The reverb amount (“dry” or “wet”) and the first reflections (“early reflections”) of sound in a space play a big role in the perception of depth. This gives the mix more clarity and structure. We’ll use a flat high-shelf filter for this.īy lowering the high frequencies, these tracks sink into the background and no longer compete against the lead instrument. We can use this effect for our mix by cutting the higher frequencies of the instruments that we want to place further back in the mix. The result of this is that the signal source sounds more muffled as the distance from it increases.

Audio Sample 1Īnother acoustic law we can use to create depth is the fact that deep frequencies have a larger spatial range than high frequencies. Note: At this point you would also position the instruments in the stereo panorama but because this is not very important for the creation of depth we won’t go into more detail here. The obvious thing to do here is set the volume of the most important instruments higher than the volume for the accompanying instruments. The depth effect comes from the natural perception of the human ear which registers loud instruments as close and quieter instruments as far away. First we can set the volume levels for each track according to how we imagine the spatial relationship should be. Let’s start with a rough mix of our song. To create a really noticeable sense of depth we can adjust the volume, sound characteristics and room characteristics of each instrument track: In this way the instruments can be effectively separated in space. During mixing you can simulate various distances and achieve a placement of the instruments in space.

By adjusting the order of the various signals from front to back, you can create depth in your audio mix and make it more transparent. When recording in your home studio, it’s possible to create depth when mixing audio tracks.

This recording tips post originally appeared as “Samplitude Academy – Creating Depth with Samplitude” on Samplitude’s tutorial blog.

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