#4. If you DO mix on headphones, watch the volume or you'll have to take more breaks. Otherwise, you'll lose the ability to hear certain frequencies for awhile
true, if you mix with high volumes you're going to percieve the track differently on some systems. the guy Recording Revolution made a great video about mixing at lower volumes.
Table of Contents: Workflow: 00:30 Producing without strong musical ideas 02:25 Focusing too much on sound design at the beginning 04:16 Not organizing your DAW properly Mixing: 06:00 Mixing solely on monitors in a non-treated room 07:30 Tweaking samples instead of choosing the right sounds 08:42 Using effects without knowing what they do 09:45 Not mixing in stereo 11:31 Too much stereo enhancement 13:22 Not dealing with clashing frequencies 14:58 Not dealing with transients on drums Mastering: 17:18 Too much master processing 19:00 Not taking advantage of monitoring tools
This is very comprehensive and executed with excellence. Great that you created a Table of Contents to focus your video, very straight to the point! Hope to see more videos from you!
for me its actually different i have made sooooo much music for atleast 5 years but only recently doing some actual good things mainly due to haveing gear now, but i had never watched tutorials that i should have basics like compression kick/snare EQing etc are mustsssssssssssss
Check out our Music Production resources: - Track from Start To Finish Courses: ➤ bit.ly/pml_start-to-finish - Mixing, Mastering and Harmony Courses: ➤ bit.ly/pml_s_courses - Ableton Live Project Files: ➤ bit.ly/pml_templates
I've been producing (not well) for many many years. Your organization tips alone are crazy. You could charge $75 for what you told me. My workflow is going to change dramatically especially because of doing synth presets like that!!
How do you save synths/effects in the specified folders you created (with .adg extensions for synths) ? Would really appreciate the answer to make my workflow faster :)
Man I wish someone like you would make videos for FL Studio...I know this is irrelevant for this one but I'm talking about your "start to finish" videos and all the mixing stuff. It is really helpful but mostly very hard to adapt into another DAW.
BUY HIGH QUALITY HEADPHONES. A good pair cost around $300 for something like Beyrdynamics. I have produced in houses and apartments and obviously it’s hard to use monitors when you have close neighbors but I love headphones. It allows me to hear every piece of audio as possible. I get some fatigue so you can switch to monitors to compare but more gear doesn’t make better music. I simplified my studio to a 49 key Akai and a Push 2 and the rest is in the computer. Know your tools, that’s the most important.
People are afraid or too proud to watch videos like this because they're afraid they're making all of these mistakes but think they're doing it correctly. They don't want to find out. All of these are great ideas!
yeah, maybe that suits for you Ricky...another wild guess: maybe these people just don't like being "tought" by a 14 yo greenhorn talking like a wise ass who calls pushing around loops in live "music production"..lmfao
Does it matter how old he is, what he looks like or how he produces? Good tips are good tips. Don't be blinded by irrelevancies and just take his advice to heart.
I have a lot of respect for people who's original language isn't English, making a video about music production IN English - and doing it well. This could be the beginning of something big for this guy. The reason why I said that is because I feel that way when I see these titles. I just released an EP and I'm like, "Oh shit... what did I do wrong?" Lol I get you about age and what people may initially think, but I also think about the Skrillex factor, where age means nothing
yeah relatively good points actually, i may have been a little too harsh. But still - for my taste - i have a problem with the guys attitude, but yep, he's young..i'm old :P
The best thing is to mix in mono.. levels and panning do them in stereo but all the effects..(reverb..delay..compression..eq..limiter..) add them only while mixing in mono because if it sounds great in mono it will sound amazing in stereo... because you want the listener to listen to the song on every device and not all devices are stereo like headphones and monitors
headphones tip is amazing - one thing my producer friends and I all agree on is that treating a room is an (almost) fruitless pursuit. your room will never come anywhere close enough to a pro studio - get the best studio monitor headphones you can - bam
Let me get this right. When you say producing with strong musical ideas, you're talking about that precanned, clip loopster style of "writing music." You know, the kind that draws comments from real performance musicians about "kids who know nothing about music writing hits songs on laptops." You should try creating brand new, interesting, UNIQUE melodies, harmonies, and drums EVERY TIME, EVERY CLIP. Anything else isn't just producing without strong musical ideas, it's producing with any musical ideas at all. Oh well.
Lol first one is no shit sherlock.. Like that is depending what genre you prod. Im prod psytrancs ofc i need much too much loops, but with diffrenet phase, filter, or on simple word a different modulation of same sound :)
the template tracks idea might not be that relevant if you're basic idea relies on some specific sounds without a certain pitch, and not on melodies, IMHO
Do you want a 2 Pro advices ??? ... don’t full Ableton’s “ PLACES “ with folders ; and more folders , because ( one day ) the D.A.W. will take longer and longer time to to start open !!! Copy all that folders to a flash drive USB , and drag-and-drop the content ( samples ; projects ; etc. ) ... then ; tell me “ something about it “ greetings from Portugal !!! And ; ... Happy Christmas !!! :D
Most people listen to their monitors loud in the studio. Turn your monitor down to speaking level and then adjust your mixing accordingly. Big difference when you bring your volume back up. Especially in Mono
300e for monitor speakers ? lol maybe that's why they sound crap :D On this I have to disagree with you, it's important to work with both, when you add FX on your sound .....like a reverb , on headphone the sound will hit your ears immediately, not the case on speakers, so the reverb effect will sound great on headphones and low on speakers, it depends on what are you doing. But man, I totally agree with you on point 6, my music is still crap cuz lots of time I add FXs without knowing how they work :)
Yes! So many relatable parts to the video! Really well done. So glad somebody else uses the session view! I constantly see people build a track on arrangement view. The unique feature of Ableton is session view gives you total creativity and the ability to experiment and have 'happy accidents'. My own tip is to create a bunch of clips for the main components (drums, bass, leads, chords) and try different combinations until you find something that works - THEN in session view go a few scenes down so there's a gap and use capture and insert scene. I've found once I've got a ton of clips I can build a track using capture and insert right from the build to the main to the break etc etc.. You still have all the flexibility of the arrange page after but keep your creativity going right up to committing. I tend to just run through my captured scenes in record to populate.a rough arrangement and get clinical there. It's good to separate your workflow so you can use your creative brain at a different time to your 'scientific', analytical brain. Also! Yes to the difficulty with an untreated room. I still feel like I benefit from the full range Genelecs I use but as the room is mostly untreated my low end is completely unreliable with bass peaks around twice the volume at certain points in the room. I regularly stick on the headphones to hear more detail and a flatter response. Ideally a treated room would give me a better idea of the mix across a greater frequency range to i still reference on the speakers. Oh, and also, EQ is EVERYTHING! Work hard on separation and you'll experience miracles! Great stuff - hope my observations were of help.
Dude, this video was made for me. I noticed that how I was approaching things wasn't working, even when the sound ideas and things I was creating were incredible, once I got to certain points the idea would fall flat. I'd be going, alright this sounds great, but what the fuck do I do now? I'm not even done watching the video. The first 3 points you made already showed exactly how I've been fucking up. I can't even watch the rest of the video yet. Aahahahahaaha
A lot of these points are true. I see too many people on UA-cam etc, caught up in the hype and bandwagon of looking like a "producer" and not enough actually being a good musician.
These are really great rules - I'm getting to know Ableton all over again, as I am typically a Reason user. Can you PLEASE not rock back and forth in your chair so much though? lol I subscribed!
Duvets are really good for sound treatment, buy a bunch of cheap 12-15 togs and pin them up to the wall. Cost £12 each and can cover a lot of space and deaden a room very well
very nice video! so tnx! but I'm not a fan of decreasing kick transient too much because you may have a louder track but you will loose kick punch for sure!
Shades : Not really. The transient is the spike specifically. The attack settings can be used to control the transient. a long attack would hide a transient. a short attack would reveal the transient (if there was one)
I recently bought Yamaha hs8 to upgrade from previous hs5. Using it in a large open space that is unthreaded. (Living room). I don't get much reflections and I can hear a lot more details and I am able to detect bad frequencies and the power of my sub bass a lot more easily than on my ath50x and ath m40x. Your monitors probably sounded bad because (I assume) you have a small room, not that great monitors and (again I assume) have a lot of stuff in your room. If I were you I would return the Krk's and Buy yamha's HS 5.
You can select the clips and drag them to the upper left III== Arrangement and Session View symbols like in this video: ua-cam.com/video/5dpSfaOR23s/v-deo.htmlm40s
I think he is referring to chosing perhaps a sample which is closer to that which you are trying to create. I don't think hes saying use a sample straight off the bat lol.
(8- not dealing with clashing freqs. ) first thing to do is check the phase between then , if phase is not the issue then move on to whatever you want to do with it. I have done that mistake a lot of times equing ,compressing , multi band dynamics...when the only thing I had to do is flip the phase the bass track.
very true. phase is so much underrated, if you ever play and recorded a drum... not just kick and bass - the full spectrum. but the more the low freq the more important... btw. soundradix auto-align vst is very timesaving and easy to use
#4. If you DO mix on headphones, watch the volume or you'll have to take more breaks. Otherwise, you'll lose the ability to hear certain frequencies for awhile
Rick Elliott Didn't know that! Thanks for sharing
mix on low volume, and simply change the volume often just a bit so frequencys cant hide after listening for too long
true, if you mix with high volumes you're going to percieve the track differently on some systems. the guy Recording Revolution made a great video about mixing at lower volumes.
Fletcher-Munson Curve!
Oh yeah, I've learned a lot from Graham Cochrane and I've got much more to learn!
Should do a whole video on organizing your DAW properly
Table of Contents:
Workflow:
00:30 Producing without strong musical ideas
02:25 Focusing too much on sound design at the beginning
04:16 Not organizing your DAW properly
Mixing:
06:00 Mixing solely on monitors in a non-treated room
07:30 Tweaking samples instead of choosing the right sounds
08:42 Using effects without knowing what they do
09:45 Not mixing in stereo
11:31 Too much stereo enhancement
13:22 Not dealing with clashing frequencies
14:58 Not dealing with transients on drums
Mastering:
17:18 Too much master processing
19:00 Not taking advantage of monitoring tools
Thank you very much for making this list, it makes it easier to enjoy the video
What other third party pluggins would you recommend to deal with drum transients in your mix?
This is very comprehensive and executed with excellence. Great that you created a Table of Contents to focus your video, very straight to the point! Hope to see more videos from you!
My tip: Don't waste too much time watching tutorial only, just work.
bump
i agree
yep definitely a procrastination habit
for me its actually different
i have made sooooo much music for atleast 5 years but only recently doing some actual good things mainly due to haveing gear now, but i had never watched tutorials that i should have
basics like compression kick/snare EQing etc are mustsssssssssssss
CAP both required but i agree particularly more hands on
Check out our Music Production resources:
- Track from Start To Finish Courses: ➤ bit.ly/pml_start-to-finish
- Mixing, Mastering and Harmony Courses: ➤ bit.ly/pml_s_courses
- Ableton Live Project Files: ➤ bit.ly/pml_templates
when you realize your work flow is nothing but mistakes.... thanks tho
Good tips for beginners and pros, but... use a de-esser on your voice next time. My ears are tired of your high frequencies :D
will do! :)
agreeeedd
Really? I can't hear
Super helpful video, thanks!
I've been producing (not well) for many many years. Your organization tips alone are crazy. You could charge $75 for what you told me. My workflow is going to change dramatically especially because of doing synth presets like that!!
How do you save synths/effects in the specified folders you created (with .adg extensions for synths) ? Would really appreciate the answer to make my workflow faster :)
Number 2 is the one I made the most. Now I just focus on the feel and vibe of the song at first, it's the most important part anyway.
Years ago I thought the haas effect was awesome and I put it on everything, especially my kick drum.
/shudders
thanks man, another video that helped me a bit to move forward
glad it helped! :)
Man I wish someone like you would make videos for FL Studio...I know this is irrelevant for this one but I'm talking about your "start to finish" videos and all the mixing stuff. It is really helpful but mostly very hard to adapt into another DAW.
This video is a huge help. Thank you so much!
José Marín Glad it helped!
Very guilty of the first two. I knew I was making a mistake. I was just glad to see that I am not the only one.
thank you!!!
thanks for the tips man :)
thank you this was really helpful!
awesome :)
BUY HIGH QUALITY HEADPHONES. A good pair cost around $300 for something like Beyrdynamics. I have produced in houses and apartments and obviously it’s hard to use monitors when you have close neighbors but I love headphones. It allows me to hear every piece of audio as possible. I get some fatigue so you can switch to monitors to compare but more gear doesn’t make better music. I simplified my studio to a 49 key Akai and a Push 2 and the rest is in the computer. Know your tools, that’s the most important.
People are afraid or too proud to watch videos like this because they're afraid they're making all of these mistakes but think they're doing it correctly. They don't want to find out. All of these are great ideas!
yeah, maybe that suits for you Ricky...another wild guess: maybe these people just don't like being "tought" by a 14 yo greenhorn talking like a wise ass who calls pushing around loops in live "music production"..lmfao
Does it matter how old he is, what he looks like or how he produces? Good tips are good tips. Don't be blinded by irrelevancies and just take his advice to heart.
of course these things matter ! If you feel you can learn something from him, it's fine though, i just don't like generalizations.
I have a lot of respect for people who's original language isn't English, making a video about music production IN English - and doing it well. This could be the beginning of something big for this guy. The reason why I said that is because I feel that way when I see these titles. I just released an EP and I'm like, "Oh shit... what did I do wrong?" Lol I get you about age and what people may initially think, but I also think about the Skrillex factor, where age means nothing
yeah relatively good points actually, i may have been a little too harsh. But still - for my taste - i have a problem with the guys attitude, but yep, he's young..i'm old :P
The best thing is to mix in mono.. levels and panning do them in stereo but all the effects..(reverb..delay..compression..eq..limiter..) add them only while mixing in mono because if it sounds great in mono it will sound amazing in stereo... because you want the listener to listen to the song on every device and not all devices are stereo like headphones and monitors
headphones tip is amazing - one thing my producer friends and I all agree on is that treating a room is an (almost) fruitless pursuit. your room will never come anywhere close enough to a pro studio - get the best studio monitor headphones you can - bam
Especially if tou dont know what youre doing you should always have a limiter on the master. Just maybe keep the gain down
Let me get this right. When you say producing with strong musical ideas, you're talking about that precanned, clip loopster style of "writing music." You know, the kind that draws comments from real performance musicians about "kids who know nothing about music writing hits songs on laptops." You should try creating brand new, interesting, UNIQUE melodies, harmonies, and drums EVERY TIME, EVERY CLIP. Anything else isn't just producing without strong musical ideas, it's producing with any musical ideas at all. Oh well.
Lol first one is no shit sherlock.. Like that is depending what genre you prod. Im prod psytrancs ofc i need much too much loops, but with diffrenet phase, filter, or on simple word a different modulation of same sound :)
this guy is the best tutorial teacher
the template tracks idea might not be that relevant if you're basic idea relies on some specific sounds without a certain pitch, and not on melodies, IMHO
How did you pin your VST synths in the places folders?
You Group "Serum" for example and then u save it in your destination folder.
Great video. Disagree with some points, agree with others.
4th tip was gold :D I always had a doubt whether to spend on monitors or headphones
:D
What's your name? Can I find more tutorials ?
how to mono and stereo the track ?
Do you want a 2 Pro advices ??? ... don’t full Ableton’s “ PLACES “ with folders ; and more folders , because ( one day ) the D.A.W. will take longer and longer time to to start open !!! Copy all that folders to a flash drive USB , and drag-and-drop the content ( samples ; projects ; etc. ) ... then ; tell me “ something about it “ greetings from Portugal !!! And ; ... Happy Christmas !!! :D
Most people listen to their monitors loud in the studio. Turn your monitor down to speaking level and then adjust your mixing accordingly. Big difference when you bring your volume back up. Especially in Mono
300e for monitor speakers ?
lol maybe that's why they sound crap :D
On this I have to disagree with you, it's important to work with both, when you add FX on your sound .....like a reverb , on headphone the sound will hit your ears immediately, not the case on speakers, so the reverb effect will sound great on headphones and low on speakers, it depends on what are you doing.
But man, I totally agree with you on point 6, my music is still crap cuz lots of time I add FXs without knowing how they work :)
Or do away with all that and use your ears 😂😂😂
Smexoscope is great for monitoring volume. You can adjust the time axis to analyze individual instruments instead of just the master
Stephen Gant Thanks for sharing! I'll check it out for sure 😄
Yes! So many relatable parts to the video! Really well done.
So glad somebody else uses the session view! I constantly see people build a track on arrangement view. The unique feature of Ableton is session view gives you total creativity and the ability to experiment and have 'happy accidents'.
My own tip is to create a bunch of clips for the main components (drums, bass, leads, chords) and try different combinations until you find something that works - THEN in session view go a few scenes down so there's a gap and use capture and insert scene. I've found once I've got a ton of clips I can build a track using capture and insert right from the build to the main to the break etc etc.. You still have all the flexibility of the arrange page after but keep your creativity going right up to committing. I tend to just run through my captured scenes in record to populate.a rough arrangement and get clinical there. It's good to separate your workflow so you can use your creative brain at a different time to your 'scientific', analytical brain.
Also! Yes to the difficulty with an untreated room. I still feel like I benefit from the full range Genelecs I use but as the room is mostly untreated my low end is completely unreliable with bass peaks around twice the volume at certain points in the room. I regularly stick on the headphones to hear more detail and a flatter response. Ideally a treated room would give me a better idea of the mix across a greater frequency range to i still reference on the speakers.
Oh, and also, EQ is EVERYTHING! Work hard on separation and you'll experience miracles!
Great stuff - hope my observations were of help.
Dude, this video was made for me. I noticed that how I was approaching things wasn't working, even when the sound ideas and things I was creating were incredible, once I got to certain points the idea would fall flat. I'd be going, alright this sounds great, but what the fuck do I do now? I'm not even done watching the video. The first 3 points you made already showed exactly how I've been fucking up. I can't even watch the rest of the video yet. Aahahahahaaha
Solid advices dude. Thanks )
A lot of these points are true. I see too many people on UA-cam etc, caught up in the hype and bandwagon of looking like a "producer" and not enough actually being a good musician.
sonaworks speaker calibration is one of the best reasonably priced speaker calibration system. It reduced my room acoustic issues significantly.
These are really great rules - I'm getting to know Ableton all over again, as I am typically a Reason user. Can you PLEASE not rock back and forth in your chair so much though? lol I subscribed!
Duvets are really good for sound treatment, buy a bunch of cheap 12-15 togs and pin them up to the wall. Cost £12 each and can cover a lot of space and deaden a room very well
To point #3, you can also rightclick the namelable at the top and add a rank column for your favorite devices ;)
8:47 what wrong with just turning some knobs and pushing some buttons in the hope of finding something that sounds good?
Real Talk!
You surprised me. These tips were very on the money, exceeded expectations
cool :)
U need to Dess your voice, just use a Desser when make your videos. U can support your Sss on headphones
Thanks a lot for this amazing video!!! For a new producer like me it's just gold!
Bought some lessons on PML and that's amazing too!
One of the best tuto's I have ever seen man ;).Your video is on point and most of these mistakes,I have made them too!!!
good advice
Mix in Mono! mobile phones, Radio and Tv give just Mono signals!!!
Really nice video! Keep up the good work. Really feel you ARE hustling.
Thank you for this list. PML is a very good production team. I highly recommend their tutorials.
very nice video! so tnx! but I'm not a fan of decreasing kick transient too much because you may have a louder track but you will loose kick punch for sure!
true. you always need to find the golden middle :)
great tutorial...such good information, and well explained! Specially helped as a beginner
I like this ideas and i do some of this mistakes. Thanks for the great tutorial, helps to many of a people like me haha!!! Good job
Your mic is sibilant ;) just trolling. Beautiful video.
What headphones are you using and which ones do you recommend?
very clear speech , easy to understand , thx
headphones suck for mixing.
You speak great English for a Pole
I'm a new producer, thank😁🎛🎹🎧
Isnt a transient the whole sample like ADSR basically? It sounded like you talked about the attack only
Shades : Not really. The transient is the spike specifically. The attack settings can be used to control the transient. a long attack would hide a transient. a short attack would reveal the transient (if there was one)
KrK's didn't sound bad because of the room treatment, its because they are actually not that good sounding and don't have such a flat sound.
true, they're not the best
subjective
I recently bought Yamaha hs8 to upgrade from previous hs5. Using it in a large open space that is unthreaded. (Living room). I don't get much reflections and I can hear a lot more details and I am able to detect bad frequencies and the power of my sub bass a lot more easily than on my ath50x and ath m40x. Your monitors probably sounded bad because (I assume) you have a small room, not that great monitors and (again I assume) have a lot of stuff in your room. If I were you I would return the Krk's and Buy yamha's HS 5.
Equator monitors are better
Very helpful! Thanks a lot!
Really good video. This video should end up having loads of views.
LEFTBLU Glad you liked it :)
lmao the limiter 5x
Problem number 2 lol
Thank you mate
helps alot thanks!
Hello ! How do you copy all of the session content to arangement like that ? record ? (1:55)
You can select the clips and drag them to the upper left III== Arrangement and Session View symbols like in this video: ua-cam.com/video/5dpSfaOR23s/v-deo.htmlm40s
Thanks so much !
#1. guilty
Good video bro!
Wow, thank you!
thank you for making this! i got a lot out of it. clear and straight to the point.
glad it helped!
really great tutorial!! thumbs up (Y)
glad you liked it!
bravo!
You nailed all my mistakes dead on.
:D
Great Video. Very helpful.
glad it helped!
the sample tip is straight up garbage too be honest. 80 procent of signature sound comes from sample manipulation in many modern genres :)
I think he is referring to chosing perhaps a sample which is closer to that which you are trying to create. I don't think hes saying use a sample straight off the bat lol.
which studio headphones are you using?
yamaha hphmt7
ath m70x
(8- not dealing with clashing freqs. ) first thing to do is check the phase between then , if phase is not the issue then move on to whatever you want to do with it. I have done that mistake a lot of times equing ,compressing , multi band dynamics...when the only thing I had to do is flip the phase the bass track.
very true. phase is so much underrated, if you ever play and recorded a drum... not just kick and bass - the full spectrum. but the more the low freq the more important... btw. soundradix auto-align vst is very timesaving and easy to use
I'm producing my own music completely intuitively and it already sounds good. So I guess I'm doing it pretty right...
Rule nr .11 : ditch ableton and get Renoise
i cant download the haas effect
and your mixing tip 7 is soo wrong ask any pros :)
Second 2nd :D
omg so advanced I dont get it.... knob
which parts are too advanced?
most of these points are bullshit, everybody uses his own technics
K for the Win I agree.
First
Very good video, this helped me.
eery Awesome :)