Mau5trap’s Dom Kane is back with us once again this week for a new set of Tech Tips, this time in Ableton as we join him in his studio where he’s working on a radio edit.
Over these 10 videos we get a detailed insight into some of his pro tips and tricks he uses to fine tune, speed up workflow, enhance and ultimately finalise a track.
These tips are all about keeping things simple and taking time to choose the correct sounds and methods to get from A to B so you’re not re-visiting elements over and over.
Covering aspects such as where to place your compressor in the chain, or if you even need one at all, to adding stereo or presence to different elements and EQing certain frequencies to keep your tracks clean and make them stand out.
A set of videos that reminds us that taking care in your choices can be super beneficial in your overall satisfaction when reaching the final stages of your production.
Great tech tips episode this time! As always Dom Kane is extremely good at explaining why and how he does the things we learn. A lot of quality content on this one so be sure not to miss it!
@domkane Hi Dom: A question for you: in the tutorial 3- taking out the mud - why did you choose to go for the vocals and cut the muddiness there instead of the arp for example or some of the other parts that were filling up that part of the spectrum? I thought vocals were supposed to be the last thing you touch (I don’t think about small vocal changes), but this was something that definitely changed the character of the voice in my humble opinion.
Thanks @oledahl.oslo - That’s a good question and to be totally honest my answer might be a little vague. However, while I was previewing the EQ5 effect and sweeping down to 300Hz, I noticed the main instrument I could hear there was the vocal. Although the arp synth was there too, I felt like because that was a much shorter “plucky” dynamic, it was a lot less intrusive and more of a percussion. For me, the more extended a note is around that frequency, the more interference it can cause.
Yeah, thanks Dom. Your thoughts on this helps a lot and makes sense! Thank You for answering! I’m saying like Trump: “such a nice guy!” kindest reg. Ole, Oslo/Norway
In regards to video 3 taking out the mud. Isnt it common or good practice when cutting to cut with a narrow q or is it depending on the sound and what you are going for?
Cutting with a narrow Q is a common practice but mostly used per sound on individual tracks to deal with & attenuate unwanted tonal/harmonics, resonance or sibilance, so it’s more a sound design/crafting approach ( like cleaning a Kick i.e ) while the process shown in video 3 is more about mixing and attenuating unwanted energy in some frequency range to avoid frequencies masking/dueling ( therefore creating mud ), so in this case you will usually use a wider Q.
Its really dependent on what you’re eq’ing… broad band corrections like taking out mud in general you can go for a wider q. As @Tekalight said, narrow q’s are typically on single channels or when you’re wanting to get rid of a very specific problem frequency or a single harmonic or resonance. Even then, there’s no real rule really… its typical to start with a narrow q to identify a problem but if it sounds better cutting a wider band there is nothing wrong with that. Mud isn’t really a specific frequency, just a general area where stuff tends to build up. Some times it needs correcting, sometimes not… generally with psy-trance stuff for example I tend to leave a lot of those lower mids in, but with more chunky progressive stuff I take it out. Our ears are also more sensitive to mid range, so having the low mids at a lower volume usually balances and makes things clearer to our ears.
