Interesting mixing technique, ever tried this?

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Winston O'Boogie said:
Hey, thanks for posting the link Weiss, I wasn't aware of Greg's 'after hours' vids. and I like what I've watched so far.

As a dude, I can already vouch for Greg -  he did a bang up job with a plug-in of a hardware unit I put together for Hugo Nicolson and I still receive a small stipend royalty from Kush  c/o  Hugo. 

I think the LCR video made a lot of sense personally and it's something I stumbled on myself (alternately muting each side)  when I was more involved in that stuff.

As for the mono mixing video, I also get what he's saying there.  It  isn't about setting level balances which, more often than not, I found needed a bit of a rebalance after  spreading into a stereo image.  But what I got is that he was  looking at conflicting or overlapped frequency ranges of parts and carving out with eq etc to seperate them.  I can see how this would be useful.  It would also be useful when coming up with parts as it could more easily show where it might be beneficial to use a different inversion or voicing etc.   

Within reason, I don't  see any point in worrying about absolute mono compatibility these days.  Sure, a lot of stuff might get played on an  iPhone without headphones by some but, are we really wanting to conform downwards to the lowest common denominator?

"House of Kush" is one of my latest discoveries and purchases...his plugins are really stellar and he just released a new compressor called "Silka" which is definitely a nice tool especially in vox.

I haven't watched to many of his videos but its on my to-do list.

As far as mixing "mono-vs-stereo" I cannot seem to dislodge the master George Martin as someone who mixed primarily in mono and made some rather decent records doing it.
 
iomegaman said:
"House of Kush" is one of my latest discoveries and purchases...his plugins are really stellar and he just released a new compressor called "Silka" which is definitely a nice tool especially in vox.

Thanks for the tip, I haven't tried that one yet. 
The AR-1 is the plug-in I know  (modeled on a hardware unit I'd had a hand in) and I'm impressed with what he did on that one for sure.

iomegaman said:
As far as mixing "mono-vs-stereo" I cannot seem to dislodge the master George Martin as someone who mixed primarily in mono and made some rather decent records doing it.

Haha, it's hard to argue against or come up with a better example than that  :)
 
iomegaman said:
As far as mixing "mono-vs-stereo" I cannot seem to dislodge the master George Martin as someone who mixed primarily in mono and made some rather decent records doing it.

Yes he did and it made sense,
50 years ago...
 
Whoops said:
Yes he did and it made sense,
50 years ago...

Of course you are correct. 
But I personally thought the take away from Iomegaman's observation was that the techniques from 50 years ago can still teach us something, not that we should still be recording and mixing in mono.

Personally, in my time as a musician making records in the past, I recall several times where listening in mono on one speaker allowed us to hear when an arrangement or simple chord inversion could be changed for the better to allow greater depth, clarity , or space.

However, it's very possible I'm just a product of my time and none of this is relevant. :D
At the end of the day I respect any and all ways that great records are made 

Peace.  :) 





 
I also respect your opinion, but personally there's nothing that I listen in mono that I will not listen better in stereo.

Also there's nothing that I can use from changing my playback to mono that can help my stereo mixes.
Also there's nothing that I can listen in mono that I can't listen in stereo and apply that to the stereo mix.

This is my personal experience in mixing professionally for the last 15 years. It works for me this way.
Other people might have something different that works for them and thats totally fine

As far as 60s records that were mixed initially in Mono, or at least the mono mixes were the approved ones by the band/engineer/producer, like the Beatles records, I also prefer to listen the original mono mixes. Although sometimes the exaggerated stereo separation, sometimes even ridiculous, can be also quite cool and give some fresh ideas because they were and are unconventional.
 
Winston O'Boogie said:
Yep I get it.  Whatever works at the end of the day.

Well in music I think so. There's no consensus in musicians approaches, or engineers or producers. And in the end with all those different approaches great records were made and are still being made.
So what doesn't work for someone might work very well for another person or vice-versa.
 
Ive got good results using a single condenser (large capsule)overhead on drums , suplemented by a spaced pair of omnis to get some stereo spread in the mix.
The single OH and spaced pair I find does a much more coherent job on cymbals especially , 
A co-incident pair of crossed figure 8's as OH on drums I also like ,
the usual spaced cardioid's overhead can often give an uneven unfocused(comb filtered) sound I find .

Do they teach people about the 5:1 distance rule with microphones anymore ?


 
Tubetec said:
Do they teach people about the 5:1 distance rule with microphones anymore ?

I don't think so.

But they teach the 3:1 rule:

https://www.dpamicrophones.com/mic-dictionary/3-1-rule

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/3-1-rule-of-microphone-placement/

https://rogermontejano.com/en/articles/item/3-to-1-rule-extended-version

index.php


 

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Hello

Tubetec said:
A co-incident pair of crossed figure 8's as OH on drums I also like ,

Blumlein is "mono compatible"
I like it too over drum, if room sound good and if I have the proper mic for... SF24
I occasionally work in a studio which have two of them, this is my go to without question for OH
Mic placement done in seconds... so easy to set up.

Best
Zam

 
There’s a lot to be said for stereo width and space but I find too much of it loses its affect

If you have a good balance of mono signals sitting in a stereo spectrum, any stereo effect will have a greater impact on the listener

In terms of depth though, I can’t get past how good Dummy by Portishead sounds, even to this day, and the whole thing is in mono but every time I listen I feel like I’m in a stereo sound world
 
Interesting. I like the usual tricks like muting all basses to see if there´s some low end leakage somewhere. I only pan LCR and if i want to place something inbetween i pan the fx 180. Listen from another room. On mono crap computer speaker, nothing like setting balances and bass level on a small speaker. Listen on iphone to get some kind of apparent bass. Check that lows are centered. Big fan of low cuts, mutes, rides, mixing really quick when the material is still fresh. Never send the master out on mix day;)
 
I mix a lot on a Wohler 1RU broadcast monitor with 1” speakers, it’s stereo but when it’s 3 feet away to one side it’s effectively mono. All the best decisions are made on that, the fine details on larger monitors.

First time I saw one of these I thought "This can't be any good" ...but after installing it and hooking up a portable player to check it out I was pleasantly surprised !
They really sound a lot bigger than what you would expect from a box like that.

Quality stuff !
 
I have been doing this for more than 25 years:
I put all sound sources in position in the stereo image.
Then I switch to mono and make a balance.
If the balance is good in mono, I switch to stereo and most of the time the balance is good in stereo too.
 
I have been doing this for more than 25 years:
I put all sound sources in position in the stereo image.
Then I switch to mono and make a balance.
If the balance is good in mono, I switch to stereo and most of the time the balance is good in stereo too.

Well, if you did your balance in Stereo and you liked it then 100% of the time the balanced in Stereo was good.

:)

Changing it to mono and then to stereo is just a waste of time and it doesn't make any sense to me.
There's nothing to gain from that
 
Also there's nothing that I can use from changing my playback to mono that can help my stereo mixes.
I have a very specific example of the benefits of listening in mono.
1974. I made a record as an artist. I had brought a Spectrum Shifter, which was distributed by the company I was working for.
The SE decided to try it on one of the tracks. It resulted in a lush rotating soundscape we all loved.
I pressed the Mono button and all of a sudden, the effect completely disappeared. I later checked the schemo, and, of course, the processed signal was mixed out-of-phase (polarity) in both outputs.
Many units did (do?) that.
We decided to leave it as it was, knowing that it would disappear on radio.
 

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