RecordingMaster
A Sarcastic Statement
Hey there. I tried something new recently and just thought I'd share it in case you haven't tried it yet yourself. Here's what I did, and the "why" explanation, which comes first. I'm only posting this as I could not find any other talk on this online.
I recently tracked a couple cover tunes in a very minimalist way (well minimalist compared to some folks). It was just for shitz to do something more laid back for once. I recorded an SRV cover tune and a Jimi Hendrix tune. Myself on drums (8 mics total - 2 OH, 2 on Snare, 1 on Kick, 1 per tom x2, mono room mic), had dad come in for guitar (1 close mic, 1 room, 1 DI), a bass DI'ed, and a lead vocal track. All tracked individually.
I didn't do a wide modern stereo double track of the guitars because those tunes didn't have em. Just one mono guitar that gets mixed in a certain way to sound stereo (more on that later). I also didn't do any BG vox for the same reason - not in the original.
When it came to mix time, I knew going in the only stereo elements in my mix will basically be from the drum oh's, drum close mic panning, stereo reverb and delay busses, some stereo trickery on the guitar track (eg using the di feed through an amp sim, panned hard left and apply a rotary speaker effect, with the close mic track panned hard right and kept natural), etc.
The mix still came off pretty narrow which is fine. No big surprises or sudden lack of guitar volume when collapsed to mono. But I wanted more width on some ambient stuff. Yeah, I could do some mid-side stuff later in mastering. However I tried putting a stereo width plugin at about 150% on a stereo plate reverb buss. Not quite, but close to every track in the mix is sent a little bit to that bus. While I am not one for the stereo widener thing on a full mix due to many phasing issues, I must say that this technique worked marvelously and very transparently. No mono issues or obvious comb filtering. Just a nice wide ambient sound that really helped the width of the whole track.
I always have at least two reverb busses (eg a room and a plate), so I kept it off my room verb buss. I'll use the short "room" on anything super close mic'ed to put some space around it but not to add an obvious reverb tail. So I didn't need that to be super wide (the room verb). But with the plate I'll bus that same close mic'ed track over to, I use that for a slight tail/sustain, and having it wide was real juicy sounding, especially when bussing the drum oh's there and the mono center panned room mic, vox, etc.
In trying this I also realized I was clearing out some space in the middle for the meat and potatoes. Less reverb cluttering up the middle (even if you're used to a wide panned stereo verb bus), and it also made me need to use less reverb because I suddenly heard more of it. Mind you, that attenuated a little when collapsing to mono. Which is to be expected.
Anyways, just thought I'd share something that worked, for me, for these mixes, this project, etc.
Happy music making!
I recently tracked a couple cover tunes in a very minimalist way (well minimalist compared to some folks). It was just for shitz to do something more laid back for once. I recorded an SRV cover tune and a Jimi Hendrix tune. Myself on drums (8 mics total - 2 OH, 2 on Snare, 1 on Kick, 1 per tom x2, mono room mic), had dad come in for guitar (1 close mic, 1 room, 1 DI), a bass DI'ed, and a lead vocal track. All tracked individually.
I didn't do a wide modern stereo double track of the guitars because those tunes didn't have em. Just one mono guitar that gets mixed in a certain way to sound stereo (more on that later). I also didn't do any BG vox for the same reason - not in the original.
When it came to mix time, I knew going in the only stereo elements in my mix will basically be from the drum oh's, drum close mic panning, stereo reverb and delay busses, some stereo trickery on the guitar track (eg using the di feed through an amp sim, panned hard left and apply a rotary speaker effect, with the close mic track panned hard right and kept natural), etc.
The mix still came off pretty narrow which is fine. No big surprises or sudden lack of guitar volume when collapsed to mono. But I wanted more width on some ambient stuff. Yeah, I could do some mid-side stuff later in mastering. However I tried putting a stereo width plugin at about 150% on a stereo plate reverb buss. Not quite, but close to every track in the mix is sent a little bit to that bus. While I am not one for the stereo widener thing on a full mix due to many phasing issues, I must say that this technique worked marvelously and very transparently. No mono issues or obvious comb filtering. Just a nice wide ambient sound that really helped the width of the whole track.
I always have at least two reverb busses (eg a room and a plate), so I kept it off my room verb buss. I'll use the short "room" on anything super close mic'ed to put some space around it but not to add an obvious reverb tail. So I didn't need that to be super wide (the room verb). But with the plate I'll bus that same close mic'ed track over to, I use that for a slight tail/sustain, and having it wide was real juicy sounding, especially when bussing the drum oh's there and the mono center panned room mic, vox, etc.
In trying this I also realized I was clearing out some space in the middle for the meat and potatoes. Less reverb cluttering up the middle (even if you're used to a wide panned stereo verb bus), and it also made me need to use less reverb because I suddenly heard more of it. Mind you, that attenuated a little when collapsing to mono. Which is to be expected.
Anyways, just thought I'd share something that worked, for me, for these mixes, this project, etc.
Happy music making!