Dimension in a mix primarily refers to its front-to-back depth. The sonic equivalent of foreground, middleground and background in a carefully composed painting or photograph, dimension draws a listener’s ears to sounds perceived as upfront and close, while other elements dwell farther back to evoke a sense of spaciousness. Side-to-side width, or stereo imaging, is another facet of dimensional mixing that helps establish a captivating soundscape.
If your productions have ever felt flat or lacking in spatial interest, we’ll discuss a variety of techniques used for adding dimension to your mixes. You can start experimenting with these tips right away, so your next project will have that professional je ne sais quoi you’ve been searching for.
Table of Contents
5 Ways to Bring Depth and Width to Your Mixes
Leveling and Equalization
Stereo Imaging
Mid-Side Recording and Plug-in Processing
Automation
Using Effects
Don't Let Your Mixes Be Square
5 Ways to Bring Depth and Width to Your Mixes
Leveling and Equalization
Track-to-track volume plays a huge role in how we perceive depth in audio. Throughout the recording and production processes, and especially at the beginning of a mix, most of us instinctively turn up the instruments that lead the song and turn down the sources we feel play more of a supporting role.
This is the first logical step in mixing for dimension, and it all stems from how we perceive louder sounds as closer, and quieter ones as farther away. As you use trim plug-ins, clip gain and virtual faders to balance levels across the tracks in your mix, try to visualize where each element sits in the sonic picture you’re painting. Leveling is as much about creating depth as it is about setting volume. For a closer look at this topic from a more technical point of view, “What Is Gain Staging?” has the answers to your questions.
Pictured: Universal Audio EQP-1A Equalizer and Neve 1081 Plug-ins
Similarly, equalization does more than just correct problem frequencies or alter the color of a sound—it can rearrange tracks within a mix’s front-to-back latitude. Bright sounds with lots of high-frequency content appear crystal clear and in your face, while the opposite is true of an instrument that’s been filtered down to its lowest frequencies. These guiding principles help us understand how EQ can be used as a positional tool for adding dimension to mixes.
Your DAW’s stock EQ plug-ins are great, but if you’re looking to branch out, FabFilter’s Pro-Q 4 is a fabulous desert-island equalizer the pros swear by. To learn more on this subject, check out “The Definitive EQ Cheat Sheet for Mixing.”
Stereo Imaging
In good ol’ left/right stereo mixing, panning tracks around the soundfield determines overall width. It’s important to spread sources out and away from each other to minimize clutter in the center of a mix, and, like leveling, panning is often done early in the process to initiate a rough soundscape. We also tend to pan from perspective, envisioning ourselves in the audience at a concert or even on the throne behind a drum kit to give our decisions some practical justification.
A crucial piece of the dimensional mixing puzzle, panning is an easy means of instantly widening our productions and covering the whole canvas. It’s still important to consider the balance between left and right channels, though, so one side isn’t proportionally heavier than the other. A little ear candy here and there adds interest, but having a dense right channel and sparse left channel, or vice versa, is typically more distracting than anything else.
Pictured: Vocal Double-Tracking
Fun Fact: It wasn’t until the late 1960s that stereophonic sound became prevalent in pop music. The earliest Beatles recordings—produced by George Martin and engineered by Norman Smith—were done on a machine with only two tracks, offering just enough space to place all the instruments on one and all the vocals on the other. Even with these limitations, the recordings yielded a workable balance for a mono mix.
But when George Martin decided to remix those early Beatles recordings for stereo in the mid ’60s, he had only an instrumental track and a vocal track to work with. Quite primitive by today’s standards, the result was instruments hard panned to one side and vocals hard panned to the other. Stereo was still a novelty—even an afterthought—at that time.
Now, we have surround and immersive audio formats, giving mixing engineers the ability to pan beyond the horizontal left/right plane into vertical dimensions, but that’s a conversation for another day …
By playing with the stereo image, we can actually introduce dimension to mixes at the recording stage. Here, we have the opportunity to widen productions by stacking multiple takes of a performance and panning them oppositely. Double-tracked guitars, for instance, take two separately recorded rhythm parts and pan each performance hard left and right.
For this technique to work, it has to be two discrete takes—duplicating one existing track increases perceived volume, but not width. The slight, natural differences between each recording are what create the sense of dimension between the speakers. This process can be repeated for quadruple tracking and beyond, and works beautifully on vocals, too.
Of course, that’s all good and well, but what if we didn’t record the tracks we’re mixing? This is where stereo widening plug-ins come into frame. These clever tools can transform dull, flat mono recordings into lush, enveloping stereo sounds—all in the name of dimension.
Mid-Side Recording and Plug-in Processing
Mid-side recording is extremely flexible, and it’s an amazing tool to have in your kit as you begin to consider dimension at the source, and not just as a post-production endeavor.
Mid-side recording is a stereo microphone technique requiring a cardioid mic pointed straight at the source (middle) and a bidirectional mic positioned 90° off-axis from it (sides). A, shall we say, involved process in the analog days, engineers would then create a matrix on the console to split the signals into three channels.
The cardioid mic came down one channel panned center, while each side of the figure-8 microphone was assigned a separate channel—one panned hard left and the other hard right with its polarity reversed. Today, mid-side encoding/decoding plug-ins handle that setup for us.
The biggest advantage of mid-side recording is mono compatibility, in addition to stereo width. Since you’ve captured a straight-on, mono signal with the cardioid mic, you already have a strong picture of the sound source. The sides, then, serve to widen the image, enriching the mono component with stereo depth and dimension.
Pictured: brainworx bx1 Module Equalizer Mid-Side Processing
What’s awesome, too, is should you ever feel the side recordings are no longer working in the mix, you can simply get rid of them—you still have your mono signal.
Mid-side processing—a totally different animal than M/S recording—can bring tons of dimension to your mix. The difference here is that mid-side processing uses plug-ins and takes place after recording, offering more granular control over a stereo instrument or subgroup’s constituent audio content. Plug-ins with mid-side capabilities span categories and include EQs, compressors, limiters and more, letting you take a stereo signal and process the middle and sides separately.
For example, you can call up a mid-side EQ on your drum bus to focus the low-end power of kick and toms, as well as the punchy midrange crack of snare, down the middle, while spreading the airier top-end sizzle of overheads out to the sides.
With so much control, you can really dig in and strive for balance, clarity, depth and dynamics on individual stereo tracks, instrument buses and full mixes—all sonic traits which lend themselves to a mix’s dimensionality.
FabFilter’s mixing bundle, for example—featuring EQ, compression, saturation, reverb, delay, de-essing and gating plug-ins—offers powerful mid-side functionality.
Automation
One of the ways we achieve dimension in a mix is with contrast. One excellent way to achieve contrast is with automation. If a bunch of static elements are a recipe for a flat mix, then making them move gives the production some three-dimensional shape.
Consider basic volume automation for a moment. Take a pop song, automate the volume on the mix bus up a dB or two during the hook, and you’ve established contrast between the verse and chorus. Better yet, maybe there’s a quiet instrument holding space in the background of the verse that slowly ramps up in level until it hits, full force, in the hook. These shifts in arrangement, simply using volume, take the listener on a journey.
Pictured: Mixing Automation
You can creatively automate panning to sweep a sound across the stereo field before a big drop. You can automate a low-pass filter to bring an instrument from completely muffled to bright and clear. You can automate virtually any parameter of any plug-in to produce unique, one-time events we colloquially call ear candy.
For decades, top engineers have relied on techniques like these to give their mixes movement and interest—the results are exciting, dynamic productions that practically feel like living, breathing sonic worlds.
Using Effects
Reverb, delay and modulation are some of the most radically transformative tools at our disposal when it comes to giving dimension to any mix.
Reverb immediately creates an unmistakable sense of depth by placing a given sound in a virtual ambient space. Short decay times mimic smaller rooms, while longer ones recreate the trailing echoes that naturally occur in larger spaces, like concert halls and cathedrals.
As a general guideline for depth, drier sounds will always appear more upfront in a mix, and wetter ones will be pushed back into the recesses, so it’s important to dial in the ideal wet/dry blend whenever you’re adding reverb to an instrument.
Don’t forget, you can automate the reverb level, decay time and other essential parameters to create stylistic swells or vary the amount of ambience throughout a song.
While reverb is more atmospheric in nature, delay creates discrete repeats of the signal, usually tempo-synced to the project and set to beats dictated by a chosen note value. Delay is often used to fill gaps in arrangements by repeating select parts of a musical or vocal phrase, which can be done via automation.
Pictured: Universal Audio Capitol Chambers and EP-34 Plug-ins
Like reverb, delay times can alter our sense of perception. You can make a source sound like it’s in a small space using short, slapback-style delay times of 40 milliseconds or below. The effect thickens the signal and pushes it forward for a cozy, intimate feel.
As you increase the delay time, the discrete repeats become more apparent. The greater the separation between the original signal and the delayed one, the farther away the sound feels. To really emphasize the impression of distance, you can filter the delay’s high end and situate its volume well below the original signal.
Check out David Gilmour’s vocals on the classic Pink Floyd track “Us and Them” from Dark Side of the Moon—those are delay throws in action, and the trailing echoes enhance the song’s spacey, psychedelic feel.
With modulation, the swooshing sound of flanger, the hypnotic swirling of phaser and the lush richness of chorus add brilliant textural depth to sources. It’s up to you how subtle or apparent the effect ultimately is, and again, parameters can be automated for stylish, one-off tricks.
If you’re looking for new plug-ins to add to your arsenal, UAD’s Lexicon 224 reverb emulates an iconic digital hardware unit; Slate Digital’s Stellar Echo module recreates vintage-style tape delay in all its glory; and Eventide’s H9 Plug-in Series bundle offers time-based effects, modulation and more for all your creative mixing needs.
Bonus tip: You’re encouraged to stack effects as you experiment with adding dimension to your mixes. Send your delay to a reverb so every repeat has its own ambience. EQ your reverbs and delays to make them brighter or darker. Create two mono reverbs, pan them oppositely, set different decay times on both and send an instrument to each at the same time. Put a flanger on your reverb or delay for texture … the possibilities are endless.
Don't Let Your Mixes Be Square
Pictured: JCF Prototype Mixing Console
Creating dimension in a mix is a multi-stage process deeply intertwined with fundamental mixing techniques, from leveling, panning and equalizing to loading up effects and writing automation. At every step along the way, there’s an opportunity to consider choices that will ultimately affect the front-to-back depth and side-to-side width of the project, hopefully elevating a square, two-dimensional mix to cubic, three-dimensional heights. Experiment and let your taste lead the way.
Looking to step up your home studio with fresh microphones or monitors? Your local Guitar Center is the place to test prospective equipment, and you can always contact a Gear Adviser for a thorough, one-on-one consultation to score the tools of your dreams.