ULTIMATE Vocal Mixing Hack - How to Mix SUPER Clear Vocals

✅ Vocal Production Course ➤ warpacademy.com/course/vocal-...
✅ The Lightspeed Mix Template ➤ warpacademy.com/vespers-light...
★ SKIP TO SOMETHIN’ ★
0:00 Intro
0:18 A/B comparison
2:50 What’s causing the vocal to fight for space
5:05 How I route & buss tracks for ducking
6:00 How to apply the technique in FabFilter Pro-Q3
8:20 Solving masking with EQ matching
9:25 How to use sidechain dynamic EQ
10:25 Using sneaky mid-side EQ for more transparency
12:00 Fine tuning the effect with Q and EQ gain scale
13:40 Shout outs, free downloads
14:50 Outro
★ STAY IN TOUCH ★
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★ ABOUT WARP ACADEMY ★
Warp Academy empowers artists to reach their full potential, create exceptional music, and live their passion. We’re a global, online collective that includes music producers, audio engineers, label owners, sound designers, festival organizers, booking agents, managers, leading audio brands and more.
We hook you up with all the education, tools, and connections you need to create professional-quality music and launch a successful career. You can learn almost any topic by searching our library of hundreds of free tutorial videos and production tools. Join us. We’re stoked to meet you!
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#mixingtips #vocalmixing #mixingtutorial
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Sam Winter's Soundcloud: / samwintersound
@fabfilter @Ableton @Streaky_com

[@SheikRonMC]

I can always listen to someone who gives credit when credit is due 👏🏾

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for checking out the video. Cheers!

[@nolanroberts2710]

You are truly a gifted proffesor of knowledge in terms of of how to deliver the information succintly and effectivly, you are probably the only youtube channel that i atill watch for music production because of your accute sense of understanding of the tipic at hand and also your SUMMARIES! Always useful.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks Nolan. I really appreciate that. And I'm so glad you're following the channel still. All the best!

[@nolanroberts2710]

If there were some where better to go Put the information that you so gaciouslyly give for free mister Vespers, I probably would tell them to come back here and check your stuff again.​ Cause every time I watch you videos multiple times I pick up more :) 😂 @@warpacademy

[@nolanroberts2710]

​@@warpacademyAlso apologies for my atrocious typing ability on my phone lol

[@warpacademy]

So happy to hear that Nolan. It’s complex stuff but I love working in this field. Thanks for following what I do.

[@garethbellamy2703]

Thank you for the time you put into making this and your generosity

[@warpacademy]

Cheers Gareth. Thanks for tuning in. Happy music making!

[@Atem_S.]

Nice!!! I was getting worried i had to buy another suite to test it out! Looking forward for the next video for that!

[@warpacademy]

Gotcha. Yeah, you can use any dynamic EQ plugins that has a sidechain input and can work in M/S. There's a great freeware one I'll feature soon.

[@PatrickObiang]

BRAVO!

[@chckmtCZ]

Very nice and THX .

[@warpacademy]

You're welcome. Cheers!

[@samson4272]

So great and precise. Thanks for the inspiration!

[@warpacademy]

Thanks Samson. Yeah this one is super surgical and almost totally transparent. All the upside with no downside. It's my new secret weapon on vocals.

[@samson4272]

@@warpacademy Love it, thanks so much for the inspiration brother!

[@PatrickObiang]

AWESOME!

[@warpacademy]

Thanks.

[@r3dtop]

Explained in a very simple manner 👍🏻 thankyou.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks. I always try my best to take complex audio concepts and explain them simply.

[@pbenson56fran]

Thank you very much

[@warpacademy]

You’re very welcome.

[@united100]

perfectly explained, thanks

[@warpacademy]

Cheers mate. Glad you liked this one. I tried not to ramble on and keep it to just the minimum. Thanks for tuning in!

[@mystikrebel1089]

Just what I needed ...

[@warpacademy]

Cheers!

[@lumaboy6573]

A very big thank you. This is a valuable stuff.

[@warpacademy]

You're very welcome. Glad you got a lot out of that one. Cheers mate.

[@thesoulbelow7324]

Hey Drew, first of all that new template 😳. I'll definitely look forward to a more in depth video on that. I saw the other comments and your reply about getting around the delay problem, so thanks for that. When I started out producing I came over from training with Cubase and ProTools and so many engineers I watched used some pretty crazy bussing and submixes to achieve incredible results. I found Ableton's folder and grouping structure to be a more organized, but I wondered if it would still SOUND better and give me more flexibility in mixing if I were to have more busses and submixes. The problem is that then the session becomes a complete mess, especially in Arrangement view. If you do a video on your template, I'd love to know the WHY behind your choice to use such complex routing.

[@warpacademy]

Hey mate. Thanks for the comment. I also came over from a Cubase background, prior to Live. I miss the Cubase folder tracks, which allow you to organize but don't route audio. That's how I use Live's Group tracks now and I just ignore / bypass how they also route audio. I will do a full video. But pending that, I'd like to say that I don't personally find this complicated at all. I only use Arrangement view for mixing work, never Session. One major advantage, and there are so many, is that when I've done the mixing work on all the individual tracks, I then focus in on a very fine-detailed mix of just the big components. IE the sub-mixes. I want them all in one place. At the top of the project, and all next to each other. You don't get that with Groups, they're all buried. When doing the last 10% of the mix, I'm really just mixing stems (IE the sub-mixes). It simplifies the mixing process. "What do the DRUMS need to do?" "What does the lead vocal need to do?". I can make broader mix decisions more simply and quickly. And then, when a client asks for mix revisions, I almost always only make the edits on the sub-mixes. It takes a 40-80 track deep, complex mix, and distills it down to just the sub-mixes. Cheers!

[@michaelfrietsch8246]

sweat ideas thanks!

[@warpacademy]

You’re most welcome.

[@thesoulbelow7324]

Second question: As soon as you mentioned masking, my brain immediately went to Izotope's Neutron feature that has a very similar sidechain eq mask reveal and even auto creates dynamic eq nodes using AI. Could much of this trick be done in Neutron? Pro-Q is great, but I'm trying to just use what I have.

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Yeah, good eye on that. Neutron could do this as well. The criteria you need for the EQ to be capable of this is: Must have a sidechain input, must be Mid/Side encode capable, must be dynamic, must allow you to see the sidechain spectrum overlayed with the insert track spectrum to identify masking. Ideally it also has an EQ scale function and an easy way to multi-select EQ nodes. Pretty sure Neutron can do all that, I just rarely use Neutron's EQ. I really like Pro-Q3 and its workflow. I do use Neutron's Transient Shaper a lot tho. Love that.

[@franlarsen80]

Have you done any trials of side-chaining Soothe for this task, and how it compares to this EQ match technique?

[@warpacademy]

Good comment and suggestion. It would be interesting to have a tool that can change the frequency of the nodes in real-time based on the sidechain signal. That would improve things for when the vocal changes range / octaves. I'll explore this. Cheers!

[@dr.feelgood7368]

i mostly use this technique at the busses. I route all the instruments and sometimes even the drums into one buss, insert soothe and sidechain the main vocals. Make a node around 250 and 3000 then dial in other parameters to taste.

[@darkcharmrecords]

​@@dr.feelgood7368 Much simpler. Thank you

[@warpacademy]

Right on. Good approach.

[@warpacademy]

Indeed. If you have Soothe already this sounds very straightforward.

[@camstanley]

great video, just wondering why use sub mixes instead of just processing the groups?

[@warpacademy]

Hey Cameron. Thanks, glad you liked this one. Good question. I do use Groups, but primarily just to organize sets of common tracks, like a folder. Sub mixes are more flexible and faster for a variety of reasons. I'll mention some of them. I can keep them all at the top of my project so that when I'm doing final, small adjustments, I don't need to go diving through the project with Groups. I can easily route anything I want to via a sub mix without having to drag things into and out of Groups. They give an additional layer of control - so even if you do want to process Groups (which I do sometimes) you get an added stage where you can sum multiple groups. More control is better IMO. For rendering stems, it's much easier as my sub mixes are always set up in a way where printing stems is as simple as selecting the sub mixes and rendering in a batch. I often build the mix up with drums, bass, synths, before adding other elements, so using sub mixes all at the top of the project allows me to quickly mute selections of instruments or vocals that I don't want to hear. Again, much faster than digging down into the project's Groups. You also cannot route the returns like I do using Groups, and you can't get a clean Pre-Master channel without using this type of sub mixing structure. Let me know if you have any other thoughts or questions. Cheers!

[@camstanley]

@@warpacademy Wow yeah that makes a lot of sense! Thank you for taking the time to respond. I've always wondered how to do this in Ableton after seeing pro tools users do the same. PLEASE make a full video explaining this soon!

[@warpacademy]

Sure thing. Will do. Cheers!

[@MrPaperdude1]

thanx for a great tutorial. i can't get the free vocal course though... i've registered an account, but it says i have the wrong password (i don't) and when i wanna try to change the password, nothing happens, as if i've added the wrong email adress (i haven't)...

[@warpacademy]

Hey Andreas. Glad you like the technique. Sorry for the trouble with the course. Can you try to sign up with another email address? I’ve tested this and sign up is working fine on our end. Password resets often get stuck in spam.

[@MrPaperdude1]

@@warpacademy i'm only active on one email adress, so if i tried another one, i would miss any emails coming from you... i guess i could try to register a new account using the same email adress, but i'm guessing that won't work, since i've already registered... i've checked my spam several times and it's not there... about the very cool technique in the video, i also have soothe 2... would this be the same thing as sidechaining that?

[@warpacademy]

Hi Andreas. Please contact our support and I’ll help you out there. We can add the course to your account and reset your password manually. For Soothe, I’m not sure if it can do this. It would have to have a sidechain input. Not all plugins do. And it would have to be mid side with the ability to restrict the range in which the plug-in operates.

[@te10percent]

Hey I downloaded the template but all that unzipped was a textedit file. Did I do something wrong? thanks in advance

[@warpacademy]

Corrupted download most likely. Try again? It’s an ALP file. Ableton Live Pack. You need to open Live and then select to open the ALP to decompress it. LMK if you have any issues.

[@te10percent]

@@warpacademy Hey thanks for that. So i download and open the zip and the alp file appears for a second then disappears and becomes a text file. Very weird

[@warpacademy]

That's really odd. Not sure what extraction software you're using, but we used the built in OSX compression and decompression and it seems to work well. Sorry about the issue.

[@ZVUCHI]

5:09 ProQ top audio surgeon ) Tell me, looking at your template, the first thing that came to my mind was the idea of monstrous delays in ableton with such routing, because only the tracks of the (bus) channels are optimized for summation in the program. Maybe you somehow got around it ? )

[@warpacademy]

Hey mate. Oh yes, if you route things like that you'll find there is a super long delay with the routing - UNLESS you build it like I did. You are correct; I found a way around it. My template contains no delays at all due to the All Returns Submix routing.

[@ZVUCHI]

@@warpacademy Hi ❤️🙏So, you direct everything first to the send and then return them into audio tracks?

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. So you route things like normal, and you push send signal up to the return tracks. Then you create the submixes, and route the return tracks' audio output to the All Returns Submix. You set the Submix monitor to "In". Then you start to get the delay problem. The fix is that you disable the sends on all the submixes. Presto. Delay is gone.

[@ZVUCHI]

@@warpacademy Excellent) i need to download the template for clarity)

[@warpacademy]

@@ZVUCHI Yes, good idea. That's why I'm giving it away. You can see all my routings by scanning over the template. Cheers!

[@MannyXO]

Great tip but I do this all the time with Trackspacer by Wavesfactory. So precise and simple at the same time. It literally does the same thing but with less steps. Plus you can dial in your attack and release times. Just saying…

[@warpacademy]

Hey Manny. Thanks for chiming in. I also have Wavesfactory Track Spacer and fully agree with you. Sonible's Smart:Comp2 does it even better that Trackspacer with its spectral ducking feature. Both are great plugins, but not everyone has them. Most serious producers are using Pro-Q3 or at least a dynamic EQ of some sort, and so in this video I wanted to show how those tools can be used to solve masking without needing to buy new plugins. Oh, and if you want attack and release times then watch this follow up video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e3e0gX2gnbusepI I show how you can do this technique using the freeware TDR Nova dynamic EQ, which has attack, release, threshold and ratio. It's a great tool, and you can't argue with the price. Cheers!

[@MannyXO]

“Most serious producers” what do they do? Sit in front of a computer with a mean stare all day? *jokes I got them all - still use Trackspacer. The name of the game is “working fast”. In a professional world, we don’t have time for this! Spend a camp session fiddling around and it could go against you. 😮‍💨 Don’t mind me your video is great, I’m simply expanding on what you said. 💪🫡

[@warpacademy]

In my opinion Track Spacer and Sonible Smart:Comp don't necessarily replace the use of dynamic sidechain EQ. In Trackspacer you have no control over bands. You just just have a HP and LP to restrict its ducking. Same with Smart:Comp. So I've found that I run into situations where Trackspacer is just pulling down too much of the ducked signal. Even in mid side mode. I need more granular control. I use this mostly on my sub-mixes, so there are lots of instruments going through there. If you hear it working, it's too much. Pro-Q3 allows me to be much more surgical, which is an advantage. I can control the threshold, depth of attenuation, Q etc. It takes more time, yes. But when it comes to this stuff, I'm more than willing to put in the time when it produces more transparent results. In summary, its good to have many tools at your disposal. Trackspacer is fantastic for getting the job done in a hurry. Pro-Q3 is good for the fine level of control you have, if the mix requires you to get down to that level of detail. Thanks for your comments and insights!

[@user-mh3rw7lp8o]

I like the idea of only adjusting the center. However, the use of EQ match makes no sense. To evaluate your logic, imagine a source that perfectly masks the vocal. For this example we could use a copy of the vocal itself but offset by a quarter note. The eq would match perfectly so Pro-Q wouldn't create any nodes. Do you see how matching the EQ doesn't help? The offset copy of the vocal would definitely get in the way, but EQ match would never tell you that.

[@dr.feelgood7368]

I don't think u even grasp the idea dude. u gave an example that sounded like parallel processing to me. why dahell would you unmask something u did parallel with 😅 bro 🤦 it's meant to unmask and make separation between 2 different sources.

[@user-mh3rw7lp8o]

@@dr.feelgood7368 I see why it would seem that way. I used that example to show that EQ match won't create nodes in the areas most masked by the sidechain. It only creates nodes where there are differences in eq.

[@dr.feelgood7368]

@@user-mh3rw7lp8o EQ matching compensates the audio to have the same frequency distribution as the side-chained signal that's why it's called "MATCHING", not the clashing ones. So basically Pro-Q try to match frequency distribution by attenuating/boosting certain frequencies, you will then invert those nodes to create the opposite effect of "Matching" which is Separation.

[@user-mh3rw7lp8o]

@@dr.feelgood7368 it seems we both agree as to what EQ matching does so I think you almost understand what I'm saying. The eq match created boost nodes in the places where the sidechain was quietest compared to the vocal. You want to create nodes where the sidechain and the vocal share the most information.

[@dr.feelgood7368]

​​@@user-mh3rw7lp8ocause you're looking at it as a way to fix clashing frequencies which is it not. It''s sculpting, carving out space for the other signal.