CALEB RODRIGUEZ: Mixing on headphones, vocalist-producer syndrome, and DIY acoustic treatment

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Creative Live, the world's best online classroom for creative professionals with classes on songwriting, engineering, mixing and mastering. The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is also brought to you by Savior Custom drums, quality crafted drums, handmade in Denver, Colorado. And now your host Joey Sturgis. Joel Wanasek and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:24):

On the air with us is Caleb Rodriguez. Did I say that right?

Speaker 1 (00:27):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:28):

And Caleb, tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into doing audio production and stuff like that. I

Speaker 3 (00:34):

Feel like it started out pretty much the same as most people does. It started with me wanting to record my band's music and then I got real serious about it. I wanted to start doing it as a job, so a few people in my area were interested in what I was doing and so they started recording with me and that's pretty much it. Did

Speaker 2 (00:54):

You have a normal job and then you were able to replace that job with income from audio production?

Speaker 3 (00:59):

Actually now it's starting to be that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02):

That's awesome, man. Congrats.

Speaker 3 (01:03):

Excellent. Thanks. Yeah,

Speaker 2 (01:04):

That's killer. So tell us a little bit more about the song that we're going to hear.

Speaker 3 (01:10):

This was Off My band's ep. We decided to rerecord it and remix it and stuff because our old vocalist left and I became the vocalist. So yeah, we just rerecorded it for that purpose and edited some of the arrangement and stuff like that. So

Speaker 4 (01:31):

What you're saying is crit the crap out of the vocals?

Speaker 3 (01:34):

Yeah, you should. You should. You should.

Speaker 2 (01:37):

Okay. Well let's play the song right now and let's listen to what we're working with.

Speaker 5 (01:42):

Okay. My tribes are riding despite the lack of the side.

Speaker 2 (05:28):

Cool. So tell us a little bit more about this production in particular. What kind of equipment did you use? How did you record it? Tell us about the instruments and all this

Speaker 3 (05:40):

I use. All right. My interface is an RE Fire Face 800. I have a our MPA Pro two I believe is what the pre-amp is called. I've been wanting to change out the tubes on it. Haven't gotten to it yet. The guitar is a schechter has EMG pickups in it. It's in Drop D. The drums were Steven Slate drums. We figured that out.

Speaker 6 (06:03):

Which kick? Which snare?

Speaker 3 (06:05):

It was kick 10, snare 12. I told you guys, I told you I blended it with I think the Never Snare. My Toms were the never Toms. That's my favorite kit is the Never Stuff. I love it. I love the Never.

Speaker 4 (06:20):

We know a lot about Kick 10 and a lot about snare 12 more than we should.

Speaker 3 (06:26):

I figured you'd pick up on that. I thought that'd be pretty funny. That's why we left

Speaker 4 (06:30):

Immediately. I'm like, what's up 10 12?

Speaker 2 (06:34):

Are the symbols programmed or did you replace the shells with Steven Slate but use the symbols from a microphone or something?

Speaker 3 (06:42):

No, actually I really wanted to use drum for symbols. I'm not going to lie, so I did.

Speaker 2 (06:48):

Oh,

Speaker 4 (06:48):

Okay, cool. So you're using now I got to go back and listen to it. I didn't actually listen to the symbols.

Speaker 2 (06:53):

Yeah, I mean I was really focused on just balance and EQ decisions and stuff. I wasn't really paying attention. I did pick up on the Kick 10 snare 12 because as we all know, it's almost the most used drum sample in the industry. So

Speaker 4 (07:07):

Basically everything's fair game, but the symbols

Speaker 2 (07:12):

Just

Speaker 4 (07:12):

Kidding. I actually have one crit on the symbols, but anyways.

Speaker 2 (07:17):

Okay. Alright, let's start with what you think. Al, what do you think about this mix?

Speaker 6 (07:20):

Well, I actually have a couple more questions, which is how many people are in this band?

Speaker 3 (07:25):

Three of us. Three.

Speaker 6 (07:26):

So do you guys have a drummer?

Speaker 3 (07:28):

Yeah, we do. The problem is that he works all the time during the day because our fathers own a business and so he works for his dad and he never has time to come record drums.

Speaker 2 (07:43):

Sounds like a normal drummer. Okay.

Speaker 6 (07:45):

Yeah, totally. A couple more questions as far as mixing goes. Did you mix this all yourself or was it with the other band guys all over you in the room telling you what they wanted?

Speaker 3 (08:00):

I mixed it all myself.

Speaker 6 (08:01):

Okay, cool. And what kind of environment do you have set up?

Speaker 3 (08:04):

Well, my monitors or K or K Rocket fives and I only use them to reference my mix. I actually mix in headphones.

Speaker 6 (08:13):

Ah, okay. That makes a lot of sense. It sounds to me like the balances are a little weird. It's like snares very, very pokey and I'm not hearing the kicks coming through quite enough and the guitars have a little, they're just not carved out enough, but I totally can tell that it was done with headphones now.

Speaker 7 (08:37):

Yeah,

Speaker 6 (08:38):

A lot of those things can't really take shape if you're mixing in headphones, in my opinion. Why do you mix in headphones mainly? Is it because of volume restrictions or something?

Speaker 3 (08:49):

Mainly because I'm really not used to it. I've tried it a couple times.

Speaker 6 (08:55):

Well, you're not used to what?

Speaker 3 (08:56):

I don't know. It just feels like I have a harder time picking out details in my speakers. I don't know.

Speaker 6 (09:03):

Well, the thing is you should be using your headphones for little details like delay trails and

Speaker 3 (09:10):

Sometimes

Speaker 6 (09:10):

They're really good for carving out the high end of a bass guitar or listening for edits or how certain things work together like harmonies, things like that. But when you're doing actual leveling of your meat and potatoes stuff, drums with guitar, the stuff that is like that makes up the majority of a metal mix is the drum sound with the guitars and the bass underneath it is very hard to get that right in headphones. I mean, I know guys who have done it and I've done it here and there. I know Will Putney has mixed an album that did real well in headphones because he had no choice and I know a few guys who have had to do it, but it's definitely not advisable you yet to use a shit ton of reference material if you're going to mix with headphones a ridiculous amount. Do you guys, Joey and Joel ever use headphones for real mixing? Dude,

Speaker 4 (10:07):

I hate headphones when mixing. I mean I'll ref 'em, but out of every 10 songs I mix maybe 0.01. I actually break out the serious headphones on just because when I feel like I'm mixing at headphones, what ends up happening is I feel like I can't hear what the hell is going on unless I crank 'em up really loud. I mean, I've got a couple of really expensive pairs of headphones, but they all sound like absolute garbage to me and then I take them off and I'm like, oh, now I can actually hear what the mid range of the guitar sounds like and it just doesn't sound like a bunch of smeared bs.

Speaker 2 (10:38):

If there was a pie for all the sources you check on, I would say the headphones would have a little 5% slice. I have my headphones hooked up all the time and they're over here right next to me and so I kind of just bring 'em in when I'm on mix three and I'm about to be like, okay, this is the last time I'm ever going to touch this song. That's when I pick up the headphones and I want to make sure of a couple things and then

Speaker 7 (11:02):

I might

Speaker 2 (11:03):

Make a few more changes and then make it mix four and then it's done. But I might not even

Speaker 4 (11:07):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (11:08):

Yeah, I might not even hear it on headphones on mix one. I might even try. So it all just depends, but I think like we said a couple episodes ago, I think it was, we said the more sources you have the better. It's just kind of like when you're driving, you want to be able to see, you want to hear, you want to have all your mirrors. So all those little things contribute to being safe in the car. It's kind of like same thing with mixing your song is going to sonically turn out really good when you're making all of your decisions based on several different listening sources. So I would say, I mean I know you've got your K Ks and your headphones, but you might even want to go out and get a pair of consumer speakers at Best Buy and then also get a laptop and then check on those two sources as well. And I don't know if you have a car with the stereo system, but that's also a great place to listen to your work.

Speaker 4 (11:59):

Caleb, do you have a sub? No. Get one?

Speaker 6 (12:02):

Yeah, definitely get one. And I'll say that with headphones. I do a lot the same thing that you do, Joey, which is basically give it the consumer test at the end. I'll listen on consumer grade headphones at the end to make sure that it sounds awesome like that the way that a lot of people are going to listen, but you can't be making EQ decisions and things like that in headphones.

Speaker 4 (12:29):

It's

Speaker 6 (12:29):

Tough. It's

Speaker 4 (12:30):

Way too easy to screw up.

Speaker 2 (12:31):

You want to know how your mix is moving speakers, and when I say moving speakers, I don't mean the kind that are two inches. So that's why it's important to hear 'em on the monitors and make decisions there because then you really figuring out how all of the blends are going to work, the speakers and you'll have a better educated idea of what is actually going on Now how are you set up? Are you just in a bedroom or what?

Speaker 3 (12:58):

Yeah, I'm in my bedroom and so my acoustics probably are really bad.

Speaker 2 (13:03):

One thing that happens a lot with bedrooms, because most bedrooms are square, there's somewhere in the room where all the base disappears or where all the base multiplies. So you've got to listen for that position,

Speaker 6 (13:15):

Which I guess if you're mixing in headphones you

Speaker 2 (13:18):

Don't have to

Speaker 6 (13:18):

Worry about it. However, I have a feeling that he said that it was impossible to really hear detail out of his monitors. Maybe that's what's going on. That

Speaker 2 (13:30):

Reflections too. Yeah,

Speaker 6 (13:32):

Yeah. It is just in a shitty spot in the room with no treatment and the room is killing your ability to hear what's coming out of your monitors, so therefore you're switching to headphones to compensate, but you're not really fixing the problem, which is that your room is fucking up your ability to hear properly. I couldn't have said it better myself. It's probably what's going on. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (13:58):

Try experimenting with moving a bunch of stuff around your room and pissing off everybody that lives in the house and try to find the best mixed position because I mean I had a 10 by 11 tracking dungeon or little control room thing for years and then I switched rooms into my quasi live room because it was a little bit longer. It was more like 16 feet by 12 wide as opposed to 10 by 11. So when I did that, I was shocked at how much better I could hear. Or sometimes, like I said, just changing orientation if you're facing west, try North for example. Or also the proximity of your speakers to the wall. I mean given if you're in a bedroom, you really don't have a lot of room to move, but sometimes even moving them a few inches can make a big audible difference at your mixing position.

Speaker 6 (14:44):

Yeah. Do you have 300 bucks or 200 bucks and are you somewhat handy?

Speaker 3 (14:51):

Yeah, I think I'm pretty handy. I built the house once.

Speaker 6 (14:55):

Alright, well then and do you have access to a couple hundred bucks? Alright, well look up DIY acoustic panels and build some. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (15:05):

It's just wood 7 0 3 and cloth pretty much. And some staples.

Speaker 2 (15:09):

Exactly. And you would be surprised at how much difference it makes you just pop a couple of those on the wall or put some in the corner and boom, your entire world will change.

Speaker 6 (15:20):

Yeah, just make sure it's a breathable fabric like

(15:23):

Ilford of main fabric or something. Just look up breathable fabric. But you can build I'd say a good five to 10 panels for a budget of about 200 bucks, which is way better than buying them from somewhere if you know how to build. The reason that I buy mine is because I'm a horrible builder and I try not to do things that I know I'm horrible at. I get mine from GIK, but if you've built a house, it would be nothing for you to do this. Just look it up on Google. There's plenty of plans and the only thing I can say beyond that is in the corners. Just make sure you go thicker. If you get sheets of 7 0 3 that are two inches thick, stack them on top of each other in the corner so it's four inches or six inches or even eight inches and fill up the corners all the way to the ceiling. Do as much as you can, but if you do that, it's definitely going to help your ability to hear in that room.

Speaker 2 (16:28):

Let's talk about, and this is going to be the first roast. Let's talk about the fact that this really isn't a mix and it's just a production. Alright, let's do it.

Speaker 4 (16:37):

I can start. I've got a whole list of stuff. The main things when I listen to this, Caleb, that really stood out to me when I hit play, I was immediately like, okay, this mix has no balls and it has no clarity. I'll start with the bottom end because to me one of the telltale signs of a really awesome mix is having that really just expensive jelled, punchy, full, but not boomy. You know what I mean? That bottom where you listen to the record, you hit play and you go F. Yes. And that's really when you listen to a lot of great mixes, that's the first thing you notice when you turn on Nickelback, the first thing you hear is you're like, holy shit, that low end is just destroying it sounds incredible. The whole thing just sounds like it kicks you right in the nuts. And I immediately when I hit play, there was just completely no bottom. Now, given that you've just disclosed that you've done this on headphones, the first thing that comes to mind is, okay, well that's why the next thing is you don't have a sub and your room isn't trapped and treated. So when I listened in my treated room on my sub, literally there was no punch or there was nothing in the bottom that was moving the mix that was creating energy that really gave the kick drum and the guitars.

(17:45):

That punch that makes a metal song hit and slam. It was just kind of like, it sounded flat. That's the word I used. It had no depth to it. It

Speaker 6 (17:53):

Sounds a little

Speaker 2 (17:53):

Low-fi.

Speaker 4 (17:54):

Yeah, it just has no bottom. There's nothing there.

Speaker 2 (17:56):

Yeah. Do you actually have, I mean I hate to ask you this, but is there actually bass in the song?

Speaker 3 (18:04):

I'm not going to lie to you. This actually, I noticed the same thing myself because when I woke up this morning, I listened to it again. I was like, oh crap,

Speaker 4 (18:13):

It doesn't matter what you send us, we're going to find something to be evil

Speaker 6 (18:16):

About. Notice he didn't answer the question about the bass. There is bass. Oh, okay. What is it? It's

Speaker 3 (18:21):

Zo base. Zombie

Speaker 6 (18:22):

Base. All right. Let me tell you about base. Well, which zombie base are you using first of all?

Speaker 3 (18:28):

Four.

Speaker 6 (18:29):

Alright. One thing that will prevent low end from really getting nice are things that cause phasing issues in the low end or intonation issues in the low end because if things are fighting with each other down there, it's not going to work. Zombie bass is known to have some pretty serious intonation issues, so that could be hurting your low end a lot.

Speaker 2 (18:56):

Yeah. For example, if the D on the bass, if there's a bass playing, a denote, a low denote and the guitar is also playing the same note and they're not in harmony with each other and we're talking about micro sense, then it can create this weird illusion that the low end isn't tight.

Speaker 6 (19:16):

Yeah, it literally will cancel out. Maybe not a hundred percent, but it will definitely hurt it. And zombie base is definitely suspect right there because they even admit to it. You can look this up online. I don't know if this is a cover story, not a cover story. I don't know if this is damage control or if they actually honestly intended to do it this way, but what they said is that because on a real base, the harder you hit, the more sharp it goes. That on Zo base and higher velocities, it goes sharp like a real base, which honestly I'm serious. I think that's retarded. But I mean isn't the reason that you use a virtual instrument in lots of cases to cover for the fact that somebody can't play or you're in a shitty situation like that. The instrument won't intonate, so you pull out a virtual instrument that should be perfect, but zombie base is not.

Speaker 4 (20:21):

Here's kind of a trick that helps. Sometimes even if I record, if I'm doing a real base, I always do this or even if I have a synthetic base, I always kind of open up a pitch checker like Melaine or very audio and cubase and I just look at it and make sure that everything is where it's supposed to be on the grid. And then sometimes you're like, oh man, that no, it's pulling 15, 10 cents sharp sometimes. And sometimes just doing a little bit of autotune on your base can really help lock in your low end a little bit and make it more jelled and make it sound like it doesn't suck.

Speaker 3 (20:57):

I've done that on zombie base before. And

Speaker 2 (21:00):

What did you find?

Speaker 3 (21:01):

It helped, but at the same time I don't have anything that's really good. So it wasn't really make it perfect, I guess it messed up some of the notes, but it did help a lot on the ones that it actually got. Right.

Speaker 2 (21:13):

It's hard to pitch correct base, honestly. It never really turns out very good. So it's kind of one of those things that you want to get right at the source.

Speaker 4 (21:22):

Yeah, it's kind of a last minute just, hey, let's see if this works. If it does, great. If not, it can be very time consuming. You kind of got an 80 20 of those types of decisions depending on what the budget is of the project.

Speaker 2 (21:34):

Okay. And then what about the guitar? What are you using for the guitar?

Speaker 3 (21:39):

I used pod farm.

Speaker 2 (21:41):

Okay. And is it one of my tones or is it a tone you made?

Speaker 4 (21:45):

No, it's something I made. Please Say Yes, damnit.

Speaker 2 (21:49):

I was hoping that you would say it was a tone that I made so that I could talk shit about myself.

Speaker 3 (21:55):

I mean, I do have your tone and it's similar to it.

Speaker 2 (22:00):

That's awesome. Yeah, I mean the guitars were just kind of playing Jane. I felt like they weren't very exciting. They were just kind of there.

Speaker 3 (22:07):

And

Speaker 2 (22:07):

A lot of that has to do with just automation in EQ and those things you just have to have an ear for. It's like you got to go in there and make the guitars exciting. They're not going to be exciting on their own unless if you're dealing with a certain type of guitarist, maybe somebody who is a little bit more eccentric as a guitarist and has their own guitars and stuff, maybe they're going to have a playing style that is exciting. But when you're dealing with something that's a little bit more straightforward and clear cut, you've got to make it exciting with automation. And so I didn't really hear that that was there. Do you have any automation on the guitars at all?

Speaker 3 (22:46):

Only in the chorus actually. And what it just bumps up or something. They actually cut down a little bit,

Speaker 2 (22:54):

Cut down.

Speaker 3 (22:55):

So there's a

Speaker 2 (22:56):

Little, okay, you have other elements coming in?

Speaker 3 (22:57):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (22:58):

Yeah. Well that's a good move. But there's other times where you might want to go in and raise a high shelf when certain rifts come in to bring out the clarity and the riffs, things like that. Or

Speaker 4 (23:11):

I muting moment. That's a big one. Sometimes a certain chunk will have, if you see you hit a note, for example, sometimes on whatever that speaker or cabinet or amim for example, whatever you're using, it can really have a buildup of energy in that area and only on one stupid riff on the whole record. And you have to automate that stuff down with a minor EQ cut to kind of get that stuff so it's not swinging it all over the place and pumping all your compressors.

Speaker 2 (23:35):

Yeah, it's like if you just leave it without any automation, it's going to be flat. So what makes it interesting is when you go in and make cuts or additions based on what the instrument is playing.

Speaker 3 (23:48):

So

Speaker 2 (23:48):

I would say that would probably spice it up. And I know when you first go in and you're like, okay, well what should I do? I don't even know what to do. What I like to do is just start with an EQ and grab one of the bands and just kind of move it around and see what just kind of sweep and find frequencies that I like while the song is playing. And within 10 minutes you'll probably figure out something that you want. You'll be like, oh, I want a little more six K in this part. Sounds cool when I do that. So then you automate that and then you listen to the song and you're like, well now that part's the most interesting part. I wonder how I can make these other parts equally as interesting. So that's one strategy. Let's talk about the vocals. What have we got in the vocals?

Speaker 6 (24:34):

Can I say one thing real quick?

Speaker 2 (24:35):

Yeah, sure.

Speaker 6 (24:35):

Before you start talking about the vocals, I can tell that the vocalist mix his vocals, especially on that chorus. It's a really good move to turn down the guitars a little when other elements come in, but man, those vocals are loud. I rate things in terms of pop loud because when you listen to pop music, you've got vocals above everything. If you're think about an analogy of water and then a boat on top of water or above the water or under the water, it's kind in metal and rock. It's like a boat that's kind of gliding on top of the water but somewhat in it in pop. It's almost all the way raised above it and you've got it way above the music in the chorus.

Speaker 4 (25:24):

Can I interject a really funny short little story here

Speaker 6 (25:27):

About that? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (25:28):

So I got the first mixed note back from a radio program director where they told me they turned to vocals down, holy shit, this has never happened to me. I was doing a radio remix for a song that my management team, they're going to radio on this rock song and usually they're like, dude, vocals up, vocals up. So I mixed them out of 10 being 10 being like, oh my god, Christian radio loud, seven being eight, seven to eight being like radio rock. I mixed him at a six and the guy's like, dude, I can't even hear what's going on with the band. The vocals are so long. And I'm just like, what the fuck? It has never happened to me before. So I was just shocked. And then I had four times more bass than, for example, a star set or anything else that was reffing that's been in the top 40 recently. And the dude's like, dude, the bottom end's got to come up. And I'm like, what are you listening on? Are you deaf? Because I'm peeking out my sub over here. Oh my

Speaker 3 (26:21):

Gosh.

Speaker 4 (26:22):

So anyway, sorry, carry on. Just that kind of something recent that happened to me last week and maybe want to kill myself. So

Speaker 6 (26:27):

Maybe some of his speakers are out of phase or something. Could

Speaker 2 (26:31):

Be.

Speaker 6 (26:32):

I've heard of that happening. I know a really famous a and r guy that was working on something with Andy sne and Andy Sne happened to be in the United States and went by this guy's office and decided that he was going to check out the dude's speakers. He was so sick of these crazy ass mixed notes. And lo and behold, dude is giving him mixed notes for a big ass record on speakers that are out of phase. Wow.

Speaker 4 (27:02):

Well go a figure. I mean for the mixer, that's like getting even because every time a manager comes back and they're like, dude, vocals are too quiet. You just want to like, dude, I will kill. They're loud enough and you can hear them. They're so loud in my car, I can't even hear the band and you're telling me they're not loud enough. Okay, cool.

Speaker 2 (27:18):

Why

Speaker 4 (27:18):

Don't we just make this acapella and call it a day?

Speaker 2 (27:21):

Well, speaking on the vocals, there's definitely a point when they're too loud. And I know that might come as a shock to some people, but I like it when the vocals are just blended in there, still a little over the top, but just almost like 60 40 and not 70 30. So yeah, I mean 90 times you can tell that you're the vocalist and that you mix the song because the vocals are loud as hell.

Speaker 3 (27:46):

That's actually what my bass player wants. I'm not going to lie. That's the one thing that he said is he wants the vocals loud.

Speaker 6 (27:55):

Do you play bass?

Speaker 3 (27:57):

No,

Speaker 4 (27:58):

Just

Speaker 3 (27:58):

Kidding.

Speaker 4 (27:58):

Caleb, I'll tell you another good balancing story. While I remember I used to play in a radio rock band, this is like 2008, we were kind of like a nickelback, don't kill me. I was in a metal band before that. If it makes you feel,

Speaker 3 (28:11):

Don't judge. I don't seem to more than anything else

Speaker 4 (28:14):

In the world, I'm more worried about the 40 threatening emails I'm going to get when this podcast gets released for being a poser from all my metal bands clients. But anyways, so we were on TKL, which is the Kirby organization, which is one of the biggest rock booking agencies out there, and they've had some huge bands back then like Buck Cherry and Papa Roach and all that stuff. And my band had just gotten picked up and I sent in the first mix of our new album that I had done to Dave Kirby who was the owner, and Dave's like, are you the guitar player in the band? I'm like, yeah, he's, I can tell. I'm like, is that a good or a bad thing? He's like, no, I can just tell you it was mixed by the guitar player. And I'm like, Dick, and I thought about that and I really kind of set me back and that was the first time I really thought about, dude, I'm mixing egocentric as opposed to mixing the song for the song. And that was kind of when the bell went off from me and I started mixing a lot better. And then when the next mix had turned in, he's like, yeah, this sounds really good. And I'm like, yes, take that for what it's worth. It's just an old man story from back in the day.

Speaker 6 (29:14):

Well, I think there's something to be said for your story because nowadays where things are headed is that a lot of bands have a dude in the band like Caleb who is the production guy and who mixes the band stuff. And one thing that I've noticed is that when you have a band member mixing things like this happen in the mix where there's one element that's just mixed to overshadow everything else. And maybe in this case it was the bass player telling Caleb to turn the vocals up, but in general it's the instrument that the mixer plays. Like Joel said, if it's a guitar player like him mixing it, then mixes will be guitar centric. If it's a vocalist, mixing mixes will be vocal centric, even if it was your bass player arguing for it. It doesn't sound like you had much of a problem with his suggestion

Speaker 4 (30:15):

And

Speaker 6 (30:16):

Never

Speaker 4 (30:16):

Listen to the bass player hint life hack.

Speaker 6 (30:21):

Well, it's something that I've just noticed a lot and being someone that's been in a band and mixed my own stuff and also had other people mix my stuff, there was a reason for why I decided to always hire other people to mix at a certain point and it was because I could never be objective enough with my own music.

Speaker 7 (30:43):

And

Speaker 6 (30:43):

One thing is doing the production, maybe you can do that fine, but when it comes to mixing your own stuff, it's almost like you need a good bird's eye view of the music and you definitely don't have that in if you're in the band. Now I'm not telling you to stop,

Speaker 7 (30:57):

I'm

Speaker 6 (30:57):

Just saying that these are some of the mental issues that occur if you're mixing your own music. So what would be a good idea is to find some way to get better perspective on what you're doing, and I think that, I don't know how much reference material you're using, but I would get on some really good referencing so that if you get some suggestions like blast those vocals way louder than Britney Spears would have hers, then you can reference it to something you guys want to sound like or three different things that you want to sound like. And if you're blowing those away in terms of your vocal level, then you've got to turn them down. So what are you using for referencing

Speaker 3 (31:45):

In this one? I think I used one of Joey's older 2009.

Speaker 4 (31:50):

Yes. That's so funny for so many reasons that

Speaker 2 (31:54):

We're not going to talk about. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (31:56):

That's a big inside joke with Joey and me.

Speaker 2 (31:59):

Sometimes we get clients that are like, Hey, we'll send them an awesome mix and they'll be like, Hey, this is not what I expected. It doesn't sound like Devil wears product with roots above and branches below, blah blah, blah.

Speaker 3 (32:11):

That's the one I referenced.

Speaker 2 (32:13):

That's what we always say. We got, oh, we got a 2009 client in the house. They want that 2009 sound. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (32:20):

It's really interesting. Sometimes we get,

Speaker 2 (32:23):

I just

Speaker 4 (32:23):

Don't even,

Speaker 2 (32:24):

That was six years ago, man. Let's move on. But okay, so I want to ask you, what do you think is wrong with your mix? What kind of questions do you have for us and what kind of problems do you have with your mix?

Speaker 3 (32:35):

Okay, so it's weird because I play pretty much, well, I write all the band's music, but I always have a problem with guitar tone. I can never get it to be exciting, like you said in the mix. It doesn't matter what I use, I have an ax effects, I honestly, I feel like it's too real and so my tones have way more problems than I need to fix when I use my ax effects. Then when I use pod who plays the guitar,

Speaker 4 (33:00):

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that pod farm slays ax effects. I just wanted to say that.

Speaker 3 (33:07):

Yes it does. I have to agree. When I first got my ax effects, I would be like, dude, so you're wrong. But honestly

Speaker 4 (33:15):

It doesn't seem like it on face value, but I'm telling you as a guy who mixes with pod farm in some way, shape or form many days a week, every single week of his life, when people bring in ax effects, I substantially have a harder time getting the tone to not suck and pod farm, it's like it is what it is, but it does what it does. But when you know how to get the most out of it and to maximize it, literally, it just always works. You can't hate on the fact that it never, it is what it is, but it never sounds horrible. It always works.

Speaker 2 (33:45):

Yeah. One thing positive about ax effects, the fact that it has a little bit more of an expansive EQ built in is really nice and I've played with it and you can do some really good cutting, some nice notching in there, which really helps for live. I helped set up the guitar tone for asking Alexandria because they don't have any speakers on stage, so everything's coming straight out of the pa. So in that case it's got to be CD quality. You can't have any nasty frequencies or anything like that. So

Speaker 7 (34:16):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (34:16):

Other than that, I really am a promoter of the pod farm life, but it

Speaker 4 (34:26):

Is what it is.

Speaker 2 (34:27):

I've just got a cheap plug in here that I am making my own amp simulator and you should check it out. Hopefully it's out by the time you hear this. It's called Tone Forge.

Speaker 6 (34:36):

Let me ask who is playing the guitars?

Speaker 2 (34:38):

Me.

Speaker 6 (34:39):

Okay, this goes back to what I was just saying is man, if you are doing everything, it is really hard to get some perspective

Speaker 7 (34:47):

On

Speaker 6 (34:47):

What's going on. It's hard to critique yourself while tracking, while getting good edits, while trying to get a good mix. But one thing is that if you've tried a million different things with guitar tone, maybe the issue is you're picking hand or something like that, maybe it's not exciting enough because you're not playing exciting. Half

Speaker 4 (35:07):

A tone is really in the pick attack with a guitar, probably 80% of it really the way you have to get really thick strings if you want to get really good tone and you have to pick them really hard, not so hard, it goes out of tune, but there's a certain medium where you can kind of hear the spank if you kind of turn off the speaker of the string and it just sounds really brutal when you're picking it. And I, al and I have both been playing guitar for probably over 20 years each, and we've had really long conversations about just picking and guitar tone and we're both kind of the opinion that the way you pick it really, really matters and translate, I'll use this for example, I have two bands in, and this has happened before where I'll have the same mesa rig and they'll come into my studio, have the same guitar at same setting, same mic position, everything back to back in a week. This is from back in the day,

(35:54):

And I was just shocked at how great the tone sounded on one band and they were just like the same kind of band, the same kind of open, chug, chug breakdown, 2009 crap. And the band after that, the week later, the guitar tone was horrible and I was just like, it's the same guitar, it's the same settings, the same chain, exactly the same mix basically. But the guitars sound incredible in this mix and the guitars sound like just garbage in the other mix. What's the difference? Well, it's just the way the dude picks really is it's on the finger control. So that's something to be mindful of

Speaker 6 (36:26):

And the way you play the guitar can either make it sing or not. It's like any instrument, but I feel like if you're spending a long time on guitar tone and it's just not quite coming together, no matter what you try, you try this amp, this sim, this eq that eq and it's just not happening and you find yourself EQing your life away. It's probably the playing. It's probably goes back into the

Speaker 4 (36:51):

Source. Caleb, you said you have one of Joey's preset pod tones, correct? Yes. How does your playing sound through that? Because if it doesn't sound awesome, straight up mix CD ready, then you're probably doing something wrong on the guitar end. It's the guitar itself, it's the playing the pickup. That was a challenge, something like that because,

Speaker 3 (37:06):

Well, I recently discovered that the pickups I was using in my guitars didn't sound good for what I was wanting. When I switched to EMGs in this one guitar, I noticed a significant change in the quality of my tone and I was actually way happier with the tone on the song that I showed you guys than I have been on anything that I've done recently, but I also use thin picks, so that probably,

Speaker 2 (37:36):

Well thin picks help you stay in tune, but you can't just say, okay, then always use thin picks because there's a balance between how thick the strings are, what the tuning is, what's the string tension, and then also how hard are you playing combined with the thickness of the pick. So there's a happy medium and a balance that you have to find.

Speaker 4 (37:57):

Do you guys have a favorite size for a pick? Al and Joey, because I like the Totex Dunlop 0.88 or the one point ohs, I feel like right there is the happy medium

Speaker 3 (38:07):

That is way heavier than what I use

Speaker 6 (38:10):

Joel. I have what I prefer to play with, however, when I'm tracking myself or tracking somebody else, I have an assortment of sizes and thicknesses and you just

Speaker 4 (38:21):

Test them all out. Yeah,

Speaker 6 (38:23):

Yeah. We test it. Obviously people are going to gravitate towards what they practice on the most and what they're the most comfortable with. But playing a strum me part with a super heavy pick with one of the blue totex picks is probably not going to sound as good as

Speaker 4 (38:39):

That's where the 0.8 comes in. It's like the perfectly balanced pick for metal speed picking strumming right around that range, plus or minus maybe like one gauge at least. This is only for me as a guitar player having gone from a thrash metal to a butt rock band. I feel like right in the middle I would call the safe zone. So if you go up too high, you can't strum. If you're down too low, you're playing acoustic. I don't know, it's too floppy, it's weird.

Speaker 6 (39:05):

So I would definitely try to go thicker than you are right now. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (39:09):

Because using 0.6 to 0.7, no. Well that how as that

Speaker 6 (39:17):

Don't do it.

Speaker 3 (39:19):

I figured that I was making a lot of dumb decision little things here and there that are going to really impact the way my stuff sounds. Those

Speaker 6 (39:27):

Little decisions are everything, man. It's It's

Speaker 3 (39:30):

A great point.

Speaker 6 (39:31):

Yeah, your mix is like a thousand of these little decisions put

Speaker 2 (39:34):

Together. That was one of the challenges of trying to sell guitar tone presets because you're putting them out there on the internet so everyone in the world can get them. And then you've got people from all kinds of different backgrounds who just have no idea that it all does come down to choosing the right takes and having the right player and having the right pick. So you get a lot of people emailing, how come it doesn't sound like this sample on the website? And I'll tell you those examples on the website are just the tone. We didn't make 'em sound fancier than what they really are. I got Kyle, oh

Speaker 3 (40:06):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (40:06):

Who? Fuck, I'm going to forget the name of his band right now, but he's an amazing guitar player, probably one of the best guitar players I know. And he's the guy that played those examples. And so it's a lot to live up to. If you just go to the website, maybe you've been playing guitar for five years, go to the website, buy the tone, plug it in and try and play that riff. You're not going to get that same sound that he did because his hands are just magical.

Speaker 6 (40:32):

Well, it's just like if you go to a dream theater show and John Pucci hands you his guitar and nothing changes in the rig, you're not going to suddenly sound like, what do you mean, bro? I learned all the riffs.

Speaker 3 (40:43):

Yeah, I'm also pretty young. This is only, honestly, I've only been recording music for a year and I'm 19 years old and I've only been playing guitar for maybe five years now.

Speaker 4 (40:54):

Hey, you're off to a good start. We're here to help you get better.

Speaker 2 (40:56):

Do you have any other questions for us about this song that any areas in the mix that you're not proud of other than the guitars?

Speaker 3 (41:06):

I think bass and guitars are probably my biggest weakness. I think I can get my vocals to sound kind of the way I want, but levels is also something that I usually send out my mixes to. One of my friends he produces in the state close to mine and he's pretty good. I think he's a lot better than I am, so I usually send my stuff to reference to him and he usually gives me pretty good feedback when I'm doing work for other bands, but I didn't send this one to anybody. I kind of just figured I'd let you guys do it.

Speaker 2 (41:41):

Yeah. Let's make you aware of this plugin called Magic ab. Do you put it on the master bus, Al?

Speaker 6 (41:47):

Yeah, I just put it on the master bus.

Speaker 2 (41:48):

So you put it on the master bus and it has a couple buttons. You press the buttons and you load songs into this plugin, and then at the touch of a button you can hear other songs while does it mute the whole mix when another song's playing?

Speaker 6 (42:03):

Yeah, it mutes the whole mix instantly and also you can level match to the reference material. So if you're using iTunes or whatever, if you're using other tracks in your DAW for reference material, this absolutely kills it because one thing that's really, really bad for referencing the other tracks is having a pause between your song and the other song. Another thing that's really bad when referencing is having a volume discrepancy between your song

Speaker 3 (42:33):

The other, and I always have those problems.

Speaker 6 (42:34):

Yes. Well, with the magic ab plugin, which is about $50, you kill both those problems. And not only that, you can load up to nine songs per instance, and I don't think you need to do more reference to more than three songs, but also you said you're referencing to one of Joey's mixes. If you like that mix, that's cool. I'm sure it's awesome, but you should pick two more mixes so that you're not just

Speaker 2 (42:59):

From the same year from the scene

Speaker 6 (43:02):

So that you're not just trying to imitate one thing because you're not going to get a good mix if you're just trying to imitate something else. But if you're using multiple things as a reference, what'll happen is if you do it right, your mix will come to life as its own thing because you won't be quite so focused on imitating something because if you're actually trying to imitate something, it's almost impossible to get it. You don't have the same source material going in. So like we said before with guitar tone, the settings could be identical. If the source tone is different, you're going to get a different tone, so you could be killing yourself trying to imitate something and you'll never get there. However, if you're referencing to multiple things, it's more of a general idea, a general ballpark you're trying to get into, and I think that that's a much more positive way

Speaker 2 (43:54):

To go about it. Yeah. Lemme ask you, how often do you get to work with a real base?

Speaker 3 (43:58):

Oh, she, it's been a little while. My bass player does not have a nice base,

Speaker 2 (44:03):

So I think that honestly would be a really huge thing for you to have access to a nice base with a nice di, and then somebody who actually knows how to play it. If you get those three things in harmony, mixing bass becomes a lot more effortless and actually a lot more, I dunno, more fun I guess, because what you're working with is the result of somebody sitting down and saying, alright, I'm going to record a bass and this is how I think it should sound. But you might come to a different conclusion if you were to be in that same situation. So I think that's huge. If you could figure out how to maybe even go and find a place to rent a really nice base and just try it on a track, I think it would kind of blow your mind.

Speaker 6 (44:48):

Fender jazz, American

Speaker 2 (44:50):

Love, the Fender jazz,

Speaker 3 (44:51):

Great bass. The one bass that I actually have gotten to record was a music man. It was pretty nice. It was like a $1,500 bass or something like that. I don't know. It's my friend's bass.

Speaker 6 (45:03):

Yeah, those are great music man. Makes some great stuff

Speaker 3 (45:06):

And it was fantastic. I didn't touch program bass at all when I had that, but then he got a new bass player in his band that didn't have a nice bass, so he wanted him to use it. So that was the end of that.

Speaker 6 (45:20):

Well, I'll just say that sometimes even with really good bass, real good real bass, sometimes you want to program the sub end of it regardless.

Speaker 3 (45:30):

That's a question I actually had for you guys. Do you guys ever put a sign wave for your old?

Speaker 2 (45:36):

Absolutely. The reason why is because you want the low end.

(45:39):

Yeah, you want the low end to be pitch perfect and you're not going to do it with pitch correction because where we're at with pitch correction right now is just not good enough to do on really low end content. It never comes out very good. And so with a couple filters and a little bit of programming, you can get that perfect low end that you hear on the radio. All those guys are doing the same thing. It's all about the production and making sure that that low end is just absolutely perfect. So the only way to achieve it is to do it scientifically.

Speaker 3 (46:09):

I can't believe. Alright. I figured because honestly, I listen to, let's see, I generally do listen to because honestly, I don't know that many producers. I only know of really U three. That's cool to hear. Yeah, that's it. So I only listen to, I have one of Joel's,

Speaker 6 (46:29):

Are you lying?

Speaker 3 (46:30):

No, dude, I'm not even kidding. I don't listen. It's weird. That's funny.

Speaker 6 (46:35):

Okay. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (46:36):

I don't even listen to that much heavy music.

Speaker 6 (46:40):

There's at least two more in the world.

Speaker 4 (46:42):

There might even be three or four

Speaker 6 (46:45):

Possibly,

Speaker 4 (46:45):

But that exists on a different forum. We don't go there.

Speaker 2 (46:48):

We don't have many friends,

Speaker 3 (46:49):

But we have some, so one of my friends, his name is Ricky in this band called This The Apocalypse or whatever, but his friends own Atrium Audio, and I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but they used Sign Wave on this band called I the Breather's last record. And so later on,

Speaker 6 (47:09):

Listen to I the breeder.

Speaker 3 (47:10):

Huh?

Speaker 6 (47:11):

Sorry, I the breeder. It's just a joke I make.

Speaker 3 (47:15):

Go ahead. I agree. So I was like, I got the reference that yous wave, and then I was listening to one of Joey's things later on and I was kind of like, I wonder if that's how he gets his base. The low end to always sound so nice is by doing

Speaker 4 (47:32):

That. Hey, there's a lot of real bass though on a lot of records though. You'd be surprised. For example, Atilla is a hundred percent real bass.

Speaker 3 (47:38):

Oh no, I actually didn't even know that Joey programmed other than thinking that he might use Go S Wave for the low end.

Speaker 4 (47:45):

That's what I mean. Atilla is a hundred percent real base all the way through.

Speaker 2 (47:49):

No.

Speaker 4 (47:49):

Oh,

Speaker 3 (47:49):

Really? There's no sign wave at

Speaker 2 (47:51):

All? It depends on, honestly, a lot of times for me, it depends on the schedule. Sometimes there's just not enough time to do it, but I like to do it because I feel like it adds a lot to the mix for me, and I actually created a plugin to make it easier for people to do this. It's called Sub Destroyer. You can go to sub destroyer.com to get it.

Speaker 3 (48:11):

Yeah, I just haven't gotten around to getting

Speaker 2 (48:13):

That one yet.

Speaker 3 (48:14):

Yeah, all you have to

Speaker 2 (48:15):

Do is feed it a mid performance of what the base is playing, and then it has a low pass built in, so it can just take over your low end and then with your actual base track, you just put a high pass on there and find the frequency where you feel like the crossover makes sense and it sounds good, and that's pretty much it. So yeah, I mean that's a great technique. The other thing is I feel like a lot of program bases don't really have the, I don't know what it is. It's like, yeah, it just doesn't have that pick sound that you get from actually playing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:54):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:54):

And that annoys me. You got to be working with some real bass to get that.

Speaker 3 (48:58):

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 6 (49:00):

Yeah. Real bass with new strings and single coil pickups.

Speaker 3 (49:04):

Did you guys think the drums sounded?

Speaker 2 (49:06):

To me, it just sounded like they were just

Speaker 3 (49:08):

Than low.

Speaker 2 (49:09):

I mean, maybe you did, did EQ them, maybe you did put compression and stuff like that, but to me it just ended up coming out sounding like the straight up, just the sample, nothing done to it.

Speaker 4 (49:22):

Here's a question too about that because what's on your master bus? Because one thing I felt like there was a lot of the mid range was off and the 900 to two and a half, three K ish, there was a really big frequency buildup there. I didn't sit down and with an EQ and just figure out exactly what frequency, but something about the way the guitars, the symbols, the bass, the drums were hitting, they were all kind of peeking and smacking around there, and there was a lot of just irritation and that frequency from my ear where I was like, man, I would just want to EQ that out and I couldn't.

Speaker 3 (49:56):

I had Steven Slate FGX on the master bus and then isotope ozone.

Speaker 4 (50:01):

What are you using for what? I mean I have both. I love FGX. It's very open sounding. And what were you using isotope for?

Speaker 3 (50:10):

I used it for the maximum.

Speaker 4 (50:12):

Okay. So you're getting your volume from two different places then each part from each plugin, correct.

Speaker 3 (50:17):

Yeah. I like the compression on FGX, so I use that and then

Speaker 4 (50:24):

I

Speaker 3 (50:24):

Use a little bit.

Speaker 4 (50:24):

Okay, interesting. You mix into a two bus compressor at all. Do you mix into a bus compressor on your master having, I'll just use the generic, but like an SSL bus comp or something like that?

Speaker 3 (50:36):

Yeah, kind of. Well guess I

Speaker 4 (50:38):

Guess if you're using the mastering compressor on FG X, I guess it's kind of doing the same thing now that I think

Speaker 3 (50:42):

About it.

Speaker 4 (50:43):

Sorry, my brain,

Speaker 3 (50:44):

That's what I do.

Speaker 4 (50:45):

That kind of helps gel the bottom end of a mix when you're mixing it is having a compressor to just get everything moving and pushing and breathing through it, and

Speaker 7 (50:55):

That's

Speaker 4 (50:56):

A really good place to start. But if you're already kind of doing that, that kind of mitigates.

Speaker 2 (51:00):

I like to use multi band compressor a lot on the master bus because I feel like you get a little bit more mileage out of just a regular compressor in terms of trying to get stuff to gel together. It really will take care of a lot of out of control frequency bands and kind of make them work together more.

Speaker 3 (51:19):

I am not good with multi-band compression at all.

Speaker 2 (51:21):

Okay. So all you need to understand about it is it's basically having four compressors or three or however many bands there are, and each one is limited to working on a small range of frequencies. So you might have from 20 hertz to 250 hertz as you're low in band. So all those settings that have to do with that band are only going to compress that part of the frequency range. And that's pretty much it. And the whole concept of it is like, okay, well you want to tighten up your low end without over compressing your high end or you want to gently affect the low mids. When the low mids start to build up in your mix and the density of your production increases, then your low mids probably go crazy and this thing can react to that without you having to do a bunch of automation. So it's kind of like a

Speaker 4 (52:12):

Dynamic eq.

Speaker 2 (52:13):

Yeah, it's like a dynamic eq and it's more of forgetting balance and stuff like that and making certain frequency ranges actually blend with each other.

Speaker 3 (52:21):

Oh, I had one thing to

Speaker 2 (52:22):

Say based on mastering, mixing or instruments.

Speaker 3 (52:25):

It was about

Speaker 2 (52:26):

Mixing.

Speaker 3 (52:27):

That was the question. My question was should I multi-band compress that or figure out what in the mix is causing the buildup?

Speaker 4 (52:34):

Try both.

Speaker 3 (52:35):

Yes.

Speaker 6 (52:36):

The answer is yes.

Speaker 4 (52:37):

There's definitely a lot of 2K ish area that's irritating my ear in the guitar and the symbol, which is weird because if you're using drum forge symbols, that's definitely not in there. That's why I asked about what was on your master bus, because I use those symbols way too often. Oh,

Speaker 3 (52:52):

Okay. Okay. You know how it has the FGX has the saturation on there that you can use. I was using the high end saturation. That could be it.

Speaker 6 (53:04):

Yes. I'm sure that that's helping.

Speaker 3 (53:07):

And I think I was using a CLA emulator for compression on the symbols. I don't know if the saturation that it has on it would cause

Speaker 4 (53:16):

That. Yeah, something was off on the EQ curve and I would know I made them and kind of like, that's what

Speaker 6 (53:24):

I've noticed, that when adding saturation to symbols, things can get out of hand real quick

Speaker 7 (53:31):

Because

Speaker 6 (53:32):

You're adding harmonics to something that's already covering way too many frequencies. You can go from zero to just annoying and painful shit within a few percentage points of adding that saturation on there, or compression on symbols too. You got to be real, real careful. So maybe you're just not neutering, but maybe you're just enhancing the wrong shit by adding that stuff. I probably am. Yeah. Maybe back off a little

Speaker 4 (54:02):

Bit. Yeah, you got to be very careful with symbols. I mean, that's something, when Joey and I engineered that symbol pack, we really, really tried to make our symbols, we would say as flat as possible. So there was the least amount of things that piss you off in terms of, I mean, symbols just, there's always something when I record symbols that I want to kill. What I wish I had like a thousand band EQ because I would use all in every single band. So we really paid attention to mic placement and making sure that the response was very smooth on the ear and it was like the least offensive it could possibly be.

Speaker 3 (54:34):

Back to the using monitors thing with a band that I recently worked with. I guess I'm still working with them, but I did a mix for them for one of the first songs, I guess, so they could release it as a single. I used mainly speakers on that. They loved the mix and said that everything about it was the low end was nice, the kick was punchy enough and stuff, and I have no idea why I did not mix this song with speakers. I don't know. I guess to me personally, I'm so used to using headphones that I think

Speaker 6 (55:08):

That's why there's your answer. You just answered your own thing. It's force of habit.

Speaker 3 (55:12):

Yeah. Yeah. And so instead of keeping up the good thing, yeah, I just went back to,

Speaker 6 (55:21):

Yeah, you got to get out of those comfort zones, man. You won't get better unless you do that and you've got evidence to support getting out of the headphone comfort zone. Anyways, I think we got to wrap this up though.

Speaker 2 (55:32):

It was great to have you on here, man. And thanks for letting us rip apart your work. I hope that some of the tips that we gave you can help you change that and make better music.

Speaker 3 (55:43):

Absolutely. Thank you guys.

Speaker 2 (55:45):

Absolutely. It's been a

Speaker 1 (55:46):

Pleasure. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is brought to you by Creative Live, the world's best online classroom for creative professionals with classes on songwriting, engineering, mixing, and mastering. Go to creative live.com/audio to start learning now. The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is also brought to you by Save your custom drums, quality crafted drums handmade in Denver, Colorado. Go to save your custom drums.com to start building your custom drum collection now. To ask us questions, suggest topics and interact, visit qm academy com and subscribe today.