Space & Air

[miroslav]

I posted this on Ed Cherney's forum, but... it slipped through the cracks, so I'll again try here. I guess this is "where the action is".

 

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Someone once said that "it isn't the notes that make the music, it is the space between them".

 

This is a constant production sore spot for me, how to get more space and air into mixes.

 

Now, I understand that a LOT will depend on the actual composition and arrangement. Yet, I have heard many "dense" arrangements that still have that damn air and space.

 

I know that NOT squashing the dynamics with obscene compression might help too, but there are many more other variables.

 

I would appreciate any simple OR complex ideas, suggestions, solutions... on how any of you HAVE achieved airy and spacious mixes.

If you have anything available as an example to listen to, please note the CD/track/album...etc. and its availability.

 

I think first READING about a mix solution and then also HEARING the actual results, will bring it home much better than just reading about it.

 

Again, much thanks to all, in advance.

 

Miroslav

[Lee Flier]

Hi Miroslav,

 

Here are a few quick suggestions... I'm sure others will have more and I'll think of more and add them, too.

 

1) Judicious use of panning. Sometimes you can actually achieve a more spacious sound by not hard panning any of the actual tracks but putting a nice stereo reverb or delay across everything, which is hard panned. This can give the appearance of creating a space "around" the track.

 

2) Real air. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif Sometimes using a mic on omni setting to capture some of the sound of the room will give you the sound you want. If you're already recording in a very small or too-dead room, this may not be possible, but if the room is at all decent sounding, try it.

 

3) You're right on about not over-compressing, and you might even try dynamic expansion in the overall mix. Then again a good mastering engineer can do that too. In fact, a good mastering engineer is a great place to go to get more "space" in the overall sound.

 

4) A reasonable amount of predelay on reverbs, and not too long a reverb time. If everything sounds too washed out by reverbs, the reverb will do the opposite of what it's intended to do - that is, it will sound like you're in a dank cave rather than an open space. Which, if you WANT the effect of a dank cave, is OK. But otherwise what you need is a natural sounding room reverb with a pretty long predelay, at least 40ms. Use a filter or EQ the reverb returns to get most of the high-high's out. I have rarely found a digital reverb that sounds good with anything over 4K left in there, or anything under about 125Hz. Those are just starting points of course; experiment, and if your verb has a density or diffusion parameter, play with those too. For your purposes I'm guessing you would want to increase the diffusion and decrease the density.

 

5) This probably goes without saying, but make sure each instrument has something close to its own frequency space. A lot of people seem to end up with mixes where the bass and kick drum collide in frequency and cause boominess, and then the upper range of the bass competes with the midrange of the guitar which honks in the same place as the vocal and... well, it's ugly. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif Be sure you have enough in the 10-12K range to give your mix some sparkle, and don't overdo it in the mids. And definitely use the bass rolloff switches on the mic or console for just about everything. Nothing fills up space faster than combining sub-bass frequencies across a bunch of tracks.

 

Oh yeah, and when using EQ try to cut rather than boost if possible.

 

That's about all I can think of for now. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

--Lee

 

This message has been edited by Lee Flier on 01-16-2001 at 02:45 PM