Welcome back to another blog about audio production tips, how to make a psytrance blog by E-Clip. This topic will fit in the mixing tips section, and for this week I have prepared a topic about creating depth in a mix. This is an interesting topic that can help you on your path of making the psytrance music more effectively, and by applying some of the techniques from the video, you will be able to create much more interesting mixes.
While making psytrance music, we can go a bit deeper about stereo placements and adding a bit more dimensions and make our music have certain psychological effects.
So what is the mix depth?
We are familiar with the stereo placement already, where we can manipulate with the audio to create a stereo placement, we can put the audio to be heard on the left or right channel, or we can make them more stereo or less stereo, which is a difference between left & right method, or mid / side method.
Mixing depth is a technique or a method of applying certain processes in order to place the audio forward or backwards.
The first and easiest way of making the depth is by the volume, the sounds that are less in volume will be heard as a backwards sound or the audio stems that will be farther from the listener. If we go more technical as an approximate guide: to double the distance of a sound, decrease its volume by 6dB. With this method is a bit complicated to create effective mix depth as it will depend on which frequency range our audio will be played, as well as how stereo it is, as the sound is farther, we hear it more in mono, or more in the left or right, depending on in which directions sound source is coming from. A change in volume at a low frequency can cause a very different auditory perception than an equivalent volume change would at a higher frequency.
The second way is by EQing.
High frequencies are attenuated more strongly by air than are low frequencies. This is due to the dissipation and the lower frequencies are travelling much further than the higher ones. From this, we can make a conclusion that if we want to push our audio stem or a sample or melody more backwards, we can reduce the highs and mids, and maybe even boost the lows in order to make them sound more backwards. If we do so, we should reduce the widening for that audio signal or in other words make it more mono as if the sound source is farther from us, we won't be able to hear it that wide, while we can put it more on the left or right channel and that way change the direction of the audio source.
The third way is with a Reverb by using the reflection delay time.
"The audio reflections that reach our ear about 10-50 ms after the original sound contain most of the information about a room, such as its geometry, size and surface. With an increase in distance from the original sound source inside a given space, the ratio between direct sound and early reflections decreases proportionally. All the later reflections, the reverberation, subtly soften the sound and thereby create a pleasant listening experience."