Stereo image and EQ on top loops.

[LaurentOrchard]

Hey guys,

I'm having a hard time with my hats. I'm struggling to make them wide. How do you guys usually proceed? If i try the delay ( 1ms left , 10 ms right, all wet ) trick it usually sounds like trash somehow. Do you layer them one left and one right? I understrand most people keeps the stereo image wide mostly for the offbeat kinda open hats. The 16th patern mostly stay mono and/or do the pan dance left and right with automation?

Also when it comes to EQing those i encounter a variety of small problems. I understand that you should cut the lows of of hats most of the time. However some hat have
some punch around the 100 hz area. Where do you cut? Where do you draw the line? Do you cut higher for shakers and 16th paterns?
The other big problem i have ( and this one is a real bitch ) is regardins 2the very high frequencys. If i dont cut anything it sounds kinda harsh, brittle and '' digital '' ( for lack of a better word, i'm not an analog freak at all ) But if i cut too much then it sounds dull and it's having a hard time cuting through the mix. So i'v come with a few solutions : tape emulations that smooten the highs ( it's like eq/distortion/compression all at once ), down pitching the hats ( but then it's not the same ).

I'm having the same problems with snares and claps type sounds. Too much low and they overshow in the mix, too less of it and they sound almost like a hat . Too much highs and they fuck with the hats, too less of it and they sound like a cheap AM midrangy radio.

And oh yeah, how many elements going at once do you use before you find it starts to clash?

I see all those kicks and bass thread around, but as far as i'm concerned, i'm having more of a hard time with what's above the mid range zone. It evens go with the kick. If i cut too much of the highs from the kick it sounds very hard, very warm, very techno. But then i add hats and there's some kind of huge frequency gap between the two elements and it sounds weird. But then if i retain alot of highs from the kick, it ends up sounding like some track that could be on . records very quickly and it's not where i want to be heading.

And how loud to you peak those ? How loud do you push your kick compared to other elements?



Humf.... :/

[Mono-xID]

Don't get caught in this "cut around...hz, do this, do that" trap. I do everything by ear nowadays. As for the delay: 1ms left and 10ms right is not enough for a bit a width. I usually put a delay insert (not as send) around 30ms left and 50-60ms right (all depends on the used hat and width you want to achieve) and around 30%. Also i tend to use a touch of reverb depending on what kind of effect the hat should have.

[surface]

Having a slight difference in pitch in left channel vs. right channel is another trick.
I think this is how the stereo level works on ableton's simpler.

[LaurentOrchard]

Do you guys use reverbs on hats and very high frequency rich percussive elements? If you do , how and how much? IF you plan on playing live do you use less reverb on those?

[Lost to the Void]

There is absolutely no need for hats to have anything in the 100hz region. You can cut way way higher than that. Once you get them in the mix that 100hz is going to just cloud the mix, the "punch" will be much higher.
You won`t notice a cut, for instance, on a soloed 909 standard open hat until around 350hz with a 24db slope, and realistically can easily cut from 500-600hz in the mix with no weakening of the hats at all.
You might need a little more attack in some cases, but you need a transient designer/dynamic effect, or just be clever with your compression.

Never EQ with a track solo`d unless you are searching for problem frequencies. Always EQ "in the mix". Your decisions will then be based around the mix and not the individual sounds.


Really your problems are wider than one single post can solve.
essentially what you need is ear time and experience.
It takes a long time (years) for your ears to learn mixing, and quickly be able to identify what needs to be done.

Something I repeat a lot, but is one of the most important mix lessons you can learn is....

the best EQ technique is no EQ.
Choose the right sounds for the right place in the mix and you will have to do less EQ work, and less EQ work = a more "natural" sounding mix.
Subtractive EQ is just something you have to hammer on a daily basis, it is a very precise skill.

The mid range is the area our ears are attuned to so you have to be extra careful with sound placement here. It is surprising how much of a sound that can be cut away and yet not damage it`s presence in the mix. Rolling off the high`s from a lot of things that don`t need it is as helpful as doing the same for the lows.
Quite often a gentle roll of with a 6 or 12db slope and only 1 or 2 db gain reduction can be enough.

As for increasing stereo width of hats, there are a number of things you can do, chorus, very short wide reverbs, micro delays, stereo widening specific micro delays, mid-side EQ, or simple mid-side "widening"
All these work in different places, most of the non mid-side processes can smear the transients, so to grab back punch and bite, follow them with a transient designer/dynamic effect to tighten up the attack.

[Mono-xID]

What he said.

[oddmyth]

I'm having a hard time with my hats. I'm struggling to make them wide. How do you guys usually proceed? If i try the delay ( 1ms left , 10 ms right, all wet ) trick it usually sounds like trash somehow. Do you layer them one left and one right? I understrand most people keeps the stereo image wide mostly for the offbeat kinda open hats. The 16th patern mostly stay mono and/or do the pan dance left and right with automation?

Why do you want to make your hats wide in the first place? Most hihat imaging isn't that wide, drum imaging is generally kept around the center of the mix. 1ms R and 10ms L is always gonna sound like crap, most hihat samples aren't more than 100-200ms in the first place, so you are simply creating phase issues within the sample (thus the digitally-ness).

I'm not sure anyone stereo images wide for offbeat high hats, I think the mix is left more open around the offbeat so that the hat seems huge in the mix.

However some slapback delay will make the hat seem wider (although at higher values than 1ms and 10ms, try sample length divided by 5 and work backwards from hearing multiple delays coming back, keep feedback low). It's easier to try to widen the hat with mid/side eq and some slapback reverb (no diffusion, just try to create a slapback effect).

Also when it comes to EQing those i encounter a variety of small problems. I understand that you should cut the lows of of hats most of the time. However some hat have
some punch around the 100 hz area. Where do you cut? Where do you draw the line? Do you cut higher for shakers and 16th paterns?

It's debateable and is completely dependent on the mix, sometimes those frequencies add something, sometimes they don't. Mix issues are really dependent on the material.

The other big problem i have ( and this one is a real bitch ) is regardins 2the very high frequencys. If i dont cut anything it sounds kinda harsh, brittle and '' digital '' ( for lack of a better word, i'm not an analog freak at all ) But if i cut too much then it sounds dull and it's having a hard time cuting through the mix. So i'v come with a few solutions : tape emulations that smooten the highs ( it's like eq/distortion/compression all at once ), down pitching the hats ( but then it's not the same ).

Could be a number of things that cause this, original source material (samples) or the processing you've done on top of that. Debateably you may only want your processing to affect the meat of the sound and not the highest frequencies. Alternatively you can use saturation or other methods to introduce high end noise to help smooth out the problem, but I would address things at the source before attempting to band aid.

I'm having the same problems with snares and claps type sounds. Too much low and they overshow in the mix, too less of it and they sound almost like a hat . Too much highs and they fuck with the hats, too less of it and they sound like a cheap AM midrangy radio.

This is another mix to taste issue, finding the frequency range you want to fill is important, but how you remove frequencies is just as important. My only suggestion here would be to find the range you want to emphasis and then try to gently remove frequencies around it. Try EQ'ing with less steep filters, or finding the harmonics and accenting those up a few db while bringing down the frequencies around them.

And oh yeah, how many elements going at once do you use before you find it starts to clash?

It's dependent on how they are supposed to sit in the mix, there's no upper or lower limit, it all depends on how they sit together.

I see all those kicks and bass thread around, but as far as i'm concerned, i'm having more of a hard time with what's above the mid range zone. It evens go with the kick. If i cut too much of the highs from the kick it sounds very hard, very warm, very techno. But then i add hats and there's some kind of huge frequency gap between the two elements and it sounds weird. But then if i retain alot of highs from the kick, it ends up sounding like some track that could be on . records very quickly and it's not where i want to be heading.

There is a huge frequency gap between those elements when you EQ them away from each other so yes it will start to sound very sparse, I don't think you can judge what the total composition will sound like at such an early stage.

I would try not to spend too much time EQ'ing things out at that stage, because you are going to create problems for yourself later on. IMHO it's better to listen to the mix overall, than to try and solo parts, EQ them and then see how they sit in the mix, it's just not a good way to judge the mix.

And how loud to you peak those ? How loud do you push your kick compared to other elements?

I usually don't push my kick that hard against other elements, maybe 3-5db max, but again it's debateable, there's no set rule, it's mix to taste

[LaurentOrchard]

Thanks for all the answers it's spot on what i was looking for!

[johannes heil]

hey,

have you ever thought about panning some individual hits of a hihat pattern all the way to the right and some others all the way to the left and keep the main accentuating hits panned to the center? that sounds very wide to me....

or keep them mono in relation to some "wide as fuck" claps, sound great aswell, just understand that if a lot sounds are wide, it will not sound as wide as if just a few are wide.

could it be that if you cut some off the harsh and high digital sounding frequencies of your hats that the sound becomes dull because there is to much high frequency energy prominent in your relating sounds which are masking?

or maybe the bass is to loud now and this overweight is stealing the contrast?

relation means that attributes of elements are relative to others....

you know what i mean?

think about the following:

take a picture of a person that is quite tall and skinny, now take a picture of a group of tall and skinny persons...
now take one of a short and fat guy standing next to a tall and skinny one...

on which picture will you have the best relation to see how tall and skinny or how fat and short one is?

right, on the one having the biggest contrast, that is how our senses work!

understand and translate this to music and frequency, with, volume, groove etc. and you will have all the answers to your questions.

does that make sense to you?

[Lost to the Void]

The other alternative is also similar to mentioned already, 2 tracks of same sound hard panned in opposition, and then down tune one with a fine tune control on the sampler by some microtones or whatever.

[UN!T]

Hey guys,

I'm having a hard time with my hats. I'm struggling to make them wide. How do you guys usually proceed? If i try the delay ( 1ms left , 10 ms right, all wet ) trick it usually sounds like trash somehow. Do you layer them one left and one right? I understrand most people keeps the stereo image wide mostly for the offbeat kinda open hats. The 16th patern mostly stay mono and/or do the pan dance left and right with automation?

You have like 8000 questions here. I don't have time for that many answers. How about 1?

To make them wider try this. Create a room by creating 3 effects sends. On each of the different sends place a different reverb. 1 short, 1 medium & 1 long. Now send a different amount on each of the sends to each of the 3 verbs. As you bring up the levels on the sends you will start to notice a point where the sound starts to pop into a 3d space a bit. Now try playing with the pan. A little bit and the sound moves to the side. A lot and now the sound is over here ----->

I don't have a specific method I always follow. I just do what I would like at the time.

[Mslwte]

Don't get caught in this "cut around...hz, do this, do that" trap. I do everything by ear nowadays.

+1

[msl]

If you have that many EQ issues your not using the right sounds to begin with.

As for low cuts you just use your ears. Generally you can safely cut hats at 300hz or even higher, but sometimes you might want that little bit of 100hz content (esp if its some dirty vinyl sample or something), so you use your ears.

[Planar]

Try a 6db slope on the filter when cutting the highs.