Monday’s Tip From The Top comes from Sydney’s Jimmy ‘Audiomunky’ Carroll. Jimmy is a live/studio mixer and producer, as well as an Ableton Live guru! He’s already very kindly allowed us to post up a wicked Ableton tutorial video for making fatter Synths and now’s he got some top studio tips for you all!
- Big vocal sounds – (live work or studio) – Tap a 4/4 Delay in time with the track. Send the vocal track to this Delay via an aux or send. On the return track of the Delay apply a Low-pass Filter to about 1.5khz-2khz. This will cover the obvious delay effect and will ‘double up or make the vocal sound bigger’. I use this a lot when mixing live. Remember to use a High-pass Filter to about 100hz- 400hz to clean up the effect.
If you are feeling creative try sending the Delay to a plate or live styled reverb with 1.2ms or more in time.
- Big snare sound – (live work or studio) – Duplicate the snare channel. Pitch shift or transpose it to about 9 semi-tones or tune to taste. Drop a short plate reverb on the same channel. Make sure its at 100% wet. Use an eq or any other filter to roll off any top end to about 1-2khz. Blend with original snare to taste.
- Fat fader technique – Sent up a mono return track. Drop your favorite compressor on it. Send kick, snare and bass to the return via aux send. Slam the compressor, making sure to use a slow attack to preserve the transients, and medium to slow release. Then blend this into the rest of the mix to suit. Listen as the bottom end starts to become louder.
