2 Questions - curvy eq & stereo balance

[vermades]

Question 1

I've been making music for awhile now, still learning as I go but one problem i'm still having is trying to keep my hard left and hard right pans in one spot.

Say I have an acoustic guitar part and I pan that to the right...it sounds fine but when I make another channel and put another in and pan it left it feels like they both get sucked into the middle. I read on another post on the right pan try a delay of 10-15, that seems to clear things up somewhat but still not quite. So I tried to put a little flanger on the left side although these seem to help it's not seperating them like i envision. So each side feels balanced and doesn't go into the middle. Does each side left and right have to be equid opposite of eachother to fit?

I read also something about m/s..which I have no clue what it is but some of my plugs in waves have it, problem is FL studio which I'm using won't recognize anything with the m/s thing on it.

2
Is it better when your eqing sounds to use tiny gouges of maybe -8 or so and move through the spectrum to tweak or to use wide gouges? I found sometimes just for one kick I could use 2 or more 10 band eq paremetrics using small gouges with barely getting the results I want. I was messing around with a 3 band and found I could shape the sound to how I wanted it much easier using really wide gouges. I read somewhere awhile back that it's better to have everything rounded in your eq is this right? That may be my problem cause using tiny cuts things tended to look jaged.

[dachay2tnr]

Originally Posted by vermades

Question 1

Say I have an acoustic guitar part and I pan that to the right...it sounds fine but when I make another channel and put another in and pan it left it feels like they both get sucked into the middle. I read on another post on the right pan try a delay of 10-15, that seems to clear things up somewhat but still not quite. So I tried to put a little flanger on the left side although these seem to help it's not seperating them like i envision. So each side feels balanced and doesn't go into the middle. Does each side left and right have to be equid opposite of eachother to fit?

If you are just copying the part to another track, you have essentially just defined center in a stereo system. Center is when you have the exact same thing coming in equal volume from both the left and right.

If you want the guitar to stay on the right (or left), you should use just a single track. If you want the guitar to come from BOTH the right and left simultaneously, then there needs to be differences between the two tracks. They can not be exact copies of each other. That is why putting a delay on one of them helps.

IMHO, however, the best way to achieve this is to simplky record the part a second time. The slight differences in the performance make this approach sound great.

[xfinsterx]

Originally Posted by dachay2tnr

They can not be exact copies of each other.
.

assuming your using a daw....
they actually can be, duplicate your guitar track, pan them both hard l and r,
move the duplicate track 5-10 or even 20 ms. forward. (if youre working in grid mode, try a 64th note tripplet.)
then adjust your volumes to taste.

you will notice if your volumes are equal on both tracks, one track, (the one you moved forward) will appear louder. what I DONT know is if this a phase thing, or its just because THAT audio reaches your ears first.
anyways try that out.

peace

[dachay2tnr]

Originally Posted by xfinsterx

assuming your using a daw....
they actually can be, duplicate your guitar track, pan them both hard l and r,
move the duplicate track 5-10 or even 20 ms. forward.

When I said playing the "exact same thing," I was also including the timing. If you change the timing it is no longer the exact same thing. This is the same reason you might use a delay effect on one of the tracks.

For my money, however, nothing substitutes for recording the part a second time.

[mixsit]

Originally Posted by xfinsterx

... if your volumes are equal on both tracks, one track, (the one you didnt move forward) will appear louder. what I DONT know is if this a phase thing, or its just because THAT audio reaches your ears first.
anyways try that out.
peace

Bingo. We lock on to the first arrival as being the source direction. You can get a full pan effect of two identical tracks at around 1-2 ms.

Oops. It's the one you did move forward.

[xfinsterx]

Originally Posted by dachay2tnr

For my money, however, nothing substitutes for recording the part a second time.

agreed.
but when the artist is in a jam itll work.

[xfinsterx]

Originally Posted by mixsit

Oops. It's the one you did move forward.

yeah i read that this morning and noticed that too.
i was a tired guy when iwas typin that stuff last night.lol.

thanx for the validation though.

[TexRoadkill]

Originally Posted by xfinsterx

you will notice if your volumes are equal on both tracks, one track, (the one you moved forward) will appear louder. what I DONT know is if this a phase thing, or its just because THAT audio reaches your ears first.

When you delay a sound by less then 40ms your brain will still interpret the location as being where the original sound came from. It is the principle that fake surround uses. When you delay the front signal to the back it makes everything bigger but your brain still thinks everything is coming from the front the speakers. If you want both tracks to sound equal in volume you will have to raise the volume of the delayed track. This could end up messing up the level balance of the mixdown if the tracks are loud enough.

That only applies to direct sound. Any ambient sound like a long reverb trail will not give any locational cues and will seem to come from everywhere.

I agree that recording a completely track for the double is the best way to go.