i have access to a studio with SSL consoles, api, neve, great river etc etc.......

Nothing you read or are told will make as much difference as good old fasion experience. You got to pay your dues like everybody else. No SSL or any amount of killer outboard is gonna save you or your mix without the time honored proven techniques, methods, skills and experience to know how to use it. Skill and experience is something that will very likely take you several years to learn and even more time before you are able to do it very well or are able to be consistant at doing it.

true true true....when I started out I was in a professional environment and was able to use the equptment ...which is ten times better than mine and I was not able to get any good results but now I am finding with a little experience and time spent ...allot of time tweeking my home studio I can get really good mixes....things like knowing that your $600 dollar mike peaks at around 4 or 2khz so compensate that in eqalization and using compression for enhancement instead of degredation and always keeping an ear out for the professional mixes...comparing it to your own see what they have the spacial dynamics of thiers and yours....right now you are on the right track....you can hear the differencethat was my big first step if you could not hear the diffrence then there would be no stepping up the ladder....I am still trying to climb higher everyday...but right now I make the most out of what I got ...I know my equiptment and can usaully get a really good recording out of a cheap set up that I know better than out of an expensive gear I have no clue about and its dynamics or lack of.....using tube....mmm warm them up before you mic....mmmm too much is not good.....mmmm why does the vocals sound so seperate from my mix.....mmmmm hey it sounded good in the studio but now I'm in my car the sound is different.....mmmm theres somthing missing in this song I don't know what it is but thers something missing.....everything is perfect and quantized but it still has no feel...mmmm.......just remember this everthing is not as they seem or should I say seam...cause its all patch work.....the fatter the better baby go for that wet spot!

I hope nobody is laughing at my fast typing skills....the mistakes are atrotious.....I mean terrible....damb I can't spell and think at the same time....damb you MS office, you and your blasted spell check made me lazy...poor professor didn't know how bad his ace student had it!

lionyouth, are you joking? your posts are hysterical.

"I am still trying to climb higher everyday...but right now I make the most out of what I got"

Yeah I guess once the drugs are out you start sniffin the windex :)

"everything is perfect and quantized but it still has no feel"

LOL what's "perfect" or "quantized" have to do with "feel"?

"the fatter the better baby go for that wet spot! "

This one speaks for itself. OH BOY!

Sorry lionyouth , I just couldn't resist joking around, no harms done hopefully? :)

It's just time that creates big mixes. I'm a young fella. I'm 23 and I've been recording since I was 18. I started by assisting on my own music projects. As many of us have. I went to school for it at 21 and learned why I did what I did. I think that is perhaps the biggest part or engineering.

To do the job you only need to know how.
To do it better you need to know why.

I have a few excellent mixes under my belt. Guys that have been doing this work longer than I have been alive have complimented on my gits and kits. But I listen to some of my work from just a year ago and cringe. It's time, it's trial and error and listening, obviously. I listen to my work everyday. Side by side with the albums I really enjoy hearing. I let me ears dig deep into each mix and take them apart. I spend more time listening to music than recording each day. It helps a lot.

So long story short, I can't tell you how to get a broader mix. Who'd take a kid's advice anyway. Just keep listening for the why's.

Quoth Mixerman:

"Time, and fatties."

All good things are a result of those things, IMO. Well, minus the fatties for me - gave that stuff up years ago.

i mean i wouldnt say i have great experience put i have done many projects and htey come out pretty good http://www.redsundownmusic.com/ty.m3u is an example of a recording i did at my house i was just wondering wut the width is how do they make the recording sound bigger and not as narrow, is it a trick or just somthing like when i pan a guitar hard left and right stereo rythem it doesnt sound as spread as other mixes i hear

perhaps if not your panning.. it comes down to mastering.. stereo expanding..

oh so the stereo expanision is done in mastering? sweet man thanx im sure these stereo spread plugins arent the best but of them all which ones are pretty decent..?

Well, you can do stereo trickery, but that tends to sound kinda
weird and get confused by hard-panned or dynamically panned
material. What works for me is to get this mix happening in
MONO. That's right. When it's all gotta come from the same
speaker, you start making room for everything by carving freq's
here, compression and a volume move there. If you let the
bass carry the lowest end of the mix and have the kick occupy
slightly higher real estate in the spectrum, you've still got impact
and the bottom end doesn't get all flabby. Subtractive EQ adds
TONS of space to your mix and actually makes it sound bigger.
Rather than boost the freq's you want, find the ones you don't,
and remove them.

Ya' gots to stermeo-ize the mix... :D

I like to set up at least 4 reverbs effects units when I do a mix.. I use a PCM60 for a basic room or plate reverb, usually a long sound... time of the reverb is dependent on how long it takes for the snare with verb on it to decay before the kick hits ... I use this reverb as a way to glue several elements (usually rhythm track parts) in the mix together, to make them sound like they all occurred in the same acoustic space.

I use a PCM 70 for modulation effects, usually chorus, sometimes (but rarely) flange etc.. a little of this (very little) provides "edge" and "spread" on things like acoustic guitar and background vocals.. it can also help a bass to define a bit better in the mix. Be judicious in the use of the chorus, if it is evident in the mix (if you can really hear it well) you are applying too much, back it off a bit.

I usually use an Eventide HD 3000 D/SE, to do some auto panning... I pick one or two things in the mix to use this on.. it provides a bit of what I call “psychedelic effect”.. adds some “movement” and "interest" to the mix, keeps things from getting boring.. used sparingly, you don't want it to be too obvious..

Some basic cheap reverbs like a midiverb II or quadraverb set up to do short rooms (very short, under 50 ms) added to some tracks can also help to add “spread” to a mix.., once more very little can go a long way.

If you don't have the luxury to run several efx units at one time while you mix, you can simply print the effects to the recorder and then bring them in when you mix ...

Finally after you have put up all these effects, be sure to check for mono compatibility. Switch between mono and stereo playback and listen for a loss of level or for disappearing elements of the mix. If you detect any of this, narrow the left right panning of the associated effect returns.. until you have an acceptable compromise..

Some basic cheap reverbs like a midiverb II or quadraverb set up to do short rooms

Kurt, I'm surprised that you don't require your effects and at least your reverb to be of the same calibur as the other high quality gear you use for recording and mixing as it is almost as important. Having graduated from the Microverb and many other cheap ass effects in my novice days, I would now sooner go without any effects or better yet, would rather throw up a microphone and a speaker in the batthroom or hallway before I would be caught using any of that kind of crap on my mixes these days. Like many of the crap plugs, using crap effects is just WRONG! I think you do a mix much more harm with cheap reverb than you can do to enhance it.

AG,
I agree. I actually use a SPX 90 in place of the Midiverb.. but I was suggesting he use a cheap piece for the short rooms if needed.. not everyone can dump 10 k on verbs alone.. You and I are just freaks :D

I agree, I prefer to stay with the Lexi's and Eventides if possible..

At KFRS we had PCM 60, 70, 80 & 90 as well as a H3000 D/SE.. I sold the 90 but I still have the rest of them.. as well as the SPX90 and an old MXR 1500 DDL, also good for short reflections.. I also have a Peavey Valveberb for analog spring. Plus all the crappy plugs in Cubase... the wunderverb is best of those..

thanx for the help guys i usually only one 2 reverbs one small room for snare and vocals and then one for everything set to a bigger room, ive noticed chorus does help spread the mix so ill try to mess with some chorusing, but once again thanx for the help :)

kurt i would have answered this thread differently. am i doing something wrong here or is there a reason to not do it this way? i may take a mono track, dupe it twice, spread these two tracks pan slightly, lower volume on the two spread tracks by several db, send it to a stereo aux fader bus, slight spread again, dupe the stereo aux fader bus, lower the volume on this fader. i feel this gives me more width and height to the recorded track. this may take place on several tracks in a mix. is this out in left field?

Mono doubled is still mono. This is why when I want vocal stacks I have the singers sing again, and I don't just copy the tracks over to a new track and pan it L/R.

What makes something stereo is difference signal, this is how M/S works. So doing what you discribe is only doubing of mono and then redoubeling it. It may create some phase anomilies which you are perciving as "stereo-ness". But I would bet if you were to take the results of what you discribe and hit the mono button, you would lose a lot of lows and volume (a sure sign of phase problems). Some effects units (cheap ones) make things stereo by flipping the phase of one channel.. cheezo at best. This creates the same problem. No mono compatibility.

[ November 25, 2003, 10:31 PM: Message edited by: Kurt Foster ]

thanks kurt! this is good to know. of course most of the time, the people i record are lucky to sing the same words twice, much less the same tempo. so are you also saying that if you want to give, say a guitar more space in a mix (big as life sound), that you would do this by reverb? at this time the only outboard reverb i have is the lex.500. i do have wave and digi but i tend to steer clear of these because they are so cpu possessive and not as nice of a sound as outboard equipment.

I would go for ambient mics for some spreading. :w:

Originally posted by terry c:
kurt i would have answered this thread differently. am i doing something wrong here or is there a reason to not do it this way? i may take a mono track, dupe it twice, spread these two tracks pan slightly, lower volume on the two spread tracks by several db, send it to a stereo aux fader bus, slight spread again, dupe the stereo aux fader bus, lower the volume on this fader. i feel this gives me more width and height to the recorded track. this may take place on several tracks in a mix. is this out in left field?

Left field?...try a commercial on the wrong channel on a time delayed broadcast in a blacked out city...

[ November 28, 2003, 02:37 PM: Message edited by: RecorderMan ]

so your saying theres a chance?

incase i have been misleading, maybe i will address my previous replies a little differently. when i wrote of duping and panning earlier, i was not looking to create stereo, but just larger presence and position of a recorded track. i looked at a group of these and saw no waves out of phase. i dont know if this technique is the same as stacking or not. i have heard of stacking as follows... dupe a track, add compression, dupe that and add eq, then bounce it to a stereo channel. i could see this direction offering phase shift more so than dupes and pans. if the best stacking is like you say... two different tracks combined to a stereo channel, then would this also be true of xy stereo (single vocal or instrument) tracking to mono channels bused to a stereo track? techniques in this area interest me. i record acoustic mainly and try to end up with a mix that puts the listener down front with big sounds. would anyone have information on some good books on the subject? i do appreciate all help here guys....