How to RECORD & MIX Vocals in Pro Tools! (The ULTIMATE Guide)

today we make recording and mixing pro vocals and Pro Tools easy let's go so if you haven't met I'm Jordan Easler here with my audio Academy if you clicked on this video more than likely you're either slightly overwhelmed confused and if you're like me probably somewhat intimidated by Pro Tools and that is exactly why we made this video my promise to you is to give you the tips the tricks and the foundational knowledge to make Pro Tools ridiculously simple let's get started by effectively setting up your Pro Tools session let's go Point number one which is going to be creating your session this is probably what it's going to look like whenever you get your Pro Tools screen set up so I've got create over here let's go ahead and name this uh the session I personally like to just do the local storage that's going to save it on your computer but right now we're not going to create from template but after this video after we create our template you will eventually start creating this for your template file type we're going to go wave bit depth we're going to go 24 uh sample rate we're going to go 48 and then we're just going to keep last use i o settings we are going to select interleaved and I personally like to use a prompt for location that way you're not risking losing all your your Pro Tools sessions trying to find them you know places where you don't even know where you saved them and these settings they're ultimately going to give you the best audio quality and it's going to give you the best computer performance across the board now that we've got those settings selected we're going to go to create and now we've got our Pro Tools session pulled up now I already know where your mind's going I know your Pro Tools session does not look like this there's going to be some settings over here that is not showing on yours we're going to go through that I promise just trust me on that this is honestly the portion of the training that I get 95 of my questions from beginner audio Engineers this is super important and basically what we're doing is we are adjusting your Pro Tools to effectively communicate with your personal setup so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to come up here to our setup window and we are going to go to playback engine and what we need to do here is we need to make sure sure that our interface is selected here in this training I am using a universal audio Thunderbolt and just for the sake of the video let's go ahead and click it go yes the next things that we need to adjust is our buffer size for the sake of time we're not going to break this all the way down but I think this is very important as you're just getting started if you've ever been in a recording studio or you've ever tried to record yourself and whenever you speak into the microphone you hear yourself back and it's like a delay more than likely the issue is going to be your buffer size is not selected appropriately the way that you fix this you want to adjust your buffer size The Sweet Spot for me is going to be 256 or 128 I would probably select 128 the only time that I'll go to 256 is if your computer is a little bit older and it's having a hard time keeping up with you recording and you start to notice that Pro Tools is crashing that's when you may want to drop it down to 256 and then from here you can just kind of copy my settings and uh yeah the next thing that I want to cover here is we're going to come right back up here to the setup but this time we're going to go to iOS what we're doing here is just making sure once again just kind of making sure that your computer and Pro Tools is operating with your interface appropriately so whenever you press record you actually have some kind of signal what we're going to do is we're going to first go over here to our input tab more than likely yours does not look like this but that's okay we're going to fix that so what we're going to do is we're going to come down here we're here input then we're going to click default unless you're using an Apollo twin just like I am yours isn't going to look like this yours is basically going to pull up whatever your audio interface's inputs are so same thing goes with the output and that's where we're going next we're going to go to output and then we're going to click default and then we're going to go to bus and here we're also going to click you guessed it default bam your approachable screen still does not look like mine so let's go ahead and go through exactly how I have mine set up and the way that I've got my Pro Tools set up is for maximum Effectiveness and efficiency whenever I'm recording vocals the first thing we're going to do is we're going to come up here to this little arrow right here and we are going to make sure these settings are selected and this is giving you a lot of different options to where you can quickly maneuver Pro Tools you you start to get more and more adjusted and used to Pro Tools so now that we've got that set up the next thing that we're going to do is we need to adjust some things within our edit window so yours is probably in Shuffle I normally keep mine in Grid the next thing that I want to do is you probably just want to go ahead and copy some of these settings that we have down here I like to have my smart tool selected how I got that is if you click a little bit above all three of these options it'll highlight all of them that way your cursor can do multiple things whenever you're editing different things in Pro Tools the next thing that we're going to go to is going to be our counter window I'm going to pull up bars and beats and how I do that is by clicking this Arrow you know the last thing here this is not super important it works for my workflow I personally like to have quick punch selected and I like to have Loop selected how I adjusted that would just right click and select all right this is not the fancy stuff but I promise you as we continue to go through here whenever you click record it's really going to be setting you up so just a couple more things here stay locked in and I promise you you're going to be glad that you did the next thing thing that I'm going to adjust here is over here so what we need to do is we need to do I like to have comments just in case you know if you know I'm sending it off to another engineer I think that's pretty neat and then we're gonna go inserts a through e inserts F through J sends a through E I personally like to have a sins F through j i o and I like to have my track color for whenever I color code things and just a very brief rundown of what's Happening here within the inserts in the sense basically your inserts are going to be your plugin so you know your eqs your compressors things like that your sins that's a little bit more complex for the sake of this video but if you want to check out the difference between you know sintrax and aux tracks and things like that I will link that video down in the description I think that'll be super helpful as you start to learn Pro Tools to really understand what aux tracks are send tracks are and things like that but I think that really kind of keys us up to diving into something that's probably a little bit more interesting which is actually creating your recording template we're going to start adding some tracks to our session so clearly we can't do nothing with a click track that's basically just going to be our metronome we could honestly go ahead and mute that and then from here what we need to do is we need to add some tracks so how we're going to do that we're going to go up here and we're going to go to add new track and just kind of follow along with the things that I am adding and we'll kind of start to walk through that as we go through the training so we need one stereo Master fader I'm going to go over here and add another one we need one stereo AUX input and this is going to be our vocal bus we're gonna go five mono audio tracks and this is going to be where we're going to do some stuff with with our Hooks and then the next thing we're going to go five mono audio tracks and this is going to be where we start to work on the verse and then from there we're gonna go ahead and go to create and Bam now we're starting to actually look like a recording session right so what we're going to do is we're just going to go down here and label some things so you can kind of follow along here this is going to be hook recording track so the next thing that we need to do is we need to go ahead and color code some things so for the vocal bus I like to make mine red some type of red for my hooks I like to make all of my hooks purple so if you click here and hold down shift and click you can now adjust all these at one time so we gonna make those purple I like purple and then we're gonna make this verse like a turquoise color color them however you want these are my go-to so that looks a lot better A lot easier to kind of follow along there and just a quick tip here this hook recording and what these recording tracks are doing we do have some uh training and tutorials basically explaining exactly the reason why we have a hope recording track and reverse recording track I'll pull that video up right now it's a really cool trick or hack whenever you start recording your vocals that I think you'll really like the next thing that we need to do is we actually need to update our audio tracks and aux tracks to the appropriate inputs and outputs or iOS the way that Pro Tools to set up is you're going to have your inputs up here this is going to be the one on top your outputs are going to be the one down here which is going to be at the bottom and we need to set up our inputs to the correct input on our interface so I know that I've got my microphone plugged into input number one on my interface so what we're going to do here is on all of our audio tracks so your hook recording all the way down to your or verse ad-libs we need to adjust all of these inputs so now that we've got all of these selected what we need to do is we need to hold down shift and option and we need to click here which is our input and we need to go to interface and then select the appropriate input on our interface where a microphone is plugged into so we're going to go bam all you see how all of those changed right there now whenever we click this bam bam bop boom we got signal so we did it right so now that we've got our inputs adjusted there is a couple more things that we need to do but I want to briefly very briefly break down what this vocal bus is doing so ultimately what we're going to do with this vocal bus is we're going to take all of these audio files and we're going to send these out into one single vocal bus say you on all of your vocals it's like man all of my vocals are dull I need to add an EQ on there well you don't want to go here and add your EQ on you know 10 or 15 tracks and have to do it on every single one you want to do it in one central location if we throw this EQ on this vocal bus and we route all of our audio tracks out right so out here into a vocal bus what happens is anything that is routed into this aux tracker this vocal bus whatever Plug-In or insert that I add it affects everything that's routed to it so if I add an EQ here it's affecting all of these tracks that are routed into this vocal bus so we need to set that up though so the first thing that we need to do is we actually need to make an input we're going to go bus and we're gonna go bus one and two but we're gonna rename it so we're gonna right click here rename and we're gonna go vocal bus so now we've got something to actually route things out into so we need to Route these out into the vocal bus we've got all these selected again we're going to hold down shift and option we're going to go here to our output instead of going to interface like we did with the input we're going to go to bus we're going to select vocal bus so now all of these tracks are now routed to the vocal bus so whenever I turn this down it turns all of my vocals down instead of having to go down here and adjust all of these settings we ain't got time for to do all that come on man the last thing that we're going to do here is we're just going to make sure this is routed out into the same output as our Master fader and I think we're about ready to rock and roll down in the description I have linked some of our recording templates so some of these are free some of them's paid and ultimately what that's going to do is you're going to get access to some recording templates it's already got pre-made plugins you know your eqs your compare us or some Reverb and stuff like that that way you're not having to figure that out on your own we've already kind of created that for you but I know there's another group of you out there I got to let you know about a brand new training that we just came out with the record radio ready vocals training it's a 60 Minute in-depth training not only are you getting the video training you're also getting some PDF guides some templates all kinds of other bonuses so if you click the link down in the description it's going to be titled the record radio ready vocals course so like you've seen in the beginning of the training instead of just creating it from scratch like we did this time around now you're going to be able to create it from a template and you're going to be able to shortcut all of this stuff so how we're going to do that is we're going to go to file we're going to go to save as template and the category you could add your own category you don't necessarily have to but you could for this we're just gonna go YouTube training and then you can title it you know whatever you want recording template so now whenever you create your your Pro Tools template you're going to be able to create it from your own personalized template so we've made it we're finally going to create your song so what I'm going to do here is I'm going to walk you through some basic things you need to know before you start recording those vocals so the first thing you probably need to do whenever you are creating your song is importing your beat right you got to import your instrumental unless you're doing some acapella stuff you just go to file you're going to go to import you're going to go to audio and you're going to find the beat that you want to use we're going to go here then we're going to go to convert then we're going to go to open open one more time and Pro Tools is going to start rendering it and bringing it into your Pro Tools session I'm going to click OK and yeah you've got your beat imported so how do we actually start to record our vocals so there's two parts the first thing you need to do is you need to show Pro Tools which track you're looking to record on basically what you're going to do is you're going to come over here and we're going to record on our recording tracks so we're gonna go bam and that lets Pro Tools know hey I'm going to be recording on this track and then whenever you're ready to start recording you're going to go here then you're going to go here up here and you're going to click play [Music] in this video you should be seeing it pop up right about now this video is going to give you different tips and tricks on how to really maximize your recording sessions and then last but not least what we got to do now is we've got to export our songs so say you've got all your recording done we've got to export Our Song in a certain way so what we're going to do is in Pro Tools we're going to go to file we're going to go to bounce mix we are going to you know name it whatever we want to name it these scenarios I'm just going to export a MP3 you're going to make sure you've got the appropriate output selected I normally just go output and select the output that I've got selected on my master fader here and then I like to go 44 1 and we're just going to save it to our desktop and we're gonna go bounce and then we're gonna go okay yes sir now that we've got your session set up for maximum Effectiveness and efficiency I'd have to say that the next step to getting Pro vocals in Pro Tools has got to be compression this topic was easily the most confusing topic but you know how we do we're gonna do what we do how we do it and make it simple let's go so what is compression what does it do its goal is to reduce the dynamic range of your audio signal now what is dynamic range basically what dynamic range is is the difference between the loudest part of your audio signal and your quietest part of your audio signal what a compressor is going to do is it's going to say hey we need this signal a little bit more consistent so the first thing that I really want to break down is the thresholds what the threshold does is it's the setting that lets the compressor know where to engage so as you see whenever I play these vocals [Music] so with the signal being right here and the threshold being right here is saying hey once you get past me you're about to get that work that's when your compressor is going to start to engage anything that's below this point is not going to be affected by your compressor keys if I bring my threshold down that equals more compression now compared to if I bring it all the way up here like this yeah [Music] hardly any of that signal is going to be getting through so you're not going to be seeing any kind of compression or hearing any kind of compression perfect T up there which is our next setting that we're going to be covering the ratio so let's explain exactly what this ratio is doing so the ratio tells your compressor how much to compress after this signal gets through your threshold what these numbers mean this is a one-to-one ratio and basically what it means is it says hey once the signal gets past the threshold for every one decibel that gets through specifically for a one-to-one ratio for every One DB that gets through or decibel that gets through we're going to bring it down to one decibel let's think about that if one decibel gets through and it's brought down to one decibel nothing's happening because it's already one decibel right but let's go to the extreme let's set it to a hundred to one ratio so for every 100 DB of signal that gets through that's going to be brought down to 1 DB if we set it to one to one yeah and the way that you can see if compression is happening is this meter right here it's called your gain reduction meter let's go to the extreme so for every 100 decibels it gets through we're going to bring it down to one decibel so let's play it kind of show you what happens [Music] so that is clearly an extreme example let's kind of walk through a common vocal setting my sweet spot for your ratio is going to be a two to one up to about a four to one ratio to maintain a nice natural sound and compression so that's simple right the next thing that I'm going to talk about is the attack and the release so the attack and the release has an extreme impact on the sound of your compressor so the two things that I want to point out about your attack time and your release time is number one these settings similar to the ratio only impacts the signal that gets past your threshold I want to make sure that's super clear the second thing that I want to kind of bring up about the attack and release is a honestly do what they sound like so your attack time tells your compressor how fast or slow your compressor latches on to the signal after it gets through this threshold so generally the attack time is broken down into microseconds which is the US symbol here and then it goes up to milliseconds which is the MS here the microseconds is going to be faster and the milliseconds being a little bit slower so as we dial this back like that that means we're going to have a slow attack time down here is going to mean that we're going to have a fast attack time so as soon as it gets through the threshold if we have it here as soon as that signal comes through the threshold it's getting grabbed and brought down the reason why especially for vocals you want to typically have a medium attack time it's saying hey we're going to let some of this signal get through here before we start to compress it that way you can still keep the good things but you can take away the things that you don't want and make sure that you're keeping that vocal nice and consistent but you're not losing some of the frequencies and the tone that you do want to keep within your vocal nice so we'll kind of set it really fast yeah girl I wanna spinning spinning spinning spinning spinning together compared to if we bring it back yeah girl I wanna spinning spinning spinning spinning spinning together so you can tell whenever I had the attack time down here it just loses some of that energy it loses some of the life so that's basically what is happening here with your attack so as soon as it gets through the threshold your attack time is saying hey as soon as you get through here we're attacking you or latching onto the signal or bring it down super fast or it's gonna say hey we're gonna let you kind of do what you do for a little bit and then we're gonna tag then that leads us right into the release time so basically what the release says it says hey once this signal gets through the threshold the attack times latching on to it your release time is saying how long is this compressor going to latch on to this signal before it gets released back to its original volume so fast release time it's going to be automatically lit right back up to the original volume now if it's a slow release it's going to say I'm going to hold on to this signal for a little bit before I let it come back up just kind of go back and forth between a super fast release and a super slow release and see what's happening yeah girl I wanna spinning spinning spinning spinning together yeah girl I wanna Spin and spinning spinning spinning spinning together in a common vocal setting for the release time for compression is typically going to be a medium to fast release this allows your signal to get a touch of compression without overdoing it and making your vocals sound like it's pulsing or pumping let's go ahead and break down what this gain knob is going to be doing whenever you do start compressing your vocals one of the things that is going to happen is you're clearly going to be losing a little bit of volume to your overall signal so basically what this gain is going to be doing is going to say hey we need to get this volume back up to the original volume that we had coming in so let's kind of see if we need to add some game back here yeah girl I want a spinning spinning spinning spinning together yeah girl I wanna spend it baby can I pull up on you tell me what the code is yeah girl I wanna spinning spinning spinning spinning spinning our compressor is not working extremely heavy on this specific example but if you ended up having to compress your vocals pretty heavy you're probably going to have to add a little bit more makeup gain back to your signal to get it back to the original volume level of your original signal that's literally what the gain knob is doing so basically what you got here with a knee is you're typically going to have a soft knee or a hard knee that's a more common setting within most compressors so basically what the knee does is it kind of tells your compressor hey how do I want to respond to the signal as that signal gets closer to the threshold I typically don't even mess with that I'll leave it as is and it gives me the sound that I want now what we need to do we need to go back to our threshold and adjust it accordingly my sweet spot for vocal compression is typically going to be anywhere from about 3 DB to 6 DB of compression and we're just going to dial the threshold here fill up on you tell me what the code is [Music] what we're trying to do here is we don't want to make anything super fancy we're not eq'ing we're not boosting anything we're just wanting to get a nice consistent vocal so that we can start to add that sauce you know within the EQ within the Reverb with all that stuff as you start to actually start diving into mixing so now that we understand the basics of vocal compression it's time to cover another extremely important step to getting those vocals sounding like your favorite artists or favorite songs and that step is EQ let's dive into how I use EQ and how you can quickly incorporate it into your own personal workflow let's go let's go ahead and dive into Point number one which is listen and how to listen effectively one of the first things that I'm obviously listening for is what is Harsh and what sticks out another thing that I listen for is what is kind of getting in the way with the beat and sometimes you may have to make some adjustments to your vocals for that vocal to cut through the last thing that I'm listening for is what's something that I need to boost and that's kind of the exact order that I'm listening for as I'm playing the track through let's play it and see what we got let's go [Music] me and my brother don't fight over fight the key to getting a great rich full industry sound and vocal a lot of times that's gonna come through effective subtractive EQ so the first thing that I'm gonna do on 100 of my vocals if you got any experience with EQ and vocals you know you want to add your high pass filter just to kind of take out some of that room noise you just don't need it so normally what I like to do here I will be anywhere from about 70 and man even sometimes I'll go up to about 95 it's very rare that I go up to 100 my sweet spot is always going to be let's just go 80 here and then another little hack that I like to do is some kind of low shelf you want to select the Shelf setting which is going to be right here some people like to roll you know way up here but for me that just kind of loses the life of the vocal I like to keep that stuff in there but what I'm going to do to kind of tame some of these frequencies is I'm gonna pull this shelf up to probably about 500 that's normally my sweet spot whenever I'm just kind of cleaning up some of this stuff so let's play before me and my butterman trying to get out of shoes [Music] [Music] [Music] it's not doing a whole lot but it is doing what it needs to do to to make that vocal cut through that beat a little bit better so the next thing that I'm going to do is this is a true heck tip trick the Boost then cut method so I'm hearing some stuff probably in this range I'm going to make a very narrow band we're going to basically boost a lot and the reason why we're going to do this is we're going to exaggerate these frequencies so that we can better hear the frequencies so that we know exactly what we're going to be cutting so we're going to boost and then we're going to scan and whenever we find that frequency it's going to be super piercing to our ears surely and that's how we're gonna know that's the frequency that we need to cut cool so this is what we came up with all I did is I did exactly what we kind of talked through the Boost and then cut method for all of these frequencies so what I'm going to do real quick I'm going to play what we had before and then as we're playing it I'm gonna take this bypass off so that you can actually hear exactly what this EQ just did so let's play it totem I got them if I add it on me foreign [Music] so real quick I'll kind of boost and kind of show you the the frequencies that we ended up taking away here we will go from the bottom to the top we've obviously got uh looks like it's about 190 Hertz me and my brother been trying to get out of shoes [Music] that's clearly piercing my ears the other one that we hit was about 2k let's boost it me and my brother been trying to get out of Snooze yeah we gotta get that thing gone foreign and by you applying this this boost and cut method and making sure that your bands are narrow and then just gradually adding it back in there until it sounds natural a lot of times people may cut too much or that band's a little bit too wide then what ends up happening is the vocal starts to lose its life and then let's see what we got looks like we had to cut a little bit at 3K me and my brother been trying to get out of stores again that is my methods on how I utilize subtractive EQ and in my honest opinion the most important part of EQ period to get those Radio Ready vocals I don't want to be anti you add an EQ which leaves us in a point number four which is adding that Sizzle you know adding a little bit of flavor on the top but the first thing that I'm hearing the thing that I think that we could definitely add to make it kind of fit in the record a little bit better is adding a little bit of high end so let's go ahead and add that I'm going to boost it to where it sounds good to where it feels good and then I'm Gonna Leave It on me and honestly that One DB is kind of just adding a little bit it's kind of helping that vocal cut through utilize these techniques but apply it to your specific setup if you've got adult a mic that's a little bit more dull you may need to add a little bit more up here you know just kind of make sure that it feels right within your within your beat and then the last thing that I hear I think we could maybe add about 80 Hertz so if you want to add just kind of a little bit of beef to your vocal spicy meat yeah boy this 80 Hertz kind of does it for me foreign [Music] real quick tip so whenever I boost I normally boost wide my band being a little bit more wide and then whenever I cut I like the the band to be narrow let's go ahead and bypass these plugins to see exactly what we have accomplished [Music] [Music] and that makes a big big difference and really set you up to kind of start adding that sauce you know whether it be Reverb Echoes whatever the case may be so now that leads us right into the last point my vocal Focus frequencies what I'm going to do here is I'm going to kind of give you the most common frequencies that I end up having to boost or cut in most of my vocals don't listen to this and say oh these are the only frequencies that I can cut because that's not the case but if you listen to it and say hey these this is probably where most of the problems are going to be coming from it's really going to streamline your learning you're going to be able to EQ your vocals a little bit faster let's break it down like this so let's say your vocal is too bright or too Airy the frequency range is going to be anywhere from probably about 8K to up to anywhere from about 15K to 20K what you can kind of start to do there is you can subtract I probably start with about negative 2 DB and see what it does if that's too much just kind of blend it back into taste to where you remove of the frequency and you keep the life and the natural sound of your vocals so let's say your vocals sound nasally some people have used the term honky shout out to my white folk but but the the problem frequency that you're going to be adjusting there it's gonna be anywhere from about 700 Hertz up to probably about 1.5 K and you want to dip it probably going to do a narrow band probably about there and you're going to blend that thing back in to make your vocal sound natural again so let's say your vocals sound sharp or it's piercing my ear like the vocal in this scenario did you're going to be focusing in on 2.5 k to about 5k find it pull it down add it back to taste so let's say your vocals sound a little bit too muddy there's too much low end in my vocal gonna make a low shelf you're gonna bring it to I would probably bring it all the way up to about 500 Hertz duck it down exaggerate it and maybe start it you know 4 DB if that's not doing it bring it down even more and then adjust it to where it tames that frequency but your vocal still stays consistent the more reps you get doing this uh the better you're gonna get the better you're gonna be able to hear things alright so you're ready to add the sauce you're ready to sprinkle a little flavor on your mix if you don't know what I'm talking about I'm talking about Reverb Reverb is a key element to producing that industry sounding vocal so if you don't know what Reverb is basically the way that I like to think about it is it's this space around your vocal or instrument like this Reverb so let's go through how I use Reverb the simple way and how you can Master it fast the key things that I want to kind of show you to make this training extremely digestible is above our vocal bus and our background vocal bus we've got our reverbs we have Ascend to our reverbs here on our vocal bus if you don't know about sins I do have a video that's extremely relevant and beneficial if you want to learn more about you know sins and Ox tracks and stuff like that I'll link that in the video right now that should be popping up and then these reverbs are pulled up to an all EFX track which is basically you know if I want to turn down my overall Reverb I just personally like to have it on one aux track so you know say I'm playing back the mix and it's like too much Reverb and just dial that thing back dials all the Reverb back so that leads us right into Point number one which is use multiple reverbs what I've got pulled up here is a template that I'm using from record radio ready vocals training very recent training that I did for people just getting going in audio engineering within Pro Tools if you want to access that check out the link down in the description if you don't have that don't worry we're going to walk through all these settings and all that stuff you can emulate this within your personal workflow as well whenever you've got most multiple reverbs pulled up you can just quickly dial in the vibe in a matter of you know pulling up a couple faders on your sins and dialing it into taste it's so much faster than pulling up your Reverb and skimming through all the different you know different Reverb types especially if you're in a recording session and the artist isn't really feeling you know what he's hearing you need to have these reverbs pulled up so you can quickly dial that thing in you don't really have time to be sitting around focus on creating and locking in the vibe rather than trying to pull up 1200 reverbs pull up one that works and dial that bad boy in do what sounds right so let's go ahead and dive into concept number two which is the Reverb breakdown so this is going to be the part where you may want to pause it and screenshot these reverbs so basically what we've got here with this plate Reverb plate preset pull down the pre-delay got just a little bit of Decay time so what this Plate's going to be doing is going to be a little bit shorter Reverb just kind of adding a little bit of space there this chamber is going to be the plate on steroids so what I've got is I've got the Decay time turned up a little bit got a little bit more pre-delay a large plate so this is going to be a little bit more spacious if that's a if that's a term you want to use then I think we just kind of rolled off some of the low end with the chamber and then with the hall stock the verb Hall preset just a little bit of pre-delay and a little bit more of a Decay time here to kind of add a little bit more space but let's walk through the cheat code on how to utilize these so we're going to play a brief period of this song [Music] so we've obviously got all these reverbs turned all the way down whenever I play that back kind of start thinking through like what does my vocal need to kind of start feeling like it's a part of the song like in the mix what do we need to add to the vocal or on the other hand if the vocal is a little bit too bright and I'm assuming you've already kind of done some eq'ing you may want to pull up like a darker Reverb insert your haul Reverb and what I would do is I would use some of these settings and just exaggerate these reverbs so you can really hear what each Reverb is adding to the mix that way you can appropriately say hey this makes definitely needs more Hall Reverb than a plate or this specific track needs more chamber than a haul this is going to make a lot more sense here in Step number three because we're actually going to dial this in live hey in the comments I would love to hear your personal number one struggle is an upcoming audio engineer or if you're a recording artist and you're starting to record yourself let me know down in the comments what your number one struggle is because I would love to address that in the upcoming videos and if I use one of your topics I'll give you a shout out too cool let's go ahead and dive into actually using this technique we're gonna play a portion of this track and I'm just going to kind of listen to like hey like what does my vocal need and uh we'll get a final product knocked out here on the spot let's do it but it don't bother me [Music] but it don't bother me [Music] cause I had you first but don't I make it better when they make it worse What's Understood don't need to be explained I found you now I'm playing keyboard my name on it like a tattoo but [Music] don't I make it better and hopefully what you're hearing right now we're definitely not leaving the vocal like that but hopefully what you're hearing right now is kind of what we were talking about how the Reverb adds different Vibes to it but let's go ahead and dial in the Halls [Music] What's Understood don't need to be explained I found you now I'm playing keyboard my name on it like a tattoo baby I put my name on it [Music] to me that sounds pretty solid say you just want a little bit more Reverb you got your all EFX man just add a little bit of Reverb overall Reverb at this point the best thing that you can do is to start applying it into your own workflow ASAP stop watching all the videos just go apply it that's the fastest way to learn especially now that you've got the foundational tips and tricks and knowledge now is there more to learn about audio engineering of course that's exactly why we've created this channel but these key Concepts we've covered today are really the key things that you need to know to get started recording and mixing those Pro vocals and Pro Tools so some final tips and recommendations as you're just getting started number one after you you know start applying some of this stuff I would recommend checking out a few of the videos that we've linked down in the description they go a little bit more in depth about some of the topics these will continue to help Propel your career forward as an engineer and give you a few different tips and tricks along the way another thing we've linked down in the description is our brand new training the record radio ready vocals training Pro Tools Edition and this course is made specifically for the aspiring audio engineer just getting started in Pro Tools not only will you have access to a 60 Minute Long training video training we've also thrown in some pretty cool bonuses one of the bonuses is our exclusive stock Pro Tools template to help you quickly incorporate some of the things that we talked about today and we've also included some PDF guides to streamline your learning in Pro Tools so hopefully at this point you are a lot more confident than you were before you clicked on the video and I personally believe that you are well on your way to getting those Pro vocals and Pro Tools and if you haven't yet I would recommend hitting that subscribe button because we come with the heat all day all hits no misses and I am getting out of here we'll catch y'all soon peace [Music] thank you

Channel: MyAudioAcademy

Views: 20,489

Keywords: how to record in pro tools, how to record vocals in pro tools, how to mix vocals in pro tools, how to mix in pro tools, how to record in pro tools for beginners, how to mix in pro tools for beginners, pro tools for beginners, pro tools, how to record on pro tools, pro tools tutorial, avid pro tools, how to use pro tools, mixing in pro tools, how to record on pro tools for beginners, pro tools for beginners 2022, how to record on pro tools 2022, how to record pro tools, protools

Id: ZUY7bp-VXa0

Length: 39min 51sec (2391 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 13 2022