How to mix your drums with the 808

what's going on you guys would've arts world the living weirdo and in this next video I am going to show you how I blend my drums together and bring them into the mix with the vocal is that we've already mixed okay let's get right to it so I've already done the kick in a snare I've added the parallel compressor etc to all of these signals now what I like to do to move on after I have my kick snare and vocal together is now let's move on to my 808 we're gonna finish off the drums yes you're eight away is a part of your drums this is the rhythm section so that's why I consider this a part of my drum section so let's doesn't seda 8008 with nothing on it basically the raw 808 that is in the session listen close make sure you're using headphones for this because this is a low-end sound if you're listening to this on your phone you're probably not gonna hear much but you'll hear a huge difference of you two headphones or speakers okay cool so the 808 sounds cool it's warm I like the tone of the 808 but it can be better in my opinion so I'm gonna show you how I do that I'm also gonna teach you how to make that 808 sound wide and huge at the same time okay cool so let's mute our chicken snare let's listen to our 808 by itself for two seconds listen it [Music] okay first thing I'd like to do always when because of our bass lines or my 808 is I like to make sure that it is ma node and when I say ma no doubt is a bass your bass instrument or your 808 you want them to sit in the dead middle you don't really want those to be on the sides or or anything like that because you want other things to live there really in that middle that's my vocal that's my kick that's my snare so I don't really want my 808 to be out here cuz it'll just sound like complete mud so I like to make sure in the stereo field that I amano out that I mono make sure that my my kick is in mono as much as possible and this is how I achieve it for this particular one you can use any stereo widening plug-in but I happen to use this isotope plug-in the imager and what I did was I just took this right here and I brought it way down and that's basically giving me the mono signal so before and after I pop it back and forth without [Music] [Music] I hear the difference I hear that 808 from my stereo field kind of suck in a little bit and come right in the middle of where I want it so that's how I do that I use it to bring my 808 to a mono of place that low-end okay next thing I'd like to do is I like to add a compressor and with this compressor I have a slower attack so that I can still get the transients of the 808 and then I have a very fast release on the 808 and basically what that's doing is its allowing that tail of the 808 that is not the initial hit to cut through so I'll let you hear so before and after I'll pop it back and forth [Music] so you can hear that tail rumbling because now it has more volume when it's compressing the louder parts the quieter parts are now coming up and you'll see that as the meter is moving so it look closely at this meter before and after and you'll see when it gets the tail when that tail is coming in basically the compressor is letting off and that's what's allowing that volume to pop up so it kind of matches the high part so listen [Music] don't work for me sounds much better I love it okay next thing I do is unorthodox well I add another compressor for this particular song I just like the sound of it um and that's what this is all about it's about trying things and figuring out what works for you for this particular song I have two compressors on my 808 Sumi okay so pretty much it's the same type of setting I just added in another compressor I wanted to bring more of that tail and that Rumble out who doesn't want a bigger raid away straight up just like that I have a slow attack and then I have a fast relief release same exact thing I'm not compressing as much but nonetheless it just adds it's just another step of compression to bring it out even more so before and after I pop it back and forth [Music] when you thought he couldn't sound better it sounds better it sounds a lot tighter now and it brings out that tail even more it rumbles but it sounds tight it sounds like the 808 is sitting in a space and that's why I like to add two steps of the compression for that okay next one I have right here for this particular one I actually took out a little bit of the 60 Hertz and the reason why I took out a little bit of the 60 Hertz is because I want to make space for the kick because the kick I boosted in to 60 Hertz so on the 808 I took out some of the 60 Hertz now these are two bass instruments these are two excuse me these are two low-end instrument and they're gonna be fighting for territory when they're working in the mix so I take out some of what is in the kick from the 808 so I took up the 60 minutes in an 808 to make room for the kick that I've boosted at 60 in the kick make sense and I'll let you hit that back and forth so without [Music] so you can hear that a little bit of the thump of the 808 has gone away a thump I mean the initial transient and that's fine because guess what that's where the kick is supposed to be that's how mixing should should be that's just how you should wrap your head around it is making room for other instruments where other instruments fail you have another instrument to succeed or that one is gonna make up they'll compensate for what you have taken away from it for the other one so sounds great like that I like it a lot okay next thing I'll go to is this right here now I don't want to confuse you guys this is called sidechain compression I've explained this in other tutorials you can check out my tutorials on that on sidechain compression when you get a chance basically what I'm doing here is I'm telling this 808 anytime you hear the kick I want you to duck and the reason why I do this is because now the 808 the kick will cut through nice and clean and and be there without the 808 competing for it at all literally the kick will come through clean the 808 or duck as soon as the kick comes through the 808 on duck and come right back up as soon as the kick is going amazing technique to really get your drums punchy so I'll let you hear it before and after and what I'm gonna do with this is I'm actually gonna play the kick so you can hear what it sounds like [Music] and you can hear it the kick comes in clean and an 808 lives and that's what sidechain compression that's why it's so important to use what you're kicking your bass love sidechain compression you hear that kick go boom boom boom and the 808 still sounds loud and proud because it's not competing with it at all because it's ducking every time we keep comes ok next thing something very special that I adore make sure you're using headphones you will not hear this if you're not using headphones this is bass so you know how it is ok right here what I want to do is I'm gonna use a plugin called our bass and if you don't have this I highly recommend you get this plug-in I'm going to bring out the Sonics of this bass what I'm gonna do with this first our base is I am going to bring out the 120 Hertz of this particular base it's gonna add harmonics to this bass at the 120 Hertz where he's gonna bring out that frequency reason why I like to add this frequency and bring it out mores because on crappier speakers say for instance like your headphones your little earbuds or this MacBook that I'm working on you are not going to be able to interpret the bass as well as if I put it in that 120 Hertz is gonna allow people to actually hear that 808 or that bass instrument a lot more in those smaller speakers as opposed to a club or those bigger systems okay so I do it before and after before excuse me one sec let's take this young kick off okay once again before [Music] right so you hear that and you can literally hear it actually feel like you got somewhat of a sound of brighter in a sense but it actually gets a little bit more gritty and it's in it's more of a crack to it and that's what's gonna allow you to hear it all those smaller speakers okay next thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna add another our base what and the reason why I'm gonna bring out another our base is because I'm literally going down in increments I did 120 now I'm gonna do 90 and probably the next one I'll probably do thirty two attack the sub so 90 is another frequency range I like in my base to bring out once again to make it says so you can actually hear it on quieter speakers so I'm gonna do it before and after just like always before [Music] I hear more of the rumble it just brought out more of that a doorway straight up so when I hear it and put it down on computer speakers or anything like that I'm going to hear it more it's gonna be more intelligible as far as the movement of those notes okay next I'm going to add this one and this one I have this our base set at 32 Hertz which is literally low n this is probably more just for the club's I have it set here just for club clubs or people that have like systems with subs or people in their car they're going to hear this frequency so if you're not using headphones that really have some type of sub you're not really going to notice much of a difference but if you do you're gonna notice a huge difference so before and after before [Music] so it got quieter because I had to bring some of it down because obviously this is a lot of low in that we're adding so I brought it down to a level where I was comfortable and where I set but you did feel the bass get warmer and the reason why I felt warmer is because I got into that low low low low low frequency range of 32 Hertz which is basically sub so now I have it where place where I like okay now last but not least on this chain what I like to do is I like to add this thing called a bass rider now you don't need this plug-in in particular you can do this with automation with volume control but that would take a lot of time so what this plug-in does is it says or basically I could put in settings where it's like hey whenever this base or 808 drops below this DB or volume I want you to crank it but when it goes to this high sounding or this much volume I want you to bring it back down to the level that I had so what this is gonna allow me to do it this is such a secret for me is it's gonna allow me to take that tail of the 808 and make it just as loud as the initial hit of the 808 and I'll let you I'll just play it back and forth I'll let you just get the idea you'll really understand it before [Music] and you can hear the tail is just as loud as the actual initial hit and that's why I like it because now when it's riding into music that tail isn't gonna feel like where did the bass go you're gonna hear the bass just riding the whole way through with the tail loved that plug-in ok next is the secret sauce so I know a lot of times you might listen to monitor hip-hop or anything with an 808 for the most part and they sound huge and you're wondering how did they do that maybe they took an 808 and just slap the stereo Widener on it and cranked it no chances are this is what they did and I'm gonna show you the secret so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna add another 808 literally a copy I'm gonna do this in the arcs method I'm sending out a copy of the 808 the original 808 to another channel and I'm gonna manipulate it and blend it to taste so what I did was I'm going to create another 808 and on this 808 I'm gonna roll off a ton of the low end of this 808 does it make sense to you it will in a second so first thing I did was I rolled off a ton of the 808 low-end and then I'll just show you exactly how I did this step so I just want to play the actual a to wait for you one second let me just take a listen [Music] cool so we had the copy so now I'm gonna play it for you with and without this rolled off 808 sound so you hear it with that sound it's literally rolled off all you hear is the upper set of about a 125 I'll excuse me 200 Hertz I rolled off of that aid away which is basically all the sub and basically all you're hearing is the frequency above okay it's gonna make sense to me I promise next thing I do is I add an R base surprise surprise I'm using the R raise to bring out those upper harmonics or those upper the grittier by t ur sound of the bass so I can hear own speakers I'm using these techniques to widen the 808 I'm gonna show you but I have to treat it first so Sandy's that concept I'll do it before and after cool it's a quite 8 away from this wimpy little sound to a more aggressive sound that's more up front next thing I'm gonna do the secret I'm going to add a distortion Pro plugin so I'm literally going to distort this plug-in this diffuse me I'm literally going to distort this 808 reason I'm going to distort this 8 away is because this distortion plugin is gonna add a upper upper upper upper frequencies to this particular sound that weren't there before and the reason why I want to add brighter frequencies or higher frequencies to this is because that is what I want to widen I don't want to widen low-end sounds I want to widen my brighter sound stuff that is higher up on the frequency range so I have to create those or put those there in this 808 okay so before and after [Music] okay our 808 is now extremely mean remember this is the copy that I'm working with so now this 808 is mean it is bright and it's gritty and distort it cool next thing I'm gonna do is I'm going to do a little bit of subtractive EQ account like that I've created with all these new frequencies and sounds from the 808 and I'll do it before and after I'll let you hear it so before [Music] cool so a few few excuse me a few of those frequencies were bothering me so I had to pull them down and basically I got it to taste which still felt like the 808 was still kind of warm but nonetheless it is definitely much brighter than the original 808 which I'll put back in and you'll see so I took out some of that at the 500 Hertz range and then I took out some at the three thousand four uh hjerson range that I did not like okay next thing I'm gonna do is I added this c4 which is the multiband compressor but honestly all the c4 is doing is I took out some more of the low-end that I didn't like and I'll just play that for you back and forth that's all I did I could have used an EQ but maybe I was just going and just mixing so I just used c4 but literally all I did was EQ some of the low-end off at about 133 just for taste so before and after and I know what happened here I just wanted to get a little more of that Lowen off to be secure and be safe so cuz I'm about to widen that this sound that I've created so I just want to make sure that I'm not widening some low-end sounds that's gonna muddy up my mix so that's why I did it okay this c1 is literally the same thing this compressor this uh is uh this is a sidechain compressor it's basically the same thing as the other one anytime you hear that kick I want you to duck that's basically what I'm telling this one right here so same exact concept here is the big trick pay very close attention what you're gonna need to do is you're gonna need to have some type of plugin like a trim plug-in or a gain plugin because game plugins and trim plugins allow you to invert your channels basically flipping a channel so say for instance I have my left and I have my right and they're just moving moving moving moving moving moving moving moving moving moving that's the sound of my either way this is the this is my left in my right channel now when I in revert the channel I'm going to flick one like this and when I flip one of the channels to an up to foot the way for him it's basically gonna create this mid side stereo sound it's gonna create a stereo sound because one channel on the left is different from one channel on the right and when they combine it creates this stereo sound it's gonna sound so strange to you I promise and I'll show you it so I'll do it before and after this is the money before night and day that is a huge trick basically what I did was I have the left signal when you see right here on this trim plug-in I'm not I'm not using it for the gain I'm using it to invert the signal which is this little button right here that button right there anytime you see that that's an invert button that switches the part polarity of the signal very deep topic but just know that is what you need to do so basically I click the left signal I say I want you to invert that one then the right don't invert it you understand what I'm saying that's basically how you do it so you need a game plug-in or a trim plug-in that can invert the polarity of your signal you have to do the left inverted and the right not just stays the same or either way up to you okay cool next thing is the bass rider and it's doing the same same thing is bringing out the tails and it's bringing um it's just bringing out the tails of that eight away so now I'm gonna bring it in and out with the original 808 and let you hear the difference okay so without it [Music] huge difference I literally can hear the stereo field of the 808 go like this the 808 is sitting in the middle and the bright one that I've created with the distortion is sitting side to side amazing trick best trick to use for your 808 to really get them fat and wide okay cool so last thing I'm gonna do is well basically I'm just gonna show you my hi-hat and this is my high hat I'll take all this off this is my hi-hat typical nothing special now what I don't like about a lot of hi-hat is sometimes they're too bright and I don't want those in my mix because sometimes I want to add a little bit of Sheen on the final mix but I can't because the the hi-hat is so bright so I'm gonna roll off a little bit of the high end on this hi-hat before and after what's funny about that is I feel like I get more punch out of that hi-hat as well when I take off a little bit of that low-end but it gets a little bit more pleasing to my ear it's a little bit easier to listen to so I roll that off next thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna add the Renaissance axe which is basically a compressor I'm just gonna bring out a little bit more of the eighth of that hi-hat so it hits a little harder coming through that mix so before and after and you can hear the difference it feels like that hi-hat is just hitting now it's a lot harder and that's what I wanted from that whole hi-hat next thing I'm gonna add is I have a slight multiband compressor just on the top end of that hi-hat at about 4000 kilohertz here it goes before and it's a lot better it's a lot more controlled it's controlling that transient a little bit chopping it off just kind of compressing it it's a lot better to my ear more pleasing okay so that's basically the drums for this whole thing now the very very final thing that I'm going to do to this is if you haven't noticed I take all much instruments right all my drum signals my kicked my snare the parallel snare the kick parallel the 808 the Widener the hat all of that stuff and I busted out to one single bus because I want to make those drums blend together a little bit and I want to glue them together a bit and this technique is what I use to do that so basically what I do is I use I bust out all those signals to one single bus to a drum buss and I add a transient shaper and a compressor so I'm gonna let you hear it hear the tree I'm gonna let you hear the drums just for what they are right now cool those are the drums for what they are now let's add the smack attack and basically on the smack attack I did kind of the same thing I doing a kick but I do it to the entire I did it to the entire drum buss as a whole and I'm gonna show you this right now so let's take this off and before and after [Music] and it adds a little bit of that life to those drums it makes it pop a little more when we thought we didn't even think it could pop it even it up excuse me pop even more but it adds a little bit more of a crack to the entire drums as a whole next thing I do is I add some glue and I add some glue by using a compressor on the entire drum buss so listen to the entire drum buss before and after with the compressor and to me I hear the 808 get louder I hear the kick blend in better with the snare I hear everything sit in a better place with this compressor and I basically use that to glue those drums together so now I'll let you hear it with the vocal so you can see where we're at so far in our mix so listen closely she friends not oh why you coming through my phone baby she already knows that I'm are you Bobby gotta argue like ad and Don do I want to ignore but I don't want this on your conscience cuz blending well together so far remember that's me referencing with the Drake record to get that to sound as close as I can as possible so I'm gonna play my record one more time so far this is no instruments yet and then I'll play the Drake record so here's mine she friends not oh why you coming through my phone baby she already knows that I'm all you are we gotta argue like a fondue I want to ignore you but and now let's beer drink its again top of the charts bagging a hard sneaky strikes again well some bitter with life and they hate me then wanna put a knife in my rear as well we're getting there we're getting there but we're sitting at a level where I'm getting comfortable with it now the obviously there's a lot more still to do and there's still mastering to really balance it out the Sonics but nonetheless we're sitting in a place that is similar to that record okay so in the next video I'm gonna show you my next step of this process and that's basically my instruments which is gonna be a great part make sure you like comment subscribe follow us at help me Devon and let us know what you think and basically head on over to the next video of this mix series mix and master series and let me know if you think head on over to the next video now you

Channel: Help Me Devvon

Views: 177,935

Keywords: mixing, rap, pro tools, mixing rap vocals, vocals, eq, how to, tutorial, protools, hip hop, how to mix rap vocals, audio, compression, mixing hip hop, audio mixing, mixing vocals, pro tools (software), mastering, music, eqing vocals, mixing tutorial, sound, mix like a pro, diy mixing, rapping, home studio, mixing hip hop vocals, vocal, fl studio, devvon terrell, switchings sides

Id: PFsmjRcz83U

Length: 26min 33sec (1593 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 01 2018