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What's up Inside the Mix ? It's your boy Dream

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Commander . Just wanted to give

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a brief shout out to the Producer Growth Scorecard

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. As an artist , it easily helps

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me stay actively producing , motivated

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and accountable to my goals . So

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check me out on Instagram . And now

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for the Inside the Mix podcast with your

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host , mark Matthews . You're

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listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host , mark Matthews

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. Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host , mark Matthews .

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Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast

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. I'm Mark Matthews , your host

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, musician , producer and mix and mastering

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engineer . You've come to the right place if

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you want to know more about your favorite synth music

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artists , music engineering and production

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, songwriting and the music industry

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. I've been writing , producing , mixing and mastering

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music for over 15 years and I want to

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share what I've learnt with you . Hello

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, folks , and welcome to the Inside

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the Mix podcast . If you are a

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new listener a big welcome . Make

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sure you hit that follow button on your podcast

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player of choice and if you're watching this on YouTube

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, make sure you hit subscribe and that notification

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bell so you get notified when a new episode drops

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. So busy times here at Casa

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Inside the Mix slash Synth

1:10

Music Mastery , my fiance and I we've

1:12

actually just started looking for

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a new house , so we're going to upstick

1:16

and move from where we are still in the same area

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in Devon but we're actually looking at moving

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. So that whole process has started

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and if you're listening to

1:25

this and you live in the UK , you know how long

1:27

this process takes once you get solicitors

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and everything else involves . It's a long

1:31

, long process . A bit of a ball , like to be honest

1:33

, but it would be worth it in the end so I can

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get a bigger studio space . I say a bigger

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studio space like I need it . To be honest , where I

1:40

have now is more than ample , but

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I want to take the studio

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. So at the moment I'm paying rent for a studio premises

1:46

right but I want to take it back in-house

1:48

. So I'm not paying somebody else's mortgage

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or somebody else's sort of lease

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fee , if you will . So

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, yeah , exciting times for that . And also it

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will mean that I'll have more space so I can get this bloody

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reel-to-reel going as well . I've had it for ages it's

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been sat in a corner just gathering dust

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and I want to get it up and running so I can

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actually have some tape

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real tape emulation happening

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, folks . So at the same time as all that

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happening , my limited series podcast

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. I'm halfway through the creation process

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of it . So I've done drums and I've done bass and

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I've started on vocals . So after

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that it's going to be synth and then effects . So it's going

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to be an entirely free limited series podcast

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and you'll be able to get it on all podcast

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platforms and you'll be able to watch the accompanying

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videos on my website as

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well , so you can head over to synthmusicmasteringcom

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and watch all that and , as I say , it's going to be all free . I'm going

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to shove the project folder

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and also that's the completed

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one , and

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also that's the completed one , and also you'll be able to start from fresh , the stems and

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what else is going to be there the template as well , the mixing template so you'll be able to

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get all of that for free , and I

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had wanted to

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get it out by the end of June

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, but I think I'm going to have to push it back slightly

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. But keep an eye out for that one , and I'll be releasing

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more bits and pieces as the as the weeks go

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on with regards to release dates and whatnot . So exciting

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times for that too . So the final bit of news

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is this and I said I was going to give it a shout out to

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this individual and an album

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was released a couple of weeks ago . So

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at the time this goes live , it would be a couple of weeks , maybe

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three weeks and it's by a friend

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of mine called Bending Grid , who I've been chatting

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to for ages now and I

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know he's been working really hard on this album

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and we've been back and forth and whatnot . Anyway

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, I digress . So he's released this album called Parallax

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and it is an absolute belter of

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an album . I can't get enough of it . It's

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probably my favorite release of 2024

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. And there's one song in particular on there

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called Vampires , which is an absolute

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banger . So

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, folks , I implore you , I encourage you , to go search for Bending Grid on Spotify and you will not

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be disappointed by the Parallax album . It is an absolute belter

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of an album , easily my favourite of 2024

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. So let's dive into this episode

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. It's a tutorial episode and

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it follows up episode 145

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, where we were looking at the envelope

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and we were manipulating the

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transients of a drum , a

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snare drum , and in this

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what we did was or rather that episode we boosted

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the attack portion . The attack transient

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, okay , so we can add some more

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punch to a snare . So now we're

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going to look at the other side of the envelope

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and that is the release side . So in

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episode 145 we looked at the attack

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. This time we're going to be looking at the release

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and what we can do with that and , in particular

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, what we can do with a drum

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loop and a drum loop that is

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for one of a better way of putting it drenched

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in reverb . So we're going to remove

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. We're going to attenuate that reverb

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using the release portion of

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the envelope . So let's dive in . So here we are

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in logic pro and I've got the envelope

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or envelope , however you want to pronounce it

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open here and I've got this drum loop

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and I'm going to play this drum loop without

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the envelope on . So bypass . So here

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we go . So

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hopefully you can hear that there's a lot of reverb on the toms , on the snare

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and some other percussion in there as well , and we're

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gonna use the envelope now to attenuate

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and reduce that reverb . So

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let's enable the envelope and I've

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got the default settings here at the moment , and

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the first parameter we need to look at is the threshold

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. So if you've watched episode 145 , you'll be familiar

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with it . But basically just set it at minus

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100 dB and that way any

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signal that exceeds that threshold is going to have its attack and release portion of that

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single . That envelope is going to be manipulated by the envelope here . So just

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set it at minus 100 . Obviously you can change

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it , but for the default in this instance

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, for what we're doing , we'll just leave it at minus 100

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. And the look ahead as well it's at one millisecond

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. You can probably drag that down to zero . I don't particularly

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need it in this because there's not a lot of

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intricate transient stuff going

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on that I need the look ahead for . So the next

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parameter we're going to look at is the gain

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slider on this envelope

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for this release section . And

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if we boost the gain , it's going to

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extenuate the release phase

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of the signal , and if we reduce the

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gain , it's going to attenuate the

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release phase of the signal and thus it

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will become drier . And you'll see what I mean

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. We're going to remove that reverb , we're going to attenuate

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that release phase of

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this drum loop and it will start to sound drier

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. So I'm going to drag it all the way down gradually

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, and you'll see what I mean . So

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I dragged it all the way down to minus

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100% and it

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was too much . It's too much , right . What I'm going to do is I'm going

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to drag it back up and find a happy medium between

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it sounding dry , but I also still

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want to hear . Well , I want to hear more

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of that release phase of this signal

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, otherwise it just sounds too cut off , right . So

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I'm going to drag it back up . We're probably looking at about minus

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50 to minus 60%

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. So let's give it a go . So

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I settled on minus 60% . So

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we can still hear some of that reverb

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, certainly not as much as before , but

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I'm hearing more of the release phase as well . So

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the release time is the time it takes

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for the signal at maximum gain

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to fall to the threshold level

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, basically , which in this instance is minus

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100 dB , and I'm going to gradually

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increase it just to tighten up that

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reverb tail . But I still want

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that release phase of

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the signal . So it's at 200 milliseconds

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at the moment and I'm going to gradually increase

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it until it just tightens up

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that reverb tail . So

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I've got it set there 660

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milliseconds . I'm happy with that at the moment because

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I can imagine if I were to put this loop in a whole mix

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. There's still a tiny bit of reverb

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there , but it's certainly less than what was before , and it would

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get lost in the mix , basically lost in the shuffle

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. Let's say so . Let's A-B it . So

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I'll disable the envelope . I'm going to play

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it without , and this is what it sounds like . So

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those toms , you can really hear the reverb . So listen out

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for the toms . So , and I'm

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going to turn the envelope on . So

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listen

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out for the toms again , you can really hear that reverb

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tail is gone . Yeah

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, it's really attenuated that . So Logic's

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unsung hero , the envelope

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. We can use the attack to

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boost the attack phase of a signal to add

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a bit of thwacks and punch . And we

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can use the release phase , or the release

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side of this envelope , manipulate the

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release phase , to then remove

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reverb from a drum loop . Give it a go , folks

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, the unsung hero , the often overlooked

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envelope in Logic Pro . And before

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you go , folks , if you haven't done so already

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, check out episode 145

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, where we look at the left-hand side of the envelope

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and how we can manipulate the attack

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phase of a signal to add a bit of punch

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and thwack , as I just mentioned . So go check

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out episode 145 if you haven't done so already

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.