Have you thought about getting a bigger, wider automobile? Perhaps even a used school bus could be the solution.

 

Jesus christ man.. Lol you made me feel like an asshole. I just wasn't thinking about the poor 3rd world countries.. Shit.. I'm a white priveledged American after all.

 

I think your on to something there. Maybe my local church will let me listen to this on their system..

 

If you're aiming at loud mixes, and I'm assuming you are, there are several reasons.
Sub frequencies naturally occupy most of the spectrum in absolute numbers, due to the way our ears work. You may want to goole "equal loudness curve" if you want more detail on how that works.
When your sub frequencies are too wide, you'll essentiallyy run into the same "needle jump phenomena" with any kind of nonlinear processing, e.g. saturation/clipping, compression and/or limiting/maximizing because of that. You can offset that somewhat by utilizing multiband processing, but you will have to apply some broadband processing anyways, and besides that there are other reasons.
Now, I haven't been able to verify that myself, but several people told me that club systems are actually mono. Bass needs to be felt exactly the same way in every part of the dance area, so club subwoofers are all fed the same signal and are all phase-aligned, ideally. Savvier engineers only take one channel (left or right) for the subs, but I was told lots of clubs just use mono sum aka mid channel for them. So if your subs are in counterphase, clubsters simply won't hear anything. Which is hilarious, but probably goes against your goals.
And even if this is a load of bollocks, there's still our little brain trick to judge directon to the sound source.
See, our brain actually checks the phase difference (more accurately delay, but that's the same thing if you dig deep enough) from left and right ear in order to judge which ear got hit by a sound wave first. This is known as "Haas effect". Now, the length of sub waves naturally is fairly big, around two meters. So natural phase difference between our ears will be fairly small, about 1/10 Pi. And when your subs are wide, your brain can't decode the unnatural phase difference it recieves and just hears weird mud (unless it's an acquired taste already). Don't try to test it with *just one* subwoofer BTW, use headphones instead.
So there are absolutely reasons to keep sub freqs mono, no matter how you look at it. Also I haven't seen phones with built-in stereo speakers yet.

Also to reiterate: Most of the issues I percieved in your track are due to sparse arrangement and flat mixing, not mastering. I see the solution in adding wide background sounds and mixing it with spacial depth and stereo field in mind, as I outlined.
I dig the track itself. Like that kind of music. Any chance you listen to Current Value?

 

Last edited: Apr 25, 2022

I just tried this on the guitar bus and it seems to work, but I used it pre-mix. They said it works on synths and organs too, but I haven't tried that.

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/bx_shredspread.html

 

This goes for any sub-woofer system, just think of 2.1 for instance. These crossover freqs can easily go up to 120Hz for smaller systems.

 

1.) Depth enhancement

You should attenuate the treble of the instruments placed further back, for the instruments placed in front you may slightly raise the treble or apply an exciter that boosts the harmonics. This amplification alone creates a large part of the "in-your-face sound" of some productions, where some signals seem to literally jump into your face. But this only works if you really dampen the highs of the other signals.

As with direct sound, the further away the sound source is, the lower the treble content of the reverb. Also, the stereo width of the reverb is smaller at greater distance. From this we derive the next basic rule: sound sources located far back receive a dull reverb whose stereo panorama can even be limited in the console's aux return., Instruments located in the foreground, but in any case vocals, receive a very brilliant reverb with a wide stereo panorama.

For deep stabling, therefore, use at least two, preferably three reverberators with different treble components and stereo panorama, whose effect components you set according to the rules presented.

2.) WTF is "True" Stereo?
https://neunaber.net/blogs/neunaber-audio-blog/wtf-is-true-stereo

 

It's important to understand what numbers this person speaks of. If we take 100% for baseline width then close reverb can be 150% wide, while distant is like 60%-80%. So still far from mono. Also in the environments like mountains or indeed city streets reverb can border a really wide chaotic ping-pong delay in many cases, due to many reflective surfaces at different distances and directions.

 

Brainworx BX XL

 

iZotope image
DrMs spatial processor
SSL fusion stereo image
also I do like the way AA Lift side amount knob works!

 

So much effort in your response. I appreciate it!
And... Of course I listen to current value, lol. LOVE his distinct droning melodic style. I got brought into dark DnB as a DJ in the 90s, spinning Metalheadz and moving shadow, renegade hardware, konflikt, Dom, tech itch, Goldie, teebee, etc etc... Been hooked ever since..

Noisia, mefjus, current value, spor, old Bad Company all of it... It's just such a technical music. It gets me. Haha.

Today I'm going to work on that low end, try to separate it and tame the sides, and give it some punchiness without changing the vibe of the track.. I used the subtle reverb trick years ago, I'll revisit that too, and widening my hats and the riveted bosphorous ride (that sustained white noise ride that's in the background) and a few other subtle changes that I have garnered from all the feedback here.

The hard part will be reducing the side content in the low frequencies. My low end in this track is different, as in...there is no bass synth, no bassline. The bassline consists of the low end of al lthe Kicks, in conjunction with the mid/low end of the arpegiated synth.. Where this breaks down is, when I try to reduce the stereo image of the low frequencies, it really effects the "fullness" sound of the bass, and it literally falls apart, due to the frequency modulation I have on the kick channel, and the huge inherrant wideness of the arped synth.. But I think it can be done, I just have to find a way to add the "perceived punchiness" of the bass, and turn it into actual solid punchiness after drastically reducing the side content, or at least converting the side content into Mid content.. I have some ideas. Thank you!

Thank you!

 

Last edited: Apr 25, 2022

Shit. Very good point. 2.1 is summed mono. Forgot about that.

 

Thank you everyone. Ive been making music for the better part of 20 years now, and I guess ive gotten lazy. lol. Alot of you have reminded me of techniques I once used when I was an ambitious artist, but have since forgotten. Alot of you have also taught me something new and gave me a nice fresh perspective.

My takeaway:
1. Stop being lazy. Fix as you go so you dont end up in my position, where you have a good vibe but BAD audio anomalies, and fixing them post-mix is ruining the vibe (uhg..)
2. As much as I dont like to (going back to rule 1), I need to spend as long as it takes going back through the mix and applying these techniques to tracks and busses, rather than hoping for a magic plugin or new trick to make it happen post mix.
3. Depth vs. Width. Pulling and Pushing elements front to back in conjunction with left to right. I seem to remember I used to use Tokyo Dawns plugin called Promixity years ago to help with this, in conjunction with subtle filtering and reverb.
4. Checking mono mix is STILL RELEVANT.
5. I may need to invest in and refurbish a school bus to get wider sound in my vehicle.

I truly appreciate all of your feedback, and the time you took to actually listen and give me lengthy, well thought out and practical feedback. That shit is hard to come by these days.

 

Finish the track and we'll be even

 

One other thing these days that has changed a bit. A lot of people record in stereo tracks now, not mono. This means with acoustic instruments, that there could be more in the right than left and vice-versa because of mic placement and more... not to mention some instruments not just drums use room mics so you have multiple tracks and stereo widening has to be extremely well thought out before it is considered. "Oh it's on the stereo master bus" doesn't cut it. sometimes the widening only needs to occur on one or two instruments. Widening can also be used as an illusion placement for an instrument too.
It depends on what instruments you are using. If all digital direct in or samples/sampled instruments, it is much less of a problem.

 

The mono thing in the sub is mostly to be sure that your track keep its energy when played in mono. A lot of club are still using mono at least for their sub, sometime because the room is not just a square and the sound can't be place on a straight line (like a festival), sometime just because it's cheaper. Also, a mono sub will be more consistant and punchy, sure you can have some stereo info there, it doesn't need to be completly mono, but it's better to keep the side space for more brighter sound as they are the one that use that space the better, especially in dance music.


Also, for you synth that also provide the sub, the best is to duplicate it and turn the new one into a sub (and desactivate the sub on your synth, or put the OSC that does the bass one octave up). That way your synth take care of it's sound and can be stereo, and the sub is separate and can be mono without messing your synth. You also got more freedom to mix them the way you want without any big EQ change, and can have different sidechain for both sound.
On your track, for exemple, it can be a long sustain note sidechain by the kick, and let the synth and kick doing the movement. Kicks don't need that much sub in dnb, because sub need longer note to vibrate and be feel, that's why in those genre the sub is usually less "frenetic" (can't think about another term) than other synth sounds

 

[kkk

 

Last edited: Aug 12, 2022

Pulling the bottom of the kick up off the top of the sub is why many guys use Kick2 or some other drum synth almost exclusively.

 

I mostly use stereo tools to remove, some width on stereo channels or frequencies.
Then later on enhance the stereo leftovers by exceeding 100% width on the master bus.

 

Last edited: Apr 26, 2022

I think like many, that there is no "magic plugin". I sometimes use some to get an idea. Like IL Stereo, to open up the guitars to the sides, or Relay, to widen the stereo image. There are some "Better" than others. It depends on what you are looking for. But I never do it on the bus, always on the solo tracks. After I have the idea, I try to do it in a more creative way. For example: If I want a guitar to sound To the right and a little to the left but I want to keep the signal cleaner on the right, then I send the left signal to an FX bus and I leave the right signal clean and so I have an image more creative stereo.