Creating Depth in Mixes Without Live Instruments

[Tony Maserati]

Originally Posted by adpz

Hi Tony - I've enjoyed tons of your work - espc. with the Black Eyed Peas.

As someone who started out engineering/tracking and then moved on to mixing - especially mixing tracks with a lot of samples/DI's - how do you go about creating depth in a mix?

As I see it, with rock, besides live drums we often have OH's and/or room tracks to work with, which help enliven the whole mix. As someone who mixes so much pop and urban, is creating depth a subject that you have had to re-think anew? Any tips - even if there are no beans to spill - that's okay - just a point in a useful direction would be great.

thanks, Alex

Dear Alex,
Sorry, I left you hangin there for quite a while. But, I'm not sure how to answer this question in a text doc. It really is a long process which encompasses all the things I've posted here. I use my ears and my imagination to create spacial relationships between instruments that sometimes come with opposing sonic environments.

All we can do is hope that the producer/arranger was focused on what they were trying to communicate with the song and made it obvious to us as mixers. This is really where the process starts. Music is communication, and if the writer/producer/arranger is focused more on the parts as individual elements and less on how they work together it really doesn't matter if they are 'live' traditional acoustic instruments or samples of acoustic instruments with spaces recorded on them, or synthesized tones coming from a digital oscillator or analog one...

...now you can see why I avoided this one.. I'd really love to hear other folks opinion on this topic tho.
t