Dear Anyone.

Hokay, so I'm a New Age composer (AAARRRGGHH!!) Basically, at the moment, piano'n'backing (strings/synths) like HERE....

That's Karunesh. But TONS of other composers can do this - not me - I'm hoping I can upload my effort as a file here, if not I'll put a link to it in a reply to my own thread! Hokay so he's prob. got zillion buck sounds going for him - but there's a TECHNIQUE he's using somewhere to make the whole thing sound HEWGE. Not loud, just BIG. Like me standing next to a building, the building's not LOUDER, it's just BIGGER! I also know it's been mastered - hallo Bandcamp, better than Landr! - but I've chucked mine through both systems and that doesn't do it - quite. Both systems are TRYING to do that trick, bless 'em. So it's something I'm not getting right in the mix, or they could do it. If someone could detail what it is they're trying to do, what I should be doing to let them do it and/or how the magic HEWGEness trick works, I might be able to just do it m'self.

Here's mine....

https://www.mediafire.com/file/uxnlhd2673miqft/Mafu_Karunesh_One.mp3/file

Made it a bit like Karunesh's so I could try to spot the mixing trick, not doing anything with it.

But what IS it!?!

Yours puzzledly

Chris.

 

I think these kinds of producers set out wanting to make it sound huge and spacious and that attitude steers them from the start. Few instruments, well staged, much louder lead instrument, one dry instrument (the piano here) keeps the whole thing 'grounded' and solid. Sparse, simple motifs allow a lot of 'air' for the reverbs to breathe. And lots of talent, obviously. It isn't a mixing trick, you couldn't apply this sound to most tracks unless they were created for this result.

 

Your file has been blocked.

 

Reverb (shimmer). Try Eventide Blackhole or ValhallaShimmer (on pads, piano and flute - like in the video).

 

Last edited: Oct 1, 2022

A couple of notes...

As @Baxter notes, there's a lot of reverb on the piano, any longish one that stays in tune should work, my go to would be Audio Damage's Eos 2, but experiment. Just remember to cut the lows on the reverb.

There's a few layers on the background "choir"/pad sound, especially there's a monophonic low analogish pad adding fair bit of heft to the mix.

Your choir/pad is really middly, you might want to scoop and tame the mids quite a bit, and perhaps widen it some to stereo, leaving space for the piano.

Consider a bass management plugin on your piano to add weight to the lowest notes, but perhaps don't overdo it. bx_subsynth would be my go to.

 

I could hear these differences:
- yours sound like a piano, his like a grand piano
- he's holding the piano notes longer
- his pad sound way better and is wider
- with the melody he also introduced a bass
- he used way more reverb

 

"shimmer" reverb is exactly what I was picking out at first. One more common spatial trick to add width without changing the file is Sample Delay/Haas Effect. Sample delay one side only a few samples and its like magic.