Creating "space"

I've asked this question before (or a facsimile of) and have gotten great help but am still not understanding quite what I'm doing wrong (probably not asking the right questions). So, I'll try again:
 
The problem I'm having is creating a realistic space or atmosphere if you will, by using reverb. Most of my mixes sound fairly decent overall but are severely lacking in this one area. My instruments are way too "upfront" compared to most commercial releases. When I try to bring certain instruments down (to give distance), they just kind of disappear or become "lost" in the mix. If I add more reverb, they are still too "upfront" sounding but this time there is apparent reverb tails (short or long ones) hanging off the end of each notes.
Whether I'm listening to pop or jazz recordings, or film score type material, everything has a space or atmosphere and can sound fairly "distant" without the reverb being too apparent. A piano (for example) can sound 10 feet or 50 feet away and still not sound like it's washed in reverb. How do you achieve that? I'm assuming most instruments nowadays are close-mic'd and have reverb applied to them afterward to achieve this, but I don't know how.
Any suggestions? Does the "Post/Pre" selection have anything to do with it? Please help.
 

I haven't listened to your mixes recently so I have no reference point to start with.....

So...let me say this. Gambler's first paragraph is good stuff.

One thing I noticed in my own mixes. I use a "normal" country/rock band's instrumentation.... bass, drums, a couple of guitars, piano, steel, sax, strings, dobro, fiddle, and other stuff as needed. Having all these instruments in a mix is at times a challenge. Because they all need their space or else, before too long, the mix is so cluttered and muddied up, you can not distinguish one instrument from another.  Reverb only compounds the problem.

I had a "light bulb moment" one day when listening to the radio. My mixes have never been the same since.

Here's what I do...and it seems so stupidly simple and obvious...... because it is.

I mix bass and drums first. They are the foundation of the music. The piano, and guitars,  are normally panned off center one way or the other.... but here's the key... they are not in the mix the entire time. I use the volume envelopes to bring them instruments in and out smoothly. The solo instruments ONLY show up for their solo or fill. When something is soloing the background rythem guitar or key board is pulled down several DB to give the solo more room. At times the pads and strings will be leveled to zero..and the result is a wide open sound. Especially in a verse. I want it clean.... because in my genre (country) the vox is the star of the song..... everything else...fiddle, steel, piano, guitar, is there to embellish and add spice to the vox track.

Sometimes I will leave the acoustic strumming guitar at the same level the entire song..... but it's very low.....just barely audible, because all I really want from it is the "brushing rythem" created by the strings ....... very low.....

Depending on the genre...the mix will vary.... but in many genre's the bass & drums will carry a vocal track quite well by themselves if the groove is there. (Think about the song "Black Velvet") Try using the "spice" approach and see how that does..... When you have the mix right and then add just the slightest...almost indescernable amout of reverb..... man...talk about a great sound! Many times I will only use reverb on the main vox..... but the ambience that is created by the vox verb..... kind of creates in the listener's ear, a sense of space to the entire song without having reverb on anything else. Quite amazing actually, but it seems to work for me.

Thanks all of you for writing. Definately food for thought. Part of the problem is what all three of you described in different ways, which is that the recording process has become less about capturing a performance and more about creating one. The state of technology being what it is, is liberating in the sense that one person can create a performance all by himself (with a little ingenuity and a lot of high quality samples!). The downside of course is the difficulty in simulating an environment that is realistic and believable.
AT, you used a good example about drums. Drums are mixed so loudly these days and panned so widely that the listener is left listening to music from the perspective of the drummer (especially with headphones on). It's not a very realistic snapshot of a "performance" but it's done, so if one is to keep up with the Jones's, one must conform somewhat to the current standards of recording and mixing. I guess the problem I'm having is creating a realistic "space" while keeping my tracks current, and as a result, "professional"

   Compression and EQ have a lot to do with what I'd call
depth perception. Although that term may be common to
eyesight in this context it describes how far away something
is. Space is (to me) is a term that describes multi reflections
or an "all around" sound.

  So much has been said about compression ratios and this
and that and Eq and all the other subjects but it is so relative
to the "sound source". So the "numbers" although useful can
easily become meaningless as well because it depends.

  Using your ears as you constantly experiment with
settings will at some point yield pleasing results. The
thing is though is that your "ears" have to reach a point
of being "trained" to know and Pick out things/realize/
be aware and understand things that one can be like
a dog chasing its tail in the process.

  It doesn't seem fair to say that it takes time when
answering a question but it does take hour after hour
of trying things to learn what works. One of the best
things to do (from my advice) is to not allow yourself
the luxury of using verb or delay to create this "distance"
but to use compression and Eq to that.

  comps have things like "attack and release" and so do
verbs in a similar manner. From what I understand from
your question it means that your situation is one that
means you have "aggressive" or may I say sounds
with "strong attacks".

  This could be in "level" or a un balance of tonality such
as too "bright" or too "bassy". This is why I mention that
maybe comp and EQ may give you better results as a point
of focus.      
  

jimmyman


   Compression and EQ have a lot to do with what I'd call
depth perception....
 
... One of the best
things to do (from my advice) is to not allow yourself
the luxury of using verb or delay to create this "distance"
but to use compression and Eq to that.

In what way? Not that I'm asking for an in-depth explanation, but could you explain what compression and/or EQ have to do with creating space? My guess is that the more distant an instrument is, the more "compressed" it is. What I mean is, if you listen to a strummed acoustic guitar from across a room, slight variations in pick attack - and therefore the volume of each strum - would become less apparent, as opposed to having your ear next to the soundhole in which case any change in volume would be much more drastic. Am I on the right track?
 
Also, based on what you're saying, do you normally mix without reverb, and create space and depth from compression, EQ, panning, and volume levels and then add the appropriate reverb afterwards?

..."as if each track was recorded at the same time in the same room, which they weren't."...
 
If I am trying for a "live band" sound, I would want this to happen. But, most of my mixes have not been created with that feel in mind. I would find that approach very limiting, it would destroy my creative influence on the mix, which has been given to me by the artists. They have asked me to work some "magic" for them. If they wanted it to sound like it was all done in the same room at one time, they could have done that themselves.

..."While the quality of the samples - be it bass guitar, drums, or orchestral strings - is staggering, it almost becomes less realistic when brought all together in one piece, since everything is too perfect. "...

and...

..."do you normally mix without reverb, and create space and depth from compression, EQ, panning, and volume levels and then add the appropriate reverb afterwards?"....

When someone sends me their raw tracks, I usually strip any effects out, unless, of course, they have been applied on the input side. After all, a guitar player might spend hours getting a particular sound out of his amp/effects pedals, and it can't be changed without defeating his/her work. But, at this point, I would determine, from experience, what type of polish might need to be applied, and work each track, one at a time, solo, to get it to the optimum sound. I would then work with the "Soundscape", use panning mostly to develop the audio interpretation of the visual effect, where I want things to sit, which things can or cannot move during the song, establish volume settings. I would then group the instruments in busses, and only then would I start to think about reverb. If a piece would actually need the reverb on it in an individual setting, I would go all the way back to the track and work with it, but this seldom happens.

After I have the mix completed, I would export as a stereo file, open it in soundforge, and refine the overall with multi-band compression (very light settings), eq, (again lightly), and a touch of reverb I have already developed a custom (and highly classified) preset for that adds a touch of widening and sparkle.

With all things, less is more. The volume in the final mix stage is still very low, if I need to hear it better I turn the volume up on my amplifier, not in the mix.

On the "cohesive" point, some songs require a plate reverb, or a slap back delay, while the drums might get a very small (or large, depending on the desired effect) room feel, the bass might sound flat in the reverb arena, the guitars can change through out the song, piano/organ/strings, all wild cards.

I have "thrown away" more mixes that I have kept. Some times a mix that took three nights gets tossed and forgotten for something that is stripped down and simplified, or the opposite might be true.

Unless you know exactly what you want before you go into the mix (which would be very boring and non-creative), mixing can take hours and more hours just to get to the stereo file, and then the work there can cause you to go back to the mix and re-do it again.

Later
Albert

one thing that might help, and this just takes practice, is listening to the songs that you want your mix to sound like and emulate some of the verb and delay.  By listening, i mean put some headphones on and pan the songs left and right figuring out where the instruments are and where the verb is placed.  By panning the song left and right it will also help isolating some of the sounds by eliminating other instruments that might get in the way of hearing exactly what's going on.  for instance on Radioheads album In Rainbows, there is a song called Big Ideas (don't get any).  In that song reverb on the vocals is panned hard left or right.    

There is so much to learn about this stuff it takes a lot of practicing and listening (especially listening [and for that matter practicing])   You are going to hear something in a song and say damn, that sounds good.  then you are going to try it in your song and it may not sound that good.  keep trying stuff out.

also listen to natural environments.  go to different rooms and clap your hands.  listen to what the reverb/(pre)delay sounds like.  go to the grocery store and clap your hands.  sit in your car or the shower and clap your hands.  Be careful in the shower, don't clap to low.  you may get more/less than you bargained for.  With all of this clapping you'll start to hear the pre delay and the reverb.  I'm pretty sure that bitflipper said that sound travels at about 1 foot per millisecond (that's a tip for pre delay) that's how long it takes the verb to hit something, bounce off of it and come back to your ears.  These are all subtle(not very loud... [another hint]) things that we learned and have accepted since we were all very young.  we don't even think about any of these clues anymore.
  
Everybody else that has chimed in has said some really good things as well.

basically i'm saying keep practicing and play around with it, but not in the shower  

quentin 

You bring up an interesting point I hadn't considered. I only use sampled drums, and while the sound quality is astounding the biggest problem I have with them (be it EZ Drummer, Battery, or whatever) is how upfront they are. The Toms are panned so wide that the listener is listening from the perspective of the drummer and not from the audience. Even with the improvements they've made to the realism of these programs (with the overheads and bleeding, etc) it can't help but be right upfront and center.

The cymbals, for example, sounds odd as when you strike them (or the keys I should say) as you hear a very specific panning position (usually far Left or far Right) which is of course un-natural. I guess the solution is to have the drumkit panned less wide. Thank you for the tip. As obvious as it may be I hadn't really considered it before.

I think I would start by putting the drums through an EQ to lower the fildelity, then a bit of compression to contain the dynamics, and then channel tools to narrow the image a bit. Then play with reverbs. I usually look for a convolution patch that isn't obviously a reverb (one that you don't really notice until you bypass the reverb). Drum sampler kits can be a bit like patches on a synth. Some of them are designed to sound terrific when you demo them in the store (or listen to clips on a web site). But most of the impressive sounding ones just plain don't work in a mix because the eat up too much real estate.

Monkey23


You bring up an interesting point I hadn't considered. I only use sampled drums, and while the sound quality is astounding the biggest problem I have with them (be it EZ Drummer, Battery, or whatever) is how upfront they are. The Toms are panned so wide that the listener is listening from the perspective of the drummer and not from the audience. Even with the improvements they've made to the realism of these programs (with the overheads and bleeding, etc) it can't help but be right upfront and center.

The cymbals, for example, sounds odd as when you strike them (or the keys I should say) as you hear a very specific panning position (usually far Left or far Right) which is of course un-natural. I guess the solution is to have the drumkit panned less wide. Thank you for the tip. As obvious as it may be I hadn't really considered it before.

It's the same in BFD.
 
I wanted the toms & cymbals to occupy a specific place and whilst moving the individual spot mics achieves this - the resulting image in the overheads doesn't change, so I ended up with a very confused, stereo smearing.
 
So I basically don't work with the overhead channels any more, just the spot mics.

The secret...if there is one is to have broadcast quality tunes, that have superb musicianship, and fit exactly what the reviewer/producer is looking for.  3 very high bars to jump over.

I just returned from the Taxi rally where they covered the whole topic in detail and explained what BCQ is and how to achieve it.  Without BCQ, the song might be exactly what they want, but the producer will not bother to take the time to record it again. If you can't produce it, they won't use it.