Welcome to Sage Audio. Today let’s cover How to Mix With Harmonics. But first,
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Bass Saturation Settings
For this video, I want to cover some creative ways to use harmonics.
Let’s start with some bass saturation settings - I’ll use this saturator to
use a warm setting on the low frequencies, and a more aggressive one on the highs to increase
the lows while keeping the definition. Then I’m going to insert this Split EQ by Eventide.
With it I can affect the tonal and transient aspects of my saturation separately - I’ll
increase the sustain-esc elements of the lowest frequencies and the transients on
the highs. This way the harmonics I introduced have quieter details amplified in the lows,
and percussive aspects amplified in the highs.
Let’s take a listen and notice how the bass sounds both full and detailed.
Drum Side Image Saturation
From my drum bus, I’ll create a send, on which I’ve inserted the free plugin MSED to solo the
side image - then I’ve inserted Saturate by Newfangled Audio to heavily distort the drum’s
side image, adding lots of harmonics. Lastly, I used this Punctuate plugin by the same developer.
With it, I cause frequency-specific expansion to the side image. By adding
harmonics I filled out the otherwise sparse side image,
then by expanding the side image I caused dynamic amplification of these aggressive harmonics.
Let’s listen to how this creates a truly unique and impressive drum bus.
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Harmonics into Doubler From my melody or vocal, I’m
going to create a send and subsequent auxiliary track, on which I’ll add a saturation plugin to
introduce strong harmonics and aggressively fill the vocal’s frequency spectrum. Then,
I’ll insert a vocal doubler plugin, in this case, H3000 Factory by Eventide.
I’ll select its Tripler preset and increase the mix to 100%. By filling out the frequency spectrum
of the vocal before doubling, I made an effect designed to thicken a vocal sound even fuller.
Lastly, I’ll blend in the overall effect with the aux track’s channel fader. Let’s take a listen.
In-Key Saturation Bands
The song we’ve been working on is in the key B flat minor - its fundamental is Db. With
this info, I’ll use the plugin Saturator by PSP Audioware and center my low-frequency saturation
over the fundamental and the high-frequency saturation over an overtone or higher harmonic.
Since I’m distorting higher frequencies I’ll use the oversampling function, and I also
created a drive effect by increasing the input and decreasing the output.
Let’s take a listen and notice how saturating in-key aspects of the signal,
makes it sound fuller and more musical.
Time-Based Drum Saturation
With this Shaperbox plugin by CableGuys, I’m going to use the drive module to introduce
hard clipping to my drum bus - but I’m going to use the Audio trigger to isolate it to my
transients. With the window in the middle, I ended the distorted after 1/16th note.
This keeps the distortion to the beginning of my drum hit,
and also creates a slightly musical sound whenever the
distortion or harmonics are taken out of the signal by the end of the 1/16th note.
Let’s listen and notice how the drums sound more impressive.
Auxiliary Mid Hz. Saturation
If the overall mid-range of your mix isn’t sounding right, here’s a fun and easy
trick - send your buses to an auxiliary track on which you insert a linear phase EQ and isolate the
mid frequencies. Then insert a saturation plugin - I’ve found that Tape works well.
I chose this TAIP plugin by Baby Audio and introduced a good amount of drive,
while also including some of its compression options. Lastly,
we can blend the effect with the aux channel fader.
Let’s take a listen and notice how full and impressive the mid-frequency range becomes.
Unique Ducked Harmonics
This is a strange trick, but it has both creative and practical uses - first I’ll create a send from
a signal, in this case, a vocal bus, and first insert my saturation plugin. Then I’ll insert
a compressor and side-chain the original unprocessed vocal, making it the trigger.
Now whenever the beginning of a vocal transient is present,
the level of saturation goes down but increases as the clean vocal gets quieter.
If used very aggressively this could have a cool creative sound, but if used subtly,
it helps keep a signal’s transient clean while still getting the benefit of harmonic distortion.
Let’s take a listen.
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Using Exciters on Bus
Exciters are frequency-specific saturators,
typically ones that isolate the harmonics to the highest frequency ranges. This makes them
great for brightening up a sound - I’ll often use this free Air EQ and exciter
plugin on my buses to quickly add clarity and bring forward details in the highs.
Let’s take a listen to how it instantly brightens the
sound and creates a dense high-frequency range.
Separating Kick and Bass
These last 2 chapters will be pretty simple but useful nonetheless.
If our kick and bass are clashing too much we can use varying harmonics to help differentiate them.
For example, I could use Tape saturation on the kick which creates odd harmonics,
and Tube on the bass to emphasize even harmonics.
This will depend on the plugin you use, but generally,
these types of saturation are odd and even respectively.
Let’s take a listen.
Separating
Vocal and Inst
Similar to the last chapter, we can use varying harmonic formations to help separate clashing
signals. I’ll use transistor saturation on the vocal to subtly increase the high frequencies,
and clean tube saturation on the instruments to
create balanced even and odd harmonics - giving the 2 unique sonic spaces.
Let’s take a listen and notice how each is
a little more distinct from one another after introduces these saturation types.
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mastered sample of it with the link in the description. Thank you so much for watching.