MIXING HACK | How to Improve Your Mix Visually with Voxengo SPAN

In this tutorial we cover the spectrum analyzer plugin, Voxengo SPAN. It’s one of the most ubiquitous and useful freeware plugins out there for visual mixing. Here’s our game plan:

0:00 Start
0:39 Why you should use visual mixing tools
0:49 Problems with room acoustics
1:26 The filtration effect
2:54 iZotope Matching EQ
5:26 How to set up your DAW & session
6:16 Aligning the drop of your master & the reference tracks
7:00 Why it’s critical to use the VST2 version of SPAN
7:35 Why the manual doesn’t help
7:58 How to dial in SPANs settings
8:27 How to activate infinite averaging for the spectrum
9:07 Setting up the channel routing, groups, & sidechain input
10:09 Renaming the groups
10:29 How to route audio into the sidechain input in Ableton Live 10
10:53 Configuring the second spectrum
11:25 How to underlay one spectrum with another
12:37 How to use this information to improve your mixes & masters
13:10 Comparing 2 masters in SPAN
14:39 Why you shouldn’t only use this technique
15:25 Don’t get your track to match the spectrum of a reference track exactly
15:59 Why this technique works so well for mixing the low end / bass of your track
16:30 Why you should compare your track to a group of similar reference tracks

#voxengospan #mixingtutorial #spectrumanalyzer

[djstgo]

1O Years ago i went to youtube to look for ableton how to, today after a long time i had to do something in ableton, and you came to my mind, i learn so much with in past about ableton, i'm really happy you still busy with music after so long, i hope you and your family are fine, greetings from belgium

[isabellapakulska]

Great tutorial, many thanks for this :). One thing to mention is that you need to enable the Groups Bar too in Voxengo Span. You can do it by ticking the "Show Groups Bar" in the "Information and Settings menu, that appears when you press little square in top right corner of Voxengo Span VST window (the one with three horizontal lines). Just saying, hoping it will save some time to someone. Cheers!

[musiclover-rm]

SUPER HELPFUL! I put off doing this because of all of the different analyzers available including the best of all reference plugs (IMO) metric ab... but I finally went and did this today and it gave me a whole new perspective. It just simplified everything. Thanks for putting this video out!

[maomao]

I’ve been trying to get span to do this for the longest time, now I finally know how! Thanks for the video!

[SchibbiSchibbi]

7:24 I was going crazy not finding the sidechain option for AU in Logic. You're the only one covering this big issue! thanks

[joeygproducedit]

I had to put the bong down for this one 😂💚🤙

[ryancole]

Excellent helpful content as usual sir. Great tip at the end about not obsessing over the minor details whilst comparing your tracks, I have been guilty of this and you have just snapped me out of it. Thank you

[machinemademan]

very nice tip! and props for plugging ahee! ive been using his templates for a long time now. his racks are insane!

[markthomas]

This is brilliant! This is a welcome gen for any producer. Thank you for sharing the knowledge.

[sokoleski]

Very clear and insightful ! Many thanks 💚

[amigazo]

One of the best tutorials I have watched lately. Easy to digest and entertaining. Thanks a lot!
I am in my bed now ready to sleep and I cannot wait to wake up tomorrow to try this with Span.
You got a new subscriber 👌

[djejpro]

the simple fact of changing the Avg time, smoothing, and "Type" alone makes a world of difference. i think it should be mentioned..(unless I missed it), that the 'slope' at 4.5 is a good middle ground for modern music, but can be gentle adjusted if you want the low end to read a little more 'even' across the board...granted, if you're referencing another mix, then you'll probably be fine with tweaking to obtain a similar curve, but I like to 'flatten' things out visually if I'm happy with the overall balance I'm trying to achieve.

very solid tutorial!

[vario]

Thanks sir!
Great voice n presentation!

[djdanielross]

Oops! I was using the vst3 version and had to do even more complex routing than this but this is so much easier. Thanks you so much. You're a bloody legend!!

[jonbellaudio]

This was exactly the information I was looking for. Great video, edited and presented really well. Thank you!

[arnaudnieuwoudt]

Thank you so much for this thorough, step by step explanation for this feature. Been looking for this info for quite a while.

[danielcederborg]

For those who working in Logic X, it's really easy but u must have the plus version. Just send all the reference tracks to a bus and enable SPAN on that bus. Go to Import/Export settings and create a name called let's say REF with the Export To 1 setting. Now you go to your master track with SPAN selected and choose Import From 1 REF in the Import/Export section. Just toggle the tracks with the mute buttons to get the spectrums from the different reference tracks.

[MusicByPaulCollier]

Thank you for this. Experiencing hearing loss of certain frequencies along with crazy loud high pitched tinnitus so needing to find ways of SEEING the sound for accuracy where my ears dont HEAR it as it souns to others.

[badinibeats]

ive always just looked at two spans next to each other this will be so much better

[DanUpdegraff]

For those using Reaper, I was able to get this working using SPAN v3.10. (FYI - I used the 16-bit, VST2 Windows DLL.)
The SPAN plugin must be on the Master track to see all the routing options. (Not sure why. *) Then, to send the reference track to SPAN's sidechain group, click that track's Reaper routing button and change the "Parent channels" to "3-4".
TIP: If you want to compare with multiple reference tracks, set all their parent channels to "3-4", then ALT+Click the tracks routing buttons to toggle them so only one is being sent to the (Master) track at a time.

* UPDATED: SPAN can actually be placed on any track, but that track must be set to use 4 or more channels. (Click the track's Reaper routing button, and set "Track channels" to 4.) You might have to do this even for your Master track. My master was set to 8 channels by default, but I'm not sure this is always the case.