Space Is the Place, part 1

Dec 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Myles Boisen

IMPROVE YOUR MIXES BY WORKING IN THREE DIMENSIONS

BONUS MATERIAL
Space is the Place, Part 1 Reverb Parameters Explained

To keep this from happening, I often try to balance out a lushly reverberant foreground or midground track with other very dry mix elements while keeping an ear open for the symmetry of wet and dry tracks in imaging. This helps remind me to retain some space in a mix. And the distinctive contrast often heightens the dramatic impact of the wet elements.

When employing long reverbs, a judicious use of predelay helps to preserve the detail and transients of a track. Think of predelay or delay-time settings as a “dry window” that can let the crucial first 10 to 50 ms attack of a word, note, or drum hit slip through without reverb. A predelay of longer than 70 ms is perceived by the ear as a slapback echo, and, though useful in some cases, can also be heard as a distinct, often fluttery, effect.

Restrain Yourself

Once you have the reverb in your mix just the way you want it, print the mix for safety's sake (or save the DAW file and then save it with another file name), and then try a little reverb restraint to create more space and contrast between wet and dry elements. Try turning the reverb down on an instrument in the rhythm section or background, shorten its decay time, or even turn it off. That move might either suggest another similar reduction or inspire a change to the vocal or other foreground reverb. Once you get over the habit of thinking that more reverb is better, you might just like the clarity and spaciousness of your new, drier mix. If not, you can always go back to your first mix or try adding a little more reverb in mastering.

And remember, there's no rule that says you have to use reverb on every track, or even at all. I rarely use digital reverb on kick drum, bass, or any predominantly low-end material. In addition, I religiously avoid the use of long hall or plate reverbs in any percussive track unless it's for a particular effect.

Using a mild chorus on chordal instruments or a slapback delay on vocals makes it possible to mix without artificial reverb in some circumstances — particularly with dense mixes in which reverb tends to swallow up subtle details.

Roomy from the Start

You can greatly reduce your need for digital reverb by using room mics and creative miking to create a sense of space when tracking. Because this is a topic I have covered in previous EM articles (see “Underground Drum Sounds” in the July 2001 issue and “Tracking in the Unplugged World” in the November 2003 issue, both available at emusician.com), I'll just throw out a few ideas here.

A room mic placed 5 to 10 feet away from an overdubbed source (or 50 feet away, if you have a room that big) will yield a unique timbre and ambience that standard reverb plug-ins and outboard processors can't duplicate. Depending on your taste and how adventurous your spirit is, that room mic can be mixed in to be barely audible, equal in level to the close-miked source, or used instead of a close mic. In a DAW, any room mic track can always be nudged to be farther in time from the original track, creating the illusion of a larger room. Keep in mind that a nudge of 1 ms amounts to a virtual distance increase of roughly 1.125 feet between the room mic and the source (based on the speed of sound as 1,125 feet per second), giving the illusion of a larger room.

Adding reverb to the room mic or using it only as a reverb send yields an interesting variety of predelay and coloration. Unusual mics (such as figure-8 ribbons, cheap lo-fi models, and omnidirectional models) and unconventional placement (on the floor, inside a metal tin, facing a windowpane) can add additional colors to your sonic palette.

As exciting as these ambience-miking ideas can be, they can also be big space suckers in a mix due to overwhelming bass or midrange coloration. I use low-cut filtering liberally on room mics (and reverb returns) to avoid adding muddy frequencies to my mixes.

In my experience, most free reverb plug-ins and inexpensive outboard reverb processors have high coloration and can be overwhelming as soon as they are audible in a mix. If you feel the same way and find yourself with a mix that has no room mics and no decent digital reverb options, try reamping for the room. This entails running selected tracks (or the whole mix if you want) through a clean guitar amp or monitor speaker, placing a mic in front of the speaker, and recording the result for use in your mix. (For more on reamping, see “Better Tone Through Reamping” in the October 2008 issue.)

Next month in the second part of this article, I'll discuss, among other issues, how compression, EQ, and a song's arrangement can impact the perception of space in a mix.

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Myles Boisen (mylesboisen.com) consumes significant quantities of space and time at Guerrilla Recording and the Headless Buddha Mastering Lab in Oakland, California.

Tips for a More Spacious Mix

• Conceptualize your mix in three dimensions: horizontal (left to right panning), depth (front-to-back or relative level), and vertical (EQ — with highs being up, lows being down, and midrange in the middle).

• Pan the elements in your mix in a roughly symmetrical fashion, both in terms of stereo placement and frequency content.

• Try moving the kick drum and bass a bit off center to remove clutter from the center.

• Keep primary elements loud enough to be in the foreground. You might want to bring them up first when starting your mix, and then work the other parts around them.

• Consider mixing background elements — such as hand percussion, pads, and some rhythm instruments — low enough so that they're more textural than up-front.

• Reduce reverb decay times to 1 second or less where possible to limit excess ambient wash. Try using delay or chorus instead of reverb. Use room miking to create natural reverb when tracking (or after the fact in a reamping scenario).

WEB LINKS

Pitch-a-Tent Records' Site
www.pitchatent.com

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www.magneticmotorworks.com