LATROIT : Well , having spent as much time on the stereo mix as I had – which was a lot of damn time I spent on that thing – I think I was too into it , and too stupid to know to be intimidated by all of the options , because I ’ m a really visual person naturally .
And when you ’ re mixing in stereo , you have to kind of visualize what ’ s happening in what you ’ re doing ; you have to kind of close your eyes and visualize the placements . When you ’ re in a room with 18 speakers , you don ’ t have to do that . There ’ s no imagination involved ; the sounds are right there . That one ’ s there . Those two are over there . This one ’ s here . And all of that becomes immediately apparent to you in a way that makes not just the sound immersive , but the process of creating is a fully immersive experience for those reasons .
And the L-ISA Studio program has a visual component to it , that you can just sort of see and look at where the things are and move them around in real time . It ’ s for people like us that maybe don ’ t have 18 speakers in their studio , but you can do this stuff in headphones , and work on the mix and interact with mixes in the exact same way . And that tactile ability to just move things around in real time , that for me was huge . That was great .
PS : What I found particularly interesting when comparing the immersive mix to the stereo mix was the placement of the percussive elements ; typically in a stereo mix – and this is the case with the stereo mix of “ Dance My Tears Away ” – things like the main claps or snaps are placed mostly up the middle with a few little elements thrown out to the sides . Whereas in this immersive mix , you have the percussion completely spread out . So , how did you decide on where to place these elements ?
LATROIT : We were taking advantage of the fact that in electronic music , there isn ’ t as much of a precedent for where instruments should be coming from as there is in jazz or a traditional rock band ; usually the drummer is kind of in the middle with the toms going around you in descending tones . Orchestras are the same way , where usually there are sections that belong in a certain spot . In electronic music , we ’ re not bound by that . There ’ s no preconception of where things should be , so that was the first sort of liberating thing .
What you want to avoid is [ getting carried away ] – I was a total amateur going in there , and Carlos was very patient with me , because I ’ m in there and I ’ m like , “ Oh my God , we can put this over here ! And the singer can be here for a one line , she can be over here for another !” and I see Carlos is just like , “ Oh God , help me .”
He was kind enough to let me go through that first 30 minutes of freaking out , and then I looked at him and was like “ Yeah , she should probably go right in the middle , huh ?” He ’ s like , “ Yeah , you ’ re probably correct .” And so , all of our decisions on what goes where , it was kind
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of built on the foundation that we did want to keep one component really anchored through the entire thing , which was her voice ; dry , front , and centre – right there .
And once that decision was made , we could really explore that mix choice in L-Acoustics ’ auditorium . It ’ s a large room with 18 speakers around that ’ s unlike anything I ’ ve ever heard . So , you solo the vocal with just the reverb ; if you ’ re in the front of the room , you just hear her , and you can hear a little bit of reverb . But if you walk backwards into the auditorium , you hear the reverb open up like if you were in a cathedral – I wanted her to be in a cathedral for this . You just walked to the to the back of the “ church ,” and it ’ s sort of all reverb and you can kind of hear her in front . That ’ s where that decision really came alive .
The next part of that is , is there a way that you can communicate a story , some kind of narrative to that ? So , for example , the choice to stick Charlz very up front and dry in the mix , and then throw all the reverb further and further back ; maybe you don ’ t know that I put her in a church until I just said “ I put her in a church ,” but now you know , and that ’ s kind of implied , right ? I wanted people to feel like they were going into a cathedral to hear Charlz share these lyrics in that kind of environment .
So , while not everybody is going to have the chance to mix on 18 speakers in a largerthan-life auditorium , the scalability of the technology does allow the principles of spatial object-based mixing to be applied in any setup , all the way down to a standard stereo monitor rig , and even headphones as LATROIT mentions . While it ’ s not necessarily a oneto-one comparison to an immersive speaker array , it ’ s still far more ubiquitously friendly than anything that ’ s come before . Mosquera clarifies this . “ It ’ s the same as going from stereo headphones to stereo speakers , going from binaural in headphones to a 360-degree
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experience with speakers . You can perceive some movements , externalization , and some trajectories in headphones that offer a 3D sound experience , but with speakers is what actually make you feel like , ‘ Okay , the sound is actually coming from that place .’ Because what happens in binaural are simulations that try to recreate cues that you normally hear in real life , but it ’ s not as accurate as having a real source , which is a speaker .”
Comparing the two mixes of “ Dance My Tears Away ”, this is wholly apparent , even in headphones ; they feel very different from each other . The immersive , binaural mix envelops you , while the stereo mix merely sits in front of you . L-Acoustics Product & Technology Marketing Engineer Jordan Tani further explains how this much more accessible means of delivery is made possible .
“ With L-ISA Studio , we have the binaural renderer that allows you to hear all of your content move in a binaural rendering ; and you can just make this an MP3 file or a WAV and print all of that .”
While we ’ re looking at L-ISA for this particular example , other spatial processors such as Dolby Atmos essentially do the same thing , though the encoding algorithms and methods of delivery are different . For example , the Dolby Atmos mixes available through Apple Music can be played back in various ways depending on the listening device ; headphones such as the AirPods Pro are capable of fully decoding Atmos mixes , complete with real-time head tracking . Non-equipped headphones will be given a binaural stereo mix instead , which is itself distinct from the original stereo mix . The fact is that consumers now have these options at their fingertips , and creators as well , with in-the-box technologies like L-ISA Studio , or an Atmos processor built right into the most recent version of Logic Pro X , and many others . It ’ s worth noting , as well , that L-ISA Studio can export to the Atmos format .
With all this in mind , LATROIT does acknowledge the fact that it ’ s important to
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PHOTO : ZB IMAGES