Eyal Levi & Joel Wanasek: Brutally honest feedback, fixing common mix mistakes, and mastering the fundamentals

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Focus, right supplying hardware and software products used by professional and amateur musicians, which enables the high quality production of music focus. Right? Sound is everything. And now your hosts, Joey Sturgis, Joel

Speaker 2 (00:20):

Wanasek, and Eyal Levi. Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I'm Eyal Levi. With me is Joel Wanasek, and we are going to create some mixes, but I got to say that I'm amazed that this is the first time we've ever done one of these where there isn't a goddamn Skype delay.

Speaker 3 (00:40):

Well, you know why that is? That's because we're three miles away from each other in geographic location.

Speaker 2 (00:45):

Yeah. Do you think that's what it is?

Speaker 3 (00:47):

It definitely is probably playing a role in that. We've been hanging out all week, haven't we

Speaker 2 (00:52):

Have filming like crazy? Yeah,

Speaker 3 (00:55):

I've been on camera for quite a few days straight and I'm kind of tired of talking, but here we are, podcasting.

Speaker 2 (00:59):

How are you feeling? Besides tired of talking.

Speaker 3 (01:02):

I kind of feel like going to the bar and making poor decisions.

Speaker 2 (01:07):

However, we're not even close to done filming.

Speaker 3 (01:10):

Yeah, we got some fast tracks and we got a lot of stuff to film, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15):

Yeah, we've been making a really cool course that's going to do great things for whoever actually goes through it.

Speaker 3 (01:23):

Yeah, I'm pretty excited about this one. This is definitely a product of passion and something I think a lot of you guys are really going to like, but we're just going to tease it. We're not actually going to tell you what it's about. You're going to have to wait.

Speaker 2 (01:34):

You ever wonder, when we do this educational stuff, how many people actually go all the way through? I feel like there are some people, we've got some students who have been around for a while who just keep getting better and better, and you can tell that they actually will do the work with the stuff that we put out. But sometimes I feel like a big majority of people don't go through the stuff. And if you guys did actually go through the stuff and put the time in, you would get better. Definitely.

Speaker 3 (02:08):

I think I kind of look at it like this. It's just like these podcasts, we just keep doing 'em and eventually sometimes people listen to us and then every once in a while, six months, I'll look at the stats and I'll be like, oh, wow, more than our assistants and interns listen to us. That's kind of cool. So I try to set the expectation as low as possible, so I'm not completely disappointed.

Speaker 2 (02:31):

Do our assistants and interns even listen to us though?

Speaker 3 (02:34):

No, they don't. So it's really just us listening to each other talk.

Speaker 2 (02:37):

Yeah, but

Speaker 3 (02:38):

Do you listen to these? Not anymore. No. I'm kidding, dude. When we make them,

Speaker 2 (02:43):

Maybe nobody listens. It's

Speaker 3 (02:45):

Just a conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (02:46):

Yeah. Well then no one's going to care about how bad we're about to trash these mixes.

Speaker 3 (02:52):

Oh, today is going to be especially savage. I am feeling the hate and anger today. No, not really. I don't know what is it Today is today Tuesday.

Speaker 2 (03:00):

It's Monday.

Speaker 3 (03:01):

Is it Monday? It is Monday. Monday

Speaker 2 (03:03):

The 13th.

Speaker 3 (03:04):

Dude, I don't even know what day it is because all I do is sit on camera and talk.

Speaker 2 (03:09):

Well, it's not actual hate, it's actually love. But sometimes the best way to deliver a loving sentiment is through a brutal, hateful package.

Speaker 3 (03:23):

I actually went on a rant about this when I did my solo mix crit Monday, not too long ago. Actually. This is kind of my least favorite episode because I don't like crit things so negative and I have to be really harsh, which is weird. I normally try to be pretty positive, but it's the nature of the beast. So we do this stuff out of love and we're here to help you guys. So hopefully this stuff is actually helping you guys. I mean, the feedback is always good, but all your buddies always tell you what you want to hear. So yeah,

Speaker 2 (03:53):

I mean dude, even nowadays, I feel like I've got two or three people who will tell me the truth. And even now, there's certain friends who will just fucking yes me. It's like you would think that at this point I've been around for a while, I can handle it, but people still will yes me and not tell me the truth. And I think that it's just because people are hardwired to not want to offend their friends or their family members or whatever. No one wants to be a dick. No one wants, well, most people don't want to be dicks. Most people don't want to offend you, and so they're not going to tell you what they're really thinking.

Speaker 3 (04:39):

Well, next time you call me and ask for an opinion, I'm just going to say no.

Speaker 2 (04:42):

Okay, that's fine. But you don't. Yes me though.

Speaker 3 (04:48):

It depends. It depends how important it is.

Speaker 2 (04:51):

Thanks. God. Damnit, you've been guessing me. I'm about to develop a complex.

Speaker 3 (04:58):

I feel like two old men who are just exhausted. I mean, guys, we've been filming like 16 hours straight every day for quite a large amount of days and we have many left. So kind of feel like a couple of old men sitting around just yapping about nothing. So why don't we crit some mixes, huh?

Speaker 2 (05:15):

Alright, fine. This

Speaker 3 (05:17):

Is yapping 1940. Call that once its word bad.

Speaker 2 (05:21):

What the hell are we even talking about? I already forgot. I

Speaker 3 (05:25):

Don't know. It doesn't matter. Let's crit some mixes.

Speaker 2 (05:28):

Alright, so this month on nail the mix, we've got right back at it again by a day to remember. Andrew Wade is our guest mixer. He produced the record, helped with the writing and the arrangements, and all in all, he kicks ass. And we are going to be creating our subscribers data. Remember mixes that we picked, we hand picked these right out of the octagon. The octagon is one of our private groups specifically for mixed crits. These mixes were not given to us to crit. We just swooped in and grabbed them,

Speaker 3 (06:04):

Sold them

Speaker 2 (06:05):

Illegally come

Speaker 3 (06:07):

Under your noses.

Speaker 2 (06:08):

So these guys are not expecting to get a crit from us, so this should be a nice surprise,

Speaker 3 (06:15):

But I feel like everyone posting in the octagon knows that this could potentially happen. And we've done this a couple of months in a row now, and the feedback has been really awesome. It seems like you guys really like that we're taking crits from the octagon and working on the nail to mix stuff because I think the biggest question everybody always asks every month after we turn in the top 20, they're like, dude, why don't I get in the top 20? And I'm like, well, it's complicated. There's a lot of mixes. I'm going to rant about this. Can I rant about this? I'm sorry. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (06:43):

Man,

Speaker 3 (06:45):

I get fired up every month just thinking about it because

Speaker 2 (06:48):

Yapp away,

Speaker 3 (06:49):

We always come under fire for this. And it's just like, here's the deal with the top 20, right? I feel like the first getting the three through five is pretty easy. There's a couple of mixes that are always usually right on point and outstanding and sound pretty good, and then there's the next five or so and those some pretty good. And then there's that 15 through 20 spot. And the truth is kind of mixes somewhere between 10 to 15 and let's just say 30 to 40 are generally kind of interchangeable where you're like, ah, I like the guitars better on this one and the vocals and this ones, but this one's balanced a little bit better, but this one's got a much better bottom end. And it's like, well, which mix is better? And you're sitting there and you're kind of scratching your head. You're like, you could go either way.

(07:36):

And it's more so like, okay, so I'm going to close my eyes, I'm going to a B through a couple of 'em and be like, which ones where I'm like, okay, yeah, that sounds a little bit better overall, just that's what I'm feeling right now. So sometimes people get really upset because they don't make the top 20 and they feel like they should have, and maybe they made the top 50. And it's like, well, you got to understand that there's a certain level, like I said, there's that top tier of people and those guys, they're killing it and it's not the same people every month. Sometimes there's a couple of guys that make it a lot, but in general, usually the top five mixes at least to me are pretty obvious. And then there's kind of that almost top five. And then there's just that middle chunk of pretty good mixes that have a few things that they're lacking in and can improve on. And then there's kind below the bottom 50, which is usually pretty obvious. So I don't know. It depends. It really does. It's hard to pick mixed winners from hundreds and hundreds of mixes. By the time you've listened to 10 of them, you're like, okay.

Speaker 2 (08:36):

The one thing I will say is that I've been pretty right in calling which one I think is going to win most months as have some of our staff that helps us organize these. It's pretty obvious who the winner is most months. And it's not ambiguous. You can tell when you hear it that there's a couple or three or four mixes that are just better than all the other ones. So yeah, it's just like to me it's almost like once you get past that top tier, aside from the really bad ones, the difference starts to be very, very slight between all the mixes

Speaker 3 (09:19):

And very preferential. It's not like something jumps out and you're like, oh, this mix slays the other. This should have been better, blah, blah, blah. How come this didn't get into the top 20 every once in a while just for fun, we intentionally throw a troll or a curve ball in there just to make sure you guys are actually listening. One time I threw one with autotune vocals and stuff like that. I laughed when I heard it. I'm like, dude, top 20. Let's see who's even listening this month. So I would say I, some people get bent out of shape and really passionate, I shouldn't say bent out of shape. Some people do get bent out of shape and I'm genuinely upset, but some people are really passionate. I don't understand why I was in top 20. I want to make the top 20. Listen guys, if you're making the top anything out of hundreds of mixes, you're doing pretty well.

(10:03):

So don't take it to heart. If not, look at it this way. Don't look at it as something negative. Look at it as a room to improve. Look at the best, mix the mix that wins and look at your mix and be like, okay, why is this mix better than mine? And more importantly, how can I beat it and put yourself to the highest possible standard? And I think that's a really important thing for life. I mean, for example, in my career, I don't know know about you al, but in my career I always sat down and time I want to do anything. No matter what I'm getting into as a hobby or a profession or whatever, I always look at the best people in the world immediately when I'm starting out and I say, okay, this is the best. These are the people that are the unicorns.

(10:39):

What do I got to do to get that good? And that's what I aim for. And whether or not I even come close to that, even laughably close, it doesn't matter. It's just setting your standard that high because when your standard is set that high, if you shoot for the star and you hit the moon or halfway in between or even don't even leave the atmosphere, at least you're shooting for the best in the pinnacle and you're striving for excellence. You're not striving for mediocrity. So look at the best guys and compare. I mean really in reality, you should be trying to beat the reference mix that's done by the A-list guy because that's the real mix you'd have to compete against in the real world. So maybe cool winning the top 20 or getting top 10 or something like that. But in reality, either it beats the reference or you go home and don't get the gig. So set high standards for yourselves and high expectations. Try to make unrealistic standards. You'd be shocked how many people don't go for the absolute highest thing just because they think they can't.

Speaker 2 (11:37):

And another thing, if you don't make it as far as you think you should and you just don't get it, you just don't understand. You're convinced that your mix is just better.

Speaker 3 (11:50):

Dude, it's a conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (11:51):

It's

Speaker 3 (11:51):

Really a co secrets conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (11:53):

Well just ask yourself, what is it that they didn't like about my mix? Maybe instead of thinking why did they pick the other mix? Ask yourself what is it about mine that maybe they didn't like? So maybe try to reframe it rather than asking what's so good about that other mix that mine doesn't have. Focus on what it is about yours that might not be, I guess getting the votes or getting the attention that you think it deserves. Because lots of guys who didn't win in the past told me that they did that. They asked themselves why we didn't pick them. And then when they started to actually think about it, they realized, oh, my vocals were buried. Oh, my symbols were too loud. Oh yeah, it was distorting like crazy the whole way through. And

Speaker 3 (12:49):

That's all bullshit. Lemme tell you how it really works. We get together in a mix of Illuminati secret meeting that nobody knows about and then we're like, alright, how can we screw up the top 20?

Speaker 2 (12:58):

I wear a yak outfit and he dresses like a stag.

Speaker 3 (13:04):

I was going to say I got a goat Foley and just wear a hide. I don't even wipe up the blood. And then when the blood dries up, the meeting is adjourned. So here's how it works. We sit in a secret mix, Illuminati meeting

Speaker 2 (13:14):

Eyes wide, have ever seen eyes wide shut? I have not. Well, if anyone has seen Eyes Wide Shut and the party scene, it's kind of like the eyes wide shut party.

Speaker 3 (13:25):

I'll take your word for it. I just have my bleeding boot.

Speaker 2 (13:28):

I'm going to show you the Eyes wide shot party.

Speaker 3 (13:31):

Are we going to film after this?

Speaker 2 (13:33):

Yeah, you're going to think it's awesome. You're going to be like, hell yeah. That's definitely how we pick our mixes.

Speaker 3 (13:38):

So then we conspire and then we pay off all of the voters so that we can select which mix is going to win. And essentially it's just a rigged system. So no, yeah, I don't know. Is it conspiracy?

Speaker 2 (13:53):

Alright, let's listen. This one's by Philippa White

Speaker 4 (14:10):

Are coming in the thousand three, never screw nobody top today except to tell all the things I couldn't do. Hear about it, other nearest sand in every local bar played a show night made. So here right back at it again just like no friends, I'm right back at it again. Lik way, make No Friends, let's we back plan and everyone we knew that we could, the you can't make it or you won't make it there do want to hear about Aspen? Most of hardwood people say be play. So, so I'm right back at it again. Dislike way said here to make, I'm right back at it again, way here to hear about it again. So here I am. I'm right back at it again. Just like Goway said away friends say, Hey, I'm right back at, so what I hear about it, bitch,

Speaker 5 (17:13):

Something is so off. Will you leave it this time? What'd you think it was? Awesome. Leave the bitch please. You like the bitch? I've liked the bitch on the fucking homestead.

Speaker 2 (17:24):

All right, that was by your subscriber Felipe White. Well

Speaker 3 (17:28):

You want to go first?

Speaker 2 (17:29):

Sure. Felipe,

Speaker 3 (17:31):

I'm feeling mean. So you can start

Speaker 2 (17:33):

Felipe. I'm sure you're cool. So I mean this in the nicest possible way, but this is kind of all wrong. The wrong kick sounds like metal. This is not metal. This is like hard rock pop punk with metal influence. But this is not metal. This is a top 20 band. Wrong kick. It sounds like metal is way too cliquey. The guitars are just way too clean and I mean the heavy guitars and also the clean guitars, the heavy guitars don't have enough gain on them, so they just die off. There's no sustain at all. And it makes the picking sound super jerky because there's all these thing riffs in there, but without enough gain, it sounds so herky jerky, it kind of hurts. And then the clean guitars have no dirt on them at all. And if you listen to the original version, they're kind of overdriven a little bit. They're not crystal clear clean guitars. So these guitars are just way too clean. Vocals are way too loud and dry. They're so loud. But however, I can't hear the backup vocals at all and there's a ton of backups on this song. There's harmonies all over the place. I'm just really hearing the lead vocal, just loud and proud, dry free balling it and then free balling. Yeah, I don't know. That's what I was thinking. So

Speaker 3 (19:11):

Just balls out, just lead vocalist. Fuck the band.

Speaker 2 (19:15):

Yeah, basically lead guitars are buried. I actually kind of liked the beep box part, I'll give you that. But the problem with that is that the dynamic is all wrong because when the band comes back in, the band is quieter than the beatbox part. What the hell dude? The beatbox is louder than the band. It's not supposed to be that way. That's supposed to be dynamic lull before it. The band kicks back in and goes through the brakes for impact part. Got it wrong. So that's what I wrote down.

Speaker 3 (19:45):

I concur. That was a pretty good opening monologue here and I feel like you've used the floor. Well thanks. I'm going to add a few things in that. Is it just me? Is this snare pan left now? It was so weird. I had to check my speakers, but then I realized that the kick was quite and very much mono and then I go back to stereo, I'm like, why is the snare like three or four DB louder in the left ear? And I started thinking about it. I'm like, nah, nah, nah, nah, I've been working too long. I'm tired. I'm starting to make excuses and justify it. Nah, dude, something's fucked up with a snare. It's like he's got the overhead jacked or something and the snare is pulling left by 50 degrees. I don't even know. I don't understand how that's possible in a mix like this. I

Speaker 2 (20:30):

Didn't even notice that. That's freaking me out that I didn't notice. And so now,

Speaker 3 (20:35):

Well, you're sitting in a hotel room. I'm sitting on

Speaker 2 (20:39):

Speakers, but I'm listening on headphones. I should be able to,

Speaker 3 (20:43):

Yeah, I don't know. I was

Speaker 2 (20:45):

Like, dude, maybe hold, I'm about to play this right now. I think I was so freaked out by all the other stuff that I didn't even notice.

Speaker 3 (20:52):

Well, yeah, the vocals are 74.681

Speaker 2 (20:56):

Db. Hold on, I'm listening to this. I want to hear this left hand snare or whatever.

Speaker 3 (21:01):

Elevator music. Do

Speaker 2 (21:03):

You're right.

Speaker 3 (21:06):

See?

Speaker 2 (21:06):

Yeah. Yeah. And

Speaker 3 (21:07):

When you're right, you're right.

Speaker 2 (21:08):

No, no, no. You're a hundred percent right. That snare is off to the left.

Speaker 3 (21:13):

Yeah, that's kind of whack. It almost sounds panned on my speakers and like I said, I'm sitting here scratching my head and then I loaded up another mix. I'm like, oh, okay, okay. My right speaker still works. It hasn't failed. Yeah, it's pretty whack. So I don't know what's going on. I feel like the only way that can happen logically is that there's an overhead or a room or something that's either really loud or it's off center image and it's poking really hot on that side and he has to limit it out or something like that. Or

Speaker 2 (21:41):

I don't know man. Or maybe there's a mono room that he panned by accident or something.

Speaker 3 (21:45):

I don't know what he did, but dude, you got to get that snare at the center here. We're mixing radio pop punk music here and the kick snare bass, your center vocal, that's literally the most important balance in the entire mix. I mean everything else, guitars and stuff are cool, but to be honest, it's all about your center because when this gets summed down to mono on radio, no one's going to give a shit about the accent guitar or this or that. All they're going to hear is kick snare, bass vocals and a little bit of guitar. So you got to get that snare. I don't know, it just needs to hit, it needs to sound like a snare drum and it sounds like it's panned left, so I don't know man, fix that. I'm just going to reiterate here though, let's jump topics vocals way too fricking loud. Holy crap. A lot of times we talk about gelling. Okay, this is a very important concept in mixing here, getting it to sound like a song to feel like one hole. And this is a great example of a mix that does not gel at all. It's like you said, the kick drum is from another genre. The vocals are literally floating and completely disconnected from the mix, but there's no backing vocals to connect them to anything and ground them and the ambiences, it's just

Speaker 2 (22:54):

This song has tons of backing vocals too.

Speaker 3 (22:57):

Yeah, and they're great. All the other mixes we're about to go over the backing vocals. You can hear 'em pretty loud and clear. So I listened to the original mix of this and he is got 'em pretty loud. So yeah, the snare is pretty boxy. If we want to jump back to drums and be neurotic and jump all over the place, the snare needs some serious eq. I don't know what's going on and I get it, the original mix was kind of a boxier kind of snare, but I don't know, I feel like it just got muddy and it was weird. It's like pan left and it just isn't eqd right, but I feel like the bigger, more important substantial issue here is aside from not having the right kick drum and things like that are just the balances are off in general. The balance is way out of whack and I kind of would zero out the faders if I were you get a more approachable kick drum sound for the genre and kind of bring the faders back up and just start rebalancing this and see if you can get it again. I think if he might've been over analyzing it al where he's sitting down and he's really working out and tweaking and maybe chasing some mixes, but I kind of feel like he's got to maybe go for some of the gut instinct. We're just zero out all the faders, take 'em all down to nothing and then just start moving 'em up and then just go by gut and try to balance it as fast as possible and you probably get a much better balance doing it that way. You just have to experiment.

Speaker 2 (24:20):

Well, to me it sounds like with some of the elements he tried to create too much clarity, so the kick ended up way too cliquey, the heavy guitars without enough gain. These are things that you do sometimes when you want to hear something better because too much gain on heavy guitars can sometimes equal noise. How do you dial in more? I guess curability in a metal kick drum, you add more high end. So I feel like he was trying to get more clarity out of the mix, but he just went way too far and

Speaker 3 (25:05):

Kind

Speaker 2 (25:05):

Of threw the baby away with the bathwater kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (25:08):

So I think just kind of reset everything and

Speaker 2 (25:11):

Take

Speaker 3 (25:11):

It back from the top. Get that snare in the center, let's get a kick drum that works. Everything's just a little bit too, like you said, a little bit too

Speaker 2 (25:20):

Wrong,

Speaker 3 (25:21):

Separated. It's not gelling. The opposite of a mix that's gelling really well or really glued together is one that's really overly separated and everything kind of feels like it's floating bys itself and it doesn't feel like a mix and it doesn't feel like it's song. It feels like a bunch of elements just flapping around and I don't know, it's kind of crazy.

Speaker 2 (25:41):

Yeah. Alright, well Felipe, good luck with that. I would start from scratch like Joel was saying. All right, next mix. This one is by Jay Lehi. I am sorry if I mispronounced that

Speaker 4 (26:06):

We get a backup plan and everyone we knew that we this gas and if you can't make it or you won't make it there, hear about

Speaker 5 (29:10):

Something is so off, we can leave it this time. What'd you think it was? Awesome. Leave the bitch please. You like the bitch. I've liked the bitch on the fucking

Speaker 2 (29:19):

Home shit. Alright Jay, I have a question and I know Jay's not here to answer, but my question is where are the drums?

Speaker 3 (29:31):

I want to know what the hell he is monitoring on man. Because from 200 to maybe one K, it sounds like there's just no EQ work. I can't even explain it. It's really weird. There's just a total cluster fuck of frequencies going on.

Speaker 2 (29:46):

Yeah, it's really weird that frequency range is putting a blanket I feel like over everything. It's this weird soupy honky but low, mid kind of just weirdness.

Speaker 3 (30:05):

Yeah. Okay, let's start at the bottom right, so we'll talk about the structural stuff. The kick in the base, they're a fricking mess. The kick in base eq, they're fighting and literally stomping all over each other and it sounds like it reminds me of me and my brother growing up. We just sit and just beat the crap out of each other all day and we roll around.

Speaker 2 (30:26):

Can I tell you something I used to do to my brother? What's that? I used to kick his ass. I mean when we were really young and he'd start crying and then I would crack a joke or tickle him or do anything just to make him start laughing and then I'd immediately kick his ass again. He start crying. I did that to Mike too. Yeah. Then the moment he's crying, fucking make him laugh again.

Speaker 3 (30:57):

Oh man, you were savage. I used to beat the crap out of my brother every day for years, but it's like that. It's like two boys fighting. It's literally the kick in the base are pummeling the shit out of each other for the entire mix and it's like, oh, I can hear the kick. Oh, there's the base and they're literally stepping. It's like you put them in the washing machine or no, not the washing machine, the dryer and it does the spin and they just smash over each other and on top of each other. That's what the mix sounds like. It literally sounds like the kick in the base are having a pissing contest that they're crossing the streams and no one's even hitting the urinal. So it's there's no clarity in the 100

Speaker 6 (31:32):

That is so descriptive. It really is. That's a pretty fucked up analogy. Fantastic. The imagery, the mix gives me just two streams of piss cancel each other out. That's

Speaker 2 (31:51):

So good. But the thing is that the kick is so quiet too that it's amazing

Speaker 3 (31:58):

And it has no energy or balls either. There's no sub and there's no push. But then the whole 80 through 300 to 400 region of both of them, it's just like what the hell is going on? It needs eq. I'm going to come out, I'm going to fly out, I'm going to come to your studio, I'm going to open your stems. I'm going to EQ this part in five minutes and I'm going to come back and then we're going to recreate this mix.

Speaker 2 (32:20):

I have no idea where he even lives. Dude, that snare needs a sample.

Speaker 3 (32:24):

Yeah, about that. I'm just going to drop the mic and stop talking about it

Speaker 2 (32:29):

Because you're right. Okay, well first of all, I feel like having heard the natural snare on this, I would say that anyways, that snare needs a sample. I don't think that you should be trying to get the natural snare on this because I don't think it sounds that great.

Speaker 3 (32:47):

I mean most radio songs have a hundred percent natural snares, don't they? Nope.

Speaker 2 (32:52):

Nope. Well, I mean if it sounded it's no and it's no dig on Andrew or anything. Sometimes you get great sounding natural scenarios, sometimes you don't. It is what it is. Every situation's different. I would definitely suggest that you use a sample on this song and I don't mean that you have to a hundred percent replace it or anything like that, but I just mean that to get that kind of power and cut that you would want out of a snare, you got to put a sample on it. Especially this one,

Speaker 3 (33:27):

I mean Hal, he could just take just a 10 milliseconds of a snare sample, just a transient and put it in there. It would make it sound a hundred percent better or something I've been playing a lot with lately because we're about to put out a transient designer is you could put a high pass detector and just crank the attack on everything above 300 hertz and it would just totally sound like a different world on a snare like that. So it just needs some love man sample it or I don't know, a hundred db of eight K and maybe not that much but can we talk about the guitars for a second?

Speaker 2 (34:06):

I couldn't find them. They were buried under a blanket.

Speaker 3 (34:08):

Well I have two gripes and you nailed one of them, but I feel like the guitars are both harsh and muddy and this doesn't happen very often, but when it does,

Speaker 2 (34:18):

How come it happens on mixed grip Monday so much.

Speaker 3 (34:21):

I don't know. Picking them that dude in the meme, it's just like I don't usually make my guitars harsh but muddy, but when I do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (34:29):

It's on mixed grip Monday.

Speaker 3 (34:31):

It's definitely for mixed grip mud. Yeah. Alright, here's what happens. It is really hard to get a guitar harsh and muddy unless it's recorded like shit, which I know these guitars are not even close to. They sound great, the raws. So I'm trying to think of advice here that I can give that's actionable because when a guitar is usually harsh, it's usually when you remove the mud and then you're like, ah, there's some shit in the top end that's got to get taken out and then you chase it and that, you know what I mean? You're kind of balancing the mud versus the harshness, but here it's just super boxy in the mid range. It could just be the kick in the bass or pissing over each other.

Speaker 2 (35:08):

Well I think that the reason that the guitars are so harsh is probably because the symbols are so fucking loud and painful that the high end of the guitars and symbols are pissing all over each other up there and I feel like you've got the same thing going on up there that you have with the kick and the bass high end of the guitars and cys are just fighting for who can be more annoying?

Speaker 3 (35:35):

Man, this is mixed rage Monday. This isn't even mixed. Alright, so what advice can we give him first off,

Speaker 2 (35:43):

Notch those frequencies on the symbols and turn them down?

Speaker 3 (35:47):

Yes, I think we should, I'm wondering what he's monitoring on because I feel like it's like NS tens all of a sudden he added the NS 10 EQ curve to the entire mix. You know what I mean? He's got to go in and he's got to, if you just took a master cut from 150 to let's just say 1.5 to 2K and just cut out three or two DB with a really wide Q, I mean it would be angels would come down from the sky and choirs would trumpet and it would be a great celebration and monuments and statues would be erected. It would be a much better start to this mix. So I almost feel like he's got a zero to EQs, he's got to kind of set everything back and then just kind of restart, try to get the structural stuff with the kick in the base more solid and the base needs to be under control.

(36:41):

Then just see about clearing up some of that mid range and get them Dan symbols down and try to clean up the top end. I don't know. A lot of work needs to be done on this one. Hopefully there's some sort of valuable advice in that because sometimes you got to know what you're doing really wrong before you can say, okay, I know what I did. It's like a couple of times I mixed rescue, I've had it and I've opened it up and I've been like, okay, I'll go through the stems and they'll have some crazy plugin. I'm just turn this damn thing off. It's fucking everything up. As soon as you start turning off all these weird distortion plugins and I was doing one, they had that Manny Quin distortion, I dunno how to pronounce his name if I butchered that, I'm sorry. He had this distortion plugin on everything and it was just totally destroying 90% of the mix and as soon as I turned it off immediately, immediately the mix was like night and day better. So sometimes there's some weird situations like that where somebody reads like, oh yeah, I got to saturate man saturation's how I get a great mix, blah, blah blah. And then they put a saturated on everything. All it does is destroy the mix.

Speaker 2 (37:40):

Well let me give you an example of that. Done right is Taylor Larson, most of his moves are through saturation, interestingly enough. I mean of course he EQs and compresses and stuff, but a lot of stuff that a lot of people would normally do through EQ or co compression, he does through saturation and it sounds great. He knows what he's doing, but man, I feel like also in addition to the EQ being weird on this, they just need to, I would recommend that before they even eq, they try to just get the levels rocking.

Speaker 3 (38:18):

Yeah, we're over to one levels today. I just want somebody to send me a mix with decent levels on it.

Speaker 2 (38:24):

Yeah, these levels are fucking horrible and I'm sorry to say it that way, but that just came out as honest as it could be. These levels are shot, man. They need to get the levels first and then start doing some eq I think because why even EQ something if the drums are multiple DB way too quiet under the guitars and stuff and it's also the vocals too. They're so under mix that I'm struggling to understand what he's saying in the verses and I know that these vocals are clear as fuck. I know because I've probably heard this song about 50 times.

Speaker 3 (39:08):

Well, I got an idea. A, we're going to start a new thing. Nail the mix is cool and all and we appreciate you guys all subscribing to that. But we're going to cancel that and we're going to start a new one and we're going to call it nail the balance and we're just going to do fader levels. Either that or I'm going to do a 40 hour course on just balanced

Speaker 2 (39:30):

Man. The thing that trips me out about the balance problems and some of these mixes is that we don't know what people are listening on. So we don't even know if they think they're hearing good balance.

Speaker 3 (39:42):

It could be probably is coming off their monitor and they're like, dude, this is fucking dope. I crushed this mix. I'm so proud of this. And they turn it in and then we do this and then they're like, oh my god, I'm going to kill those guys. Okay, so what's wrong? Like you said, is it the monitors, is it the mixing? Is it just maybe the experience you don't know. I mean somebody could be inexperienced just starting mixing or somebody could be extremely experienced but have a totally messed up environment or they could be inexperienced and have a messed up environment. There's so many different variables and it's hard for us to tell. It's not like we're sitting here over your shoulder. That's kind of what makes some of the mixed rescues a little bit fun that we do for the enhanced members is like we get to go into your sessions and we get to sit down and be like, all right, so this is cool. You nailed this. This sounds amazing. You're approaching this in kind of a weird way. Check this out. Look at how much clarity we can get by doing X, Y, and Z. Now compare it back and forth. You see how we were able to take all those plugins off and just simplify and get it sounding better, blah blah blah. So that's always interesting for me at least when we're doing those kinds of things and just seeing how other people work and how they think.

Speaker 2 (40:50):

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. There are a lot of assumptions that we make just from only listening to the track they give us. We have no idea what they're actually doing.

Speaker 3 (41:03):

Well, shall we proceed?

Speaker 2 (41:04):

Move on. Yeah. Okay, here's one from Michael Ska

Speaker 4 (41:42):

Out in the thousand three. Never went. Nobody talk to me it so to tell many other things I couldn't do. So what? Hear about it, my lyric, every local bar played a show at night until it made me sick. So here I a white guy, no friends, right back at it again, just like way sad. Cooper make no friends back plan and everyone we that we could. And if you can't make it or you won't make it there do I hear about most voted people say so I right back at it again like said up here, right back at like up here. Hear I'm right back at it again. Just like I'm right back at you again. Just like if you're too ain't here to, so

Speaker 5 (44:18):

Something is so off this time. What'd you think? It was? Awesome. Leave the bitch please. You like the bitch. I've liked the bitch on the fucking home. Shit.

Speaker 2 (44:29):

Alright. That was a mix by Michael sco. You want to take this first?

Speaker 3 (44:33):

You betcha. So I feel like I just want to get this out of the way. Remember how loud the vocals were on the last mix?

Speaker 2 (44:40):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (44:40):

If we were to take the bass from this mix, which is equally as loud and put it with the vocals and just have a base vocal band, it would be balanced pretty well. I feel like.

Speaker 2 (44:49):

Oh, you mean the first mix?

Speaker 3 (44:53):

Yes. Sorry. The first mix I have mix amnesia.

Speaker 2 (44:57):

Yeah. Okay. So the way too loud vocals from Felipe's mix with the way too loud bass from Michael SKAs mix

Speaker 3 (45:03):

And the Toms from this mix are also some of those like Hi Tom fills were just like ding ding really fast. It's literally like six dp louder than the mix. It jumps out and I almost jump. I'm like, holy shit. That scared the crap out of me. I was rocking it pretty loud.

Speaker 2 (45:18):

I do think that this was the best one out of the three just because I guess it had the most energy. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (45:23):

Let me say something positive about this mix. The base is completely fucking wrong and everything about it needs, we're going to get into detail. Lemme say something positive, but dude, his vocal mix, he fucking nailed it mad, the tone, the eq, he did a pretty good job comparatively. The vocals sound like that, kind of like they do on the album, you know what I mean? The vocals sound really good on this. So when I was listening to it, I was like, all right, I can ignore the fact that the bass is 60 be too loud flying all over the damn place and the whole 100 to 200 areas completely out of control. But aside from that man, the vocal mix sounds sweet. It's kind of like take your vocal mix and just do the whole rest of the mix again and make it fit and sound as good as a vocal mix and we'll have a real badass mix. How's that for general advice?

Speaker 2 (46:10):

No, I agree. I do feel like there's something that sounds a bit over pushed about the entire mix to where there's something painful happening. I don't know what it is. I wasn't able to zero in on frequencies and certain instruments, but I just feel like there's something jumping into my ears like a knife and I don't know what it is. There's something in it. I feel like

Speaker 3 (46:39):

Yeah, it cuts, but at the same time the mix I feel like doesn't have any power, if that makes sense. So while it has a lot of cut to it, as we will call it the knife cut, it's like a very slicing mix. It's also missing some power. So we have a little switchblade thing going on where it's carving you up, but we need some machete in there if that analogy makes any sense at all. We need to hack off some limbs or something.

Speaker 2 (47:01):

Well I just feel like this is a fatiguing mix.

Speaker 3 (47:04):

Yeah, definitely. I think he's got to get the bass down and then I feel like it'll add a lot more clarity to a lot of different things like guitars and et cetera. And he's got to get his 100 to two 50 ish, 300 whatever eqd properly and sitting right, maybe compressed whatever. It's just way too damn loud out of control. But then I feel like that will kind of peel back the skin of the banana and then it'll really expose all the inefficiencies of the top end. So is it the symbols, is it the guitar? Like I said, the vocals are feeling pretty balanced and pretty good and eqd pretty well to me, at least in my speakers. So I think there's probably some symbols, guitar and some other anomalies up there that need to be chased. But again, the base is so overbearing that it draws your attention and I feel like it is kind of masking because it's so damn loud and out of proportion.

(47:57):

Bring that back and then we're going to really open up that top end and we'll be like, okay, well this is what's wrong with the top end. So he's on the right track on some things. He's really, I don't know, he's got to have some kind of base monitoring situation. Maybe it's like the typical, I don't have a sub. Lemme tell you a story about subs actually. Okay, so I was doing a one-on-one on Enhance the other day. Al and I had a guy who a month and a half or two months ago, I had a one-on-one with him and he was mixing in this gargantuan room and he didn't have a subwoofer and he sent me a mix in his bottom end was just messed up. So I really hammered on him for it and he came back and he got a sub and I had him on last week and we sat down and we talked man. And his low end is one of the best low ends I have heard since on any one-on-one that I've done in months. It was fricking sick.

(48:50):

It was night and day better and the only thing he did is get a sub so he couldn't hear what he was doing to other there man. The bottom of his kick lock so nicely with the bottom of his base and the base was nice and round and sculpted and massive and controlled, but there wasn't a lot of crazy dynamic swing to it. It just locked. It felt nice, it was gelling and it sounded huge but it wasn't overdone and he did a really nice job and it was just amazing to watch what kind of transformation can happen when somebody has proper bottom end monitoring and a decently treated room. It was literally night and fucking day. I should send you these mixes after this. You'd be like, holy shit, what happened?

Speaker 2 (49:28):

Yeah, I'd love to hear them. Do you feel like sometimes when dudes can't hear the bottom end and they end up over mixing it and ends up out of control, they then end up pushing the high end in the painful areas to compensate?

Speaker 3 (49:43):

Yeah, or they're looking at some analyzer or something and they're like, oh well it looks right. I can't hear the damn thing. But look, the math says it's right and reality is it's way screwed up. You got to be careful either way if you can't accurately hear your bottom end and I will fight to the death over this. And I know some people disagree. For example, even Joey and I argue about this all the time because he doesn't mix with the sub. I'm just like, dude, how the fuck can you hear 40 to 50, 55, 60 hertz accurately unless you have some massive towering speakers with huge as drivers. You know what I mean?

(50:17):

You need some way to hear what's going on because the difference between 35 hertz and 50 is a huge difference and extremely important in mixing and you really, really have to be able to hear that sub. Some guys can pull it off, but man, I think having a sub and the more mixes we create here and the more one-on-ones we do at enhance, the more I realize that I almost feel like someday if I win the lottery, I'm going to buy all of our subscribers who don't have a sub, a sub and base track treatment for their rooms.

Speaker 2 (50:51):

Damn, that's generous dude.

Speaker 3 (50:52):

I'm feeling generous today.

Speaker 2 (50:55):

That's very generous. It went from rage mix Monday, mixed rage Monday to everyone's getting a car

Speaker 3 (51:06):

Until they have to pay taxes on it. And then they all call me pissed like, dude that new sub you got me is really awesome, but man,

Speaker 2 (51:14):

Yeah, true. Well then I guess you can just buy me a new sub.

Speaker 3 (51:17):

Alright, you have a way nicer sub dude. Alright, I'll tell you another story. I know this is off topic, but whatever. It's my show too so I can talk. Allow me to Hollywood for a second dude. Alright. When I went to ale's the first time and I was sitting at his studio down in Florida, he had this kind of small control room and this gargantuan drum room and this girl troll room was great because the sub was fricking huge. I could crawl up my whole body and sit inside his sub if I was one of those dudes, what do they call 'em? The people that can fit in that? It's like a contortionist. Oh,

Speaker 2 (51:52):

Contortionists. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:53):

All right. And not just the band that you recorded, but the dude that fits in your sub, you could fit a whole human in that sub is

Speaker 2 (52:01):

Big ass GenX sub

Speaker 3 (52:02):

Dude. It was so banging to sit next to that thing all day while we sat there and got drum sounds and stuff and it was just like the most brutal sub. It was so deep and so low and just I remember sitting in the chair next to it and just completely having my shit rattled for days. And then you go sit at the console and it was nice and balanced, but I was just in that weird corner. So I don't know. I don't even know what the hell the point of that story is.

Speaker 2 (52:26):

Rearranged your insides.

Speaker 3 (52:27):

Yeah, dude, it was great. I loved it. You need a sub man. You can't feel the fucking music unless you have a sub and you need to feel the music when you're mixing.

Speaker 2 (52:34):

I like subs. So hey, that's our mixed Crip Monday, all of you guys listening, if you think we're being harsh then fuck you. Just kidding.

Speaker 3 (52:48):

3:00 PM bike rack, no teachers, no friends, no weapons, no gangs, guns one-on-one only. We'll see you there Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (52:59):

No, we're just trying to be real with our mix, Chris. We know that some of it might be painful to hear, but like we said before, we're not here to Yes, you we're here to just tell you the truth and nothing is better than I guess for your progress than to get the cold hard truth. I remember that once upon a time when I was a lot younger and I was first starting off, I sent a pretty big mixer, I guess some fucked up files. This was a while ago. And man, he railed me so fucking hard for it. We've all done something like that. I know. I think Taylor was telling me

Speaker 3 (53:50):

I've never done that.

Speaker 2 (53:51):

Never. Okay. Well Taylor was telling me about a time that I think he did something like that. No, Andrew. Andrew Wade was telling, we just talked about it on the last podcast. He was telling me about a time that he got bitched out too. And it is just one of these things, if we had never been bitched out by somebody up the ladder from us, we would've never known to improve that.

Speaker 3 (54:15):

Hey, I had a big fat Greek manager when I was in a band that we would come to band practice and he would spend the first 45 minutes of our business meeting every week screaming at us and telling us how much of worthless pieces of shit we are, how unsuccessful we are, how we're going to fail. It was great. I loved every second of it. We got so much shit done with that guy. He was amazing.

Speaker 2 (54:34):

Yeah, man, it's important to get checked. So I hope that all of you guys listening, go back and listen to your mixes with more critical ears and try to apply, I guess some of the advice that we doled out this time to your own mix if it's appropriate. And if you're not subscribed and you want to get these multi-tracks and have your own go at a data remembers right back at it again, just go to nail the mix.com/adt and get on the data. Remember nail the mix, train,

Speaker 3 (55:17):

Balance, balance, balance today's takeaway, learn how to balance everyone. It's a skill and an art and it's so stupid and fundamental that everybody doesn't give a shit about it and glosses over it because they all want to do parallel, side chain saturated compression post EQ with a dip of reverb send. So yeah, that made no sense, but you know what I mean. Everybody wants to run before they walk. Get your balances together first. You could probably sometimes I feel like you could hit the top 20 by just balancing a proper mix and then maybe using a shelf EQ

Speaker 2 (55:52):

With some of these tracks we give you. Hell yeah, you could.

Speaker 3 (55:55):

I mean, seriously guys, it's doable. Fundamentals are everything. So take that one to the bank. I feel like we say that a lot, but

Speaker 2 (56:04):

It's true.

Speaker 3 (56:05):

You can't ever say it enough because it's just so true. I mean the biggest breakthrough I ever had in my mixing when I went from really shitty to not quite as shitty, but I got a lot of clients, was when I realized I was overdoing things and overthinking things and I really wanted to just settle back into more of the fundamentals of my mixing. And I kind of simplified and concentrated on the basics and I found very quickly that my mixing improved night and day in a very short period of time. So it's cooler to walk around and say, yeah, I use this really crazy mixed technique and I came up with this crazy way of doing this. I mean, that's awesome, but if you're missing a balance, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (56:48):

That's right. Alright guys, we'll talk to you next time. Cheers.

Speaker 1 (56:52):

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