@@sixsense6161 good question I did for a while and as I get better at mixing I realize I need less and less maybe ill do an updated video on how I mix loud now
Here is my flow. Make multiple busses - drum buss, bass buss, sub buss, synth buss, foley fx buss, risers/downers buss. Soft clip each buss to get the most perceived sound from the buss without destroying the sound/timbre. Route each buss to a pre master buss, add saturation and again soft clip to catch any crazy peaks. Route the pre master to your master buss then process - I use 2 buss channel saturation > 2 buss compressor > soft clipper > ott > ozone 8 (eq > exciter > imager > mutlband compr > post eq > limiter to - 4dBs ceiling. Then to the Fab pro L2 with +4 gain. I control my LUFS by the input into ozone which is between -3dB and -4dB. I get crazy loud clean mixes.
This is super interesting. I've always wondered how Skrillex, knife party etc get that next level loudness and this seems to unravel some of that mystery. Muchos Gracias!
Cool video. Interesting he had Camel Phat on his master. This was an old trick back in the day when most software limiters weren't very transparent. Now obviously CamelPhat isn't known as a Limiter, but a multi-effect plug-in (mostly used for saturation, coloring, filtering, compression, etc.). But what people started noticing with it is it had an amazing built in limiter that was fairly transparent and sounded great. People would place it on buses and masters with everything turned off except the "master" section with the "mix" set to %100, and then dial in the volume. Mainly using it just keeps anything from going above "zero"... it gives it a hard-line ceiling that nothing will go over. This helps out the main Limiter (Ozone or Pro-L) a lot because they don't like a clipping signal entering them, so your guaranteed to have a proper but loud gain staged volume coming out of CamelPhat entering your main limiter so it doesn't have to work as hard..... I prob explain that horribly, lol. But I bet he's just using it to keep any wild peaks under control. Many people would drop it on the master this way when they first started out a project as well (like the only thing on the master to start, even if they weren't going to keep it there later) to keep anything from clipping go going above zero while working on a tune. There's actually an old video floating around of the DnB producer Audio (he's a straight Don in the Jungle\DnB game) doing just this exact thing in a tutorial track breakdown.
BigJerr Definitely. I love mixing into limiters, especially on drum channels. I think the key to the whole “loudness war fun” is pushing things in stages (as your video explains). Small amounts of compression and limiting in stages reduces the workload final limiter has to perform, thus allowing you to push it farther and it to react better. At least that’s what I’ve been noticing in my bedroom superstar studio late nights. And yeah, Ableton‘s limiter does suck. I was almost certain they would update that in version 10. It’s not completely useless, but on a master channel it sure as hell is. Lol
@@BigJerr Really misleading info! You preface the whole video by saying not to mix like this, but you are showing people how to do it anyways. Loudness war is not over if people want to mix to LUFS -3. Pulling air through my teeth watching first few mins... tragic
Hey man I want you to know how much I'm grateful for this video. You made an incredible job and it's very well explained. I feel like this is the last piece of puzzle I needed in order to take my music production skills to the next level. The result I got is just phenomenal. I've been producing for 13 years on and off. I thought my music was really good but now it sounds so freakin great and loud! It's day and night. Thank you so much for your work. My biggest dream so far is to make music with Sonny and I truly believe it will happen one day because I'm obsessed to succeed. I will remember you for sure.
This was super helpful. I've seen the Skrillex walkthrough from different producers but this was by far the best. Thanks bro for laying it all out and explaining the routing so clearly! Subscribed!
I've seen the thumbnail for this video popping up on my recommendations for a while. I'm glad that today I've finally watched it, cause this is a great breakdown!
Very cool Thanks for the teaching. It will teach me to make tracks even louder than I could -5.5-5.9 short and long -6.1 LUFS is my maximum I think this will give an even greater impetus
I produce metal and i often mix into a clipper (like standard clip/jst clip/inflator etc..) and then once the mix is fone i would crank up that clipper and add more saturation/limiter etc... i can never get the loudness of -3LUFS like they do in EDM. Appreciate the tutorial & flowchart breakdown this was like a PhD research 😂. I might try it in my next few songs. Sidechaining is also another great technique worth mentioning. That pumping effect i often hear with skrillex tracks for thay split second whrn nothing is playing during the attack of the kick or snare 🤘
BigJerr BigJerr thanks for asking! Personally In this case the bus processing. Im curious what you are listening for when deciding your limiting type and the other parameters like attacks and the channel link in the l2. Also I just started trying to use the mode with the headphone. (Think its audition) and im just not getting what I should be looking for in that. Anyway thats just so stuff in my head but any vid here I learn something i had no idea about so thats appreciate big time!
@@DJYukie all good questions! the EQ video will likely be first and ill touch those questions there - as for the limiter - go back and listen to what I said in the "things to watch out for when mixing loud" section at the end of the video - limiting will add a sorta "pressure" to you sounds/Buses - its one of those things your going to have to learn to both hear and feel and ultimately CONTROL !
As for Campel Phat - I believe it might have been used for the distortion effect at 1:55 (like automating the mix from 0% to 100%), not for the mastering/compression. What do you think?
Although this a neat video, Just remember guys making music is not a competition. expressing your vibe should be your goal,. if you need to raise some gain for well mixed and mastered track thats okay. -8 is way loud enough for final productions to work well in a mixing environment, Louder does not mean better.
couple of questions! 1. How much should I be limiting on each group? Do I set a certain ceiling as well? 2. What peak should the mix be hitting before I start this process and subsequently each stage after? 3. I've run into an issue where the limited sounds of the chain group feeding into the premaster make everything else that feeds into the premaster (drums/musical elements/fx etc.) dull. its as if the main drop sounds and sub are overshadowing everything else and fucking up the mix as a whole. how do i fix this?
What people are misunderstanding about Skrillex's loudness is that he was hitting a maximum of -3.6 Lufs in that particular point of the mastering chain, he had an instance of iZotope Ozone 5 after iZotope Insight, so his actual amount of LUFS may have been different.
Should you write the tune with this routing setup? Or drag the stems to a mastering template with this routing instead? Just unsure if mixing into limiters is the "correct" way to do thingd
yeah ill do that - but theres nothign wrong with mixing into limiters - many many many producers do it - its a skill that needs to be practiced lke anything else.
just cause something doesn't work for you instantly doesn't mean it doesn't work - for others or in general :) - I personally wont make a video on a process that was ultimately flawed.
Was just wondering because the routing seems to introduce some latency when using midi instruments/certain effects. So I'd like to drag everything into a new session with this routing, just worried the levels won't be as nice as if I was to simply mix into the limiters from the start
@@SnoMan1818 I was actually thinking about doing a live stream later using only stock Ableton plugs to show its more then possible to mix loud and not even have to use 3rd party plugs (obviously we wont get AS loud as with them but with we can get to -6/-7 easily) do you think thats something that you might be into ?
Oh man! I was searching around for how to use reference tracks, if you should try to get your mixes as loud as mastered reference, how loud your sub-frequency should be, the difference between Span and Metric A/B and then I stumble across your channel and this video and wondering what the hell I got myself into. Fascinating stuff, btw! I'm gonna rewatch this and check out some of your other tutorials. The good news is I use Ableton.
Skrillex's Drums are the focus of the mix. They peak about 3-6 dB louder than anything else, so that the master compression as well as the side chain ducking help push them to the front of the mix. It would sound very uneven between Drums and Synths with the master off, but the master pulls the Synths back to the front, as long as there are no drum hits at that moment. This way he gets a really loud master with amazing clarity on the drums.
I got the most of points that you were saying. Thank you very x10000 much for doing this video. Whats the point to have 3 different sub group before premaster bus. I understand its a kind of skrillex style workflow but I still want to know whether it is that essential even if I put limiter to stuffs appropriately and of course the camel phat on master output. Also I am a completely newbie when it comes to mastering. The general idea that I got about mastering is that we should master a uncompressed audio track. I am sure the camel phat and lots of limiter on sub buses will break this rule.( I understand dynamic range is not as that important as many other genres ) I usually let landr do mastering. Should I send them the uncompressed audio as they requires or not? Can you also briefly explain this point? Or is it just that easy as I thought that dynamic range is not important in edm so you can put as many as limiter or compressor you want as long as it sounds good. I will really appreciate if you can answer my question!
hey my dude glad you found it helpful. So - honestly it doesn't have to be camel phatt or any limiter specifically. The MAIN thing is to START out (before you do anything) with a limiter on your master - I have been using Pro L 2 but again not super important. AS for the sub group question. - the main thing to understand and do is this. (and I have been practicing this "mixing loud process" since I put this video out so I have actually evolved a bit in my process) you want to (bus) send everything except your Kick, Snare, Sub and Vocals to the PM - Premaster. and add a limiter to that bus and reduce the output volume to like -3. So now all the music (excluding the kick, snare,sub and vocals) will max out at -3DB. now we have 3 db of head room to make our remaining instruments SLAP. all the instruments meet now at the master and we start our mastering chain. 1 HUGE bent here is that the master is the first time your Kick and Snare will hit a limiter - this will help to keep them very punchy. I have been able to get stupid loud mixes this way - im talking like -2 LFUS - of course thats way way to loud but if you can get -2LUFS then you can get -5 or -6 LUFS and CLEAN. hope that helps and I am going to do a course on this.....soon.....I hope. :)
Hi everyone, for those discouraged that you can't run Camel Phat on newer Mac OS computers, there is a way to run it. If you install this software called "Codeweaver's Crossover", it allows you to run windows applications on your Mac. First install a DAW of your choosing and then install camelphat into Crossover (Note that you'll need a windows version of your DAW and a Windows Version of Camel Phat), then export your mix and then run it through the DAW running Camelphat on crossover and tweak it to your liking. Finally, export your mix again.
Super interesting! The signal flowchart is really helpful, but I notice that you never showed the Premaster bus in the tutorial. That just has a Pro-L on it? How much gain reduction is that limiter doing?
Hey there! Pretty useful info! Thx, but btw, which should be the appropriate amount of LUFS for an EDM song? I mean... is there even a standard these days? Some people say is better to “keep dynamics” instead of “Making it loud” what’s your opinion? Please it would be very helpful for me if you’d answer this! :) have a nice day.
I would say to really understand this to get a meter that can read LUFS and do some research on your fav tracks. What I have found....is Dubstep Bangers hit around -4/-5LUFS were a Trap Banger will hit around -6/-7LUFS. Illenium is interesting as his verses are very dynamic usually hitting -9LUFS and his drops get very loud and hit -5LUFS. Hope that helps.
BigJerr thanks for your answer Jerr! I’m already subscribed by the way, I can really tell you have experience man, unlike other channels... lol, one last question, what would be your advice for reaching those high LUFS masters? Is it true that the secret is on having a clean mix and lots of headroom? My biggest clean master was around -7 LUFS or so, and still the bass got a lil distorted, thanks for your answer btw :)
@@luisdrossh honestly its the opposite of that. you cant have dynamics and LOUDNESS both - its one or the other. so the true secret is to simply start out by mixing into a limiter. Since I have been working with this method im usually able to hit up around -2LIFUS with zero effort - now admittedly -2 will ALWAYS sound over done but if your hitting -2 and it sounds ---ok--- well then it will def work when you drop it to the -5 LUFS you need too compete (in DUBSTEP). I plan on doing a course on this but Im have a kid in a few months so it will happen soon I promise :)
Hey! Could you explain the synth patch for the lead that comes in at 0:23 and sounds kind of like a siren? It's similar to the lead found in Try It Out by Skrillex & Alvin Risk. I've had a hell of a time trying to find out what the name of this sound is (the dubstep community loves naming sounds), or even a video that addresses it directly. I have FM8, for reference. Hope you see this!
its so easy to make you simply put an envelope or LFO on the pitch of a saw wave or 2. shape (of the env. or LFO) should be similar to one you would use on a pluck sound. then automate the decay. done
Thank you, waiting for you next video for more explanations. However i would like to know why i can’t hear your extreme sidechain on C group (big ratio and threshold)
BigJerr yea that’s what i meant but it’s fine now i understood after watching the video again. Tried to make the exact same template, made a cool little track quickly, and i get around -5LUFS with a lazy mixing process and the sound is still pretty good, not squashed at all. This is really sick thanks again.
there's not much reason to mix that loud in my opinion. I think for your DJ set or personal use try and hit -5LUFS and for streaming (Spotify) go for like -12LFUS that's petty loud enough.
Hey BigJerr at what levels were you mixing your Kick drum and Snare? I remember skrillex mentioning in an interview years ago that he mixes his kick and snare to 0db then bases all the other elements around these as the focal point. Do you also do this?
Great video! Bunch of awesome info in here. Just curious. Which group would you throw your mastering chain on? Saturation, compression, Imaging? The premaster? Then Camel the master? Would love your take on this!
@@BigJerr Sweet dude! Thanks for the quick reply! Gonna test this process right now! Been trying to get as loud as Virtual Riot and I've been close. We shall see how this works!
@@John4loUA-cam I dont actually use sends to much (usually I just make a rack and put it not he track or group) BUT IF I WERE then I would send them to the PM
Hey, nice tutorials! thanks for all of them! Is this your final mastering touch to your tracks or you export everything and do other like classical type of mastering after all? i realy do not understand this moment! thanks!
Even with this technique I can only get to -9lufs without stuff breaking up. How do you gains Tage things like synths/drums/subs so they all sum together to -3? I got the same setup but still running into problems. I took note of your lufs on the pro l2s and am matching them but it sounds worse than if I was to not get any gain reduction.... Not sure where I went wrong
Quick question but 1st much love and thank you for the vid!! Will this be the same as setting up bigger groups as you move forward? and then leaving a group like the vocals outside the "chain group" but to be contained in the premaster subgroup? I'm trying to understand why he would set up like this and not just group things around at this point.... is there a benefit of routing that audio to another audio instead of using a subgroup? Sorry if it sounds confusing. Thanks!!!
well actually the drums and vocals skip the PM and go right to the master and yes there a huge benefit - mainly you can clamp down on the basses and music to get a higher RMS (perceived loudness) and not risk squashing the Drum transients and obviously the Vocals. I do plan on making a course on this I. just have to find the time :) Very Soon
@@BigJerr Cool, I have no idea what you mean by clamp down but when you have something in a group its basically a bus rout but viewed in a dif way so will be nice to see how a direct rout is better than a "automatic" rout that's set up for you when creating a group. Thanks BJ!!
Hey thanks for this awesome tutorial. I had a quick question on your pro q dynamic eq settings on the sub bus..? The way they move looks too fast to be your kick and snare frequencies.. what is it you are removing from the sub dynamically there? ;) Been working a lot with dynamic eq and this looks cool. Thanks.
its not that "needed"- though- it IS a great tool to have and you CAN find it - however if you have a newer OS like "Big Sur" it wont work (the GUI is blank) if you have high Sierra or earlier then your good ! - not sure about pc (personally I have been on High Sierra for ever and dont plan to change it lol )
@@BigJerr I have it working on Catalina, the GUI doesn’t work; however, Ableton shows the automatable parameters on the plugin and you are able to adjust those. I have it on Windows 10 too and it works with no issues.
Amazing workflow, congrats! A question: how much headroom in individual drums channels? u limit every single drums or only eq, and a bit of saturation?
good question - ill probally do a video on this too ! but to asnwer your question No, I do however LIMIT groups - so - for example - i group my Kick and snare and (litely) limit the group same with all my Tops-perc-fillz and so on
HELP! Routed up like up this & pulled up a soft synth only to find latency on every midi action. The midi meter on Ableton doesn't show any latency but the sound gets generated from the plugin after a second or so. Can anyone help?
Thanks a lot on these tips bro!!!! Of course, we are all interested in learning how to get sound enough loud but don't lose the quality of it..If you can make some short videos about it, that would be grate!!!
I noticed that Skrillex uses a "Midi Trigger" on top of his kick, probably for sidechain, however it looks like a MIDI clip within an audio track - any idea what's going on here?
well like i mentioned in the video im simply using a side chain compressor on my "premaster" i would assume hes using somehting like LFO tool or volume shaper or something lke that
@@BigJerr Sure, but in this case, he'd need to send this MIDI to the channel of the plug in - the problem is since his "MIDI Trigger" track is an audio track (look at the volume meter on the right side of the track), how does he have what looks like is a midi clip on there? It looks like that track is being routed to the group that it's in, not the track with the sidechain. I don't understand 1- how he has a MIDI clip on an audio track, and 2- how he's routing it to his sidechain plugin. Any ideas?
sick video bro! but I can only get my mix to say -11/-13 and that’s pushing everything quite hard whilst retaining dynamics. Any advice on how to push it higher ? should I be doing a lot more compression/limiting or what ? Cheers
crazy i didnt know so many people have a hard time mixing loud - i was able to hit -6 the other day (with out even trying) and clean as hell with ONLY ableton stock stuff - thanks for this comment i think ill be addressing this with some videos to show you guys step by step how to do it ! Stay Tuned
@@BigJerr same here bro. what I'm curious is what you're putting on the master after camelphat so it doesn't go over -1.0.. are you bouncing out with the clipping?
@@alessandrotorres3537 well this is a trick to show you how to get higher LUFS and over all volume managment to be honest think of it as a guide not a 1 to 1 copy - mastering is a whole different process to get your track to sound loud and even on all types of speaker and though this tech gets you to the loudness that you want there are many other parts to mastering such as multi band comp (to make your sound sound more even) imaging for sonic shape - EQing to remove unwanted freq and so on...but if volume is what your after then this is a good trick but not a substitution for mastering
Yoo man thank you so much for sharing your work. I like it very much and I have some questions, what about the drums is it routed directly to the master or sent to another chain and then routed to the master.
How does this translate to uploading to streaming services? Wouldn't UA-cam and the other sites just apply their limiting to it since you've gone well above. It's just that your tune here still sounds dynamic enough but UA-cam limits at about -14LUFS from what I've read. Is it to do with mixing that loud so that everything is all together at that level and when it comes to mastering it, that's when you set the over all level to -14 or whatever you set it to for UA-cam?
Im intrigued by this-- definitely gonna experiment to see how this can affect my overall sound. Also props on the zelda shit, and from what i can see, really dope tattoos man. You got a new sub tonight:)
Excellent tutorial, fascinating
If Au5 approved, it means it really works!! LOL
Au5 lol my dude
thanks man
The real question is do you do any of this on your productions?
@@sixsense6161 good question I did for a while and as I get better at mixing I realize I need less and less maybe ill do an updated video on how I mix loud now
And I was here struggling just to hit a clean -12 lol
youll get it !
that's because you want to achieve this with a compressor, but what you need is a waveshaper. So you will instantly get there.
@@SoundPeaks waveshapers rule!
lol how bad
@@SoundPeaks what do you mean by waveshaper?
Here is my flow. Make multiple busses - drum buss, bass buss, sub buss, synth buss, foley fx buss, risers/downers buss. Soft clip each buss to get the most perceived sound from the buss without destroying the sound/timbre. Route each buss to a pre master buss, add saturation and again soft clip to catch any crazy peaks. Route the pre master to your master buss then process - I use 2 buss channel saturation > 2 buss compressor > soft clipper > ott > ozone 8 (eq > exciter > imager > mutlband compr > post eq > limiter to - 4dBs ceiling. Then to the Fab pro L2 with +4 gain. I control my LUFS by the input into ozone which is between -3dB and -4dB. I get crazy loud clean mixes.
Great video as well btw! Subbed
This 🔥🔥🔥
That flow chart you used to break down the chains was awesome!!
so dope my dude glad you dig it
This is super interesting. I've always wondered how Skrillex, knife party etc get that next level loudness and this seems to unravel some of that mystery. Muchos Gracias!
Most helpful video on the topic since Skrillex dropped those tracks. Awesome work
Cool video. Interesting he had Camel Phat on his master. This was an old trick back in the day when most software limiters weren't very transparent. Now obviously CamelPhat isn't known as a Limiter, but a multi-effect plug-in (mostly used for saturation, coloring, filtering, compression, etc.). But what people started noticing with it is it had an amazing built in limiter that was fairly transparent and sounded great. People would place it on buses and masters with everything turned off except the "master" section with the "mix" set to %100, and then dial in the volume. Mainly using it just keeps anything from going above "zero"... it gives it a hard-line ceiling that nothing will go over. This helps out the main Limiter (Ozone or Pro-L) a lot because they don't like a clipping signal entering them, so your guaranteed to have a proper but loud gain staged volume coming out of CamelPhat entering your main limiter so it doesn't have to work as hard..... I prob explain that horribly, lol.
But I bet he's just using it to keep any wild peaks under control. Many people would drop it on the master this way when they first started out a project as well (like the only thing on the master to start, even if they weren't going to keep it there later) to keep anything from clipping go going above zero while working on a tune.
There's actually an old video floating around of the DnB producer Audio (he's a straight Don in the Jungle\DnB game) doing just this exact thing in a tutorial track breakdown.
any limiter will don on the master (except ablutions lol) and mixing into that limiter is the key to loudness
BigJerr Definitely. I love mixing into limiters, especially on drum channels. I think the key to the whole “loudness war fun” is pushing things in stages (as your video explains). Small amounts of compression and limiting in stages reduces the workload final limiter has to perform, thus allowing you to push it farther and it to react better.
At least that’s what I’ve been noticing in my bedroom superstar studio late nights.
And yeah, Ableton‘s limiter does suck. I was almost certain they would update that in version 10. It’s not completely useless, but on a master channel it sure as hell is. Lol
Bro that was perfectly put, not horribly explained. It's one of those little but important details of getting the most out of your audio.
@@BigJerr Really misleading info! You preface the whole video by saying not to mix like this, but you are showing people how to do it anyways. Loudness war is not over if people want to mix to LUFS -3. Pulling air through my teeth watching first few mins... tragic
@@okidot im sorry this bothers you so much - lol
Hey man I want you to know how much I'm grateful for this video. You made an incredible job and it's very well explained. I feel like this is the last piece of puzzle I needed in order to take my music production skills to the next level. The result I got is just phenomenal. I've been producing for 13 years on and off. I thought my music was really good but now it sounds so freakin great and loud! It's day and night. Thank you so much for your work. My biggest dream so far is to make music with Sonny and I truly believe it will happen one day because I'm obsessed to succeed. I will remember you for sure.
Thank you so much dude! There arent many videos explaining dubstep loudness that way, literally changed my life.
amazing
I ve been looking for this for years , all i found is some dude brought up tons of analog comp and randomly tweaking it. THANK YOU SO MUCH MAN
Get some more subs for this man! You put so much work into these videos.
This was super helpful. I've seen the Skrillex walkthrough from different producers but this was by far the best. Thanks bro for laying it all out and explaining the routing so clearly! Subscribed!
thanks alot - I was thinking about doing a full course on this topic actually
I hate anybody who leaves this channel unsubscribed, after listening to all these useful information !! 😍👍👍
Such a well structured tutorial. I definitely learned something from this style of tutorial. Thanks so much!
I've seen the thumbnail for this video popping up on my recommendations for a while. I'm glad that today I've finally watched it, cause this is a great breakdown!
Very cool
Thanks for the teaching.
It will teach me to make tracks even louder than I could
-5.5-5.9 short and long -6.1 LUFS is my maximum
I think this will give an even greater impetus
I produce metal and i often mix into a clipper (like standard clip/jst clip/inflator etc..) and then once the mix is fone i would crank up that clipper and add more saturation/limiter etc... i can never get the loudness of -3LUFS like they do in EDM. Appreciate the tutorial & flowchart breakdown this was like a PhD research 😂. I might try it in my next few songs. Sidechaining is also another great technique worth mentioning. That pumping effect i often hear with skrillex tracks for thay split second whrn nothing is playing during the attack of the kick or snare 🤘
Wow! Thx for explaining that process!
you got it dude
So sick dude!!
This was so helpful! I'd love to see what settings your limiters are at for this
you did this totally correct. well done man
well thanks
Wow super informative. Thanks a lot as usual! Have questions about you q3 and l2 so for sure excited about your vids on those!
cool what are you question specificly so i can see if i can work them into the lesson
BigJerr BigJerr thanks for asking! Personally In this case the bus processing. Im curious what you are listening for when deciding your limiting type and the other parameters like attacks and the channel link in the l2. Also I just started trying to use the mode with the headphone. (Think its audition) and im just not getting what I should be looking for in that. Anyway thats just so stuff in my head but any vid here I learn something i had no idea about so thats appreciate big time!
@@DJYukie all good questions! the EQ video will likely be first and ill touch those questions there - as for the limiter - go back and listen to what I said in the "things to watch out for when mixing loud" section at the end of the video - limiting will add a sorta "pressure" to you sounds/Buses - its one of those things your going to have to learn to both hear and feel and ultimately CONTROL !
BigJerr ahh ok I gotcha. Ill do exactly that and train my ears better! Btw your Wish Wish Remix killed at a festival I did over the weekend!! 🙌🏻🙌🏻
@@DJYukie I love that did you get any video ?
As for Campel Phat - I believe it might have been used for the distortion effect at 1:55 (like automating the mix from 0% to 100%), not for the mastering/compression. What do you think?
i mean honestly your guess is as good as mine - try it and see what happens
Agreed. I'm pretty sure camel phat also essentially acts like a limiter/clipper if the distortion and compression amounts are on zero.
Amazing video man ! a lot of tips and tricks to try out.
amazing - tell me how it works out for ya !
This was super helpful! Still hope to see a video on how you use the limiter!
I would never mix this loud but this video was dope, great tutorial!
just an option my dude def mix however you'd like - its your art after all!
BigJerr 💯💯
this project is a boom! and i learn much stuffs THANKS BRO!
of course
glad you liked it
that's an easy sub! Looking forward to check out some more of your content! Thanks for the insight :D
your the man
exxelent and clear presentation , many thanks for this
thanks
SO WELL EXPLAINED!!!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH THIS VIDEO IS AMAZING I NEEDED THIS
you got it !
Very interesting! Thank you for sharing!
you got it
I have been mixing for 10 years and I have never heard the word luf. I am giving up. This whole industry is secrets
Although this a neat video, Just remember guys making music is not a competition. expressing your vibe should be your goal,. if you need to raise some gain for well mixed and mastered track thats okay. -8 is way loud enough for final productions to work well in a mixing environment, Louder does not mean better.
THANK YOU FOR THIS BREAKDOWN! Exactly what I was looking for
Great video! I wonder what will spotify do to a -3 lufs master? Will it be turned down by 11?
Great vid man thanks so much
couple of questions!
1. How much should I be limiting on each group? Do I set a certain ceiling as well?
2. What peak should the mix be hitting before I start this process and subsequently each stage after?
3. I've run into an issue where the limited sounds of the chain group feeding into the premaster make everything else that feeds into the premaster (drums/musical elements/fx etc.) dull. its as if the main drop sounds and sub are overshadowing everything else and fucking up the mix as a whole. how do i fix this?
What people are misunderstanding about Skrillex's loudness is that he was hitting a maximum of -3.6 Lufs in that particular point of the mastering chain, he had an instance of iZotope Ozone 5 after iZotope Insight, so his actual amount of LUFS may have been different.
Great tutorial!
Your beat and those lazers are FIIIREEEEE, I need em!!!!!!!
Sick! Gonna try this out
so cool please do tell me how it works out !
TRIP TROP
Hah
This is game changing stuff right here!
Should you write the tune with this routing setup? Or drag the stems to a mastering template with this routing instead? Just unsure if mixing into limiters is the "correct" way to do thingd
yeah ill do that - but theres nothign wrong with mixing into limiters - many many many producers do it - its a skill that needs to be practiced lke anything else.
just cause something doesn't work for you instantly doesn't mean it doesn't work - for others or in general :) - I personally wont make a video on a process that was ultimately flawed.
Was just wondering because the routing seems to introduce some latency when using midi instruments/certain effects. So I'd like to drag everything into a new session with this routing, just worried the levels won't be as nice as if I was to simply mix into the limiters from the start
@@SnoMan1818 im sure I ever had that issue
@@SnoMan1818 I was actually thinking about doing a live stream later using only stock Ableton plugs to show its more then possible to mix loud and not even have to use 3rd party plugs (obviously we wont get AS loud as with them but with we can get to -6/-7 easily)
do you think thats something that you might be into ?
Oh man! I was searching around for how to use reference tracks, if you should try to get your mixes as loud as mastered reference, how loud your sub-frequency should be, the difference between Span and Metric A/B and then I stumble across your channel and this video and wondering what the hell I got myself into. Fascinating stuff, btw! I'm gonna rewatch this and check out some of your other tutorials. The good news is I use Ableton.
Great video! When will you have the how You use ProQ3 and ProL2?
we looked on the channel and couldn't find it!
Thanx again for all your help!
I'm actually releasing a course with Warp Academy shortly with all that info so I cant really post it here sorry
@@BigJerr keep us posted on the release date so we can purchase the training!
Thank you!
nice video, but you never mentioned about the drums processing. it seems to me that skrillex revolved the mix around the drums at 0dB
Wouldnt that be impossible?without clipping?
@@thomasmorris9283 skrillex clips his drums
@@ap7390 must softclip them though right?
@@thomasmorris9283 correct
Skrillex's Drums are the focus of the mix. They peak about 3-6 dB louder than anything else, so that the master compression as well as the side chain ducking help push them to the front of the mix. It would sound very uneven between Drums and Synths with the master off, but the master pulls the Synths back to the front, as long as there are no drum hits at that moment. This way he gets a really loud master with amazing clarity on the drums.
Youre very help with this tutorial, Thank you so much i appreciate it. Question, where do you learn it??
I got the most of points that you were saying. Thank you very x10000 much for doing this video.
Whats the point to have 3 different sub group before premaster bus. I understand its a kind of skrillex style workflow but I still want to know whether it is that essential even if I put limiter to stuffs appropriately and of course the camel phat on master output.
Also I am a completely newbie when it comes to mastering. The general idea that I got about mastering is that we should master a uncompressed audio track. I am sure the camel phat and lots of limiter on sub buses will break this rule.( I understand dynamic range is not as that important as many other genres ) I usually let landr do mastering. Should I send them the uncompressed audio as they requires or not? Can you also briefly explain this point? Or is it just that easy as I thought that dynamic range is not important in edm so you can put as many as limiter or compressor you want as long as it sounds good.
I will really appreciate if you can answer my question!
hey my dude glad you found it helpful. So - honestly it doesn't have to be camel phatt or any limiter specifically. The MAIN thing is to START out (before you do anything) with a limiter on your master - I have been using Pro L 2 but again not super important. AS for the sub group question. - the main thing to understand and do is this. (and I have been practicing this "mixing loud process" since I put this video out so I have actually evolved a bit in my process) you want to (bus) send everything except your Kick, Snare, Sub and Vocals to the PM - Premaster. and add a limiter to that bus and reduce the output volume to like -3. So now all the music (excluding the kick, snare,sub and vocals) will max out at -3DB. now we have 3 db of head room to make our remaining instruments SLAP. all the instruments meet now at the master and we start our mastering chain. 1 HUGE bent here is that the master is the first time your Kick and Snare will hit a limiter - this will help to keep them very punchy. I have been able to get stupid loud mixes this way - im talking like -2 LFUS - of course thats way way to loud but if you can get -2LUFS then you can get -5 or -6 LUFS and CLEAN. hope that helps and I am going to do a course on this.....soon.....I hope. :)
Hi everyone, for those discouraged that you can't run Camel Phat on newer Mac OS computers, there is a way to run it. If you install this software called "Codeweaver's Crossover", it allows you to run windows applications on your Mac. First install a DAW of your choosing and then install camelphat into Crossover (Note that you'll need a windows version of your DAW and a Windows Version of Camel Phat), then export your mix and then run it through the DAW running Camelphat on crossover and tweak it to your liking. Finally, export your mix again.
super dope!! thanks for sharing
you got it buddy !
This is great ! Thanks
of course
Nice work!!!
thanks !
Most def man always great tutorials!
My FL studio Template's about to go next level. Thank you for this❤
Super interesting! The signal flowchart is really helpful, but I notice that you never showed the Premaster bus in the tutorial. That just has a Pro-L on it? How much gain reduction is that limiter doing?
Hey there! Pretty useful info! Thx, but btw, which should be the appropriate amount of LUFS for an EDM song? I mean... is there even a standard these days? Some people say is better to “keep dynamics” instead of “Making it loud” what’s your opinion? Please it would be very helpful for me if you’d answer this! :) have a nice day.
I would say to really understand this to get a meter that can read LUFS and do some research on your fav tracks. What I have found....is Dubstep Bangers hit around -4/-5LUFS were a Trap Banger will hit around -6/-7LUFS. Illenium is interesting as his verses are very dynamic usually hitting -9LUFS and his drops get very loud and hit -5LUFS. Hope that helps.
BigJerr thanks for your answer Jerr! I’m already subscribed by the way, I can really tell you have experience man, unlike other channels... lol, one last question, what would be your advice for reaching those high LUFS masters? Is it true that the secret is on having a clean mix and lots of headroom? My biggest clean master was around -7 LUFS or so, and still the bass got a lil distorted, thanks for your answer btw :)
@@luisdrossh honestly its the opposite of that. you cant have dynamics and LOUDNESS both - its one or the other. so the true secret is to simply start out by mixing into a limiter. Since I have been working with this method im usually able to hit up around -2LIFUS with zero effort - now admittedly -2 will ALWAYS sound over done but if your hitting -2 and it sounds ---ok--- well then it will def work when you drop it to the -5 LUFS you need too compete (in DUBSTEP). I plan on doing a course on this but Im have a kid in a few months so it will happen soon I promise :)
JUST TO BE CLEAR - this "mixing loud method" should only be use in the correct genres.
@@BigJerr cannot wait for the mixing into a limiter tutorial you are hinting at! Big ups
subscribed! this was so informative :)
Nice video! Instant sub
glad you liked it
HI great vides! Thanks very much!! Can we see one other step as you mentioned? I would love to see eqing the drop synths?
when i do it this way i always struggle to get the volume whilst protecting a deep warm sub bass - it distorts so quickly :(
Fantastic will try this 🔥
Awesome video. Is there any need for a clipper on the pre master?
Would love to see more of this!!!
really cool, thank you! and what do you do with the pre-master chain?
Hey! Could you explain the synth patch for the lead that comes in at 0:23 and sounds kind of like a siren? It's similar to the lead found in Try It Out by Skrillex & Alvin Risk. I've had a hell of a time trying to find out what the name of this sound is (the dubstep community loves naming sounds), or even a video that addresses it directly.
I have FM8, for reference. Hope you see this!
its so easy to make you simply put an envelope or LFO on the pitch of a saw wave or 2. shape (of the env. or LFO) should be similar to one you would use on a pluck sound. then automate the decay. done
Thank you for this video!
Thank you, waiting for you next video for more explanations. However i would like to know why i can’t hear your extreme sidechain on C group (big ratio and threshold)
what do you mean you cant hear it - like you mean you dont hear the long release -
and the follow up videos are coming soon just been busy - i teach at icon collective 3 days a week - ill on it for sure !
BigJerr yea that’s what i meant but it’s fine now i understood after watching the video again. Tried to make the exact same template, made a cool little track quickly, and i get around -5LUFS with a lazy mixing process and the sound is still pretty good, not squashed at all. This is really sick thanks again.
Great insight, thanks!! Just wondering, now that you've achieved it, would you advocate mixing at such high levels?
there's not much reason to mix that loud in my opinion. I think for your DJ set or personal use try and hit -5LUFS and for streaming (Spotify) go for like -12LFUS that's petty loud enough.
but its fun to flex :)
@@BigJerr hahaha.. damn right it is!!
My mom was mixing -3 lufs in the 80's and that's what got her blacklisted in the industry
Hey BigJerr at what levels were you mixing your Kick drum and Snare? I remember skrillex mentioning in an interview years ago that he mixes his kick and snare to 0db then bases all the other elements around these as the focal point. Do you also do this?
It's easy when it's just drums, one lead sound and some vocal chops. Nothing ever overlapping.
this is genuinely genius i wonder if he came up with this.
Great video! Bunch of awesome info in here. Just curious. Which group would you throw your mastering chain on? Saturation, compression, Imaging? The premaster? Then Camel the master? Would love your take on this!
yeah I usually master the premaster then use camel or whatever limiter on the master to catch the peaks
@@BigJerr Sweet dude! Thanks for the quick reply! Gonna test this process right now! Been trying to get as loud as Virtual Riot and I've been close. We shall see how this works!
@@BigJerr I guess while I had you here, do you also send your sends to the premaster or do you just leave them routed to the master with this version?
@@John4loUA-cam I dont actually use sends to much (usually I just make a rack and put it not he track or group) BUT IF I WERE then I would send them to the PM
this is dope
thanks man
Great tutorial, thank you
Hey, nice tutorials! thanks for all of them! Is this your final mastering touch to your tracks or you export everything and do other like classical type of mastering after all? i realy do not understand this moment! thanks!
awesome vid. You can also substitute clippers for limiters in many cases it sounds even cleaner !
Very helpful, thank you.
of course
The way you explaining 👓🕶🥽
Even with this technique I can only get to -9lufs without stuff breaking up. How do you gains Tage things like synths/drums/subs so they all sum together to -3? I got the same setup but still running into problems. I took note of your lufs on the pro l2s and am matching them but it sounds worse than if I was to not get any gain reduction.... Not sure where I went wrong
hold tight i plan on doing some follow up videos :)
BigJerr my man🙌🙏
Quick question but 1st much love and thank you for the vid!! Will this be the same as setting up bigger groups as you move forward? and then leaving a group like the vocals outside the "chain group" but to be contained in the premaster subgroup? I'm trying to understand why he would set up like this and not just group things around at this point.... is there a benefit of routing that audio to another audio instead of using a subgroup? Sorry if it sounds confusing. Thanks!!!
well actually the drums and vocals skip the PM and go right to the master and yes there a huge benefit - mainly you can clamp down on the basses and music to get a higher RMS (perceived loudness) and not risk squashing the Drum transients and obviously the Vocals. I do plan on making a course on this I. just have to find the time :) Very Soon
@@BigJerr Cool, I have no idea what you mean by clamp down but when you have something in a group its basically a bus rout but viewed in a dif way so will be nice to see how a direct rout is better than a "automatic" rout that's set up for you when creating a group. Thanks BJ!!
@@bedtimeread clamp down means like compress or limit
Hey thanks for this awesome tutorial. I had a quick question on your pro q dynamic eq settings on the sub bus..? The way they move looks too fast to be your kick and snare frequencies.. what is it you are removing from the sub dynamically there? ;) Been working a lot with dynamic eq and this looks cool. Thanks.
People after watching this video are probably searching the internet far and wide for the legendary Camelphat.
its not that "needed"- though- it IS a great tool to have and you CAN find it - however if you have a newer OS like "Big Sur" it wont work (the GUI is blank) if you have high Sierra or earlier then your good ! - not sure about pc (personally I have been on High Sierra for ever and dont plan to change it lol )
@@BigJerr I have it working on Catalina, the GUI doesn’t work; however, Ableton shows the automatable parameters on the plugin and you are able to adjust those. I have it on Windows 10 too and it works with no issues.
@@zackyzackyzacky1 thats very true - pro tip:)
Whats the setting in the Premaster ? that makes also a big difference ....
Amazing workflow, congrats!
A question: how much headroom in individual drums channels? u limit every single drums or only eq, and a bit of saturation?
good question - ill probally do a video on this too ! but to asnwer your question No, I do however LIMIT groups - so - for example - i group my Kick and snare and (litely) limit the group same with all my Tops-perc-fillz and so on
@@BigJerr
Interesting what you say Jerry.
Thanks for your quick reply.
I keep an eye on your next videos.
Keep it up!
HELP! Routed up like up this & pulled up a soft synth only to find latency on every midi action. The midi meter on Ableton doesn't show any latency but the sound gets generated from the plugin after a second or so. Can anyone help?
maybe because you have true peak on your limiters turned on ?
Thanks a lot on these tips bro!!!! Of course, we are all interested in learning how to get sound enough loud but don't lose the quality of it..If you can make some short videos about it, that would be grate!!!
Hi there ! I was wondering if the track was masterised after this.
(Awesome video btw)
thanks and no just exactly what the video shows
Fun fact: Ive been doing this exact bus routings for like a year withouth seeing this video or any other info on mixing besides one Barely Alive one
thank youuuuu!!!
yoor welcome
What do you select as your input for the channels? Having a problem getting sound from all but the premaster---Greetings from Icon by the way
Amazing!
How can I hear the track in the video?
I noticed that Skrillex uses a "Midi Trigger" on top of his kick, probably for sidechain, however it looks like a MIDI clip within an audio track - any idea what's going on here?
well like i mentioned in the video im simply using a side chain compressor on my "premaster" i would assume hes using somehting like LFO tool or volume shaper or something lke that
@@BigJerr Sure, but in this case, he'd need to send this MIDI to the channel of the plug in - the problem is since his "MIDI Trigger" track is an audio track (look at the volume meter on the right side of the track), how does he have what looks like is a midi clip on there? It looks like that track is being routed to the group that it's in, not the track with the sidechain. I don't understand 1- how he has a MIDI clip on an audio track, and 2- how he's routing it to his sidechain plugin. Any ideas?
@@tg8628 lol did you ever figure this out?? I know it’s two years later but everyone seems to gloss over this fact
sick video bro! but I can only get my mix to say -11/-13 and that’s pushing everything quite hard whilst retaining dynamics. Any advice on how to push it higher ? should I be doing a lot more compression/limiting or what ?
Cheers
crazy i didnt know so many people have a hard time mixing loud - i was able to hit -6 the other day (with out even trying) and clean as hell with ONLY ableton stock stuff - thanks for this comment i think ill be addressing this with some videos to show you guys step by step how to do it ! Stay Tuned
@@BigJerr looking forward to that already
@@BigJerr same here bro. what I'm curious is what you're putting on the master after camelphat so it doesn't go over -1.0.. are you bouncing out with the clipping?
Awesome video! Now I have a question, this is just the mix right? Like it still needs to get mastered right?
why do you ask - I do wanna release this song eventually
BigJerr because I’m new to mixing and mastering and I don’t know if I should master a track if I use this technique or if this is enough
@@alessandrotorres3537 well this is a trick to show you how to get higher LUFS and over all volume managment to be honest think of it as a guide not a 1 to 1 copy - mastering is a whole different process to get your track to sound loud and even on all types of speaker and though this tech gets you to the loudness that you want there are many other parts to mastering such as multi band comp (to make your sound sound more even) imaging for sonic shape - EQing to remove unwanted freq and so on...but if volume is what your after then this is a good trick but not a substitution for mastering
BigJerr oh thanks a lot! Appreciate it
Yoo man thank you so much for sharing your work. I like it very much and I have some questions, what about the drums is it routed directly to the master or sent to another chain and then routed to the master.
How does this translate to uploading to streaming services? Wouldn't UA-cam and the other sites just apply their limiting to it since you've gone well above. It's just that your tune here still sounds dynamic enough but UA-cam limits at about -14LUFS from what I've read.
Is it to do with mixing that loud so that everything is all together at that level and when it comes to mastering it, that's when you set the over all level to -14 or whatever you set it to for UA-cam?
Thank you
Thank you for changing my life forever.
Im intrigued by this-- definitely gonna experiment to see how this can affect my overall sound.
Also props on the zelda shit, and from what i can see, really dope tattoos man. You got a new sub tonight:)
thanks much - I actually think im going to be doing a short course on mixing loud soon
@@BigJerr No problem! im definitely keen to hear it! *no pun intended*