Giving your mixes depth

[dubdub]

One thing i've noticed comparing my tracks to people who's sound design I admire is that my mixes sound incredibly two-dimensional compared to theirs. Now, part of this is probably due to my very lazy stereo-work but I feel like there's more to it. I watched this video a while ago and thought it was pretty insightful. Thoughts? Any other techniques you use to give your mixes more depth?

youtu.be/9ayteRHOMBQ

[Alume]

I found that less is more when talking about depth.

The most spacious tracks often have few elements with carefully selected fx.

Dont overdo it, in real spaces its not there is tons of reverb and echo's. Its the subtleness that makes it come alive.

Not sure this Is on topic though haha cant watch the vid atm

[dubdub]

I found that less is more when talking about depth.

The most spacious tracks often have few elements with carefully selected fx.

Dont overdo it, in real spaces its not there is tons of reverb and echo's. Its the subtleness that makes it come alive.

Not sure this Is on topic though haha cant watch the vid atm

For a lot of people it's probably obvious stuff, ie. try to aim to have different layers of depth (front to back) in your tracks, you can achieve that with volume, reverb, delay, transients, EQing etc. I thought he did a good job of explaning the concepts though.

[Merah]

Yeah that video is awesome, it made me rethink my mixes in a big way particularly in regards to transients

[daunzila]

Cool video!
Thanks, that compression technique is totally new for me

[SFBM]

Great video! Have learned a few handy bits of info from it!

[SFBM]

I knew about tweaking a compressor's attack before and how much "punch" it gave to a sound before, but I never stopped to think about how it makes a sound more up front or more in the background of a mix..that's super helpful now that I know it

[TomasHD]

Well, I guess that the depth or the quality mix downs you're talking about, are all about practice and experience (Trial and error) and see what works for you.
This may sound quite general, but when you know clearly how each element interact in the production process you will know what to do with them (EQ, Sound design, etc)
and eventually your mixes will get better.

In my case compression isn't a fundamental element. Sound design it is.

[The_G]

I found that less is more when talking about depth.

The most spacious tracks often have few elements with carefully selected fx.

Dont overdo it, in real spaces its not there is tons of reverb and echo's. Its the subtleness that makes it come alive.

Not sure this Is on topic though haha cant watch the vid atm

For a lot of people it's probably obvious stuff, ie. try to aim to have different layers of depth (front to back) in your tracks, you can achieve that with volume, reverb, delay, transients, EQing etc. I thought he did a good job of explaning the concepts though.

yeah that's what I do. Plus a little bit of pan, which is technically for width, but it does give a sense of separation, which in turn can increase the sense of depth.

[Kuchta]

I found that less is more when talking about depth.

The most spacious tracks often have few elements with carefully selected fx.

Dont overdo it, in real spaces its not there is tons of reverb and echo's. Its the subtleness that makes it come alive.

A good point that.

Panning gives you your L-R, but depth comes from tricking the human brain and using the techniques found in nature that give us such clues. Things further away have less top end (low frequencies travel further than high frequencies for example). Reverb too. So often rolling off some top and giving it a bit more reverb will drop a sound back in the mix.

Delay will also allow you to place things in 3 dimensions, especially when using a single tap repeat. You can go as deep as you like reading into the psycho acoustics of the above methods, especially when it comes to 'The Haas effect' and how to play around with delays to achieve that. That's ninja-level mixing right there, but once you pick up and use even the basics, you can really start to play with positioning.

Sound travels relatively slowly too, and so sounds further away will always be delayed in nature, and not start directly on the beat. Think of watching someone hoofing a football a distance away. The foot hits the ball, then a second later... Bam, you hear it. You can use the speed of sound to calculate what this delay would be to put a sound 20 meters back in a mix, delay the sample by that amount, roll off a little top-end and add more reverb and voila, your mixing in 3D. Try it.

On another note, I have a friend that works exclusively in Reason. He's a great producer, but is never happy with the 2D sounding flat mixes he gets in Reason. We have sat for days and tried everything in that program, but never been able to export a mix down that sounds anything other than 2D.

Around 5 years ago, he bought his Reason file to my studio at the time and we stemmed out 16 tracks to a fairly modest analog mixer I had in there. Used 3-4 outboard units (2 reverbs and a delay) and the mix that came out of those monitors was beautiful. I remember us both A/Bing the Reason mix on his laptop and the outboard mix we had done and it was like falling into the track and floating around inside of the individual sounds. We were also a little high too. That may of helped.

What I am saying is that sometimes, it's not your mix, but playing with the above methods will improve things if you are not already mixing to that level of detail.

Finally, remember, that some of the best electronic music (especially club bound stuff) was never mixed in 3D, and in some cases is damn near mono. My friends track mentioned above had some nice ambient sounds and plenty of space, and so leant itself to a nice, detailed 3D mix with plenty of depth. Basic, old school techno and acid bangs and 3D doesn't always translate to club systems unless we are talking Tresor or Fabric quality PA. That said.. straight up, no frills, simply mixed tracks also bang in these venues.

[Kuchta]

... May I also add that 3-dimensional mixes also depend heavily on the original sound design and sampled components of the composition too.

Not every sounds can be the 'hero sound' in a mix, and so care must be taken to decide which sounds should be up front and in your face, and which will play a supporting role. That's not to say that every sound you choose shouldn't be the very best it can be, after all, that's one of the fundamentals of techno in my mind, just that hard, loud, distorted leads that command attention will lend themselves to being in the foreground, where as evolving pads for example, are best bedded back a little in the mix.

Having spent many years as a live sound and studio engineer, I can attest that there is no harder band to mix than the one who has 3 guitarists and a keyboard player, all fighting to be 'front of stage' as it were. Not everyone can play through the power-lead Marshall stack on full blown overdrive, someone has to drop back and lay off a little, make space for the lead, take one for the team. That way the mix will always sound better, and in most cases, also more powerful.