Stereo Imaging/Placement Help

[scottmich]

This may seem like a very broad question... Before anyone writes me off as an idiot however I just want to say that I know there is not a clear cut answer to my question. I know it takes tons of hard work and experimentation to master this but I was hoping someone could send me down the right path.

My problem is with stereo imaging and the placement of instruments and voices. I have drawn a little diagram of what im talking about that may assist with me getting the question across:

https://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e119/GetInLine1/stereoimaging.jpg

Imagine in the first illustration that you are sitting at your mixing console and the two speakers pictured are your monitors. The arch how I perceive the audio. The shaded area is where I am currently able to place an instrument or voice. Generally at ear level panned left or right or given an little space by some stereo widening delay. What I cant seem to master is how can I get an instrument or vocals to come from the area with the question mark? Typically this would be where your lead vocals would be projecting from. They are typically coming from the center but somehow seem to be "standing on top of" the rest of the instrumentation. This isnt a volume thing im talking about, its the perception of those vocals.

The second area im interested in, (more so then the first) is in the second illustration. It looks like the same as the first but consider it to be a top down view if you were looking down at your console and speakers. I'm trying to show here the distance an instrument or vocals are perceived. Again i can currently get my sound in the shaded area (as can everyone else). The instrumentation and vocals simply dont seem to have any distance from my ears. It always seems like i have the whole band right on top of my ears. I would like to know how to position instruments or vocals so that they seem to be farther away from me but without loosing thier punch and volume. For instance lead vocals seem like they should be the closest to the front of my face while everything else gets ever so slighty more distance from me. I dont think its the distance of the mic's when recording as the further away you mic the less volume and presence you will have, but i could be wrong.

Thanks in advance to anyone that takes a crack and explaining these concepts to me.

-Scott

 

[Monkey Allen]

I know what you mean. Plugins that enable 'surround' stereo mixing could be helpful. They can help in placing a sound L, R, near, far, up, down

But apart from just carefully placing sounds from L to R, altering tone, colour, vol etc, I'd like to hear what others say too.

 

[apl]

Your brain calculates how far up from the floor a sound source is by analyzing the echo off the floor. That's why most studios have hardwood floors.

 

[bubbagump]

Um, you can't get stuff to come from the ? area. You have two speakers, therefore you can place things only in a stereo field in a single plane. Add a third speaker in that area and figure out a way to pan up there, then you can do it. Sorry, physics doesn't work like that.

 

[scottmich]

apl-
So basically you are saying that the recording environment has more to do with these characteristics then I have been lead to beleive?

 

[NYMorningstar]

To move things away from you use reverb. The delay is used to determine the depth or distance. For your first area, you are just out of luck because you can only pan left or right, not up and down.

 

[XLR]

Image no. 1 doesn't make sense to me, but a color image with different instruments or vox each having a different color would. The visual colors would correspond to tone color - EQ spectrum and transient characteristics. The various instruments and voices would occupy a particular place within the image as a translucent color band or shape - changing as the music played, varied front to back, up and down, left and right.

If one were to see it that way the method of differentiating the parts would simply be to make sure they didn't fight for the same color of spectrum space and transient occurrence.

Tim

 

[scottmich]

Basically two points that some of you guys have mentioned that may help me are:

For perception of height, the distance from the reflection off the floor will make a difference.

For perception of distance, delay time of my reverbs.

 

[Monkey Allen]

I know you have monitors, but do you do a lot of listening through headphones? There's umpteen examples...but a track like Jimi Hendrix's 'EXP' really is a showcase of sounds that give the impression they are 3d. They seem to come from behind you, above you, below you, from far away, from very near. It's more pronounced through headphones than via monitor speakers.

 

[scottmich]

Its funny you mention the headphones. I work in manhattan and spend an hour and a half a day on trains listening to music on headphones (I've got some UltimateEars superfi pro5's). I think this is where my recent desire to master the placement of instruments in my mixes is coming from. I'm listening to EXP right now and it is exactly what I'm talking about to an extreme. How in the hell do they pull that off with just stereo? Im looking for results that are much more subtle. You want to hear another extreme?

(Headphones required)

 

[NYMorningstar]

How in the hell do they pull that off with just stereo?

What it is and how it works can be found following this link. I think their web designer has taken a leave of absence though.

http://www.holophonic.ch/whats.php

 

[Monkey Allen]

Very handy if you can speak French or Latin or whatever it is!

Try:

http://www.sound-ideas.com/holophonic.html

This technique sounds beyond traditional homerecorders.

But the EXP effect I am fairly sure could be done: it isn't nearly as 3d as the matches example.

 

[NYMorningstar]

Strange, I guess you need to go in through the splash screen.

http://www.holophonic.ch/splash.php

 

[rayc]

OR read up on BINAURAL recording & mixing.

 

[Monkey Allen]

Very good

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_recording