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Hey, folks. Matthew Weiss, www.Weiss-Sound.com, www.TheProAudioFiles.com.
I'm here to tell you that I have a training video tutorial series out. It's
all about mixing hip-hop. It's broken down into two separate videos, the
first all about vocals, the second all about production.
Now, as far as vocals go, I've been doing this a long time. I've mixed
vocals for Snoop Dogg, M.E.R.Z., Gorilla Zoe, Gift of Gab, Jean Grae, Royce
Da 5'9", Joell Ortiz, MC Chris, Knowledge from Kids in the Hall, Joe
Skudda. The list goes on and on and on. So, I know a couple of things about
mixing rap vocals.
When you're mixing vocals, it can seem intimidating, because it's the most
important element in 99% of the mixes you're going to do. But I'm breaking
it down into four pretty straightforward processes. The first one is going
to be cleaning the vocals up. The second is controlling the dynamics. The
third is enhancing the vocals. The fourth is building an ambiance around
the vocals, and on top of that, there is a special bonus section with a
guest speaker, Laura Zahn. She's a vocal producer and she's going to tell
you how to get the most out of a vocalist possible.
In the second tutorial, it's all about the production. Now, production-
wise, I've mixed for platinum producer Kayo, Sonny Digital, 9th Wonder,
Illmind, Stoupe from Jedi Mind Tricks, and again, it's a long list. So,
with production, a lot of the times you have control over the sounds that
are chosen. This is going to assume that you've chosen the sounds that you
want and show you how to build it all up.
The first thing that I'm going to discuss is levels, which might not be the
most exciting topic on the surface, but in reality, you find and uncover
all of the musicality when it comes to setting levels. That's really what
I'm going to be teaching, how to find the musicality. I'm also going to
show you some really cool stuff you can do with level automation that you
might not have been aware of.
From there, we're moving on to the low end, because the low end is one of
the trickiest sections. I've got a pretty basic map for you that I think
everybody can follow. After that, snare drum. Hip-hop, got to have a strong
snare. That's been the case since the '80s. Then, from there, it's going to
be lead elements like strings, horns, whatever your leads are, and then
peripheral elements, like choirs, pads, percussion, things like that. Then,
finally, there is going to be a section on mastering, how to maximize the
overall record.
Once that's all done, not only did I give you the steps, but I've also
given you the stems to the production so that you can copy what I did. You
can do your own thing. You can lather, rinse, repeat, until you've got
something that you really like. Then, from there, you can apply these
skills to your own mixes and to your own production and come up with
something fantastic. All right, guys. Hope you enjoy.