00:00hello and welcome back to the channel
00:01I'm Michael and today I have a very long
00:03awaited tutorial how to use span which
00:06is a frequency analyzer plugin it
00:09happens to be free and if you've watched
00:10my other videos you know that I love
00:12free plugins but only if they are
00:14excellent compelling and very stable
00:16plugins which is exactly what span is
00:19people have been seeing me use it for
00:21the last couple of years and I'm always
00:22getting asked what settings I use how do
00:24I actually use it to get a better mix or
00:26production so I'm going to be showing
00:28you all of that in this video but I also
00:29want to say mixing in production it's
00:32not all about analyzers and statistics
00:34and graphs so do remember trust your ear
00:36be creative but there are some really
00:39cool ways that a good frequency analyzer
00:41can help you out where you can't
00:43necessarily trust your ears so let's
00:45just dive right in and see how to use
00:47this plugin first things first this is a
00:49free plugin which you can download from
00:51the Vox angle site I'll leave a link to
00:53this in the description this is not a
00:55sponsored video as I said it's a free
00:57plug-in it's available in loads of
00:59different formats you just download the
01:00pack run the Installer it should go into
01:03your default plugins folder run a plugin
01:05scan in your software and it should show
01:07up in your effects which you can put on
01:10to your mixer so I happen to be using FL
01:13Studio 20 but I know that this plug-in
01:14works in virtually every dog I've ever
01:16used as I said span is a frequency
01:19analyzer and metering plug-in so you
01:21could load it on any individual trainer
01:23you could load it just on your kick drum
01:25just on your bass but I'm gonna load it
01:27on the master Channel this way I can see
01:29everything I can see the big picture of
01:30the mix and if I want to hear it on an
01:32individual Channel I can just Solo in on
01:34that channel later so I'm just going to
01:36go to an empty effects slot
01:38select the plug-in and it's down here in
01:39my FX analyzer span and initially it
01:42loads up like this so let's just do some
01:45basics you can resize the plug-in of
01:47course make it fit your screen many
01:49people that they've got a dual display
01:50I'll put it over on the left or the
01:52right and keep this running the whole
01:53time if I just press play
01:56you can see that it gives you a load of
01:58information right away a bit too much
02:00information for me all these meters and
02:02these statistics at the bottom I tend to
02:04find they don't help me out too much so
02:06I just hide those by pressing this
02:07button at the top if I want that
02:09metering and statistics I tend to use
02:11another free plugin called the Yulin
02:13loudness meter which I really love as I
02:15said it's free and it's excellent if I
02:17hit play on the audio initially it's
02:19sort of a bit of a confusing graph
02:22there's not a whole lot of usable
02:24information but you've got the low end
02:26at the bottom so you can see 20 Hertz
02:28all the way up to about 20 kilohertz and
02:30a higher signals louder lower signals
02:33quiet and right now it's giving me sort
02:35of an average of the signal and as well
02:38as being able to identify a particular
02:39frequency you can also solo in to listen
02:42to certain parts of your mix so if I
02:44press play then I hold down control or
02:46command on Mac I believe and then a left
02:48click you can see that I get a band to
02:51listen through too so I can really focus
02:53in on the high end or really try to
02:59identify key parts of my kick and bass
03:01you can make this band wider by
03:03scrolling with the mouse without
03:04scrolling up makes it a lot wider
03:06scrolling in makes it a lot narrower and
03:11you probably couldn't hear that unless
03:13you were listening in good headphones or
03:15speakers but what this lets me do is
03:17very closely identify where the real
03:19thud of a kick or a snare comes from
03:21especially with the kick and bass
03:22actually what it helps me do is really
03:24focus in on what a specific frequency
03:26feels and sounds like so if I play this
03:29again I just saw the win on say 50 Hertz
03:35I can really get a feel for how that
03:36actually feels and sounds compared to
03:38say sixty Hertz versus like a hundred
03:42and ten Hertz and you can get a real
03:46good feel for how it's sort of how the
03:48thud interacts with your body and your
03:50ears and to me it's a good sort of ear
03:53training tool sometimes you think
03:54there's a frequency problem maybe you
03:56think it's at ten K but actually it's at
03:58six or seven K and it's just a case of
04:00ear training so let's move on and just a
04:03few more things to do with the view
04:04modes but just play some audio you can
04:06change the color I tend to prefer blue
04:09it's just a little bit nicer on the eyes
04:10at any time you can press hold to just
04:13freeze the graph in place and you can
04:15see that if I move my mouse you have
04:17this sort of crosshairs so you can go to
04:19any trough or any peak and it'll tell
04:22you exactly what frequency and note it
04:24is in the scale so you can see right
04:26here this peak is 411 Hertz and it's a
04:30g-sharp this is a little bit too much
04:31information and I'm gonna change this
04:34spectrum to give me what I want because
04:35right now I'm getting so many little
04:37harmonics I want to see a general trend
04:39of the whole audio I want to see whether
04:41my audio is balanced or not that's what
04:43I'm really gonna use this for I'll just
04:45take it out of hold mode up here and
04:46let's get diving through some of the
04:49settings so I open this settings cog
04:52here and this is where this whole thing
04:54so as I'm tweaking these I'm gonna try
04:56and talk through examples of how this
04:58can actually help you and ways to use it
05:00as opposed to just pointing at a certain
05:02setting first things I'm gonna do is I'm
05:05going to show you the block size and the
05:08average time so block size is pretty
05:10much the resolution of the display I
05:13mean that's kind of the easiest way for
05:14me to describe it I play some audio I'll
05:16probably mute it to you so that's not
05:18too annoying but right now it's on 2000
05:20if I change it to 256 you can see that
05:23it's all smoothed out and all of a
05:25sudden there's not so much resolution so
05:27I actually want to increase this maybe
05:29to around 8000 or so but now I have tons
05:33of harmonic content and it's really
05:35confusing to gauge an overall trend so
05:38what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna firstly
05:40increase the average time so that the
05:42graph holds a little bit more this means
05:44that it's not going to be quite as
05:45sensitive to the transients
05:48every snare and hi-hats making the graph
05:50jump around like crazy whereas if I
05:52increased this to say four or five
05:54thousand it gives me more of a trend of
05:56what's happening over the course for a
05:58few seconds and finally to get rid of
06:00all of these little harmonic peaks I'm
06:02gonna add some smoothing so anywhere
06:04from a fifth of an octave to a half an
06:06octave I'm gonna try a quarter or
06:08quarter of an octave there we go it's a
06:11little bit more smooth maybe increase
06:13that to a third okay so now I've got a
06:15bit more of a trend over time of what's
06:17happening I'm not being too distracted
06:19by individual transients or harmonics
06:22and I can see the overall trend of the
06:25audio before we go any further in the
06:27settings before this gets too boring how
06:29can this actually help you you can see
06:30if there's any particular Peaks or
06:32troughs in your audio and a way that I
06:34like to use this is to compare to some
06:36reference tracks that I'm mixing against
06:38I see where their peaks and troughs are
06:40I see whether they're smoothed out what
06:41theirs looks like overall then I compare
06:43it to mine I can see right now I've got
06:45a bit of it quite a dip at around 2k or
06:48so but I don't yet have vocals in this
06:50song and I do imagine once there's some
06:51vocals that will fill up the space and
06:53there's loads of other ways you can get
06:55this to help you as well so the low mids
06:58here around 300 Hertz or so I can see
07:00there's a bit of a buildup and now I can
07:02go through my mix track by track and see
07:04where that might be coming from it might
07:05be good might be bad often when you're
07:07mixing your ears get used to what you're
07:09hearing so a spectrum analyzer can help
07:11you see if there's something your ears
07:13are maybe missing what's even more
07:15amazing is that if you right-click it
07:17copies that frequency to your clipboard
07:19and now you can go and actually paste
07:20that into your EQ which is just
07:21fantastic and remember at any time you
07:23can just use this crosshairs to identify
07:25the exact frequency of any of this
07:28information let's go through a few more
07:30settings because this can reveal even
07:32more things that you can't hear at the
07:35display range down the bottom you can
07:36change the frequency range at the bottom
07:38so you can see that it starts at 20
07:40Hertz I can actually take this so that
07:42it starts all the way at 1 and this is
07:44showing me low frequency information in
07:46my mix that I didn't even know was there
07:47haven't really come around to mixing
07:49this yet but there's no way I can hear
07:51what's going on down here these
07:53headphones actually go down to 5 Hertz
07:55but my ears don't so now I know that I
07:57can just sort of gently roll that off
07:59with a high-pass filter
08:01they might clean up that low-end give me
08:03a little bit more Headroom you can do
08:05the same with the high frequencies so if
08:07you're working in a much higher sample
08:08rate of course you can see what's going
08:10on above but for me I'm working at 44.1
08:14so I only need half of that which is
08:15about 22 kilohertz or so the next two
08:19controls range low and range high they
08:20adjust the graph so depending on how
08:22quiet or loud your audio is you can get
08:25a little bit more detail so now I can
08:26see all the way down to say minus 160 dB
08:29this is great especially if you're
08:31recording and you want to know sort of
08:33the noise floor of your microphone or
08:35you can get a lot more information on
08:37there than you could with the typical DB
08:38meter same with the range high if you
08:40want to see above zero of course you can
08:42its slope I would leave this alone this
08:45lets you tilt the whole spectrum like
08:47this before I go any further and or
08:49everyone I want to show you a couple of
08:52so because it's loaded on my master
08:54channel if I just solo my kick channel
08:56I'll still be able to see it in here so
08:58if I just let some kicks go around and
09:01then I press hold I'll pause it now I
09:02can hone in on the information here and
09:04I can see that you know 52 53 Hertz
09:07which is a g-sharp that's where my kick
09:09is sitting so now depending on the key
09:11of my song which might be jus sharp it
09:13might be G it might be a I can change
09:16the pitch of my kick very slightly you
09:17need to be careful with this just to
09:19make it sit harmonically you know at
09:22ease with the bass make it all work
09:24together as opposed to fighting against
09:26it this is extremely important in
09:28electronic music especially house music
09:30you might have all the right sounds but
09:32your kick is just fighting the bass and
09:33you don't know why maybe you've done
09:35your side-chaining you've done
09:36everything else but the fundamental
09:38frequency of the kick is just not right
09:40for the key of your song so you can
09:42reach unit or pick a different kick now
09:44I want to show just a few more settings
09:46firstly this filled display mode here I
09:49like actually turning it off and now
09:51you'll see that the spectrogram isn't
09:52filled in it's very simple but I find
09:56that this is just more friendly on my
09:58eyes so just do what's right for you and
09:59then you'll also see that there's a
10:01second spectrum mode which lets you know
10:04that there's an awful lot more going on
10:05here so if we go up to the top and I'm
10:08going to try keep this simple I won't go
10:10into all the routing modes there are
10:11some really complex routing modes you do
10:13all sorts of stuff with this plug
10:14but there's some presets here and one I
10:17particularly like is the mid side stereo
10:21so now initially there's no real
10:23difference but if I change the underlay
10:26you can see that I have two spectrums
10:28here so the blue one is the mid and the
10:30red channel is the side often you don't
10:33want too much low-end in the side
10:35signals for instance I really didn't
10:37know that I had all this stuff below 100
10:39Hertz happening on the side channels
10:41only it's just very difficult for me to
10:43hear that sort of thing up at the top
10:45here I can change between mid and side
10:47if I go to the side I'll probably just
10:49change that color to something a little
10:51bit different maybe like that and then
10:54I'm also going to change some of the
10:55details just to make them similar to the
10:58other one now typically with a well
11:00balanced audio you don't really want the
11:02side signals to be peaking over the mid
11:04channel but it does depend on what kind
11:06of genre you're doing and right now I
11:07can identify here that there's probably
11:09a bit of an issue bit of a conflict here
11:11I've got a bit too much in the side
11:13channels and just to give you an example
11:15of what's going on here this one
11:17underneath in purple is the side channel
11:18so if I take a mid/side eq and I just
11:21scoop out some of the low-end from the
11:22side channel you can see that all of a
11:24sudden it starts falling away on this
11:27spectrum and I have less and less side
11:30pull all back my last piece of advice
11:33for using this plugin is that while it
11:35is very light on the CPU I found as well
11:39as loading one on the master channel I
11:41tend to load one on the current channel
11:42in FL Studio so a lot of people don't
11:44even know about the current channel
11:45actually but it's a bit of a sort of
11:47curiosity of FL Studio if you just click
11:51on this bit here that says current you
11:53actually have a whole other channel to
11:55apply effects on and what this means is
11:57in whichever channel you now select its
11:59audio will be routed through the current
12:01channel then to the master so if I press
12:03and open this span analyzer that I have
12:05open here let's say I just press the
12:08kick so I have everything playing
12:10together I can still hear everything but
12:12the kick is the only channel going
12:15through this analyzer if I now select
12:18it's only the hi-hats are going through
12:20this analyzer so if I select that mode
12:23base I can see what the bass is doing
12:25lost hearing everything else so I know
12:27sound like I'm repeating myself but this
12:29current channel sort of makes it as if
12:32you're loading a span on any channel of
12:34your mixer but obviously you don't have
12:36to load 20 different instances so those
12:39are some of my favorite ways to use this
12:40plugin but I really do want to stress
12:42that for me this plugin is really about
12:44two things overall trends in the audio
12:47similar to the tonal balance control
12:50from isotope but it doesn't cost a lot
12:52of money and then very very specific
12:55issues so sometimes on a vocal you have
12:57a very whistle e frequency or a very
12:58sibilant frequency if you can hone in on
13:01that exact frequency and then say apply
13:03de-essing only to that very narrow band
13:05it can make the rest of your audio sound
13:07a lot more natural and I think if anyone
13:10watches any of my videos you know that I
13:12really do advocate a very you know
13:14creative approach where you trust your
13:16ears and whatnots but you could see you
13:19know looking into the extreme low end of
13:21the track there's just things that you
13:23can't hear and sometimes it's good to
13:25just have something sort of the sort of
13:28like has your back I suppose in the mix
13:30I don't I certainly do not mix with my
13:32eyes I'm not staring at analyzers and
13:34meters too much but it can help you out
13:36so I hope this video has shown you some
13:38of my favorite settings
13:39obviously I've put loads of information
13:41in the description about those settings
13:42and whatnot but thank you very much for
13:44watching I hope it helped and I hope to
13:46see you in the next video - bye for now
