MixCon Masterclass: Marc McClusky on Mixing Drums and Rock Guitars

I just want to introduce it up Marc real quick Marc is amazing producer engineer he's worked with Weezer and religion Social Distortion right now he's mixing Ocean City thanks Jeff soon how's everybody good yeah all right the way I usually like to do things like this I find people get the most benefit is if you know why I did it so I'm gonna play this song show a couple things and then just go ahead and start firing away so we can all learn something together cool all right bitchin alright so this is off the new Motion City Soundtrack record it's super raw I'll give a little explanation about the challenges I had with it their last studio record they did they did it with Mark Hoppus and Andy Wallace mixed it and it was a super polished record because they got picked up by Columbia they were on epitaph and if you guys know who at the TAF phone are they're like you know one of the biggest indie labels in the world do you know a lot of punk and stuff so Columbia pushing them to be a little more polished and the record came out and I think they were happy with it I don't speak for them but this record they said let's do the complete opposite and everybody tells us how great we are alive so we're gonna track this whole record live and then overdub on top of it so they would get like the feeling right when they played it and then they would go in and like add extra guitars and go do Justin we go back into his vocal so for for me my challenge was no noise and you know making it sound live like I wanted to just sound like some guys playing in a garage and the drums are so loud that like they're just bouncing off everything and the guitars are loud I just wanted to sound loud so I'll kind of break it out and we'll we'll solo the drums and before and then I'll kick in the after so you guys can kind of hear it and it'll go through one thing at a time so this is going in the chorus just listen to that black a black right when it goes in right and of course this is gonna be a level change but you'll get the idea right so we'll go through kind of like what I did so we got some overheads so I sold these guys this is what I got delivered so one thing you guys find yourself a lot like just carving the out of your overheads and like getting rid of like all the low-end and all that stuff you guys find yourself doing that yeah some some maybe some knots sometimes sometimes so one of the things like that I've learned over my career is you know I used to do that and just try to grab cymbals but then I can't get the drums to like stick together if that makes sense so what I try to do is i eq the the overheads to make it sound like drums a lot of people get rid of all this stuff down here I'm adding like shitloads of a hundred Hertz so I'll show you kind of what that does where this me I mean this is like no snare you know what I mean like this is that one overhead mic but the snare comes from everywhere even on a live record if it wasn't isolated enough the guitar bass amp or or the singer they were on the same room like I've taken snare sounds from guitar mics before and just how you EQ everything and make it all work together get it right I I can't stress the overheads making them slam by themselves so let's go on this adventure together you hear how it's starting to pop more is that helpful to you guys like seeing the like how I made the decision yeah does anybody have any questions about why I did something that I just did right there no questions so I'm an amazing teacher that's what I'm learning yeah there we go okay so like that's an excellent question so let's go through that again when I'm down here I'm trying I'm really trying to find like the balls of the snare right because when you when you mic a snare right and you're this close to a snare how often are our heads that close to a snare drum right so they don't sound like that they sound more like you're further away and of course the overheads are further away so it sounds more like a snare okay so I try to get that be for the snare in these overheads and then what I did was if you notice when I turned up right around 3k the cymbal started to get clanky right but the snare started to get more defined so I turned it up til I heard the Clank enos and then I turned it down until I stopped hearing the Clank enos because that way I'm gonna get a little bit more definition out of the skin of the snare and then of course this is just for brightness right and then down here this honky sound I'll show it again like usually around 800 Hertz somewhere around in this area I always find something I don't like about overhead see you even from here to here this is worse than this I'll show it again do you hear where he starts to go like clay right so I don't really need that but I don't need to get rid of all of it right because it's not like killing us so I'm just scooping a little bit out and even let's try to do the level match so we don't you guys know about that that little thing right anything louder always sounds better doesn't matter if it's better or worse right so let's level match it so we all agree that at least by this meter it's similar so I'll keep it in and bypass you guys hear that frequency now that core right so those are the kind of things I try to look for is these little subtle things that when I kick it in I'm like yeah I did I did make it better I didn't make it worse and you guys can take pictures all this stuff and do it go home and replicate exactly this EQ and it's not gonna be right for your source learn from the IKE concepts but don't do the copy thing by all means do it so you learn right but don't just go oh that's that's how I eat you and overhead because what if we had it overheads ever recorded with like coals right the ribbons right there darkest if I put this thing on coals that's not gonna work it's gonna be you know something way brighter I'll probably max it out you know go 15 DB and probably a lot of mids cutting a lot of low mids because it's already got enough of that in there so you know really use your ears but by all means you know use this as a learning tool and you know compression like wow so a lot of people like compress compress compress and I like compression don't get me wrong however watch what happens when we we just start to add a little bit of compression here though people just start to crap out so that's like what 3dv now though of the symbol right is now kind of irritating and now the snare is not punchy anymore and remember based on my philosophy for this song was I'm trying to pull the drums out of the overheads so why would I smash him back into the overheads right so it all works together so this is the kick that gave me and I honestly I don't know why I did it this way usually don't do it this way I usually have all my samples on like individual tracks but for some reason I just stuck them all in here and just did a mix blend do you guys know how this plug-in works people that use trigger yeah okay so if for those of you who don't this this is like I'm mixed Blin so how much of the original signal versus the samples and then these are the individual sample levels so we'll go through so that's what I got and then this is what I turn it into so you don't you know have you ever heard people say things like don't put reverb on bass and don't put reverb on kick drums right have you guys heard that like a million times like I totally totally put it all over everything because when you're in a room right like right now is the room getting rid of you know the bass no I mean there's an EQ curve in here naturally whatever this room is right but like like what tricks your brain what makes things loud okay we are built with already preconceived notions of what we think is loud based on what we learn in life so what's louder at the same volume okay plated the singing volume a flute or a chainsaw which one's louder the chainsaw just because we think it's louder doesn't mean it actually is okay but we think it is because we know what chainsaw is loud alright so a canyon when something's loud and it goes well and it just keeps going right is it's in any louder than what you think it is and you just know it's louder because it's to be echoing off something in the room so your brain goes oh it must be loud right so why not put reverb on kick drums because a kick drum to sound loud is echo it's not you know it's not this little little hit it's like the echo is what makes you think it's loud so I added in I actually really like the chris lord-alge ii samples for trigger they have like that really good attack on them so basically I put a little bit of the attack in there and then this is a Tom Waddell G kick that I got from a friend of mine years ago and that's the one that's really doing doing what we're looking for it's like what we're looking for so all these together right and then we're kind of in the Queen territory you guys know what I'm referencing right yeah okay I'm just making sure I'm just making sure even though though it cuz I was thinking well those are stomps I wonder if they think I'm crazy but I'm the same idea right okay so let's use that as an example what makes that sound so huge is the reverb not that not that right listen to this and here it's like a joke but when you get the reverb and all the the ambience that's what that's what creates that illusion okay so then and then it looks like what I put a little bit more on the top just to give it some more I don't mess around kick drums too much unless there's like some low mid problems like I said the more you compress stuff the smaller gets I might have a kick drum that is untouched and then I might duplicate it for like a parallel thing and beat the out of that thing there's a purpose for it but other than that I generally don't really mess around with kick drums too much so right now this is so we can listen this will be kick and overhead right that's actually pretty great drum sound right there snare so this is the snare that gave me I'll play I'll keep doing the way I'm going if you go in and look you see how these are clipped out right when they recorded they were then I think it's awesome they were peeking the console which gives it even more energy more more that just like oh my god I'm beating the out of this drum and as you guys know it's hard to get that sound once you're in the digital realm but they're getting better at plugins and faking it so this is what I got delivered that's why I turned it into so you wanted to do the thing that I did in the overheads does that help for you guys like to see here you hear what I hear whenever I do filters what I do is I and it's hard for me cuz I'm kind of behind the speakers I know what I did in this song so I have that benefit but usually when I do filters and I you guys may have mayor may have or not heard of this is keep rolling it up until you hear it and then back it off right so go until you hear the filter and then cut it back because all that you don't need anyways so we'll do that with a center right you can kind of hear it once it goes up to 200 so I'll probably dial back down to here did you hear the bottom just come back a little bit more clearly started back here okay so then the next thing is find that's yeah like right there is like awful right now I need now I need that stick right coming back to the snare and I'll show you I'll just kind of move it around see you guys hearing because well all our ears will peak up right around the same area right so it sounded good up here right but I still have another band so that's why I stopped here is because oh I have another band I can add more top in so I'm looking for more that mid range kind of sound and that's probably like right can I make it look so easy no and then after that I've got a pull tech oh did I get it oh I mean there's no big trick for the gating a lot of times I won't gate snares because you start to get that you know like thing but in this song and we'll go over that there's a loop that goes so I tried to match the gate to the to that extra fake snare they put in there so and I usually never gate it at least snares when I do gate 100 you know like you know the range on the gate is right so like how much you're hearing so I usually keep the range kind of high because it sounds it's more just kind of setting it back from the hi-hat not getting rid of it completely because I really do think that bleed is so important for the dots to connect you know so I probably did something like that and then I put a pull Tech on gave it some more beef and then some more 3k I don't know why probably because I thought it would be cool yeah and so this is just the SSL right and it looks like I'm clipping it which probably wasn't a conscious decision to do but I totally am like the kind of guy like if doesn't sound bad like wife change it you know because this might be doing some more digital clipping on the snare that might affect something in a really cool way that if we back it down it might not sound as good so I didn't really mess with anything there so basically it just looks like I was giving it more beef and more bit and then what I do here and then I cut some more here so then we listen to kick snare on overhead sounds pretty good so then the next snare is and I do this a lot is it's an exact replica I literally they didn't give me samples like that they took so I literally went in and just grabbed a snare like this copied it and then pasted it on every hit so this is their snare drum because you know I don't I don't ever fully replace stuff unless it's like really really like like I can't make something happen to it and even if that happens I'll try to make my own samples from room mics or overheads or whatever and and just try to make it work because you know that's the sound they wanted like I got to respect them right like it doesn't matter what I think they're giving it to me to go make this what I you know created even better than I could have thought of right so you got to take what they give you and do the best you can to keep their thing intact but you know take liberties within that I know that sounds kind of both ways but so you can even hear it that little click is probably like a hi-hat there's closed hi-hat section I took it from that so together these two well let's see what I did Oh so I can press this one I didn't compress the normal one it's the same EQ that we had on the first one how much compression like 3d bees and then I put a Decapitator on it love love love the sound toy stuff it just sounds a little more gross if it gets a little bit more that ting sound that's the same accuse that one and that's the same way you use that one so I'm just using it to give it like a more impact and probably a thicker sound so these are the two together see what do you guys hear what I'm using that for that ring sound that ding right and then I have another sample here this snare I recorded my old studio was at Sound City in LA before it closed down this is a snare I recorded there this is a snare I've had forever I just call it the big s and then another one of those chris lord-alge e ones probably for clarity so this is the like the super sampled one so I'll go one and what time this is the chris lord-alge e when I was just looking for that kind of high-end attack this one I love it it's just like a great room sound it's just a great like kind of really far in the background snare that I have and then this is a sound city mono room mic that I recorded so together and we got snare bottom so let's see what I do at the bottom yeah try to just get more brightness out of it and all I see I could probably take this thing out and we would never know so but I kept it for some reason and then reverbs so with reverb Zin things unless you're going for like super ethereal kind of like your existing and it's like pool I usually try to time them to the songs like if you notice like it's like kick kick decay and then right when the snare hits it's like the decay is gone for the kick drum right and then the snare carries until the next kick hit so it's like this constant like you know jumping kind of motion so that's kind of the way I use the reverb and then hi-hat oh this is interesting this might be cool so because it's up the middle whenever I have a hi-hat going up the middle I'm probably using it for part of the snare sound so I rolled off all the high end all the low and that mid mid-range sound because I don't need more hi-hat there's plenty in the overheads so I use this just as part of more of that mid-range kind of sound kind of gives it a little bit more to that honky kind of cool sound go downtown so Tom's I always clean out the Tom's then I just opened it up when he starts to play the Tom's you know I don't get like meticulous with it it's just like open them up when they play shut them down when they're not playing yeah pretty typical just added some top I thought they sounded fine already you know and again the kind of record we're making is like we're not trying to make that like hyperactive like better than real life right we're just trying to make real life better so I'm not gonna go in there in like carve out and do crazy stuff and then the room mics so this is what we got again going back to like adding shitloads of 50 Hertz because the kick drums in that room right well I don't hear the kick drum the way I want to hear it so I just put tons of 50 Hertz in there and that's it and I think it sounds better so we'll right that's all that kind of tinny and really mid-range E that's all I need and then I put reverbs on it because you want to give it more space because room mics like this room doesn't sound very ambient right and yeah we can throw a compressor on there to pull out more ambience but then what are you gonna get that you know that wispy you can't use them so I put the Decapitator on after that to probably just create some weird crazy distortion sound oh and did you guys saw that right on that ticket ticket right like it's all about moments like that's what mixing is is like you create these little moments that like excite people like it's not a game of subtleties right it's not like like I'm gonna test it out right like make it way louder than you should and the master you gotta figure it out you know what I mean like seriously like your job is to make an event make it happen okay and create some kind of excitement and then let's talk about my drum buss so I'll bite it and again we're gonna lose level and try to not let that fool you I didn't use any parallel compression on this I just used a little bit of some SSL so this is with it feels a little closer to you right but you can see there's like what two 3d bees maybe it taps for and the loudest hits it's just basically saying like I really like the way you are just kind of stay stay there and then I've got some EQ so let's see what that's doing yeah some more more hundred Hertz giving the tonality of the drums a little bit more reinforcement it's in 3k for that definition and then you know that super top-end 12 K stuff that we won't be able to hear when we're like sixty anyways but and then the capitate ER so whenever I have these on the Lincoln buses I try to simulate what I used to get out of consoles because you could drive it and drive it and drive it and then it would start to clip them which is like kind of cool right it's like almost like a limiter and sometimes I'll put limiters like an l1 on my drum bus or other bus on there to clip it I'm like looking for that clipping song cuz I kind of like it but you got to be careful because you lose a lot of that punch too so yeah super subtle but it does something good and then the only other drum stuff that they gave me was they recorded I don't even know what they used but it sounds so cool this stuff so it sounded so cool the way I got it like I didn't want to with it right cuz I'm gonna mess it up so all the drums together here we go cool is that informative yeah learned any questions about the drums and thought process while we're on that topic I'd love to hear it you

Channel: SonicScoop

Views: 33,012

Rating: 4.8873239 out of 5

Keywords: soundtoys, marc mcclusky, mixcon, mixing, mixing drums, mix, drums, dum bus, decapitator, sonicsccop

Id: cuo0SlyBVzI

Length: 28min 21sec (1701 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2016