This Freaky DAW Thing.

[volthause]

At the risk of asking a question that makes me sound like an utter douchecake, I've run into this weird anomaly that I need some input on.

I listen to loads of program material on my workstation at home to fine tune my ears, and listen for interesting mix techniques, production stuff yadda yadda.

How do you achieve that super narrow, down-the-center focus? As a case in point, the latest System Of A Down record, it seems like the kick, bass guitar and vocals are perfectly stacked up in the center, one on top of each other. I can close my eyes and literally see the vertical space that each element occupies.

Conversely, I can take a mono track recorded on my DAW, lets say a vocal for instance, and play it back, and it actually sounds like it has stereo elements. In other words, it's not totally narrow and down the center. And yes, this is a MONO track, with no effects, and it's panned down the center.

I've heard people mention this before as being an idiosyncrasy of some DAW systems, and I'm wondering if there is anything to be done to fix this, or is it just something that I need to learn to do technique-wise during mix?

Discuss.

[Brendo]

How do you achieve that super narrow, down-the-center focus? As a case in point, the latest System Of A Down record, it seems like the kick, bass guitar and vocals are perfectly stacked up in the center, one on top of each other. I can close my eyes and literally see the vertical space that each element occupies.

Whenever I listen to that album I keep thinking "I'll grab that kick sample there, there's nothing around it", loading it up into an audio editor, and realizing that there's a full band raging in the background... so I know what you're talking about.

[volthause]

Definitely. Very clear and "see through". I'm positive part of it is gear. I'm confused how something can be "more mono" however.

[Mixerpuppet]

I'll throw in 3 words...

Mastering...

Frequency...

Sidelobing...

[Pimp-X]

Yup.

[invisibl]

Sidelobing...

splain

[volthause]

Sidelobing?

explain?

[bunnerabb]

Some of the best mixes I've ever done were straight to two track, live, and mono across the console.

[volthause]

Sidelobing?

explain?

bump.

[invisibl]

bump.

google doesnt splain it so goodly

bump to the power of three

[Pimp-X]

In RF circles, sidelobing is the term to describe spurious off-axis emissions. Any wave emitting system is prone to this effect, and there are ways to prevent it happening, which involve phase tricks and tight filtering.

This will apply to audio to a certain extent, though I would expect it to be more prevalent if the audio source is square in shape. EQ would be the equivalent method of removing any spurious harmonic emissions, though I'd expect these to be typically 40dBc, at least.

Maybe if I heard the record, I could posticulate further. I can't help but think, however, that if the source is extremely focussed, it will have been focussed with EQ and possibly some spectral phase coherency tricks.

[volthause]

Very enlightening, thank you.

[bunnerabb]

You can do some amazing tricks with E.Q.

[volthause]

You can do some amazing tricks with E.Q.

Indeed. I will be digging into this, and figure it out one way or another. :D

[dwoz]

This may sound silly, but run the 2-buss through an M/S encoder, and overlay silence on the /S part, then decode.

This should do the trick.

Be VERY CAREFUL matching levels on the Side-in-phase/Side-out-of-phase pair!!!!!

:-)

dwoz

[dnafe]

Oh now you've just warped my brain...thanks Dwoz

[Pimp-X]

:lol:

[chrisj]

I don't know about the most recent one, but I would swear I've heard stems on SOAD releases before. It sounds like the band and the vocal are being separately bludgeoned with limiting and then recombined. The result is that it sounds smashed but weirdly layered with preternatural clarity on the layering. Also the kick is ridiculously hot going into the limiting :)

[Pimp-X]

So like, the type of thing I do on a lot of mixes then?

[chrisj]

Re the mid/side trick- or, if that's too hard, open the file in a wave editor, convert it to 'mono' and then convert it back to 'stereo'

:lol: :lol: :lol:

SECRETS OF THE MONO FIENDS!

[Mixerpuppet]

bump.

Cj basically covered it...

but...

In a good stereo mix alot of your attention is pulled because of the mix... you don't hear the sidelobes or even local reflections off gear because the center is so overwhelming. Masking the off axis stuff. Some music is so compressed making it mono would hardly change it...

On a mono channel, your focus id dead center but not to such a degree that it masks the off axis stuff. How much you hear off the off axis material is dependent upon frequency content, proximity of things in the nearfiled causing early reflections and your personal frequency response (like a thumbprint).

You could investigate whether your having sidelobing issues by sweeping a mono channel and critially listen for frequncies that seem to scatter from the center...

I'd start at whatever your monitoring levels are and not 0dbfs since the power at those frequencies create a different lobe shape. Usually Microphone brochures show the polar pattern which is sort of diagrams the lobes...

http://www.cebik.com/vhf/sl-10.gif

Here is a graphic if this helps...

AES has alot of White papers discussing the problem at $20 a copy. The problem is much more common in live speaker arrays, but none the less does occur in the 20to20 range...

[Brendo]

Even so, wouldn't the commercial mix sound weird too if it was a problem with his room?

[volthause]

Even so, wouldn't the commercial mix sound weird too if it was a problem with his room?

i was kind of thinking the same thing. :lol:

[TSTW]

In RF circles, sidelobing is the term to describe spurious off-axis emissions. Any wave emitting system is prone to this effect, and there are ways to prevent it happening, which involve phase tricks and tight filtering.

This will apply to audio to a certain extent, though I would expect it to be more prevalent if the audio source is square in shape. EQ would be the equivalent method of removing any spurious harmonic emissions, though I'd expect these to be typically 40dBc, at least.

Maybe if I heard the record, I could posticulate further. I can't help but think, however, that if the source is extremely focussed, it will have been focussed with EQ and possibly some spectral phase coherency tricks.
hey pimp,

Any chance of that in lehmans terms?

cheers

TSTW

[Mixerpuppet]

Correction I gave credit to CJ when it should have been Pimp-X for correctly identifying the RF prevalency of the issue.




Even so, wouldn't the commercial mix sound weird too if it was a problem with his room?


Not necessarily.

Remember the key term is masking...

The commercial release may be covering up the problem by overpowering the sidelobes. Imagine trying to stare at a really bright light while using your peripheral vision to identify things off to the side. With a dimmer, less intense, less focused light you would see those things easier...

Take the SOAD track and reduce it to mono in your RADAR.... try to match the total frequency content from 20to20 etc and see if the "SOAD" track when matched to "your' mono track...

Align the peaks and dips :) try to get to an apples and apples comparison....

Listen around the center...

A Mastering Engineer would be able to identify the problem more readily.