The Spacial Aspect of Mixing By: DAWsopenat7 No comments

I recently had a great question on how I handle the spacial aspect of mixing and in this post, i'm going to cover exactly how I tackle it.

Firstly, I want to say that the spacial aspect of a mix can seem a bit complex and as a beginner, it can be quite daunting however, there are simple techniques you can apply to help achieve a great mix.

Creating space and placing elements in a mix starts with balance and I have an earlier post which covers this in great detail... All About Balance 

The balance aspect is the most important process to begin with as this is the most primary way of placing the elements that make up the song. Think of the loudest element as being the most 'in your face' and the quietest being the furthest away.

Panning is the next process I go to and generally, when I am working on rock, pop or metal mix I keep the kick, snare, bass guitar and the main vocal 100% central. I always pan rhythm guitars hard left and hard right to create space in the centre of the mix and also to give the perception of a wider stereo-field. Drum overheads are also hard left and hard right, but I do vary the configuration of these depending on whether I want the drummer perspective (behind the kit) or audience perspective (in front of the kit). Drum room mics are also panned out wide to match the configuration of the overheads. I usually pan the toms across the stereo field according to how they are set out on the drum kit, but this depends on how many there are on the actual kit for example, a hi-tom would be panned just off the centre to the left and two floor toms would be panned to the right, almost hard right, based on the drummers perspective. For any other instruments, I usually judge based on how much they are contributing to the song so they may end up being in the centre or panned hard left or hard right, but either way they are contributing to the 'bigger picture'.

EQ is another key process in helping to place elements that make up a mix. For the purpose of this post, I am only going to talk about EQ as a means of creating a space and depth in a mix and not as a process of cutting unnecessary frequencies etc. 
An immediate way of making an element of the mix sound further away to create a sense of depth is to use a low pass filter on an EQ. Rolling off some of the high frequencies on particular source to create a darker sound, giving the perception of depth. For example, backing vocals that are panned out hard left and hard right can benefit from a gentle high frequency roll off to place them further back in the mix and leave the main central vocal at the forefront. 
Similarly, a gentle boost on the high frequencies using a high shelf on an EQ can help give a greater perception of proximity.

Compression is another great way of creating depth in a mix, especially if the goal is to bring an element of the mix to the front. It is particularly useful on a main vocal to reduce the dynamic range of performance by controlling the peaks and bringing up the quieter parts to create an 'in your face' vocal.

Effects are the final tools I use in a mix, not only to place instruments in more audibly satisfying places, but also to add 'sparkle' and 'polish' to a song.
My general rule that I go by when using reverb is to try and stick with 2 different reverbs and no more than this otherwise I'm at risk of creating a mix that doesn't sound cohesive to the listener.   
I usually choose a reverb for the vocals and a reverb for the snare. I won't go into the detail of the reverb settings as this is completely up to you as the engineer of your own mix however, I will point out that one of the most important parameters of the reverb plugin to pay attention to is the pre-delay.
The pre-delay controls how quick the reverb kicks in after the signal has run through the plugin.
It's a very useful and powerful parameter of a reverb because it gives you the ability to keep the initial transient of a signal dry and up front, but also have the benefit of a pleasing reverb tail. Equally, you can keep the pre-delay at zero and place a instrument directly into the space.

I hope I have made it pretty clear in this post that there is a lot of powerful processes you can do to affect the spacial aspect of a mix before you even load up a reverb or delay plugin and I highly recommend that you start this way because you will learn that not every song requires effects, you will become a better judge of when reverb is needed or when it would complement a performance. You can create a killer, deep and wide mix with the most basic tools of mixing.

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