Why doesn't my music have that -full stereo image- ?

[ew]

explain please. I have many tracks I'd like to spread out a bunch of mono recordings

RonC

Copy the track to another track.From there,you can either offset one of the tracks in time from the other(don't go overboard-less than 10 ms will do)or detune one of the tracks(once again-a little goes a long ways)or both.Pan the two according to taste.
ew.

Or record each bit twice (or 4 or six times....) and pan em hard left and right, always sounds better in the long run than the delay trick, worth the effort.

I see your point,DT-but usually I'm just looking for a little more space.
For guitars though(especially rhythm),you're right-double(or more)-each take with a little different EQ and panned hard left and right.
ew

[rpc9943]

I just feel like my mixes just arent freaking WIDE, they sound so freaking mono... http://tcp.caveproductions.net to see what i mean, sorry if the xfer is slow

RonC

[Lunch Money]

I don't have speakers here, but it's possible that you're just being too conservative with your panning. Don't be afraid to experiment. If you're 10% left, whack'er up to full left and see how it sounds! Then back off from there--

Whatever! You can always change back to the 10% if you want.

Remember that a spaced-out-sounding mix will also depend on your front/back imaging, which is largely dependent on reverb/delay settings.

Greg

[rpc9943]

im not talking front,rear. im talking wide

RoNC

[Warmonger]

Get the demo for Ozone, enable the Stereo Imaging component, and set the delay to about 25ms. Then, adjust the amounts for each band. It'll make the song sound super-wide (although after listening to one of your songs, I'm not sure stereo is really a problem).

[rpc9943]

really? I just heard some guys stuff and it was so wider than mine.

Oh well maybe I don't need it? So you think hard panning double vocals would make them sound wider?

RonC

[Glooper]

sounded pretty good from here (Though I'm at work listening with poundstretcher headphones!). IMO, Maybe a little (and I mean a little!)reverb could be added to a few instruments to set them back in the mix and provide perspective and give them a less mono feel. For instance the electric guitar that comes in near the end needs to feel as though it's being played in a room more. From the sound of the music I'm guessing you want to go for a more natural live sound... and as such you will need to use some reverb to make it sound as though the instruments are being played in the same room.

But just don't use too much!

Ben

[Beardedone]

Or record each bit twice (or 4 or six times....) and pan em hard left and right, always sounds better in the long run than the delay trick, worth the effort.

I'd second Donkey's advice here. Whenever I do this I am always happy that I put in the extra effort.

[Kraku]

Actually what Donkey Tugger said is true. Never mind his joking emoticons It's a commonly used trick in the studios to record, for example, a guitar two times and pan those tracks hard right and hard left. Sometimes even a third one is recorded and put in the middle. Then they might be tied together by feeding them together to the same compressor, chorus, flanger, phaser, or something else.

For a REALLY smooth sounding stereo chorus/flanger effects for acoustic and vocal sounds, try Kjaerhus Audio's GMO-1. It's VERY smooth sounding on acoustic instruments. You should also try a stereo phaser of some sort, but be subtle with it

One old trick for electric guitar is to feed the sound through a very small delay and pan that delayed signal hard left and the original hard right (or vice versa). This way you get the 80's stereo guitar sound.

Stereo ping-pong delay is quite useful for beefing up the stereo impression of the sound for vocals and acoustics. Just don't over do it. It sounds much better if you can degrade the delayed signal somehow, like a tapedelay or some subtle distortion in the delay feedback loop.

Reverb is also a very nice thing to try for the sound. Just make sure it's capable of spreading the reverb tail in the stereo field. Not all reverbs do this

And ofcourse, let's not forget the good old panning All the above examples get a whole new meaning in the stereo mixing if you first pan the sound and after panning put an effect on it. Especially stereo reverbs give very nice results (assuming it's a good reverb in the first place; there aren't many good reverbs in VST format yet).

A much used mixing trick is to only pan the reverb signal and leave the original dry signal sitting in the middle. Sometimes it's done the other way: dry signal is hard panned to one side and the pure reverb sound is sitting in the middle, or panned hard on the other side.

It should be also noted that a good stereo sounding mix comes from the contrast between the sounds. Use the effect in a very subtle way and leave some sounds dry. Then mix the levels right and see if you actually need any more effects in the mix. You'll be surpriced that just by effecting one or two sounds can give you a very full and wide stereo mix without muddying the mix.

Also, first try to use different effects on different instruments. If you put delay on every instrument in the mix, it will sound muddy and uninteresting. But if you, for example, put a reverb on guitar and very subtle chorus on the vocals, you might get a neat effect that sounds very clear

A rule of thumb that works for me is to use the effects so that you don't hear them, but you do hear the lack of them if you take them away. The rest should be done with panning. This way you use the effect not for the effects own sake, but to blend the sounds nicely with each other and create a wide and powerful stereo mix An example of this would be a synth bass line: just a bit of delay or reverb (maybe about 5-15% of the overall sound) and it blends perfectly in the mix. Snare drum would be the same, but only reverb would be used.

[Warmonger]

Hmm, I thought exactly the opposite listening to the shortest song on the page. And running it through Ozone, I noticed that the meter shape of the song was more of a round shape. Typical commercial recordings tend to be more tall and narrow on that scope, and a round shape usually means too much reverb (or room ambience, or whatever the sound I'm hearing actually is). I'm no mastering engineer (and I'm not even very good at mixing), but this topic is dicussed in the Izotope mastering guide PDF, so I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track here

[rpc9943]

heh actually the last song wasnt even really mixed or anything, just the atmosphere i thought was interesting enough to post

RonC

[Kraku]

Oh. One more thing:

I don't know what kind of stereo sound you're after, but one final "extreme full stereo" sound trick using only one sound is to add chorus, flanger or phaser on the sound and then running the sound through compressor or limiter. This gives you quite cool sound

[cyanogen]

Db Audio's Tempo Delay is a good (and free!) plug-in:

http://www.db-audioware.com/dbt.htm

As the name implies, you can sync it to the tempo of your song. I run it through the aux bus for the harmony. The more the send function is increased, the wider the harmony will sound.

[Lunch Money]

Ron, I may have given the wrong impression, though others have already beat me to better suggestions. I didn't mean to imply that panning the same track to 2 opposite ends would make the mix sound wider. I just meant that you should keep mono instruments mono in most cases, and just let them find their space in the stereo image through panning.

I keep my lead vocal panned dead centre, and I imagine most people do. Other effects suggested (ie. chorus, flange) will help give you a different sound on your vocals, but I don't think you should strive to have them sound 'wide'. Width is best left for special effects, and a vocal track should usually be direct and instantly accessible, which often means keeping mono and panning direct centre.

Of course, that's just 'conventional' vocal-- everyone's mileage varies and some people LOVE highly-effected vocals.

The most common and useful thing to do, -period- for vocals is just to do a second take. Same pitch, etc., and trying to replicate the original track as accurately as possible. But no matter how hard you try, there will be many differences (esp. in timbre) between the original and the doubled track, which gives it that polished sound as the listener's ears average them together (that's not technically what's happening, but that's how I think of it). In another genre, though, you may WANT that raw and unpolished sound, in which case you wouldn't double the vocal take.

Greg

[rpc9943]

thanks for all of the help everyone! I do use the dual vocals for people, it works even if they suck

RonC