How do I give my songs and sounds that fat 3D feel?

Hi munmun,

Based on your comments, I guessed as to what you might like. Is this more what you had in mind? It's hard to tell what folks are looking for these days!

Here

You may want to replace some of the orchestral sounds when you have a chance or combine them with other sounds.

Regards,
Dave Clark

PS Sorry about the crash at the beginning; forgot to empty the buffers....

You're being hypercritical of yourself. That mix ain't bad at all!

I'd bring the hats down a bit, vocals up a smidgin in a few places, bring up the acoustic solo, and add just a little more compression overall.

Also look at volume automation envelopes as a way to bring different elements up. For example, you've got a nice little guitar lick happening between verse phrases that could jump up 1 or 2db just briefly, between vocal phrases. The idea is not to leave any halfway holes - either make a big, obvious hole for dramatic effect, or make sure something pops up to fill in all the little holes. This is one of the reasons compression helps, because it automatically smooths those potholes. But if you can achieve it with envelopes it'll sound better than relying entirely on a dumb effect to do it for you.

I can't claim to be one of those people who "achieve [fatness] with ease". Maybe somebody's got a golden bullet the'll share, but I haven't found it yet!

You'll never get that 3D feel unless you put some bagpipes in the mix... give Janet a holler.

if you bite into a peanut butter sandwich at the precise moment you hit the export button
boom, that is are secret
there you have it

you must have missed the correct 'exact' moment! It's got to be down to the millisecond correct or you'll blow it and the mix will sound like so much peanut butter!

Sorry, Sunny...just foolin around on your thread....I'll go away now.

Interesting. Did you just add more reverb? Thanks for trying.

ORIGINAL: DaveClark

Hi munmun,

Based on your comments, I guessed as to what you might like. Is this more what you had in mind? It's hard to tell what folks are looking for these days!

Here

You may want to replace some of the orchestral sounds when you have a chance or combine them with other sounds.

Regards,
Dave Clark

PS Sorry about the crash at the beginning; forgot to empty the buffers....

ORIGINAL: bitflipper

You're being hypercritical of yourself. That mix ain't bad at all!

I'd bring the hats down a bit, vocals up a smidgin in a few places, bring up the acoustic solo, and add just a little more compression overall.

Also look at volume automation envelopes as a way to bring different elements up. For example, you've got a nice little guitar lick happening between verse phrases that could jump up 1 or 2db just briefly, between vocal phrases. The idea is not to leave any halfway holes - either make a big, obvious hole for dramatic effect, or make sure something pops up to fill in all the little holes. This is one of the reasons compression helps, because it automatically smooths those potholes. But if you can achieve it with envelopes it'll sound better than relying entirely on a dumb effect to do it for you.

I can't claim to be one of those people who "achieve [fatness] with ease". Maybe somebody's got a golden bullet the'll share, but I haven't found it yet!

Thank you. Very kind. Being constantly criticized as a kid growing up, I am rarely kind on myself.

an easy way to that fat 3d sound is simply throwing stereo wideners (M/S matrixing) and using small channel delays to induce the haas effect on every track and tweaking until it isn't necessarily overdone but sounds natural while adding depth...it takes some experimentation.

I'd also try some convolution reverb, subtle compression with a really decent track compressor (voxengo's crunchessor is excellent), and tube fattening (warm distortion - firegain is great for that).

Yes, start with drums and bass, and keep them punchy at all times. It's the other instruments you *add* that do the muddying, so if you take immediate measures with your EQ'ing to keep things tight, it's WAY better than trying to pump through several layers of sonic mud later on, using all sorts of exciters and phattenizers. No need.

and before you know it your mixes will be 20 to 40% more 3-D

3.1415926535...-D, to be a bit more precise, and the peanut-butter had better come from Haiti, for obvious reasons.

Hi munmun,

ORIGINAL: munmun

Interesting. Did you just add more reverb? Thanks for trying.

Not exactly. Of course, with only the final clip, I cannot do too much. I cut out the really low stuff, added a little emphasis at 3 kHz or somewhere around there (not on that machine at the moment --- sorry), went through Perfect Space with some IR's I calculated to simulate a concert hall and X-Y coincident pair microphone (actually misusing them somewhat --- a long story), then went to the Sonitus multiband compressor (vintange medium, I think).

As Dave (bitflipper) said, it was already pretty good. But I think I understand your wanting a little more out of it, so I was mostly trying to determine what exactly you where you wanted to end up. So basically I made something I liked that matched your description, or what I thought you were saying.

Was that kinda sorta what you had in mind, or totally wrong?

Regards,
Dave Clark