My mixes sound okay, but I feel like they sound pretty centered/small in comparison to a lot of good tracks on AT. Would love some tips on how to make a mix sound more wider and exciting.
My mixes sound okay, but I feel like they sound pretty centered/small in comparison to a lot of good tracks on AT. Would love some tips on how to make a mix sound more wider and exciting.
Comments (8)
The first thing you can try is LCR panning. Is stands for Left, Centre and Right panning. Basically you pan your sounds only to those positions and nothing in between. Some producers swear by it and others are sceptical. I think it works only on certain kinds of tracks, with sparse and strong arrangements, but it certainly creates a very wide mix. If you want to widen individual sounds, basically you have to make their left and right sides as different as possible without the sound "breaking". Usually this involves delaying and detuning one channel in respect to another. StereoDelay, Stereoenhance, Chorus, ect do this. The Space synth has in-built options to detune and delay the right and left channels. Reverb and Pulsar delay can also add a new stereo sound to the original one, increasing its perceived width.
Should all of my stereo widening and panning be done in the mixing process? I've heard of other users using wideing plugins as part of their mastering process.
Yes, stereo widening (or narrowing) can also be done during mastering, but I think that mastering widening should be the kind that affects the whole track equally and is subtle. If you're using basic panning to set the position of sounds in the stereo field (panning, along with levels and EQ, are considered the fundamental steps of mixing), or widening sounds with effects to define their character (for example a wide pad), that's considered part of mixing.
what about the sub?
Either leave it mono or check phase issues (phase cancellation and loss of power) by folding the mix to mono if you apply any stereo effect to it.
Hey Jordi, thanks for the awesome tips!
How do you feel about panning sounds at 50% left or right? I've tried hard panning but it makes some of my sounds feel too far away.
It depends. I think that hard panning works best when you have equivalent but slightly different sounds on each side. For example two pads, two claps, two guitars, etc. But if you have single mono sounds like a cymbal crash or a synth, you can choose intermediate positions. It really depends on what style and kind of mix you're going for. I'm personally not a fan of hard panning except for the first case.
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