Mix Tips in terms of Space (Panning, Delay, Verb, Ambience)

[Umlaaat]

I remember Jay Kahrs said something about having a snare on one side and the delay on the other in the Engineers decline thread which got me thinking of other "tricks' used when mixing in terms of space.

What else would you do for delay purposes? I remember one tip someone said about multing a vocal 4 times, once no plugs, once high pass and squashed, once with delay and once with chorus. I used this and this is very easy to overdo, but if mixed well, it becomes nice. I extended this idea and put a delay, on a bus/aux and an chorus/phase on another, adding them to taste on some of the mults.

But this idea of panning the delay to one side seems interesting.

What else do you do?

[warhead]

I'll set up maybe 3 delay effect sends varying from 32nd, 16th, 8th and quarter notes based on the BPM of the song and after I get the type of space in a song I'm already happy with I'll start experimenting and easing my way into some of those to see if it won't take it over the top.

I'm favoring a 32nd note delay mixed pretty low on things like vocals and drum busses lately to add some dimension. Panning that return can be effective as well or it can blur the image too much when panned too hard.

War

[wallace]

you can do the same thing with reverbs, or if you're setting up a recording (and think it's OK to have some bleed) think of ways to mic stuff so you can pan hard right or left, but still have some room bleed panned to the opposite side.

just a guess.

[Drumsound]

I like to have the mix vary in width. It's really interesting if a wide modulation effect comes in and out of a mix. Moving pans are always fun IMHO.

[mizzle]

I often filter the delays- pan them too. HP or BP filter usually lets the lead vox stay out front and keeps the delay from cramping other spaces. Sometimes I use the delay for a faux stereo image. Other times I slightly detune a mult to make a stereo image (original panned hard opposite of the pitched copy) and this creates some phase-shift. Works well with mono drum samples. Other times I'll mix in ever so slightly, a .5- 3 second reverb and compress that with a long release time (this lets a nice room sound swell out after the source if done correctly). Usually just a tinge of verb can be heard (I personally loathe the overuse of reverb).

Mizzle

[RKrizman]

Maybe it's an obvious tip, but after years of working in mono way back when I still find it useful to do a bit of the mixing with the monitors output panned to one speaker and thinking in terms of front-to-back placement. I know pop/rock has become a very slamming in your face deal, but it doesn't have to be.

-R

[mizzle]

Good idea! Something I haven't tried. Thanks....

Mizzle

[wallace]

I've been trying to pan hard left/right, and center, and also trying to think of each speaker as a mono channel, if that makes any sense. Then I'll also pan the drum subs or stereo reverb at 50% L/R.

[vaesion]

http://www.deep-productions.com/things/

read those

[Harris_FTp]

Greetings!

I love to deal mixing drums on a 3Dimensional pespective.

Drums in reality are positioned on a 3D space, magnifying that sense to a mix makes drums sound round and full- while leaving more and clear (better defined) space in the mix for other instruments.

3D mixing is of course different for every music genre- metal music has many more elements interlapping each other than a blues or a jazz mix.

A couple of tips I can give are the following:

1. Mix drums (i.e choose the appropriate drum kit, eq sound, sound character) first in mono and then spread in stereo...
Then, with the other instrument tracks included, pan accordingly.

2. When spreading (panning) the kit elements, try not to overdo it- not all drummers are tall enough (long arms and legs) to enter Guiness records for the height.

3. Don't be afraid to keep everything in a sense of mono- even the overheads..Especially if you have been allured to extreme mixing settings by your big effect rack (reverbs and delays) and that led you to phasing problems.

4. Panning the hihat to one side and a delayed signal on the other is a common technique- mainly used to hiphop i think.
In general, this trick is called "fattening" (when used for instance on guitars) while it is actually "cheating" your brain...:
A short 10ms delay will confuse your audiotory perception and you'll think the sound appears further away (in terms of left and right>>stereo field, that is)

Finally, don't be afraid to use panning settings to direct signals but use mono room or overhead mics-especially when you want to heavily compress the latter.

That's about it.

A nice practical way to learn/deal with such "drum positioning in the mix" is using multichannel software like BFD or DKFHS.
Trying the tricks above within their engines is a very educative process.
In case you want to know more about drum mixing decisions that share the above philosophy, visit the link below:

www.ftponweb.com
(click on the NEW icon to preview content)
There is a chapter in there called "3D Drum Placement in the Mix"- for a diversied set of music genres.
Enjoy!

Regards,

Harris M.