KVR Audio

P.T. · Post by **P.T.** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 2:34 pm

I have a track of midi playing a synth and the sound is too up front and in your face on some of the notes.

The synth patch uses a complicated delay that makes some notes play loud when they coincide with certain of the delay repeated notes. They also can sometimes go an octave higher and get a bit piercing.

I want to push the sound back a bit. Not with reverb.
And it isn't about volume. I don't want to lower the tracks volume. I want some space around the sound.

It's like when you record something with a mic.
You can record with the mic very close and get that in your face sound.

Or, you can record with the mic farther away and get a less piercing and not in your face sound with air or space around it.

Is there an effect I can use?

I have thought about getting a mic impulse for a convolution plug like SIR and running the track through that, but I can't find any mic impulses. It would have to be an impulse of a mic that is not too close to it's source.

Any ideas?

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 2:41 pm

Good use of eq would do that

99 · Post by 99 » Sat Feb 05, 2005 2:42 pm

PT wrote:I have a track of midi playing a synth and the sound is too up front and in your face on some of the notes.

The synth patch uses a complicated delay that makes some notes play loud when they coincide with certain of the delay repeated notes. They also can sometimes go an octave higher and get a bit piercing.

I want to push the sound back a bit. Not with reverb.
And it isn't about volume. I don't want to lower the tracks volume. I want some space around the sound.

It's like when you record something with a mic.
You can record with the mic very close and get that in your face sound.

Or, you can record with the mic farther away and get a less piercing and not in your face sound with air or space around it.

Is there an effect I can use?

I have thought about getting a mic impulse for a convolution plug like SIR and running the track through that, but I can't find any mic impulses. It would have to be an impulse of a mic that is not too close to it's source.

Any ideas?

There are several plugins that can do this - they 'virtually' move the source around in the stereo field, left right, front, rear, center, etc. Waves Ultramaximizer and Waves 'S1 Imager' are two I can think of off the top of my head. Then there's Ozone and also Green Machine does this fairly effectively as well for guitar and so on. Then there's Antares Mic Modeler which can be handy.

Hellbilly · Post by **Hellbilly** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 2:42 pm

Maybe try a compressor on it to tame it a bit? Maybe that can help you place it better in the mix and helps with the unpredictability (sheesh, is that even a word...).

But then again, i'm just a home studio hobbyist and i don't know what i am talking about

jzero · Post by **jzero** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 2:46 pm

The mic farther away is a reverb effect. It's just likely a small room reverb with a short decay that's mixed in at a very low level.

Try EQ that rolls off some of the midrange frequencies. Experiment with slight cuts at 1k, 2k, or 4k perhaps.

tkay77 · Post by **tkay77** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 2:49 pm

...you can always use a good eq for that...try to cut highs and propably lows a bit and soon your sound should wander in the back...

tkay

P.T. · Post by **P.T.** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 2:59 pm

By the time I have enough commpression the offending notes sound squashed.

The only EQing that has worked is to render to wave and use an fft filter in an editor. It works but is an enormous amount of work.
It may be what I will have to do.

Adding the short reverb just makes those piecing notes ring in the reverb tail. I have tried just about every reverb I have. I will try some more with this method.
Farther mic placement is different because tou don't have those hard noted to begin with. The whole sound is softer to begin with.

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 3:10 pm

Not sure what host yore using but its not doing you any favours if it cant do a simple job like proper eq...

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 3:13 pm

ease off teh mids and treble a bit and then lower the volume. Adding a stereo delay(sound hits one speaker before the other) could also help...

griels · Post by **griels** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 3:17 pm

I would have thought that closer objects would sound more compressed than further away objects due to the dynamic behaviour of microphones and ears... Another point would be that the apparent stereo image of a distant object will be much narrower because of stereo perspective. Microphone or ear modelling (HRTF style) would certainly be an approach to making an object sound distant as well.

You could try Christian Budde's VST plugins for some HRTF style processing. They're under the 'Programs' section at

http://www.savioursofsoul.de/Christian/

jzero · Post by **jzero** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 3:24 pm

If playing your synth through a speaker and micing the speaker provides the effect you're after...

why not use that?

xoxos · Post by **xoxos** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:19 pm

another definate vote for eq..

2 points - if it's really a 'space' thing, haven't tried c. budde's plugs but using even a simple delay as near reflection might create loction w/o the full reverb mix-smear effect

as suggested by kilo in his mixing articles at www.dancetech.com.. eq! eq! eq! #1 most creatively useful process (second to amplification :p) trimming some lows (proximity effect) and soften the highs a bit is my usual to place 'back'

sounds like the real problem is more these occasional overlapping notes, try a MULTIBAND COMPRESSOR, eg. one that you can apply to only the eq band that gets annoyingly loud

mauseoleum · Post by **mauseoleum** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:56 pm

no-no-no !

you've got it all wrong. just slap over some distortion (a-la goode ol' blood overdrive)

http://www.audiomelody.com/index.php?/m ... w/full/155

and THEN run some convolution-verb over it (Yes, Sir!) with some neat&fresch amp cabinet impulse.

tadaa - simple&fun.

oh, yeah, and btw. LISTEN LOUD !!!!!!!!!!!!!

3*s · Post by **3*s** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 5:39 pm

Roll off some 4.5-5k (depending on where the upper harmonics are, use a spectral analyzer like Voxengo SPAN) and add a stereo delay. The phase effect (not to be confused with phaser) works nicely too. Do this by adding a delay, 100% wet signal, panned hard left and right, one channel 0 ms delay, the other >0-30 or so.

Funkybot · Post by **Funkybot** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 11:55 pm

Rolling off some hi's as well as hi mids will do this as suggested, but also try running a really short delay with no feedback and a really high mix setting after the sound. This won't mess with the delay effect you already have on there as the high mix setting will push everything back by that amount and the lack of feedback won't create new repeats. Remember that a great deal of how distance is percieved by the time it takes a sound to reach the ears.

How to push a sound back without using reverb?