advice on production and enginerring

[mhazani]

No problem, Martijn. Try it, it's really amazing.

As for the piano track - it, of course, depends on what kind of sound you're going for. As a generalization, I'd say that in most cases, and especially if we're talking about simulating the sound of a live band, you simply wouldn't have a piano track in stereo, but rather in mono (panned somewhat left or right, usually not "hard" though). There are several reasons for this, and the simplest one is this: Imagine the sound in a real performance - you don't hear the piano coming from two places at the same time, do you?

Additionally, panning something equally both ways is a common mistake (for some reason it seems intuitive to do so to "enhance" the sound), but symmetrical pans actually simply cancel each other out; since all "panning" really is is reducing the relative volume in one side (the side not being panned to, obviously), a symmetrically-panned stereo instrument would just sound like it's coming from the middle. Of course, if you have an actual stereo instrument (that is, "left" and "right" are significantly different signals), you could achieve interesting results through creative panning. But for the most part, if an instrument emits a single source, you'd never send it in stereo (even though sample-based instruments like Kontakt love to give you the option).

Another reason not to "stereofy" something that is naturally mono is that it muddles up the sound, especially if you have other instruments emitting a similar sound or in a similar frequency. One of the previously mentioned books, "The Art of Mixing", has a great diagram where essentially you have a "sound cube" that you have to fill in every mix, and you can place your sounds in different places in the "cube" based on their 1.loudness, 2.EQ and 3.panning. The point is that you want to avoid "competition" between sounds as much as possible.

As I said, there are a million exceptions, (the first one that comes to mind is electronic music, where there are no rules). But in general, in my experience, this is the way it goes. Like bass, guitar, voice and drums, piano is rarely treated as a stereo instrument.

PS - It's important to make a distinction between stereo signals, which none of those instruments usually have, and a stereo image, which is the result of placing all those instruments in different places in the mix. Hope this makes sense.

[Lazyknife]

@mazz: I doubt it was John Mayer.. Can't seem to find that track... But I think I know what you mean. Thanks for the heads up!

@mhazani: That makes perfect sense. When I load a virtual piano it always is panned hard left and hard right, that makes no sense at all anymore. The Art of Mixing is on my buy-this-book-list! So are the other books mentioned! Love to get into that "sound cube" theory!

Thank you all!!! There's a lot of info I can use on my next project and every project to come. This helped so much!!!

[mhazani]

You're very welcome! Glad what I wrote makes sense.

Another worthy book (+about 5 DVD's!), especially if you're a Waves user, is "Production-Mixing-Mastering with WAVES" (http://www.amazon.com/Production-Mixing ... 0974843814); maybe for a later level, but still, it's definitely something to keep in mind. One of the great things about it is that it comes with 5 session files of fully produced and mixed songs in multiple genres, so you can open them in your favorite DAW and not only see what happens there, but actually tweak it and hear the difference. Again, I wouldn't recommend it as an entry-level book (because it's pretty expensive, and doesn't do a very good job of explaining the fundamentals) but for later on it's a great tool.

Good luck!

Michael

[Lazyknife]

That seems like a very cool book! Put it on my list. Lets first buy some Waves plug-ins. The mercury bundle is somewhat expensive . The power pack looks nice.

[MatthewMoss]

Most def a brick wall compression going on here. Try to remember although you hear compression as an effect all over everything all the time, it was created in order to even things out. If we were robots, theoretically compression would not need to exist.

every instrument should be as even as possible when played, then compensate with compression.

If you do venture into the waves bundle get something like the L1 limiter. If you put it on the master buss you must be very very careful not to squash everything, just enough were the attenuation isn't anymore than -1 at it's peak imo. Also try bussing the whole mix to an aux leaving the lead separately compressed.

Matt

[Lazyknife]

@matthew: Sorry for the late reaction. My wife and I are having a baby in a few days ( hopefully ). I'm nervously waiting and looking at a belly.

I didn't use any mastering compression if that's what you mean. But the master fader is pretty "hot". I used a lot of compression on the guitar.

Nice trick you mention. Will try it out!

@ mhazani: I tried the hi/lo pass filter... Works wonders! I hear the difference in the mix when using lo-pass filtering, but not really on a solo instrument. I don't get that... But well it works! Of course I hear it when pushed to the extreme

[mhazani]

Great, Martijn!

It's all about the initial frequency range - if you're applying a hi pass filter on a piccolo, it's hardly going to make any noticeable difference because the low frequencies you're cutting off aren't there in the first place:). But on a piano it's going to make all the difference in the world - as it does on a typical full mix, which has a fair amount of every frequency.

Beyond that, there's an element of fine-tuning your ear to not only the huge, night-and-day differences (say, long and short reverb) but to the smaller, minute details; that takes decades. So maybe that filter is doing things you're not hearing right now - God knows it's happened to me countless times.

Glad things are sounding better, and almost-congratulations !