AFAIK the first person who did this "technique" was Steve Hybicki, Mike Will"s engineer, and after that Jaycen Joshua made it popular because people noticed it was in his template and put on every single mix he did after he descovered that. I have 8 NLS on my template also, but just BC the first time i put my drums it really sound wider and different (i don't want to say the word better), and the dynamics on the drums also changed (transients, RMS, that kind of thing). It is doing a thing, for sure. But now i'm on a situation where 8 NLS Buss costs loads of my CPU headroom while i don't know yet whats its doing and how can i replace such horrible thing, BC i don't want to freeze drums as we always tweak something after some work. And honestly i don't want to follow something blindly because some audio guru is doing it (maybe to sell a plugin later)

 

If it helps, I've tried to do the trick and usually end up with only 5-6 of them on, as 8 is too much sometimes and you'll need to find a way to add back the transients you're squashing with this trick. I'm sure you know about increasing I/O buffer, freezing/printing the other tracks to save CPU, and making sure you're working with only audio files.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 4, 2022

I only work with audio files, no MIDI or things like that. But i work with channel strips, and having them across all the tracks + 8 NLS is getting in the way of my work. I'm in a situation where i need to choose or my channel stips, which im not leaving, or the NLS. Sometimes i can make the job done, but a lot of times i get myself in troubles with CPU.

I also do a mix prep where i put some more heavy processing and sound design work and freeze those, so when they hit the mixer i only want to work with the CS and few other tools to blend the sounds together

 

Oh, what CPU and how many cores do you have? This was the primary reason I ditched my 4-core intel Macbook pro for the 10-core M1 Pro chip and have not looked back since. I tried everything to save CPU before but now I can run plugins without the dreaded overload. I don't think there's any other way to go about this if you're having that many plugins running (especially if you're depending on processing everything native). Also you gotta make sure the few other tools you use aren't hogging your CPU too, however you've shared you use the Brainworx CS stuff and those are quite CPU friendly in my experience.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 4, 2022

Yeah, if i work only with inserts i'd probably be ok. But when i turn on some verb aux or parallel compression, things start getting messy. At this moment the only verbs im using are lexicon (super cpu eficient) and bricasti convolutions in my native convolver. And trying to use the good old CLA's for parallel compression. It's the poorman's fate, mate... At least im doing my job, but im thinking about leaving the NLS trick for when i have a better machine.

 

@Riddim Machine

This is a really cool tip. Where did you hear about Steve and Jaycen doing this? I would love to learn more

 

I had not seen this either, so I googled it and found this comment below, on Reddit. This could be a random user, afaik but it's pretty accurate description. I'll pass, just not for me. DrumsSSX is another matter, I'm thinking about getting that one.


" ImJayJunior
8 channels, each one assigned it's own group and then output all of them to a bus, and then have one on a bus with no group assigned and use it essentially as a mixer..

That's how I do it.

I've seen people essentially do a 32 channel emulation using nls channel too, 32 channels going into 8 NLS busses, assigns groups and then stereo out to a NLS bus with no group assigned.."

https://www.reddit.com/r/mixingmast.../?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

 

interesting.

 

He talked about it in one of his Mix With The Masters series. There's only 3 of them by Jaycen, maybe you can start there.

He basically stacked 8 NLS Bus plugin that I believe carefully selected. Each of the preset in the NLS has different (a little) EQ curve difference for L/R channel and slight difference in harmonics generated. The idea is basically stacking 8 stages of saturation and EQ curves that would result in thickening of sound and stereo widening. No compression occurred even when the drive pushed to 6 on all of them, rather than compression-like fx from the saturation waveshaping.

I didn't pay too much attention which type of desk he selected, whether he randoms it, or picked one for all. It works, but I don't really like it, I dont fancy the idea of thickening the drums artificially.

 

Last edited: Dec 5, 2022

Without hearing, or needing to hear an example, it sounds like a good enough reason to start work coding a new plugin, indeed. This sounds like Snake Oil. Or some noise. Another preset with it's own GUI.

 

c0nSoLE EmuLat1on!!!11

 

If we could get a 30$ emulation of Decapitator Kickstarter going to fund it, they might finish it in time for r2r to smoke it for xmas.

ho ho ho.

 

Why not use NLS channel instead of the bus version? What's the difference?

 

The first time this appeared in public was at MWTM Rosalia seminar. Jaycen recived the files with 8 NLS Buss on the Master Fader of the drums and though it would be an error. Then he turned off and all the drums behaviour changed. After that he appeared in another seminar talking about Steve and again, the 8 NLS. Steve himself comented on the video:

"Hi I’m Steve Hybicki the person Jaycen is talking about. First of all this was not an accident I knew exactly what I was doing lol. The trick started as only on drums but once you have trained your ears to hear the subtleties of the different settings it can be useful on instruments and vocals in some situations. My main goal when I did it originally was to make the drums sound wider, deeper and add some harmonic distortion while still leaving dynamics. Go thru and flip back n forth between the mike, Neve, etc. and hear the slight differences. The Mike setting brings the low end "

The video:

After that, Jaycen never ever again did a mix without the 8 NLS on the Master Fader of the drums and bass, even livestreaming people noticed that they were still there. Another seminar at MWTM shows he's using to mix a Ozuna feat Rosalia song at the drum buss

 

Last edited: Dec 5, 2022

The order of the desks he uses:

Mike, Spike, Mike, Mike, Spike, Mike, Nevo, Spike

No rule here, as Steve and Jaycen said; you gotta tweak a little bit if you want more from other sort of harmonics

 

I really wished this was snake oil... But i couldnt find a plugin to give me what this trick does. As i said, it's not only harmonic distortion, i'd love if Decapitator solved my problem replacing this shit ( i think Jaycen uses Black Box for this, but im not sure)

As @Stevie Dude said, there wasnt the normal compression that occours when you saturate the signal. It's strange as fuck, but it works, and it's a matter of taste

 

Last edited: Dec 5, 2022

wow, 4 instances of Mike. Have you ever checked with plugin doctor what it does ? I don't like the 3-4db boost on 20Hz of it.

 

Nice Loving Sista.... Near Liquid Serenity... New League of Softball... N'horrible L'rotten S'nachos...

Naaah, I'm really sorry, I don't get what ya talkin' about, I must be the dumbest of the dumbos out there... Or seriously disconnected from my mind... Your choice...

Be indulgent with an old man, we are near Xmas...

 

Lois Lane = Neo LiquidSunshine ???

 

these things aka "mixing tricks" come across too spammy for me to care. Not just this specific guy. This technique may do whatever it's intended to, but seriously; "this is just my daily driver". Yeah sure. You'd have to have hundreds if not thousands of mixes done to fall into such a specific workflow habit. so the only other logical answer for this "trick's" existence is generating clicks. It doesn't even matter if it works.