T-Racks vs. Ozone vs. BBE Sonic Maximizer

[Orbitutle]

A lot of great tips in here... I just have one qs:

When you give each sound its own space "freq or panning", should I pan, for an example, the bassline a bit to the left end the strings a bit to the right? Or could I get the same clarity if I put 15% stereo widness on the bassline and 30% on the strings?

I just have a hard time imagining the first example, where there would bee no symetri with the pan left or right. Im mostly doing trance oriented stuff, if it makes any difference.

[HHaynes]

Check out the Ozone mastering guide - they talk about splitting up the spectrum and doing stereo widening only on certain areas of a mix. I'm sure that could be applied directly to the bass, if you have enough HF content to get the top to spread out while keeping the thump in the middle. I've done that a few time on a sub-group and track level, and then commited the changes to disk and dropped the channel-level instance of Ozone for the remainder of the mixdown.

[Orbitutle]

I have read their whole guide, and many others, but reading all the different guides doesn't always make me more wise. I just think I need som experience.

But what I meant was - Sometimes when you hear a track, the clap is a bit to the right, the guitar a bit to the left and so on.
And I just personaly thinks that it ruins the "symetri" in the track.
And I just wanted to know, If you gain more clarity in youre mix doing this trick mentioned above, than doing useing the strereo widener?

[HHaynes]

But what I meant was - Sometimes when you hear a track, the clap is a bit to the right, the guitar a bit to the left and so on.

That's definitely a mix problem, and you're still on the track level to deal with it. The Stereo Imaging module in Ozone can still get that job done, as you're talking about taking a part of the sound and "collapsing" it to the middle in order to get the sound to mesh - using the widener and a negative value on the frequency band in question.

[lavoll]

just out of curiosity.
have any of you tried to set up a mastering environment in something like plogue bidule or audiomulch?

ive just started experimenting with it myself, and i can see myself doing more and more of that.. more experimental, easier to try different plugs quickly etc.

[kritikon]

But what I meant was - Sometimes when you hear a track, the clap is a bit to the right, the guitar a bit to the left and so on.
And I just personaly thinks that it ruins the "symetri" in the track.
And I just wanted to know, If you gain more clarity in youre mix doing this trick mentioned above, than doing useing the strereo widener?

What? You're giving the impression that you mix everything in the middle . If you pan everything in the middle, then Ozone or T-Racks are no use to you anyway - they won't be able to make a good final mix of that.... seriously - no amount of stereo widening is going to make a good mix with no panning on it to start with. The amount of panning, and which instruments/drums go on which side is your own choice, but even though there are very few cast iron rules about making music - panning is one of them - you will never ever hear a commercially released track that hasn't used an awful lot of panning to get clarity.

They don't put pan knobs on every mixer ever made, or on every s/w host ever made for nothing you know.

[HHaynes]

Yeah - LOL - I don't make quality judgements, I just tell them how the tool can do the job.

Listen to a "Black Crowes" album and that just might make you crazy. They put full instruments to one speaker only - to get a sound like in the old days when they wanted to remain mono compatible by panning instruments hard right and left so that when it's collapsed to mono that the mix still holds up. Listen to the opening of "Sting Me" in stereo and you'll wonder "what's wrong with the right channel in the beginning?" - Then when you hear the Rhodes punch up clear on the other side of the mix with the bass in the middle, you figure it out pretty quickly - well most of us would.

[Arksun]

Hmmm, a lot of people missing an important point here.

That point being, your mix should still sound well balanced and clear even in mono!. So whilst stereo panning and seperation may help to a degree, it's not the real answer. If you notice all the best sounding mixes do sound equally good in mono too, so it's perhaps best to focus more on levels dynamics and equing when dealing with busy mixes.

Arksun

[HHaynes]

Hmmm, a lot of people missing an important point here.

That point being, your mix should still sound well balanced and clear even in mono!.

Agreed. The phantom center point of stereo mixing has betrayed every audio engineer at one time or another. Some of these very detailed mixes with instruments delicately shaded across the stereo image will completely implode when mixed to mono. The Stereo Imaging module in Ozone has a pair of phase meters that keep you from falling into that trap, and I'm sure that other tools can help in that regard as well.

[Orbitutle]

You live and you learn ...

I have NEVER ever used panning in my mix, but I have often used a stereo imager on a channel.
I actually thought it did an equal panning to the left and right? But I gues not..
However I think my music has come out fine.
If you wanna listen and give som critism, it would make me happy - www.lauge.mymusic.dk

"Just press the monitor button at the right side of the tracks"

All those are made, like I discribed above..

Thanks for all the replies... Im still a noob!

[TOP40MUSIC]

Love your sound. it's got warmth and clarity. Which mastering suite did you use .