Please help me achieve 'this' technique

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Hello guys, because I always have trouble with the sound of my beats, I started practicing by doing 'copies' of others' instrumentals, getting the sounds as close as possible.

My problem with my own beats are that I try my best to choose the right drums/percussions samples to give a good depth/balance, then use panning for stereo but when I start adding VST synths, things get very clustered and unclear.

When I hear this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH-vxDgi9ag

What I perceive is that in the beginning, the guitar melody sits at the very middle, and the sidechained pads are happening at the ends of L/R side.. How is this achieved? In my copy, when I went through the pads from omnisphere, I have all these pads that are quite centered in terms of stereo image, and even if I widen them with imager, I still have too much frequencies in the middle, and clashes with the guitar..

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Haven't listened to Garrix, but there are plenty ways. Just some I can think of:

- Play it twice with a slightly different patch, pan both hard left & right.
- Put a different (mono) effect on left & right channel, like phaser & flanger.
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There's a thing called 'stereo width'. It can go from zero to 100 - zero being mono, and 100 being full stereo field. It can even go over 100, where the sound you're feeding starts to layer onto itself. If your DAW's mixer has a per-track stereo width control, try to use that, plus panning left and right. If not, use a plugin. Only after that you can do sidechaining, to further create beds for the things you want to stand out, I presume that's the beats, not the pads.

Goodhertz Panpot and Mathew Lane Dr.MS are some examples of what type of plugins you could use for this. But both are really on the 'more' side. Simple stereo width+pan should do the job.

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And of course, Omnisphere pads are 'souped up' to sound gorgeous with one finger press - that's how you sell plugins. What you want to do is not further widen them, because they're as wide as possible, but narrow them, if not to full mono, then to 10-15-20% of the stereo field, then pan. Doesn't sound that spectacular anymore, does it? That's life for you, mate.

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I would use a combination of what BertKoor suggested in doubling the synth then hard panning both left and right; and Passing Bye's recommendation of applying EQ only to the mid signal.

You could further side-chain the EQ on the mid signal of your pad using the guitar signal so that additional room is made only when the guitar plays.

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Have you tried "this" plugin? ;)

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There is no single on-step thing that makes an instant Great Mix.

This gives me a great hint tho: "I try my best to choose the right drums/percussions samples to give a good depth/balance, then use panning for stereo but when I start adding VST synths, things get very clustered and unclear"

You are thinking that making music is a technical process, the right sound, right processing, right mix = right track. Common trap, esp. if you hang in forums and watch tips n tricks Tuts.

The absolute key to making music (and mixing it) is Story. What is the Scene that you are setting and what happens within that scene to make the Story?

Most people dismiss that as twaddle. Then go on to fail some more.

Try this, really listen to this track, work out what it is about and why it is magical (ask any fan). If you think it is the wibbly thing Nick of the very lovely shoulders did with his Jupiter 8 then sure it is cool but not the real reason. The real reason this is a fan fave is that it has such a deep Scene & Story that people fall into - because it is universal, esp if you have ever met a person in a nightclub and well...

https://youtu.be/zMNZ5Gw3Zbg

Start with the Scene you want to set to tell a Story. Then you can choose the sounds and (far more importantly) notes to express that. Mixing will again be lead by the Story.

:-)

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Two sligtly different pads panned left and right with a little delay on other and different EQ settings. after that, apply some stereo width plugin to all.

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