Trailer
20 min

Part 1

Dialogue with the artist & label, early mix approach, vocal focus, subtractive EQ, signal chain
15 min

Part 2

Pitch correction, effects, compression, creating space, mix buss, loudness for clients
23 min

Part 3

Instrument focus (808, kick, snare, hats, synth), bass enhancement, stereo manipulation
10 min

Part 4

Bussing system, filter automation, gain staging, mix headroom, emphasising basic principles
15 min

Part 5

Vocal-music blend, level automation, client requests, final tweaks, printing the mix

Mixing

Care

IV Jay

Leslie Brathwaite

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Song : Care

Duration:20 min / 1h26 Subtitles: English, Spanish, Portuguese

Description

Join us at Studios La Fabrique for another series with trap mixer extraordinaire Leslie Brathwaite! With the mix session open, he gives us a comprehensive walkthrough of ‘Care’ by the artist IV Jay. Brathwaite describes the dialogue between parties involved in the record, his typical starting points for a project, and how he tends to follow a subtractive workflow. He then reveals every stage of processing applied to the vocals and instrumentation, from EQ and compression to effects, stereo manipulation and pitch correction. He explains why he avoids certain commonly-used mix techniques, discusses gain staging and headroom with mastering in mind, and much more!

Show more

Trailer
20 min

Part 1

Dialogue with the artist & label, early mix approach, vocal focus, subtractive EQ, signal chain
15 min

Part 2

Pitch correction, effects, compression, creating space, mix buss, loudness for clients
23 min

Part 3

Instrument focus (808, kick, snare, hats, synth), bass enhancement, stereo manipulation
10 min

Part 4

Bussing system, filter automation, gain staging, mix headroom, emphasising basic principles
15 min

Part 5

Vocal-music blend, level automation, client requests, final tweaks, printing the mix

Comments

(30)

Ray Lee July 19, 2024 at 10:29 PM

Excellent he does great explaining of how he mixs
Joe Alvarez December 12, 2023 at 1:02 PM

Lelise's method of presenting should be standard. Because not going to lie, I get excited at watching some of these videos and the mixers style of presenting is terrible. Very hard to follow and lacks details. But Leslie has the value you pay for interms of presentation and teaching ablity.
Svhat April 1, 2024 at 1:15 PM

Man you took the words out my mouth, Leslie is the best

Joe Alvarez April 3, 2024 at 1:51 PM

agreed!
User Deleted May 21, 2022 at 7:47 AM

Guys can you please stop complaining about not getting the fucking “sauce”???? I’m really sick and tired of people whining about the secret sauce thinking that some kind of sauce on the mix bus is going to magically turn your mix into a grammy awarded mix. There is no secret sauce when you get ur mix balanced and sounding good!! Instead of focusing on that stupid “sauce” that doesn’t even exist, try to train your ears and learn how to balance your mix and focus on their philosophy when it comes to approaching their mixes. Those are at least 10 times more important than just trying to find a magical sauce!
Alexandre Sirghi June 24, 2022 at 5:11 PM

This comment has been deleted.

Mark Elliott December 7, 2022 at 8:25 PM

People rather have AI do it, and that time is coming

Jermaine Wells December 8, 2022 at 10:30 PM

Amen

Joe Alvarez December 12, 2023 at 12:58 PM

Facts! There is no sauce. Mixes are all different and yes there are common practices but overall every track will require a slightly different approach! I personally hate when I hear someone say " the secret sauce". blah blah

Joe Alvarez April 3, 2024 at 1:52 PM

Indeed! the sauce is called experience and reputation and spending time learning from others.
andre torres April 16, 2022 at 2:25 PM

This bussing episode is helpful, I swear! i have went to school worked in studios and not one Teacher has simplified the process of bussing! i always thought it was overcomplicated went it came to adding sub groups and vca groups and then routing that another bus, im sure these techniques are needed and special cases(tape, saturation) but thank you so much brother you have upped the knowledge and technique level of the engineering community
Donel Connor August 26, 2021 at 4:07 AM

Whats good Rock Man
brian lofton February 20, 2021 at 9:34 AM

I love Leslies videos, but I tend to agree with the other comments about watching different processes, not just perfect or near perfect. But I understand that alot of info is excluded because that is their "sauce" and they WILL NOT give that away. I absolutely appreciate the content overall but the approach to mixing these videos is sorta already done. I want to see problems solved. Puremix is amazing too but they do not approach problems either and I think that is what is missing overall on these platforms. Just my opinion...
Taquan Williams May 6, 2022 at 6:42 PM

I respect that
Mike Wallace February 15, 2021 at 3:37 AM

Leslie is awesome but I just don't understand how he can mix these horrible "singers" who are never on pitch and, let's admit it, have ZERO talent. That is an epidemic in Hip Hop. Talentless hacks every where. Sorry, have to tell the truth. I could never mix those sessions.
Murphy Alvin February 11, 2021 at 9:32 PM

Does anybody know why he is boosting at 27khz? I thought human hearing only extended to 20khz, am I missing something?
Anton Purits May 22, 2021 at 5:57 AM

The curve of the EQ probably starts much earlier, or it could be in order to add "air", etc.
William DesMarais October 15, 2020 at 9:26 PM

I didn't know artists could send their stems to the mixing engineer with plug-ins enabled like this. Is there a particular way that this works? Thanks.
Jacob Washington-Lacey March 21, 2020 at 3:24 AM

This was definitely great! I'm wanting to do more Hip-Hop & Pop records along with the Gospel and R&B stuff I get now, and this gave me a great perspective on how I can approach these genres from a mixing engineer perspective. Keep Them Coming, @OhhThatsJacob
David 'Firetracks' McEwan February 4, 2020 at 10:58 PM

Keep these Leslie vids coming!
Baris Moustafa February 3, 2020 at 2:58 AM

Dear MWTM Team, I love Leslie Brathwaite! He is so good at explaining stuff and he is such a calm person. But i got a problem with this MWTM Video. He works with all these great producers who work in the industry for years and so he gets already great sessions with perfect signals. I do not. I am not a world class producer and I sometimes get crappy sounding vocals from musicians who just can effort a low class mic and produce their songs and vocals at home. How do I treat that? I often get crappy sessions to mix and i'd rather learn how to mix that instead of almost perfect sessions where Leslie just pushes 2dB at 27k. That is just polishing. Don't get me wrong. I love what he is doing and i've learned so much from him already. But is there a way where Leslie is mixing a song by an artist who is not top of the pops and has to deal with a lot more problems ? That would be really nice :)
Nicholas March February 4, 2020 at 7:18 PM

totally agree

David 'Firetracks' McEwan February 4, 2020 at 10:57 PM

I think this is the case for most engineers on this level because of the caliber of artist that they deal with.

Wilton Moore February 6, 2020 at 12:08 PM

Great idea!

Jordanne BOURGAREL February 7, 2020 at 8:34 PM

It's a good idea but I think you need to see MWTM like a site when you only polishing your knowledge and learn high quality techniques, but you need to have the basics already; so if you want a site with a very good way to learn and where we talk about the basics, my advice to you is to check PUREMIX also

Max Dishaw February 7, 2020 at 8:53 PM

Great comment. That was a big issue I had with his "Happy" Mix video. I felt like it was the art-of-doing-as-little-as-possible. Would be great to see how they deal with problems more than getting a raw vocal that sounds better than my final mix.

Benjamin Thomas February 26, 2020 at 8:36 PM

I totally understand what you are saying, but I will say based on my experiences on both sides, there is an art to the "less is more" part of mixing. There are a lot of resources online to get the sort "ground up" mixing but to be able to mix a record and still keep the integrity of the rough that the artists and producers and labels are used to hearing is hard. You gotta think, they have been listening to this song for months so if you send them anything that sounds crazy different, even if that different is better, they usually won't like it. It's about making the small changes to push something over the next level.

Johnny André Brist March 14, 2020 at 7:09 PM

Yes! Give these top mixers some crappy multitracks and show us how they polish that turd, cuz that's what I really want to see!
Wilson Claudiano da Costa January 26, 2020 at 3:30 PM

Hi, why i can play this videos logged in my LG tv browswer? thanks

About Leslie Brathwaite

Leslie Brathwaite is a Grammy award-winning mix engineer from the U.S. Virgin Islands. The vibrant Caribbean music scene made a strong impression on him as a young teen, and he set up a studio in his bedroom with a small multitrack recorder. To expand his horizons and learn more about audio, he attended Full Sail University in Florida. After graduating from the Recording Arts program in 1992, Brathwaite moved to Atlanta where a flourishing music scene was being driven by a group of producers that...

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