to say as a starter producer, this is gold. I took so much new useful tips from it. Thanks for the video! You've got yourself a new subscriber :).
thanks
I love how worked up you get
serious topic bro 😅
Just shows his knowledge and understanding of the topic, combined with a lot of enthusiasm and sprinkled with his personal taste which creates a very authentic and understandable presentation of the points he raises. In short: I love it, but ofc its possible to disagree with it in parts or do it a bit different out of preference, but everything he mentions has its logical point it's up to you tho how much you integrate it into your music :) All other tutorials have me bored halfway through but this is clearky thought through very well everything from presentation etc he clearly knows what he is doing. I dont wanna sound like an asscrawler but its actually that impressive to me how well structured his online presence is
When you were talking about how every time a big artist makes a new lead they at most don't make a brand new lead from scratch but rather use a preset to later tweak and make it sound a little different really helped, I always wondered if to be "good" you can and will make new leads every track you make. This point and other points you make are so helpful man! Thank you!
glad to hear that it is helpful! Unfortunately, there is a lot of miss-information out there and producers try to portrait themselves great than they are. I've been in the studio with a lot of them and also received a lot of sessions for mixing and all of them had a shit ton of presets. It's more about what you do with them instead of if you make them.
Or you could sidechain the reverb to the lead. It sounds really nice especially when you have some empty places in your melody, the reverb come in and fills it up.
absolutely! The ott after the reverb is kind of the lazy way to do it, since it's pushing everything away and once you got some space it's pulling the reverb and delay up. Like I said in the video...there are sooo many ways to do it and each one of them has a purpose. It really depends a lot on the material you're working with.
Took me half a year to get my leads sound okey. Its definetely hard work but trust me its worth it
out the gate. you listed. KEY. its so vital. it comes automatic once you gain experience by learning, some of the best harder tracks have like two layers when the kick comes in, the preset settings in all u-ha synths have the turn off effects globally as you browse. so usefull. post synth effects are a better option, synth has a reverb and you add saturation or distortion or more commonly is OTT, it processes the reverb, so -6db verb becomes 0db verb with a looong tail etc. as you said. creatively its ok from time to time, i dont normally agree with some producers POV but you covered all i struggle to explain to people. good job man
thanks! glad you like it! There are some advantages in sound to put the reverb before the heavy processing. Not always a good idea, but sometimes you get a character that you wouldn't get otherwise.
also when layering it helps alot to turn you master channel on mono so you can better hear changes of your sounds
2:00 that is why I use for the most part 3 layers.
one for main, one for high notes and one for harmony
Dude this "new format" of video is pure quality.
Well explained from start to finish
wp
thanks :)
I'm trying to keep it up!
@@generalguyble You're on the right track. You're getting better on the videos.
Miss the live sessions working on tracks tho.
@@generalguyble If you are trying to keep it up use Viagra. That is the best VST plugin for your messed up plugin.
There is always exception to the rule. There are some lovely tracks with stereo/positioning effects or phase turning on bass lines, that is absolutely awesome, but one shall not abuse it. There must be proper purpose to that. Creators make awesome effects. Last time I heard hight pitched tone creeping in, and then bass stops, leaving you with just the tone, implying ear ringing hear loss very faithfully. Darn good. Or in german music, out of nowhere, short stereo effect of shooting gun, barely noticeable, implying war. Or this turning bas, miandering from humming tail of the kick to hard beat on the kick. Magic can be done, just don't do it "because".
I just picked up producing, trying to get the hang of it and watching a ton of tutorials right now. I try everything i see, try to understand what it means but also letting go of some of the stuff before it gets overwhelming. I know i will pick it up at a later point anyway (when i need it probably). Your videos are amazing, i love watching them and it really motivates me to keep going and put time into this. Aside from this, its absolute fun to try all the things in Ableton, i'm loving it! Thanks for all your videos, keep up the good work!
thanks man! Have much fun learning to produce!
Great tips mate, love your cut through the bullshit style! Thanks for sharing, it’s not always easy to find good clips with people who actually know what they are talking about
Mal wieder voll auf den Punkt gebracht! Danke Alex! 😘
danke dir :)
Thanks for the tutorial. I made the mistake of using each instrument individually and realised I had clashes with kick and lead (making hardcore music). There was reverb from the instruments causing a clash. Guilty of not focusing on 1 big lead and seeing it as smaller leads. It explains why I never got the right sound for what I needed.
PS I like the honest no BS approach!
Thanks Andrew! I'm happy to know that this video was helpful!
Thanks Guyble! I’m gonna try this approach and see how it goes. I definitely was making the mistake of not listening to the interaction of kick and lead in the low end
good luck 😊✌️
Nice tutorial, I definitely have made all of these mistakes haha
Thanks for this awesome video!! Extremely informative, especially the hint with the layers :D
glad to hear that :)
really good video and alot of tips taken on board, the main thing i have issues with is the layering and "treating them as a whole lead" ... some awesome advice in here mate thankyou! :D
glad it's helpful!
Great video, straight to the point. Very good explanation! Thanks!
thanks!
Like all vids very good and 100% usefull. Thx General. U are really the help and teacher man like me need sometimes.
happy that it is useful for you :)
Awesome Alex some good tips for helping me get my leads to sit right with my kicks. I'm probably guilty of having too much low end from using EQ out of context of the whole mix which is probably 90% of the issues I'm having so i'll be changing that approach. I feel I've always had a good choice of sound selection as never felt the need to add stereo enhancers to anything only using mid/side EQ to control things. Thanks man keep up the great work
good to know, that this video might help you in the future!
This also applies to FL studio, and other Music making applications.
I love these videos. Perfect
thanks boss
King.
Legend! Thanks for awesome video! Do you have like any masterclass? Really interested for that
thanks man! I don't have any Masterclasses. Unfortunately, most people are interested in Masterclasses by successful artists and not necessary by people who actually know something, but don't play the big stages.
Super helpful!
glad to hear that
I’m so grateful that you made a video on this! For a while, I’ve been trying to figure out in why my leads were sounding crappy. This video definitely gives a better insight on how to mix leads. Btw, one thing you didn’t mention on the video was sending your (reverb, delay etc) FX plugins through a return track (which is what I use in Ableton). What’s your opinion and experience with that compared to laying down the FX on the lead track itself? Just wondering.....
In the past years I kind of stopped using Send/Return Tracks. Computers are powerful enough and I like to have full control over the FX as well as being able to bounce out stems. Also it has a certain sound when you put an ott or saturator on the mixed signal after the reverb. In ableton you can still very easily make parallel racks and treat it as a Send/Return Track on the bus.
Average producer here, was not sure if this was mentioned in the video (sleepy). What about polarization? Is it wise to use completely different presets when layering to avoid same waveforms to stack eachothers? Anyone knows?This video helped me a lot! Good phase and clear speech.
well as already said in the video: it doesn't make sense to use similar sounding layers. No matter what you'll always have to deal with phase issues if you combine multiple sounds in the same frequency range. Just use your ears and do what sounds good ;)
Sehr nice zusammen gefasst, warum sehe ich das erst jetzt😅😂
Nice
can try a fab filter saturn with hiphop puncher preset in the main group!
don't know that preset, but if it works, there is no reason not to use it
Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Btw what's the name of track you played?
it's mentioned in the video ;)
Thank u ❤
thanks :)
❤️
Very useful video.
thank you
im working in mixcraft but i wan a better daw for making hardstryle .. also doing hiphop but hardstyle is more fun .. any tips for mastering im woriking with loops taht i build from ,, and what ratio on the compressor on the master bus?
Excellent and very welcome these kind of tutorials. Have you ever thought about coaching or give some (maybe paid) feedback on tracks made by your followers too? Mfg von die Niederlände
Thanks! Actually, I do private coachings via Zoom. Every once in a while I also do Live Streams where I give feedback to other producers.
@@generalguyble thanks for reply and interesting. I don't have Zoom or a webcam but if necessary that can be arranged.. Coaching by mail is for me also an option.. I noticed your livestream but you told us the change is almost 0,00009% you have time for new tracks after the 3rd livestream.. How can i find some info about coaching.. do you provide these info on your weppage?
Do you use different effect chains for the break and the drop? E.g. low freqs + transients will make a hugh difference in the break, while they don't in the drop.
usually I automate a low cut in the drop. Having some low end on the breakdown is pretty good...on the drop however many times it's masked by the kick and makes the mix somewhat muddy
What about some leads in mono?
Promo does that in his tutorial.
Or does that make the kick muddy because there is less space for the mono channel?
And what about doubling some synth and pan them completly to the L and R?
There is nothing wrong with using a Mono Layer. Usually, it's not necessary, if you stay away from Stereo Enhancers. As I said in the Video, you got to listen to what you have. If you feel you're missing mono, you should absolutely add it. Just don't add it if you really don't need it.
About panning the same synth Left and Right. It depends a lot on what type of synth you have. For instance if you use a mono synth with OSC Retrigger on there is no point doing this, since it's the exact same sound and doubling it and panning will just make it louder. Most of the times you won't gain anything by doing it with modern synths. However if you're using a real analog monophonic synth, it would make sense to record it twice and pan them left and right, since the individual takes will sound differently from each other.
@@generalguyble Thanks for the detailed answer :)
Do you think its a good idea to put saussageFattener into the lead?
I'm not too familiar with that Plugin, but I don't see why it shouldn't work. Just try it out ;)
What headphones are you using?
AKG K-812
@@generalguyble Didn’t see this before now, for some reason. Thanks!
I have literally a projekt going right now with big problems on the leads. You reading my mind ?
you got it...I'm reading your mind 🤣
@@generalguyble i told you, you are vanga
You say dont use stereo enhancer, but is it fine to make leads/chords wider by using the stereo/mono button in the mixer track from the digital workstation (so from for example FL itself)? I thought leads/chords should be kind of more stereowide
Like I said in the video...with modern synth plugins it's perfectly possible to get wide and big leads without additional use of stereo enhancers. In my experience it always works better to start with the right source instead of artificially enhance it.
@@generalguyble Thanks for your reaction man :). Yes I understand, but I was doubting if you regard the stereo/mono separator of the DAW as stereo enhancer or not? Like normally I try to record my leads in another file due to CPU, and then in my ''main mix'', when the leads are recorded and processed, I give them more stereo, to fit in with claps, kicks, snares, drumrolls etc.
😂😂 it doesnt sound at all these layers layering is only usefull with different notes synth style and frequencies layering in 3 d
Creating leads:
Beginners: Nice, lets use this plugin, and this one, this one, lets add 20 toplayers and widen the f*ck out of it with Fruity Stereo Enhancer
Intermediates: nah, 3 toplayers will be enough. Want to add compression, but dunno how..
Experts: I only use a EQ and compression.
Nah Imma stick to overdoing the sauce. Because that's how I wanna do it.
i honestly really fucking hate hardstyle but im desperate
Notes from video: DO NOT make kicks or leads fat, thus sounding light on the speakers, also your track will definetaly sound like a low bpm techno track. We want and need those kicks and leads to be flat strong, hard dance music all the way.