Subject: Depth

Plugin/s: Transient Shaper of Any kind (i.e. SPL Transient Designer), Room/Hall Reverb (i.e. Valhalla), Any compressor with external side-chain feature, any EQ (i.e. Fabfilter Pro Q-3).

Procedure:
Two Parts: the instrument; and the AUX channel.

Instrument Channel:

1. Lower the attack by 40-100%.
2. Lower the sustain (to taste).
3. A high-shelf cut on the smack of the instrument (2 khz- 10 khz) for -3 to -5 db (adjust to taste)

AUX Channel:

follow this order: Compressor, Reverb, EQ, (OPTIONAL) Compressor (side-chained to the incoming signal pre-fader) ​

1. Compressor: Attack: 0 ms, Release: 85-150ms (Adjust to taste), threshold: goal is to shave off the initial transient, therefor adjust accordingly (hint: high GR is okay in this case), Make-up Gain: adjust to pre-compression level
2. Reverb: Pre-delay: 0ms, Time: 1-5 sec (adjust to taste), width: not too narrow and not too wide, use your judgement for a realistic stereo width (you can use presets when you're lost)
3. EQ: the goal is to achive a slightly darker reverb tone. You don't want much brightenss in this. Low-Cut to 100hz; for the rest (100-300 hz) use a low shelf filter(mid-lows are your friend here; thus don't go cutting everything).
4. Compressor: Sidechain this to your instrument, the goal is to duck the reverb slightly out of the way to hear the instrument.

​

Caution: This won't work on non-transient based instruments; i.e. pads, vocals, etc.. You can get those in the background in those cases via a reverb alone in some cases. This works particularly well with drums, but of course, always be willing to test the boundaries.

Comments: Use this if you intend to take a percussive instrument in the back. For reference, picture yourself and the end of a hall and a snare drum playing at the other end; you won't hear the attack well, and the sound decays slightly not more than 2 secs at most. Don't have your reverb time set unrealistically high. Additionally, early reflection adjustments could add more depth depending on the source material.

Care to contribute? Check out this guide.

Up next...
Educational Series: Width.

Edit: Added new link.

 

Last edited: May 21, 2019

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Instrument Channel:
-Also, in a case of a stereo instrument, narrowing stereo width would greatly contribute to added sense of depth.

!!!Beware of collapsing the two channels though as very often will introduce phase issues sounding nasty, so more often than not I would opt for a single mono channel instead. (flux stereo tool, bx_solo)


PS. Have to say - thx so much for this, I love what transient shaper on dry, and comp before the verb are doing. I was missing these (as a way of adding depth) ALL ALONG!

 

Last edited: Apr 22, 2019

No worries mate! I'm glad you found this helpful.

Great point right there about narrowing of the stereo width adding to the depth.

 

Subject: Depth

Plugin/s: SoundToys Echoboy (or any delay plugin with Dual mode)

Procedure:

1. Select the Dual mode
2. Set one-increment varying speeds on the delay times (i.e. 1/8 R and 1/4n L) (adjust to taste)
3. Bring the feedback up to about 9-11 o'clock
4. Under the delay section, click edit to open the panel; change the width to a narrower position (adjust to taste)
5. The beautiful part: Click on the "Style Editor";
   1. Turn up the diffusion up to 15-30% (Normaly set to zero)
   2. depending on what effect you wanna go for, change the size. (The smaller the size, you'll get a minor/very subtle diffusion effect, and the larger the size the more smooth (think reverb like) the diffusion gets.
6. Now, adjust the Mix knob depending on how far you want the instrument to be from the listener.

Caution: This could really ruin your mix, and most importantly, the feel of the song, particularly the instrument; it can essentially break your track if you don't use it right. How to get it right? This is one of those instances where you learn something by knowing how to get it wrong! If you are hearing (super obvious and ugly) comb-filtering effect in the delays (not while the track is in solo), you have gotten it wrong; increase your size. Clearly, the results will vary depending on the source material and the setting used, but this should give you the general idea of, at least, what to shout for.

Comments: While this is unnecessary when working with delay, this is that extra step you'd take if you want your delay to sound more natural than just having the sound repeat couple of times before fully disappearing. This will add that natural smear effect to the delay you expect the sound to behave. While not knowing this doesn't make you an amateur, using this trick will certainly score you more points for attention to detail and articulation.

 

Dunno if it's relevant or not, but when i wanna have depth i use parallel processing with reverbs, tape echoes, etc.

What i mean by "parallel processing": you create a lot of sends, in each send you put a different reverb / delay plug that you balance completely on the left, or completely on the right. You can this way create interesting soundscapes.

This is best if you use very colored / vintage plugs (like plate echoes, spring reverbs...) on the left and right sends. Then, to finalize my soundscape, i use a very transparent reverb in stereo (like, for ex., DDMF Enveloppe, or Lexicon, or...) at the very end of the chain, which achieves to "glue" everything.

 

bump

 

this is great guys, I was looking for sth like this since there are so few masters giving out their sauce. I wonder how analogue gear plays into this cause it does often make stuff in your face.
I heard somewhere that transient detail is often in the 90hz region and the 3-4k so shelving and even clipping before the eq can help tame those transients. I'm not a fan of too much reverb and lowpassing stuff can do the same emotionally as a reverb often.