Creating a realistic impression of depth in stereo mixes

[Master Mi]

This might be interesting for all those who want add more depth to the mix and separate the frequencies of the instruments, vocals and synths much more and in a much cleaner, more realistic way.

Lots of you might already have mastered the skill of creating a vital and structured stereo panorama - the skill of placing instruments and other signal sources alongside the x-axis between the left and the right side to get a clean mix.
But even with a well-structured panning of the sound sources between the left and the right side, the final soundtrack might still sound kinda flat.

So, a much more difficult - and highly desirable - intention might be the creation of greater depth impressions in your mix.
There are quite a few possibilities with which you can do this - which I will explain in the following part of this text.


A - Recording your tracks with different microphone positions
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In a recording studio with 2 well-chosen microphone positions (one microphone on the more left side, the other one on the more right side - and both in the front of the room) it could be kinda easy for bands to get a good stereo recording with useful depth informations without doing too much in your DAW software afterwards.
Somewhere I've read or heard that Michael Jackson, for example, created some depth impressions in his soundtracks already in the recording process by singing from various distances and positions within the room right into the microphones.

So, if you have a real band with real instruments and at least two good microphones for recording within a well-pepared room, you can create depth kinda easily with a different placement of the instruments which you want to record within the sensory fields of the microphones.
If you place your sounding instrument more to the left microphone, you will later hear more on the left side and less on the right side of your speaker system.
If you place your instrument more in the rear of the the room, a wide variety of different effects will make an impact on your recorded signal, which create the impression in your perception that the signal is coming more from the rear of the room.

These are the effects you might want to reproduce with the tools in your DAW to create an impression of depth, if you don't use microphones for recording (for example, if you are just working with synths or VSTi samples).


B - You commonly reproduce those depth effects with following settings or methods in your DAW:
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1) Volume (sound pressure) level (gain staging)
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Louder signals might be perceived as closer signals, quieter signal might be perceived as more distant signals (at least you will get the impression, if a signal with a kinda constant sound pressure level is moving away from you or coming closer to you).
So make sure, that there are many different (and fitting) volume levels between the single tracks in your final mix.


2) Frequencies (EQ adaptation)
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Another effect called dissipation is the cause for bigger frequency changes of sound events coming from a larger distance.
Especially the higher frequencies of sound events from larger distances will be damped much more than their lower frequencies (just imagine a thunderstorm coming from a far distance with a bit more dull sounding rolling thunder and a thunderstorm which is really close and nearly right above your head).
I guess it's because higher frequencies (higher and more directional energy source) will get absorbed, damped and slowed down much faster from the particles of the atmosphere than less energetic and less directional lower frequencies.
So, over longer distances you will hear more of the remaining lower frequencies (or to be more precise: you will hear less of the higher frequencies), so the sound event from a bigger distance might be perceived as duller or less brilliant.
For this purpose you might create the effect of a bigger distance by putting an EQ plugin with a high shelf filter (for cutting the higher frequencies a little bit) on the desired sound event in your mix which you want to move more in the background.


3) Time difference between perceived (or received) direct sound and its first stronger audible reflections (initial time delay gap - can be adjusted with pre-delay setting of your reverb plugins)
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Just imagine a big wide hallway.
On the one end you are standing, on the other end a drummer is performing a slow drum beat.
Every time the drummer hits his percussion equipment, you will perceive the direct sound of this sound event first (because the direct way is the shortest way the sound with its approximate velocity of 340 m/s will take at normal air conditions at sea level on this planet).
A short time (maybe just a few miliseconds) afterwards, the first stronger reflections from the walls (longer way than the direct sound) will get into your ears.

And the bigger this time difference is, the bigger (longer and/or wider) the room must be - caused by the longer way of the first audible reflections.

If the drummer in the same hallway would play only 1 meter in front of you, there would be barely any time difference between direct sound and first audible reflections, because the distance between the sound event and the listener is way too small to sense the little time difference of maybe around 5 ms.

So, if you increase the pre-delay from 5 to 50 ms, it might increase the illusion of more depth.

But don't overdo this one, because the pre-delay should also fit the room size of your reverb plugin for creating a realistic spatial impression within the perception of the listener.


4) Proportion between direct sound (dry signal) volume and reflections/reverberation (wet signal) volume
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Imagine a classic side-scroller for the NES - like "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link", for example.
Link is just standing in the middle of the north castle where princess Zelda sleeps because of a magic spell.
Suddenly, one of those small fairies enters the castle to bring back the flute to Link, the magic flute he lost in the desert some time ago.

But the fairy is kinda playful and plays the flute straight in front of Link's face.
Just see Link's face as the listener or receiver (you), the flute as the sound source and try to imagine a full circle around the flute (360 degrees) that always contains two angles - one angle that shows the amount of direct sound (dry signal) hitting Link's face, and the other angle, which takes up the rest of the full circle and shows the other part of the sound which will turn into reflections and will also become received as reflections back at Link's face shortly afterwards.

So, by playing the flute straight in front of Link's face, the angle (and also the amount) of the direct sound (the dry signal) might be almost a half circle (maybe just 120 degrees). The rest of the flute sound will go above his head or behind the fairy, will immediately turn into different kinds of reflections on the walls, the floor and the ceiling of the castle and might come back as a various mix of perceived reflections (the wet signal) to Link's face.

Link is kinda pissed off and tells the fairy to play the flute somewhere else, but not straight in front of him.
So, the fairy flies around 50 meters away towards one end of the castle and plays the flute again.
Now, the angle and amount of the direct sound (dry signal) hitting Link's face will be much smaller from the farther distance, and the angle and amount of the sound turning into audible reflections (wet signal) for Link will be much greater.

You can also adapt this little example to a three-dimensional room (so, the former full circle around the flute will become a full sphere around the flute, the former two-dimensional angles will become solid angles, Link's two-dimensional head will become a three-dimensional head and the two-dimensional NES castle might become a three-dimensional Wii U castle).

So, the proportion of the dry signal volume and the wet signal volume at a sound source can also create an imagination of distance and depth within the perception of the listener.

So, simply use a reverb plugin on your sound source with which you can set the proportion of the dry and the wet signal.
If you add more of the dry signal to the sound source, the sound source might be perceived as closer.
If you add more of the wet signal to the sound source, the sound source might be perceived as farther away or coming more from the rear of the room.

Just keep in mind that the room size setting of your reverb plugins only creates an imagination of space around the listener - but it won't create a feeling of depth or distance between the sound source and the listener.


C - Using a 2-channel surround plugin to place your sound sources in a simulated room
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This is a pretty interesting, easy imaginable and very precise tool with which you can place all of your sound sources freely in a two-dimensional interface of a simulated room (x-axis contains the information between left and right setting, y-axis contains information between close/front and far/rear setting).

I already have such kind of a 2-channel surround mode in my DAW software Samplitude Pro X4 Suite - but I never really dared to use this one for my remixes because I didn't have the comprehension of creating an imagination of depth and its benefits for the clearness of the mix back then.
But these days, I'm gradually figuring out how to use this one for making much cleaner and more structured mixes with a much more spatial impression.

The good thing is that you won't need a surround speaker system for this purpose - but the surround-like stereo mix you create with this 2-channel surround mode is decoded in a way that makes it fully compatible with stereo speaker systems and real surround speaker systems, according to the manual.

So, all the spatial information (changes in position, loudness, frequencies and reverberation) of the placed sound sources in this virtual room will be fully reproduced on just two speakers (your studio monitors) or your headphones as well.

I'm not fully sure how this system works in every detail.
But I guess they might have used two well-placed recording microphones in the front of a bigger room with a certain distance to each other (just for the stereo imaging), measured the signal changes caused by various sound sources at different positions in the room (from close positions in front of the microphones, but also from more distant positions), created some kind of an algorithm for the signal changes and finally made a filter from this algorithm.
And with the help of this imaginable filter (it's still my assumption that it might be a filter) you could reproduce all the room information and signal changes for all possible positions in this simulated room kinda easily, much more precisely (without calculating too much for the exact distance, the correct pre-delay or the proper damping or cutting of the frequencies for creating depth - instead of this time-consuming procedure you can easily drag the sound source with the mouse on the interface to the exact position in the simulated room) and in a pretty realistic way (less irritating information that could impair the impression of depth).

So, if you place an instrument more in the rear of the simulated room, the perceived volume of the sound source will decrease, the perceived frequencies will change and the reverberation will also change - and all this complex stuff already goes by dragging the symbol for the sound source with the mouse through the virtual room at the really useful 2-channel surround mode interface.

Of course you can also do automations with the positions of the sound sources, double the signal sources, vary their distance to each other for a different stereo width or shift these sound sources parallely or freely around the x- and y-axis through the simulated room.

But this should be just a small impression of the many things you can do in such a 2-channel surround mode.
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I hope, my reflections about these things might help some of the newcomers and all those who wanted to know much more about this topic in a way even I as a former ecology student (who became kinda desperate with the higher level of mathematics and physics back then because building up knowledge mostly based on ready-made formulas might be not the best way of truly understanding natural phenomenons and other essential things of life) could finally understand some of those very complex things much better.

Please correct me, if I should be wrong with certain assumptions or augment my writing, if there might be some further important things deserved to be added to this topic.

Edited February 9, 2020 by Master Mi

[Master Mi]

What do you think - could this be the future of three-dimensional panning for stereo and surround mixes?
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Some days ago, I've seen a pretty interesting VST plugin for kinda realistic three-dimensional panning which obviously works for stereo mixes as well (seems to be similar like the 2-channel surround mode I use in my DAW for quite some time now):
 

I know, the plugin might use only the well-known parameters from classic audio productions for creating an image of depth or certain positions in a virtual room - just those parameters I've mentioned before, like volume (sound pressure) level (gain staging), frequencies (EQ adaptation), time difference between perceived (or received) direct sound and its first stronger audible reflections (initial time delay gap - or simply the pre-delay settings) or the proportion between direct sound (dry signal) volume and reflections/reverberation (wet signal) volume.

But with the help of those tools you might set a specific room position of a sound source much faster, much more precisely and in a much more visual and intuitive way than just with cold numeric values within the oldschool way of music production.
And - of course - the three-dimensional panorama automations could be done with much less effort, calculating, in far less time - and with much better results for realistic three-dimensional staging and without the need of being the supernatural professor of physics who has already internalized even the finest aspects of sound propagation of sound sources in relation to the position and the whole constitution of the listener.

The interesting fact about this plugin is, that you can not only set a sound source between left and right (width) or front and rear (depth) positions.
You can also set the height of a sound source (up and down) - which might be also useful for the surround formats of the future where speaker units might be completely around the listener as if the listener was inside a sphere full of speakers surrounding him alongside all three axes.

I don't know where those panaroma plugins might go in the future - but I'm sure that they'll also add another component of specific sound directions and spherical angles for sound propagation in relation to the position of the listener.

But just the momentary possibilities of sound creation and separation of sound sources in a three-dimensional room within a normal stereo recording already seem to be gigantic, as you can hear in the following sound example obviosly created with this plugin:
 

So, what do you think - is it worth to go for such kind of a three-dimensional panning plugin or is it rather redundant for audio productions?

[Master Mi]

Visual tools for creating a realistic impression of depth in stereo mixes
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Some tme ago, I recorded a little video with some drum VSTi stuff in connection with some visual tools of my DAW Samplitude Pro X4 Suite with which I can create a feeling of depth in stereo mixes - not sure which one is more suitable tool, but maybe you have some ideas about this topic.

Make sure to watch the video below in full screen mode:
 

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1) The first one (on the left side) is a 2-channel surround mode which uses the individually placed sound sources (mono or stereo sound sources) in connexion with 5 simulated surround channels - but it writes all the surround information into a standard 2-channel signal.
So, you can set up a virtual surround stage with some impression of depth on a normal 2-channel studio setup.
And - according to the manual - the surround information encoded in the stereo signal of the exported track should always be fully compatible to pursuant surround speaker setups.

I'm not fully sure, what it exactly does to the important parameters for the impression of depth.
But I think it does at least a solid gain staging and a pretty nice and visually comprehensible 5-channel separation (left, right, center, left surround, right surround) to create a cleaner and more tiered mix (with a really precise visual presentation of the stereo width in the context of the channels) within a more three-dimensional audio environment.
Maybe it is based on some quite realistic microphone algorithms or on EQ adaptation which change with the movement of the sound sources in the simulated surround field.

But I'm not sure if this tool makes any changes on reverb and delay - at least I can't hear too much changes on these two parameters there.
And what I also don't really understand is the phenomenon of the small left and right volume changes if you go with your sound source parallelly to or vertically on the center channel up (to the front) and down (to the back) - so, even if you go perfectly vertically down with your sound sources from the center more into the lower surround channel field, the volume seems to go more to the left side.


I don't know if there are some particularities with the pan law in a 2-channel surround configuration - but maybe somebody of you has an idea on this phenomenon.
At the moment, I just use the separate channel settings feature in the top right corner to balance the volume of the left/right channels with a few dB if the sound sources I placed more in the surround background tend to get louder or more silent at one side.

I use this 2-channel surround feature since my last Goldfinger remix and I also want to work with it in the future as a major part of my new mixing concept.
 

 

Although it's a rather dry mix with rather small-sized recording studio reverb settings than with huge, cathedral-like reverbs in direct comparison to my previous remixes, I think that the 2-channel surround mode made some really decent results for my ambition to create an imagination of depth in there - almost as if you are standing right in front of a street band.

(Edit: Unfortunately, this pretty amazing 2-channel surround feature was only in my DAW Samplitude until version Samplitude Pro X4 (Suite).

I, along with another person, asked the developer why they did not keep this feature in later versions of this DAW.
They answered that this feature is not supposed to be compatible with newer surround formats.
But they have already started working on a new version of this feature, which should also include a modern solution for binaural listening.

However, the guy couldn't tell me why the developers just removed this feature in the newer DAW versions, even though the latest development of this 2-channel surround feature hasn't even been developed and implemented yet.

Until this problem is solved, I will probably continue to work with Samplitude Pro X4 Suite for the time being, in order to establish my new mixing concept, which also uses this promising 2-channel surround feature as a precise visual audio tool for even more clarity and accuracy in the mix.)

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2) The second tool I just found some time ago in the origami convolution reverb section of my Independence Pro Premium Suite as a part of my DAW Samplitude Pro X4 Suite (which can be easily overseen on the complex interface) is a positioner feature on the interface of this reverb plugin (on the right side around the second half of the drum recording video).

With this tool you might not be able to create a nice channel separation for the single tracks (sound sources) of your music project.
But you can get some pretty realistic impressions of depth for the reverb by placing the sound source (or maybe the listener) at different positions in some sort of a virtual room with individual characteristics like room size.

I even think that the impression of depth with this second tool is even bigger or more realistic than with the first tool.
But I'm not sure how this one would work out in the whole mix - I'm kinda afraid that it creates too much subtle sound information which might clutter up your mix and kill the definition (like reverb effects in general do pretty fast in a complex mix with a huge number of tracks).

And I'm also not really sure if it makes sense to use both tools simultaneously for the same VSTi, synth, instrument etc. - because in this case you would have to work with two different visual tools at the same time, begin to calculate two visual interfaces into one you can't see in order to make the next steps for the next tracks, an annoying, time-comsuming and less accurate procedure I want to avoid if I already have a decent visual tool for creating an imagination of depth in a stereo mix.

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But what's your opinion about these visual tools in the context of creating a realistic feeling of depth in a soundtrack or another kind of an audio program?

Edited May 21, 2023 by Master Mi

[Woody mC]

Hey there,

as a lucky owner of a 7.2 surround setup, I was wondering how these "VR stereo tweaks" would behave on it. Would it just produce stereo sound on two speakers or also trigger the extra back/surround/etc. channels?

My home setup consists of a Yamaha RX-V 773 7.2+2.0 (2 Zones) A/V receiver (=AVR), a Jamo S626 HCS3 set (FL/FR/C/BL/BR), a pair of JBL Control One (SL/SR), and two LFEs -- a Teufel S-6000SW front-firing into the room and a T-4000 down-firing underneath my couch. Below are two captured screenshots from the calibration program of my AVR, which show the speaker distances and levels that have been detected during the automated calibration process (some levels, though, were manually fine-tuned afterwards).

 

Well, here's what I observed:

Watched the dearVR promo videos first -- these were mastered for binaural listening through headphones. As I'm pretty sure this will sound brilliant with them, I skipped listening through headphones and went on straight to listen on my room setup; first, I used a "straight" 1:1 speaker mapping, i.e. a stereo signal will only be sent through the FL and FR front speakers (frequency separation by the amplifier to fire the LFEs is INACTIVE).
-> L/R panning was fully notable while F/B (front/back) panning was recognizable, but sounded a bit flat (surprise...) on only two speakers. In other words, this is exactly why one should wear headphones for binaural playback...

Next was a preset on my A/V receiver called "7.1 stereo", which outputs the L stereo channel on all left speakers of the system (FL/SL/BL), the R stereo channel on all right speakers (FR/SR/BR), provides a 50/50 mix on the center (C) -- probably with a weighted or even calculated volume depending on the L/R intensities -- and performs frequency separation to the LFEs (low frequency emitters / subwoofers), which are adjusted to take over at around 80~100 Hz and below.
Now that the "stereo plane" was greatly stretched in depth, the speakers acted much like some sort of headphones! No idea whether or not the AVR does some extra processing since I could follow along with only my ears and no extra equipment, but the "back" portion indeed seemed to travel behind the listener's head and thus resulted in a much more impressive F/B panning depth, just like I would expect to hear it in a binaural playback with headphones. In absence of any indicators or other measuring equipment, I'm unable to tell though whether or not the F/S/B portions of a side receive the same signal (leaving the spacial impression "processing" to only my ears and brain vs. "helping a bit" with F/S/B zone volumes being somehow calculated/separated and differentiated by the AVR). At least, pumping the YouTube audio out to the AVR through a VoiceMeeter virtual audio device showed that only the FL and FR channels received a signal before leaving my computer's HDMI port.

Still no extra decoding used on my AVR so far, although it features a Dolby ProLogic-II decoder with various decoder modes (Game, Movie, etc.). Since the "output format" section in the dearVR plugin demo indicated that you're not just limited to binaural output, I think that digital codecs might still be an option for non-headphone/in-room use if the hardware setup provides more than two channels/speakers.

On to Master Mi's demo videos, I did the same comparison procedure with "straight" and "7.1 stereo" output modes and ended up with "7.1 stereo" being the more "realistic" one. Output to the AVR was still limited to FL and FR signals, so both the "2-channel surround editor" (left portion of the screen) and the "Independence FX plugin" (right portion of the screen) were both operating on unencoded stereo output. While 2CSE just seemed to work with some sort of position and distance loudness, I'm convinced that Independence heavily utilizes convolution reverb parameters to fake a 3D room impression -- which feels WAY MORE REALISTIC AND NATURAL, such as you wouldn't move a 2D plane in space (2CSE sounds like this) but catch all the changing reverb details of a point audio source in 3D space instead. If I had a choice to make, I'd definitely go with Independence FX.
Regarding the deviance in L/R levels which Master Mi was wondering about, my best guess is that -- because all the simulation and calculation stuff seems to boil down to psychoacoustics -- there are beating wave and cancelling effects in the "reverbed" signals that may cause spikes or drops on a particular channel at a discrete point in time.

For the "Goldfinger" THPS remix, I was hinted by Master Mi that there should be some "encoded" signal in the stereo stream for the "back" speakers -- but it wasn't. Neither did I recognize differentiated signals from the F/S/B speakers in 7.1 stereo mode, nor did the S/B speakers produce any sound at all in both 1:1 passthrough mode and with an active AVR surround decoding preset. IMHO, there are two possible reasons for this to happen: Either there was no "real" 5.1/7.1/whatever signal (or 2.0 signal with encoded 5.1/etc. information) produced by the DAW, or this information was simply just a victim of conversion and recompression when the video was uploaded to YouTube. In other words, listening to this track on a standard stereo setup, a surround system or just headphones would make no technical difference. However, regarding the psycho-acoustical difference and spacial impression, the clear winner would be headphones -- directly followed by a surround system that's able to perform 7.1 "upmixing" by replicating FL+FR channels to their respective S+B pairs. Still, the signal would just be plain stereo with some (unencoded) psycho-acoustic voodoo magic inside.

Listening to the track with that "7.1 stereo" mode active at least "felt" like being in the center of it, even with no "real" surround sound. Instruments could be clearly distinguished and located -- and I had a hard time indeed to figure out that this trumpet was equally present on my FL/SL/BL speakers although seemingly sounding from somewhere between the FL and SL speaker. Aside from that, recognizing Pachelbel's pattern of descending fifths near the end of the theme inevitably put a smile on my hobby organist's face!

 

In summary, I think that mastering the way you did it in the THPS track works pretty well and -- without having the "flat" version as a reference -- can only enhance the listening experience. The good news is that no listener would need special hardware for that since it's just all about tricking the brain with some psychoacoustic modeling and nothing else; the bad news is that you cannot provide "real separated surround" using this method (like encoded stereo formats do). Even with just two speakers and no upmixing, the result still sounds impressively "live and vivid", however I'd still recommend headphones for the full listening experience.

Mi, if you could provide the raw audio track stereo export from your DAW as a WAV or FLAC file, this could help to find out whether or not encoded surround information was dropped during the YouTube upload and its subsequent conversion processes. According to the output still sounding convincing, I think this might not have been the case; but this way, we could be able to find out the truth.

[Master Mi]

First of all,...

... a HUGE thank for the amazing, extremely detailed response and the load of commitment you've put into it - this was much more than I expected und contains quite some in-depth knowledge. ))
In addition to my request, you also checked the dearVR stuff in my posting before for the surround sound compatibility.

With your response, I have some sort of certainty or a at least a good hint, that the obviously lacking surround sound compatibility of the tested sources either has to do with the plugin tools themselves or with the audio/video format and/or the streaming platform.

Or, could it be that it only works with a 5-channel surround speaker setup at maximum (instead of a 7-channel surround speaker setup)?

...

Sorry for the late reaction on your extremely fast response.

But during the week, I'm one of those screwed "wake-up-at-4.15-am-for-his-job" dudes, so there's not too much going on in the evening hours after work anymore.
I guess the videogames of my early childhood days are radically trolling me these days:



...
 

On 4/25/2023 at 1:47 PM, Woody mC said:

Regarding the deviance in L/R levels which Master Mi was wondering about, my best guess is that -- because all the simulation and calculation stuff seems to boil down to psychoacoustics -- there are beating wave and cancelling effects in the "reverbed" signals that may cause spikes or drops on a particular channel at a discrete point in time.

 

Nope, it also happens with a completely dry VSTi signal without any other effects in the 2-channel surround mode.

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Maybe I give you some further screenshots from the English version of the digital manual within my DAW, concerning the 2-channel surround mode:



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I also tried to load my latest Goldfinger remix DAW project with a true surround setup instead of a stereo setup in the project.
But this messes up everything - but true surround doesn't even seem to be compatible with the 2-channel-surround mode panning because the 2-channel surround mode turns into the normal surround mode and this sounds completely off (as if the dry signal suddenly contains lots of reverb and stuff like that - especially towards the center channel - so, you wouldn't even be able to mix a dry bass in the center of the mixing panorama) - whole mix sounds as if it was totally washed out (also when listening to the mix with studio headphones).

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On 4/25/2023 at 1:47 PM, Woody mC said:

In summary, I think that mastering the way you did it in the THPS track works pretty well and -- without having the "flat" version as a reference -- can only enhance the listening experience. The good news is that no listener would need special hardware for that since it's just all about tricking the brain with some psychoacoustic modeling and nothing else; the bad news is that you cannot provide "real separated surround" using this method (like encoded stereo formats do). Even with just two speakers and no upmixing, the result still sounds impressively "live and vivid", however I'd still recommend headphones for the full listening experience.

Mi, if you could provide the raw audio track stereo export from your DAW as a WAV or FLAC file, this could help to find out whether or not encoded surround information was dropped during the YouTube upload and its subsequent conversion processes. According to the output still sounding convincing, I think this might not have been the case; but this way, we could be able to find out the truth.

Haha, thanks.

Even though the 2-channel surround mode doesn't support a true surround speaker setup, I'm kind of glad it doesn't support a full surround speaker setup rather than doing a totally crappy translation from a stereo mix setup to a true surround speaker setup.

But to get some more certainty about this one, I'll also send you a directly exported audio file of my Goldfinger remix within the next days.
I might have some MP3 versions (with audio bitrates of 192 and 320 kbit/s) of this track on my PC, but since I always keep my DAW project files, I could easily create a WAV file of this remix.

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On 4/25/2023 at 1:47 PM, Woody mC said:

Listening to the track with that "7.1 stereo" mode active at least "felt" like being in the center of it, even with no "real" surround sound. Instruments could be clearly distinguished and located -- and I had a hard time indeed to figure out that this trumpet was equally present on my FL/SL/BL speakers although seemingly sounding from somewhere between the FL and SL speaker. Aside from that, recognizing Pachelbel's pattern of descending fifths near the end of the theme inevitably put a smile on my hobby organist's face!

Sounds goods. ))

The trumpet (panorama at around 9:30 am) and the sax (panorama at around 2:30 pm) are mixed with a normal stereo panorama without using the 2-channel surround mode.
I mostly keep it this way with lead instruments and lead signals which shall play directly in the front.

So, the better clarity of the mix after using a visual and precise audio tool like the 2-channel surround mode seems to pay off at least.

Maybe you can give a small feedback on one of my former remixes which I did not mix with the 2-channel surround mode (just with normal stereo panorama mixing setup) as a comparison (especially in things like clarity and spatial impression of depth)?

Since you seem to be an organ fan, let's take this one as an older reference track from my remix list:
 

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On 4/25/2023 at 1:47 PM, Woody mC said:

Listening to the track with that "7.1 stereo" mode active at least "felt" like being in the center of it, even with no "real" surround sound. Instruments could be clearly distinguished and located -- and I had a hard time indeed to figure out that this trumpet was equally present on my FL/SL/BL speakers although seemingly sounding from somewhere between the FL and SL speaker. Aside from that, recognizing Pachelbel's pattern of descending fifths near the end of the theme inevitably put a smile on my hobby organist's face!

Dang, you must have some kind of attentive rabbit ears or something like that.

I guess you're speaking of the Vita Power Guitar kicking in at around 3:05 in my Goldfinger remix and which you can hear even more clearly at around 3:25.
It's not a whole chord (just a simple sequence of single notes with some variations) and it's not exactly playing D - A - B - F# - G - D - G - A (it's rather D - A - B - F# - G - D - A -D), but you were really close with your super rabbit organist ears:



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Damn, gotta go to sleep or the working day tomorrow will finish me off.

C ya! ))

[Nase]

boah n deutscher!

aber die thematik, da klink ich aus. naja, HALLOOOOO!!!

 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Nase

[Woody mC]

@Nase Servus...Zwei davon!

@Master Mi Will respond to your reply as soon as I'm back home in a few days. I'm on the road currently -- and a bit short of time to focus on all of the technical details in your post...

[Master Mi]

@Nase Dude, just by the cultural input I got and which I admired, I guess I'm rather a Soviet Japanese sunshine devotee with Muslim drinking habits and some really raw eating habits of an indigenous tribesman.

Im really not the typical German dude.
I kinda fought for my 4-days working week (30 hours a week) and for my holy, 3 days long weekends - and I'm fuckin' proud of it.

I simply love it like a mighty pigeon loves cooing, snacking through the city and radically shittin' your car window + balcony:

                     

...

@Woody mC I'm looking forward to. ))

But no need to rush.

Today, I might be totally fit 'n' sane, even after just around 3 hours of sleeping during the night and a day of mostly physical work.
But I can't promise that my body won't retaliate and radically freeze my brain power over the next few days, forcing me to sleep instead of allowing me to follow promising content on OCR.
 

[Nase]

soviet japanese? that's sexy, man. i wondered b4 where you might be from. mind disclosing the location on a map?

but if it wasn't clear, i was talking to woody and his clearly german screenshots of his surround system.

i live in northern italy these days. right around here.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/12032+Barge,+Cuneo/@44.7272983,7.2561088,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x12cd339e28a911ef:0x405e67d473ca330!8m2!3d44.7362413!4d7.3408535!16zL20vMGdiN24w

[Woody mC]

Cool people here!

@Master Mi Had the same struggle with my 4-days working week -- and let's see how cooperative my potential new employer is. Upcoming job interview in about half an hour here...

@Nase North Italy == South Tyrol, I suppose? That's almost around my corner, needless to say that this is my fav place for vacations! If you heard about a small village named Sulden/Solda in the vicinity of Passo di Stelvio / Passo di Resia, then you know where to find me during most summers. ^^

 

P.S. That battle pigeon looks like an Antonov air freighter.

P.P.S. The Samplitude UI clearly is in German as well...

Edited May 5, 2023 by Woody mC

[Nase]

21 hours ago, Woody mC said:

@Nase North Italy == South Tyrol, I suppose? That's almost around my corner, needless to say that this is my fav place for vacations! If you heard about a small village named Sulden/Solda in the vicinity of Passo di Stelvio / Passo di Resia, then you know where to find me during most summers. ^^

 

no it's more southwest. podunk nowhere really.

 

i remember the area of locarno + lago maggiore from my childhood, i.e. italian border switzerland. wonderful vacations.

and i lived in freiburg for a few years....but i'm really more of a northern germany native. hamburg roundabouts.

Edited May 6, 2023 by Nase

[Master Mi]

My edited text from one of my former postings might be interesting for Woody mC who checked my remix on his surround speaker setup, in order to find out more about the compatibility of my mix created with the 2-channel surround feature in connexion with stereo and surround speaker setups:

...

"(Edit: Unfortunately, this pretty amazing 2-channel surround feature was only in my DAW Samplitude until version Samplitude Pro X4 (Suite).

I, along with another person, asked the developer why they did not keep this feature in later versions of this DAW.
They answered that this feature is not supposed to be compatible with newer surround formats.
But they have already started working on a new version of this feature, which should also include a modern solution for binaural listening.

However, the guy couldn't tell me why the developers just removed this feature in the newer DAW versions, even though the latest development of this 2-channel surround feature hasn't even been developed and implemented yet.

Until this problem is solved, I will probably continue to work with Samplitude Pro X4 Suite for the time being, in order to establish my new mixing concept, which also uses this promising 2-channel surround feature as a precise visual audio tool for even more clarity and accuracy in the mix.)"

...

But, maybe you (Woody) can respond to the remaining rest of my post from May 1, especially how my former mixes like the Star Tropics remix sound on your speaker system in comparison to my newer mixing concept with the 2-channel surround feature demonstrated in my newest Goldfinger remix,...

...or if at least the WAV file of my Goldfinger remix gave any new results for the compatibility with your surround speaker system.

[Tachy Bunker]

eh, almost nobody here will need to use surround formats.

 

Those tips are good, I'll keep doing things with the traditional tools for width (hard-panning, chorus, reverb, ping pong delays, synth unison/double-tracking).

I think the overlooked thing here is that if you want a wide mix, you then need a huge contrast between the center things and the wide elements. The biggest killer of that is usually reverb, so here's a tip to combat reverb making your mixes less stereo:

Dual-Mono Reverbs, or simply separating the two Left & Right channels and putting the same reverb on them, is a technique that will preserve the position of your panned elements exactly where they are. No more 'stereo image blur' with that.

[Master Mi]

Good visual mixing tutorial for beginners and pros to better understand the possibilities and tools for mixing and creating specific spatial images
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few days ago, I stumbled across a really interesting and useful tutorial video from David Gibson that explains some of the really important tools of mixing in a very sound, understandable, in-depth and most importantly visual way (which really helps to understand the process, tools, possibilities and little details of mixing):
 

The video is quite long, a bit trippy at times (and quite funny in places) and looks kinda dated (like an instructional video from the 80s or 90s) - but it's full of grounded logic and sophisticated, yet easily accessible mixing knowledge.
 

Interestingly, the video not only provides basic knowledge about the process of mixing and imaging itself, but also goes into some physical background and the "Why am I actually doing it this way?".

What I particularly like about the video is that it doesn't show you a specific way to mix, but rather gives you a fundamental understanding of the mixing basics, which opens up a multitude of possibilities to realize the mix according to the concrete idea in your head or your inner feeling.

It should therefore not only be of interest to beginners who want to approach the subject slowly, but also to advanced users who have already gained years or even decades of in-depth experience in the field of mixing.

...

In addition, I was also able to implement a few groundbreaking improvements in my specially developed mixing concept through a large number of experiments some time ago, which not only greatly improved the clarity and spatial range of the mix, but also finally improved the translation of the mix on ordinary hi-fi stereo systems in a way that's pretty close to how professional mixes sound on these devices.

Since my job life obviously turned back to my regular 4 working days per week after a longer time of 5 or even really nasty 6 working days per week (due to a pretty high sickness absence rate in my company I didn't want to leave the remaining colleagues high and dry - and so, I could already save up some extra hours for the next winter) and the soothing fact that I could also settle the major shitload of tasks 'n' stuff in my privat life within the last months, I might have some time again to catch a recovering breath and present my results soon.

Maybe I'll already write some smaller parts during the coming weeks after work and upload the whole content soon after.
Since I wasn't really able to work on my music projects for around 3 months now, I'm kinda on fire to finally do some composition and mixing stuff once again.

I will upload it in a new post - including some further audio samples of the latest results - in my thread "Cleaning up the low-end and low-mid sections in a mix - with single track EQ, master track EQ, EQed aux effect sends and other methods" as soon as possible.

You'll also find the thread under this link in OCRemix:
https://ocremix.org/community/topic/52614-cleaning-up-the-low-end-and-low-mid-sections-in-a-mix-with-single-track-eq-master-track-eq-eqed-aux-effect-sends-and-other-methods/