Jaycen Joshua’s NLS Mix Trick for Heavy Low End

[@BeatsbyVanity]

Four additional points to note: 1. Joshua often increases the drive on the first NLS by 0.5dB, enhancing the effect. 2. The NLS chain adds gain even if the drive knob is set to 0, so use the trim on the final plugin to prevent loudness bias from misleading your ears. With all drive knobs set to 0, the plugins add a total of 2dB of gain. 3. Not everyone will like what this does to drums/bass as there is some stereo manipulation going on. Your mileage may vary, so trust your ears as the final judge. 4. Techniques like this are subtle, but layering enough subtle elements can give you an edge. If you find this technique useful, add it to your arsenal and use it when it suits the mix.

[@SonicDephect]

Excited to try this one!

[@Rox0rCreativeHelp]

So These 6 instances go on your master as the last chain?

[@BeatsbyVanity]

Hey George, Great question! Sorry-I should have added that to the pinned comment. Joshua uses a separate NLS chain for his drum bus and bass bus. So, he routes all his drums to an NLS bus, which then feeds into a secondary bus containing his usual processing plugins. The same setup applies to his bass buses. From what I understand, he only uses this NLS trick on his drum and bass buses, not the entire track. That’s Joshua’s workflow, but you can try adding the NLS chain to your master and see if it works for you. Joshua’s mastering engineer probably uses a hardware summing mixer. When I say “bus,” I don’t mean a reverb bus where you’d have both the wet and dry signal (essentially a duplicate of the signal). Those are send effects, but often also called “buses.” A bus, at least in this context, is when the entire signal is routed through a processing chain. I hope that helps!

[@Rox0rCreativeHelp]

@@BeatsbyVanity ahh i see, yeah that clarifies it a bit. At the end of the day i guess, try it on your sub mixes, master whatever. The nls trick is wild to begin with anyway. I’ll try it today maybe and see if it fits my style. What about cpu usage and/or latency being introduced? Great answer, cheers

[@BeatsbyVanity]

No problem! Exactly- I always recommend looking at how tricks like this can fit into your workflow, rather than taking them as gospel. I haven’t noticed any issues; NLS doesn’t seem to be CPU-hungry. But Airwindows might be a better option for larger templates.

[@mlodszyp]

Hi! Thank you so much for the video! Also I would like to ask about the order of plugins while we're doing this trick? What I mean is: do you put the all the NLSes and then the rest of the drum buss processing, EQ, a lil bit of compression etc or you process the buss and then put NLSes??

[@BeatsbyVanity]

@mlodszyp Good question! So Joshua routes all of his drums to this NLS chain, which then feeds his drum buss processing chain, which contains the EQ’s, Compressors, etc

[@PriestlyEdits]

Pls help me to understand better, all 8 NLS inserts are on the Master track ?

[@BeatsbyVanity]

Here’s a comment I left below answering this question: Joshua uses a separate NLS chain for his drum bus and bass bus. So, he routes all his drums to an NLS bus, which then feeds into a secondary bus containing his usual processing plugins. The same setup applies to his bass buses. From what I understand, he only uses this NLS trick on his drum and bass buses, not the entire track. That’s Joshua’s workflow, but you can try adding the NLS chain to your master and see if it works for you. Joshua’s mastering engineer probably uses a hardware summing mixer. When I say “bus,” I don’t mean a reverb bus where you’d have both the wet and dry signal (essentially a duplicate of the signal). Those are send effects, but often also called “buses.” A bus, at least in this context, is when the entire signal is routed through a processing chain. I hope that helps!

[@VibeMusicRo]

You forgot to specify that all NLSs have 0.5 in the driver

[@BeatsbyVanity]

They don’t each have 0.5 dB of gain-at least, not in Joshua’s Mix With The Master’s episodes. Nor does mastering engineer Julia Borelli when showcasing the trick. Perhaps Joshua sometimes adds 0.5 dB to each instance depending on the track.

[@d1str3ss0r]

Man,you’re late to the party 🎉 Have you ever heard of Orion? 😂

[@BeatsbyVanity]

I know 😂 Yes, I own Orion! I’ll probably do a video comparing them soon, but as I understand it, Orion is Joshua’s entire bus, rather just the summing from NLS.

[@d1str3ss0r]

@@BeatsbyVanityThen I’ll grant it to you 😂 Just kidding!! Great video! 🔥

[@BeatsbyVanity]

@d1str3ss0r Haha, I appreciate it, thank you! 🙏

[@tonyreno4130]

@@BeatsbyVanitybe good to see what some else thinks about Orion. To my ears I think it’s better and quick to use.

[@BeatsbyVanity]

@tonyreno2727 For drums I’d agree, what’s your thoughts on using Orion on bass?

[@ZTEKNO_Loops]

Not relevant with the release of the Orion plugin.

[@BeatsbyVanity]

I disagree as NLS is simply used for summing, whereas Orion is Joshua’s entire drum bus. Plus, analog summing is a technique that predates Joshua’s work. Additionally, not everyone can afford Orion; NLS is $30, and the Airwindows collection is free.

[@ZTEKNO_Loops]

@@BeatsbyVanity Yes, but it doesn't use "analog summing" with NLS anywhere except on drums.

[@BeatsbyVanity]

@@ZTEKNO_Loops Sure, Joshua uses it on drums and bass, but his mastering engineer might also run the entire mix through a hardware summing mixer. In this video, I wanted to explain analog summing to encourage people to experiment beyond the famous NLS trick.

[@VinceJackson1]

Great Video 👍 You can also get a great summing effect running your mix thru a good stereo or two mono preamps!

[@ZTEKNO_Loops]

@@BeatsbyVanity got it, thank you.

[@briancoogan7732]

Deciballs? Balls?