how to get that crystal clear fat sound?

On 2013-03-13 19:08, supergroover wrote:
@Fakso: try valhalla or artsacoustic. I really dig those reverbs.
Cut the lows of the reverbs. By separate eq or in the plugin.

Most important imho is to find sounds that don't occupy the same frequency range. Separate sounds by panning, freqs range and time.

Delaying one side of a stereo channel can be a very effective tool to create stereo width... but it's not the only one. Some examples;

1.) Simple panning of different elements... collectively as a mix will sound nicely spread.

2.) Use a similar, but different sound on either side of the channel... ie, take two similar snare samples, pan one hard left & the other hard right.

3.) Re-pitch; if you need to use the same sample, duplicate it, pan one hard left & one hard right, detune one up slightly & the opposite side down slightly.

4.) As Kasprouch suggested, use a stereo widener plug-in that does not that operate by delaying one side of the signal (most do, but there are plenty that don't if you do some research.).

5.) EQ one side of the stereo field differently from the other; there are a fair few EQs that let you unlink the stereo sides & EQ each separately. I purchased Blue Cat audio's Stereo Triple EQ, but the new Fabfilter Pro-Q looks particularly tasty.
Just by taking a little high from one side and adding a little to the other can create a nice sense of width.
This can be put into use along with a little delay to the side you have removed some high end from, and you then have the Haas Effect

Beginning your mix in mono maybe... but producing the entire song?? I'm not convinced.

I see the logic in this, but I personally feel this is overkill if your objective in doing so is just to prevent phase issues (which are EASILY avoided if you recognise what causes them in the first place.)

At least for me, an absolutely vital ingredient of my sound design, arrangement and general production is the stereo field.

On the simplest level just EQing elements differently on each side... this is a SOUND DESIGN task; you do this at the beginning when you create the sound. You would not want to get all your track produced nicely, then at the mixing stage start to add high frequencies to one side of a stereo field... IMO this would effectively be leaving the mixing stage and going back to prudcution/sound design, so why not just do it right in the first place.

On a slightly deeper level, I might for example create a chord, but then have two instances of the same synth play it- one panned left with the other right, and then divided the notes of the chord up between the two sides so that each side of the stereo field has totally different notes that come together to for a chord. Perhaps then I might introduce a tremolo effect to it and/or some stereo delay.
All of this is integral to the sound design, and you simply cannot do this at the mixing stage.

Consider that all the following effects:
Phaser
Flanger
Stereo Delay
Vibrato

Are dependent on having a stereo image.


creating a song in mono might be an interesting theoretical experiment, but I would not recommend you adopt this as your modus operandi.