#21

there is invaluable info in this thread so far!

i initially held back sharing but here are a few of the things I try to do… I’m not sure if they truly fit this discussion but are loosely related to sound placement:

Parallaxing - mimicking a visual perception quirk that everyone is familiar with (while in motion, distant objects appear to move more slowly). I like exploiting this idea with sections of drums. There is likely a scientific/technical term for motion parallax in the audio realm. This is just how I wrap my head around it.

Fidelity - same type of tricks that composers & arrangers play with timbre…honestly, it is still a simple matter of isolating timbres that you want to distance from others, either to submerge or spotlight the passage. Instead of framing the elements by frequency range or register, try using your fav tools to compress or wash certain parts out while leaving the others untouched.

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#22

I got a lot of alerts about old threads today for some reason, but I’m glad this one popped up again, there are some great ideas here.

@madeofoak mentioned the logic EQ spatializer which if I remember correctly works by gently splitting the signal into frequency bands and panning the alternating bands left and right. I think you could even automate the panning to make the bands kind of spin? My old roommate used this plugin / logic feature a lot and it could go into some cool places and with automation add a lot of character to an otherwise static sound.

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#23

For the record, the Ken Stone version of the Fixed Filter Bank has this, sort of – there’s an output jack for all the even bands, and another for all the odd, so if you send even bands L and odd bands R you have a similar effect.

#24

Exploiting the haas effect is my go-to for spatial mixing. Basically slightly making one side in the stereo spectrum behind the other.

The most common way I do this is with ableton’s echo, or with the er-301 spread delay device. In echo, changing the fine-tune time percentage ever so slightly is what I do (.5% as shown below):

Screen Shot 2020-01-21 at 11.39.06 PM

The Soundtoys microshift is a purpose-built tool for doing haas effect stuff. I’ve never tried it but it looks cool!

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#25

So many interesting psycho-acoustic principles to be applied to achieve spatialization!

Closer sounds arrive earlier so if your ears detect something earlier to your right ear your brain will perceive that sound as coming from the right… The sound can be the same level in both ears, but a few milliseconds earlier in one or the other and it will be heard as coming from that direction. That’s the Haas or precedence effect.

The same kind of thing seems to happen with brightness, I think. Closer sounds are brighter, so a similar kind of panning feeling can be emphasized by EQ.

Filtering EQ and level are the main things that determine distance. Farther sounds are quieter and have less highs, especially. Air and interference from reflected sounds create complex filtering effects, too.

I think distant sounds are more varied in level, not less, so I use slight expansion, rather than compression, combined with level and EQ to achieve a distance effect.

Obviously some diffusion, whether with reverb or delays will make sounds seem farther away.

Real-world diffusion emanates primarily from the direction of the sound source, with delayed reflections from various surfaces in wider surroundings.

Keeping the overall mix sparse helps make the spatialization much clearer. Spatialization requires space.

I love playing with panning, delays, LRMSMSLR, and Fumana (dual alternating 8 band comb filters) in modular, and with many plug-ins in Pro Tools to achieve compelling stereo and surround sound spatializations.

Hoping to play more with ambisonics someday, until then stereo and film surround sound formats will have to do.

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