[Music] welcome in this tutorial series we'll introduce you to basic mixing terms techniques and common practices to get you started on the right track for your future music making in the course of this series will go from sounding like this [Music] to this and show you step by step how we got there check the video info for a list of topics if you want to skip parts but wait what are levels and for that matter what is mixing let's define that first mixing is the process for making sure each sound or instrument in your music is audible at the right volume time and place in the stereo soundscape if there is a sound in your mix it's there for a reason if it isn't then mixing may also include removing things you don't want or need to hear or removing them to make room for others you can do this by changing the volume of individual signals in your project controlling the frequency content with an eq changing its dynamic range with a compressor or creating a sense of spatial position with stereo separation reverbs and or delays let's adjust some faders in this example before we get into more theory [Music] i'm noticing the drums are a little loud overall so i'll click a free mixer track and i'll hold alt and use my arrow keys to move it to the front of the mixer then i'll select my drum tracks by holding ctrl and clicking and dragging over them to route them all to the same track i'll right click the routing arrow on the free mixer track and select route to this track only you can also do this by holding control and clicking on the free mixer tracks routing arrow now i have a bus track for my drums and can turn them all down at once [Music] that's about right the synth clavinet is also a little loud in context so i'll turn that down as well i'll keep tweaking for a minute or so and bring you back when i'm done [Music] so how did i know to do all this let's find out you will have noticed levels are shown in decibels or db the db scale is traditionally used in audio production and is a relative scale that means the values displayed are relative to the 100 volume limit imposed by the audio output device or audio file wave or mp3 or what have you if we assume 100 level equals 1 then all levels are relative to this reference value of one for example if the level is at fifty percent of the maximum volume the level is point five the value is transformed into decibels according to the following formula 20 times the logarithm to the base of 10 of x over y if we're talking digital audio decibels y is always going to be one and x is our signal level meaning the signal level of the mixer track we're looking at so based off of this equation we can say three things all values of x that are less than one will produce negative results when x is equal to 1 the equation will produce 0 as a result and when x is greater than 1 we will get a positive result so let's substitute x with our 50 level from earlier 0.5 divided by 1 is 0.5 that means 20 times the logarithm to the base of 10 of 0.5 is minus 6 decibels if that is at all confusing and it's likely to be if you're watching this video the fl studio manual has a lookup table for key decibel scale values if you remember nothing else for now note that values above zero decibels are a problem when rendering to most audio file formats and so it's a key level when mixing the final output when the level exceeds the maximum value the audio path or format is designed for there is no more vertical room to represent the signal accurately and so the paths exceeding the maximum value are cut off we refer to this as clipping clipping introduces distortion and therefore is generally undesirable when it's not done on purpose and since you have no control over how your audio interface or speakers clip it's best to avoid this in the output stage loudness is how we perceive level as discussed earlier that is it's psychological so here we have a little problem decibel is a physical measure loudness a psychological one the relationship between the two is a little complicated and not at all consistent frequency content duration and dynamic range all combine to create the sensation of loudness however that does not stop people from creating measures that attempt to estimate loudness based on some complicated formulas lufs or lufs is one commonly used today loudness units full scale loudness unit measurements are taken after a special filter curve is added to the audio and then the average level over a time period is taken into account they combine three ways of averaging signal peaks over time momentary loudness averages over 400 milliseconds short term loudness averages the last three seconds and integrated loudness averages the whole file from beginning to end loudness units use the same increments as dbfs so if you turn a song at -14 loves up a decibel without changing anything else it is now minus 13 loves this measurement in essence tells us how densely packed an audio file is readings closer to zero mean higher density and vice versa lufs readings are generally considered to be a better match to relative loudness between tracks or within tracks than decibel readings that's why they are used in the broadcast industry and some streaming platforms to make sure random songs played in succession are not dramatically different in loudness so you don't need to keep adjusting the volume control useful you've probably noticed something similar when watching a movie sometimes it's hard to hear the dialogue and then you're blasted by explosions by the action sequence and this raises the next topic dynamic range is the distance between the lowest and highest signal peak in the audio material like loudness dynamic range can also be thought of in the short term the transient hit of a drum versus the decay or longer term over the course of a song as a creative element using changes in level over time to create interest tension or to separate emotional changes in the music enough with the concepts let's see where in fl studio you can set your levels there are four main level controls in every normal signal path nfl studio and some extra ones that only matter in specific cases there is channel volume next to the channel button in the channel rack or larger in the channel settings this is often used for quick volume adjustments in the channel rack especially before a channel is routed to a dedicated mixer track when a channel is also routed to a mixer track this control can be useful to make pre-fader changes in level that is particularly useful when you have a group of instruments directly feeding into the same mixer track it's important to note the channel volume knob is mapped differently for different types of channels a sampler channel for example will have a minus 5.2 db offset with the channel volume at the default 78 an audio clip on the other hand has no offset when the channel volume is at the default value with vst or au plugins the channel volume's behavior depends on the internals of the plugin generally it affects the main output volume but some plugins do not support channel volume at all then there is the volume multiplier in the miscellaneous tab this is an extra level control that is handy for when the range of the channel volume knob is not enough most importantly there is the mixer fader which allows you to adjust the volume again after your effects chain you'll notice though that the send to the master also doubles as another volume control this allows sending the signal to different mixer tracks at different volumes handy for send effects and finally if you're using a synthesizer those will often have a way of controlling their output level as well gain plugins are effect plugins you can use in the mixer to adjust the volume of your audio at a specific point in your effects chain which may be needed for fine-tuning the input level into a distortion or attenuating the output of a very resonant filter for example we'll show fruity balance and fruity send here on a direct audio path fruity balance controls panning and volume from minus infinite to plus six decibels this plugin is handy for volume automation depending on your workflow you may want volume automation in your song but you may also want to have full control over the last gain stage in your effects chain via the mix of fader if you automate the mix of fader instead you will always have to scale the automation to make the fader reflect a meaningful level change fruity send on the other hand in addition to controlling any scent level has a dry knob that affects how much of the direct audio is passed through to the next fx slot in the chain [Music] it goes from minus infinite to zero decibels and is therefore great for fading signals in and out after effects because it can't make the audio louder but how can you tell when something sounds good apart from your personal sensibilities and taste there are certain things you can do to ensure your mix doesn't end up universally unfavorable for example let's look at some frequency plots of popular music songs you'll notice that even though they are vastly different songs they have one thing in common there is a considerable downward slope in the frequency response in all of them music often de-emphasizes high frequency content and emphasizes low frequencies this is consistent with a number of studies that have been conducted in the past which led to the equal loudness contours stating that humans generally are very perceptive in the high mid frequency range and low frequency content needs considerably more power to be perceived as equally loud so for something to sound even to the human ear there must be an inverse relationship between frequency and level over the years this has changed a little currently pop music dictates for every doubling in frequency or octave the sound should be four and a half decibels quieter which is why when we go back to our frequency plots of popular music and enable a minus four and a half decibel slope for the visualizer we end up with an even looking frequency response equipped with all this information a great way to internalize this minus four and a half decibel slope and train your ears to listen for it is by mixing against noise for a few projects i've added the tilted noise we're using in this example to the files included with this video so you can try it out on your own songs the technique goes as follows place the noise sample in your project as an audio track now unroute it from your master track and route it out directly through an output on your interface so it doesn't have your master effects on it then set every fader in your project except the noise to minus infinite decibels and copy the clip for the entire length of your song now listen to your project and fade in elements while the noise is playing until you can just about hear them there it is i can recognize it as a hi-hat now leave the fader where it is mute the track in the mixer and move on to the next one i've advanced to the point where i've set up all of my faders against the noise what remains is to mute the noise and unmute everything else if you've done it correctly you should now have a very good starting point for a mix that you can add your own flavor to [Music] you'll notice the noise mix has a lot more bass than my mix i chose to have less bass overall so i could have a more well-defined drum kit [Music] in the noise mix the bass is clearly interfering with the kick drum [Music] by no means should you keep doing this forever the reasoning here is that at some point you will have internalized this knowledge and you will start mixing to this slope automatically and that's it for this video we hope you enjoyed our introduction to levels and mixing and that this video will give you a head start on learning how to mix in fl studio as always remember to check the video info for segments any relevant manual or video links and the example projects used in this video