Vertical position of instruments in stereo field

greghouston

New member
While mixing some of my music, occasionally I will notice that the vertical position of an instrument has changed in the stereo field. This is particularly noticeable with drums. With everything panned dead center, sometimes the drums will sound like they are below everything else, sometimes like they are in the middle, and sometimes like they are slightly above. A couple of times I have accidentally got it so multiple instruments had clear vertical separation in the sound stage, but I don't know how to reproduce this. I remember running across a vst that claimed to give you control over the vertical placement of instruments, but don't remember it's name.

Can anyone tell me what effects the vertical position of an instrument in the stereo sound stage? Thanks.
 
I assume this is just with your regular two channel stereo? This is actually a very very complex question.
Ok... deep breath..... The simplest way to look at it is:

If you take the standard two channel set up, all you can do is vary the levels of different frequencies sent to each speaker. As a result, you can pan stuff left or right, not up or down. Right?

BUT there have been many listening tests taken, and dissertations written on how the frequency component of a signal affects the perceived vertical position. So without boring you with the actual essay, it's much easier to summarize as; it turns out that on average, a broadband (i.e. not just a single frequency tone) signal can be perceived as originating from a higher or lower position depending on its frequency content. As would sort of seem intuitive, a signal with more high-frequency content appears physically higher than a similar signal with more low-frequency content.

Why?....
Well now that is complicated.....

In fact it is much more complex than adding some top end to cymbal mics, and low end to kick mics to make them sound higher or lower.
There are a whole range of other influencing factors that could be playing a part, the biggest of which is the listener's pre-conceptions of where a cymbal should sound like it's coming from, compared to a kick drum. It's obvious right? If you expect to hear it physically higher, you will.
There are more subtleties to consider too, like the relative phase of all the drum mics, and how that affects the perceived vertical image, careful harmonic tuning makes a big difference compared to broadband eq'ing, and plenty of other stuff besides.

In short, it's complicated and a great deal of it is just in your head. It would have to be a pretty sophisticated plugin that could simulate that, rather than just messing around with frequency content.

If you're interested in two-channel three-dimensional recording, then google "binaural recording". It's generally used more with classical rather than 'pop' music, but no reason why you shouldn't give it a go. There's plenty of information on it out there!

Hope this answers your question to some extent, sorry there isn't a simple solution.
 
Hey cobalt...

There's an obvious high/low thing in that monitors have different speaker elements representing different frequencies which have different vertical placement in the actual cabinet, and if we're talking nearfield listening, then perhaps you might hear higher frequency sounds coming from up and lower from down...

Or would you?

Just curious - I've not experienced what the OP is talking about, but interested in the opinion of people who clearly know more about this stuff than I do..

Cheers
 
There's an obvious high/low thing in that monitors have different speaker elements representing different frequencies which have different vertical placement in the actual cabinet, and if we're talking nearfield listening, then perhaps you might hear higher frequency sounds coming from up and lower from down...

Or would you?

well yes this is true, but it would only be applicable to being very close to the monitor. With a nearfield monitor that usually only has two drivers, once you're past a two or three feet away from it (which you should be) then the response of the drivers being very close together tend to blend into one, from which point you would be unlikely to really notice the distinction. That's basically the job of the crossover in the speaker design, to blend the two drivers together so you hear it as one flat response.

Obviously for floor-standing monitors with more drivers spaced further apart, you need to be further away for them to blend properly, but you would expect to be anyway.

So, yes if you are really close then obviously you will be able to hear the difference between drivers, but if that's happening then it's going to be bad news for your mix because you'll be too close anyway.
 
You can take prisms and build a pair of glasses that will flip everything upside down. If you wear them constantly, in about 3-4 days your brain will turn everything back around for you. I wonder if the same would happen with sound? If you rotate your speakers so the tweeters are on the bottom will your perspective of hearing the high frequencies on top return after a few days?:confused:;)
 
You can take prisms and build a pair of glasses that will flip everything upside down. If you wear them constantly, in about 3-4 days your brain will turn everything back around for you. I wonder if the same would happen with sound? If you rotate your speakers so the tweeters are on the bottom will your perspective of hearing the high frequencies on top return after a few days?:confused:;)

AND after taking them off things will be upside down again for a few days while the brain straightens that out.
Cool ..... you're the only guy I've met that knew about that experiement.

I think there's also something else going on ...... we all know about the boundary effect ..... when an amp is on the floor it's bass will be emphasized compared to if it's up on a stand.
I think it's possible that, since this is a consistant effect with sound and a real effect, not just imagined, that we have psychologically gotten to where we have that wired into our brains ...... lots of bass? Must be down low because that's where we always hear more bass.
Not so much bass? Must be higher up.
 
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Lou Reed did 2 or 3 LPs with Binaural - The Bells & Take No Prisoners Live at least. It's a much better option for live recording & my brain starts to hurt thinking about making a mix that can be played to the dummy head to make a Binaural studio LP (maybe a quad mix? but then I'd just be happy with the quad mix).

We hear L & R (panning), forward & back (vol & reverb) & if the tweeters aren't at ear level we'd probably hear a little up n down too (hi freq components that give the panning cues may well give up n down if a) they weren't necessarily working perfectly &/or b) weren't at ear level). There are reasonably serious explanations of the vert thing...

I have a disc of The Art of Mixing & Dave does go into detail about it & uses visual cue for folks without clues (& I'm still essentially clueless about mixing in the formal & strategic senses that the vid talks about). You won't find it on Utub as the owner had it taken down. Torrents maybe? Buy iy possibly?

Now if you were hearing colours I could help with the diagnosis.
 
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