Introduction

Free download: https://subphotic.com/mixing This is a PDF that outlines 15 great ways to get pro sounding mixes + my complete workflow that I use every time I mix a song. 

Are you ready to feel the magic of mid/side Processing? I'll just unleash it, then. Here, you'll get more mixing tips and tricks than you can count on one hand: Have you ever had just a stereo file of a song, and you want the vocal to be more present? Or how about that excessive bass? I got your back!

Do you know of some creative ways to EQ or compress just the right or the left channel? Comment below!

Transcript

you ever felt that when you compress something that something fills a bit off, that the compressor is maybe too sensitive and doesn't compress that much even though the needle is moving a lot. If you want to know how to make that needle stop bouncing like crazy and still get sweet sounding compression, you better stay tucked in with this video because I'm going to show you in a couple of moments and at the end of the video I'm going to show you a sweet compression hack that I use every time when I mix. So make sure. You make it to the end. 

Let's go

Side chain filtering. So you have side chain compression, which I explained in this video right here. And then you have side chain filtering. Side chain filtering is something that many compressors come with, and my hardware, warm audio bus comp, which is kind of a remake of the classic SSL G-bus compressor.

It has the side chain filter option, as you can see here. And what it in essence does is that it's a high pass filter for the detection circuit. So whenever audio comes into the compressor, the compressor notices that audio comes in and responds by lowering the audio in volume. That's what a compressor does.

And when the incoming signal decreases in volume, the compressor stops working depending on the threshold setting, right? So a side chain filter on the compressor works this way that it filters out the detection circuit. So for instance, if you have a loud kick drum, and then you use the side chain filter and you tweak it, tweak it, tweak it until the compressor doesn't respond to the incoming signal.

Because it's over the threshold of the frequency. All the frequencies that are filtered out doesn't get detected by the compressor, but it passes through. You can still hear the kick, except it won't be compressed. And if you take it all the way up, you'll stop compressing other elements as well, which is higher up in the frequency range.

So this is really practical for several reasons, and I'm going to show you. Some of them right now. Stay tuned. The first thing I wanted to show you is when it comes to drums, so you have a drum bus and you want to drive that through a compressor, gluing those drums together, you can use this exact technique.

You can let all that low end pass and only compress what's above a certain frequency. Like, so listen to this example,

And for the second example, I wanna make a change. I want to compress a base. And I don't want to use the Sslg bus compressor for this. I want to use the Logic Stock Compressor. It's a gold mine compressor. I love this compressor. So what this does is that you can select which type of filter you want to use.

You can use the low pass pass filter, and that's what I'm going to use here on the base. So in this instance, I want to do the opposite. I will let only the low frequencies be compressed. Listen to this. Without and with Nice. Before I'm sharing the special hack with you, I'm going to show you one more example and that's with the mix bus.

This is the application that I use the most. I put a compressor on the whole mix, the beat, the vocal, everything is running through this compressor and I usually use my hardware compressor for this, but a software compressor will take you a long way. It's the same thing. It's only easier. And that's another discussion.

Hardware versus software I use both. But I sent the entire mix through compressor to glue it together. I used side chain filter to filter out the massive energy of the low end so that I can compress the mid-range and the high end even more. And then I can put on another instance of a compressor, maybe for this case, a stock compressor from Logic Pro.

And I will compress again, but only this time I will not engage the side chain high pass filter. It will remain at zero, and I will compress again, only subtly, always subtly on the mix bus. You don't want to overdo it unless you use the technique that I'm going to show you in a couple of moments, and then you will also compress the base.

Then I will insert. Yet another compressor. It's going to control the low end. I don't want to compress the high end because I've already done that. So I will smack on the stock Logic Pro compressor. I will engage the side chain filter and I will engage the low pass filter. I will filter out the high end and I will only compress the lows.

And finally, I would apply yet another compressor to tuck everything in at the end.

Have you ever used a side chain filter before? Let me know in the comments. And before I forget, download my free mixing cheat sheets. The link is in the description. I give you 15 cheat codes that you can try and apply to your own mixes, making them better hopefully. And I will also give you my 10 step workflow that I use every time I mix a song, all that in the description below.

Finally, I have. Hack for you. This is one of my favorite hacks when it comes to compression. So I've mentioned side chain compression. I've mentioned side chain filtering when compressing, and now comes the queen of the crop parallel compression. Another variant of this is called New York compression.

There are slight differences between the two, and I will dive into both of them in the next video, which you can see the link to, right? There and the link is in the description. What this parallel compression really does is that you can compress a signal into oblivion, and then you can use the mix knob or a separate track, and then you can mix in the compressed signal with the dry signal.

So that you get the best of both worlds. You get the naturalness and the dynamicness of the original dry signal, and you get the dense, punchy sound of the compressed signal, and you blend them together so that it sounds natural, sweet, yet compressed. In a good sense, so make sure to check out the video.

The link is of the description, and I'll see you there.