Audio Candy

[_ Six _]

What are the little tricks of almost inaudible sounds that just make your mixes come alive?

[Bossman]

for me its delays and ambience, but I'm always on the scout for new tricks, so I eagerly await more replies

[Shreddie]

Pads and random stuff (which can be almost anything) mixed in at a low level.

[Zukan]

ghost notes

eqing harmonics

and.................

[* User requested deletion 2 *]

Glockenspiel.

Hugely under rated, but it was good enough for Spector. And Stravinsky, come to think of it, so it's a no brainer for me.

[Frisonic]

Mongolian yak bells.

Only joking but I do trawl through the sample library in Login sometimes and wonder 'what on earth'? And just occasionally I find inspiration to add a little environmental ambiance, just tucked away somewhere in the back of the mix to glue phrases together (don't forget to use pitch shift).

[hollowsun]

More cowbell.

[jellyjim]

More cowbell.

Chortle

[jellyjim]

Banjo

[TheReson8or]

percussion and good use of BVs!

[. . . Delete This User . . .]

More cowbell.

no, , seriously, he's right...... more cowbell is ALWAYS the answer....

[Darclinc]

Contrast.

D.

[StuartBallingall]

Bit crusher placed post reverb.

I've had most success with using a guitar amp sim with spring reverb engaged as the reverb unit.

adjust gain of amp sim to drive the bit crusher to required effect and then apply large amounts of EQ to the lot.

bury it in the mix.

[BJG145]

More cowbell.

no, seriously, he's right...... more cowbell is ALWAYS the answer

I love cowbells. Our drummer used to play syncopated rhythms between a regular one and a pedal-driven one.

And shakers. And timp samples.

[tomafd]

Pads and random stuff (which can be almost anything) mixed in at a low level.

probably a purely psycho acoustic thing ... but I do like to have one track of just 'noise' or 'nothing', recorded for the length of the track in an empty room, no edits allowed. If the rest of the track doesn't feature at least one entire performance recorded straight through and left unedited, this- for some utterly bizarre reason I can't put my finger on- just makes it all sound better. I have no idea why, but I suspect the brain reacts better to 'real-time' information, somewhere in the mix, and if you present it with music which doesn't actually have true real-time info in there somewhere, across the whole time period of the tune, it gets bored, or confused, or just perceives something as 'wrong'.

The weirdest thing is that this won't work if you take an old recording of 'nothing' and stick it on your latest tune. It has to be recorded during the same period during which you're working on the tune. You know all those old, great, 'classic' recordings where most of the tune was played real-time, no edits, few overdubs ? They're chock full of 'atmosphere', 'feel', all these amorphous things which we think can be produced by slapping Vintage Warmer or something over the track - well, no, that isn't it. It's the atmosphere of where they were recorded, at the time they were recorded- and it's a very subtle thing. Try it - stick a mic up, and record some silence. It may not work for you, but it sure works for me.