Warmth and Width

How do you guys create width and warmth in your tracks?

the ever impossible midrange

phased excessive stereo image problems

brittle vs smooth rounded warmth

ive tried the slate tape machine plug and some decapitator which seem to do some nice rounding without killing transients

the slate mix rack is also pretty sweet for pseudo analog crunch and heat

although im sure u can do the above for free 

http://www.airwindows.com/console4/

i record a lot of parts in mono.. whenever possible. i find even just panning things a little off center and other things dead center and some things wider.. really just helps a mix open up and makes space for everything. 

putting reverb on something and turning it up until i can just hear it then turning it back down a little bit..  placing delays in different places. 

don't over compress, don't add too much eq.. subtractive EQ.. basic classic mixing techniques are where i start. keep it simple. 

i add color plug ins to different tracks.. just depending on what it needs.. but to individual parts.. not just the main mix.. also, if i use tape saturation plug ins i do it sparingly but over lot's of parts.. not just the main mix. 

and start at the source. the sound design etc. 

of course i don't know if i'm successful at this or if my mixes are objectively good. i think i've gotten better at it over the years and learned that less is more, no plug in is really magic but finding things you like that do some color w/o wrecking things is worth the search imo. 

i like the cytomic plug ins, u-he satin, plug in alliance VSM-3 can be nice on some stuff,  soundtoys stuff

automation is your friend. 

For width: ...in addition to panning- In Logic, an interesting "trick" is to set tracks that are panned to Binaural.  Panning merely adjusts the levels of respective L and R (for example on a stereo track panned hard left, the right side will just be 0 and all R information will be lost), but if you use Binaural output, the output is processed in a way to reflect an actual 3-d space.  Using Binaural panning can really open up tracks and make them feel tangible.

As for warmth: Besides the obvious EQ, there are a lot of compression types that add mad liveliness to tracks (which can be perceived as warmth).  I suppose it just takes a lot of testing to find which one...  (in Logic 9, I use ClassA_R (Studio VCA in X) and sometimes opto (which is slow) for liveliness, and VCA (Vintage VCA in X) for punch-- in either case, setting Output Distortion to Soft helps with liveliness).

Another trick for "width" that is platform independent, is to record your tracks playing out of speakers, with a binaural mic at the sweetspot.  Then mix that track back into the original track to taste.  You get that weird meta-experience of "I'm listening to what it sounds like to listen to music".

If all else fails, one can slap on Overdrive on the output, with minimal distortion.  This is a simple way to balance a track (or have the pre-master go to an Overdrive send, then mix that into the track to taste).

Recording to cassette tape is another simple solution (then mixing back into track or not).

EDIT ADDITION:  Also, having tracks that are are quite low in volume can give a sense of depth (when balanced with the louder tracks).  In electronic music it's pretty common to have every single part blasting out, but having tracks that are low output adds a reference point.

Warmth is harder in the box because each sound is clean and optimised ready to use. Recording audio into the box brings in all sorts of noise and whatever which fills up the spectrum very quickly. So percieved warmth is naturally there with hardware recording because everything is so full.

I personally would try and get the software sounds outside and back in via whatever you have, buy, borrow. An amp, a cheap mixer, pedals etc etc.

And then add that signal to the mix to fill in all the gaps the software sounds leave. Sure, plugs can do this but I know nothing about plugs.

As for widening just pan wide and duplicate sounds many times with slightly different timbre tweaks.

It's all about contrast. To have some width you have to have some really narrow elements, to emphasize warmth you'd better have some very cold sounding few tracks, dry instruments opposed to drenched in reverb ones, mono vs. stereo, centered vs. panned, lively vs. static, thin vs. huge, saturated vs. crystal clear etc... 

  On 2/20/2017 at 9:55 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

TAL-tube TAL-tube TAL-tube TAL-tube 

https://tal-software.com/products/tal-effects

Holy shit, that sounds great.  Just tested it now.  Similar plugin I use sometimes: Audio Assault's HeadCrusher Free

roll the top end off and add phasemistress and experiment with it, you don't have to create movement but it adds loads of width depending how you use it

http://www.soundtoys.com/product/phasemistress/

Besides plugins, anyone using hardware in the mix? I've done some hybrids, bouncing between cassette's/outside fx rack-units & computer for certain tracks and am now looking into second-hand 4 track cassette recorders (something like fostex x-30, fostex xr-7, tascam portastudio etc). Anyone have any tips on these, what to look out for?  

Only recently been given a 4 track and it's real fun. Make sure any one you buy has a pitch knob and maybe some dolby switch.

I bounce stuff back and forth all the time to rack fx, valve pre's, old mixers, pedals, amps, mics, out the monitors and back in through mics etc. it's fun and definitely makes the mix more full and "warm" I guess.

Use the Waves J37 Tape.

  On 2/20/2017 at 1:17 PM, Blank said:

Who needs warmth when you can have fun building snowmen out of Confield's ice diamond aura?

Best answer.

When I ask people to describe 'warmth', I get a bunch of different definitions. So I never know how to answer the question.

The practical answer is to try many things without trying to get a particular result and apply that accumulated knowledge exponentially.

  On 2/20/2017 at 7:06 AM, RSP said:

http://www.airwindows.com/console4/

I just have to reiterate this, I can't emphasize enough what a big difference it has made for me since it came out as a VST.  I barely need to use any processing at all any more, other than basic EQ and special effects/aux send type stuff.  I've never had ITB mixes sit together so easily before, it used to feel like half of mixing was struggling to get the summing to sound as coherent as even a cheap analog mixer, never mind a high end one, but this does it.

If you use Reaper, this track template I put together makes it a lot easier to set up, almost transparent:

This should be the first track in your session.  Make it a folder and add your actual tracks inside that folder.  Use the routing panel to make sure each track is sent to a different pair of channels on the parent buss (so, track one would be routed to 1-2, track 2 would be routed to 3-4 etc. up to Reaper's limit of 64 channels).  Because Reaper has a channel limit per track you can only have a maximum of 32 tracks routed to the Console processing track, but you should be able to nest another summing track in the first one if you need more than that.  I'm running everything at 64 bit so if you're using a 32 bit setup you might have to manually replace the plugins in the template with the 32 bit versions but the routing should stay so it'll still save a lot of effort.  I've got everything labeled for 24 stereo tracks and 8 stereo auxes but that's just for convenience, there's no difference between the 24 track channels and the 8 aux channels other than their names.  I think it sounds best if your individual tracks are peaking in the -10 to -6 dbfs range but just play it by ear. If you drive it to hard it will start to distort.  If you just test it with a couple of tracks you probably won't notice much and if you try to drop an existing mix that already has a lot of processing into it you'll have to do quite a bit of work to optimize it before you really start to get it sounding right - my old mixes that I first tried it with were all way too hot and overprocessed and I ended up redoing them almost from scratch but it was worth it. If you start your project with it already in place, though, it starts to really show its actual potential as your track count gets higher.  It's also really light on CPU and has zero latency, so you can easily track through it on even a modest computer.  Mine's from around 2011 ad I get about a 1% CPU load increase from that entire track template, even though it has 32 instances of the encode plugin and one instance of the decode plugin.

The other thing I've been doing lately is tracking almost everything through an Alesis Microlimiter.  They're cheap, small, and their compression has a kind of a tapelike quality I really like.When my tax return comes I'll probably pick up another one as backup. Even if you don't use any hardware it might be nice to process softsynths with OOB.

Forgot the file:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g5814qajcb2x0kk/Airwindows%20console4%20full%20processing%2064%20channel.RTrackTemplate?dl=1

  On 2/20/2017 at 5:19 PM, paranerd said:

When I ask people to describe 'warmth', I get a bunch of different definitions. So I never know how to answer the question.

 

The practical answer is to try many things without trying to get a particular result and apply that accumulated knowledge exponentially.

 

 

This, too.

Although I think most of the time when people say "warmth" what they're talking about is a slow, maybe 6db/8va lowpass at around 10kHz and a gentle boost somewhere between 160Hz and 60Hz

don't be afraid to pan stuff all the way to the sides or to use widening tools/techniques.

make use of the HAAS effect.

The best thing you can do it constantly try new things. Throw aside 10/20/30 minutes a day to simply try new ideas out. Try random ideas. Save them. There's lots of ways to add warmth and width, and if you have lots of ways in your arsenal, then you will come out with more interesting results. Each way will give a different result, and that's just fine.

 

  On 2/20/2017 at 7:06 AM, RSP said:

http://www.airwindows.com/console4/

Transparency and headroom like a motherfucker, holy fuck.  Thank you.  Gotta experiment with this more...  (Upon more testing, it takes quite a lot to convert some tracks not summed with this to sound good.  Bass track vibez especially change.  - still, awesome tool)

  On 2/20/2017 at 4:51 PM, Chesney said:

Only recently been given a 4 track and it's real fun. Make sure any one you buy has a pitch knob and maybe some dolby switch.

the one I'm looking at has pitch control. I think Legowelt showed a 4 track tape recorder during a studio tour...

..found the video here;

tascam 4-track @ ~ 38.24

  On 2/20/2017 at 7:06 AM, RSP said:

http://www.airwindows.com/console4/

Those Airwindows plugins are amazing! 

  On 2/20/2017 at 7:06 AM, RSP said:

http://www.airwindows.com/console4/

Dang, thanks for the plug, looking forward to trying some of these out!

Safe to say the airwindows dude got some traffic then. Would like to see some science behind it.

Not sure if you guys are trolling or the changes appear in the highest frequency range that I can't hear anymore?

I was about to post that I have a really hard time discerning between the with and without console versions, maybe my ears are fucked though.   

  On 2/21/2017 at 9:38 PM, user said:

I was about to post that I have a really hard time discerning between the with and without console versions, maybe my ears are fucked though.   

Get your ears used to it. Pick various sounds and make them wider and narrower. Close your eyes and listen for the characteristics. Do this enough and eventually it'll become second nature.