#5 - Audio Production Q&A with Dave Pensado

In the 5th episode of Pensado's Place, Dave hosts an all Q&A episode with tons of great viewer questions! With Part 2/2 of the latest "Into The Lair", Dave takes you through some tools he used on the mix for "Shorty is a Weirdo" by Mr. Midwest and Ray J. Get a behind the scene look at how your favorite songs were mixed and the tools that were used by Dave!

3:20 Into The Lair

3:50 Metric Halo Channel Strip



4:00 Waves CLA-76 compressor



4:33 McDSP FutzBox



4:49 Waves L1 Limiter



5:20 Massey L2007 Mastering Limiter



5:45 Massey De:Esser


6:07 Bass plugins:


Waves GTR Stomp Box

Waves GTR Amp

Waves RBass

Kick Drums: 6:45
Focusrite d3


Waves PuigTec EQP1A


Slate Digital Trigger



Hi Hat EQ:
EMI TG12414



Live Drum parallel compression 

Plug-Ins: 

Waves CLA 76

Waves PuigTec EQP1A

Waves CLA 3A

Focusrite d3

McDSP Filterbank P4

Waves SSL E-Channel Strip

Digi Comp Lim Dyn3

API 550A

Waves HComp



12:28

 Guitars
Plug-ins:

Waves L1 Limiter

Waves GTR Stomp Box Effects



14:10

 Organ
Plug-Ins:

McDSP E6

Waves Center

Waves Enigma

15:40 Corner Office

16:22 Dave talks about the best way to use this show and how not get too caught up in the specific details, but to grasp higher concepts.

18:35 Dave tells viewers about his RTA (Real Time Analyzer)
-Audio Control Real Time Analyzer
http://www.audiocontrol.com/t37/10127/Real-Time-Analyzer.html

19:54 Converters:
-The difference between top of the line converters is negligible
-Dave's favorite converters:
HD IO (http://www.avid.com/US/products/HD-IO)
Lynx Aurora (http://www.lynxstudio.com/)

21:00 Antelope Clock (Dave feels he gets a slightly tighter top end after replacing his Big Ben) (http://www.antelopeaudio.com)

21:22 Most engineers mix to what they are hearing through their converters.

21:50 Freddy K: How do you get depth and width in your mixes?
- Dr. MS plugin for width (http://www.mathewlane.com/DrMS.html)
- Waves S1 Imager series (http://www.waves.com)

22:29 Stereo tricks for strings/pianos/synths
If you have a stereo track of strings, convert to dual mono.
- Shift the left track early by 7ms
- Shift the right track late by 7ms

23:23 On most keyboards, stereo is not stereo. The sound will be placed on one side and a chorus on the other, which clouds up the middle. To make space in the middle, pan your stereo keyboards to one side and pan their effects to the other.

23:53 Stereo on a reverb return is usually not stereo

Try this: put 2 plugins with the same reverb preset, pan one plugin in hard left, and the other hard right, with both plugins having slight parameter changes"

24:40 If you are doing a ballad and the vocals are in a really low range, try running the send to the reverb through a harmonizer and put that up an octave, so what you are sending to the reverb unit is an octave higher than the original sound source. When you mix that back in with the vocal it is a really cool effect and makes the vocal sound more exciting."

25:10 Take two chorus units: With the first chorus unit pan one side left, and the other at about 1-2 o'clock. Take the second chorus unit and change the depth and the rate to where they are slightly different, and then pan that unit hard right, and about 10 o'clock. Delay the hard panned edges about 10-14ms.

Think of ways to clear out the middle, think of ways to give the impression of things being outside the stereo field.

26:13 A way to get your mixes wider with Analog gear is the Behringer Edison EX1 (http://www.behringer.com)

27:16 FLFreeman asks for Herb: "What is the importance of management and why management for Engineers and Producers?"

30:40 Dave Pensado on vocals:

Favorite analog gear:
Millenia EQ for broad brush strokes http://www.mil-media.com
(tube inserted into signal chain)

GML 8200 http://www.massenburg.com/c/gml/mod8200
for precision EQing

Compression:
TubeTech compressor http://www.tube-tech.com
Gates Sta-Level http://www.vintageking.com
Favorite Plugins: Precision work with Flux EQ http://www.fluxhome.com
Color and vibe Waves API550
http://www.waves.com
and V-Series EQ
http://www.waves.com/
Waves 1176 blue stripe for vocals and black for everything else.
http://www.waves.com/

33:25 Donald Valdez asks: If I bought good studio monitors but don't treat my room with panels or acoustic treatment, can I still get a nice professional sounding mix? And is learning my room enough, or is it a battle not worth fighting?

35:48 Jeff Braun asks: On live drums, if I move individual tracks in my drum group forward or backwards will I experience any phase issues?

Category:

• Entertainment
• Learning & Education
• Science & Tech

Starring:

• Dave Pensado
• Herb Trawick
• Drew Adams

Produced by:

• Will Thompson

Tags:

• SSL
• Neve
• Universal Audio
• SPL
• Transient Designer
• Waves
• Plug-Ins. Dimension D
• Home Studio
• Gearslutz
• Beatport
• Ibanez
• Guitar Pedals
• Futz Box
• Dave Hill
• Little Labs
• EQ
• Microphones
• Engineering
• Mixing
• Tutorials
• Dave Pensado
• Black Eyes Peas
• Pit Bull
• Dylan Dresdow
• Rhianna
• Michael Jackson
• API
• Pro Tools
• Avid

[X820NL]

Just watched all 5 episodes, this is great! :)

It would be nice if you guys could upload in HD though, specially for the ITL episodes, sometimes it's hard to see whats going on in the plugins.. Again Great stuff!

[ThisWeekIn]

@X820NL We upload the ITL clips separately in HD on our clips page! Just click on "Clips" on our YouTube Show page!

[MovieMusicFactory]

Hi Dave, I'm a big fan of your show and your work. I consider it a great gesture from you, that you let us entrust a part of your knowledge. However, most engineers make a big secret to the way they work and fear they have said too much. Thank you for that. For me it would be very interesting if you can share your Pro Tools-Mix-Starting- Template with us. Thus we could determine a lot to learn about your signal flow, and your working and everyone can implement for themselves.

[Nightowl427272]

This show just blows my mind. Route a low-range vocal's reverb send through a pitched-up harmonizer? I would have never though of that. Awesome! I'm only on Episode 5 so far but I'm going to watch every single other one...

[TheShaunRyan]

haha no short cuts folks. Like all professions put the work and doors will be presented. then you have to figure out how to open them.

[zshoemake]

There must have been a different guy EQ the vocals on this episode...

[phatgamer69]

This show is absolutely incredible, as an audio student it's incredible inspiring to get to hear from such knowledgable professionals! I learn just as much watching your show as I do in class.

[MrVizionary2012]

Think he made an excellent point...tons of little things make one big difference..thank you.

[MrVizionary2012]

that before and after was incredible.

[Customdigi]

Is this court-ordered community service or something?  Did Pensado plea down a murder rap or something? Such thoughtful shows and outstanding guests. Awesome, and thank you.

[IamJMCardoso]

LOVE IT!!! thx Pensado's place

[dm32194]

Do they teach you this stuff at a art institute?????? in my case the art institute of san diego.....

[0GSystem]

@BloodShotNow love the beatles. But their albums were hard to download back in the 60's. much easier to download t-pain today. Not saying i think t-pain could sell more than beatles, but today ha don't even got a chance thanks to torrent