THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW | How To Get A Track To Jump Out The Speakers!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Welcome back. I'm Streaky. Today, I'm going to discuss something with you that I get told in the comments a lot. This topic is something that other pro mastering engineers have been given me, loads of stick for recently. The reason they don't like it is because I'm giving away secrets that they think they should keep to themselves. They think that by me telling you all this stuff, that you're going to go out there and become mastering engineers like them. But the fact of the matter is who cares, who knows all of these tips. It's just good that basically I can share my knowledge with you. I don't see the point of me taking it to the grave. So for that reason, I'm going to tell you today exactly how pro mastering engineers get tracks, sounding popping on radio, which now works for Spotify too.

Let's tuck in. So here we are in Pro Tools. I've got a couple of tracks lined up. I want to show you this trick works on a couple of different tracks. Let's listen to the tracks. (Music playing). Guitar-ey song, and then more of a soundtrack-ey thing. So let me show you exactly what I'm going to do, where what we're going to do. We're going to get some definition out of this by really bringing the dynamics into the tracks. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you some EQ settings that really brings the dynamics back. Well, when I say dynamics, I mean, if I was talking like this all the time, then it would become really dull and really flat. And really that's what I'm talking about with the music. That's why when I speak, I speak up and down round. And so that things sound a little bit more interesting and a little bit more exciting putting the emphasis in the right places. So this is what I'm going to do with the tracks. It's just going to make them a little bit more dynamic. So they're not as flat.

The balance is great, but they just need to have a little bit more dynamic. Now what this does it actually, when they're played on systems, when they're played on the radio, especially when they're played on smaller devices that don't pick up super low end, super high end. What these settings do is that they add the dynamics and they really make the ear more interested in the sound. And so what that subconsciously makes it feel a little bit more exciting and a bit more interesting. You'll see what I mean now. So I do this in a dynamic EQ. I'm going to use the FabFilter Pro Q3. Now that is the standard you want to, if you haven't got one of these, just get one. And I'm going to use this in linear phase and in high, just because that makes it sound really nice when we're doing this thing.

The first thing I'm going to do is I lifting the base up. Now, what I want to do, you'll see is the low end. We're going to use M/S EQ now. So M/S is the mid and the side. So the side being the outside and the mid being the stuff that happens in the center. So we're going to put this around 80Hz, lift it by about 1.5dB I'd say. And then make sure that it's in dynamic mode. It's a shelf. What this doing is lifting the whole of the low end. So you can see that's going all the way up to about 500 there. So it's the whole bottom end is getting lifted. It's on a shelf and it's also dynamic. So we're putting the dynamics so that it lifts the track as the kicks and as things kick in, it's going to start pushing the track and making the low end bounce a bit. So let's just listen to how that sounds. (Music playing).

So you can hear the bass there is starting the kick moves a bit more. It's got a little bit more thump to it. Now, the next thing I want to do, and this is the important one is again, I'm on a dynamic EQ and I'm in the mids again on the placement it's in the mids. But what I'm doing this time, instead of bringing that up so that every time the mids kick in, it just goes up. What I'm doing is I'm going the reverse way round. And so I'm lifting the mids anyway. So the mids are coming up, but as the track kicks in and starts moving, you can see it's pretty much doing. This slope is around from about a hundred to about 2k, 3k. And so what this is doing is grabbing the whole of those lower mids.

And that's where we get some real width and chunkiness. But what I'm doing is I'm putting that in. But as the track starts playing, it's going to start ducking them and moving them around. So it's just really moving them low mids. So it gets a really good load of dynamics going. And especially because I've lifted this here, it's actually, it's not going to get muddy and murky because what happens is if you lift the low end a lot, it starts getting really muddy around this frequency range here. So what you're doing is you're then ducking that down as this is kicking in, that's ducking down. Because that's going up, that's going down in level with the dynamic EQ. Let's listen to how that sounds. So the best way to listen to this is to listen to the kick, the low end, the stuff that's happening around here, around the 80Hz. And that way you'll be able to hear the sharpness that this brings. Now think about the transience, the attack, things that are happening really quickly and sharp. That's what's going to happen here. So let me play that and you'll hear what I mean, listen for the low end. And then you'll hear when it goes in and out what it's doing. (Music playing).

Now as a little finishing touch on this to really get things moving, I want to do something on the top end. I just don't want the mids in the low moving. I want the top moving too. So on the outside this time. So I'm going with the sides only. And what I'm doing is as this is going all the way up from about 1k, and then it's going all the way up to the top. You can see the way that's working. And what this does as this kicks in, it's going to just open up the sides. So it feels a bit wider. So here we're just doing the mid, the stuff that's happening in the center. We then doing some little flashed off that's happening at the top, which makes that sound less mono. Because this is obviously going to make it sound more mono because we're pushing the mid frequencies.

But with this stuff happening on the outside, everything doesn't sound as mono, but everything sounds like it's got more space. So it's got more space from this. It's also then got more dynamics happening because of what's going on in the mid, this ducking. And then this more kicking in with more low end. We've got this weird smiley face happening with a bit of docking in the middle, which makes it all very exciting. So let me just play that across this track. And then I'll show you that it does actually work on the other track. But what you need to do, you might have to move these around. I'm not saying exactly what I've set up here is what you're going to use on every single track. But these kinds of frequency ranges and this style of thing, move it around until it sounds right on the track you're working on. Listen to this. (Music playing).

So you can hear that all sounding quite exciting there. So let's listen to this track. (Music playing). So as I said, I’ll probably put a bit more mids in here. Maybe I’ll stretch that a little bit wider. (Music playing). Maybe I’ll give it a little bit more low end. This track needs a bit more low end. (Music playing). Now, I might bring that back in a bit. Now that I’ve got that low end up a bit. I think I should have just put more low end in first place.

So you can hear how much more interesting that sounding now, same with the other track. Totally different tracks, but I'm just using the same technique of making the tops a little bit wider. Making that more exciting. Bringing the base up. So it's got a little bit more low end, a little bit more warmth, a bit more punch. And then this is really bringing the sort of the sharpness to the punch. So that's exactly how you'll get something sounding really exciting to somebody's ears, which really translates well onto radio. and in Spotify. Now, if you want to go into a bit more detail on mastering, coming up next is a video of me mastering in Ozone. But a great thing to do after you've done this thing is to glue it together with a gluey compressor. So there's also a compression video coming up. Make sure you watch that. Make sure you like this video. Make sure you subscribe if you want more industry insider tips. That's what I'm here to do. So I'll see you on the next video. Thanks for watching.