Why Do Mixers Use Yamaha NS-10's? FAQ Friday with Warren Huart

hi everybody hope you're doing marvelously well we're big we're bad we're back I'm in black with another F [Music] Friday so we're here at Nick Salon Studios a laaka sound in lovely yes balls cross yep that's the name of the village balls cross couldn't get more English than that so we have a bunch of rather wonderful frequently asked questions s which we have garnered from different levels of social media here on YouTube but also on Tik Tok because we get a lot of questions there if you haven't checked out our Tik Tok Channel please do I'm sure somebody will put a link down below for you to click on if you're a Tik tocker that is all right our first question is this what is automation the best answer is automation is what takes your mix over the edge bom done a lot of people these days and I understand mix in a very linear way way they make everything as loud as possible in your face beginning to end of a track great you know hit them over the head smack it when they come in get louder get more compressed more limited more clipped and off you go and maybe frankly in some genres that works really well maybe an EDM and metal or anything else that's a full frontal assault that's great however alteration for me like I said at the beginning takes your mix to the next level it's fun things for instance like panning stuff around so it keeps people's interest so it isn't just stationary left and right and Center stuff but maybe that's stuff moving pair of headphones on what a beautiful experience to hear things panning around whether it be dramatically or just moving slightly that's wonderful the next thing that's really great of course is volume automation bringing up and featuring certain instruments especially say a baseline where it's like playing e and then suddenly goes you might want to bring up that Baseline for 2db between the vocal so that your ear grabs it drum fills maybe turning up the Toms in a big section maybe pushing up room mics so you get the illusion that the drums are even bigger still and trick that many of us do is to use the rooms really dramatically where there's a break for a drum fill and then you get the illusion that those room mics are actually there the whole time so that's where automation wins and probably equally as important is making sure that things are heard consistently when they need to be heard like one of the things that I will alterate more than anything else is of course a vocal you want that vocal to be there and be ever present I always think of a vocal has to be like a bowl of energy sitting in the middle of the mix I love to be able to feel like I can pick it up in the middle and if it's done really really well whatever phrase you have will always feel like it's in that place and I think that's super super important to be a able to automate the ends of phrases in particular where a singer maybe is breathing through a note like I don't and that don't getting the end of that phrase and just pushing it up will give you so much more impression of passion and Charisma in a vocal so automation is super super important what do you think of subwoofers well this is a good one because we just did a subwoofer test here at labara so we have found that a subwoofer is a rather wonderful attribute I said to Nick that I felt like it was on the border of good and essential you know is it essential maybe not but is it a really good thing to have Absol beding lutely especially if you're doing modern music with extended low end which frankly is pretty much everything these day listen to a modern country song it has a massive extended low end it is everywhere now it's not the 70s we've got 30 and 40 Hertz in pretty much everything that you listen to now should I listen in Solo I've answered this in different ways before because the only mixer I've ever sat with and believed when they said they don't solo is Bob Clear Mountain I've been in a room with pretty much every other mixer on the planet the well-known ones with a couple of exceptions and they've all soloed and I understand why you make an adjustment you've got something that's bothering you and you want to find out what it is that's bothering you and so you solo it and see if you can find out maybe what instrument has that sound but with Bob clar Mountain he told me he doesn't solo and I completely believe it what I found was listening to his mixes which I still think are the finest in the world I don't hear any problems in it but if I soloed something I might find a problem on the instrument in Solo but that's not important at all nobody is going to be driving down the motorway driving down the freeway listening to your mix going I wonder what it sounds like if I solo the vocal it just doesn't work like that so what do I think I think if you are an accomplished Bob Clear Mountain level person and you can mix without having to solo God bless you you're one in a million but the rest of us use solo specifically to find out where you're hearing a problem don't obsess on it do not spend hours listening into solo making it the greatest vocal sound ever that when you put it in a track suddenly isn't bright enough that's what will happen if you listen to a vocal perfectly you'll take out every single little frequency and make it all beautiful and soft and perfect and lovely and put it back into your mix and realize it no longer cuts through and that you took out some of the energy in the vocal that needs to be there to cut through all of the other instruments so the best advice I can give is work in both listen to your mix if there's a problem and you're not sure where it is use solo to identify it than there's some extra wispiness what's it on is it on the high hat is it on a vocal is it on this or is it on that yes definitely identify the problem and use it as a tool but do not obsess in Solo and make things sound so perfect in solo that they don't work in your Final Mix why do people use Yamaha ns10s speaking as a guy go this is two Bob Clear Mountain shout outs because of Bob CLE Mountain there you go end of question no it is if you go back to the 80s and you read any interviews with Bob Clear Mountain he talked about wanting to use Hi-Fi speakers so that he had an idea of how people were listening to the music that he was creating that he was mixing so he bought a pair of Yamaha ns10s which were Hi-Fi speakers those of us that have used them and that was me growing up will tell you they were very very harsh speakers to the best of my memory they have a 7 DB lift at about 1.5k they are so midrangey and aggressive that they're very very fatiguing to listen to however we got used to them and we learned that if snare drums were really loud and cracking and guitars were horribly offensive and loud and angular then our mix is sounding good it's a little bit like the tanoy little Golds my good friend Dave Jorden mixed hundreds of albums on those and said if there was a certain kind of distortion in the low end he knew the kick drum was perfect it's a weird thing to talk about in our Modern Age where Modern speakers are cheaper and flatter than the speakers that we grew up using before and now you can trust them better but in those days when ns10s were out you mixed to make them sound a certain way and that's a very very strange thing to sort of talk about now with the way people are developing speakers but that's what it was like it was a case of mid-range detail I hear a lot of people say that oh the aggressive mid-range makes it easier for me to mix the highend but these days is that a valid point of view I don't know to be honest I think that if you're starting out why would you buy a pair of ns10s why do you need to put yourself through that learning process of listening to music so differently because a pair of ns10s God love them sound nothing like a phone headphones your car nothing sounds like them anymore where when I was a kid everything was horrible honky mid-range you get into a car and it was like you know am radios even FM radios cassettes with horrible Walkman headphones all were midrangey disgusting honky things and maybe ns10s in those days had a place these days the quality of even the most average things is so much better the fact that you can get a pair of studio monitors now for sort of $300 $350 a pair which sound flatter than anything else is a completely different world so my advice is if you're asking that question because you think you're missing out you're not you're starting out by some flatter sounding speakers and learn on those nothing against anybody that grew up listening to ns10s I did nothing against anybody who knows how to mix really well on ns10s God bless you it's absolutely wonderful but if you're starting out I honestly would not recommend buying them it's just my opinion is garage band a good Daw yeah because it's bleeding easy to use it comes free with any Apple Mac kind of product I have done demos on it quicker and easier than any other Daw I own you know I always used to bit bit confused with with protols back in the early days where I wanted to create a midi track or an instrument track and I was like what's the difference and obviously I learned but garage band is so bleeding intuitive it is ridiculously intuitive you just kind of Select what you want it to be the instrument you're going to record and off you go I've done demos on garage band that I've ended up using the internal sound card exported the tracks put it into prots and carried on tracking on it it's really really easy to use and it comes free with any Apple product I believe and if it doesn't it should no I think it comes free it's cheap easy dumb as a box of nails and me anyway hope you're all doing marvelously well thanks ever so much for watching uh it's been great to do another frequently asked questions Friday another F Friday we'll be back with another one next week so long farewell Alo Zan oravo adios [Music] goodbye [Music] [Applause] [Music] a

Channel: Produce Like A Pro

Views: 45,518

Keywords: Warren Huart, Produce Like A Pro, Home studio, Home recording, Recording Audio, Music Production, Record Producer, Recording Studio, music producer, audio engineering, audio engineer, making music

Id: RHUCI-izh-I

Length: 11min 12sec (672 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2024