Tips and Tricks for Modern Producers

Discover tips, workarounds, and time-saving techniques to help music producers work smarter in the studio and enhance their final productions.

Introduction

• Modern production

1. EQ Roundup

• Surgical EQ and filtering
• Help elements sit in the mix
• Tame harsh elements
• Different flavors of additive EQ
• Combining additive and subtractive EQ
• The smile EQ shape
• Additive EQ on busses and 2-mix

2. Multiband Compressor Bootcamp

• Multiband compressors: A breakdown
• Using de-essers on tracks and busses
• Taming peaks and resonances
• Sidechain multiband compression
• Intro to expansion or re-essing
• Multiband expansion

3. Workflow Bootcamp

• Organization and backup
• File management for the modern producer
• Stemming and prep for mixing

4. Drum Programming and Processing

• Tuning programmed drums
• An approach to layering drum sounds
• Parallel compression on drums
• The virtues of parallel distortion
• A mixer's guide to drum routing

5. Synthesizer Programming

• Rhythmic synth sounds with MIDI FX
• Layering synth parts with hardware
• Getting from MIDI to audio
• Tips on hardware synth processing

6. Vocals Tips and Tricks

• Tracking vocals for maximum impact
• On-the-spot tuning
• Quick and dirty vocal chain
• Quick and dirty parallel vocals

7. Mix to Master

• Mix buss processing: Is it necessary?
• EQ and filtering with a multi-buss mix
• Gassing your mix with a limiter or two
• Prepping tracks for mastering

8. Compressor Bootcamp

• Compression basics
• Tasteful compression
• Vintage compressors and emulations
• VCA compression and drums
• FAT compression on guitars and vocals
• Opto compression on bass
• Chaining compressors on vocals
• Mix buss compression and glue

9. A Roll in the Dirt: Distortion and Saturation

• Origins of saturation
• Tape saturation and vintage vibe
• Bit stripping and low-fidelity applications
• Tube-style saturation and sheen
• Quick and dirty ITB reamping

10. Mixbuss Bootcamp

• Gain staging and headroom
• Mix buss EQ: Surgery and flavor
• Dialing in the mix buss compressor
• Applications of multiband processing
• Mix buss saturation
• Final limiting and how loud to print
• Transient designer overview
• Transient designer plugins
• Tweaking transients on drums

11. Transient Designer Hacks

• Adding punch to a drum buss
• Transient design vs. compression
• Transient designers on other instruments
• Creative use of transient designers
• Transient design across the mix buss

12. Getting The Most Out of Your Synthesizer Tracks

• Programming synths for optimal impact
• Hardware synth recording
• Using ITB MIDI FX with hardware synths
• Hardware synth treatment
• Synth mixing primer
• Synth ducking and sidechain compression
• Classic synth FX