|
3 Dimensional Audio
|
View this Thread in Original format
| kitphillips |
Three dimensional audio
So recently I've been working in a slightly different way on my mix downs. It mostly affects the way I handle mastering, but also impacts on how I arrange the mix as well to a lesser degree. This thread is going to be hopelessly self indulgent, but I think some people might get something out of the way I've been working lately and might be able to apply some of it to their own work.
I've basically begun thinking of my music in a three dimensional way; the three dimensions being
1/frequency
2/dynamic
3/panning
This is a fairly uncontroversial way of thinking about music, people often talk about carving a niche for a sound in terms of frequencies, or narrowing the panning on a track. But if you carry it forward to its natural conclusion, it allows you to conceptualise your mixes in a completely different way. The reason is, if I think of the musical dimensions in the same way I think of spatial dimensions, it opens up all sorts of new possibilities for working with sounds and polishing mixes.
For instance, you can then logically talk about narrowing stereo field in the low end of a track the same way that you might talk about making an object narrower at its base. You can talk about narrowing the dynamic range of a track in the low end in the same way.
Away from all the conceptual wank, how do I actually apply this? Essentially, its allowed me to get a lot more space going in my music, by simply looking at which parts of the frequency spectrum get the most dynamic and stereo width in commercial masters.
Compression
Generally speaking, its fairly well known and been mentioned on here often that you should make mono all lower frequencies. Whether you use basslane, ozone, an MS solution or some other plugin to do so makes little difference, the point is, you want your stereo width to taper down to zero at about 150 Hz.
What many people don't know, is that the same often applies to dynamic width. Its fairly common practise to compress the low end to some degree in commercial tracks. You really DON'T WANT the same level of compression on your top end as the bottom end. Its fine to run a gentle compressor across the whole mix for glue, but you can also consider running a compressor across the low end, and even one across the low mids with progressively more aggressive settings. Of course, its important to remember a few things here
1/ you often have very compressed low end to start with due to side chaining the kick and bass
2/ compression settings multiply, so if you already have a buss compressor across the whole frequency spectrum at 1.5:1, then adding another at 2:1 will give you a total compression of 3:1, not 2.5:1.
For these reasons, its easy to go over the top. But you can get good results out of this technique.
Another interesting technique that can be looked into is the M/S processing that some compressors can do. The idea that you could have most of your dynamic width occurring in the side channels is awesome, and has the potential to really punch up a mix. M/S processing is basically an alternative to stereo in which the information occurring across both channels is placed in the M channel and the information which is different between left and right channels occurs in the S channel. This means you can manipulate the frequency, dynamics and other effects of both independently.
More M/S
So, as mentioned before, its common practise to put your bass in mono, obviously this has a history in vinyl mastering where excessive stereo width could make a needle skip out of the groove, and has carried forward due to the use of subwoofers in a mono configuration in almost all systems. One quick way to do this is to use an MS EQ, which allows you to manipulate the mid and side frequencies separately. So you basically boost the bass on the m channel and cut it on the S channel. This should be done IN THE MIXING PHASE, not at mastering! If you do it in the mixing phase, you avoid the risk of your mix becoming unbalanced due to some weird bass sound that you thought was a good idea at the time. Of course, this isn't a substitute for making sure you have a "make mono" utility on your bass tracks, and any track you don't specifically want to be stereo, but it does catch the odd bit of strange low end coming out of a pad sound and causing phase issues.
Rounding up
For an example, what I'm now running on my generic master chain is a MS EQ with everything below 40 hz filtered out and everything below 200hz in the sidechannels filtered out and the bass slightly boosted in the mid channel. I've got a compressor with a 1.5:1 ratio going on across the whole mix and a multiband compressor across the lower end.
So basically, what I've talked about here is how to make your mix taper down in stereo and dynamic width the further down the frequency range you go, which allows you to get a nice punchy mix going with plenty of loundness, but retain all the subtle nuances in the mids and treble. These are good techniques to use, but they need to be applied selectively, and subtly, we aren't making top 40 here, we need to seduce people, not beat them over the heads with the size of our compressors. Hope this helps some people out, I know its really helped me.
I'm still very much practising these techniques, so if some of the more experienced members around here have anything to add on this please do chip in and give me your own tips and tricks in this department. |
|
|
| Fledz |
| This is interesting stuff. Well above my level of skill but I understand what you're trying to do. What M/S EQ are using? I want to have a play around. |
|
|
| kitphillips |
T-Racks, fabfilter pro Q, Flux EQ all do MS stuff from memory...
But yeah, its really not advanced at all once you start thinking a bit outside the box. What your basically doing is the same as when you alter the overall EQ spectrum, but your just doing the same thing for another two dimensions at the same time.
Its all just a matter of conceptualising it in a way you can understand clearly and then learning what techniques give you the widening or narrowing effects your after.
PS
should add that you might have issues if you don't enable linear phase mode in your equaliser. Apparently you can get phase mismatch betewen the centre and the left and right channels which can lead to strangeness... |
|
|
| Morvan |
| quote: | Originally posted by kitphillips
You really DON'T WANT the same level of compression on your top end as the bottom end. |
Why do you think that? Are you talking about one element in your mix that you want to band-compress?
Or are you talking about band-compression on an entire mix?
Why would you want that? |
|
|
| Beatflux |
Tip for Ableton people: EQ8 has a M/S mode. You can cut off below 200Hz or whatever you want, and leave the mid alone.
I'm not 100% sure on this but I think in the Utilities plug-in, 0% width is mid and 200% is side. |
|
|
| Beatflux |
| quote: | Originally posted by kitphillips
the three dimensions being
1/frequency
2/dynamic
3/panning
|
The other 3D way of thinking about mixing that I learned was:
X(width) = Panning or width
Y(height of sound) = Frequency
Z(depth) = Leveling or sound depth using reverb or delays |
|
|
| Zombie0729 |
hands down the best book i ever read on mixing was called "Mixing with your Mind". it talks about something similar the author refers to a mix in Height x Width X Depth. He explains how to get vocals to sit above (height) everything, how to get sounds to be in your face or in the rear (depth) and how to use panning and stereo imaging (width) for clarity.
if you guys have any inclination to improve your mixing this book really did a lot for me. |
|
|
| evo8 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Beatflux
Tip for Ableton people: EQ8 has a M/S mode. You can cut off below 200Hz or whatever you want, and leave the mid alone.
I'm not 100% sure on this but I think in the Utilities plug-in, 0% width is mid and 200% is side. |
Yes you can make a little M/S processing rack in Live with a couple of Utility plugins, one chain set to 0% width, one set to 200% width and the plugin of your choice on one of the chains.....
e.g. Put a chorus effect on the chain with the width set to 200% - nothing on the 0% width chain - when you mono the mix the chorus should disappear - this way you can have nice wide effect in stereo and no phasing problems if played in mono |
|
|
| Kismet7 |
| The furthur along I get in my knowledge about making music...the more I choose something I think sounds and feels right over a set technique. |
|
|
| kitphillips |
| quote: | Originally posted by Morvan
Why do you think that? Are you talking about one element in your mix that you want to band-compress?
Or are you talking about band-compression on an entire mix?
Why would you want that? |
Well, usually commercial masters seem to compress the low end a touch more, I think its because people notice less dynamics in the low end as opposed to the top end, so you can squash it more wuthout your mix sounding flat. |
|
|
| kitphillips |
| quote: | Originally posted by Beatflux
Tip for Ableton people: EQ8 has a M/S mode. You can cut off below 200Hz or whatever you want, and leave the mid alone.
I'm not 100% sure on this but I think in the Utilities plug-in, 0% width is mid and 200% is side. |
Yeah, but I don't think it has a linear phase mode... Which is ok for playing but I'm not sure I'd use it on a mix. |
|
|
| Ravist |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zombie0729
hands down the best book i ever read on mixing was called "Mixing with your Mind". it talks about something similar the author refers to a mix in Height x Width X Depth. He explains how to get vocals to sit above (height) everything, how to get sounds to be in your face or in the rear (depth) and how to use panning and stereo imaging (width) for clarity.
if you guys have any inclination to improve your mixing this book really did a lot for me. |
Who's the author of "mixing with your Mind"? |
|
|
|
|
