EUREKA!

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twist

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It's taken a lot of experimentation, but I've always been convinced that it would work.

I record on an 8 track portastudio. Often times 8 tracks is barely enough ( I always try to avoid bouncing in order to have more control at mixdown). So I usually record 8 mono tracks. It sounds ok, but it's mono, and kinda uninteresting sometimes.

Anyway, last night, I tried mixing an acoustic guitar track dry, panned hard left. The same signal sent through the effects loop to a very short delay (5-10 ms.) and panned hard right. It was perfect. Sounded like stereo. I also used the same technique on the tambourine. Awesome! Then positioning the other instruments at various spots in the stereo field, I was able to get one of the nicest blends I have ever gotten. All the instruments were audible and distinct, but nothing stuck out inappropriately.

I've tried similar setups before, but was never satisfied. I think the key is a very short delay time. Too much delay, and you lose a lot of definition and it just sounds washed out.

Today I am a happy camper!

Twist
 
Hey Twist,

This is certainly a classic production trick. Any delay from 0.1 ms to about 7ms is subject to "temporal fusion", the ear's sense that the delayed signal is occuring at the same time as the original. If you use a very good quality delay as an insert and set the delay to 100% wet, you can really affect the quality of your tracks (both positively and negatively) by delaying them within the "temporal fusion" window. You can change the rhythm's feel at the larger values, high frequency response at the lower values (due to comb filtering). Be sure to check the mix in mono however, you can end up with some funky phase cancellations by using this trick! Good luck!

Richt
 
A centurian!

Hey Twisty:

One more post and you hit the 100 post count.

How does it feel to be 100?

Hee Hee

Green Hornet
 
Yo Green One,

People tell me I look young for my age. I didn't even notice the post count, but it doesn't seem like I could have posted that many times. Time flies when you're havin fun!


England,

No, I recorded to one track, then when I was mixing the song down to a two track cassette, I panned the dry guitar part hard left, and used the mixers effects send to route the signal from the guitar channel through my delay unit, and back into the mixer. Then I panned the delayed guitar part hard right. So on your final mix, you wind up with the original dry guitar part in the left speaker, and a very slightly delayed version in the right speaker. Try it, you'll like it.


Richt,

I've read here many times "check your mix in mono". I did that, but I wasn,t too sure what to look for. It did sound different obviously, but not bad. How can I judge if I'm causing a problem, will it be subtle,or glaring? And why do I care if it sounds crappy in mono? I'm never going to listen to it in mono anyway.

Twist
 
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