What PRO Producers Do That You DON'T (this makes ALL the difference)

[@bhaveshtochabbra6853]

Best channel I discovered in 2023!❤

[@syndrx_]

facts this guy is the best

[@csucsadam]

SAME

[@StephonWagstaffe]

For sure made my song come to life

[@MickSkarr]

Excellent and a lot of new and fresh approaches to mixing and mastering 🙌

[@timestes9455]

Ethan, I believe this is your best video yet! Fantastic quality, great narration. My attention was captured for the entire length of the video. That's a feat in this day and age. And with a 30 min video, no doubt!

[@CompleteProducer]

wow no way! that's incredible. editing it im thinking "wow this is a LOT of info I hope people can stay with me" hahahah

[@sebastiancastillo8704]

Been watching Ableton/music production videos for well over 10 years. Yours are far and away the best. Good work.

[@CompleteProducer]

thank you!!

[@geoffnemeth3930]

This is straight up the most helpful video I’ve watched on the process of mixing, mastering and releasing. Your videos are so informative and always motivate me to jump back into Live. Thank you!! 🙏

[@fooyong]

Thank you so much for taking the time to make & share this. I'm only 12 minutes into it, and have already seen the light & how I can utilize your advice finish tracks faster.

[@e.static_studio]

Dude! Totally felt you at the end! That was a super condensed but full guide. Can’t thank you enough! Major respect!!! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@alexheltemes]

bro your videos are so good. Found you through charmed and didn't know your production background. Thanks for inspiring others!

[@dotatales]

I've started making music and found it really hard to stick to someone to follow. Attention span has taken a fall lately, but man, you had me hooked right from the start and just wanted to say all your videos are awesome. If I make it big in my local music industry, I'd owe you big time! Thanks a lot Ethan! :)

[@rommynine]

Never used Ableton, but you explain so simple and cool. So it seems I can use it in any daw, like you said! I really love your style to push such useful information straight in my head! Thank you!

[@evilwahwah]

These are great tips! Thank you for taking the time to make this and share all of your experience and learnings. I’ve been releasing for a few months and I wish I had the benefit of all these tips when started. Of all the tips, the Quality Control step is the one I value most. I missed a clipping on one track of my first release and it kills me every time I hear it. Should have slept on it like you suggest so my ears would be fresh to catch it the next day. Love all your videos - they are helping me make better releases! ❤

[@ThBenj.]

Thought i was the only one to do it all in one project! Thanks for sharing. Great content

[@sidekickbeats_the_official]

Hey Ethan, your videos are great !! You don't have to "DOUBLE CLICK" return tracks or other tracks. It's not neccessary. Single click does it already. Much luuuuveand thx for your work !!

[@BritishBoy]

I'm absolutely so surprised you're not more popular than you are, these are amazing tips, thanks!

[@e.static_studio]

Best video I’ve seen to finish your song. Thank you so much for sharing!!! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@scorpionmcscorp5693]

Thanks for the amazing videos Ethan!

[@daedae1522]

I came here from your interview you did at Coachella for a KZbinr . Great work !

[@CocinandoconMartha121]

"you are valuable, act like it!". Love this quote/advice

[@Hung_Tang]

NOTES: Assumption song is finished.... needs to be mixed & mastered now to be ready for Spotify: 1) Mixing Balance - Everything should be done in this stage, mastering won't save your track - Focus on BALANCE by modulating various tracks volumes, tweak by 2dbs as a rule of thumb - Most people mix vocals and drums too quietly, so make sure they are loud enough Compression - Put a compressor on your track to reduce dynamic range - Use compressor presets when you're starting out! and tweak them a bit. EQ - 0-100 is sub-bass frequency, we don't want any of that on a vocal -- use a high pass filter to filter that out - kicks & bass need sub-bass, all other elements don't -- so you can use an eq to remove that - on vocals, use low-shelf filter for mids(2)(cleaning up mud) and high-shelf filter for highs(4) (boost highs) Effects - Use the sends & returns on vocals & percussion - Add some ping-pong reverb / slap delay - in his example he uses 8db on the delay Quality Control 1. Combing - listen through your song over and over, and adjust things as needed 2. Take a break (one day min.) 3. Listen on multiple speakers (iPhone, headphones, speakers, etc.) 4. A/B your song with a pro reference (a song in the Spotify top 50) 2) Mastering - Mastering is just making sure your song is loud enough - Put the "FabFilter Pro-L 2" plugin on the Master channel - Ethan's Settings Screenshot at 4:28 Ableton-Only - Drag a limiter to Master Channel, ceiling to 0db, Lookahead to 1.5ms, Release to 1ms (Method 1) - Compressor 3) Distribution - Close all other apps when exporting masters - Distrokid for distribution

[@jewelthompson4210]

Your content is so amazing. I recommend it to all my aspiring producer friends. Thank you for what you do, Ethan. We really appreciate you!

[@vikkstube]

This is probably the best video I've ever seen about Music Production🙌

[@Brett19696]

Mate, thank you for all your doing! These videos have been more helpful than I can put into words :) Love your teaching style so much I had to get your full course, can't wait to dive into it!

[@CompleteProducer]

Saw that you joined, welcome aboard! Can't wait to hear the music you make (:

[@dmofOfficial]

The effects you put on the master track, big thanks for that! I've been stuck on the limiter knowing it's mud, and was unsure how to escape it!

[@mirela_iuliana_]

Ethan, you're fantastic! The content you create is so useful! I've seen tons of other videos, or took entire courses but with your great formulas everything is nice and neat. Thank you very much for all the effort you put in creating your materials. ❤

[@mjohnsen8606]

Just caught your channel from Charlie Chang. Hope you're enjoying Coachella!

[@CompleteProducer]

oh awesome! charlie was great to meet and see throughout the weekend.

[@jaymay88]

Absolutely amazing. I’m like 10 videos deep and I can honestly say I wish I had you as my personal teacher😭🔥 the amount of knowledge I’ve received in this small amount of time is ridiculous. Hope to be able to purchase your course at some point but I’ve got to buy these plugins first😎

[@CompleteProducer]

wow thanks so much!!

[@TCGdp]

A workaround for mixing/mastering is mix in mono and at 12Db maximum, and "set" the drums to fill that sound. Then use Utility plugin to gain +5-6Db at the end

[@TCGdp]

Bonus: if you're using compressors you can really "Redline" the hell out of it without clipping once you've entered the mastering phase

[@CompleteProducer]

words of wisdom indeed. i should have mentioned mixing in mono during the balancing stage can really help a lot!

[@mukeshpathak7302]

You and your channel both are really great. All of your videos are game changers 🔥 thank you so much.

[@xnotemusic]

You are killing it. Love from Nepal.. You are the true teacher..

[@airforeeeeee]

best vid frfr

[@davidcarter3976]

If you don't know, this is by far one of the best teachers on youtube, make sure you're telling all your friends and family about this guy. Let's drive him to 2 million subscribers quick!!!

[@CompleteProducer]

thank you!

[@markbooth140]

Thanks Ethan. I like your vibe and your explanations. ✌️❤️

[@jas_bataille]

This is great! Quick note as a pro mixer : -14LUFS is the hard limit for streaming services, anything above that will trigger compression that will get your mix *lower* in loudness than this treshold in my experience, so it's useless. Perceived loudness is what you want. Also, the threshold of loudness for radio is -23LUFS. So if you're wondering why your mix shouldn't be too limited or compressed, that's because radio stations WILL put a CRAP TON of comp on it so that it fits their regulations! If you remember the ads a few years ago that were blowing up your headphones?... that's why they put the protection algorithms on KZbin and most streaming services, so it's not to be a pain in our a*****! Therefore, playing the loudness war is completely useless and a waste of time! Also, top-down mixing is a trick every Grammy winning engineer do. My dad been doing this for 40 plus years and the first thing he told me is to put a limiter on the master. I like to then add a comp on the master, then comp channels one by one and, finally, removing the limiter from the master. The dynamic will EXPLODE!!!

[@CompleteProducer]

That's a good point you bring up. I would agree with all of it apart from DJing. When DJ's play songs out, most of the songs are mixed super loud and if they play your track that's mastered at -14LUFS it's going to sound significantly quieter /:

[@tobiasvanavelon9684]

Thanks very much for doing this. For extra content, if you haven't already, you might consider making a #shorts version of the limiter + compressor + EQ combo to change sounds. You sound so earnest, I bet it hits just right.

[@user-mb8rf7qk5q]

Omg finally someone explained it in a way I could understand. Subbed.

[@cuberious1419]

I came here from Charlie Chang’s Coachella vid. I was glad he interviewed a producer.

[@michaelfrietsch8246]

Thanks so much man! This all helps a ton

[@andersonmingas8476]

From my heart, I really thank you…

[@onegav]

Awesome video, some great tips and you are so easy to listen to, understand and take in what you’re saying. Epic man 🙌🏻🎶

[@Miss.ChiefStudios]

This is really brilliant to hear I have been mixing and mastering in the same project and I thought I was cutting corners. But I think It really works for me. Get the mix right and then there is not much left to do. Although I have been doing a final polish again after the pre master lol. The only prob with my projects is they get kinda huge and cpu intensive. Sometimes my pc won't cope enough for me to tell what is happening audio wise. Your tutorial is brilliant thank you so much ❤🙏

[@DeejayRach0]

Priceless Video/Channel

[@mikkelgrunberger5859]

This... This right here.... Very very good job. I learned a bunch.

[@diegolowpass]

I absolutely loved this one! And I thank you for everything you've shared ❤

[@marcandrade7495]

Subscribed 👏👏👏

[@Thesgfire]

I love you; thank you so much! This is huge 🔥🔥

[@yinsound]

Very helpful. This is valuable and very practical advice!

[@UnleashDLion]

I loved this video. Thank you so much Ethan.

[@willievaughn6474]

You're amazing my friend.

[@williamfranco7526]

Ethan is a FREAKING legend

[@yah-wq3vs]

great video man. totally appreciate you!!🙏

[@risingsun2677]

Wonderful channel. Thank you. Sessions window confuses me. I prefer Arrgmt window to work in. Do I need to even work in the Ableton Session window at all?

[@Xamanovo]

Thanks Ethan, that was really honest and helpfull 😊

[@puppibelly]

this is amazing, sooo helpful

[@zenlokamaya]

Thanks for the Mastering technique. I use Ableton myself, and it's really help.

[@TayajohMusic]

Thanks Ethan! 🙏❤️

[@meimarceau]

i'm really struggling with perfectionism and this really helped me to de-pressurize

[@MegaStonik]

What a journey, Mate!

[@amaxlevin]

Stellar advice to push into a limiter in order to start a mix, saves a ton of time. Cheers!

[@CompleteProducer]

thanks! yeah it changed everything for me so i had to share (:

[@safianofficial]

.hey ethan, im just about to get started with ableton and came across your channel .you get ideas across quite clearly and that in itself is quite valuable .ill stay tuned! thank you

[@CompleteProducer]

sounds good! I would also check out the free training. I'm not trying to push my course, but the free 1 hour training has a tooooon of valuable stuff for people just starting out and I think youd get a lot out of it! link is in the description of this video

[@safianofficial]

@@CompleteProducer .I’ll definitely check it out, thank you Ethan

[@CINDY____]

thank you, this is just what i needed!!!

[@Keugre19]

Good video, but you should EQ before compression, to avoid unecessary low end to trigger your compressor :)

[@daveUK50]

All your vids are so easy to follow many thanks for taking the time to share with others Ethan.

[@EuphoriaEntertainment]

Thank you Ethan for this inspired video. ❤️

[@buzzrabone]

Hi Ethan awesome work between this and the song structure video it's given me the inspiration I needed to get some projects finished. I really get a John legend/John Mayer vibe from your vocal melodies. 😊.

[@romanusolcev]

bought CLA-2A after watching this video)))) Love you, man

[@TarzanHedgepeth]

The very end of the video… yeah. I don’t blame you. INDEED. Edit to add: Most valuable video for music creators online to date… even edging out Recording Revolution ever-so-slightly. Impressive!

[@CompleteProducer]

wow thank you!!

[@TarzanHedgepeth]

Thank you, sir. I intend to keep this video fresh in my history/feed until I repeat this process a few times and get it. I’ve spent a lot of time learning, but not much APPLYING what I’ve been learning into one solid repeatable system. Your framework is gold to me because, somehow, I get distracted with conceptualizing instead of really implementing… so thank you so much, sir.

[@Cjdubz4]

This is awesome man appreciate you

[@itsadambright]

You're amazing Ethan i can't thank you enough !

[@naizondj]

Thank so much brother! ❤

[@purpledragon1912]

thank you so much

[@vrahilofficial]

Best channel starting my 2024. Thnk u so much..hello me newbie producer

[@craigroberts2257]

Great job mate thank you 🤩

[@insomniaproject5736]

I appreciate you bro. Great video for beginners on mixing but also a great reminder that mixing and mastering should be made simple by the production process

[@CompleteProducer]

that's right! thank you !

[@upintime]

Brilliant Up💯👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[@adrianortiz8950]

love ur stuff man

[@GIVNT]

Great content, bro! Thanks for the input!

[@shadyaymannoor]

Thank you Ethan this was lovely :)

[@niamousai]

Geez I love your channel …🙏🏼😊

[@claudio6032]

Awesome Video! Great insides! Thanks as lot for sharing! Do you have a what Gear I use List or video? What Mic for Vocals or what speakers are minimum etc.

[@curiousgeorge1508]

This is a huge channel that I have never seen. Keep it up, your videos are sooo valuable :)) PS: What background music did you use in this video?

[@johnviera3884]

at 17:27 he soloed the reverb by clicking the solo button on the RETURN channel. AKA the bus or the AUX channel

[@mukeshpathak7302]

I have one doubt.. I get confused on how to approach my mix when I have like 20 tracks of beat and 10 layers of different vocals (centre, left pan, right pan, adlibs etc).. how should I approach the mix in such a case? How to reuse the vocal chains or Bus for multiple layers ? Can you guide us a little on this 🙏 Like maybe a tutorial on mixing a song with beat that has different layers of vocals And is there any cheat code or starting a point.. on what dB level we should keep our beat at and what dB level should our vocals be at while mixing 🙏🙏🙏

[@loveyoungsoul]

you are my hero!

[@VladPechenyuk]

Thanks for your work!

[@juha_music]

Amazing work! Keep it on!

[@PradhumnRajput]

Loved it what I just watched!

[@stephaam_music]

So nice. Thanks man!

[@ArteagaRobert]

Hola, excelente contenido muchas gracias por compartir todos esos conocimientos lo valoramos muchísimo. Una pregunta veo que cuando agregas un sample para crear las baterías lo haces arrastrando el sample directamente en la vista arreglo, porque no lo arrastras a un drum rack y creas los patrones rítmicos por ejemplo usando un controlador midi no sería más rápido ? Bueno no sé disculpa mi ignorancia 😅 muchas gracias

[@magica2z]

Great video.

[@ElliotfromOrlando]

Hi Ethan! Q: how do you record background vocals in Ableton? Are you recording separate tracks for each harmony or do you split your vocal?

[@oneweekertwo]

wow amazing!

[@Smell_The_Roses]

Hey Ethan! Love your videos! Been subscribed! Question: when you alternated the limiter with the compressor and saturation, couldn’t you just lower the master volume a bit til it stops clipping instead of lowering the volume on all the tracks? Would really appreciate an answer to that. Thanks!

[@CompleteProducer]

the reason i turned down all the tracks is if we turned down the master, the limiter would limit the track to whatever level the master was at. so if we turn the master down 3db, the whole song would never go above -3db. if we turn all the tracks down instead, it'll still allow the master to go to 0db which leaves a bit more headroom for transients and overall dynamics/clarity in the mix. hopefully that helps!

[@rakeenferdiansyah8751]

so, should i put compression (for mastering) first, or we just balancing the mixing first?

[@bloodcell6282]

Nice video!

[@iLoudwing]

This channel is awesome

[@skater8fulful]

I don’t know if he said it in the video but the song is called taller. It’s awesome

[@CompleteProducer]

thank you!

[@cheeseballer_]

Legend

[@Dr.Spoofs]

Expert tip: Watch the video at .75 during parts you want to understand better. Dude is fast with the info. Love it, but I'm a noob.

[@Dr.Spoofs]

Sounds a lil drunk but you can follow specifics easier.

[@AngelParilli]

Great video! It reminded me I'm on the right track after years of self training. Good stuff 😎 Quick question, what do you think of all those new all I'm one AI plugins for mixing and mastering? Never used them, seem they can help our ears to work less hours 😂😂

[@luvsik]

jus fyi u can combine ur KZbin artist page w the topic page, under special access tab in distrokid ;)

[@CompleteProducer]

oh, good to know! thanks!

[@sebha]

Quick question: when you A/B with a reference track that you copied in a track, doesn’t it go through the « Mastering » you set up as well ?!

[@Chief124]

This is good. Thanks.