Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio - Additional Resources

Workflow Demonstration Video

If you have trouble downloading or playing this video, here's a mirror file on an alternate server.

Audio Files

(To download all WAV examples at once: 112MB ZIP)

• Fake Double-tracks For Stereo Widening: I frequently generate additional double-track parts for stereo-widening purposes by using audio editing techniques, as in Mix Rescue October 2008, where I edited a single guitar recording Ex18.01: WAV/MP3play_arrow to create a fake double-track, and then panned the two parts to opposite sides of the stereo field Ex18.02: WAV/MP3play_arrow.

• Sampled Ambiences For Stereo Widening: I often use stereo ambiences to expand the stereo picture when mixing. In Mix Rescue April 2009, for example, I used simple background noise to widen this mix (with noise Ex18.03: WAV/MP3play_arrow; without noise Ex18.04: WAV/MP3play_arrow). A more ostentatious example can be heard in Mix Rescue May 2009, where I layered in lots of weird stereo ambient effect samples Ex18.05: WAV/MP3play_arrow to transform this Ex18.06: WAV/MP3play_arrow into this Ex18.07: WAV/MP3play_arrow.

• Demonstrations Of Different Stereo Widening Methods: Here’s a simple mono synth pad Ex18.08: WAV/MP3play_arrow, to which I’ve applied various different stereo widening techniques for comparison purposes: static EQ-based widening Ex18.09: WAV/MP3play_arrow, the classic pitch-shifted delay patch Ex18.10: WAV/MP3play_arrow, chorusing Ex18.11: WAV/MP3play_arrow, flanging Ex18.12: WAV/MP3play_arrow, phasing Ex18.13: WAV/MP3play_arrow. This mono synth lead line Ex18.14: WAV/MP3play_arrow, on the other hand, has been widened using fast auto-panning Ex18.15: WAV/MP3play_arrow. All these effects can work for stereo files as well, but MS techniques are very useful too. Take this stereo pad sound, for example Ex18.16: WAV/MP3play_arrow, which can be heard widened with MS processing in this file Ex18.17: WAV/MP3play_arrow. Extreme MS widening can make the stereo field appear to extend beyond the speakers Ex18.18: WAV/MP3play_arrow, but at the expense of mono-compatibility.

• Stereo Widening In Practice: Mix Rescue May 2010 involved a lot of stereo enhancements, including stereo chorusing Ex18.19: WAV/MP3play_arrow, stereo phasing Ex18.20: WAV/MP3play_arrow, and the classic pitch-shifted delay patch Ex18.21: WAV/MP3play_arrow. This is what the full mix sounded like with them all mixed in Ex18.22: WAV/MP3play_arrow. Here’s another example of a dry mix Ex18.23: WAV/MP3play_arrow, where the vocal is widened using a classic pitch-shifted delay (isolated Ex18.24: WAV/MP3play_arrow; in the mix Ex18.25: WAV/MP3play_arrow). For a good example of subtle general-purpose widening using ambience reverb and the classic pitch-shifted delay (from Mix Rescue November 2008), compare these two files (without widening Ex18.26: WAV/MP3play_arrow; with widening Ex18.27: WAV/MP3play_arrow). Here’s the full mix Ex18.28: WAV/MP3play_arrow so that you can hear the effect in its proper context.

Links

• Affordable Pads & Stereo Fillers: There are ridiculous numbers of freeware synths now available, and most of them can be turned to the task of making pads. However, one of the all-time great pad sounds is the Hammond organ (via its Leslie rotary speaker), and here are a couple of fun freeware options: fxPointAudio’s Nubile ^32‑bit & Spinner LE ^32‑bit and Istvan Kaldor’s DirtBag ^32‑bit . For stereo filler ambiences, samples are the way to go. Retro Sampling offer several dedicated background-noise libraries, and many hip-hop/electronica sample libraries include some elements like this. Any source of film/TV Foley samples will usually have a selection of usable stereo background-noise beds and room tones – try the Freesound Project or Sound Snap, for example.

• Affordable Middle & Sides (MS) Plug-ins: The plug-in I use all the time for this is Voxengo’s freeware MSED, a simple but very effective MS encoder/decoder. What I particularly like about it is that you can choose just to encode or decode, making it possible to separate out the Middle or Sides signals for separate processing between two instances of the plug-in. For other stereo adjustments, such as left/right-channel panning, try Flux’s freeware Stereo Tool , which also happens to have one of the best Vectorscope displays I know of. (Melda’s MStereoScope is another good one.) Bob Perry’s Listener, Boz Digital’s Panipulator, and Brainworx’s Bx Solo are all useful when working with stereo width, as they allow you to easily audition and compare the Left, Right, Middle, and Sides signals. For frequency-selective MS processing, check out an MS capable freeware EQ such as Tokyo Dawn’s TDR Nova, or use two instances of Voxengo’s MSED to convert to and from MS, then any EQ you like between them. For a graphical representation of stereo width against frequency, check out the MS mode in Voxengo’s freeware SPAN analyser. Voxengo’s Correlometer can also be useful for highlighting mono incompatibility problems visually.

• Affordable Pitch-shift & Vibrato Plug-ins: For a straight pitchshift, try out Aegean Music’s freeware Pitchproof (although you’ll need to insert a separate plug-in instance in each channel to get opposite left/right shifts for widening purposes) or Mda’s freeware Detune (which does the opposing shifts automatically). You’ll still need an additional stereo delay plug-in (such as Cockos’s freeware ReaDelay to achieve the classic Harmonizer-style pitch-shifted delay patch described in the book, though – for a true one-stop solution, try Stillwell Audio’s affordable CMX, which manages all the required micro-level pitch-shifts and delays internally. For vibrato widening, Melda’s freeware MVibrato is good, because it allows you to set up conflicting modulation in the left and right channels.

• Affordable Auto-panning & Rotary-speaker Plug-ins: For simple auto-panning, try GVST’s freeware GLFO, but the most flexible freeware auto-panners I know of are Cableguys PanCake and Melda MAutopan, and their affordable multiband payware versions PanShaper and MAutopanMB allow for a lot of more subtle auto-pan effects. For something closer to a Leslie, try the freeware fxPointAudio Spinner LE ^32‑bit , Mda Leslie, or Istvan Kaldor Dirt-E ^32‑bit , or the affordable Plug & Mix Ls Rotator, PSP L'otary, and UVI Rotary.

• Implementing Custom-designed Modulation Effects: If you don’t have suitable modulation options on your plug-ins, then there are other ways to implement the modulation you need. For example, you can easily create vibrato widening from first principles in Cockos Reaper by applying the DAW’s built-in Parameter Modulation facility to two ReaPitch shifter voices. On other DAW software platforms, an affordable MIDI LFO generator such as Cableguys MIDIShaper or Xfer’s LFO Tool provide an alternative if you can set the required plug-in parameters to respond to the requisite MIDI messages.

• Affordable Specialist Stereo-enhancement Plug-ins: There are plenty of more-or-less-arcane specialist stereo-enhancement plug-ins available, each with its own subjective character and side-effects. A couple of my favourite freeware options here are Polyverse Wider & Voxengo Stereo Touch (both based around a Sides-signal delay and great for widening mono sources) and Open Ambience Project SHEPPI ^32‑bit (which implements the kinds of Haas-delay and polarity inversion methods shown in Figure 18.5 of Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio).

Further Reading

• Stereo Widening In Practice: Many of my Mix Rescue remixes involve stereo-widening treatments of one kind or another, not least because the classic pitch-shifted delay patch is one of my default mix effects. However, Mix Rescue May 2010 focuses more than usually on the subject.