Introduction
What's this mixing breakdown is all about?
- How to approach a mix.
- Workflow.
- Analyzing the song in detailed.
- Mixing method, thought behind process.
- Making decision through information that we has been gather.
- Psychology, capture the feels and emotion of the song and translate it into final mixdown.
99% of the mix are using stock plugins and 1% are free plugins
- How to approach a mix
Mixing is like a mind game sometime and can be a mentally taxing, especially for peoples who new to the working environment, but mixing is not that hard actually. The hard part is the listening time and the amounts of failure. Some people are good learner so they don't need huge amount of failure to getting better. With a little bit of knowledge, enough experience and basic understanding about physics of sound and music. You can go very far, no need to perform a weird rituals or black magic. Mixing is practically the same as cooking. It really is.
My workflow is probably very different than most people out there. First thing that peoples need to understand about how i approach a mix is that i rely on quality of the materials, if i need to mix a bad quality materials, there is no way i can make it any better. Simple as that.
However, if i have access to quality materials, my job would be much easier. I can focus on improve the mix instead of fixing bad materials. Time is precious so don't waste it.
What this mean is, it doesn't matter how good you mix it if the material is bad, the sound will come out bad regardless and mixing job become a bandage wrapping simulator. I don't think even a gordon ramsay can cook a rotting meat and turn it into 5 star meals. It's the same thing as audio mixing.
- Preparation for mixing
A GOOD material for the song you need to mix.
The result is quite promising.
A unbreakable rule: It's always better to get it right at the source. (this rule apply to just about anything in life. Really.)
Not only you need a good material, but also a good well rested is very important, fill up your belly. After that you need to arranged the mix project like track name, create fx track, make a tracks alignment, give tracks some nice color. You have do it often until it become your habbit (it's save a lot of time).
While you listen to the song you wanted to mix, you might aswell prepared your mix. Such as, rename your track, set up project file, set the tempo, arrange your track, give them a nice colors. Human may not the best at multitasking unlike pegions but we are more than sufficient.
Also. You MUST Re-check your materials and make sure that you don't have to go back to fix or replace it.
- Analyzing the song.
This SHOULD be your first priority before touching any plugins. You must know the song or atleast get some glimpse of idea about the song. If you don't understand the song you can not mix it.
The song i choose for this tutorial is feature on anime Tamayura Hitotose. . . The theme of this anime is basically a bunch of teenage girl who chasing their dreams. Although it's not a huge triumphs achievement by any mean. It's about achieving small successes and enjoying them. The story is very sweet, calm, heartwarming, very relaxing to watch and this song is perfectly suited for such type of anime, warm, cozy, and soothing to listen.
This mean choosing the right vbs according to style of the song is probably the best choice, i've was thinking about picking Luka, or miku and seem like miku dark could be a better choice due to the voice character, but after i play around with many voicebanks and i find that miku dark may fit nicely for the first part of the song but not so much when she need to sing chorus part, so i had to pick yamine renri for this song and tune them in such a way to make her a sing little more soothing and more relaxing than the original singer, so my decision is to not include the harmonic part on chorus section of the song but very few area that i add a tiny bit of harmonic part.
My decision is: i choose yamine renri for this song, although miku dark is very tempting but i find that renri more suited for this song due to her voice vibe with the song so well.
This song is very warm and have a cozy feels due to frequency around 60-200Hz, this is where this song is all about, meanwhile relaxing to listen because this is not a busy song and a relax frequency around 4-6kHz, there is plenty of room for vocal to sit in nicely. The challenging part is to make vocal sound warmth, moist and soothing while not try to complete with the song, which is quite difficult because renri voice are naturally low-end rich.
That being said, be familiar with your Voicebank and understand their characteristic will give you a significant advantage.
- Workflow
It usually go like this: Track gain(pre-fader)>EQ, Compression/Limiter, EQ, De-esser(optional)> colorful EQ,> colorful Comp> Track gain (post-fader)
After all the process above, make a send fx aux track and then vocal track signal to send fx, it will look like this.
Vocal Track>>>> Send fx: reverb1, reverb2, delay1, you might adjust how strong the signal before hit the effect track with send knob and adjust the fader of send fx track again.
If you create a vocal buss, it usually go like this.
[Track & Send fx]>>>>Vocal bus: EQ>Compression>EQ. After that, vocal track and send fx become a single track as vocal buss
Sometime people may send it on 2Bus by merge vocal bus with instrument track and process it again like this.
[Track & Send fx] = Vocal bus+offvocal track = 2Bus: EQ> Compression> saturation etc etc.
This is not a rule of thumb but most mixing workflow are look like this in general.
- Mixing method, thought behind process & Making decision through information that we has been gather
Before you insert any plugins on the track, you might give yourself a few minutes to listen to the track once again in solo and in context to collect some bit of information, so what you want to listening for is the overall balance of the track and this is where we get the most info from Analyzing the song in detailed part.
Every song are different but in this specific song, i have to be careful to not overcooked it and song like this can be blessed and cursed at the same time. Although it may look like an easy to mix song.
Also gain automation can make a huge impact on overall balance by simply draw a gain automation on the entire vocals track, it's the same thing as draw a pitch inside vocaloid editor.
- Plugins list
1.Saturation
2.ReaEQ
3.ReaComp
4.Simple Peak
5.ReaVerbate
6.ReaVerb
7.ReaLimit
8.Loudness Meter
9.Spectrograph
The amount of plugins on the list is surprisingly low, if i don't count monitoring plugins like spectrograph and loudness meter then, only 7 plugins is more than enough.
My decision is to make the most transparent edit as much as possible, because i already like how renri sounds, even though, the amount plugins on vocals track doesn't look like a "minimal" edit at all.
Note: Vocal main track and vocal harmonic track are share the same plugin and same setting but different gain setting.
My first plugin on the vocal list is the saturation.
Saturation can be one of the most transparent type of effect believe it or not. Especially the sigmoid type. When feed a hot signal into a AD/DA and when singals hit the ceiling, it start to clip out in the most pleasing way so, most mixing guy out there like to feed a hot signal into these mastering AD/DA on a purpose.
This is what Sigmoid function look like, it's look fairly similar to the soft-clipping because it is a soft-clipping.
I choose to use this type Saturation in the first slot on plugins list because i want to reduce a peak values to the average values ratio (Crest factor) without altering the signal too much, If i have to do it with a stock, non Program dependent compression it is practically impossible.
Saturation at the core is just a compression and it could be considered an extreme form of compression or the most transparent soft-knee like compression, it's depend on how you use it.
One thing that saturation set it self apart from compression is that it doesn't produce any compression artifact, but compression are more programmable.
As you can see, it is very peaky. Although a really good limiter can soften those peak but i don't have access to those plugins so Saturation is the best choce i could think of.
Second plugin is EQ!
It's cliche type of eq setting, the first EQ is focus on how to feed an treated signal to the next, although i rarely use High Pass (Low cut) on anything, maybe a reverb and there is a reason for it... unnecessary is one of them, i can barely feel anything 80Hz and below so i shelf them out -4dB and it's all gone and i think that's enough.
The band 2 i cut off around 210-ish at -2dB because Renri voice are generally low-end rich so reduce her low-end to balance thing out
The band 3 i barely do anything on 600Hz but cutting -0.6dB with very w i d e Q
The band 4 is to lift the most of the harmonic frequency around 1000-3000kHz at 2dB this is where the singer live for the rest of the song. Although fundamental frequency is one or two octave lower.
The band 5 is to make the most out of the renri voice, because i tune her to sound very soft so the area around 5000-7000kHz is where she suffers the most. It is a tough decision to make during tuning but i can only pick one.
3rd plugin is the limiter.
As the name of the plugin suggested. A simple peak limiter but this is a wide band no look-ahead limiter, which mean it will react the entire frequency range, and this is the reason why i have to EQ renri voice before use this plugin. Renri voice are low-end rich, so limiter will react to the low-end source first, this is where most peoples doesn't like to put any limiter on their vocals because it choke singer and it feel uncomfortable to listen to. I think this limiter have some decent algorithm inside it, the amount of limiting is around 1-4dB. Every plugins have it's own behaviors, so it is best to be familiar with.
4th plugin is the compressor.
There is something that i have to mention first. Although this compression is quite good when it come to function but not so much in the algorithm so i have to set it differently compare to others stock plugin, the pre-comp parameters is basically a look-ahead, although it work a little bit different that most look ahead algorithm. Other than that, this is a standard compressor, so if your stock compressor doesn't have pre-comp/look-ahead, just pretend that it doesn't exist.
The first compressor in the series is ment to be a fast acting compressor, so i set the attack time very low to 1.5ms and release time is only 30ms at 4:1 ratio. The purpose of this setting is not about catch peak but rather sculpt it to shape. Since saturation and peak limiter already doing their job so cutting peak with compressor is unnecessary. This explain why knee size are setting at 3db, Even though it still sound like a hard knee-ish sound. Gain reduction is dancing around -1 to -4db
5th plugin is the compressor. again...
The second compressor in the series is ment to be a slowest acting compressor with RMS like behavior. The purpose is to even out the average of the entire frequency spectrum, like putting whipped cream on top of the cake. The way to do it is to compress the entire waveform in stealth manner, these setting are roughly similar to RMS compressior with attack of 240ms, release of 670ms with very gentle ratio of 1.4:1 and make it even smoother by increased the knee size to 6dB. Gain reduction moving around 1-3dB
last plugin on the list is the EQ.
It is much easier to EQ at this stage because materials has already been cooked and all i need to do is to add a flavors to taste.
Then again, another cliche type of eq setting. After all of the process, it's time to make it snug fit in the song, so i only need 3 band of EQ: 1, 4, 5
The band 1 i boost 2.5dB at 250Hz because of all processing above, it's time to give it back.
The band 4 i add more 2dB(bell curve) at 1500Hz, this is the area where singer have to live here for the entire song, and with a wide Q which make it less telephonic sound.
The band 5 i add more 4dB(high shelf) at 8000Hz is to make the most out of the renri voice then again. Not much i can say, soft voice always suffer at this frequency range, i could probably boost it even more like 6-10dB but i think that's not a good idea so i have to find an alternative to make her voice airly without touching EQ.
After all the hard work, let's listen to the result.
- Manipulate sound character with effect , using depth and space to capture the emotion of the song and translate it into final mixdown.
This is the part where we use effect to create depth and space as we expected but it can do more than that. What i want to achieve in this section is to make vocals fit into the song, make renri voice even softer, more mellow, but also airly and shiny. This seem to be very difficult but with the effects we can achieve that result. Just remind there is always trade-off with any decisions we made so we have to mix such a way to get a specific sounds and feed them to effect. This require a lot of expirence.
This effects list is unusual for most mixing scenario
I use 4 different type of reverb to compliment each others, space designing skills is very important.
The first effect is Ambience
The purpose of this effect is to make a very bright ambience sound to enhance the renri voice, while make very little reverb feedback, although i can't hear the reverb but i can feel it.
As the Reverb EQ look like with an insane High cut at 11kHz, this ambience have bright character.
The second effect is the Room reverb
Since i can't choose type of room in reaper stock reverb, so i have to design it. This room reverb is focus on builing up an foundation for the next reverb, this reverb is sound like a small living room (if you live in japan you may considered it as a medium living room)
Hi-cut at 7kHz is relatively bright living room, this make it sound like a 4*2meter size room
The next reverb is the chamber type of reverb
This chamber type of reverb is focus on mono space, if you look at the pan parameter, it set to -1 which mean it is completely mono reverb, this reverb sound like a treated chamber, it somewhat less feedback type of reverb.
With a very control reverb EQ Hi-cut at 6kHz and a little dip at 1.4kHz because reverb start to sound resonate.
Adding a little amount of Saturation at the end of reverb, it actually make reverb sound more rounded.
The last reverb is the Hall type of reverb
This hall reverb have a loooooong reverb tail and sound like a ensemble hall but much darker color, this reverb will make renri sound tinner and a little weak if no treatment, but i already compansate her voice during mix so, this will make renri sound mellow and warm.
With a very dark reverb with Hi-cut at 4kHz and a tiny dip at 2kHz.
Adding a little amount of Saturation at the end of hall reverb with the same amount as chamber to make reverb sound even more darker.
Adding an gentle touch of compression on vocal bus.
A very slooooow RMS like compression although with standard ratio of 4.0:1 with Arch bridge like knee curve to garantee the smoothest compressor action.
A little bit of treatment on off-vocal track
A gentle touch of 1.6kHz at -0.4 to make renri sits a little bit better, this is the frequency range where renri voice spend her life there for the entire song.
A gentle touch with compression too, very standard setting but much gentle ratio of 1.5:1
A final effect at master track
A normal limiter. Since this off-vocal track are already mastered so there is no point to push it further.
Ceiling is become a huge controversial topic where it should set, you don't have to believe me because i'm not an engineer but i wanted to tell you that -1dB as most stream platform is recommended are nonsense. Loudness war are over and loud has won. I do not follow those regulation rules or spectification for particular streaming services, i just simply doing what's best for the song.
This should be the end of this tutorial, let's listen to the final result.
As demonstration, a stock plugins can get it done with little issue.
Once you gain more experience, you will know what tools you really need, then buy tools base on logical conclusions.
What's this mixing breakdown is all about?
- How to approach a mix.
- Workflow.
- Analyzing the song in detailed.
- Mixing method, thought behind process.
- Making decision through information that we has been gather.
- Psychology, capture the feels and emotion of the song and translate it into final mixdown.
99% of the mix are using stock plugins and 1% are free plugins
- How to approach a mix
Mixing is like a mind game sometime and can be a mentally taxing, especially for peoples who new to the working environment, but mixing is not that hard actually. The hard part is the listening time and the amounts of failure. Some people are good learner so they don't need huge amount of failure to getting better. With a little bit of knowledge, enough experience and basic understanding about physics of sound and music. You can go very far, no need to perform a weird rituals or black magic. Mixing is practically the same as cooking. It really is.
My workflow is probably very different than most people out there. First thing that peoples need to understand about how i approach a mix is that i rely on quality of the materials, if i need to mix a bad quality materials, there is no way i can make it any better. Simple as that.
However, if i have access to quality materials, my job would be much easier. I can focus on improve the mix instead of fixing bad materials. Time is precious so don't waste it.
What this mean is, it doesn't matter how good you mix it if the material is bad, the sound will come out bad regardless and mixing job become a bandage wrapping simulator. I don't think even a gordon ramsay can cook a rotting meat and turn it into 5 star meals. It's the same thing as audio mixing.
- Preparation for mixing
A GOOD material for the song you need to mix.
A unbreakable rule: It's always better to get it right at the source. (this rule apply to just about anything in life. Really.)
Not only you need a good material, but also a good well rested is very important, fill up your belly. After that you need to arranged the mix project like track name, create fx track, make a tracks alignment, give tracks some nice color. You have do it often until it become your habbit (it's save a lot of time).
While you listen to the song you wanted to mix, you might aswell prepared your mix. Such as, rename your track, set up project file, set the tempo, arrange your track, give them a nice colors. Human may not the best at multitasking unlike pegions but we are more than sufficient.
Also. You MUST Re-check your materials and make sure that you don't have to go back to fix or replace it.
- Analyzing the song.
This SHOULD be your first priority before touching any plugins. You must know the song or atleast get some glimpse of idea about the song. If you don't understand the song you can not mix it.
The song i choose for this tutorial is feature on anime Tamayura Hitotose. . . The theme of this anime is basically a bunch of teenage girl who chasing their dreams. Although it's not a huge triumphs achievement by any mean. It's about achieving small successes and enjoying them. The story is very sweet, calm, heartwarming, very relaxing to watch and this song is perfectly suited for such type of anime, warm, cozy, and soothing to listen.
This mean choosing the right vbs according to style of the song is probably the best choice, i've was thinking about picking Luka, or miku and seem like miku dark could be a better choice due to the voice character, but after i play around with many voicebanks and i find that miku dark may fit nicely for the first part of the song but not so much when she need to sing chorus part, so i had to pick yamine renri for this song and tune them in such a way to make her a sing little more soothing and more relaxing than the original singer, so my decision is to not include the harmonic part on chorus section of the song but very few area that i add a tiny bit of harmonic part.
My decision is: i choose yamine renri for this song, although miku dark is very tempting but i find that renri more suited for this song due to her voice vibe with the song so well.
This song is very warm and have a cozy feels due to frequency around 60-200Hz, this is where this song is all about, meanwhile relaxing to listen because this is not a busy song and a relax frequency around 4-6kHz, there is plenty of room for vocal to sit in nicely. The challenging part is to make vocal sound warmth, moist and soothing while not try to complete with the song, which is quite difficult because renri voice are naturally low-end rich.
That being said, be familiar with your Voicebank and understand their characteristic will give you a significant advantage.
- Workflow
It usually go like this: Track gain(pre-fader)>EQ, Compression/Limiter, EQ, De-esser(optional)> colorful EQ,> colorful Comp> Track gain (post-fader)
After all the process above, make a send fx aux track and then vocal track signal to send fx, it will look like this.
Vocal Track>>>> Send fx: reverb1, reverb2, delay1, you might adjust how strong the signal before hit the effect track with send knob and adjust the fader of send fx track again.
If you create a vocal buss, it usually go like this.
[Track & Send fx]>>>>Vocal bus: EQ>Compression>EQ. After that, vocal track and send fx become a single track as vocal buss
Sometime people may send it on 2Bus by merge vocal bus with instrument track and process it again like this.
[Track & Send fx] = Vocal bus+offvocal track = 2Bus: EQ> Compression> saturation etc etc.
This is not a rule of thumb but most mixing workflow are look like this in general.
- Mixing method, thought behind process & Making decision through information that we has been gather
Before you insert any plugins on the track, you might give yourself a few minutes to listen to the track once again in solo and in context to collect some bit of information, so what you want to listening for is the overall balance of the track and this is where we get the most info from Analyzing the song in detailed part.
Every song are different but in this specific song, i have to be careful to not overcooked it and song like this can be blessed and cursed at the same time. Although it may look like an easy to mix song.
Also gain automation can make a huge impact on overall balance by simply draw a gain automation on the entire vocals track, it's the same thing as draw a pitch inside vocaloid editor.
- Plugins list
1.Saturation
2.ReaEQ
3.ReaComp
4.Simple Peak
5.ReaVerbate
6.ReaVerb
7.ReaLimit
8.Loudness Meter
9.Spectrograph
The amount of plugins on the list is surprisingly low, if i don't count monitoring plugins like spectrograph and loudness meter then, only 7 plugins is more than enough.
My decision is to make the most transparent edit as much as possible, because i already like how renri sounds, even though, the amount plugins on vocals track doesn't look like a "minimal" edit at all.
Note: Vocal main track and vocal harmonic track are share the same plugin and same setting but different gain setting.
My first plugin on the vocal list is the saturation.
Saturation can be one of the most transparent type of effect believe it or not. Especially the sigmoid type. When feed a hot signal into a AD/DA and when singals hit the ceiling, it start to clip out in the most pleasing way so, most mixing guy out there like to feed a hot signal into these mastering AD/DA on a purpose.
This is what Sigmoid function look like, it's look fairly similar to the soft-clipping because it is a soft-clipping.
I choose to use this type Saturation in the first slot on plugins list because i want to reduce a peak values to the average values ratio (Crest factor) without altering the signal too much, If i have to do it with a stock, non Program dependent compression it is practically impossible.
Saturation at the core is just a compression and it could be considered an extreme form of compression or the most transparent soft-knee like compression, it's depend on how you use it.
One thing that saturation set it self apart from compression is that it doesn't produce any compression artifact, but compression are more programmable.
As you can see, it is very peaky. Although a really good limiter can soften those peak but i don't have access to those plugins so Saturation is the best choce i could think of.
Second plugin is EQ!
It's cliche type of eq setting, the first EQ is focus on how to feed an treated signal to the next, although i rarely use High Pass (Low cut) on anything, maybe a reverb and there is a reason for it... unnecessary is one of them, i can barely feel anything 80Hz and below so i shelf them out -4dB and it's all gone and i think that's enough.
The band 2 i cut off around 210-ish at -2dB because Renri voice are generally low-end rich so reduce her low-end to balance thing out
The band 3 i barely do anything on 600Hz but cutting -0.6dB with very w i d e Q
The band 4 is to lift the most of the harmonic frequency around 1000-3000kHz at 2dB this is where the singer live for the rest of the song. Although fundamental frequency is one or two octave lower.
The band 5 is to make the most out of the renri voice, because i tune her to sound very soft so the area around 5000-7000kHz is where she suffers the most. It is a tough decision to make during tuning but i can only pick one.
3rd plugin is the limiter.
As the name of the plugin suggested. A simple peak limiter but this is a wide band no look-ahead limiter, which mean it will react the entire frequency range, and this is the reason why i have to EQ renri voice before use this plugin. Renri voice are low-end rich, so limiter will react to the low-end source first, this is where most peoples doesn't like to put any limiter on their vocals because it choke singer and it feel uncomfortable to listen to. I think this limiter have some decent algorithm inside it, the amount of limiting is around 1-4dB. Every plugins have it's own behaviors, so it is best to be familiar with.
4th plugin is the compressor.
There is something that i have to mention first. Although this compression is quite good when it come to function but not so much in the algorithm so i have to set it differently compare to others stock plugin, the pre-comp parameters is basically a look-ahead, although it work a little bit different that most look ahead algorithm. Other than that, this is a standard compressor, so if your stock compressor doesn't have pre-comp/look-ahead, just pretend that it doesn't exist.
The first compressor in the series is ment to be a fast acting compressor, so i set the attack time very low to 1.5ms and release time is only 30ms at 4:1 ratio. The purpose of this setting is not about catch peak but rather sculpt it to shape. Since saturation and peak limiter already doing their job so cutting peak with compressor is unnecessary. This explain why knee size are setting at 3db, Even though it still sound like a hard knee-ish sound. Gain reduction is dancing around -1 to -4db
5th plugin is the compressor. again...
The second compressor in the series is ment to be a slowest acting compressor with RMS like behavior. The purpose is to even out the average of the entire frequency spectrum, like putting whipped cream on top of the cake. The way to do it is to compress the entire waveform in stealth manner, these setting are roughly similar to RMS compressior with attack of 240ms, release of 670ms with very gentle ratio of 1.4:1 and make it even smoother by increased the knee size to 6dB. Gain reduction moving around 1-3dB
last plugin on the list is the EQ.
It is much easier to EQ at this stage because materials has already been cooked and all i need to do is to add a flavors to taste.
Then again, another cliche type of eq setting. After all of the process, it's time to make it snug fit in the song, so i only need 3 band of EQ: 1, 4, 5
The band 1 i boost 2.5dB at 250Hz because of all processing above, it's time to give it back.
The band 4 i add more 2dB(bell curve) at 1500Hz, this is the area where singer have to live here for the entire song, and with a wide Q which make it less telephonic sound.
The band 5 i add more 4dB(high shelf) at 8000Hz is to make the most out of the renri voice then again. Not much i can say, soft voice always suffer at this frequency range, i could probably boost it even more like 6-10dB but i think that's not a good idea so i have to find an alternative to make her voice airly without touching EQ.
After all the hard work, let's listen to the result.
- Manipulate sound character with effect , using depth and space to capture the emotion of the song and translate it into final mixdown.
This is the part where we use effect to create depth and space as we expected but it can do more than that. What i want to achieve in this section is to make vocals fit into the song, make renri voice even softer, more mellow, but also airly and shiny. This seem to be very difficult but with the effects we can achieve that result. Just remind there is always trade-off with any decisions we made so we have to mix such a way to get a specific sounds and feed them to effect. This require a lot of expirence.
This effects list is unusual for most mixing scenario
I use 4 different type of reverb to compliment each others, space designing skills is very important.
The first effect is Ambience
The purpose of this effect is to make a very bright ambience sound to enhance the renri voice, while make very little reverb feedback, although i can't hear the reverb but i can feel it.
As the Reverb EQ look like with an insane High cut at 11kHz, this ambience have bright character.
The second effect is the Room reverb
Since i can't choose type of room in reaper stock reverb, so i have to design it. This room reverb is focus on builing up an foundation for the next reverb, this reverb is sound like a small living room (if you live in japan you may considered it as a medium living room)
Hi-cut at 7kHz is relatively bright living room, this make it sound like a 4*2meter size room
The next reverb is the chamber type of reverb
This chamber type of reverb is focus on mono space, if you look at the pan parameter, it set to -1 which mean it is completely mono reverb, this reverb sound like a treated chamber, it somewhat less feedback type of reverb.
With a very control reverb EQ Hi-cut at 6kHz and a little dip at 1.4kHz because reverb start to sound resonate.
Adding a little amount of Saturation at the end of reverb, it actually make reverb sound more rounded.
The last reverb is the Hall type of reverb
This hall reverb have a loooooong reverb tail and sound like a ensemble hall but much darker color, this reverb will make renri sound tinner and a little weak if no treatment, but i already compansate her voice during mix so, this will make renri sound mellow and warm.
With a very dark reverb with Hi-cut at 4kHz and a tiny dip at 2kHz.
Adding a little amount of Saturation at the end of hall reverb with the same amount as chamber to make reverb sound even more darker.
Adding an gentle touch of compression on vocal bus.
A very slooooow RMS like compression although with standard ratio of 4.0:1 with Arch bridge like knee curve to garantee the smoothest compressor action.
A little bit of treatment on off-vocal track
A gentle touch of 1.6kHz at -0.4 to make renri sits a little bit better, this is the frequency range where renri voice spend her life there for the entire song.
A gentle touch with compression too, very standard setting but much gentle ratio of 1.5:1
A final effect at master track
A normal limiter. Since this off-vocal track are already mastered so there is no point to push it further.
Ceiling is become a huge controversial topic where it should set, you don't have to believe me because i'm not an engineer but i wanted to tell you that -1dB as most stream platform is recommended are nonsense. Loudness war are over and loud has won. I do not follow those regulation rules or spectification for particular streaming services, i just simply doing what's best for the song.
This should be the end of this tutorial, let's listen to the final result.
As demonstration, a stock plugins can get it done with little issue.
Once you gain more experience, you will know what tools you really need, then buy tools base on logical conclusions.
