How do widen tracks/mix?

[Jevil]

Many times I have to mix with headphones in my shitty homestudio 'cause the studio where I practice is not mine and people work there, and I've noticed that my mixes are not very widened. Drums are panned, rythm guitars are panned (-95/95) but still there is not much air and it is not as widen as many mixes I can listen to here in the forum.

How do you widen a mono track (solo or whatever), how do you widen a stereo mix?
Any advice?

 

[Damian B]

Can you post a link to one of your mixes?

 

[Jevil]

My best mix I think. No vocals yet.

http://www.soulitude-web.com/temp/MBTW_M3.5TR3.mp3

 

[ahjteam]

http://www.brainworx-music.de/index.php?nav=26&um=2&lang=en

 

[Jevil]

http://www.brainworx-music.de/index.php?nav=26&um=2&lang=en

Will check it out!

 

[myownsilence]

widening a mix is not always achieved by just sticking a stereo widener on the track, is the choice of textures and instrumentation on the left and right of the mix and the contrast with with the centre channel.

 

[Jevil]

widening a mix is not always achieved by just sticking a stereo widener on the track, is the choice of textures and instrumentation on the left and right of the mix and the contrast with with the centre channel.

Yes, I know, I panned drums and guitars, but the whole mix seems to be more centered than many pro recordings. Perhaps you are right and the problem is in the AD converter, instruments or whatever.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Drum overheads and room mics. If the mics are too close together they can ruin a whole mix. What samples are you using?

 

[gabriel g.]

The stereo image is bigger when the OH mics are closer together and smaller when the mics are far away from each other...

 

[Jevil]

Drum overheads and room mics. If the mics are too close together they can ruin a whole mix. What samples are you using?

Addictive drums.
I'll check the settings.
Last album I recorded real drums and had the same problem.

 

[John_C]

check your panning law.

If it's set to some crazy setting that can make a huge difference

 

[P-E]

http://www.brainworx-music.de/index.php?nav=26&um=2&lang=en

Thanks for that, it's been helpful on a mix I'm doing atm.

 

[AllanD]

I've read that too much bass can make things feel like they're in the middle. So maybe try a HPF on the guitars a bit more?

 

[John_C]

I've read that too much bass can make things feel like they're in the middle. So maybe try a HPF on the guitars a bit more?

urmmm in a 2.1 system that makes sense. Not really in a normal mix, unless your monitors are on their sides

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Addictive drums.
I'll check the settings.
Last album I recorded real drums and had the same problem.

I have never had that problem with AD

hmm, maybe be your monitors (bad quality, not calibrated right, or they are not spaced far enough from each other or angled corrently) or just generally how you are eqing everything, or you are mistaken your lack of quality with panning (lack of quality could be from gear, poor acoustics or lack of skill anything). Basically the overall production coul dbe ruining it.

However as previously said you could have a weird panning law set. I think mine is 0db center +3db linear taper. YOu could try a stereo widener on your OH and Room mics for your drums as well just to help. I also find stereo reverb on overheads (just a smidge to simulate OH ambient bleed) and a good amount on the room mics (to simulate the reverb as if they were really in a large room). The larger you make the room sound, the more spacious and spread out you make the entire mix.

Never stereo separate gutiars or anything else, and use it on drums sparingly.

 

[egan.]

Everyone is pointing to deep issues but the obvious imagining issue I hear (granted on laptop speakers) is that you are driving all of the leads and keys straight up the middle.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Everyone is pointing to deep issues but the obvious imagining issue I hear (granted on laptop speakers) is that you are driving all of the leads and keys straight up the middle.

its called L-R-C mixing, our ears see the image in black and white, either its to the extreme left or right, or its in the center.

 

[Deadstar]

The stereo image is bigger when the OH mics are closer together and smaller when the mics are far away from each other...

+1

try a 70/70 for Oh while keeping the amb to the extreme. that might help a lot the guitars too. guitars contribute a lot to the stereo image, try to pan like 80/80 and make a copy of each guitar track, pan each copy track at the opposite of the original and invert phase. group the copy tracks and put the fader to -oo . Now slowly rise the fader till ya hear the guitars goin out from the speakers "a bit".
Hope that helps

 

[Morgan C]

its called L-R-C mixing, our ears see the image in black and white, either its to the extreme left or right, or its in the center.

That's a style of mixing, its not how we hear music. If you can't hear a difference between 0%, 50%L and 100%L there's something very wrong with your monitors or ears :/

Egan's band often has solos panned around 30% and it works very well for their dense compositions.

On the topic, I've never had a problem with mixes not being wide enough. If anything, I get very annoyed with mixes that are too wide. eg. Chimaira's Resurrection, the cymbals seem to be practically hardpanned, and its not realistic. Especially that ride bell, it sticks out the mix so much because it sounds like its 100%R.


And on mic'ing drums, I'm pretty sure putting mics directly above the cymbals in question would produce the widest image. If the mics are too close together, unless they have good off-axis rejection, they'll be picking up very similar things, and if they're too wide, the cymbals will all sound roughly the same volume. Putting them directly above the cymbals will get the most sound of that cymbal in that mic. Although I haven't had the mics to test this, so I could be wrong but I doubt it.


edit: also, just hardpan your guitars. There's almost no reason to put them at 95% and depending on your monitoring setup that could severely limit your stereo width or make almost no difference.

 

[Deadstar]

edit: also, just hardpan your guitars. There's almost no reason to put them at 95% and depending on your monitoring setup that could severely limit your stereo width or make almost no difference.

don't see the point in hardpanning guitars.. it's like playing a gig having the guitar amp in the crowd