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Here is another stereo mixing trick to go along with the Haas, cross, and panned delay tricks. This technique creates a stereo sound that fills the room and appears to come from all sides of the listener’s head at the same time. The basic idea is to start with a mono track panned dead center and invert the phase one one of the channels. Your digital home recording setup is quite likely already equipped to perform this trick. Show me how to set it up

Here is another trick for using a delay to create a bit of a stereo effect on a mono track. The basic idea is to pan the mono track slightly to one side (one to three o’clock should do it) and add a delay that is panned about the same amount to the other side (nine to eleven o’clock). Adjust the delay time to produce a sound you like for your mix, and there you have it! It is a fairly simple technique that can be used to push something like a supporting keyboard track out of the center of a mix but allows you to still keep it turned up in volume. Following is a description of how to do this trick in REAPER and more details on what kinds of delay settings I think sound good. See the details

Cross delay is a trick that can be used on a track having different information on the left and right channels to enhance the lushness of the stereo image. You can use this trick on drum overheads, chorused guitar sounds, stereo keyboard patches, or any other non-mono audio track in your home recording. Here is how to make it work. Show me

The saxophone is a classic and great sounding instrument that can heat up any rock or jazz arrangement. However, sending your sax through a microphone and leaving the track untouched in a mix can really kill the mood and effectiveness. Throw on a little slapback delay and a bit of eq and that sax will jump right out of your speakers and into your room. Home studio engineers need not fear. The tools for sending your sax over the top are simple and included in nearly every DAW. Tell me more »

Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practices and Tools price check

UPDATE: This book is now available. A new book on mixing techniques is coming out in January 2008. The press release on the book makes it look like a potentially valuable resource. The book promises to cover techniques from basic to advanced and should appeal to home recording enthusiasts as well as studio professionals. The book comes with a DVD of audio examples including four full mixes to play with. The mixes are rock, hip hop, techno, and drum and bass. These mixes are used in examples and tutorials throughout the book.

Quick review:

This book covers a lot of higher level concepts without as much rubber meets the road type advice. A large portion of the book is devoted to talking about tools (as the title implies) with an entire chapter devoted to describing the function of controls found on a typical mixer. This book is absolutely recommended to beginners, but has pockets of information that can be enjoyed by more experienced mixers looking to hone their chops a bit. One of the greatest aspects of the included DVD is the library of sound clips demonstrating critical listening.

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