Layering

This technique is often used by music producers. Producers are people who create music in so-called sequencers (music creation software). For example, Lady Gaga, even if she knows how to write songs, she can’t create the final product and she has the help of the same producers. One of the most famous producers who worked with her is RedOne.

So, back to layering. This technique is used to give fullness to any of your instruments, as well as to the track as a whole. It is most commonly used when creating a drum part and a vocal part. At first, let’s take layering as an example of a drum part.

Layering when creating a percussion part. When writing acoustic and electronic music, you use libraries of pre-recorded samples. Such libraries contain sounds recorded in a professional studio that novice musicians and producers do not always have access to. Examples of such sounds might be a single beat in a volume, a drum, a hand clap, a percussion drum, and other such things. Such libraries can easily be found freely available or for sale on the Internet. They are called “One Shot Samples” or “One Shot Libraries.”

The use of pre-recorded drum loops is also justified. They are usually complete and ready-made versions of drums and can be broken up into parts (e.g. drums separately, cymbals separately, percussion separately, tambourines separately), and if you put them together, you get a complete drum part. They are called “Drum Loops” and are widely available on the Internet. Among other things, there are many programs with ready drum libraries, the prime examples of which are XLN Audio Addictive Drums, Spectrasonics StyleRMX, Native Instruments Machine and others.

Consider the layering of the main drums (“kick”) in the figure below. To get rich and dense kick drum sound, you can use three different kick drum variations. Studio Kick, Acoustic Kick, and Electronic Kick.

Each of these drums has its own sound, but together they start to sound much denser than they do individually. When combining different drums, you must take into account that they may not blend together, so sometimes you have to equalize them. In the illustration below, one of the drums (left) has the low bass frequencies removed and creates what is called a clap or click in the upper frequency range, while the other has the emphasis on the low frequencies and fills in the bass component.

When combining drums made from “One Shot” samples, you can use programs such as “Native Instruments Battery” or “Image-Line FPC”. There you can set the volume of each of the instruments, and spread them out over the panorama. The illustration below shows 3 barrels combined in one cell of the “Image-Line FPC” programs.

In addition, music production often uses layering of already prepared drum loops. In my music practice, I use both approaches: I compose a part of the drum part from the “One Shot” samples, and fill in the other part with ready drum loops I have found in the special libraries or programs. In the example below, 6 levels of drums I compiled (3 levels of drums, one clap, closed cymbals and metal percussion) are highlighted in green, as well as 4 levels of ready drum loops shaded in blue. All together they make up the full percussion part of the song used in the chorus. This integrated approach allows you to get a fuller percussion sound.

Working with vocals

Initial vocal processing. Let’s consider vocal processing at the initial stage, and then we’ll talk about vocal layering. Naturally, the first thing you need to do is to record vocals. For this use FL Studio built-in plugin “Edison”. To record a vocal, you need to select the input channel you have your microphone connected to and then add the “Edison” plugin on the same channel, set the “NOW” and “IN NEW PROJECT” switches, then press the record button and record your vocal (everything is shown in the pictures below).

Don’t rush to save the vocals as soon as they are recorded. First, you need to get rid of the extra noise that your microphone, wires, audio card, and sound sources in the room usually give off. To do this, try to be silent for a while after recording your vocals, thereby leaving a small section from which you can read the noise from the recording. Then select this area and open the “Clean Up Tool” as shown in the figure below.

Then the plugin will need to make a so-called “noise map”, which it will exclude from your vocals. To do this, click on the “Acquire noise profile” button.

Then close the “Clean Up Tool” and select all the vocals you recorded, reopen the “Clean Up Tool” (the green areas will be marked with the most noise), set the “Amount” value to about the middle and press “Accept”.

Then (in the “Edison” window) you will see and hear that your vocals are noticeably cleaner.

Now let’s see how to remove the overly loud “S” and “Z” consonants from your vocals. In production, this process is called “De-essing”. De-essing can also be done with plug-ins (such as “AVOX Sybil” or “Fabfilter Pro-C”), but this process can also be done manually. This is relevant because many de-essing plugins do process and thereby distort all of your vocals, not just consonants, and to leave the rest of your recording untouched, you can use a “manual” approach.

To do this, load your vocals into Edison. Switching to the spectral view (as shown below):

you’ll see the loud “C” and “Z” sounds (marked in the picture below):

Then highlight in “Edison” one of the areas where the consonants are located and open “Equalize”, there you will see that area in more detail. Usually the ringing consonants are located in the range from 5K to 15K. Cut out these frequencies, set “Mix” to about 50% and press “Accept” (all indicated in the picture below).

Next, do the same procedure with all the ringing consonants “C” and “Z”. You can also do the same with the loud breaths, but you will need to equalize the whole range of frequencies (in fact, just make them quieter).

Layering for creating vocal parts. Now let’s consider the layering method that can and should be used for creating vocal parts. The well-known backing vocals are, in fact, layering. However, there are several different approaches to this question.

The first approach is that you invite backing singers, or you perform your own backing vocals. The pros of this approach are obvious, the real voice cannot be replaced by anything yet. Cons: You need both a recording studio and good backing singers. Then the recorded vocals are added to the lead vocals without precise timing (i.e. the vocals may sound slightly different, but not by much).

The second approach is that you can use programs such as “Antares Autotune” or “Image-Line Pitcher” to create harmonic backing vocals with only one lead vocal part. Let me briefly describe the process of creating these backing vocals.

First, you need to record the main vocal part (so called “Lead Vocal”). Then process it (about vocal processing – see below) and import it into FL Studio. Next, you need to send the vocal to the effects channel, where the Pitcher is located.

In Pitcher you need to set the following parameters: turn on button “MIDI” (when you turn on this button in the lower left corner there will be a port number, it should be memorized), and button “HARMONIZE”. You can also set the “Replace-Mix” switch to one of two positions. The “Replace” position completely removes the main vocal and leaves only the plugin-generated harmonics. As you can easily guess, the Mix position leaves both your vocals and the generated harmonics.

Then you must add “MIDI out” to the instruments, and specify the port in its settings.

Then, by opening “Piano Roll”, you can specify the harmonics to be generated (by the plugin). You need to specify the notes that the plugin will generate based on your main vocal, and time them so that they coincide with the main vocal and create the correct harmonics.

The pluses of this approach are that it’s easy and fast to create harmonics, and also that these harmonics will copy your vocals exactly, so you won’t have to adjust their position in the mix for a long time. Well, the main disadvantage of this approach is the sound of these backing tracks. No matter how you look at it, you can’t get rid of the synthesized sound.

The third way is to combine both approaches. Even having only one vocalist (in my case it is myself) you can get big, full and realistic vocal parts. All you need to do is use the method described above to create the right harmonics. Then you need to memorize what your harmonics sound like. To understand and hear how only your harmonics sound, you need to set the switch in the Pitcher program to “Replace” and memorize the harmonics sound and then try to reproduce them yourself. At first, it may be unusual to sing such backing vocals, because you need to sing them as smoothly as possible throughout their duration and try to remove unnecessary expression and “walking” over the notes from your vocals. If you don’t hit the notes at any point, you can tweak your backing vocals in Celemony Melodyne Editor or Image-Line Newtone. Real vocals, even extremely processed with these plugins, will still sound more realistic than generated harmonics.

Clearly, the more layers of backing vocals, the fuller the vocal part sounds. But it’s important to remember that you can’t sing the same way every time, and sometimes one phrase will sound longer than another, etc. Therefore, the backing vocals need to be arranged exactly according to your lead vocal.

Each backing vocal is matched to the others and to the lead vocal. If this is not done, the whole vocal part will sound like a mess. At times, up to 10 layers of vocals are used (when creating a chorus in a song, for example), and so this is doubly relevant. I hope you find my advice helpful.

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Install Adobe Premiere Pro and familiarize yourself with the interface

Download a trial version of Premiere Pro from Adobe’s official website and follow the installer instructions.

The first time you run the program, it will prompt you to create a new project. This is a kind of draft in which you will work on your future video. Enter the name of the project in the “Name” field and specify a folder to store it in the “Location” field. After that, click OK.

You will see the main video editor screen. The tabs at the top of the window are used to switch between the main sections of the interface. Click Edit. Here you’ll find the basic toolbars: “Source”, “Project”, “Timeline” and “Program”. These are the ones you’ll be working with most of the time.

Add Source Media Files

Drag and drop the sources you want to assemble the final video from into the Project panel. These can be clips, audio files, or still images. Their thumbnails will immediately appear in Premiere Pro.

If you want, you can always view any added file directly in the interface of the program. Just double-click it and Premiere Pro will play it in the Source panel.

Drag your files into the edit pane

Drag the source file from the Project pane into the Timeline pane. If you have several clips, select the one you plan to make the basis of the final video.

If the program informs you that the selected file does not match the current settings, click Change Title Settings. This will optimize the panel settings to work with your clip.

Then drag and drop all the other source files you need for editing, including audio and pictures, onto the Timeline panel.

Figure out how the panel works. The sources are displayed here as timelines. And each of them occupies a specific track or, you might say, a layer. The ones labeled A are for audio. Those marked with V are for clips and static images.

If you place two video clips under each other, only the top one will appear in the final clip. Keep this in mind when editing.

Edit the source code

Use the tools in the Timeline panel to edit the added files and assemble the final video.

“Trim” lets you remove fragments from clips and audio files.

Use the “Hand” tool to scroll the timeline along with the files placed on it.

“Selection” performs several functions at once. Among other things, this tool lets you:

Drag and drop segments of audio and video between different tracks and in relation to the timeline. You can assemble video sequences like a mosaic.

Adjust the timeline of each segment on the timeline. To do this, just pull the edge of the segment to the side.

Control the volume. First, you need to double-click next to the microphone icon on the right side of the audio track. When it expands, just pull up or down on the line that runs along the track.

Remove unnecessary fragments. You need to select a segment and press the Delete key.

To understand, try each of the listed tools and watch the “Program” panel. This displays the current result of the montage.

Add transitions and titles

If you want, you can decorate the glues between the fragments of the clip with various effects – video transitions. To do it, find the Effects tab in the Project panel and click Video Transitions in the appearing list. Try different ones and choose the appropriate ones. To apply an effect, simply drag it from the “Project” panel to the border between the two video segments.

If you need to add author names, quotes, or any other text to the video, click the “Graphics” option at the top of the window. Select the appropriate title template in the panel on the right and drag it onto the timeline. Type the desired text in the Program panel.

Save the result

When you are finished editing, save the final video. To do this, click File → Export → Media Content. In the window that appears, make the appropriate settings.

If you don’t know what settings to choose, choose the H.264 format. It will work in most cases. Then select one of the Adobe templates. For example, the list includes ready-made settings for YouTube and other popular services.

In the “Output File Name” field, set the name of the video and specify the folder in which you want to save it. Then click “Export” at the bottom of the window and wait for the program to save the result to your computer.

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In fact, the roots of such methods of “sharpening in 40 actions” grow out of a very simple thing – the people who write these lessons have never worked with a large volume of photographs. That is, they usually have a couple of photos and are willing to kill an evening or two in processing them. But when you have regular orders and you have to process dozens of frames at each photo shoot, you start thinking about simpler and more convenient ways of processing.

About them we will talk today. I will tell you about five simple but very effective Photoshop tools that I use in my work all the time.

Before I process photos in Photoshop, I always work with the frames in the RAW converter first. That’s where I do the basic color correction and initial photo processing. In essence, I create the “skeleton” of the processing, and in Photoshop I work with the details of the photo.

So, we have worked with the photo in the RAW converter and open it in Photoshop. Photoshop welcomes us with a huge number of processing tools for all occasions. But we’ll talk about the simplest and most effective of them.

Dodge Tool/Burn Tool

The main function of the Dodge Tool/Burn Tool is to lighten/darken some parts of the image. In essence, you can paint over a darkened image or vice versa. It’s very simple, give it a try: I’m sure you’ll appreciate this tool. The Dodge/Burn Tool has only two, but very important settings.

Range – Select the range to apply

You can use this tool on dark (Shadows), light (Highlights) or neutral (Midtones) areas of the photo. For example, you need to lighten the dark areas of the chin (when processing a portrait), and leave the light areas untouched. In this case, we put the Shadows mode in the Dodge Tool, and it will lighten only the dark parts of the places on which we apply it.

Exposure – the strength of the effect

It is very important to set the exposure in the right way. A lot of people, when experimenting with Photoshop, try Dodge/Burn at 100%. And by darkening the image, they get black holes, and by lightening it, they get solid over highlights. Of course, when they get this result, they do not go back to this tool. But Dodge/Burn is a subtle tool. If you work with shadows and highlights, try 7-10%, if you work with neutrals, try 10-20%. The power is different for each case, but once you’ve worked with the tool for a while, you’ll get a feel for what kind of power you need in each particular case.

Dodge/Burn has a lot of uses:

Simply applying the Dodge Tool to the iris is the easiest way to lighten it. By doing so, you focus the viewer’s attention on the model’s eyes. Cheekbones, chin line, nose line, eyebrows – any facial lines, if you darken them a little, will gain more volume and contrast.

I use this technique with almost all of my male B/W portraits. It is not always a good technique for color, because it ruins the colors, but it works just fine in B/W.

If you are doing a portrait of a woman, use it very carefully, because the only way to enhance a woman is to accentuate the facial lines that make her look feminine. Otherwise you will get a portrait of a man-like creature.

Brighten up the backlighting areas

Backlighting on its own is a wonderful thing. But if you use the Dodge Tool to intensify it, it’s even better. It looks especially good in concert photos, when the musicians are nicely backlit.

Whiten the teeth of your models

The Dodge Tool is the easiest and most effective way to whiten the teeth in your photo.

Clone Stamp

Efficient photo editing in Photoshop

There are several tools in Photoshop for retouching images, and each of them is good in its own way. But “Stamp” is the most versatile tool to use.

Its function is to take a certain section of an image and copy it. By doing so, we can, for example, retouch wrinkles – simply by “replacing” them with areas of smooth skin. To do this, press Alt and select the area from which the picture will be taken, and then, just by clicking on the desired areas of the image, we will copy it to them.

In the stamp settings it is important to pay attention to two parameters:

Mode. These are the modes in which the stamp will work. For example, in the Darken mode, the stamp will “replace” only the lighter areas than the selected area. In fact, you can darken the lighter areas of the image, hence the name of the mode – Darken. And, accordingly, in Lighten mode, the stamp will only work on the darker areas of the image, brightening them.

Clone Stamp has many modes – experiment with them, I’m sure you will get interesting results.
Describing the work of each mode, in my opinion, makes no sense – in photoshop for all the tools are essentially the same principles of modes, just changing a little bit for the specifics of a particular tool.

Opacity

Opacity means opacity. Simply put, the less percentage you put in this setting, the more transparent the “work” of the stamp will be. For example, at 100% the stamp will completely replace the selected area, and at 50% it will be semi-transparent. For face retouching, as a rule, 10-30% is used, otherwise the stamp trace will be too clearly visible.

Retouch

Retouching in all its forms is the main purpose of the stamp. First of all, the stamp is used to retouch the skin – to remove wrinkles, bruises under the eyes, puffiness and other beautiful creations of Mother Nature.

You can also retouch, for example, an unwanted object in the frame. Unless, of course, it takes up half of the photo. It’s very handy to use the stamp to remove small over highlights. For example, your model has a small spot of overblow on the tip of his nose. We take the stamp, set the Darken mode and darken this spot in a couple of clicks.

History Brush

The History Brush is a time machine for processing photos. You can take any processing stage and brush it on your image.

Black&White

The Black&White tool is in the Image->Adjustments tab. Or you can simply create an Adjustment layer on the photo.

The main function of the Black&White tool is to “correctly” convert a color image to B/W. Correct because you can change the black and white representation of each color. That way you can get a nice and “tasty” B/W picture.

But the B&W functionality does not stop here. You can use this tool to get a very interesting and colorful picture. There are a lot of ways of using B&W both for working with color and for B&W processing.

Shadow/Highlights

Shadow/Highlights are also found in the Image->Adjustments tab (there are a lot of interesting tools there by the way, I suggest you experiment with them all)

This tool is designed to dim over-lit areas and pull light out of shadows. Besides the most obvious application – removing the highlight and shadow, S/H also works great for creating a sense of greater depth to the picture. We can add dark halftones to the light areas, and light ones to the dark areas. That way, the picture will become more three-dimensional and deep.

In fact, Shadow/Highlights are an absolutely indispensable tool for any serious processing. Almost any photo can be made better if you apply S/H properly.

I want to talk about all the S/H settings and its functionality, but that’s really a topic for a separate article. For now, just experiment – try different settings and see the results. In my experience, this is the most efficient way of learning new things.

As we can see, all of these tools are very easy to use, but they’re also incredibly effective. Try experimenting with them and you’ll get a feel for the possibilities they offer in processing.

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