Sonic Academy is super excited and proud to welcome LA-based Melodic Techno producer Lauren Mia for an in-depth look at her new track ‘Tantra’.
This intricate and beautiful synth-heavy track with its many layers gets broken down into each section by Lauren as we check out her Ableton project, and over the next 2 hours we get a detailed look at how she approaches each element, the decisions made and why she makes them, and how every single sound plays it’s part to create the bigger picture.
This is a fascinating insight into the creative process of one of the world’s leading female artists in Techno today.
Brilliant track and in-depth walk-through with invaluable feedback that really helps to better understand the art of crafting such a piece. If you’re into Melodic Techno you probably know how difficult it can feel to stand out in this very popular & crowded genre, so this is a “must watched” if you’re into this music.
This course brings great tips and wise words about workflow, methodology, production techniques as well as touching on the artist mind-set putting a lot of attention & details into each track in order to share the love for this music with her listeners and deliver very ear pleasing results each time.
I’ve watched so many youtube tutorials, but as a first time buyer on Sonic Academy, I am very pleased with this walkthrough! Learned SO MUCH, thanks for sharing all of your methods and so eloquently describing how to do them. You gained a new fan! Please do another soon!
This one was new and different with more of a discussion of choices she made and not really a “how-to” with project files and samples like I’m used to. Really cool to get a female perspective. More please.
This can be a very subjective thing IMHO and also depending on your listening environment, for me the kick works quite well in the track. Now depending of your listening environment and if you’re playing back the track on monitors/speakers that don’t struggle to playback low frequencies or if you using a sub, you might find that the kick is missing some sub freq content, but then played back on a small Bluetooth or mobile device, it translates quite well I think and gives room for the bass and lower pads sounds to really shine in the track.
But again, can be very subjective & much vary between listening habits, taste and listening environment.
@Tekalight, I compared on different devices to listen back, and sounds to me boxy, but you are right it is subjective. By the way a bought the track, really like the melodic content, and very happy to have again a female Producer on SA.
Of course it always depends on about him or her stage how good you are, or the skills she/he is looking for, but in my opinion - this was one of the best courses ever. In Sinic or somewhere else.
She really did walk thru the track, thought process, workflow in mind and not forgetting the musical and artisit piece. Fine balance between tools and art of music combined. And so far, the best possible articulation, talk and clear way of verbally expressing the thoughts. Even as a non-native English speaker, I did not have to wonder any seconds what she is meaning while explaining her thought process. Absolutely top rated course in mind.
Lauren Mia is a brilliant producer and musician, and has really mastered the art of composition, production, and arranging. She understands her genre quite well and I really appreciated her intentionality and attention to detail. I hope she creates more courses like this one!
There’s something wrong with the audio of the videos. It can be clearly heard in the kick (as mentioned in other comments below) - it lacks all bottom. Also the bass is too thin, compared to the original recording.
I compared the frequencies of the audio in the Playthrough video with the Spotify version of the song, and it turns out that all frequencies below 130 Hz are significantly reduced.
Why is that? It makes the videos har to follow, since you can’t hear what’s going on in the bass and sub.
For anyone interested, I’ve saved the images of the SPAN frequencies of the video (to the left) and the original recording (to the right) in this file: Dropbox - File Deleted (both from roughly same section of the intro)
You can’t compare any original tracks that’s been already mixed and mastered for Spotify with the video output from the original tutor’s recorded session and also embedded into audio for video formats. It doesn’t really make sense to compare the 2 audio outputs, it’s not the same source. Tutors and SA team do their best to preserve audio quality, but it depends of the source recording of course, and again, the original track you’ll find on Spotify or elsewhere would have been mastered for this media, so that’s why you hear a difference, and looking at the Span screenshot you uploaded, it’s likely that there was a limiter applied to the Spotify track.
Understand your statement that a Mastering for a platform could be different form a video. But look at the videos of the Subgroup (Kick, Bass,…) the Sub is totally low cut:
1.) The SubGroup has an Autofilter low cut 65.4 Hz / 24db & a low shelf 150Hz/ -2.36dB
2.) The Root of the Kick is tuned to C# (ca. 34.6 Hz) as she mentioned in the video but cut out with the low cut on the group at 65.4Hz/24dB (what is the complete SubArea what is in the range 20-65Hz)
3.) The Basslines are low shelf -9db/100Hz
4.) She did the mastering in the video by herself with all the low cuts & low shelfs on the sub group/tracks what explained that is still now sub (
My point of view…:
-…in this case it is not a question about mix/master for Spotify (yellow line) compared to the this project (orange line)
-…the mix engineer corrected the low end (Kick & SubBass) or she did it before it was published
-…the SubArea is not a question of different platform mix/master (Mastering for platforms is about Loudness LUFS & True Peak what is influenced the from SubArea but they not reduced it they increased it to generate a not existed low end what was cut out and later added again - I doubt it was in the mastering stage it was in in the mixing stage directly on the tracks)
→ From my point of view this could confuse new producer. Cut the SubGroup 65Hz/24dB (the Sub Range is around 20-65Hz) they will never get a good SubArea neither an interesting BassArea influenced from SubHarmonics from the SubLayer in this Genres.
I appreciate your quality of the SA videos recordings and the quality of SA videos content (special from Bluffmonkey, Protoculture,…) but in this video I was confused too. But maybe I missed something. Maybe it makes sense to add a video No. 12 what they did afterwards how and when they generate (or what I think correct the source) the SubArea what was not there at the end of the video neither in the play trough.
Getting your point But just to mention, this course is a “Track Walkthrough” tutorial, so it differs from more in depth “How to Make” tutorials and Mastering usually won’t be covered in walkthrough courses.
It’s more about getting insights about how the track was made than more in depth content which IMHO was pretty well covered by Lauren Mia in her Track Walkthrough course
She is covering some interesting topics! I also listen now in detail to the release and what I hear that the filter is in the sub group is automated and the Kick, Subbass,… is full frequency spectrum in the main parts and filtered in the breaks…
Thanks for you reply and have a great week
Her Interview with Chris is also interesting to watch, Lauren Mia knows her stuffs and she’s got music education background. Really a true-felt Music Producer and passionate about the music she creates.
Yeah, this is a walkthrough, so she is explaining how the track came together and maybe found it difficult to recall what happened in certain groups on a track she made months beforehand. I know when I produce, you sometimes go into a zone and throw all kinds of weird shit at parts to try and make them work or interesting and forget what you did in that moment or even why. Also, many times courses are pre-master versions, we try and get as close to the original as possible, but some tracks we are showing may have had up to something like 8 hours of mixing on them to get them to the point where the producer is happy, but would make for very boring viewing! We have to strike a balance.
