How to create a BIGGER and WIDER mix?

deadly_habit · Post by **deadly_habit** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 3:00 pm

automation of plugs is the same as having hardware and fiddling with knobs and faders
great for a lush like me just a pain assigning midi controllers when drunk
also go back to your orig influences any genre and analyze the tunes with producers ears
hell my music collection is nowhere near current but listening to my fave lp with worst mastering ive heard bad company - digital nation lp and it's still fresh to me

safeandsound · Post by **safeandsound** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:37 pm

The holy grail of production, the big wide mix !

Got to start of with great sounds, if the raw sounds do not have punch
it will be difficult to bring it out, you can only do so much.

You can thicken some sounds with some valve processing or ITB emulation, some harmonic excitation can help but watch out for the harsh tops.

Of course experiment with stereo width enhacement (keeping check of the mono sum) on a few sounds in the mix.

Your drums and bottom end are going to be the meat and potatoes so get them right and you are 1/2 way there.

Tube gear and transformer in and out gear will help fatten up some of the
tracks if you have it, if not search the plugin equivalent.

A good quality buss compressor in or out of the box can help when set up correctly.

Reverbs, basically make judgements do not overdo them unless for specific effect.

And of course EQ, something characterful might do the trick in beefing things up watch you do not create too much mud around the 300-700Hz area though. It's a fine line between fullness and mud around here.

And hate to say it, good mastering will no doubt help too.

cheers

FSTZ1 · Post by **FSTZ1** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:12 pm

^^^that's refreshing

welcome to the forum

most of us are just too sick of answering the same questions over and over

Sharmaji · Post by **Sharmaji** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:47 pm

depth and width are all about reverb and delays-- more importantly, the RIGHT 'verbs and delays. you can make something sound HUGE by sending it to a short, bright verb, when yr 1st thought was to send it to a big, 5second verb.

also all about depth of field in the mix-- you can't have a huge-sounding mix if every element is RIGHT HERE RIGHT UP FRONT. look at that chase & status d&b tutorial from a few years ago-- the kick and snare are SUPER present, the main break behind that, the metallic bits waaaay far in the background. short verbs can really help push things back in the mix.

also, a big, deep, wide mix is an uncluttered mix. get rid of those shakers and hihat hits that don't do anything for the groove. arrangement!

otherwise, getting your verbs and eq's to sit right is a mtter of send levels, eq's, and even pans. you don't want any extraneous verb in there, no too-long tails, no too-bassy or too-bright reverberations. delays, filter and pan, filter and pan, i usually use 2 or 3 delays as sends (1/4, 1/8th, and maybe something dotted), not counting super-effected delays.

so as always-- everything in its place, and a place for everything!

as far as BIGness is concerned-- really, it's often a matter of implied volume. I just heard some un-mastered mixes by Tom Lord-Alge (one of the best mixers in the game) at a conference-- everything sounded GREAT but it didn't have full-on polish.

The mastering engineer then played the final master and it was HUGE, bright, deep, wide, thick- all those good bits.

all he did was increase the gain by 4db. no limiting, no compression, no eq-- the balances were already great in the mix).

try turning up the monitors at various points to see how 'big' things sound.

freq juggler · Post by **freq juggler** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:42 pm

A BIG thanx for the tips guys! I appreciate it.

And about the remark saying people are sick of answering the same questions over and over, i have to say the following. I understand what you mean, same here. Remind though that alot of peeps in here have been for a long time already. To you maybe everything has been said, but this IS a forum and things like this are part of it unfortunately. I used search first but found nothing wich helped.

i'm no noob to making music, am doing this for 12 years already. The thing is i was mainly focused on hiphop and rap. The last 2 years or so i really started experimenting and make dubstep and drum n bass. To me my tunes where fat and sounded like i wanted them. Then you get feedback and listnen back after a few months and notice it really wasn't that good!
So getting some advise of you guys in here can help me get a bit further cos i got stuck. I'm not the type of person asking for stupid things like "how to make a wobble". I f' around myself and if i can't find it out i search google and forums. So it's not like i started this thread becvause i can't produce or am a newbie. I just wanted some tips and advise on THIS subject.

Anyway thanx again!!

2snide (harmitage) · Post by **2snide (harmitage)** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 7:37 pm

Freq Juggler wrote:I actually made a BIG folder of freeware plugins. All checked for the sound and ease of use. With pictures of them. I even catagorized them all. It litterally took me twoo weeks of searching, testing etc. (was in between jobs so hey ). If anyone wants it i can put it on zshare or something?

This would be legnedary!

jsilver · Post by **jsilver** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 8:10 pm

2snide (HARMITAGE) wrote:
Freq Juggler wrote:I actually made a BIG folder of freeware plugins. All checked for the sound and ease of use. With pictures of them. I even catagorized them all. It litterally took me twoo weeks of searching, testing etc. (was in between jobs so hey ). If anyone wants it i can put it on zshare or something?
This would be legnedary!

seconding this! epic!

uhslez · Post by **uhslez** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 8:41 pm

Freq Juggler wrote:I actually made a BIG folder of freeware plugins. All checked for the sound and ease of use. With pictures of them. I even catagorized them all. It litterally took me twoo weeks of searching, testing etc. (was in between jobs so hey ). If anyone wants it i can put it on zshare or something?

I could use some

86. · Post by **86.** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 8:45 pm

jsilver wrote:
2snide (HARMITAGE) wrote:
Freq Juggler wrote:I actually made a BIG folder of freeware plugins. All checked for the sound and ease of use. With pictures of them. I even catagorized them all. It litterally took me twoo weeks of searching, testing etc. (was in between jobs so hey ). If anyone wants it i can put it on zshare or something?
This would be legnedary!
seconding this! epic!

yeah post that shit

lorn · Post by **lorn** » Sun Aug 16, 2009 7:19 am

i like my drums to be really dominant in my tunes so to get them big and wide i start out with a good set of different samples for the kicks and snares, layer the snares with about 4 more with different characteristics (one a bit wet/sloppy sounding, one with some subtle release on it, one with a nice snap, etc) and spread them out using the box microphone separation in izotope trash. for the kick its usually the same deal but with about 2 additional layers with more higher end or light release, put em on the outside and keep the most dominant weighty kick of the bunch dead center.

its easy to get carried away with this but if you are careful you'll end up with some drums that knock, have character and give interesting spaces to work the rest of your elements into.

edit: upon further review, if i didn't know what i was talking about, i wouldn't really know what i was talking about in the post. but if you can figure it out, it works niiiicely

good luck

radium49 · Post by **radium49** » Sun Aug 16, 2009 5:29 pm

if your track doesnt sound halfway decent without any eq and compression, then you need to find some different sounds.

you can work ages on a shitty sound, no matter how hard you work on it , you just cant pull frequencies out of nowhere.

also too much compression and too much eq ends up happening when you try to "fix" things.

abZ · Post by **abZ** » Sun Aug 16, 2009 6:19 pm

Most of the rigs I play on are mono so I never worried about getting a wide stereo field. Recently tho I have been trying to get the tunes wider. I hate when shit is all over the place in the stereo field tho. I keep a lot of shit basically mono and then a few of the sounds surrounding you. I think it emphasizes the stereo by having a lot of it in mono. But I will simply take the perc and high hats and pan them left or right trying to keep a balance as in one thing to the left one thing to the right. My midrange sounds I like to make duplicates and pan one hard l and one hard r and then detune one up jsut a tad and one down a tad. Stereo flanging or phasing on pads / chords is tits too. Oh and recently been using the Auto-pan on fx. Never used the expanders and stuff like that, maybe I should try em out.

r · Post by r » Sun Aug 16, 2009 7:06 pm

1 word : contrast.

You'll get the biggest mix

lorn · Post by **lorn** » Sun Aug 16, 2009 7:06 pm

abZ wrote:Most of the rigs I play on are mono so I never worried about getting a wide stereo field. Recently tho I have been trying to get the tunes wider. I hate when shit is all over the place in the stereo field tho. I keep a lot of shit basically mono and then a few of the sounds surrounding you. I think it emphasizes the stereo by having a lot of it in mono. But I will simply take the perc and high hats and pan them left or right trying to keep a balance as in one thing to the left one thing to the right. My midrange sounds I like to make duplicates and pan one hard l and one hard r and then detune one up jsut a tad and one down a tad. Stereo flanging or phasing on pads / chords is tits too. Oh and recently been using the Auto-pan on fx. Never used the expanders and stuff like that, maybe I should try em out.

the most dominant parts of the tune should definitely hold their own in the center, imo. but you get some nice nuances that fit both in a club and at home when you match shit up with varied counterparts and send them outwards while low in the mix.

How to create a BIGGER and WIDER mix?

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