My guide track is “Measuring Ruins” by Oneohtrix Point Never. I chose this song because it is ambient music with a good sense of space and mixing. It is closer to the direction of the final work I want to do. It sounds very wide and deep. Some sounds feel very close, such as small clicks or brighter synths, but the pads seem to be coming from far away.
After importing my own miniature bounce into the DAW and comparing it, the most noticeable difference I heard was the sense of space. My work also features some soft synth sounds, but overall, it sounds a bit flat, with many of the sounds crowding in the middle. My reverb is more like a layer that’s simply laid over the entire mix. In the guide track, the soundstage is carefully crafted. Different sounds are positioned at varying distances, and there’s a greater sense of space between them. I also noticed that my low frequencies sound a bit muddy. They take up a lot of space. The low frequencies in the guide track are more controllable, leaving plenty of headroom for the high frequencies. This made me realize that spatial awareness isn’t just about adding more reverb; it’s about deciding which sounds should be up front, which should be in the background, and which should remain a bit drier.
I’ll try using shorter reverb on some sounds and longer reverb on others, and I might also pan some of the finer details wider. This guide track helped me pick up on that, but the sense of space needs to be handled more carefully.
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