Recording - November 2011 - 16

Mixing and the Stereo Field
We have two ears and two speakers—why is stereo mixing so darned hard?
By Michael Nickolas “Recorded in high-fidelity Stereophonic sound!” is touted on many a 1960s album cover, and we do think of stereo recordings as originating in the ’60s. But the first stereo recordings and patents actually date back to the 1930s. Those were done with two microphones connected to two disc cutters. It wasn’t until the 1950s that stereo recordings started becoming mainstream, but this was mostly in the world of classical recording. Finally, in the early ’60s, pop and jazz recordings started to become readily available in the stereo format. Panning—from lopsided to balanced At first the audio engineers weren’t quite sure what to do with the stereo field. This is evident by the extreme panning contained in some early ’60s pop recordings. Consider the initial Beatles albums. Listen to just about anything from 1963’s With the Beatles. The instruments are panned hard left and the vocals hard right on most every song! It seems “Money” (“That’s What I Want”)” is the only exception. I’ve made up an original example of the extreme panning sound; give “Emulate 1963.mp3” a listen on the Recording website, in our Resource Library under Magazine Extras > Audio and Music. We now know that a balanced mix is more pleasing to a listener’s ear and I haven’t heard contemporary mixes with all the instruments on one side and all the vocals on the other. But I do find some recordings that exhibit a stereo field that is either too centered or too left and right excessive. By too centered I mean a lack of panning, everything pretty much up the middle, sometimes called an “I” mix. By left and right excessive I mean instruments 100% left and 100% right with vocals centered. The span between 100% left or right and center isn’t being used. This has been called a “W” mix. We should be striving for balanced mixes that use the space between 100% left or right and center, with no one side being louder than the other. Everything balances out. Here are tips to achieve a balanced mix: ~ Low end sounds, like bass guitar, bass synth patches, kick drums and such, are placed center. ~ Lead vocal is placed center, as usually is the snare drum. ~ Pan complementing instruments equally opposite to fill the left/right spectrum. An example would be: • High Hat 10% left and Tom one 10% right • Tom two 15% left and Tom three 15% right • Wood block 25% left and tambourine 25% right. • Guitar 50% left and electric piano 50% right • Conga 65% left and bongo 65% right ~ Use mono instead of stereo reverbs on your mono instruments and pan the reverb to the same position as the source instrument. This increases the perception of an instrument’s placement.
16
RECORDING NOVEMBER 2011

Placement of backing vocals Mixdown multiple background vocal tracks to a balanced left and right image. A typical harmonized background vocal part might be made up of three different notes, recorded three unique times each, for a total of nine tracks. Mix these so no one side is louder than the other, keep it nice and balanced. For me this means not putting all three performances of one note on the same side, as in all the low notes left, the mid notes center and the high notes right. I like to split them up and pan them opposite to complement each other. Figure 1 shows an example of this. One track of each note Low (L), Mid (M) and High (H) is placed close to center. The remaining are panned opposite. The figure shows a wide image. For a narrower image start the placements at 50% left and right instead of 100%. What about stereo tracks? The above tips are considering mono tracks, yet your project could also contain many stereo tracks— recordings of the left and right output of a synth, a guitar recorded with a stereo microphone configuration, a percussion kit stereo-miked, etc. Here are a few tips to achieve a balanced mix when working with stereo tracks.

Fig. 1
~ Don’t feel you need to go 100% hard for each side of a stereo track. Your first inkling for a stereo guitar track would be hard left and right, but your mix may sound more pleasing and balanced at, say, 35% left and right. If need be, you can split your stereo tracks out to two mono tracks to achieve this. ~ Just piling up stereo tracks that are panned hard left and right can sound less than interesting. Convert some to single mono tracks and place them opposite each other in that span between left or right and center. This will allow your mix to breathe a bit. Stereo from mono There are times where doing just the opposite is what will be needed to open up the stereo field of your mix—making a stereo track from a mono source. Take a tune that consists of bass, vocal and mono recorded guitar. Putting the bass and vocal center leaves the guitar to sit either left or right. This might make for an unbalanced sound. Here are timeproven techniques for getting a stereo image out of a mono recording: ~ Place the guitar center and use a stereo reverb. The file “Stereo Reverb.mp3” on the Recording website shows an example of this. To demonstrate the difference in sound, this (and the examples to follow) starts with a mono guitar. It plays an eight-bar



Recording - November 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - November 2011

Recording - November 2011
Fade In
Contents
Talkback
Fast Forward
PreSonus StudioLive 16.0.2
Mixing And The Stereo Field
TASCAM US-2000 USB 2.0 Audio Interface
The Mixing Workshop: Better Mixes Through Creative Editing—Part 1
Roll Music RMS216 Folcrom
Sonnox Fraunhofer Pro-Codec
How To Be Successful In Today’s Music Business—Part 1
Plug-In Outlet
Mid-Side Stereo Recording
iOS Music Tools: For Composers
For Your Bookshelf
Organize Your Mix Session
Reviewed And Revisited: iZotope RX 2
Shure SRH940 Headphones
Readers’ Tapes
Advertiser Index
Fade Out
Recording - November 2011 - Recording - November 2011
Recording - November 2011 - Cover2
Recording - November 2011 - 1
Recording - November 2011 - Fade In
Recording - November 2011 - 3
Recording - November 2011 - Contents
Recording - November 2011 - 5
Recording - November 2011 - Talkback
Recording - November 2011 - 7
Recording - November 2011 - Fast Forward
Recording - November 2011 - 9
Recording - November 2011 - 10
Recording - November 2011 - 11
Recording - November 2011 - PreSonus StudioLive 16.0.2
Recording - November 2011 - 13
Recording - November 2011 - 14
Recording - November 2011 - 15
Recording - November 2011 - Mixing And The Stereo Field
Recording - November 2011 - 17
Recording - November 2011 - 18
Recording - November 2011 - 19
Recording - November 2011 - TASCAM US-2000 USB 2.0 Audio Interface
Recording - November 2011 - 21
Recording - November 2011 - The Mixing Workshop: Better Mixes Through Creative Editing—Part 1
Recording - November 2011 - 23
Recording - November 2011 - 24
Recording - November 2011 - 25
Recording - November 2011 - Roll Music RMS216 Folcrom
Recording - November 2011 - 27
Recording - November 2011 - Sonnox Fraunhofer Pro-Codec
Recording - November 2011 - 29
Recording - November 2011 - How To Be Successful In Today’s Music Business—Part 1
Recording - November 2011 - 31
Recording - November 2011 - 32
Recording - November 2011 - 33
Recording - November 2011 - 34
Recording - November 2011 - 35
Recording - November 2011 - 36
Recording - November 2011 - 37
Recording - November 2011 - Plug-In Outlet
Recording - November 2011 - 39
Recording - November 2011 - Mid-Side Stereo Recording
Recording - November 2011 - 41
Recording - November 2011 - 42
Recording - November 2011 - 43
Recording - November 2011 - iOS Music Tools: For Composers
Recording - November 2011 - 45
Recording - November 2011 - 46
Recording - November 2011 - 47
Recording - November 2011 - 48
Recording - November 2011 - 49
Recording - November 2011 - For Your Bookshelf
Recording - November 2011 - 51
Recording - November 2011 - 52
Recording - November 2011 - 53
Recording - November 2011 - 54
Recording - November 2011 - 55
Recording - November 2011 - Organize Your Mix Session
Recording - November 2011 - 57
Recording - November 2011 - Reviewed And Revisited: iZotope RX 2
Recording - November 2011 - 59
Recording - November 2011 - 60
Recording - November 2011 - 61
Recording - November 2011 - Shure SRH940 Headphones
Recording - November 2011 - 63
Recording - November 2011 - Readers’ Tapes
Recording - November 2011 - Advertiser Index
Recording - November 2011 - 66
Recording - November 2011 - 67
Recording - November 2011 - 68
Recording - November 2011 - 69
Recording - November 2011 - 70
Recording - November 2011 - 71
Recording - November 2011 - Fade Out
Recording - November 2011 - Cover3
Recording - November 2011 - Cover4
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