A mix is really an illusion. We have two speakers. But we're trying to create a sense of a three-dimensional environment, it's like painting in that you have this two-dimensional surface. But you use perspective to give the impression of depth, to give the impression of a three-dimensional space. With two speakers, we have a number of things that we can use to give the impression of a realistic space. We talked about reverb, which is very important. Every time you're in a space, there is, the reflections off all the surfaces, which gives us the sense of being in a room. Beyond that, we need to have a kind of a mental image of what we're trying to create, what environment we're trying to create. When you go to sit down to a mix, really consider how are the musicians or elements in your mix related to each other? How are they related in space to each other? And how is the listener related to all that information, to that space? So you're thinking of the dimensions of all those different areas. Now, left and right seems to be a pretty easy thing. I turn a pan knob, but we need to be aware that a pan knob is actually kind of an unnatural thing. If I pan all the way to the right, I'm really just reducing the stuff completely in the left speaker. And when do you really hear something only in one ear? Can you think of a time? The only time I can really think I hear something in one ear, is when someone is whispering in one of my ears, or a mosquito is flying right next to one of my ear. In fact a really quiet thing really close to one of your ears is the only time you really hear it in a single side. Usually you hear a sound in one ear, and you hear a delayed copy in the other ear. So in fact this idea of delay has a really big influence on stereo location. And if you were to pan all the way to one side, it is quite unnatural. So you want to be aware of that and it's another way delay effects can really become useful in creating a wide stereo mix. Now when you're playing from speakers It's, it isn't that big of a deal, because when I hear something out of the right speaker, I also hear it in my left ear. But always consider your listener, and a very common listening environment is wearing headphones. And if you're going to look at this idea of how you stereo locate and you kind of locate things left and right based on light delay, research the Haas Effect, it's a really interesting study and it's another psycho-acoustic term that has an impact on our mixes. So left and right, panning, and a bit of delay, but depth, that's the hard one. How far away something is, that's pretty difficult. That's that perspective idea when painted. And I think there's, there's four really important ways we can give the impression of something being far away or something being close. Before I rattle off the list, I'd like to mention that everything in a mix is relative. There are no absolutes. You can't really say I'm making this this mix loud, because the user always has a volume control. They an always turn that down. All you really have control of, are the relative things. How one element in your mix is related to another. So if I want to make something seem quiet, I need something loud to compare it to within the mix. If I want something to seem far away I need something close to compare it to in my mix. So this idea of depth now. If I want to make something far away or close, we have basically four ways we could do that. The first one is volume. When things are closer to you, they're louder, and the further away, they're quiet. And that's a really important one to remember. And often, we jump to all these fancy effects, without really taking enough consideration with volume. Pay attention to the faders. That'll do most of your work. The next one is reverb. Right? The further something away is, the more reverb it's going to have. In fact, its kind of a dry/wet, and we notice that all over the place. If I bring in the mic closer to my instrument that I'm recording, there's less of the room and more of the dry signal. As I move that mic further away, there's more of the room and less of that dry signal. So that dry/wet knob, or that send amount if you're setting up parallel signal flows, that's going to be a really big impact for something far away or closer. The thing that's far away is going to be wetter, and the thing that is closer is going to be dryer. Another important aspect of this distance is the high end. Things far away will be duller, and things closer will be brighter. Surfaces around us and the air itself actually absorbs the high end, so things farther away are naturally duller. So that high shelving filter will be a really important distance cue for us. It's closer, brighter, further away, a little duller. And the final one that's interesting distance cue is actually stereo width, and this is particularly important on stereo instruments, like let's say I have a piano. I've, if I am the player of the piano, playing piano, sitting right here, I'm going to hear the high end of the piano, those high notes, all the way over on this side. And the low notes will be way over on this side, on the other side of me, right? It's a very wide thing. I'm right there at the piano. And if I put that on my mix, with the high end all the way on one side and the low notes all the way on the other, you're giving the listener the impression they're sitting at that piano stool. In fact, the only place they can be is right at that piano. As you start getting further and further away from that piano, the stereo width starts narrowing down. So that idea of stereo width is also major in some instances can be a major distance cue. So again, volume, high-end control Reverb amount and stereo width can all have a major impact on distance and space in our mix, and the trick is to make them all coordinate with each other. If you do things in a way that makes them fight each other, like you have something that's really loud with lots of reverb, it just doesn't make sense, and it doesn't fool the listener. Right? That's like drawing improper perspective in your painting. It's just not going to ring true, and the only way that you're going to be able to do this accurately is to open your ears, is to listen to the space around you. The only way to do this stuff is to know what real rooms actually sound like, and we take it for granted. We walk into a space. We don't even think about the space, but every room we're in sounds different. What I'd like you to do, next time you're bored at a show or next time you're just at a show, try to listen differently. Try to focus on the sound of the space. How does that band sound in that room? How does that person sound talking to you in yhe space they're in. Try to notice the space. Try to notice what happens when you walk close to a wall. Notice what happens when a news reporter turns his head and you hear a little bit of comb filtering. The key to mixing is observing, because the only you're going to be able to do this accurately, the only way you're going to be able to fool the listener, to create that illusion, is if you know what the real thing sounds like.
