Hey guys, i've been doing some mixing (i'm new to mixing (well)) and have
been using some of the stereo delay techniques to fatten up sounds and give
them a bigger perceived area that they occupy in the mix. I read about it
recently in the some mixing book.

Anyway, currently i'm helping produce a demo for a local punk band (some
friends of mine) and i'm trying to get that really thick distorted guitar
sounds that just seems to surround you and swallow you (listen to Rancid's
album Life Won't Wait, or any of their stuff for that matter). I seemed to
get it pretty good with some EQing and applying the Stereo Sample Delay on
Logic. I was applying about 10ms of delay to the right channel and not to
the left
channel. This made the guitar sound like it was coming from the left side,
without making it sound wimpy.

The problem happened when i brought it to my coffee shop's sound system to
try it out there. 4 speakers all around... it then became painfully obvious
that the receiver converted the stereo audio signal to mono. GoOdByE Guitar
and B3 because of phase cancellation. What stuck out were items like the
Bass, Bass drum, snare, and other instruments that were mixed as mono.

So i've been sweeping around the spectrum with my playback in mono so that i
can figure out problem delay times, but i can't seem to find one that sounds
decent. They all seem to sound hollow.

Is there some secret to figuring out workable stereo delay times to fatten
up mono tracks without compromising the playback on the many mono sound
systems out there?

Should i make another mono track copy and manually slide the two next to
eachother visually look for phase problems? This solution seems a little
labour intensive.

Thanks for the help. As a young amateur engineer this newsgroup has always
helped me tons with what i hope to be a career some day.

Mike Rocha.

Roach wrote:

Anyway, currently i'm helping produce a demo for a local punk band (some
friends of mine) and i'm trying to get that really thick distorted guitar
sounds that just seems to surround you and swallow you (listen to Rancid's
album Life Won't Wait, or any of their stuff for that matter). I seemed to
get it pretty good with some EQing and applying the Stereo Sample Delay on
Logic. I was applying about 10ms of delay to the right channel and not to
the left
channel. This made the guitar sound like it was coming from the left side,
without making it sound wimpy.

Yup. This is what systems like Q-sound basically do. They use time delay
between channels to give you imaging.

The problem happened when i brought it to my coffee shop's sound system to
try it out there. 4 speakers all around... it then became painfully obvious
that the receiver converted the stereo audio signal to mono. GoOdByE Guitar
and B3 because of phase cancellation. What stuck out were items like the
Bass, Bass drum, snare, and other instruments that were mixed as mono.

Yup.

So i've been sweeping around the spectrum with my playback in mono so that i
can figure out problem delay times, but i can't seem to find one that sounds
decent. They all seem to sound hollow.

Yup, because you are getting comb filtering when you combine them.

Is there some secret to figuring out workable stereo delay times to fatten
up mono tracks without compromising the playback on the many mono sound
systems out there?

Not really, although you can try EQing the delayed and undelayed stuff
differently. In general, getting phase differences between channels due to
delay is pure death to mono compatibility.

Should i make another mono track copy and manually slide the two next to
eachother visually look for phase problems? This solution seems a little
labour intensive.

The whole point of the delay is to introduce phase problems. That's why
it works.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

You probably need to monitor this mix in mono (not just left or right, both
channels panned center) on one speaker and adjust the delay until it works.
If the stereo mix works in mono, it will work in stereo that much better.

You should add this to your standard battery of listening tests. It will
save you from disaster. Phase issues will make stuff disappear in mono.


"Roach" wrote in message
ble.rogers.com...
Hey guys, i've been doing some mixing (i'm new to mixing (well)) and have
been using some of the stereo delay techniques to fatten up sounds and
give
them a bigger perceived area that they occupy in the mix. I read about it
recently in the some mixing book.

Anyway, currently i'm helping produce a demo for a local punk band (some
friends of mine) and i'm trying to get that really thick distorted guitar
sounds that just seems to surround you and swallow you (listen to Rancid's
album Life Won't Wait, or any of their stuff for that matter). I seemed to
get it pretty good with some EQing and applying the Stereo Sample Delay on
Logic. I was applying about 10ms of delay to the right channel and not to
the left
channel. This made the guitar sound like it was coming from the left side,
without making it sound wimpy.

The problem happened when i brought it to my coffee shop's sound system to
try it out there. 4 speakers all around... it then became painfully
obvious
that the receiver converted the stereo audio signal to mono. GoOdByE
Guitar
and B3 because of phase cancellation. What stuck out were items like the
Bass, Bass drum, snare, and other instruments that were mixed as mono.

So i've been sweeping around the spectrum with my playback in mono so that
i
can figure out problem delay times, but i can't seem to find one that
sounds
decent. They all seem to sound hollow.

Is there some secret to figuring out workable stereo delay times to fatten
up mono tracks without compromising the playback on the many mono sound
systems out there?

Should i make another mono track copy and manually slide the two next to
eachother visually look for phase problems? This solution seems a little
labour intensive.

Thanks for the help. As a young amateur engineer this newsgroup has always
helped me tons with what i hope to be a career some day.

Mike Rocha.

The problem happened when i brought it to my coffee shop's sound system to
try it out there. 4 speakers all around... it then became painfully obvious
that the receiver converted the stereo audio signal to mono. GoOdByE Guitar
and B3 because of phase cancellation.

And this is precisely why some of us here say that mono compatibility is
important, although you'll get a lot of argument from some who think it doesn't
matter. It matters.

So i've been sweeping around the spectrum with my playback in mono so that i
can figure out problem delay times, but i can't seem to find one that sounds
decent. They all seem to sound hollow.

Any delay time you use up until it becomes a discrete ehco will cause comb
filtering. The real way to fatten up a guitar track is to have the guitarist
play it twice.

Is there some secret to figuring out workable stereo delay times to fatten
up mono tracks without compromising the playback on the many mono sound
systems out there?

Use longer delay times & put them way down in the mix. Anything less than about
50 ms will cause an audible cancellation at some frequency. Electronic doubling
is generally done with very slight pitch shifts (several cents or less) & often
with a small amount of LFO modulation so as to move the combing around slightly
& not impart the same harmonic flavor to the entire track.

Should i make another mono track copy and manually slide the two next to
eachother visually look for phase problems? This solution seems a little
labour intensive.

Looking at waveforms won't tell you what it's going to sound like in mono. You
can't use short delays alone to get mono compatible doubling. Just have the guy
play the part again. It's true doubling & totally mono compatible.



Scott Fraser

"Roach" wrote in message
ble.rogers.com...
Hey guys, i've been doing some mixing (i'm new to mixing (well)) and have
been using some of the stereo delay techniques to fatten up sounds and
give
them a bigger perceived area that they occupy in the mix. I read about it
recently in the some mixing book.

Anyway, currently i'm helping produce a demo for a local punk band (some
friends of mine) and i'm trying to get that really thick distorted guitar
sounds that just seems to surround you and swallow you (listen to Rancid's
album Life Won't Wait, or any of their stuff for that matter). I seemed to
get it pretty good with some EQing and applying the Stereo Sample Delay on
Logic.


OK... so what you're sorta kinda trying to do is to do like an ADT
[automatic double track] in an attempt to make the guitars a bit "larger"
sounding. The ADT thing, especially in like a punque genre, usually isn't a
great idea [it can work... but not as often as we would probably like].
What I think I might suggest in this kind of situation is the application of
a short, bandwidth limited [like nothing over 4-5 kHz on the top, nothing
under like 300 Hz on the bottom] "room" reverb. This will give you a
'fatness' with a 'random phase event' which should give you far fewer
struggles in mono whilst achieving a basically similar extension of size.

Best of luck with it.
--
Fletcher
Mercenary Audio
TEL: 508-543-0069
FAX: 508-543-9670
http://www.mercenary.com
"this is not a problem"

Electronic doubling
is generally done with very slight pitch shifts (several cents or =
less) & often
with a small amount of LFO modulation so as to move the combing around =
slightly
& not impart the same harmonic flavor to the entire track.

Isn't that what a "chorus" stomp box is for?

....Ralf

One trick would be to edit a second guitar track next to the first.
If you have two takes of the song, you could edit in one of the other
takes at the beginning of every verse and chorus. As long as you make
each edit short enough (and assuming the tempo was reasonably
similar), the guitar part of each part of the song should not drift
too much.

If you only have one guitar take, you could copy the part from verse 2
next to the part for verse 1. Of course, I'm assuming that the every
guitar part is played at least twice in the song....that's the way it
usually is in punk anyway.

This is basically the derivative of an old trick for getting doubled
vocals by playing two takes at once.

I usually put a couple mics on the guitar when recording loud
overdriven amps. I use one mic from one take and then another mic
from another take. That gives you different sound quality and
different timing which should make your mono sum totally fine.

Cheers,
Trevor de Clercq

"Roach" wrote in message able.rogers.com...
Hey guys, i've been doing some mixing (i'm new to mixing (well)) and have
been using some of the stereo delay techniques to fatten up sounds and give
them a bigger perceived area that they occupy in the mix. I read about it
recently in the some mixing book.

Anyway, currently i'm helping produce a demo for a local punk band (some
friends of mine) and i'm trying to get that really thick distorted guitar
sounds that just seems to surround you and swallow you (listen to Rancid's
album Life Won't Wait, or any of their stuff for that matter). I seemed to
get it pretty good with some EQing and applying the Stereo Sample Delay on
Logic. I was applying about 10ms of delay to the right channel and not to
the left
channel. This made the guitar sound like it was coming from the left side,
without making it sound wimpy.

The problem happened when i brought it to my coffee shop's sound system to
try it out there. 4 speakers all around... it then became painfully obvious
that the receiver converted the stereo audio signal to mono. GoOdByE Guitar
and B3 because of phase cancellation. What stuck out were items like the
Bass, Bass drum, snare, and other instruments that were mixed as mono.

So i've been sweeping around the spectrum with my playback in mono so that i
can figure out problem delay times, but i can't seem to find one that sounds
decent. They all seem to sound hollow.

Is there some secret to figuring out workable stereo delay times to fatten
up mono tracks without compromising the playback on the many mono sound
systems out there?

Should i make another mono track copy and manually slide the two next to
eachother visually look for phase problems? This solution seems a little
labour intensive.

Thanks for the help. As a young amateur engineer this newsgroup has always
helped me tons with what i hope to be a career some day.

Mike Rocha.

Isn't that what a "chorus" stomp box is for?

Or a pitch shifter, which arguably does a better job of it.

Scott Fraser

Thanks for all the replies guys. Helped LOADS!

mike