Creating depth in mixes

[T-rex]

So my latest mission has been to deliberately place elements in my mix front to back. I’ve always played with panning and generally widen my mixes or narrow them based on sections etc just like ramping up the excitement from the beginning to the end of the song. Compressing something and allowing the transients through will put something upfront but much of the depth has escaped me.

So I’m experimenting with really short delays / slap backs. I had previously used this for thickening sources but hadn’t realized the way that a super short delay can move something back in a mix as well.

I’m also playing with extremely short verbs / just the early reflections which gives a similar effect.

It’s subtle, but when you mute the sends the mix flattens. When you bring them back it’s like whoah. So I’m working through this to try to look at the whole mix, high to low, left to right and front to back.

How do you all tackle putting depth into your mixes?

[A.David.MacKinnon]

That mono auratone is going to serve you well here. You're already on a good track with the ambient effects. Eq also makes a big impact. Brighter feels forward. Darker moves back. Modern mixes seem to want every element to be bright and crisp and well defined but having some things mush together or blur a bit can make space for the important stuff to stand out.
Less of a mixing thing than a tracking thing but I find that tracks with lots of good bleed have way more space than I can ever dial in artificially. The urge to isolate elements can backfire by making the mixes sound flat.

I was just listening to an episode of Gear Club where they talked about Dylans Love and Theft record. I went and listened afterwards and God damn, the feeling of space on that record is amazing. It was all cut live in the same room including the vocal and a good amount of the band and drum sound is spill into the vocal mic.

[TapeOpLarry]

I like using some of the newer UAD stuff, like Sound City and Ocean Way rooms, to push percussion into a room. I mic things with this sort of intent at times, so that I can just keep the sounds off the edge of the speaker. https://open.spotify.com/album/4yFJG2hGKerSocacfwSHjo is a record I did all in Mono and used a lot of depth techniques to make it all "fit".

[andychamp]

The way I approach it is to have a different space (could be reverb, delay or early reflections/cluster delays) for each element of the mix.
My goal is to put each element into a *believeable* space, which involves a lot of trial-and error regarding level, predelay, pre- and post-EQ, stereo width...
These different spaces then also have to be compatible with each other when you add them up, and make sense in the song. What works in one song may not work in the next, even with similar orchestration.
And finally, there needs to be some point of reference for the brain to latch on to: a few choice *dry* elements that will define the front edge of the sound field. For that I like small sounds, like unique little percussion moments, vocal ad-libs, instrumental fills...and I find them most effective when they're not on all the time, only show up occasionally.
I don't have a foolproof recipe (yet), but when it gels, it's really a WOW! moment. Currently, I'm only happy with about 1 in 4 or 5 mixes in that respect...but I'm working on it.
Also, compression (especially subgroup or mixbus) can really mess with that carefully crafted balance, since it will change the realism of the source/space relationship.

[andychamp]

(...)I mic things with this sort of intent at times, so that I can just keep the sounds off the edge of the speaker.(...)

That would be the next level of my aspirations, and it probably hinges on flawless acoustics in the recording space...

[Scodiddly]

I like using some of the newer UAD stuff, like Sound City and Ocean Way rooms, to push percussion into a room. I mic things with this sort of intent at times, so that I can just keep the sounds off the edge of the speaker. https://open.spotify.com/album/4yFJG2hGKerSocacfwSHjo is a record I did all in Mono and used a lot of depth techniques to make it all "fit".

"Mono" by the band "Sunday State" for those of us with other streaming services. YouTube music has it. Pretty cool music!

[Scodiddly]

This is an interesting topic that I rarely think about... I guess mostly because I'm really a live sound mixer, which has different goals and needs sometimes.

In particular I tend to think in terms of the arrangement - what needs to be heard? Obviously in a live show it's hard to leave out the stuff that *I* think shouldn't be there, because there's a dude on stage flailing away on that instrument. But there's the ideal of deciding what to emphasize full range and what gets carved away (usually in frequency ranges) to make room. Which isn't too far from what some folks are saying here.

Remember that story about Tony Visconti setting up three mics in a big room on David Bowie, and using noise gates to determine which ones were open at any particular volume level? I wonder if it would make sense to set up several buses of varying "distance", each with successively more low-cut filtering and perhaps more ambience. Then you could try switching various inputs into the different buses to quickly see what works in a mix.

[T-rex]

I like using some of the newer UAD stuff, like Sound City and Ocean Way rooms, to push percussion into a room. I mic things with this sort of intent at times, so that I can just keep the sounds off the edge of the speaker. https://open.spotify.com/album/4yFJG2hGKerSocacfwSHjo is a record I did all in Mono and used a lot of depth techniques to make it all "fit".

I will definitely check this out when I get some time to really listen.

The Sound City plug in is great. I’ve been playing with it a lot to, especially for drums. I just recently figured out that Head Trip in Every Key was tracked at Sound City, which is an album that sonically and musically I love. So having the plugin is really nice. I haven’t tried Ocean Way yet.

[T-rex]

That mono auratone is going to serve you well here. You're already on a good track with the ambient effects. Eq also makes a big impact. Brighter feels forward. Darker moves back. Modern mixes seem to want every element to be bright and crisp and well defined but having some things mush together or blur a bit can make space for the important stuff to stand out.

Both this and the Larry quote about the mono project is interesting, I’m still getting used to balancing on the mono auratone, I hadn’t even thought about checking these kind of depth items on it.

[drumsound]

This is an interesting topic that I rarely think about... I guess mostly because I'm really a live sound mixer, which has different goals and needs sometimes.

In particular I tend to think in terms of the arrangement - what needs to be heard? Obviously in a live show it's hard to leave out the stuff that *I* think shouldn't be there, because there's a dude on stage flailing away on that instrument. But there's the ideal of deciding what to emphasize full range and what gets carved away (usually in frequency ranges) to make room. Which isn't too far from what some folks are saying here.

Remember that story about Tony Visconti setting up three mics in a big room on David Bowie, and using noise gates to determine which ones were open at any particular volume level? I wonder if it would make sense to set up several buses of varying "distance", each with successively more low-cut filtering and perhaps more ambience. Then you could try switching various inputs into the different buses to quickly see what works in a mix.

I heard of someone (Shepps, maybe?) who will set up several predelays to the same reverb. So different elements of the mix with hit the reverb sooner or later. I think I tried it and it was cool, but I don't remember if it was just experimenting or something released.

[Nick Sevilla]

I wrote about that on here ages ago... maybe you can find it. LOL.

How to get depth in a Mono speaker, which then translates into Stereo a lot faster. Auratones were great for that purpose.