Audio Legends CLA

    Ive just watched this and i'm still not convinced totally. CLA is my favourite mix engineer and i love the mixes he gets. What is interesting about the video is the way goes about it and i'd love to see him mix a home recorded song. He doesnt seem to do any corrective EQ and maybe thats because the tracks were recorded in a professional studio, with great gear and a great producer. Anyone else seen this course and what are your thoughts. I didnt buy it, my friend did and he came over and we went through the session and video together. i'm glad i didnt pay $75 for it. I must admit it was interesting to see CLA mix and how he goes about it, but i'd love to see something like this where an engineer uses non professional tracks and does some corrective eq'ing to improve the tracks and make them sit well.

    I know this depends on personal taste, but that song is sooooo fucking annoying :D


    I have the course, there are couple of interesting things, especially how he treats overheads and room mics, the way he uses eqs on those was new to me. But I agree with you, a song that wasnt recorded in a big hollywood studio and a band without Chad Smith on drums would be way more interesting.


    I believe that you can tlearn plenty of stuff from it, but I didn't like the approach that much. They shoud have him mix it in real time (which i thought was the concept of it before I saw the course) and not having him describing afterwards what he has done.


    I'd love to see Joe Barresi do sth like this or Andy Wallace.


    I got nearly exactly the same feelings as @KoMa.
    The course is interesting but not a must have.

    Agreed. There are some nuggets of gold in there if you dig (his buss chains for me were very interesting), but with a track that has already been that "dressed" for the mix, there isn't actually a lot of the kind of mixing that us mere mortals are required to do at mixdown! I'm sure that the advanced state that the track was in before he started mixing is nothing extraordinary at that end of the scale, as it will already have been tidied up during the monitor mix by the engineer and producer, and then CLA's assistant will have set it up exactly as CLA likes, so he can concentrate on sprinkling his fairy dust instead of getting bogged down with the monotony of grouping and bouncing tracks, pitch correction and the like.

    Well I like the slate plugins and have quite a few ofthem, but their marketing is so cliche and phony, really american way of marketing things - I mean at least the producs are usually very good but anyone can post some excerpts from e-mails, you know


    But no hard feelings towards the company and Steven at all, things like that new virtual microphone thing ... the idea is not that far away from the KPA - stuff like this is really exciting.... the audio courses not so much as of right now ;)

    Quote from Raoul23

    Yeah I've seen that and that is very bold. Still my fav mixing course video is Mix It Like A Record with Charles Dye, one day though some big mix engineer will make a video of mixing a home recorded song from start to finish and if they did that, now that would sell and be very interesting


    How is that course by comparison?


    I've considered it, but I'm a bit leary - like, is it just him going through the settings of the plugins? I bought one of those courses (unknowingly). What the heck is the value there?


    What I want to see/hear is the thought process that leads UP to the decisions, along with illustrations of what the result would be if that decision WASN'T made in that way, and how such-and-such a decision works for this genre, but not for that etc etc etc. You can learn from that. Otherwise, one might as well just browse presets in your plugins. Actually, that might be a better way of learning - then you kind of get to make your own decision about the stuff ("ugh, that's HORRIBLE!").


    Aside from that, courses with DECENT but not super shiny and NOT sucky tracks is probably the best way to go for mortals like us (me?)

    Again the tracks are obviously recorded in a great studio with great gear but by a good and Charles dye. He talks about NS10's and mixing in mono and like CLA he goes through each plugin and gives his reasoning for all decisions that he's making from start to finish. The production of the video is a lot better than the CLA one in my opinion. The song also has more instruments in which is very handy

    I just bought this last night and was excited to dig in. About 10 minutes into the drums tutorial I came to the same conclusion as all of you. These are professional recorded sounds that were corrected already. The plugins were more icing on the cake. I'm not sure what I will learn from these videos, but I will watch them all.


    I also bought Steven Slate Drums Platinum 4 with a few expansions. The prices were cheap enough, so I thought why not. Still have to install it.


    * The course comes with a free ilok2 (which I do not have) and a free month of SS plugins for 75$
    That's a pretty good deal! ilok2 is around 38$ SS monthly is 25$. =63$ So the courses are like 12$

    What you say "were corrected already", I think that's maybe a wrong way to look at it :) It's more like" They were recorded professionally".
    Correction is something you do to stuff that was recorded BADLY, which might not be the best basis for teaching/learning.
    That part of the job is pretty simple in concept:
    Decide what you don't like and fix it
    - with EQ (e.g. resonances, muddiness)
    - with compression (e.g. dynamics all over the place, uneven playing)


    The shaping of the sound - tailoring it to the song - is much more interesting. Say, how to compress the snare for stronger attack or fuller sound etc, how to compress other stuff to accentuate the groove.
    These things are much more complex.
    While "fixing" can often be done at least partly in isolation for each track, these things need to be done not only in context with the other tracks in the song, but also in context of the song itself, and of the parts before and after what you're looking at.

    Good Point, kind of what I meant. Great tone with outboard gear and proper technique. In essence they are forming the tone beforehand is what I meant. Correcting is not the right choice of words

    Quote from Michael_dk

    ...Which is how it should be! Unfortunately, there's a big piece of the puzzle missing then from an educational standpoint. Especially because of what I imagine the target audience actually is.

    Yes, that is very true. If you look at my post, I mainly bought the lessons because of the free ilok2 and free month of plugins. The lessons I thought would be very interesting and entertaining to watch. If I learn at least 1-2 things from it that is awesome. I've watched the Reel to reel of Slash recording because I found it to be entertaining. But.... I actually found a tiny clue as to how he gets his tone and that's why I started creating my own impulses.
    You just never know what you are going to learn.

    Quote from Raoul23

    Another thing CLA doesn't use any limiter in these tutorial but a fellow studio owner who I know went on the mix with the master course in Paris where they watched him mix a Green Day tune and he used the waves L1 a lot nearly in every track

    I think I saw a Joey Sturgis tutorial using a L1 on guitars which I thought was odd. But hey, they know a lot more than I do.

    My ilok2 arrived. Now I was able to install the SS plugins and open the CLA mix. I actually do not like the mix at all! It's super over processed and bright. Has 0 organic feeling at all. Anyone else think the same or actually did not like the mix? Maybe that's how CLA mixes a pop song and he would do a rock one differently? Could be my ears are not used to a commercial mix?