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It's often
said how in Dub, the mixing board turns into
an instrument at the hand of the engineer.
Like a keyboard player touches the keys, the
guitar player the strings. True, true, true.
Pressing the mute buttons, using the
sliders, and not just on the mixing board.
The effect devices are not safe from the
hands of the Dub engineer.
During my
live performances when I dub a band live, it
happens that I have to use the PA of the
hall. As I count the drops of sweat on the
head of the engineer as I'm telling him how
I am going to use his mixing board, I hear
him think: "there goes my
setting". When I continue to tell him
how I want the delay and other effects
routed back to the mixing board via a
channel input, I see him watch the aux-out
buttons while in his head he hears the
feedback. Yes, the mixing board becomes an
instrument.
Where an
engineer usually fine-tunes his mix and
explodes whenever someone wants to change
anything, a Dub engineer continually changes
these settings. No, just by (un)muting
channels and not just by knowing where to
drop what kind of echo and how to transform
the echo feed with EQ like we did in the
previous chapters. Here's another general
guideline: whatever you can change with EQ,
change it!
In this
next video, it's not just the simple Dub
delay with it's EQ and the reverb. Remember,
we've added a Space Echo at Aux 3. That's
what we're going to use now and we are going
to use the EQ settings of the reverb as
well. Before you press play, though, just a
little bit more info about the "Space
Echo".
There are
many soft- and hardware devices similar to
the Space Echo. Even free VST effects that
are perfect to use, but that's for another
place. In a way, you can look at the Space
echo as a combination of Delay, Reverb and
EQ. Where I use a separate EQ with my Dub
delay and layer it with reverb from the
mixing board, the Space echo does all that
in one device.
Watch
as the "decay" (length) buttons
and the EQ on the blue devices change. The
blue device at top is the Reverb at aux 2,
the blue device below the mixing board is
the Space Echo. Read the extra information
as you watch just how EQ and other things
are used:
Yes, we
call it EQ use. Others would call it
outright EQ abuse, because EQ stands for
equalization and that's exactly what we do
not want to establish. We want to change the
emphasized frequency range, sometime
gradually to give a phaser-like effect and
sometimes fast, for example just after the
snaredrum hits he reverb. Exactly the same
idea is done with the EQ of the Space Echo.
Just
leaving the Reverb and/or Space Echo buttons
open with the skanks, horns and accompanying
instruments while (un) muting them and
changing the EQ of the Reverb and/or Space
Echo continually makes these instruments
melt into each other. Especially when you
mix the sound of the Reverb just a little
louder then the instruments.
I also
showed in the video just what layering of
effects can do. Let's call it the chapter
bonus.
At a
certain moment in the mix, all instruments
are muted, except for the guitar and
clavinet. They give a signal to the other
Reverb device while it's channel slider is
at zero. So you just hear the Reverb at
channel 14. That Reverb then gives it signal
to the other Reverb device (Aux 2, Channel
12), the Space Echo (Aux 3, Channel 13) and
the Dub Echo (Aux 1, Channel 11). You'll
hear an Echo of a Reverb and one skank hit
drops in. The reverb of the clavinet and the
guitar are now functioning as the Reverb of
the skanks. It's a simple example of layering
effects.
Towards the
end, I give a few tips as all instruments
run through the Space Echo. I concluded
these tips with the simple establishment
that at that moment in the video, creativity
meets technology. I hope that at that
moment, you will also have gotten some ideas
for yourself.
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