EQ Magazine - January 2008 - (Page 52)

MIX BUS 6 SLICK STEREO TECHNIQUES by Craig Anderton Stereo placement isn’t just about realism— it’s also about keeping instruments from interfering with each other, as well as adding special effects. Here are some tips designed to help further your skills in the art of stereo. PERSPECTIVE As you set up stereo placement for instruments, think about your listener’s position. For a drummer, the hi-hat is on the left, and the toms on the right. For the audience, however, it’s the reverse. I generally go for the performer’s perspective, unless the object is to emulate a concert experience. FREQUENCY RESPONSE Low frequencies are fairly non-directional, whereas highs are very directional. As a result, pan low frequency sounds (kick drum, bass) toward the center of a mix, and higher frequency instruments (shaker, tambourine) further out to the left and right. WET/DRY Placing a delay effect in the same spatial location as the sound being delayed may cause an indistinct sound. One fix is to weight your instrument to one side of the stereo spread, and the delayed sound (set to full delay—no dry signal) to the opposite side. If you’re using stereo delay on a lead instrument panned to center, you can get some lovely results by panning one channel of echo toward the left, and one toward the right. If the echoes are polyrhythmic, this can also give some ping-pong type effects. Of course, this can sound gimmicky if you’re not careful, but if the echoes are mixed relatively low, and there’s some stereo reverb going on, the sense of spaciousness can be huge. Another option: Filter the echoes so they have more midrange or highs than the sound being delayed. MAP Sure, you can just move pan knobs around arbitrarily until things sound good. But consider drawing a diagram of the intended soundstage—much like the way theater people draw marks for where actors are supposed to stand. When it’s time to mix, this diagram can be a helpful map. Fig. 1: Two copies of the same vocal track in Sony Acid. The lower track is delayed by about a 32nd note. Note that the upper track is panned 27 percent toward the left, while the lower track is panned 27 percent toward the right, to create a stereo effect. CLONE Here’s a tip from Spencer Brewer (Laughing Coyote Studios) regarding an effect that Alex de Grassi uses a lot on his guitars to create a wider stereo image with two mics. This effect also works well with piano. • Pan the right mic full right. • Pan the left mic track full left. • Copy the right-mic and left-mic tracks. • Pan the duplicated tracks to center. • Bring the duplicated tracks down about 5dB to 6dB (or to taste). This stereo strategy fills in the center hole that normally occurs by panning the two main signals to the extreme left and right. SLIPPIN’ & SLIDIN’ Many signal sources are still essentially mono (voice, vintage synths, electric guitar, etc.), but there are ways to “stereoize” sounds. The easiest option is to copy a track and slip it ahead or behind the original track to create a slight delay between the two, then pan the two tracks opposite each other (Figure 1). In some cases, it’s most effective to slip the original track ahead of the beat, and the copy a little late, so that the two end up averaging out and hit in the pocket. But you can also use slipping to alter the feel somewhat. To drag the part a bit, keep the original on the beat, and slip the copy a little later. For a more insistent feel, slip the copy ahead. How much slip to add depends upon the instrument’s frequency range. If the delay is too short, the two signals may cancel to some extent, and create comb-filtering effects. This can result in a thin sound— much like a flanger stuck on a few milliseconds of delay. Lowering the copied signal’s level can reduce these negative effects, but then the stereo image will be correspondingly less dramatic. If the delay is too long, then you’ll hear an echo effect. This can also be useful in creating a wider stereo image, but then you have to deal with the rhythmic implications— do you really want an audible delay? And if the delay is long enough, the sound will be more like two mono signals than a wide stereo signal. Thankfully, it’s easy to slide parts around in your DAW and experiment. Just be sure to check the final result in mono. If the sound ends up being thin or resonant, increase the delay time a tiny bit until both the stereo and mono sounds work equally well. 52 EQ JANUARY 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - January 2008

EQ Magazine - January 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Robbers On High Street Rafter RTX Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings Toolbox Rahim Dimmu Borgir Wu-Tang Clan Special Feature! Mastering for Musicians Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drumheads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Sonar 7 IK Multimedia Virtual Instruments Yamaha MSP7 Shure KSM137/SL K+H O 300 & O 800 Sonica Livetracker Apple Logic Studio Novation XioSynth 25, Audio-Technica ATH-M50, Samson G-Track

EQ Magazine - January 2008

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