Clean Stereo Image

B

BenihanaBoi

New member
Hi. Please give me advice. I don't understand what I doing wrong. How these guys making so clean and wide stereo image? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dggq9yLdJpM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVotjeRgHds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTl5d1tgKwg . Their mixes very clean and fat. I can't understand what they use for that sound. I think they cut highs on instruments and use some stereo imagers, but I can find good insformation about stereo imagers. Help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-ZpEOsd6IU - thats my beat, give me feedback please
 
Hi,

There are a few things that can affect the stereo image of your mixes.
1. Acoustics of the room
2. Monitors (flat frequency response is needed for proper translation to all listening devices)

The best way to figure out if your room has acoustic flaws that are affecting your stereo imaging, is to find a proper software that can measure it (and/or correct it). As a representative of IK Multimedia, I can say that ARC System can do this, and has done it for years. Please google reviews on the product for more info.

On "fixing" your monitoring situation, the aforementioned product can also help to alleviate acoustical representations and help flatten the frequency response of your monitors. What it can't do, is lengthen the overall frequency response (for example, if your monitors only go to 64HZ, you can't get lower than that, etc)

To be honest. Monitors are the end of the mixing chain, and the most important piece of the puzzle you are trying to solve. The flatter the response, the cleaner your stereo image becomes. Placement is also important. Are you missing mid-range frequencies because of where you are sitting, or where the monitors are placed in your studio? Are back wall settings heightening bass response, fooling you into thinking you need to lower the bass? Etc.

Always research these things in advance of making a purchasing decision. Go to a local store and LISTEN to the wall of monitors before making a purchase. I know, I did the same thing when I was fresh out of recording school and needed monitors that would work for mixing and producing all kinds of music.

Good luck!

Cheers,

Starr
 
BenihanaBoi said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-ZpEOsd6IU - thats my beat, give me feedback please
Click to expand...

I love your beat man!

I think this type of sound is achieved when you reduce the modulation noise in your signal path. You need a very stable clock in the converter, something like an Antelope Audio 10M would be adviced. The gear needs to be well powered with high quality amplification and with power conditioners to help stabilize the signal. Reverbs, limiters, delays should be hardware to keep the signal stable and phase accurate. The sample rate should be at least 192 kHz. The combination makes it so that the signal of the sound sources and the signal of the room stays stable. It is this stable sharp signal that is making it this "clean" sounding. It is mostly a result of hardware. With great speakers on top you can tune the pan knobs to more optimal positions. It is the delay + pan combo that causes the sound stage size, the modulation and phase free signal in combination with the reverb that causes the sweetness on top. So to get this sound you need the combination. But although you like the stereo image, it is mostly the sweetness of the lack of modulation noise that you love, because there is a certain kind of musical "peace" in it. Avoid phase issues by pointing the microphones correctly during the recording process and handle the phase well. Bounce through conversion. During production, recording, mixing, try to get enough silence in there, so that you can enjoy the reverb tails and the sweetness of the signal. Hence use the mute button when necessary.
 
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With respect, I'm not sure the two replies you've received are any help.

Starr wrote some very helpful advice for ensuring your monitoring system has a good stereo image, which is separate from creating stereo space in your mix. And DarkRed's advice seems to be based on mic placement techniques and the quality of your outboard gear ... for the song you're creating completely in-the-box, entirely with virtual instruments. There's merit to what he's saying if you're making an audiophile recording of a live jazz performance, but it isn't relevant to your music.




I listened to all three of your example tracks, and your track as well. My thoughts:

Honestly, a big part of creating a song with a wide stereo feel is keeping the mix sparse. If you bury the song with piles and piles of instruments, it sounds crowded. A sparse mix has space. And most all of the popular stuff you'll hear these days is really sparse. For a lot of years, music was trending towards increased mix density, but now that's completely turned around.

Panning is also hugely important for space. The old rule for rock mixes of entirely mono sources is that "you better have a really good reason to pan something full left or full right." But that's changed, now that we have so many stereo instruments and so many stereo methods of processing. Don't be afraid to pan things 100% left and 100% right. (But do try to avoid every instrument panned to the extreme, or you end up with no "stereo image", just a generic wide sound. Some engineers call this the "big mono" effect, and it's not desirable.)

While arrangements are trending thinner, mixing is trending thicker. Try adding more voices for your synth lead or pad, for example. Or duplicate the synth lead, but make subtle changes to one of them: pan one hard left, the other hard right. Your brain will know they're different, though still identify it is the same instrument/same part of the song. This leads to a very wide sound.

Performance doubling is another way to achieve this. If you want your keys to sound thicker, particularly with digital keys, perform the keys part twice without quantizing. Hard pan the two performances. Again, your brain knows they are different yet thinks of them the same. It's very similar to double-tracking guitars, which has been the main source of width in rock mixes for ages.

You also can lean on widening/stereo plugins specifically to add this kind of effect. Some plugins make a mono sound appear as stereo. Take MicroShift by SoundToys for example: the original mono sound plays through in mono, but it adds a second copy of the sound slightly delayed, slightly pitched up, towards one side of the stereo image. And a second copy of the sound is delayed slightly more, pitched slightly down, and sent to the other side of the stereo image. If you don't abuse it (like 80's rock guitars and vocals), it can sound really cool and really wide. You can do this without MicroShift, but it's trickier to set up and dial in.

And other stereo image plugins can set how wide you want the mix to sound. 100% would be normal, 0% would be mono, but many of them can adjust to 200% width. I don't know what goes on inside the plugin, but it may help your mix, or certain instruments in your mix.


Modern mixing is very intricate and very delicate. We have the same basic tools we've already had, but how they are used, abused, layered, and flipped upside down is getting incredibly complex. I think it's fun. But it's not easy to learn. My best advice is to experiment.

But, if you want a wide mix, just a summary of the above:
- Keep your arrangement sparse
- Be willing to use absolute panning, according to the instrument
- Try out unison and other stereo features in your synths
- Try out double-tracking your instruments (even if they are virtual instruments)
- Try out goofy stereo tricks, or use a plugin like MicroShift that does this for you
- Try out stereo widening plugins


Share with us your progress.
 
Milo Burke said:
With respect, I'm not sure the two replies you've received are any help.

Starr wrote some very helpful advice for ensuring your monitoring system has a good stereo image, which is separate from creating stereo space in your mix. And DarkRed's advice seems to be based on mic placement techniques and the quality of your outboard gear ... for the song you're creating completely in-the-box, entirely with virtual instruments. There's merit to what he's saying if you're making an audiophile recording of a live jazz performance, but it isn't relevant to your music.




I listened to all three of your example tracks, and your track as well. My thoughts:

Honestly, a big part of creating a song with a wide stereo feel is keeping the mix sparse. If you bury the song with piles and piles of instruments, it sounds crowded. A sparse mix has space. And most all of the popular stuff you'll hear these days is really sparse. For a lot of years, music was trending towards increased mix density, but now that's completely turned around.

Panning is also hugely important for space. The old rule for rock mixes of entirely mono sources is that "you better have a really good reason to pan something full left or full right." But that's changed, now that we have so many stereo instruments and so many stereo methods of processing. Don't be afraid to pan things 100% left and 100% right. (But do try to avoid every instrument panned to the extreme, or you end up with no "stereo image", just a generic wide sound. Some engineers call this the "big mono" effect, and it's not desirable.)

While arrangements are trending thinner, mixing is trending thicker. Try adding more voices for your synth lead or pad, for example. Or duplicate the synth lead, but make subtle changes to one of them: pan one hard left, the other hard right. Your brain will know they're different, though still identify it is the same instrument/same part of the song. This leads to a very wide sound.

Performance doubling is another way to achieve this. If you want your keys to sound thicker, particularly with digital keys, perform the keys part twice without quantizing. Hard pan the two performances. Again, your brain knows they are different yet thinks of them the same. It's very similar to double-tracking guitars, which has been the main source of width in rock mixes for ages.

You also can lean on widening/stereo plugins specifically to add this kind of effect. Some plugins make a mono sound appear as stereo. Take MicroShift by SoundToys for example: the original mono sound plays through in mono, but it adds a second copy of the sound slightly delayed, slightly pitched up, towards one side of the stereo image. And a second copy of the sound is delayed slightly more, pitched slightly down, and sent to the other side of the stereo image. If you don't abuse it (like 80's rock guitars and vocals), it can sound really cool and really wide. You can do this without MicroShift, but it's trickier to set up and dial in.

And other stereo image plugins can set how wide you want the mix to sound. 100% would be normal, 0% would be mono, but many of them can adjust to 200% width. I don't know what goes on inside the plugin, but it may help your mix, or certain instruments in your mix.


Modern mixing is very intricate and very delicate. We have the same basic tools we've already had, but how they are used, abused, layered, and flipped upside down is getting incredibly complex. I think it's fun. But it's not easy to learn. My best advice is to experiment.

But, if you want a wide mix, just a summary of the above:
- Keep your arrangement sparse
- Be willing to use absolute panning, according to the instrument
- Try out unison and other stereo features in your synths
- Try out double-tracking your instruments (even if they are virtual instruments)
- Try out goofy stereo tricks, or use a plugin like MicroShift that does this for you
- Try out stereo widening plugins


Share with us your progress.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much. I'll trying it.
 
Just listened to all three of the tracks, and yours sounds just as good, maybe even better. I think yours sounds even better and more energetic and clean than the 2nd one.
 
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