Matthew Walsh
New member
Okay, whew, this one's gonna be a doozy!
I have Vision DSP 4.2 running off of an iMac DV 400 mHz. I dump the individual audio tracks in via a Mackie mixer through the DV's stereo mini-plug in -- using the built-in Sound Manager, not a card! -- clean up the tracks where necessary and mix down to stereo AIFF files to be burned to CD. So far, so good ...
So I mix down the song, knowing certain things need more 'verb than others. I refuse to EQ anything, since nothing really needs it; I just add some reverb here and there, let the built-in reverbs of certain MIDI keyboards have their way if they don't need it, compress the distorted guitars a little, and attach a comp/limiter (it's the free mdaDynamics VST plug, for anybody who uses Vision on here!) on the sound output so that I don't go over zero on the final mixdown to an interleaved AIFF file. Again, so far, so good ...
Unfortunately, without the benefit of the sound card, which an iMac doesn't even take, I can only regard my mix via some sattelites attached to the iMac's sound out. This only tells me so much, anyway. However, the mix sounds fine to me, just some 'verb and a li'l bit of compression. So I burn a test CD and put it on my stereo, testing it in "normal" two speaker mode and in "phantom" mode, which I think spreads the stereo field to the surround speakers. The thinking is, well, somebody might put this on their home theater system and listen that way. Still sounds okay, maybe a little duller than the "real thing", but I know better than to expect that my dinky home system is gonna compete with a full-out studio. I'll just settle for people not being distracted by it being less than a studio recording -- that it's comparable, even if it didn't quite make it, and that my margin of error isn't too far off. Then, I place it against some "real" albums, to see just how far off the mark I was, and that's when the horror begins to set in.
There's something I've read recording folk write about called "center phenomenon", where everything is in stereo, but it's sort of smushed towards the middle -- like you'd just recorded a stereo mixdown from a mixer to your tape deck without a bunch of compressing and processing, and that's what I've got. The levels are right (well, it's possible that might be a little lower, but I swear, it's topping out right at zero where it should!), the mix is okay -- there's just no stereo dynamics! Stuff that should pan hard left and right when they land, like the toms and hats on my Boss 660 drum machine, go where they're supposed to, as do all the keyboard tracks, and the vocals are centered but spread with a little Hyperprism mono-to-stereo 'verb; they're fine. Just no dynamics. Everythings seems to be afraid to spread out! The "stereo field" is too narrow, and everything that was stereo was recorded with its left and right channels panned all the way out. Again, the mix and even the 'verb sound fine to me. And only the guitars are compressed, so it's not that.
So what I resorted to was attaching another VST plug to my sound output before the comp/limiter: Hyperprism's "More Stereo" plug. I put on just enough to pop the stereo field open as wide as what I hear on a "real" song when I mix down. Now, a few bad things are happening. One. the limiter punks out and ducks some of the audio where it shouldn't. This is noticable only in one spot in the song, so I figured: too hot, and mixed accordingly. The second things was, now my beautiful reverb is amplified to make virtually everything sounds like it was recorded in a giant cave. The vocals, the instruments are all spread perfectly -- but now the reverb that sounded great is now the reverb that sounds like I just bought me a $30 'verb box at Radio Shack! So I'm compensating by turning the reverb, and what I liked about my mix, down to almost nothing.
So what have I done wrong here? I'm guessing this tells me that I have a tin ear when it comes to reverb levels, tho I always assumed I was using it sparingly enough, just to open the soundstage on the drums, basically, and to give an orchestral feel to the piano and the orchestra stuff. Why does the music, which sounds essentially okay when I mix it, suddenly sound squashed, ameteuerish and flat when compared to your average studio recording? I'm not asking for something a Finalizer and about $40,000 in recording hardware would get you -- I just want to know how to spread everything out in the stereo field without making my reverb sound Godawful, or doing something ultra-complicated and weird that hampers the fun of doing a mix in the first place!
I'd like to keep using my preferred levels of reverb, if possible (I don't think it will be, though -- that might be a real problem I'll hafta resolve on my own!) and the goal, Quixotic tho it may be, is to avoid relying on a mastering studio to master out my own mixes. I'm damn close to getting it right, but I'd like an assist, if possible, so I don't blow through another fifty test CDs trying to get there. Any help you guys might be able to provide would be GREATLY APPRECIATED and maybe, just maybe, I'll get this done and finally get a decent night's sleep!
I have Vision DSP 4.2 running off of an iMac DV 400 mHz. I dump the individual audio tracks in via a Mackie mixer through the DV's stereo mini-plug in -- using the built-in Sound Manager, not a card! -- clean up the tracks where necessary and mix down to stereo AIFF files to be burned to CD. So far, so good ...
So I mix down the song, knowing certain things need more 'verb than others. I refuse to EQ anything, since nothing really needs it; I just add some reverb here and there, let the built-in reverbs of certain MIDI keyboards have their way if they don't need it, compress the distorted guitars a little, and attach a comp/limiter (it's the free mdaDynamics VST plug, for anybody who uses Vision on here!) on the sound output so that I don't go over zero on the final mixdown to an interleaved AIFF file. Again, so far, so good ...
Unfortunately, without the benefit of the sound card, which an iMac doesn't even take, I can only regard my mix via some sattelites attached to the iMac's sound out. This only tells me so much, anyway. However, the mix sounds fine to me, just some 'verb and a li'l bit of compression. So I burn a test CD and put it on my stereo, testing it in "normal" two speaker mode and in "phantom" mode, which I think spreads the stereo field to the surround speakers. The thinking is, well, somebody might put this on their home theater system and listen that way. Still sounds okay, maybe a little duller than the "real thing", but I know better than to expect that my dinky home system is gonna compete with a full-out studio. I'll just settle for people not being distracted by it being less than a studio recording -- that it's comparable, even if it didn't quite make it, and that my margin of error isn't too far off. Then, I place it against some "real" albums, to see just how far off the mark I was, and that's when the horror begins to set in.
There's something I've read recording folk write about called "center phenomenon", where everything is in stereo, but it's sort of smushed towards the middle -- like you'd just recorded a stereo mixdown from a mixer to your tape deck without a bunch of compressing and processing, and that's what I've got. The levels are right (well, it's possible that might be a little lower, but I swear, it's topping out right at zero where it should!), the mix is okay -- there's just no stereo dynamics! Stuff that should pan hard left and right when they land, like the toms and hats on my Boss 660 drum machine, go where they're supposed to, as do all the keyboard tracks, and the vocals are centered but spread with a little Hyperprism mono-to-stereo 'verb; they're fine. Just no dynamics. Everythings seems to be afraid to spread out! The "stereo field" is too narrow, and everything that was stereo was recorded with its left and right channels panned all the way out. Again, the mix and even the 'verb sound fine to me. And only the guitars are compressed, so it's not that.
So what I resorted to was attaching another VST plug to my sound output before the comp/limiter: Hyperprism's "More Stereo" plug. I put on just enough to pop the stereo field open as wide as what I hear on a "real" song when I mix down. Now, a few bad things are happening. One. the limiter punks out and ducks some of the audio where it shouldn't. This is noticable only in one spot in the song, so I figured: too hot, and mixed accordingly. The second things was, now my beautiful reverb is amplified to make virtually everything sounds like it was recorded in a giant cave. The vocals, the instruments are all spread perfectly -- but now the reverb that sounded great is now the reverb that sounds like I just bought me a $30 'verb box at Radio Shack! So I'm compensating by turning the reverb, and what I liked about my mix, down to almost nothing.
So what have I done wrong here? I'm guessing this tells me that I have a tin ear when it comes to reverb levels, tho I always assumed I was using it sparingly enough, just to open the soundstage on the drums, basically, and to give an orchestral feel to the piano and the orchestra stuff. Why does the music, which sounds essentially okay when I mix it, suddenly sound squashed, ameteuerish and flat when compared to your average studio recording? I'm not asking for something a Finalizer and about $40,000 in recording hardware would get you -- I just want to know how to spread everything out in the stereo field without making my reverb sound Godawful, or doing something ultra-complicated and weird that hampers the fun of doing a mix in the first place!
I'd like to keep using my preferred levels of reverb, if possible (I don't think it will be, though -- that might be a real problem I'll hafta resolve on my own!) and the goal, Quixotic tho it may be, is to avoid relying on a mastering studio to master out my own mixes. I'm damn close to getting it right, but I'd like an assist, if possible, so I don't blow through another fifty test CDs trying to get there. Any help you guys might be able to provide would be GREATLY APPRECIATED and maybe, just maybe, I'll get this done and finally get a decent night's sleep!
