Joey's Approach to Balancing
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- Опубліковано 11 чер 2024
- Joey shows you his streamlined technique when it comes to balance and a few tools you can try out for yourself. What's your approach to balancing? Let us know in the comments!
0:00 Introduction
0:22 Setup
1:17 Submixing
2:04 Drums
3:53 Guitars
4:51 Bass
6:19 Vocals
7:46 Thoughts
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Tags:home recording,audio production,mixing tutorials
#homerecording #audioproduction #mixingtutorials
I think I’m going to need to watch this one a few times. I felt like I was struggling to keep up!
me too
Joey knows what he is talking about but talks too fast and explains too much in such a short amount of time.
nothing wrong with having to watch something a couple of times to understand it :) its an everyday thing for me because I'm slow.
it's great that the information is accessible in the first place.
speed 0,75x
unusual but necessary
and I watched this at 2x speed lol..
One year ago I watched this video for the first time, I thought Joey has been over complexing things and handeling music like math. But now I realised this is the smartest and most efficient way. My mixes sound more balanced right from the start.
Man, DAWs and plug-ins have made mixing FAR more complicated than it was even 10 years ago.
It’s honestly hard to find a good video about balancing around here. I think this is very well done. I wish I would’ve found you a few years ago. We have very similar approaches to mixing. It all makes perfect sense to me. Took me a year of trial and error to figure out this was a way that worked out well for me. I can at least now thank you for solidly affirming my personal philosophies. Thank you.
Such a density of information here. I really appreciate how cut and dry, how straight to the point you are. Makes the other mixing UA-camrs seem almost smarmy by comparison. The video editing is superb, too.
Thanks a lot for these videos; I can tell you're putting a lot of hard work into these, and I really do appreciate it. I'm saving this one and some others to a playlist, so you can bet I'll be adding some repeat views
THANK YOU!!! This just saved me hours on a current mix. Was going back and forth with this thing! You're great!
wow this is killer stuff. Never would have thought to combine send volume and limiters like that but it makes total sense. Awesome video!
This couldn't have been released at a better time. It's really helped me get over a hump where all my current mixes were starting to sound really one dimensional. It made me go back and think about the dynamics, especially where drums and bass are concerned.
I would watch this if it were four hours long.
I keep hitting pause and taking notes in my book.
Thank you as always for sharing, Joey!
honestly one of the best metal mixing tutorials on UA-cam. I have always struggled with balancing a metal mix because there was too many elements. I *LOVE* the suggestion of having a submix for guitars which is "set and forget". It reduces the number of tweaks that I need to do across multiple guitar tracks (Rhythm GTR, Bass Distortion, Lead, Clean, Verb, FX). Once these are balanced it helps to simply adjust the guitar submix against the drums & bass sub mixes. You only really need to balance 3 different faders.
I also love how it makes automation of gnarly sections very very easy !!!
I’m going to have to watch this a few times. Balancing is one of the things that I’ve always struggled with
Haven't found anyone giving advice on levels this specific, this is great 👍
So far this is the best advice what i've learned about balancing the mix, thanks Joey!
Thanks Joey! Great video as always!
Great video! I love how information packed it was, nothing was dragging or unnecessary. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Is there any way we could get a more in depth look at how you set up your routing for something like this? I really like this concept.
Subscribe, because we'll cover this in the future!
@@joeymusic thank you guys! Really need a step by step on how to set up the channels and mix and be ready to start!
We need a full Creative Live style class on this!
@@joeymusic how can you have 0 db on the track and -18 on the master?? That's impossibile 😲
@@tbnbfm8089 thru the sends..
this was good dude. subscribing. i do a lot of this already but got a few upgrades from you. and i bought the bass plugin, looking forward to trying that out.thanks
I agree I will need to watch this a few times too.
The way Joey uses limiting/clipping is so fascinating to me, as I always thought that limiting is saved for the mastering stage. I guess it does depend on genre, but I could see how limiting really works in this genre specifically! Thanks!
THank you! This is GOLD pure GOLD! GJ
ABSOLUTE gold info!
I use a similar approach to build a solid foundation across all genres. Great job!!!
Way cool Joey. Your video sounds great!
I took many notes from this because I'm mixing my band's new music but I wasn't quite happy with my mix, but we couldn't afford a professional mix. My mix wasn't horrible, but sometimes the instruments would be fighting over each other. This solves exactly what I was looking to solve. Thanks a lot, Joey!! You're the greatest!!
Wow, amazing workflow!
Great idea using the sends for gain staging! I would love to see a video setting that up initially.
I love this video because he makes it look so goddamn easy.
This has been unequivocally the most useful video I have seen for mixing. It has helped managing volume creep and reduced confusion and ear fatigue as I work. I can actually enjoy automation now without the constant anxiety of misjudging the moves! ❤
Bring your faders back to zero if you want the basic balance back after automating. Solves my biggest workflow confusion
This was great!! Gain staging is important!!
I'm going to try this approach 100% on my next mix to see how I like it. It's so similar to the workflow I already do, but there were some things Joey did that had me go, "Huh. That could be useful."
Jersif these videos are amazing thank k you
a template would be awesome Joey! thanks for this video
Best tip yet!
Thank you 🙏
Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it
Awesome 🔥🔥🔥
Great video. Curious as to your approach to panning as you do your initial track balance.
Hello, JST! Great work with these videos! They have been a great help for a noob, like me! One question: Do you have any video/class with all these steps explained, one by one, in more detail? Thanks!
Check out my Studio Pass with CreativeLive
very good
Great vid. Wish you would have covered the levels of tracks going into your busses with this workflow, but oh well
It's interesting how many mix engineers/producers have such opposite approaches. The late great Ed Cherney said on Pensado's Place that "when someone sends me a mix and they have put limiters on individual tracks I know I'm dealing with an amateur." Obviously Joey is a master producer in his own right. It goes to show that there are NO rules and you gotta keep an open mind about technique and approaches. Great video, Joey.
Ah, definitely. What that guy said is super close-minded thinking!
A key for maximum loudness and punch is limiting/clipping every bus. EDM producers do it all the time! (look up "dissecting skrillex ableton project"). You can also look up the clip-to-zero strategy which uses the same approach. And of course like Joey said, this is very dependent of what you are mixing. You wouldn't do this to softer more dynamic genres. This is literally for songs that end up looking like brickwall waveforms lol (loud genres)
@@AHmusic good post. Thanks I'll check that out.
Some genres need density and lot of dynamic control. Nothing wrong with achieving this with limiters on channels or busses. Maybe he got over limited squashed tracks. That's different
Yeah, well, if there's one thing engineers/producers like to do it's throw around the word "amateur."
Definitely, I've seen Bruce Swedien saying he didn't compress anything at all, and others say you should compress everything. That's the good thing of music production there are no standard rules you can do whatever the f you want
I keep my faders close to zero, too. I gain-stage with a channel strip plugin instead. This is a pretty solid workflow, overall!
Same :)
how do you gain stage with the channel strip? Do you make your tweaks and then set the output level of the channel strip to the desired level even after compression compensation? very interested in this thought process
I typically just slap the tracks in and adjust the clip gain/trim on a track by track basis. As long as it's decently consistent and gives me headroom- I can work fine at nearly any level. I dig the idea of using limiting and clipping as apart of the gain-staging process though- allowing you to balance out the perceived volume of individual elements before they get processed later on during the mixing process!
Doing this is also so beneficial when doing an entire record with multiple songs in a session.
For some reason that I still don't understand, just gain staging this way make my songs much pleasing to listen to. I must confess I am watching the video for a couple of hours now so I don't miss any tips. Amazing! Quick question tho: my guitar bus meter never reaches 0dB and it's already loud af. Not sure what you did there :(
I like to treat the gain stage as a “pre mix stage” All faders at unity and just adjust gain like you would faders in a mix.
To add to this, he uses a trim plugin/tool or a limiter to adjust the levels of the mix.
He doesn’t mess with the faders unless it has to do with adjusting the levels to the group/bus mix right?
@@martinezdecap whatever tool you can adjust gain with… whether it’s a simple gain plug in, amp sim, midi drum, etc. Just set all faders at unity gain 0.0dB then dial in your gain of each instrument how you would want the final mix to sound in the end.
This is very interesting. Profound seeing what works best for people. This looks a lot like stem-mastering on a mixing level.
This route relies a lot on those limiters to establish the group relationships. I can see how it makes for loud mixes but also cause distortion. This wouldn't be very different however from using an 1176 on a 7-5, Attack-Release combo on submixes. But something like Pro L will have a very speedy release and that brings up a LOT of detail & distortion. I'm sure you're taming that to taste. Overall very interesting approach that seems to be prioritizing & normalizing the parameters of level, loudness & bounce down flexibility.
I think for this approach you need to be comfortable with having a hard ceiling on your sub groups and low input level from the clips on some tracks in this balancing approach. But every method has its components to rub against. Thanks for giving a look into what seems to be a unique approach (and a potentially speedy approach as well).
Yes exactly!!!
what about the efx? do you return them to your bus, or do you make an separate bus for effects?
I set everything at around -18 to -12 dbfs and just tweak it depending on the instrument. Sometimes drums will be louder sometimes instruments or vocals will be. Idk if that makes sense but it works for me. I guess plugins are meant to be used around -15 dbfs which is equal to 0 vu.
these tutorials on youtube they always saying not direct to the point so im still always confused 😭but for now this is the most understandable video ive ever found so far about leveling/balancing volume.. but i have more question still not answered about balancing mix.. sorry for my grammar
Crazy watchin Joey use Reaper!!
This is wild
if only i knew how to use the sends in reaper, than i could get past step one
Hi jst crew !! I m a jst VIP member . Where could I learn more about it???
Thanks a lot 😎
I am missing the reason why he would add trim plugins as sends? He didn't really explain how that would work
How does it work with Logic Pro? I don't understand the submixing part: I have my kick, snare, tombs... that go to a drum bus, then this drum bus goes to a music bus (that includes all music except vocals) then this music bus goes to the master bus. I don´t understand how this approach works with it I mean, if I send directly the kick to the master, how can I go through the drum and music buses if it goes directly to master. Also, if I am using the sends approach, do I have to deactivate the output field of the track itself right? Thanks!
I may be misunderstanding, but I personally hate having a limiter on while mixing as I'll be boosting stuff and not hearing what I expect to hear. You might boost an EQ and the signal will get pushed back, etc. When removing the limiter or fine tuning the mixbus processing I would also typically notice that my whole mix was based on a particular setting and the whole thing gets off-balanced when I make the slightest change
Depends on the music and mix style. This video was for dense metalcore mixes.
Is this reaper? I really dig the look
Would using nested tracks on Reaper as a bus rather than a send to a separate track have a similar effect?
yes. youd have to untick 'send to master' on the send screen if you want to have multiple master faders or if you want to send to the master at less than unity though
only issue with this is trying to do more than one master. If you wanted to do it "joey-style" you'd definitely wanna do everything with sends. If you're just doing one master, nesting is totally viable
Can someone please explain to me in a little bit more detail how he approaches his gain staging ? I think I understood how he routes everything but I can't reproduce it in reaper. Also his mixing window (especially the master fader) looks a lot different than mine.
Can somebody explain it again please ?
I’m struggling to understand myself. I’m not sure anyone here really gets it to be honest.
I think the basic idea though is set your tracks to -18 DBFS coming into plug-ins and maintain that unity gain through your entire signal chain. That makes a good gain structure.
What I would recommend instead of limiting at the top of channels is to use a gain plugin there to set incoming signal to -18 dbfs. Then make sure as your signal leaves your plug-ins. It’s still at -18 DFS. You can do those adjustments with linear gain plug-ins at the top and bottom of your FX chain. And of course, making sure that you try to keep unity gain through each plug-in as you should be doing anyways.
Then your faders are only used for relative balance of elements which are generally small moves.
When you send tracks to your sub mix, set your incoming level for the sub mix to -18 DFS with a trim plug-in just like you’re doing on your individual tracks. And then at the end of your FX chain on your sub mixes gain plug-in to verify that you’re hitting -18 DFS then use your sub faders for balancing each group of instruments.
And then guess what- on your master bus have a trim plug-in at the top of your FX chain setting your levels to -18 DFS and then maintain your unity gain of -18 through your FX chain on your master, and put another plug at the end of your chain. Check your levels.
So now you’ve maintained -18 DBFS gain structure through your entire bussing structure. You’re only using your volume faders for really relatively small adjustments of volume balance between individual tracks and sub mixes. Because your signal is starting at -18 and maintained throughout your master bus ends with -18 too. And you have the benefit of a consistent gain structure from mix to mix and you are in control so you won’t accidentally wreck your static mix or any balance you’ve carefully set.
What's that Reaper skin? It looks banger
I'm not a pro but I have found that the best way for me to do a balance mix is to do it in mono.
Good way to do it honestly.
I always thought it was 3db to double and half this? Is 6db specific to stereo because of left and right signals?
Nope it’s 6 dB
Hmmm trying to wrap my head around translating this workflow to Ableton and I'm struggling a bit.
- I have a bunch of tracks leveled out to about 0db individually (pre-fx)
- Then I'm grouping for submixing (essentially bussing them)
- The individual tracks at this point are leveled in relation to each other within each group
I get stuck a bit here... typically the groups at this point would route directly to the Master. Is the difference with the JST workflow that I would add an additional mastering bus for each variation of the master that I wanted to do, and send each group through at the desired gain level?
Hornet VU Meter MK 4. Check this out.
He mentioned something about taking his master chain and applying to all his different master faders in the “sub mixing” section. I’m not sure what he meant by that either, I use Ableton as well and as far as I know there is only one master fader.
Unless if he’s referring to each group as a ”master fader”
The gain stage goes Track Level (adjust clip gain to set static levels)>Group : Bus Level (Limiter) Output Lowered to -18 dbfs. Keep that Group/Bus fader at 0 and it will all hit the master fader at -18 dbfs. From there you can lower different tracks by -3 or -6 dB (like he demonstrated) and it would all hit the master by default. You can optionally decide to set up aux sends and send from the groups to the auxes instead or the master bus and they could behave like "master faders" by going to each group/bus and select for the output "sends only". Then the auxes would receive level and you can control those diff balances that way. Hope that makes sense.
@@CLdwyer Thanks for your explanation. I think I was overthinking it since the routing looks a bit different in Ableton.
@@thetylersherman No problem. Ableton is a different animal.
I recently came across this video and tried this technique. However, I'm finding that it's extremely quiet in my speakers and headphones. I've got the master bus around -15 to -18db but I've got to turn up my audio almost full blast to hear it at a reasonable volume. How can I solve this? Can I simply put another limiter on the master bus and increase the volume there (and take it off before mastering)?
You might try -18 dbfs RMS as your unity gain. That should keep peaks around -6 dbfs, and shouldn’t be too quiet. You would turn up your speaker or headphone amp to comfortable listening level.
Goat
what beautiful reaper theme. Someone know the name?
So how exactly would I use sends for gain staging? idk if it's because he's on reaper or maybe i'm just slow but wouldn't all the tracks go to the master anyways without the sends? I wanna try this but I just need a little more explaning on the routing of that
You can send all of your tracks to any track. All tracks are defaulted to a "parent send" which would be to folders or to the master. You can double click the routing and adjust the parent send level.
bus output > nothing. like say you're in pro tools and you have a drum master bus, put the output to nothing then do the send
Hey Joey, do you recommend joining the lead guitars and rhythm guitars together under one bus? If so, would you put a limited on that bus so whenever a lead guitar comes in, the rhythm guitar ducks down?
I haven't tried that but honestly thinking about I wouldn't think having leads and rythms would make much sense unless you have a bus for GUITARS and the leads in another sub bus together with the rythms in another so you could control them independently. Maybe experiment side chaining the rythms with the leads so they duck behind the leads and come up when leads are not playing
How did you make meter on master fader so big?
In Ableton, how would I go about creating a send track that will be used to send my track at -18db to the my master?
I assume I have my instrument track, send that into a new track with a gain plugin set to -18db, have that new track send into my master.
Please let me know if this is correct, I’d like to try when I get home from work
Group tracks/add Ableton limiter to each group and adjust the ceiling level accordingly
What is the benefit at leaving everything at unity gain 0 and adjusting levels with limiters? I’m assuming more control? I haven’t tried it, that’s why I’m asking.
@@martinezdecap yess, I beleive this will make the mastering cleaner.. like imagine kick and snare peaking at -6 and the rest of elements are around -10. somehow all the settings of the mastering are triggered by kick/snare leaving all the rest under the threshold. Personally I use glue compressor/eq on every group with slow attack and fast release.
low end group (kick and bass)
Drums group
Music Group
Vocals Group
FX Group
One question bro!! In the previous video called " quick guide to mastering " ,you left 3-6 dB of headroom and now you leave -18 dB on master bus . Is there something that i have misunderstood???
THANKS
It is explained in the video
Im slow and some things are hard for me to understand.
Would you put a limiter on each of your track or to your bus for consitent db?
Not every track, but you could for each main bus - just try not to shave off too many dB's!
What's the intro music?
another video that makes me feel like a noob 🙂
i just go by sound and try to spend as much time as i need to get things sounding balanced and go back and add automation where needed to provide consistent balance over the whole song.
Do you do any teaching,like courses?
there are Joey's courses on Creative Live, or sessions on Nail The Mix
Which Reaper skin is this? It looks so fantastic and the Commala I have starts to get boring
Smooth 6
@@joeymusic went through 100 pages of skins just to realize i should check the comments hahahahaha thanks JST! also why so much reaper content? have you switched?
Should I switch too? Would it make your mixes sound better?
wouldn't setting your busses up as folders and adjusting the folder faders accomplish the same thing? unless i'm missing something.
Yes
There are small differences in what can be accomplished by adjusting different faders and a few when it comes to automation, but I always work with folders either way.
@@KeepTheGates true. Probably it's his preference workflow since cubase is his main daw for a long time
I just use my ear and a reference track. Is that good or bad?
Not if it sounds good. There's no rules for what a good balance is and I'd definitely encourage someone to do their own thing over following any hard and fast rules as long as the result sounds cool and interesting
pros and cons imo. reference track only means youll get something closer to it, so if youre trying to emulate a style that works great. if you're trying to build your own style with consistency you would need a consistent track template and fader strategy like this otherwise you wont develop a signature sound as easily
I'm confused with the whole send balancing. I set up my tracks with an output to there respective busses. If I do it as a send it acts more as a parallel track. What am I doing wrong? Pro tools user if that helps.
Literally just ran across the same issue like 30 minutes ago trying out this technique in Pro Tools. Whether you're routing the tracks to the aux or the aux to the master, you have to choose the "no output" option on each track or group but still use the sends and route that track to the aux or master bus.
I think a better question would be, what do you gain (heh) by doing it that way as opposed to just putting a trim plugin at the top of every channel, or just clip gaining everything to -18db. And when you get an answer let me know because I see no conceivable benefit.
Oh also because he’s using post-fader sends to do trims’ job, there is still no way of adjusting the level going into the plugin chain which is like half the point of doing this.
Btw, gain matching isn’t balancing, has pretty much nothing to do with balancing, and on some mixes can be skipped completely.
Maybe I'm not the target audience here as this is new territory for me but, I would love a bit more explanation on the 'setup':
- I understand the -18db on the master, gives you headroom, good stuff
- "A tiny movement of the mouse could change the volume volume 1db, but if the volume is at -24db on the fader, the same move could make a change of 3db or more" - I'm not sure if it's the way it's worded but I'm not understanding this concept
- "+6db will double the volume and -6db will half the volume" - why?
-move a fader to -30, then try to make a .5 db change with the mouse. You have to be a lot more careful.
-look up "db explanation" it's basically a logarithmic process
The 6db is just how the scale works in reaper
@@AdamShepard Ty!
@@KeepTheGates What? +6db means twice as loud, it doesn't have anything to do with reaper.
@@milosjanic1038 It kind of does because that's the DAW of subject.
what theme for reaper is this?
Theme is called "Smooth". There are several versions of it. :)
Was going to ask this same question!! Thanks
What skin is this you're using? It's just like standard Reaper 6 (which is great), but... more beautiful!
Smooth 6
@@joeymusic Thank you, I'll definitely look into it. Looks really nice!!
Won't having all those channels going well into the red make the tracks clip/distort?
It depends on your DAW. If there’s internal 32 bit floating point DSP, then no.
@@joeymusic Oki, I'll have to read up more on this. Thanks Joey.
I can see every GS user tears on those limiters 😂
“B-b-but it’s not natural…” - GS user, probably 🤣
What's that Multichannel Volume Trim plugin?
It's a JS plug included with Reaper.
@@buddydudeguy5859 Can't find it in my Reaper installation? (I know where and how to load JSFX, that's why I was asking.)
I go overheads, dick mic to bring up snare, room mic to fill in bottom, and then individuals close mics for anything that is lacking. That way I have the whole drum kit as a reference and a lot of times, don’t even need close mics
I can't find any resources on how to get reaper setup this way. I can't find how to get the overhead toolbar. Nor can I find how he is able to automate like that all I have is the ability to create 4 points on a time selection but this seems so much more free than what I've seen. Also I've never seen a fluid curve in an envelope like that. I have so many questions!!!
For writing automation use Shift + Click to drop point anywhere you like. And to get slopes hold Alt and you’ll be able to adjust the curve of the slope.
@@dantejayg85 nvm I got it to work. It’s on the points themselves I thought was the line between points. 🤘🏼🤘🏼
Dude what is your Reaper theme? I dig it!
Smooth 6
What reaper theme is that? it looks cool
Smooth 6
@@joeymusic Thank you very much.
What Reaper template is this? Thanks
Smooth 6
I have no idea what you're saying.
same here
What theme is he using on reaper?
Smooth 6
@@joeymusic thank you Maestro
What Reaper theme is this?
smooth with some modifications
I wish the clipper had a meter on it
-18db? ive been setting it at =6db on the master bus
I don't understand why you bother hitting -18 on the master buss, what headroom you want to achieve when you destroy every headroom you have on every individual channel by mixing using limiters as volume faders. Whatever works for you is fine, but I don't get it.
Personally, I like having my groups around 0db so i can be more precise but I don't bother how the faders look (I like it also as a view to know what I have as levels), I gain stage by using a linear plugin 1st in chain for volume and controlling how much I push the chain (reaEq for example). Something I also use 1st on my master buss, so even if it seems like peaking at 32bit floating point by lowering the level on the 1st plugin, I don't peak anymore and I don't oversaturate any other plugin next in line. If I need to push ,I just give more volume on that 1st plugin and I don't mess the rest of the mix
Yes, this is sensible and a lot like the gain structure approach I’ve developed
I don’t know if I can translate that to logic
Sure you can. Just use busses to group things. Don’t touch faders and gain the individual tracks with ”gain”-plugin
@@markoll1 thank you!
@@Tonyx444 OP Bus is the last path where the audio sums. Before that you can group individual tracks f.ex. in a "track stack". Press cmd+shift+d. If you are using Logic Pro X...
Can clippers be used instead of limiters?.
Yeah you could, definitely, Just remember: Clipper add distorsion and Limiters not so much (only if pushed really hard, as any volume relate plugin)
@@aklosabbaothofficial9611 I think its more of a digital thing using clippers as with the analog world seems to be less relied upon.
@@thegroove2000 Yeah! You're absolutely right.
@@aklosabbaothofficial9611 Thanks. Im a novice so still learning.
@@thegroove2000 ah! Btw I didn't explain fully, as you May already know, with clippers you can add more body to a track, where as the Limiter just raise the volume and both have a ceiling, I prefer the clipper myself, it adds extra character to the track (specially on heavy and dense genres as metal), but if the track sounds right, I ll toss it just a Limiter instead, as it don't need anything else.
What DAW is this? Somei¿one knows?
Reaper
It´s maybe necessary for some genres but with all this limiting your mix will sound flat. Sure, you can get very loud but without any dynamics it sounds stressing and boring compared to a more dynamic mix. Of course you can fake dynamics with compression, expanding and automation but it´s not the same feeling.
Yep this is for dense Metalcore mixes