š”Reminder: check/fix your mix mono power
It won't hurt to refresh some basics, right?
(BTW, if mixing interests you, check out the MIXING collection of mine š that has nearly 80 posts in it now).
I was sampling some nice sounds off a TV series and I started using them in a song.
Some background pads etc were rrrreally wide, and by now, I can almost tell by hearing a wide stereo sound if its mono will be good or not (I've used to hearing this "hollow" mid signal by now), so I checked them out with a phase correlation meter.
A quick check with a phase correlation meter such as the free Voxengo SPAN (or their also free MSED) showed me what I expected: the phase correlation meter of the sound I was using leans heavily to the left. This always means the mono will be bad / weak. So in mono check, the sound kind of loses a ton of level, as its wide side signal is gone, and all that's left is the weak mono.
I know I've been talking about this on my Patreon several times, but I still hear this sometimes in some songs of my Patreon members that I do feedback on, so let's repeatā¦
If the phase correlation of a sound looks like this (1) and leans to the left, try flipping its polarity on either left or right channel (2) and chances are it'll have a healthier phase correlation (3) and hence mono.
This is often caused by HAAS type widening and the likes, which reverse the polarity of one channel and/or nudge left and right apart, making it wide, but this hurts mono (because phase suffers as left and right drift apart).
Simply: keep listening to your master in mono and pay attention to how the levels of sounds behave in mono.
āļøA lot of times you just need to raise the mid gain of a sound with poor mono power with MSED, but *IF* the phase meter is leaning real heavy to the left, it usually means a polarity flip is needed. When flipping the polarity, pay attention to the sound, as it may change its tone (in many cases, it actually changes for the better, if a polarity flip was done earlier).
As an audio guy, I wish we got rid of the poor mono (while I can usually fix it in mixing, no engineer in the world can fix this in simple stereo mastering), and if awareness was better, all mono would be strong.
Happy mixing ā keep that mono strong! And remember, strong mono and very wide stereo are not by any means mutually exclusive!
Comments (5)
YOU KNOW FANU MASTERING I STILL NEED WORK ON OBVIOUSLY BUT I GOT THE JUST OF IT I LIKE THE CREATIVE PROCESS LIKE US ALL BUT ALSO LOVE TO KNOW THE TRICKS, LEVELS. RIGHT NOW WHAT I FIND IS ON SMALL SPEAKERS MY SUBS OR PUNCH SEEMS TO BE MISSING THROUGH MY PHONE BUT WITH THE BASS SHOTS AND FILLS BE IT AUDIO SAMPLES OR SERUM/VITAL PRESTS SEEM TO COME THROUGH BUT NOT THE 808S SUB. IM ALWAYS TELLING CHAT GBT/PERPLEXITY IN AS FEW WORDS. WOULD BE COOL TO GET A IN AS FEW WORDS CHEAT SHEAT BUT IM SURE THIS DOES NOT EXIST.
These following videos should probably help. All these are in my Bass collection. And let's please not use all caps typing here. Punch comes down to pitch envelope. Video here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/65530001 Tone can be improved by creating harmonics: ā¢ https://www.patreon.com/posts/90124111 ā¢ https://www.patreon.com/posts/131811711 (from 18 minute mark) ā¢ https://www.patreon.com/posts/87976995 ā¢ Vital: https://www.patreon.com/posts/105484235 ā¢ https://www.patreon.com/posts/72766140
thank you
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