creating space but not necessarily separation in the mix

[yourmomsp]

this might be a general, subjective question, but i'm looking for ideas or tips for creating space in my mixes, but i don't necessarily want each instrument/track in my mix to be distinct and separable. i like how push and pull of certain instruments blend together resulting something greater than the sum of its parts. i'd be interested in hearing how people achieve this.

thanks

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I keep coming back to this idea lately but a huge amount of this has less to do with mixing then it has to do with arrangement. Do the elements of the arrangement leave rhythmic and sonic space for the other instruments? Once you've got that you can focus on the tones. Do the support instruments mesh well and leave space for the feature instruments?

[vvv]

FWIW, I immediately thought of side-chaining a compressor, like between kick and bass.

After that, hard-panning with different (at least levels of) reverb.

Finally, dynamic EQ in the sense of making parts brighter or darker in various locations, ex., more cymbals or snare crack in the chorus vs. the verse, while varying the rhythm guitar/keys FX/tones/EQ at the same time ...

Double-secret probation finally, you can also use panning with the above,ex., narrow in one location, spread in the other.

[joninc]

good thread - i am always fighting too much density in my own mixing (like right now today for instance and while by no means have i figured it all out, i have come to a few conclusions.

1. back off the levels - make sure that you aren't keeping all your channels hot and then just compensating on the master buss. you need to leave a bit of headroom for things to breath.

this goes for tracking levels and mixing. it seems to add a blurriness when everything is printed hot - or running through outboard and even plugins too hot.

2. the "democracy mix" is almost never gonna work. ie: you can't make 10 things sound forward at once and equally present and clear. some things can be really loud and forward. other things can be barely audible. and they don't need to remain static throughout the mix - once something is stated it can be turned down and more subliminal. your mind does fill in the gaps a lot of the time.

3. lots of low end gives the impression of "close" a lot of the time (proximity effect) - you gotta suck out some of that low mids/bass to create openess. I am not talking about highpassing everyting under 150 but listening for buildups of mud. lately i've tried use a multi band compressor to do it more dynamically rather than just cutting it all out with an eq. and don't get me wrong - i love phatness - but there's no way that everything can be phat. pick and choose. kick or bass? piano or guitar?

4. back off the verb - nothing muddies up the mix like a ton of reverb. most of your favorite albums are a lot drier than you think. usually there's 1 or 2 elements that might have a pronounced effect but many will be dry. go back and listen.

5. additive is often better. ie: if you want grit on your drums - blend some in parallel but don't just plaster it over your drum buss and lose the definition of the un-distorted signal. same goes for extreme compression a lot of the time. better to blend it in with a un-compressed signal most of the time.

[vvv]

Good stuff!

And I especially agree on the reverb thing, what I- FWIW, used to attribute to all those Rick Rubin and mebbe Jeff Lynne produced records.

Of course, then there is My Morning Jacket ...

[Nick Sevilla]

this might be a general, subjective question, but i'm looking for ideas or tips for creating space in my mixes, but i don't necessarily want each instrument/track in my mix to be distinct and separable. i like how push and pull of certain instruments blend together resulting something greater than the sum of its parts. i'd be interested in hearing how people achieve this.

thanks

When all instruments play well together, I usually use one reverb, short, about 0.7 tp 1.2 S, with no predelay, and send ALL the instruments into it, usually with almost the same amount each. This kind of sends them into a unified space, together. I also ake sure the sends are following the main pan of each instrument, so they stay in their own pan position even after the reverb is applied.

You will probably have to adjust them individually a little, like the bass or the really high frequency instruments, but not much.

If done right, it can create a nice space for all of them to live in.

Cheers

[Drone]

Shoot all but two musicians in each band for simple mix sparsity

I like a lot of ambient mic'ing, I liked the comment Glyn Johns made about pulling the mic back to let the sound develop.

[lyman]

I think depth of field - where elements of the mix seem to sit in terms of near and far - is a big part of what we're talking about. Left/right is one axis, and near/far would be another. If you want less separation, you might shoot for giving the tracks a unified point in the mix in terms of depth. And vice versa for more separation. Of course, panning left/right is easy as turning a knob, but in my experience creating depth, or at least the perception of, is something ideally addressed while tracking or even arranging.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I think depth of field - where elements of the mix seem to sit in terms of near and far - is a big part of what we're talking about. Left/right is one axis, and near/far would be another. If you want less separation, you might shoot for giving the tracks a unified point in the mix in terms of depth. And vice versa for more separation. Of course, panning left/right is easy as turning a knob, but in my experience creating depth, or at least the perception of, is something ideally addressed while tracking or even arranging.

A great point to which I would add - Start your mix in mono. Get your levels, tones, and front to back happening before you switch to stereo and start panning.
Mono makes you think about space because you only have depth of field, tone and volume to work with.

[Drone]

Maybe you could explain how you achieve front to back, seeing as there isn't a knob for it?

[A.David.MacKinnon]

Maybe you could explain how you achieve front to back, seeing as there isn't a knob for it?

You can give the illusion of moving something back on the sound stage by adding more reverb or room tones (obviously) but you can also do it by rolling out and muting the highs. Brighter elements will naturally feel like they are closer, darker elements will feel farther away. Laying off the compression on background elements will also help. If you think about a sound happening at a distance it's natural that you won't be able to hear every detail the way you would if the sound source was right in front of you.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

To apply that to the tracking process, if you know a specific element is going to be in the back ground try backing the mic up a bit. Not so far that you lose the tone of the instrument (or get too much noise vs signal) but far enough that you don't have the hyper real detail that only exist really close to a source (like hammer and damper noise on a piano or string squeaks on an acoustic guitar). You might also pick a mic that rounds off the highs and smears or mutes the sound a little bit.

If I'm set up for a record and have multiple mics on sources all over the room I'll often audition them for overdubs. If there's a piano part but it needs to be distant I might listen to what it sounds like in the drum overhead or vocal mic (without moving those mics). Sometimes I find the perfect fit and all I had to do was unmute channels and listen. Sometime it'll gets close but I need a tiny bit more detail so I'll submix the close mic on the source with one of the random mics.

[vvv]

+1

I have a variation on that theme:

When recording guitar amp tracks one at a time, I will often have the close mic(s) and then a distant mic. I use the same distant mic for all of the amps, basically as a room mic (but only 3-6' out and usually 1' above horizontal), that I can then use in parallel with each close mic track.

FWIW, I currently like a ribbon for that purpose, but am planning to try a condensor tho' I fear the ambient noise. I also intend to try a doorway and mebbe an out-the-door mic for this and even the following purpose.

Another trick. Sometimes I'll record M/S in the "correct" manner, but sometimes I'll use that distant ribbon track as the side tracks (mult and invert the mult) and then vary the amount of the sides to set the distance - you have to be very alert when doing this as it can sound quite exaggerated. The net result is that the distant ribbon tracks are not heard in mono, and also may significantly effect the close-mic "center" track, what I usually can make sound cool.

[Dpower]

Laying off the compression on background elements will also help. If you think about a sound happening at a distance it's natural that you won't be able to hear every detail the way you would if the sound source was right in front of you.

I would politely disagree. It's all in how you use compression. Distant sounds tend not to have strong transients, as much of the transient info is HF, and as mentioned, rolled off. You can achieve this effect with a fast attack compressor, which combined with a fast release will kill the transient and bring out the recorded ambience, thus pushing the sound back in the mix. Combine with volume, EQ, and added ambience to taste.

You can observe this effect pretty easily by recording some tambourines or hand claps, and playing with the compression.

[drumsound]

I think making sure the tones you track work together in the desired fashion. How similar are the guitar and bass parts? If they are very similar (like AC/DC or something) you can think of it as one big instrument, do let the guitars have a lot of thump. and don't let the bass have a lot of treble information. Think of how the cymbals and chordal instruments interact. Use keyboards that blend into the other chordal instruments.

On a technical side, record with the same mic pre, and mix with the same EQ. IF you want the sonic interactions, don't use much compression, allow things to poke out here and there to keep motion. Use only one reverb and mix your send levels.

That's what comes to mind.