Enhancing the emotion of a mix

Mixing
1

Hey Andrew.

How do you go about enhancing the emotion of a mix?
What do you listen out for?

Any techniques you keep getting back to?

Thank you!
Erik

2

Hi Erik,

That’s an almost impossible question to answer, since just about anything you do in a mix can enhance (or destroy) the emotional impact of a song but here are a few random things:

  1. Reverb and delay can be pretty emotional on vocals
  2. Going from narrow to wide (panning etc) between sections can really make the wide section more exciting and narrow section more intimate
  3. Sub is amazing (witness the bass drops on electronic music).
  4. Parallel compression works for me a lot on quieter, more acoustic performances. The uncompressed recording will feel like it is more present and intimate to me, so I can get the benefits of compression without messing that up.

Hope some of those help,
Andrew

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