Need Advise Getting Open Mixes?!?!?!?

[tha k man]

You can try splitting your outs - I've split mixes into sixteen outs on 001's ( using lightpipe + analog ), with good results.

[O.G. Killa]

how are you mixing (in the box or through a mixing board)? What kind of cables are you using In and out of the 001? What kind of mic/micpreamp?

Here's some tips that may or may not help you 'widen your mix'...

1) Dave Pensado once said (in a Digizine article I think!?) there are three holy positions in mixing, Hard Left, Dead Center, and Hard Right. I agree with this for the most part. When you put things in one of those three places they usually stand out more. Reserve the Center for Bass, Kick, Snare and Lead Vocals. Hard left and right for anything you want to stand out more, like Background vocals, etc..

2) Now that you are playing with Delays also play with reverbs and delays. Who says a reverb has to be panned hard right and left? Try putting your main guitar track to the left (<80 to <100), then put the left side of the reverb at 0 and the right side at 100>. Maybe try moving the left side past 0 to 20>, how does that change the sound? Do the opposite for the main piano/keyboard track. This will give them more depth across the stereo field. Try the same thing with a stereo Delay (or a mono delay).

3) Who says everything has to stay in the same place throughout the song? automate panning throughout the song for some of the less noticeable tracks and effects (percussion, funk wah gtr, swirly synths, Vocal doubles and vocal answers, gtr delays, etc).

4) bass isn't as directional as high frequency information is...try putting brighter instruments toward the outside and darker instruments toward the inside and see if that helps to widen your stereo image.

5) try recording some of your acoustic instruments in stereo instead of mono. For example acoustic guitar and piano sound great when recorded in stereo.

6) Flip back and forth between listening in mono and listening in stereo. If something jumps out in mono and diapears in stereo (or vice versa) there couple be problems with they way you are setting up and/or panning your effects on that instrument.

7) Don't try to record everything as hot as you possibly can. Try to keep everything at about 50% full scale on average. And if everything you're doing sounds flat and compressed maybe it is! are you using compression? could you be using to much? Or using it on instruments that don't really need it?

8) One thing I've noticed about a lot of people that try to mix their own music, THEY THINK EVERY TRACK SHOULD BE THE LOUDEST AND SHOULD BE CLEARLY AUDIBLE...that, in my opinion, is so wrong. I think of it like tiers.

1st - Lead Vocal or lead instrument (and Drums depending on style)
2nd - counter melodic parts (like horns, doubling vocals, background vocals (and drums depending on style)
3rd - harmonic rhythm section instruments like piano, guitar, keys
4th - Bass guitar (and percussion depending on style)
5th - transitional effects (reverse cymbals, synth sweeps) and pads (synth pad, string pad, etc)
6th - Effects processors (reverbs, delays, etc).

As you listen to the song your ears should be drawn to the 1st tier first, then the 2nd and so on. What I see a lot of is people try to keep everything loud, and then use panning and EQ to try and create space for it. Turn the volume down...keep turning it down...keep turning it down. As you get quieter the tiers should disappear from bottom to top...so at it's quietest you should only really hear the faint sounds of vocals and drums.

9) One thing to remember. Compression brings things to the front of the mix even if you turn the volume of the track down after adding compression. Use this to your advantage. You can have something be very noticeable and not very loud. Conversely you can use an expander to take something out of the fore-front of a mix (from tier 1 or 2 down to tier 3 or 4) without turning down the volume too much.

10) Finally, remember that after you mix it, you or somebody else will master it. In doing so, compression and limiting will be applied to the whole mix. This will bring the differences between each tier closer together, but you will still have some separation. All of a sudden that wimpy stereo synth pad you had way down in the back of the mix now becomes this ominous, brooding texture that surrounds you.

[Paul Cavins]

What is going on in the front end of the recording? What pres, mics are you using? If they are not open sounding then they might be what is limiting your recording. I've heard "put your money in the front end" (mics and pre-amps, rather than verbs, effects).

PC

[Pako]

Thank you everyone for your input. I'm trying not to concern myself with equipment at this point, it's just not in the budget, and I feel that I should be able to get better results with technique, mic placement, which mic, ect... Definitely recording/mixing in the Box. O.G. Killa had a awesome post and I would like to thank you very much. There are some really good tips in there and hopefully some great habits to get into. I will try everyone’s advise on my upcoming project. It's a personal project so I'm allowed to experiment and have fun with it without a huge time constraint.

~Cheers



For the sake of argument:

Mics:
AKG3000B
Shure57's
Shure58's
Shure SM81's (Stereo Pair)
Shure Beta 52

Mic Pre:
Presonus Digimax

Recorded at 24-bit. 44.1 and 48.

[JFreak]

you could benefit from selling beta52 and buying behringer opus65 instead... you won't believe the difference it makes; beta52 is a live-mic that tries to have a pre-set eq-curve for kick, failing utterly... in studio opus65 is a king, and while you're at it, try an audix d6 as well.

and if you can, try rode condensers. nt4 and ntk especially.

[doorknocker]

It may sound paradox but probably the best way to check the panning/openess of your mixes is listening in mono on one speaker. You'll immediately hear what's clashing.....very often (with drums especially) this is a phase issue. What I always do is flip the phase (easy to do with the Trim or any EQ plug-in) just for the sake of it, sometimes there will be a big difference, especially with anything recorded in stereo or multi-miced.

Andi

[JFreak]

doorknocker, a VERY good point there. if the problem seems to be drum kit, it's good to drop other tracks off for a while and concentrate on overhead sound only; this way there shouldn't be phase problems. and remember, drum kit is a KIT, not a bunch of separate cans. the kit should sound good with plain overheads. additional tracks will not do any good if overheads suck.

[Chris Coleman]

it was suggested to apply a little stereo delay, at 20ms on the right channel, while running dry on the left. That really seemed to help a lot in "opening" up the mix.

I've checked in with this thread a few times and the above comment just really keeps nagging at me...

It's just a really bad idea. If you're wanting to throw psychoacoustics tricks at your mix, then turn to Waves S1 or something like it before you apply some heavy-handed comb-filtering garbage to your beloved work of art. Even the high-end "stereoizing" processors are dangerous if used incorrectly...a delay applied to one half of the mix will do nothing but completely damage it.

But really, as has been stated throughout the thread, the makings of an "open" mix occur well before the mix ever happens - usually before anything's even recorded. A great arrangement will go farther to open up a mix than anything else. Then pile on top of that an excellent recording of a wonderful performance and it's virtually a no-brainer...in or out of the box.

[Chris Coleman]

I have recently started panning things much wider- I used to try to put everything in its own place- something at 100 to the L, something at 85, 70, 65, etc... all through the spectrum. That ended up sounding very closed.

I've now pretty much adopted (at least for now) panning things almost L, R, or C. Everything to the left and right goes between 80-100, and maybe one main instrument up the center.

My mixes feel 100% wider now. Try it and experiment.

The only problem with "wide" mixes like you describe is that they tend to sound like there's a hole in the middle - like the lead vocal's sitting there all alone, not supported by anything.
If you crowd the edges too much, you've got no "width headroom". It's kind of like mixing every track with a brickwall limiter on it - no where to go from there.

Even though panning is very subjective and completely program-dependent, you'd most likely be better off splitting the difference between your "old" panning style and your "new" one. And I'm sure you know - don't mix/pan by the numbers (100, 85, 65, etc.) - use the ol' ears.

Who knows, though - sometimes the bass does sound better just coming out of the right speaker...

[AverageJoe]

Chris-

You're totally right... first, I am always having to shut off the monitor and stop mixing by the numbers... it's the only reason I wish I had a control surface... too many times I go for a specific number rather than just using my ears. It's the curse of Pro Tools. I am always laughing about how it's totally common to talk about sound now as how it looks- "let me redo that fat part over there," referring to a waveform that looks louder. Crazy.

And obviously, I pan Kick and Bass down the center, as well as a main instrument... but yes, I have noticed sometimes a hole in the middle. I think for me, I had so much going on, there were no holes in my mixes. You know how we talk about being able to "see through" a mix (in a good way)? Well, you couldn't see through my mixes with night vision goggles. It was wall of sound (which is cool in its own way sometimes).

So for now the really wide extreme panning thing is working, but again, it's just one more trick to put in the ol' bag.