How can I get a full or wide sounding mix?

1. Answered: 175 day 12 h (0) | Permalink

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   Justin Vencel

   There are a lot of things that go into getting a nice spacious mix: how you record instruments, how you EQ them, how you place them in the mix, etc...

   To start with, try playing around with two things, subtractive EQ and panning.

   Panning is much easier to understand.  Just take any of your tracks, grab the pan button, and start moving your tracks from left to right.  How far left and right comes down to personal choice and how natural you want it to sound, so feel free to experiment.  But panning your different sound sources to different spots in the mix will help to trick the ears into thinking there is more space in a track and will help listeners distinguish between different instruments in a mix.

   Subtractive EQ is simply cutting frequencies instead of boosting them.  Get familiar with using a parametric EQ you will need to know how this works. Here is a great question about parametric EQs and how to use them.  When you find two different instruments are starting to clash and blend together in your mix, try cutting unneeded frequencies from each of them.  Solo each track and then use your parametric EQ to sweep through it and find the frequencies that don't sound flattering and then try cutting a little bit at that frequency.  Then unsolo the tracks and listen.  Repeat this process to slowly separate the tracks from each other.

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