Mixing for Depth & Space Explained

Studio expert Thomas Cochran presents comprehensive Mixing for Depth and Space video tutorials! If you've often struggled with mixes that sound muddy, crowded, or cluttered, this is the video series for you. Thomas walks you through numerous proven techniques for creating space in your tracks and room for your vocals (and other featured instruments) to breathe. You'll learn tips for EQ, reverb, modulation effects, compression, buss processing, and more! These videos are for beginning mixing engineers.

EQ & Clarity

• Creating Space with EQ (12:45) - In this first video, Thomas covers how to use EQ to carve out specific frequency ranges for instruments. This allows for each track to have its own space inside of a mix.

• Using Track Spacer for Clarity (13:40) - Learn how the Track Spacer VST from Wavesfactory can be used to bring clarity to your mixes. This is a dynamically side-chaining EQ plugin that makes it easy to create space for vocals or other instruments that are conflicting in a mix.

• Adding Clarity to Mid Range (10:46) - This video demonstrates some EQ tips for creating a balanced mid range in your mixes. You'll also learn how mixing through EQ to simulate different speakers and how focusing your first EQ moves on the mid frequencies creates clearer, more uniform mixes.

Spatial & Modulation Effects

• Creative Uses for Auto Pan (08:51) - Thomas shows how auto pan can be used to create dynamic stereo separation between tracks in a mix, which allows for more balanced mixes while also filling out the stereo spectrum.

• Creating Width on Mono Recordings (11:55) - Discover techniques on how to take mono recordings and turn them into artificially doubled tracked recordings. This video also shows more natural sounding ways of creating stereo width on tracks.

• Using Pre-Delays on Reverb (08:08) - Next up, Thomas demonstrates how to use pre-delay on a vocal to create a deeper sense of space on a reverb. Pre-delay lets you create larger sounding reverbs without washing out tracks in a mix.

• Stacking Modulation & Spatial Effects (10:17) - Learn how modulation, delay, and reverb effects can be stacked to create heavily modulated signals that are also clear and crisp.

• Making Reverb Clearer (14:39) - iscover how to create clearer reverb signals by applying compression and filtering, which lets you use heavy reverbs without interfering with the punch of a mix.

• Adding Movement to Drums & Guitars (12:28) - Lean how flangers and phasers can be used to create subtle movement on drums and guitar, allowing for more musical sounding drum parts and interesting modulation on guitars.

Distortion & Compression

• Distortion on Drum Busses (12:29) - Thomas now shows how to use distortion in multiple ways to enhance drum recordings, effectively adding more punch and weight.

• Using Mix Busses for Clarity (13:07) - Finally, learn how mix buses can be used to glue elements together and create fuller sounding mixes. This allows you to embed reverbs and modulation effects into the tracks to make everything sound more integrated.