Recording Pop Punk in Logic Pro: A Masterclass

[@songsbyspencer]

If you like the song in this video you can now stream it! It's called "Life Sucks" and it's on my new album, "I did it for me" linktr.ee/spenceraustin

[@erebros]

Hey Spencer great to see you've made a record. Hope you're doing fine.

[@jamesb9223]

No idea how the algorithm hasn’t found you yet. The recording setup, the content, and the editing are superb. It takes us amateur musicians who haven’t learned recording yet through the entire process, with multiple hidden tips and tricks if you listen and watch closely. Keep up the work on this channel, you’re most definitely not going to regret. It’s only a matter of time. Nobody else is making content as well rounded as this in this space, and I’m serious.

[@songsbyspencer]

Thanks! I'm trying my best to make the channel as helpful and entertaining as possible. It's a ton of work but I am having the time of my life making this content!

[@lordbored2706]

Algorithm just brought me here. My brother has a few bands, and has done home recording for a few years but the sound is always a bit lackluster compared to the live performances. These videos are going to really help out

[@alohomoratarot]

This was SUPER GOOD for me as someone who has been wanting to make pop punk for YEARS but never understood the instrument recording aspects. Thank you so much

[@songsbyspencer]

I'm so glad it helped! Pop punk is awesome.

[@ragan1425]

great video! the process, the tools, the tips, etc. but there is an aditional element: you are a very talented musician

[@tomstewart2685]

Truth

[@anubisunchained]

Gosh i really needed this to understand guitar tones

[@vDomMusic]

Ever since I found your channel last year, you've helped me out of a couple of writing slumps. Love ya Spencer ya boss!

[@songsbyspencer]

So happy to read this. I really appreciate the support and I'm glad to inspire!

[@rhythmguru1]

This is great on a few levels. The big early take away was how "bad" I thought the guitars sounded individually, but together and with bass and drums, they sounded full, clear, etc. Just shows what our ears like one way, doesn't always translate. Thanks for another great video.

[@r0bophonic]

Yep those guitars sound thin and harsh “in the room” because all the low end is cut to make room for the bass. What sounds good in the room for practice at home is different from what sounds best in a mix.

[@kyronnewbury]

This was huge for me too. Great sounding album guitars are not the same as great live guitars. And both of them are different than a great solo guitar sound

[@martinheath5947]

The best records ever made often have individual sonic elements which on their own may not be spectacularly great, but in a mix... "Optimising" every instrument on its own and in its own right can be a mistake

[@JackofAllMinistries]

I love that the method is simple and realistic. I feel like I always pick my mixes to death and ruin them in the process. Great job as usual!

[@songsbyspencer]

I treat mixing like a bank robbery, I try to get in and out as quick as possible. Obviously I'll tweak things later on upon listening back but that first impression of a mix and those fresh ears provide the best feedback. I'll spend hours trying to fix a mix in the studio to no avail, only to listen in the car and immediately realize the hi hat was too loud.

[@JackofAllMinistries]

@@songsbyspencer LOL! Ah yes, the old hi hat is too loud but couldn’t tell til I got in the car situation. For some reason it’s always the bass that’s too quiet for me.

[@jimbackstonofficial]

Nice job! Thanks for putting this together.

[@songsbyspencer]

Thanks for checking it out!

[@drewk6614]

I've never seen a mixing tutorial like this. One of those ah ha moments that just makes it all make sense. So many tutorials I see mix everything at once and throw plugins all over because "you're supposed to put compression on vocals". I like that you explain why you do it and not just that you do it.

[@songsbyspencer]

Glad it was helpful! I'm actually currently working on a full blown course that goes even more in depth than this video. I wanna empower people to record themselves at home!

[@nathanfuchs1998]

This has been one of the most helpful videos for recording this style of music that I have ever seen! Thanks!

[@songsbyspencer]

So glad to hear this! Thank you so much for watching.

[@drethedead]

Probably one of the best videos I've seen on recording in logic. Thanks

[@songsbyspencer]

Glad you liked it!

[@nerdsforcardgames]

This video is exactly what I needed! This is truly a gift from the fly spaghetti monster.

[@ghastlyshimmer]

Nice! Very well produced content. Song is a banger too. Very early 2000's Pop Punk/emo adjacent sound

[@mixxndj]

This was great! In punk rock fashion, great F’in job!!

[@songsbyspencer]

Thanks, dude!

[@figgeboksjo]

S'mazing Spence! As always, we learn so much from you. You are such a talent and tho I'm just a wannabe muso, you are giving so much inspiration to get back on the instruments again. Thanks for great content!

[@samson6707]

this video healed my soul

[@theseferalkids7750]

great info! I wish I had a straightforward video like this when I first started mixing. would have saved me so much money and time.

[@robertsteinberger]

That's a Green Day song there if I've ever heard one.

[@alexkunce2006]

Very Basket Case, haha!

[@jonzenbeats1326]

No way! I just watched your Ska Punk Video. Thx so much for posting another how to video!

[@Jstang182]

Thank you for keeping it simple. I have so much information on this crazy dorm room we call the internet... I have been playing looking for pointers for on panning on guitar and vocals and compression eq mixing whats not over kill on high harmony vocals or low harmony and mastering. But with the right tools it can sound amazing minus an expensive studio recording process or people trying to change your song drastically to a style that's popular currently for the sake of money or too much auto tune.

[@aviksamanta6957]

Hey man this was an incredible video, I'm learning how to record and was struggling with my first mix but this video hella helped, thanks a ton. Also great end song too 🔥🔥 can rlly relate

[@songsbyspencer]

I'm so happy that this video was helpful! I've been there, first mixes can be a real struggle. The more you do it the easiest it gets. You've got this!

[@harrisbeatsfrankou6304]

Great to see you grow Spencer 10 k Soon. You're amazing always.

[@andreimclive]

Excellent vid! Getting some Green Day vibes here :)

[@songsbyspencer]

They were my most-listened to artist on my Spotify recapped- so no surprises there!

[@dreamscuba]

Great video and thank you for sharing your process! Killer song.

[@joshh-23]

The song.. and the way you mixed it sounds very green day esk and I love it thank you for this video!!

[@songsbyspencer]

Glad you like it!

[@fclefjefff4041]

"esk" 😂

[@fiddlefolk]

Excellent job Spencer!!!!!!

[@aplanebagel]

Nice , thanks for the very straight forward tutorial ! I love this ! Love the rack! Thanks for getting up that day! :)

[@erebros]

As always a great video thanks a lot keep up the great work Spencer

[@seanrosedotcom]

Great video~! Keep 'em coming! It's great content!

[@songsbyspencer]

Thank you! Will do!

[@MarioDiLeonardo]

Thanks for another great one, Spencer!

[@drbarbare]

That's awesome! You also need a good musician that can do multiple takes right BTW :D. I've been enjoying the Mixing and Mastering Podcast (also on KZbin), the hosts are professional Mixing and Mastering engineers and they really go in depth in various topics.

[@custommusic4u]

This is such a great video. So clear and well presented. Thank you!

[@songsbyspencer]

Thanks for watching!

[@TotFilmsProduction]

dude you killing it. this is so helpful

[@songsbyspencer]

Thanks, dude! I wanna hear Gas Station Boner Pills on the record! I’ve been inactive on KZbin because I’m actually about to launch a full blown course teaching everything I know about music production. It’s much more in depth than this video and extremely thorough!

[@TotFilmsProduction]

@@songsbyspencer Oh that's awesome! We are actually working on a cover EP album right now "Boners Under The Covers" and that why I was looking up some stuff and stumble upon your video.

[@paulsmith634]

New single Sabotage is groovy, thanks for making this video.

[@songsbyspencer]

You bet!

[@danegoodwin3057]

Killer song!

[@songsbyspencer]

Thanks!

[@cmaodach]

Spencer, thanks for this!!!

[@songsbyspencer]

My pleasure!

[@BenMartinBox]

Nice. Thanks for sharing all of it. I'm sure it may help many starters. Stay safe.

[@r0bophonic]

Thank you for this great song and production breakdown - your channel is a goldmine for songwriters! 10:36 Any reason why you opted to use the plugin versus the stock Logic compressor?

[@GeneoVanEngers]

Awesome videos. Because you use midi drums what do you gain stage at. -12 or -6. I keep going back and forth. I notice lotta modern musuc the drums are much louder then 90s and 80s recordings. Even 2000s rock. Was very guitar heavy.

[@davelewis5585]

So helpful, thank you!

[@claragary]

Nice song and video! Thanks!

[@songsbyspencer]

Thanks for watching!

[@shitstorm3714]

Sounds very prof in my ears ❤

[@titmusspaultpaul5]

Fantastic song... thanks.

[@songsbyspencer]

Thank you for watching!

[@jzoomradog583]

Very nice. Thank you sir!

[@FuelingWit]

What a great video! Quick question, one option you didn't mention was logic drums does have a beat section that just does it drumming for you, and you can just amend it from simple to complex, quiet loud etc. Any reason why you didn't mention this? Just curious many thanks

[@songsbyspencer]

Logic's Drummer feature can be quite handy! There's no real reason why I didn't mention it to be honest.

[@CowboyPPOP]

just dicovered you because I'm getting ideas about autotune! now ff you on spotify🤘 your are amazing!

[@jeremiahreilly9739]

★★★★★ Spencer, I am de-stressed, de-essed, inspired, and mooootivated. Thanks.

[@songsbyspencer]

So glad to read this, Jeremiah!

[@colingeorgeh]

Very good video. Have you ever tried to do prog rock? Something like Yes. Maybe lay down some synths and keyboards? I think that would be a great challenge for you. Your videos are great and I enjoy watching your channel. Let me know if you will accept this challenge or not. I don’t blame you if you don’t accept it. Keep up the great work, I look forward to seeing your next video.

[@csabasaghegyi6083]

Very useful tutorial.

[@LaNuitBlanche]

Very nice video man. If I had the chance to be in a band with you I totally would because your musical style sounds like Green Day.

[@songsbyspencer]

Green Day is definitely one of my favorite bands. They were my most listened to artist last year according to my Spotify Wrapped. And Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter 3" was my most listened to album. I was pretty surprised by that one!

[@LaNuitBlanche]

@@songsbyspencer I am gonna listen to that one, must be addictive somehow?

[@luizfmartins4182]

Hitting like like there's no tomorrow, and only then watching the video.

[@shaylevinzon540]

Love how you get this crunchy punky sound out of digital knobs. Thanks for getting into details and recommendations ❤ EDIT: dude the song should be on Spotify

[@songsbyspencer]

It's coming. I finished mixing the album this last weekend and this song made the cut! Currently working on a cover for it. Should be dropping it on March 18th (my birthday)

[@shaylevinzon540]

@@songsbyspencer wow! Wonderful news! Good luck with it 🤞

[@fclefjefff4041]

There is nothing "crunchy" or "punky" about this garbage 😂

[@FuelingWit]

Hey spencer, one more question. Do you record your instruments in sections? So intro, verse, corus etc. Or do you do the whole song with a number of takes? when I'm recording guitar I've been recording the verse part once and then just copying it to the other areas of the song. Not sure if this is correct or not. thanks!

[@songsbyspencer]

I usually do it in pieces like you described. I like to do a solid amount in each section so I'm really capturing a performance though. Some people punch in line by line and that just feels weird to me. So I'll do the entire verse, then the chorus, then the leads, and so on. Copying and pasting from one chorus to another is totally fine- that being said recording it again for each verse/chorus might give the song a bit more character. As with anything, it's all a matter of taste and finding what works for the specific song!

[@Mujcanal]

nice one brother

[@DanCampbell-pj4jo]

Hey Spencer, fantastic video mate! I’m a noob multi-instrumentalist and just getting into recording my stuff and this video has helped me out enormously. When you recorded your drums, did you just connect the output of the drum module into the instrument input on the audio interface? I have a Roland TD-17KVX and it has a heap of amazing preset sounds, but just trying to work out how to get it into Logic Pro (iPad version) so I can do the quantising etc. Thanks heaps and keep up the amazing work!!

[@songsbyspencer]

Hey Dan! You can plug it directly into a computer via USB or into the interface via MIDI Cable, both will have the same effect. However, plugging directly into the computer via USB overrides the need for an interface. If you want to use the built in drum tones you can do so by using an external midi track. If you want to use software drum tones (I’ve been using EZ Drummer 3 lately) you can just use a normal midi track and the electronic drumset will work as a midi controller. I’m here to help! And I actually just launched a course that teaches everything I know in depth so if you’re interested you can check that out at www.sparebedroomstudio.com

[@Twhipjr]

Green Day lyrics blink instrumental 🔥🔥🎸

[@songsbyspencer]

Yep pretty much!

[@tcfutures]

I believe that was a little Rancid riff on the bass...I see what you did there!

[@songsbyspencer]

@@tcfutures You clearly have fantastic taste!

[@MarcosCodas]

Do you ever use send/return tracks? I moved to using reverb almost exclusively in send/return and it’s been much easier to glue things together without creating too much mud.

[@warrengassaway4428]

I never knew what flux was. I’ve tried to do the same thing manually and it ends up sounding like a hatchet job. lol it seems like every time I get caught up doing some tedious, time consuming thing to improve a track there’s always a feature in the DAW that does what I intended to do way faster and usually with better results.

[@joecizin9357]

Very helpful 🎶🎶

[@songsbyspencer]

Thanks, glad I could help!

[@pocojoyo]

Best video !

[@LucasGuilhermeSantos]

The Offspring - Want You Bad

[@martinmcwatters3974]

This is awesome! If anyone reading this comment followed the tutorial, could someone explain how to save the guitar tone in POD Farm? When I save the project and re-open Logic Pro, the settings within POD Farm are not saved. Thanks! :D

[@songsbyspencer]

Hmmm I've never had that problem. I typically save my tones as a channel strip preset. So with the guitar track selected, click the setting button and click "Save Channel Strip Setting As", and then name the tone. Then every time you come in you can immediately load the tone you made. If Pod Farm is resetting every time you reload the project, that sounds like some sort of glitch. I'd holler at Line 6 about it.

[@martinmcwatters3974]

@@songsbyspencer Ah, I figured it out. Thank you very much!

[@alessandrosummer]

Great video! Just some things: first of all, the drums sound good but I think they'd be great if they had more top end (especially on the snare) and if you cut some low mids from the kick; second, I get you when you say to not overuse pitch correction, but what about timing? Did you manually edit the doubles to fit the timing of the lead vocal? I use Vocalign since it saves hours of painfully tedious stuff. And finally: don't you like buses? I personally never use reverbs and delays on the tracks but on a bus to have more control on it. Looking forward to knowing more about 🙃

[@songsbyspencer]

Believe it or not, I just recently started using buses (since this video). I always knew what they were, but instead of using them I would just put things on individual tracks like a noob. Also, for this track I didn't use any post production tools to align the timing of the multi track vocals. I just sang it the best I could and went with it!

[@alessandrosummer]

@@songsbyspencerfor reverbs and delays buses are a must, especially since you can process you reverbs and delays adding whatever you want to add (saturation, chorus, reverb on a delays...). And also, the vocals sound very tight! Very well done in tracking them!

[@qbmedia_videos]

Great tut! Just wondering if you sidechain kick with bass and voice with any other tracks?

[@songsbyspencer]

I do that with electronic and pop music mostly, almost never with Rock music.

[@qbmedia_videos]

@@songsbyspencer Good to know, thanks for the reply!

[@plolso413]

Why there is no bus??

[@user-bv3wf1ur1m]

can you record all 3 vocal takes at the same time? i thought you had to do 3 separate takes or phasing would occur

[@songsbyspencer]

Each take is done separately over top of the others.

[@csabasaghegyi6083]

Hi buddy are you OK? No videos since months... I hope you feel good.

[@songsbyspencer]

All is well! I’ve been shooting a course (49 videos) over the past two months that I’m about to launch. After that I’ll be back to regular posting. I appreciate you checking in. It really means a lot!

[@Ninjanzee]

Hey man what drum set is that you’re using?? It looks fresh and decent but won’t like break the bank

[@songsbyspencer]

It's the Titan 70 my Simmons. It costs around $700. I did a more in-depth review in a previous video!

[@SquizbarDeAlienOfficial]

This never works for me, I always go in with an idea (pop punk for example) and it turns into a funk or prog track 😂. Fantastic video as always

[@songsbyspencer]

That happens to me a lot. I'll come in with an acoustic song and be all like, what if this was punk rock?! Or, I'll come in with a punk song and be like, what if this was a piano ballad?!

[@SquizbarDeAlienOfficial]

I’m glad it’s not just me 😂@@songsbyspencer

[@lordbored2706]

Commenting for the algorithm. And also for the great content 🤙🏻 And never forgetting to say free Palestine ✌🏻🍉