How align pan, width and depth of two different vst sounds
 

Hello Community,

I am new to this amazing group. I wanted to learn something.

Is there a good way to align the pan, depth and stereo width of two piano vst sounds using Pro Tools? I have a Synthogy Piano vst on one track and a TruePiano vst on another track. I want to double the sound of the piano in my mix. Since these are two different vst sounds, they were recorded under different conditions, microphone placements, and width.

What Pro Tools plugs in can help me match these two vst sounds up so they can blend in as closely as possible? I know of spatial spectrum analyzers but do not know how to use that information to do the matching.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Adam

Re: How align pan, width and depth of two different vst sounds
 

Well you are about to go down the rabbit hole, mixing is a very deep subject and i recommend doing reading, vid watching and experimenting.

As for your example, i would start by turning off the effects that are on each VI(reverb and possibly delay) since they dont match. Then create an aux track with a reverb on it and send from each VI track to this Aux track. Experiment with panning the VI's and the sends as well as the send levels. Add different delays to each VI with different times to make them sit differently.

Re: How align pan, width and depth of two different vst sounds
 

What you are trying to do is called layering and as in most layering examples I've come across, the difference between the tracks involved is what makes this practice so amazing, mainly because every new track brings a new element to the final sound. For example, if the first track sounds powerful and well defined the second track could have in contrast a large amount of reverb, then you have the possibility of creating a hybrid tone by balancing each track's volume fader.

I can't think of an automatic tool that can match panning although the EQ matching in FabFilter Pro-Q could help if it's available in L/R or M/S, it would be a matter of experimenting, for phase I use Waves InPhase and SSL X-Phase

Re: How align pan, width and depth of two different vst sounds
 

What Amagras said 100 %

Why layer different pianos or guitars or whatever else if you wanna make them sound as close to eachother as possible?

Just take advantage of the fact you have two different pianos and pan them by testing until they add to eachother and then put some cool delays and saturation and maybe compress some but not much as you will kill the dynamics which are probably pretty important in this instance.

We always layer many different Takes and tones to get that fat warm sound and we make use of our nice analog EQ’s for warmth and some other outboards for coloring and very little compression if we are mixing in pianos.

Re: How align pan, width and depth of two different vst sounds
 

All, you have been of tremendous help. Yes, it is called layering. I will exploit the two sounds for their individual characters to add more warmth.

Good idea.

Thank you again.
Adam