Music Production Podcast for DIY Music Producers and Artists | Inside The Mix
If you're searching for answers on topics such as: what is mixing in music, how I can learn to mix music, how to start music production, how can I get better at music production, what is music production, or maybe how to get into the music industry or even just how to release music. Either way, you’re my kind of person and there's something in this podcast for you!
I'm Marc Matthews and I host the Inside The Mix Podcast. It's the ultimate serial podcast for music production and mixing enthusiasts. Say goodbye to generic interviews and tutorials, because I'm taking things to the next level. Join me as I feature listeners in round table music critiques and offer exclusive one-to-one coaching sessions to kickstart your music production and mixing journey. Get ready for cutting-edge music production tutorials and insightful interviews with Grammy Award-winning audio professionals like Dom Morley (Adele) and Mike Exeter (Black Sabbath). If you're passionate about music production and mixing like me, Inside The Mix is the podcast you can't afford to miss!
Start with this audience-favourite episode: #175: What's the Secret to Mixing Without Muddiness? Achieving Clarity and Dynamics in a Mix
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Music Production Podcast for DIY Music Producers and Artists | Inside The Mix
#106: Exploring Retro Wave Synth Pop and Vocal Production Techniques (PRODUCER KICKSTART: RogueFX)
If you are looking for mixing tips on topics like *How do you mix vocals? *How do you process vocals step by step? Then check out EP 106 of the Inside The Mix podcast where I do a Producer Kickstart Music Production Audit of Andrew Wood AKA Rogue FX.
******* Get your FREE copy of my Producer Growth Scorecard: https://www.synthmusicmastering.com/free
CLICK HERE, to book a Producer Kickstart Strategy Session: https://tidycal.com/inside-the-mix-podcast/producer-kickstart
Prepare to be whisked away into the vibrant, pulsating world of retro wave synth pop. I sit down for an enlightening chat with my pal, Andrew Wood, who you might know better as RogueFX. We dive deep into his inspirations rooted in the swirling soundscape of the 80s and early 90s, and get an exclusive peek into his thrilling new concept EP 'The Fifth Step'. This musical journey is set in a dystopian future plagued by pandemics where memories have been turned into 'mind trips' by shady organizations. Sound fascinating? Well, there's plenty more where that came from!
Next, we switch gears and venture into the technical terrain of vocal production. Ever wondered how to give your vocals that extra oomph? We'll lay out the significance of preamps and emulations, and reveal how something as simple as a doubler plugin can add a whole new dimension to your sound. And if you’re looking to turn up the heat, you will want to hear about the Black Box saturation plugin and the innovative opportunities that iPad Pro’s QBS offers.
Finally, we delve into the art of vocal mixing techniques and effects. We help you navigate through equalizers, reverbs, delays, de-essers, compression, and gain-clipping. But it's not all about the tech, as we also reflect on the importance of not over-processing vocals and strategic use of multiple compressors for varied levels of compression. So pull up a chair, plug in those headphones, and prepare for a deep-dive into the world of music production. After all, you might just stumble upon your next big musical idea.
Click here, to listen to Rogue FX: https://roguefx.bandcamp.com/
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You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, Mark Matthews.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place if you want to know more about your favorite synth music artists, music engineering and production, songwriting and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing and mastering music for over 15 years and I want to share what I've learned with you. Hey folks, if you are a new Inside the Mix podcast listener, welcome and don't forget to hit that subscribe button. And if you are a returning listener, a big welcome back and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. I probably should have started the episode with that. I have had a month off so I've got to get back into the swing of doing these things. So in this episode, I'm very excited to welcome my guest today, my friend Andrew Woods, aka RogueFX, an 80s and early 90s influenced retro wave synth pop artist, and he's joining me today for a producer kickstart strategy session. Andrew RogueFX, how are you? And welcome, hi, mark. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm absolutely fine, thank you. How is yourself?
Speaker 2:I'm very well. We were just discussing off-air actually at the time of recording this, so it is the 6th of September, it is well. There is a heat wave in the UK, so it's about 29 degrees and it's very hot. Luckily, the studio here is a building within a building, so I don't get blasted with the heat. Thankfully, very good, very good it is. Yeah, it's very hot. I took a walk on a lunch break earlier today and I just don't know why I just sweated the whole time. It wasn't particularly nice, but it's. I actually had a week off last week and I went to North Devon with the girlfriend and it rained the whole time.
Speaker 1:Well, that's been a story. There's summer, isn't it All the rain? And then, you know, everyone goes back to work or school and suddenly the sun shines and it's a heat wave.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but I'm not complaining. It's still nice. It's still getting on about getting on the paddleboard at some point this week It'll be lovely. So I thought we it's just a producer kickstart, so it's a slightly shorter episode than usual, so I think we'll just dive straight in, maybe tell our audience a bit about your sort of music production journey today. What brought you to where you are now?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, as kind of you mentioned at the start there. So my music life was mainly started in kind of the towards the late 80s and then through the 90s. And you know, I guess, although started in the synth pop world, I moved more into how, dance music, house music, well, we used to do all sorts of dance music to be honest it wasn't just house but then by the end of the decade just kind of give up, well, you know, just drifted away from it and then I just, you know, bought a synth, started again last year, released quite a few singles, you know, just slowly getting some growth here and there, culminating. Just released my first EP just end of August.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic and a great EP it is as well. So I was listening to it earlier today. The fifth step, if I've got that correct. Yeah, yeah, a really, really good EP. So what I'll do is I'll put links in the episode for this for the audience to go check it out. So I strongly encourage you to do that. Maybe a bit about this EP, because I listened to it earlier today and I think we mentioned off air that I can hear that 90s influence in it and those little bits of ear candy that you got going on, some really nice stereo width going on in there and bits and pieces in there with the panning and, as I mentioned, that ear candy, which I really really like. And maybe tell the audience a bit about it, because it's kind of like a concept EP as well, isn't it? It's got a main character and there's a theme behind it as well. So maybe a bit about that.
Speaker 1:Yes, there is a theme I mean it's, you know it's in sport from. It came from kind of total recall with the Covid pandemic. So basically what it is is based in ten years from now, although you know it really could be now, to be honest but based in ten years from now everywhere's in lockdown pandemics internationally no, no, international travel. And you've got these. You know corrupt organisations working for the government, work not for the government, but you know all corrupt and they sell these things called mind trips and these mind trips are basically medically induced. You know holidays, if you want to call them, or memories put in there. So there's your total recall influence.
Speaker 1:And the guy that goes through it with it, with the biggest of these companies called Mind Corporation, is called Max Rogue and he is a mercenary ex-con. He's worked for these kind of organisations. He goes in there fancying a little bit of a, you know, you know good time, but you know his psyche starts to work against him while he's in there and you know, by the end of it he's kind of redempt, he's kind of a different character. But you know, by time he's come out so sets the scene for maybe a follow-up. I haven't decided yet, but yeah, at the end of it it's kind of a renewed beginnings for the character at the end of the EP.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's a cool story. I really like it and I do like a concept. I'm working on an EP myself at the moment and albeit it's not as sort of the story, isn't as sort of as big as the one that you have, but I do like having a concurrent theme running throughout it and I mean I love total recall what I feel. The original, yes, the Colin Farrell one I should say.
Speaker 1:also, I did get a lot of help, because there's these little stories in between the songs and so there was various people in kind of the synth family that couldn't be able to do that my camera and J-Man from J360 Productions and Odd Sprice so they all did a little bit of voice work in there and so, yeah, that was just to help tell the story. So thanks to them for that.
Speaker 2:So, with regards to that, and so we've got the EP, we've got the fifth step, it's been released. I can see it bouncing around, which is really, really cool, and I can see you featuring on other podcasts and radio stations as well, so that's really great to see. So, what do you think? Where would you like to be in six months? Where did you see your journey with regards to, like you said, you only returned a bit last year where did you see yourself being in six months?
Speaker 1:So I mean, it's all about just you know that slow growth. Really, you know nothing happens. You know, overnight, really just trying to get you know a little bit more traction on bandcamp, get that Spotify up to the magic 1000 followers I'm on 840 now, so I'm not too far away but you know, just trying to slowly grow in the next six months is what I've got. I do have a really it's sounding really good collaboration. It's actually electric desk, does my mastering, but he's actually an artist himself, much like yourself dial-in machine, and he's done the music. On this one I've done the lyrics and sang it. It's a very kind of nostalgic vest type of song and that will be coming out I don't know yet, but in the next few weeks, couple of months.
Speaker 1:I have actually got a cover version at the mix and stage which I was intending to do for Halloween. I've never done a cover version before but it's probably too late to get it through and you know I was putting through clearance, through distro kid. I mean I've never. I don't know how long that takes. So that'll come out at some point. And yeah, just probably more collabs, more solo stuff and, as I say, I might do follow up to the AP. I've got a few ideas. You know kind of renegade story when he's set up this kind of group to kind of not fight back against these corrupt organisations. Well, I'm just mulling that over. So I just really want to keep releasing stuff, keep it going and hopefully continue to grow a little bit.
Speaker 2:That's ace. With regards to the cover song as well, I released a cover last year for Christmas and I think it was with the R9 and maybe one other, and we sort of said I will do it. I knocked it out in about two weeks, but to actually get the clearance on it, I don't think it took that long. It went through the label but it didn't take that long. So I think you'd probably be able to do it. This is me. I mean, this is a sweeping statement. I didn't actually do it, but I submitted it to the label and said I've got this last minute Christmas song and they got it out pretty quick. So I think you can turn it around quite quick, but I can't be definite on that.
Speaker 1:I won't say what it is, but it's got a tenuous Halloween kind of theme to it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Ace, I told you, with the idea of a Halloween tune, I think I might have missed the boat. I was actually mixing a track today for a client and it was a Christmas song.
Speaker 1:Ironically, with the heat we've got and I started mixing the Christmas song. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's typical, isn't it? It's normally the day of the videos in August and stuff like that, and with the Christmas decorations up in the studio, yeah, typical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that was good fun, I've quite enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:It must have been a very festive today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was all set for it was a total tangent. I was all set for autumn full for our American listeners and yeah, I was all set for it last week and now we've got this heat, but there you go, and so you mentioned there that you outsource the mastering, so you've got that going on. What are you doing for mixing? Do you mix your own music then, or are you just doing the arrangement, the songwriting, and then are you outsourcing the mixing as well as the mastering?
Speaker 1:No, I do do my own mixing. I think I've said this before. If I had the cash, I'd probably outsource mixing as well, but it's just one of those things you've got. You know, when you're working on a kind of very low budget, you've got to try to do as much as you can yourself and, yeah, I think I'm getting better at it. You know, as time goes on, get a little bit more aware of frequencies and how to get compression, sound and decents. You know I've still got a lot to learn. I'll be honest. You know, vocally I'd like to get more production skills around the vocal mixing, probably the beats you know. But you know it's getting there. I'm taking less mixes to revisions of the mixes. That's good. That's good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's very good. I mean, I listened to the stuff today and I thought the mixes sounded really good. I think whatever you're doing is working well and you're going in the right direction. Certainly, and if you're bringing those mix iterations down as well, that's good. Because I remember when I started, way back when, and I've spoken to other producers, other artists and stuff and they say they've got their revisions amount to tens of 20, 30 revisions and I think then it's 45, that was Don't Talk to Strangers, which was the third release, 45.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I am down to 10 and less now, but I think I've done what I did psychology in four. I've had a few single figures recently, so, yeah, it's coming down.
Speaker 2:I think that's really good. I think when you bring it down as well, then any changes you're making, you know they're sort of like they're really informed decisions. I think when you start getting to tens, 20, 30s I know I've done it and then you're just tweaking and I think you can often move into the realm of being detrimental to the mix itself Exactly.
Speaker 1:It starts to make other things worse, and then you end worse off than you were when you started.
Speaker 2:Exactly that. I remember I had this conversation I can't remember who I had the conversation with but you start adding things to it, or adding different plugins, different compressors, different saturation, all this different stuff, thinking I want to get this sound, but you keep adding and adding and adding, whereas it probably could be something as simple as taking something away and it just creates this expanse of sound and it just opens up the track. So you mentioned that about vocal production. I don't know. In the lead up to this and the questionnaire, you mentioned vocal production as well. So what is it that you're particularly? What is the biggest pain point with vocal production? Is it frequency, is it compression, is it recording or something along those lines, I think probably it's really how to get that real shame to the vocals really sounding.
Speaker 1:I don't, you know, I think I can mix the vocals in a way that sounds authentic for the 80s and 90s, but if you want it to sound like today's really contemporary vocal mixing, that's where I think it's quite. You know, I'm not at that, you know, I don't really have the knowledge how to do that at the moment. So I'm trying, but it's it's, you know. So, yeah, great. So it's the sound, because it's authentic to the 80s and 90s. But I would like to, you know, get some of the more contemporary kind of styles in there as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's a lot Involved in doing that and a lot, and to begin with, it can start with something as simple as like a preamp as well. So, albeit, I mean, we're not, I don't know about you, but I don't have the luxury of having a rack with various preamps that I can run a vocal through when I'm recording it. So preamp and emulations are where it comes in handy. So it's to begin with it, starting with that, for example, the slate digital range. I know, for example, there are various different, not just vocal preamps, but there are preamps in there that you can use, so things like that. Another little tips and tricks, the one trick that I think is really good and I don't know if you've done this yourself I can't remember who I got this from, but it's used have you got the waves doubler? Have you got something like a doubler plug-in or something along those lines?
Speaker 1:Um, see, I'm a little bit limited because I work on an iPad pro. I do have waves and waves does have I've got quite a few plugins. I don't think it's got any a double that. It's got like yeah, kind of the width and yeah tune and various EQs and stuff like that. I don't think it's got a double that.
Speaker 2:So I mean one thing I was going to say. So one really nice trick to add a bit of, because width oftentimes is what can make a Vocal really stand out. Because you could. Obviously you're recording on a microphone. It's in mono and then when you start to add that width to it, it just brings it more life to it as well.
Speaker 2:So, using the doubler, for example, you can use other stereo imaging plugins, but the great thing about this one is you can have an auxiliary send. You send your vocal to it and then you can mute this, the center Output, and then just have the sides and then you can bring the fader up on that auxiliary send and then it just as you, as you bring that fader up it if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see you've got this model signal it just starts to open it up like that and that just adds that bit of width to it. So that's one thing you can do. And then, obviously, there are things like saturation as well. So are you using I know there's the brainworks, I've lost the name of it now black box? That's the one I was looking for. That's a really nice saturation plug. But you mentioned you're working on an iPad. Yeah, I might be slightly.
Speaker 1:I am limited. As I say, there's the waves ones and then it's it's this Steinberg type of plugins, because it's QBS, this is of the QBS family, and then you know just what's in the box already. So, yeah, it is fairly limited.
Speaker 2:But Q base is really good. It's one DAW I've never used. I've recorded, I've worked with engineers who've recorded with it. When I've been recorded, I've never used it myself and I've heard great things, but notably from Tim Benson online.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Tim news that you were P uses Q base. I used it in the 90s or to your hell of a lot different than to to now. But so Q bases is obviously a mobile version of it and, to be honest, for what you get for 50 quid on an iPad I don't know if that was a special or not you know you absolutely cannot complain. It does. You know it's not gonna be able to do the job of a fully fledged Q base on, you know, a desktop or laptop, but it's still pretty pretty good that's.
Speaker 2:I mean the mix is. You'll get it if you're mixing on an iPad. That's very impressive. I gotta say yeah, I wouldn't have said that. So I don't know how it looks on an iPad. So I'm assuming you're able to, you've, you've got your vocal tracks, you can. You've got your vocal stack, your ad libs, your harmonies, etc. If you're using those, and then you can group them together and I'm assuming you can have auxiliary sends and Q bases and yeah. So you're doing all of that stuff. Yeah, that's all there.
Speaker 1:It looks. It looks, you know, pretty much like any other door and you can have your groups and you've got them. You know it's, you've got all your tracks and etc. Etc. Etc. You've got your mixing. It just looks like a normal doll. What it doesn't have because I've looked for this a lot of times, I know this is always done you know, is these auxiliary and you know these parallel. You know, see, to do parallel compressions of that. Yet I kind of get that I can't find out anywhere to do that. But saying that, I just found the side chain, side chain button there two weeks ago so I'd lived about that for for a year so it could be hidden away somewhere. But I still have not found how to to do that kind of things. I know a lot of people use them to, you know, to work on the. You know they're the kind of coloring of the, the vocals or all of the tracks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really great that you have got the mix as you've got and you haven't had that in. And I know this has been mentioned a lot on the podcast is that Limitations are often a good thing and the fact you're limited it stops you from getting distracted by an arsenal, a library of Plug-ins and then you don't have that luxury of just throwing multiple things and the kitchen sink proverbial in a mix trying to to get it right. So you've got. I think that's a really good thing and I think embracing it's really really good. So you you haven't, you're not able to use auxiliary sends, but you can. You can you're able to then sort of like group or your vocal together in and then have one Processing like one channel strip.
Speaker 1:You can see you can't see, can send, you get it. You see, put your groups, whatever you want, your groups. You put this here like all your beats or drums in a group, or your vocals or your harmonies, and then you've got your inserts. You're limited to eight inserts, so eight kind of effects if you like on your group. And but there is another sense, so you could have your delays set up and you can send various to it. You can't do anything kind of parallel running or you can, for example, have you leave vocal in a group and then another group, you just limited to one. So it's, I think it's that kind of limitation.
Speaker 2:I mean some tricks that I use for vocals in particular that I use on pretty much all mixes I do so.
Speaker 2:You mentioned there about reverb.
Speaker 2:So I I've now moved away from having lots of not they ever had lots of reverb, but I try and limit my mixing now, my sessions, to three, maybe four reverbs, rather than just having this, this swamp of reverbs going on, sometimes maybe three, and have the vocal going out to the same reverb as a synth, for example.
Speaker 2:But it changed, it depends on the track. But one really nice trick to do because you mentioned there that you've got side chain available to you now and this is quite a good one so when you send your vocal out to a reverb Is to have a compressor on that reverb and then side chain your vocal to that compressor and then what that does is is that when the vocal is there in the track it will then slightly duck the reverb and then the vocal just pokes out a bit more, but you still have that lush reverb behind it. That's a really good thing to do because sometimes your vocal in particularly if you've got a, a vocal that's got a lot of reverb on it using that and side chaining a compressor on the reverb send Can really help that vocal to to stick out and also eq on the reverb as well. I don't know if that's something you're doing, but actually eqing a reverb and getting rid of the sort of like the lows and the highs, on that I Get.
Speaker 1:I don't think there's a facility to Eq kind of effects sends. You can eq the track that has the reverb on it, but I don't think you can do it. I might you can in, you know.
Speaker 2:You may. You may be able to do it in the plug-in. I know some reverb plug-ins. You're able to do it, so that might be worth looking at. I know a number of them.
Speaker 1:I couldn't say one actually the day on the in the iPad store. I haven't bought it yet, but Apple Store should say so I might. As a next step on my, I might actually buy a plug-in with a reverb, because they're all stock ones, steinberg ones. At the moment there's this. I mean they've got Five or six, to be honest, but I, like you, I only use two or three reverb's, not one of the things that are massively Use on vocals. I know a lot of synth wave artists do, but it's maybe I should use it more. But I just kind of I'm not really into that heavily reverb sound and it's for myself. I mean it sounds great on others, but you know, for me, my vocal, it just doesn't sound good. So I try to keep it, you know, a little bit delayed, just just just like the reverb.
Speaker 2:I'm with you there. I'm very much like that. If sometimes my vocal I don't sing, but whenever I'm mixing sometimes they air on the side of possibly being too dry, because I don't like having a massive reverb sound. Maybe it's because of the songs that I that I write. They just don't suit that much. Like yourself, if you know your voice and your vocal doesn't lend itself Well, or it lends itself better, to a more drier sound, then then roll with that. Another good tip to do is to is with delay as well, which is something that you could feed that delay back into the reverb. So if you've got a separate delay and once again this, this, you you're probably limited again by Cubase, but that's another good thing that you're able to do. Are you able to use DSs as well? Yeah, I'm assuming you can go to yes.
Speaker 1:a plug-in? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:How are you? How are you sitting those? Do you have one sort of at the top of the the vocal chain and then do you have another one at the bottom using one? How are you using those?
Speaker 1:I I Usually I either put it on the group or or on the individual track, or sometimes he's put on the individual track rather than the group and where it is in the vocal chain, but put it in the is. I think I do it before the EQ.
Speaker 2:I think it's with the DSs, and I find this when I do a bit of research, because I look around every now and again to see what other people are doing and I don't know if there is a hard and fast rule of where you put a DSer. To be honest, I mean the way I do it, and once I say this on the podcast I was not necessarily the right way, but the way I like to do it is at the top of my say. If I've got my main lead vocal, I would have like there'd be an EQ at the top, where all that EQ is going to be doing is just like a really gentle shelf rolling off any low end sort of like a first order sort of high pass filter. That's what I'm looking for. I always get them around the wrong way About a six DB, just getting rid of any unnecessary low frequency content. The trick there is not to get rid of too much, though I know some people sweep it all the way up and then you get this really narrow, thin vocal, but I don't think you suffer from that. I think, like I said, your mixes do sound very good and I think whatever you do with your vocal is definitely working. Then after that EQ I then have a de-esser, then I run into.
Speaker 2:I usually either have two or three, sometimes three compressors, depending on the vocal itself.
Speaker 2:I usually have like one compressor which would be like a fast FET style compressor, if you can get it.
Speaker 2:If you can't, then it's not the end of the world, just like with a fast, relatively fast attack and a moderately fast release, something like a two to one compression and then another compressor after that, something like an opto compressor, which is slightly slower in its attack and its response, and then that's just adding sort of character, if you will, but it's still doing the job of a compressor.
Speaker 2:I think that's a good thing to do in general. To be honest, I think with compression it's just not to slam it straight off the bat but do it in stages. Now I mean it's subjective, it depends on the source material, but I think that's a generally good thing to do. And another thing with vocal as well, in particular when it comes to production, is that I like to go in and actually do a bit of gain clip gain automation. So if I know, there's like one particular phrasing where the singer's gone hell for leather and possibly hasn't moved away from the microphone enough and I'll go and clip, gain and bring that down rather than rely on the compressor to do it, and it just takes a bit off the.
Speaker 2:It is a bit of a ball ache to do, but I think it just does help in the grand scheme of things. But don't do what I did recently, which was where I tried to get it all the same. Then I realized I totally clip gain, clip gain, and I brought up these breaths that I didn't want. And then I was just, oh man, I've totally gone overboard here. And then, yeah, I've run into compression, then I'll do the compressors, then I'll do EQ afterwards, and that's why I'm doing like the creative EQ, that's like the additive rather than subtractive.
Speaker 2:And the key thing there again is I think it's been quite subtle with it.
Speaker 2:When you do make changes, be bold at the same time. If that makes sense, like if you're gonna add sort of some presence frequencies to it, depending where your vocal sits, if it's like three, four, five K, then just be bold with it. Basically, and another really good trick to do is this is if you get any cue, find out where your frequency, your present frequency of your voice is and I was gonna differ between male, female vocal and the timbre of your voice. Find out where it is and save. It sits at like 3.5. K is to just in, like the synths, bass, guitars. It's just to notch out a little bit of like 3.5 on those groups, like a relatively narrow cue, something like 2.5. And that would just help a little. I mean, you could side chain it. Ultimately you could stick a compressor on there in side chain on each one of those.
Speaker 1:But it depends on which way you wanna do it. Just to give a little bit of space for the frequency.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, because that is your main instrument. Might be the wrong way of putting it. The centerpiece let's put it that way of the track is that vocal and you want it just, albeit you don't want it to be louder than everything else, but you want it to be more present and be the focal point. So, just notching those frequencies out at such and you could use dynamic EQ in doing that if you wish, but I don't know, I'm quite old school in that method. I'm just like going in and just talking them out and doing it that way.
Speaker 1:Anything dynamic. I struggle with a little bit and automation and do it, but then it ends up all sorts of stuff's getting automated that I don't wanna be automated. I'm like, oh, so I end up switching it all off and just doing it right at the end, the very last thing I'll do on a track, or the vocals automate, and then everything else is done right, let's do a bit of that, because if I do it I'll forget about something and suddenly things are going crazy with automation. I just forgot to switch off. I didn't realize it was on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've done that, I think I put a post on Instagram a few weeks back and it showed the automation lanes of this vocal group that I had and it looked like the London Underground. It was crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I've got that, yeah, and it's like have I gone overboard here, possibly? I only wanted to do the delay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do that all the time with delays and verbs. I'm like right, I'm gonna automate the delay, so at the end of this phrase here it's gonna go up and then it's gonna come back down. I do the same with reverbs and like tremolo as well. I've recently introduced using tremolo, which is quite nice, on a track that I'm working on. Yeah, yeah, I think that's another thing with vocal production as well. It's just like experiment with different time-based like plugins and modulation, like phasers and flanges and tremolo and all these different ones I'll put on.
Speaker 1:I quite often put a flanger on it. Maybe it's a backing vocal or something like that. Just add a little bit of extra texture or whatever, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a really good thing to do and, specifically, once again, if you've got them, pound left, pound right, and it just adds a bit more ear candy and spice to the track, as it were. Andrew, I realized we're almost at half an hour now, so I think we've got 10 minutes over.
Speaker 1:No, it was being really good to talk, though, and it's some really good tips there. I'm gonna do a little bit of mixing in the next couple of hours, so I'll have a look at that.
Speaker 2:What do you think will be the first thing that you look at where you're at vocals in half an hour's time? What do you think would be the first thing you do?
Speaker 1:I might. I think I'm gonna have a look up where the DSS sits in the group and you know the EQ, the kind of final EQ, to try to, you know, get some flavor in. And I might have a look at some of the any of the key synth tracks or that sit with the vocals, if I can just duck it out. Well, what I don't really know is where is my frequency? I guess there'll be some Plug-in that will show me that.
Speaker 2:So I mean the plug-in I use to do that is so I'll sweep. I mean with the EQ I'll Should have said this earlier is I will just find a. It's parametric EQ, so I would just boost one. I don't know what you call them nodes, I guess a node on the EQ yeah, and I'll boost it like 10, 10 DB with a relatively narrow queue, not like really narrow and then just sweep about and until I find there's this sort of the timbre of the void vocal that sounds really nice.
Speaker 2:I think it's gonna be very subjective to what you Think is the best frequency for your voice and that that's the way I do it. And I mean others might say differently, but yeah, I'll have the vocal in the mix and then I'll just sweep around until I find that frequency. I'm like actually that's the one, that's the one where the voice sounds the best In the mix and then that's my presence frequency that I'll use. That's the way I do it. Yeah, there are, there are EQs where you can actually Highlight frequency bands and it was so low, that band of frequencies. But if you haven't got that, then I'm gonna increase the frequency and then sweep about until you find that sweet spot when your vocal sounds really nice and that's the frequency that you want. Okay, the easiest way to do it, hey, so I'm for our audience, where can they find you online?
Speaker 2:and obviously I'll put all this in the episode notes as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm pretty much everywhere Instagram. I've got Twitter, ex Twitter, facebook, even tiktok, even YouTube, but I primarily are on X and an Instagram.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. I still don't know, is it? Is it now officially X or is it just represented by an X?
Speaker 1:and it's still, I think, most people it's like the art, the, the, the application formerly known as Twitter. It's like Prince yeah. It is a fish amazing X, but you know, no one's gonna call her, is it?
Speaker 2:there we go, folks. If you would like to be like my friend, andrew Rogoff X and become a Producer kickstart participant, do go to the website wwwinsidemixpodiacom. Or, if you're watching or listening to this, in the future there will be an inside the mix podcast com website when I get round to it and Get signed up and join me on the show here for a producer kickstart session. And Andrew's been a pleasure and I'll catch up with you soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cheers mark.
Speaker 2:Thanks a lot, cheers buddy.
