differant methods for mics blending

[aviel]

Was wondering about 2 meyhods of channel/mic blending. lets say we have a guitar cab miced with 2 mics. A and B. What i did till.now was to bring up lets say A in my mixer to 0db then bring up B till i like it. so what i got was like100% A and50% B which is actually giving like 150%.

i thought of trying another method. like wet/dry balance in reverb. meaning finding a plugin with a knob which gives me 100%A and 0% B or the opposite or some blending like 70 30 etc. so basiclly it will always sum up to 100. what do you think? will there be any audible differance except volume? do you know any plug that can blend tracks that way? like balancing and not just summing?

just curious

 

[MetalSound]

this is what faders are made for.

 

[aviel]

this is what faders are made for.

Faders can also do 100% of each channel. i talked about a like wet/dry balace which wont some more then 100%.

 

[aviel]

something like this

note the mic balance in the bottom

 

[Scott Horner]

something like this

note the mic balance in the bottom

No, seriously. That's what faders are made for.

I think you're misunderstanding something. That mic balance knob in your picture is doing the same thing as independently adjusting the two individual faders for each mic, just with one fader. Putting it in the center is an even blend of both mics; moving it off to one side or the other simply lowers or raises the level of the respective mics. You can do this same thing by adjusting the individual levels of your mics. If you're worried about your "100% percent of each channel" just set both to 50% and adjust accordingly. For example, if you raise mic A from 50 to 75, lower mic B to 25. This will function exactly as you are wanting.

 

[aviel]

Yes but i am trying to avoid the gain boost while listening to different blendings. likr some routing methos that automaticlly lower a mic when i bring up b mic, like a compressor with automatoc make up gain so you can focus on the sonic difference and not god confusrd by the raise of volume

 

[Trevoire520]

Totally get what your saying man. Would be great to have a plug that lets you change the blend of 2 signals while keeping it at a consistent volume. We all know that your ear automatically thinks louder = better right? So a blend plugin like this would help to get around that.

Something like this, that also has a crossover built in would be a great tool for blending guitar mic's, bass DI/amp signals or blending kick mics/samples.

SOMEONE MAKE THIS!

 

[jipchen]

Totally get what your saying man. Would be great to have a plug that lets you change the blend of 2 signals while keeping it at a consistent volume. We all know that your ear automatically thinks louder = better right? So a blend plugin like this would help to get around that.

Something like this, that also has a crossover built in would be a great tool for blending guitar mic's, bass DI/amp signals or blending kick mics/samples.

SOMEONE MAKE THIS!

Doing this with actual, physical Faders is actually pretty easy. I never thought I would be the one to say this but you absolutely need faders for blending microphones or amps properly. It's 1000x faster and easier. Damn, I need a DAW controller with more than four faders ASAP

But I agree some kind of plugin would be cool for this purpose.

 

[gabriel g.]

you can build linked faders in logic 9.

So if fader A is at 100% fader B is at 0%
If fader A is at 50% fader B is at 50%
if fader A is at 75% fader B is at 25%
and so on


Its a bit tricky but it works great for that purpose

 

[jipchen]

oO dude that's awesome, how do link faders? ¯\(°_o)/¯

 

[aviel]

yup thats exactly what i meant. i am sure there is some way to do it through plugins.. at least i hope so because i dont usr logic but reaper. real faders will make it quite easy thougg

 

[C_F_H_13]

WARNING: This may sound totally Noobish (cause I am in NUENDO)

Doesn't cubase/nuendo have a pan law thing on stereo tracks where moving the pan slider actually changes the blend of the 2 sides? Couldn't you put both mic signals on a stereo track, move the pan slider till you got the blend you like and then feed that to a mono bus?

Never tried it and I barely know the program so...yeah...probably won't work.


On a more constructive note, I really like actually have 2 separate faders for blending for one specific reason that I don't think has been mentioned: Phase.

With 2 faders, you can flip the phase on one and basically move the faders around till you get the most cancellation or an abundance of a wierd ringing tone, flip the phase back and the sound is full or that ring is gone. You're right that it'd be cool to have the gain never change though.

 

[aviel]

mmm didnt think about phase issues... anyway im not sure this pan stuff gonna work in reaper.. have to ask it on reaper forums..

 

[Trevoire520]

On a more constructive note, I really like actually have 2 separate faders for blending for one specific reason that I don't think has been mentioned: Phase.

With 2 faders, you can flip the phase on one and basically move the faders around till you get the most cancellation or an abundance of a wierd ringing tone, flip the phase back and the sound is full or that ring is gone. You're right that it'd be cool to have the gain never change though.

Still something you could have in a plug, you could also have a delay for each side to time align mic's. Or have an auto thing like the auto align plugin.

 

[Ryan Hunter]

Hey all. I know this thread is old, but I stumbled across it and I actually just set up a chain to accomplish exactly this, so I thought I'd share (forgive me if this is posted elsewhere...I did a quick search to check, but it's a unique question with a huge variety of possible thread titles).

C_F_H_13 was on the right track...you just need to use some sort of M/S balancer before the mono output to make sure the mono summing stays even.

Here's how I do it in Cubase (though the principle is general, so it should work in any DAW, all you need is some sort of Mid/Side stereo enhancement plugin -- I use Waves Center):

1. Make a stereo bus, and route both mics to it (with one mic panned 100% Left, the other mic 100% Right)
2. Route this stereo bus directly to another stereo bus, and put the Mid/Side plugin on the second bus
3. Set the M/S plugin so that the "mid" or "center" is -6db...leave everything else at unity/neutral.
4. Set the panning on the second bus so that both channels are center (essentially making it mono)
5. Make sure your DAW's stereo panning laws are set to "equal power"
6. Set the first stereo bus's pan settings so that panning affects the L/R balance, not the actual L/R position (most DAW's default to balance on stereo tracks)

Now the pan control on the first bus is your "mic blend". The M/S plugin will make sure the volume stays constant.

EDIT: Obviously this only works if you've already got the two mics in phase

 

[TonyS.]

you can build linked faders in logic 9.

So if fader A is at 100% fader B is at 0%
If fader A is at 50% fader B is at 50%
if fader A is at 75% fader B is at 25%
and so on


Its a bit tricky but it works great for that purpose

This is fucking great!!!! Would be so cool to do this in C6?!

 

[luismars]

I think it's very simple to program in Jesusonic if you're using Reaper

(necrobump haha)

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Know this topic is old, but I know that some DAWs have an inverse fader function, which means you can select your base fader level, group the two (or more) faders, and inverse one of them. When one fader is being turned up, the other is turned down and vice versa. I don't know which DAWs have this if any. I thought Sonar had a function like that but I have never dove into it.

If that doesn't work, you CAN also hard pan the two mic'd signals, send them to a bus, put the bus in mono. The PreFader Pan is now your mix control, the PostFader Pan is your physical pan control. If you are in Pro Tools you could actually use an Aux track for this IIRC, may not be the case though. Pan law should be set to -6dB Log to keep the overall volume the same as you mix different blends of mics, however, this will mess with single source volumes as you pan them as the will drop in volume 3dB when panning from center to hard L/R.