5 Quick Ways to Excite Your Sound

By Matthew Weiss on 9/18/2011 Mixing

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Youve balanced your tracks, youve got everything sitting nice and sounding
punchy and defined now what? How can you add a little pop and life to the
ARTICLES mix?

Here are some techniques I use to excite and enhance sounds in a mix
VIDEOS some are obvious, some are a little tricky.

1) Exciters and Enhancers. Pretty straightforward, but harmonic exciters or

PRODUCTS enhancers are a quick and easy way to give a little spark to your sound. Just
be careful a little goes a long way. Exciters tend to give an immediate
gratification by focusing on colorful harmonics in the sound but this is
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often at the expense of the rest of the frequency domain. The effect
shouldnt be a substitute for EQ. Once youre making distinct frequency
boosts with one of these tools, its probably too much.

2) Saturation. Saturation is like the little cousin of overdrive. It gives you just
enough to liven up the texture of whatever youre saturating. Saturation is
not limited to emulation plugins any piece of hardware can be used as a
saturator and a worthwhile experiment is to run a signal through a
About Contact preamp and crank the gain and listen for how the texture changes. Really
nice pre-amps overdriven a bit can bring out certain textures and
frequencies in a cool and unique way.

3) Parallel Distortion. Say What? Clone your source, and run the clone
through distortion. From there, EQ the distorted clone to highlight the
frequency you want to enhance. Need thicker mids? Hi-pass and low-pass
the clone. Need excited upper mid-range? Throw on a hi-pass at around
1.5kHz. Then take the cloned signal and start blending it in against the
original. About 15dB down from the original youll start to hear a just
noticeable change in the texture and liveliness of the original. A little pinch
goes a long way here.

4) Short reverb. Early reflection heavy, short tail reverbs have a unique
power on a dry source. What we hear in the reverb, we quickly prescribe
onto the dry signal. In other words, if you need to make a source brighter,
but regular EQ methods just arent working out, you can use a short, bright,
reverb to make the high end of your dry source come alive. I prefer plate
emulations for this method, rooms and halls tend to be too open
sounding.

5) Modulation. Frequency based modulation in particular, such as the

Enigma plugin from Waves, or flangers & phasers can be used in really
interesting ways. These effects tend to be a bit more dramatic than the
other one but sometimes a sound needs to come back from the dead.
Unfortunately, theres too many options to really describe in one article, but
play around and youll find all sorts of gems.
 Share your own tips in the comments
below!

You might also like:

1. 6 Nuances You Feel, Not Hear
2. Tips for Mixing Vocals to an Instrumental
3. 50 Mixing Tips From Steven Slate
4. 5 Dynamic Ways to Think About Masking
5. The Importance of Space in a Mix: Part III
6. 5 Advanced EQ Techniques You Need to Know

MATTHEW WEISS

Matthew Weiss engineers from his private facility in Philadelphia, PA. Credits
include Snoop Dogg, Gorilla Zoe, Arrested Development, Dizzee Rascal, Gift of
Gab, J-Son and many others. Get in touch at Weiss-Sound.com.

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arthur d 3 years ago

r&b AND tears for fears?? you just gave me an excuse to head over to amazon and make
a few purchases. lol. thanks again man.
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arthur d 3 years ago

can you think of any examples so that i might have a listen?
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Matthew Weiss arthur d 3 years ago

For distinct sound of plate reverb on vocals - any mid to late 90s R&B track. Any
80s Ballad. Pretty much any sound Tears For Fears has ever recorded.

But, subtle use of plate reverb in the digital medium it's hard to site an obvious
example because the point is to use it subtly. You probably have a stock plate
reverb in your DAW.
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arthur d 3 years ago

plate reverb. i can't seem to find anything that can define what that is exactly.
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Matthew Weiss arthur d 3 years ago

In this article I was specifically referring to plate algorithm - a digital plate.
Traditional hardware plates don't have a separate control over "early" and "late"
reflections - it's just one continuous tail. However, algorithms often times do.
Plates tend to be dense and smooth, which is a perfect textural compliment to
your average vocal if your goal is to have an enriched source sound.
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