Utilise the Full Dimensions of Your Stereo Field

I wanted to share some of my thoughts about working with the stereo image in your mix.

Our hearing is ruled by ancient mechanisms that have evolved during the course of hundreds of thousands of years.

Our brain is always at work analysing things like the spatial properties, frequency content and the loudness of what we are hearing. It does this to determine our position in relation to our environment, and also the distance and direction of different sound sources.

This mechanism applies in all things we hear – including music.

The “stereo image” is a psycho-acoustical space created in the mind of the listener. Make full use of working within that space, utilising all of its dimensions.

• From loud to quiet. 
• From left to right. 
• From front to back.
• From the sub bass up to the highest frequencies.

Some concrete things to think about:

• Don’t just pan or widen sideways. Work the depth of the stereo field as well using EQ and volume. 
• We perceive sounds with less high frequency content as being further away and vice versa. 
• We perceive louder sounds as being closer and quieter sounds further away.
• Our brain is very sensitive to picking up different kinds of reverb. Use spaces of different sizes to place things in the depth dimension. 
• Many synth patches and sample packs are created very wide to impress the potential buyer. If everything in your mix is wide, it will probably sound pretty weak. Control the width and check if your mix works in mono.
• Think about how all of the sounds in your mix sit together in the stereo image. Are some areas clogged up? Maybe to make your kick and snare come through better, you could create a clean corridor in the middle of the mix for them, for instance. Punch holes in the other elements for the kick and snare to push through, or pan them slightly to the side.
• Watch the phase meter. I recommend using something that shows the correlation by frequency. That allows you to pinpoint where the issues are happening.
• Use safe tools that don’t mess up the mono compatibility.
• Monitor your side channel in isolation from time to time. That can often reveal things you might have missed when listening to the stereo mix.

By imagining and placing sounds dimensionally and thus utilising the available space in full, you can make your music sound more balanced, nuanced and impactful.