sup guys welcome to the tutorial I'm
your host Weaver Beats and today I'll be
showing you guys how to mix a hip-hop
beat (instrumental) let's get started when starting
your mix you should make sure you have
no no effects on every track and you're
in your song including your master
unless it's like something that needs to
be there for creative effect like a
sidechain or a gate or something but try
to start off clean whenever you do a mix
you should stop clean if possible unless
you're on a more advanced side then you
can probably go in and work other
people's mixes more years you're gonna
want to have your inner track or your
beat nice and done you're gonna want
production process to be completely done
you know what an arrangement to be
completely done if possible you're gonna
want to not have to go back to change
anything so you may want to save a copy
of the file or just just not just be
done with it okay so once once you've
gotten that far we're gonna want to
you're gonna want to label all your
tracks you don't want to leave what
everything is that you can quickly move
through the project and you can do what
you need to do the second you have an
idea um you may want to color code
everything - I think I'm gonna do that
just to make it easier to look at and
you're gonna want to get rid of all
excess tracks so let's do all that now
we're gonna want to handle the levels so
we're going to start off with one thing
probably the synth and then we're gonna
bring in the drums and then the bass and
we're gonna try to mix it so the levels
are close together but everything still
cuts through and the reason you want or
anything close together in the mix is
that way when you master it you have
lots of headroom so yeah that's why you
don't want to think so per loud and your
mix because uh fuck up the Headroom and
they'll fuck up your in-game loudness
I'm gonna bring all the volumes down not
to zero but maybe like half way just cuz
I want to make sure the volume is quiet
on this mix I'm bringing all the volumes
down and I'm gonna mute everything
except for the synth or whatever sample
you have or you know you know everything
except for that and then you're gonna
basically start bringing out
minutes to try to get to levels perfect
you're gonna want to turn up the volume
as loud as possible about hurting your
ears it's good mixes sound good loud I'm
gonna turn up the master volume then
just temporarily so just turn that up
temporarily bring up the master on that
master fader bring up a simple bit I'll
meet the drums but I'm only gonna bring
in the kick for now this mix is too
quiet or a so I'm just bringing it up
too high for my headphones that is okay
so as you can see I just the kick volume
so that it cuts through the the synth
mostly I'm gonna do a little bit EQ
later on to get it to cut through
completely so we got that cutting
through maybe throw out a filter on it
so if you guys don't know this frequency
is all based on pitch and things end
pitch sound good so things in frequency
sound good
so it's possible you're gonna want to
know what key your song is in for now
we're gonna do everything by ear but
I'll show you later on why that's
important okay so I'm just gonna do this
to where it sounds good
probably right about there somewhere so
for me for this kick it's about 4,000
Hertz I'm cutting I'm doing a little
roll off basically to cut off any extra
high frequencies we'll need we want to
sound nice and and tomb so this should
help achieve that it's debatable what I
should do hi-hat and snare next I think
I'll just go ahead and do the hi-hat so
I'm gonna bring that volume up a little
bit I'm gonna put a Auto filter on it
cut out any low frequencies we don't
need that way that way the hi-hat and
the kick can play together nicely
without too much clashing too much
muddiness hitting this one at a 24
decibel over here 24 des will drop off
you want to be careful not to cut too
much frequencies anywhere really but
here just because you can cut out too
much of the body of this sound so I try
to leave that intact but you want to
make sure you caught some of the
frequencies that way they can play
together nicer okay so I'm gonna copy
over this Auto filter over to the open a
hi-hat diamond-cut low frequencies and
wanted to play well with the rest of the
instruments I'm just duplicating this
one for now two frets like a 10 play it
mud maybe I might have to adjust a
little bit we'll see
that's actually pretty good where it is
litera flying a little more rope
compressor on the main channel turn it
turn the ratio 2:1 and turn up the
output I'm just doing this to turn for
the game basically and then I'm gonna
bring the master fader back to normal
now I could just play with this instead
I'll just get rid of this this table top
compressor later on that way I can have
a nice quiet mix I just need a loud in
the headphones I'm bringing the snare
mic that's the cost low frequencies from
that snare my throne auto filter this
one I'm just gonna start from scratch as
you cut off some little frequencies you
may notice sometimes you have to boost
up the volume a little bit to compensate
that's totally normal
you want to make sure a lot of times
it's not the changes sound too much I
mean depending on if it's your own
production or someone else's you know
someone else is obviously you don't want
to change it too much I'm gonna go with
the 12 decibel cut off on this snare
here 24 made it to treble II I think now
I'll just start off with the 12
Masoli strum to see how they sound all
together it's bringing that sample Haven
from there I'm going to set the base
level so let's bring in the bass as you
can see the mix is hitting zero good
then we have this hollowed-out
compressor in here that we can take it
off at the end here and then we'll have
about nine decibels of headroom so
that's a good thing so don't do not
panic if you look over here and see see
some red that's fine
totally fine to see red seen red just
just do your thing
got a murdered someone named take them
out to the ocean that's cool all right
so I'm here got our love was pretty good
now we want to do some EQ aliy try to be
pretty strategic with my EQ like
basically the main the main purpose for
me a lot of times the cueing is either
cleaning out cleaning out an instrument
like I clean it up or I'm trying to make
room for other instruments they play
together nicer or I'm trying to like
shape it like shape too high or low end
that way they're more in tune with the
rest of the track and then sometimes I
boost frequencies as well just to like
sweeten things more so I could think
about that Wow
while I'm using them I mean I think
about why I'm doing it while I do it
so the first first thing I really want
to do okay definitely cut off the little
space here so I'm gonna throw it auto
filter I'm gonna leave it on 24 decibels
I'm gonna bring the frequency down
okay so about six sixty Hertz I'm gonna
leave it up next I'm gonna want to do
some EQ to this since I'm gonna use that
I'm sorry for the auto filter again I
like to work high-pass and low-pass
filter before reaching for EQ first
obviously because this is all about just
cleaning stuff up you know I mean if we
can do it simply if we can keep it
simple at first I would like to so
that's uh it's how we're gonna do it so
I'm gonna throw a 22 put a 24 decibel
Auto filter on this and it's a high-pass
filter and the frequency up until I uh
so I feel like all the instruments are
kind of playing nice together actually a
good technique for this in my opinion is
to solo the bass and sample and you want
to set the frequency right in the area
where you're not cutting off too much of
the samples loads or the and you're also
making room for the bass
so I actually switched the 12 decibel
cutoff and then I'm moving the frequency
up instead I think I might be a better
move on this let's say some around there
it's good there 20 Hertz for this
specific case so there's a side chain on
this synth here I think it could be
adjusted to be a little more on beat
though so I'm gonna try just sigh real
quick one one way I like to do that is
I'll set the ratio all the way up to max
just the ratio leave the threshold where
it is do not touch that cuz that'll
affect everything and then we're just
gonna play with the attack and release
from there just so we can find the
timing of it and then from there well
ease up on the ratio and then and then
we'll have our nice sidechain so I got
the kick running to the synth right now
I have it on max ratio and I'm gonna
play with this so I could find the time
and sometimes I'll turn on the metronome
even to try to help me find the timing
of it
let's say that's not good maybe I'm
maybe I'm wrong I'm tripping it sounded
good to me though
now I'm going to duplicate this
sidechain compressor I have over to the
base I'm going to dial back the ratio
and then one thing I like to do it like
this that way they're both in time I
feel like side chains should both be in
time synth one and the bass one
I'm gonna put the ratio pretty light
though because we're trying to make sure
we don't really affect the base too much
maybe turned down the dry/wet knob a
little bit
okay next I'm going to cut some EQ room
on this sense to make room for the kick
the other thing we did was more so for
the bass this is excuse for the kick
we're gonna use fab teacher yeah yeah
I'm gonna use fabfilter pro-q - then
we're gonna make a few little small
bells shaped like this we're gonna put
them around anywhere from like 30 to 200
Hertz or so I want to make a couple
probably the thing on the kick so I'm
gonna try to listen for where where it
cuts through ad
sixty Hertz so um I'll do a few relative
that I'll be relative Hertz wise to that
and so thirty and then also one twenty
see how that sounds and I'm gonna group
them up and make that gains all the
saints all negative point-eight I'm
gonna make the queue all the same as I
can then I'm gonna while I have them on
troop them adjusted so I can't I find a
nice sound I think that's perfect there
then if you also want to try play with
the save save the settings are too
strong and you want to try to tweak it
there's a little knob here for the gain
scale it's great it's one thing that's
one thing I love about fabfilter pro-q
so there's that snare too if you need it
so we can name that cut kick just to
make em so we know we ever fell what
that is in the future now I'm gonna do
the same thing but I'm do with the
hi-hat and then possibly the snare too
so now we're gonna do the hi-hat or even
just name to cut shhh
so you're going to make a little Bell
around like prions five K to 15 K but
you don't want to make a few but make
one for now
then try find the area where you think
the hi-hat really cuts through out
I want to say somewhere around 7k so I'm
gonna use that for reference so like 14k
and then 35 hundreds more around the
snacked area so I'm not gonna touch that
I'm just gonna make these two so the
select both of them makes like I'm gonna
make the gain the gain reduction about
the same minus 0.8 make that use the
same and I'm gonna adjust them until I
think it sounds nice okay so now we've
got the hi-hat cutting through now I'm
gonna make one more to cut room for the
snare okay so this one should be pretty
easy I think it was like 3,500 Hertz
let's try let's try make a little bell
there and see how it sounds
I don't know if I like cutting in the
area as much so I think I'm just going
to not do that one I'm just going to
only do this 36 stuff under 1 I'm just
gonna leave a settings how they are I
like how that sounded
I'm gonna cut a little bit more lows
from this sample as well we're doing
fabfilter this time I think that little
shelf there sounds nice so I'm gonna
basically like try to find some spots
where it it sounds good for me to boost
by turning it up really high and then
from there I'm going to turn it down so
I'm gonna do that real quick forgot to
say this may hurt your ears a little bit
but that's part of mixing maybe some
shit that hurt serious so we got 1 2 K
that I liked ok we'll do 22,000
enough 5300
10k about 900 so I'm going to turn all
these down to zero and then turn this to
one now now they're all the same just I
can turn them up the same like that
effect is too strong so I'm going to
turn down the gain scale here okay just
play with the settings a little bit
everywhere to get us on more how I
wanted as you see all the sound some a
lot more colorful than I did when we
started I think they do at least from
there we could try doing Distortion some
compression I think that's it for now
though I'm gonna make some notes in here
some mixed notes just on the on the
timeline here for myself alright so
that's it for this tutorial
I'm your host who your beats and this is
me showing you how to mix a hip-hop beat
in Ableton this is part 1 of I'm
assuming a two-part tutorial part 2 will
include me working on all other types of
effects like compression limiting
maximising distortion and saturation I
don't file use all those but I'll
probably use a good amount of them maybe
reverb to yeah thank you guys for
watching if you guys enjoyed this don't
forget the share with your friends if
they need if they have should you mix
the show to show them this and maybe
they'll maybe the mixing will get better
and then um yeah check out the next
video which should be out soon don't
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I'll see you guys next time