Creating depth in a mix

[paulrgmusic]

Hi everyone

Could anyone offer some advice on how to create a sense of depth to a mix please. For example, I sometimes hear people saying that they want a vocal line to sit at the front of a mix.

I would like to be able to create a feeling of depth in addition to horizontal panning in my music.

Any help would be gratefully received.

Many thanks
Paul

[daeron80]

It's more art than science, but there are some principles that can be useful sometimes. In a real acoustic environment, things get brighter as they get closer, so brightening foreground parts more than background parts can help. It's more helpful to me to think of it the other way around - avoiding the temptation to brighten background parts as much as foreground ones. Always EQ while listening to the mix as a whole rather than focusing on one thing at a time and trying to make everything stand out.

The human ear is most sensitive in the upper midrange, around 2.5 kHz. A quick and dirty way to get a vocal forward is to cut that region a bit from instruments that are competing with the vocal. You can use an FFT display plug-in, such as fre(a)koscope, to identify more precisely where a particular vocalist's upper formants are, and cut other instruments in places that help the vocal more and hopefully hurt the instruments less.

Increasing pre-delay on a reverb tends to have the effect of moving the sound "forward." Imagine yourself in a room with a sounding object. If the object is across the room from you, not only will you hear more verb than if it were close, but the length of time between the direct sound and first reflection will be less.

Compression can be used to help depth, too, but it's much trickier, and there are no rules that apply consistently. You just have to learn to hear what's needed. Sometimes things that need to stand out can be compressed forward. Sometimes things that are jumping out need to be compressed back. IOW, compression can work either way, so you have to be careful and sensitive with its application.

[Sven62]

Now, if you want it waaaay up front....

Insert a Short Delay mono/stereo

This will make the track a stereo track.

Set the left side to 0.0 delay and pan it all the way left
Set the right side to 2 or 3 mil secs and pan it all the way right.

Adjust to taste.

This will give the listener the effect of being inside the vocalist's head. Can't get much more up front than that!

[daeron80]

Originally Posted by Sven62

Insert a Short Delay mono/stereo

This will make the track a stereo track.

Set the left side to 0.0 delay and pan it all the way left
Set the right side to 2 or 3 mil secs and pan it all the way right.

As long as nobody listens to it in mono.

[daeron80]

If you're miking all your tracks, you can help create space by recording most parts in stereo, and using the distance between source and mics intentionally. If your tracks are more direct recorded or VIs, you can try to simulate that with a short room verb, separate instance per track, and varying the amount and pre-delay. The latter is expensive CPU wise, and it requires a darn good sounding verb, but it can work. If you plan it out in advance, you can apply the verbs as you go and keep CPU free for other fun stuff. Like putting the listener inside the singer's head. As long as you keep him out of the banjo players head. Very dangerous in there.

[jazzdrumr]

One thing I might stress is you have to start thinking in 3D first. Don't just think in terms of panning and blend, see the sound stage and put instruments in it. Instruments in the back are going to be darker in tone due to high-freq loss. Also instruments in back are going to have more reflected sound to direct sound. Wet them up with a pre-fader reverb send to get a good balance. Conversely, things in front are going to be dryer. There are a ton of things to do to create that depth. Half the fun is finding them. First start thinking and hearing it. Hope that helps.

[elicious]

don't forget to start at the source...
if you are also the one recording the trax;
use room mics- on drums, bass, gtr, even vox...
you'll get front-to-rear like nothing else!
b.o.l.
e

[KingFish]

Great comments about EQ, Imaging, FX, Tracking etc... So I'll add some comments about "Bottom End", how it can quickly build up in a track, and steal energy from your mix being punchy, clear, and give you that sense of depth.

Along with everything David mentioned about "Brightening the UpFront elements", without using your HPF Roll Off, on most of the elements of your mix, could "Muddy up" your mix, and because low frequencies are less "Audible" you really don't know what's going on with your mix.

I generally only let the Kik and the Bass guitar, live below 80hz, I'll start to roll them off below 60hz

In a pop or rock track, with lots going on, I'll sometimes roll off Key's and guitars around 125hz, sometimes acoustic instruments as high as 250hz, BG vocals 250hz, again it's not a "Formula" - just things I usually aim for 1st, when I have a busy mix.

I tend to start with the Roll off, then go back, and start to brighten elements.

You want to hear something amazing... load a full session blank, and start to mix in this fashion, ONLY using the roll off on every track, get the track as "Slamming" as possible, for levels, depth and punch as you can, without brightening anything... then after you've tweaked it all, during playback... "Option(alt)+Click" to Bypass, all roll offs - you'll be amazed at how much mud, is introduced, and how much energy is robbed from your mix.

This is a GREAT thread talking about the concepts of mixing, and all of the elements involved. there are some great contributions here, thought I'd pipe in with the "Un Addressed Bottom End"

[daeron80]

+1 rolling off lows first to get them out of the way of kick and bass. Especially on background instruments.

[paulrgmusic]

Just wanted to thanks everyone for their contributions. I tried rolling off the low frequencies of tracks as suggested. Big improvement! It would seem that much of the perceived volume of a track comes from really low frequencies that we can't really hear. As soon as you add other instruments, all their lows clump together and create mud by interfering with the bass and kick drum.

Great suggestions - please keep them coming.

Paul