HEADPHONE MIXING -Bassfrom loudspeakers, so you can easily misjudge it. As a result, it's quite possible to end up with a mix where the bass guitar and kick drum levels seem to be the same as on your favourite CD, yet they sound 'bloated' when heard over speakers, with too much bass at 80Hz and below and, paradoxically, too little in the next octave between 80Hz and 160Hz, where your 'phones offer much greater clarity. -Stereo PerceptionVNOPhones is a simple Mac/PC freeware plug-in by SkoT of Vellocet (http://vellocet.com/software/VNoPhones.html), which provides two sliders: one controlling the amount of crossover, and the other the time delay that corresponds to the width of your head. I found it quite effective and neutral in operation. However, its design doesn't compensate for the fact that your head and ears also absorb and reflect a significant proportion of frequencies above a couple of kHz. To mimic this behaviour and make headphone listening more natural, the most effective approach is to slightly blend the left/right channels only at lower frequencies. People have been designing and implementing such 'crossfeed' circuits for decades. For Mac, the freeware Canz3D plug-in (www.midnightwalrus.com/Canz3D) seems perfect for experimentation, offering a host of parameters, including crossfeed, frequency shaping and delays to simulate a 3D environment. The before-and-after examples using commercial music are quite impressive. Whatever you decide to use, try to minimise the inevitable comb-filtering effects and other subtle changes in timbre you hear with crossfeed when mixing in delayed versions with the original signal. There are no 'best' settings, as they will need adjusting to suit both different headphones (for instance, open-backed models designed for monitoring will require lower crossfeed settings than the closed-back ones more commonly used for recording) and different listeners. I've found Crossover EQ an extremely useful tool for listening on headphones to existing recordings, and also during the mixing process to quickly check how a mix is likely to sound spatially through loudspeakers. However, it's better to work on your own mixes without crossfeed, so they sound good to all headphone listeners. % eep bass frequencies in the middle and in mono. Be sure bass frequencies are not applied %
to the two channels out of phase, or else an unpleasant "pulling" sensation will occur. Try to record things in true stereo, using two mikes to maintain accurate sonic images. Use reverb judiciously to balance items placed to one side in the mix. Example:
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When putting tambourine in the left channel, create real stereo space using a stereo reverb. Be sure to have a sufficient amount of reverb to create a convincing sonic image. When using reverb on vocals, it is important to create a stereo reverb space around the vocals and not dead center. Real reverb does not occur dead center and in mono. Things should sound as they actually do in real space unless you are trying to create an effect. Be wary of boosting lower bass. Headphones will not deliver bass to the entire body so the usually pleasant sensation of bass is lacking. Excessive bass will have an annoying effect. Such excessive bass is also not good in mixes that will be played through speakers in the future, since most speakers will either be pushed into distortion or will poorly reproduce this bass and ampl[ifier power will be wasted. It is a good idea to check the mix with speakers to be sure that the bass tonal balance is correct. If the bass tonal balance sounds good with speakers but has an annoying character with known high quality headphones, then the lowest bass frequencies should be cut in the mix. Such lower bass frequencies are usually wasted with speakers.
PHASE AND DRUMS efore doing any processing or even setting levels, go through one mic at a time and check the polarity.What you’re listening for is improved punch and low end. % Starting with the overhead mics check, that those 2 mics are in phase. It’s rare but not unheard of. % Next add the snare top mic. Bring up the volume and then try inverting the polarity, listen if the low frequencies change, decide which way it sounds best, with the most low end or punch and continue to the next mic. % If you have a mic on the bottom of the snare pointing up it’s very likely it will need the opposite of the snare top mic. % Add the kick mic, toms, room mics and close miked cymbals. % Then you can move on to panning, balance and processing. % Spreading a Vocal
It ’s often desirable to take a mono signal and make it a little more stereo-like. A standard effect in pop music is to spread a single track out by sending it through two short delays. Each is set to a different value somewhere between about 15 and 50 milliseconds. Not too short or it starts to flange/comb filter; not too long or it
pokes out as an audible echo. One delay return is panned left and the other panned right. The idea is that these quick delays add a kick of supportive energy to the mono track being processed, sort of like the early sound reflections that we hear from the left and right when we play in a real room. The extra trick is to pitch shift them ever so slightly, if you have the gear that can do it. That is, take each delay and detune it by a nearly imperceptible amount, maybe 5 to 15 cents. Again, we want a stereo sort of effect, so it is nice if the ‘spreader’ has slightly different processing on the left and right sides. Just as we dialed in a slightly different delay time for each side, dial in a slightly different pitch shift as well—maybe the left side goes up 9 cents while the right side goes down 9 cents. Now we are taking advantage of our signal processing equipment to create a widened sound that only exists in loudspeaker music; it isn’t possible in the physical world. This s o rt of thinking is a real source of creative power in pop music mixing: consider a physical effect and then manipulate it into something that is better than reality (good luck, and listen carefully). We are going to add this effect to the lead vocal, among others. And the lead vocal is going to be panned straight up the middle. In order for
the spreading effect to keep the vocal centered, it helps to do the following. Consider the delay portion of the spreader only. If you listen to the two panned short delays (and I definitely recommend trying this) you find the stereo image pulls toward the shorter delay. Now listen to just the pitch side of the spreading equation. The higher pitch tends to dominate the image. Arrange it so that the two components balance each other out (e.g., delay pulls right while pitch pulls left). This way the main track stays centered . Experiment with different amounts of delay and pitch change. Each offers a unique signature to your mix. Overused, the vocal will sound too digital, too processed. Conservatively applied, the voice becomes bigger and more compelling.
