Mixing

The compositions for Darkscapes were mixed in Ableton Live 10. For the most part, I worked on the mixes while creating and producing the compositions as in my experience, this approach works best for me. This method of mixing could be thought of as ‘sculpting’ the material. (Lorbecki, 2018)

I could have created new sessions to build new mixes from the ground up. However, in my opinion it did not make sense to do that as it would have been more time consuming with no guarantee of yielding higher quality mixes.

Special attention had to be paid to the balancing of the audio levels, the binaural panning and the harsh frequencies present in many of the screeching and scraping sounds used in the compositions.

As most of the creative decisions had already been made during the composition & production phase, I focused on balance and clarity during the mixing phase. One of the main issues I encountered that affected the clarity of the mixes was an unwanted build-up of low-end frequencies. I corrected this problem by using a high pass filter with Ableton’s EQ Eight plugin. Generally, filtering out frequencies below 100-150 Hz sufficed but depending on the sound and the frequency content, some sounds were high pass filtered at around 400 Hz or higher.

I was careful not to carve out too much of the low-end as at certain points the low-end impact of certain elements benefited the feel of the tracks.

[Ableton Live EQ Eight High Pass Filter]

For the harsh frequencies, I used a combination of filtering and EQs to solve the problem. My go to plugin for this task was Oeksound Soothe 2. It is a dynamic equaliser plugin which is perfectly suited to taming harsh resonant peaks. (oeksound | plug-ins you actually need, 2022)

[Equalisation of resonant frequencies in Oeksound Soothe2]

For instances that Soothe2 proved insufficient for this task, I used Fabfilter PRO-Q 3 Equaliser. It’s an excellent tool for this purpose as the graphical user interface makes it very easy to pinpoint resonant frequencies as they stand out visually taller than other parts of the frequency spectrum. (FabFilter Pro-Q 3 - Equalizer Plug-In, 2022)

[Equalisation of resonant frequency in Fabfilter PRO Q 3]

Mixing in Binaural

Binaural makes use of psycho-acoustic sound localisation mechanisms such as ITD (Inter-Aural Intensity Difference) and IID (Inter-Aural Intensity Difference). With ITD, sounds that arrive at the left ear first, for example, will be perceived as coming from the left of the listener. With IID, a sound source which is perceived louder in the right ear will be perceived as originating from the right of the listener. (Roginska and Geluso, 2017)

Binaural also makes use of a HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function), a filter designed to emulate the way a human ear received sound from a sound source. The physical characteristics of human anatomy such as the size and shape of the head and ears, as well as the dimensions of the ear canal contribute to the HRTF. (What is Binaural?, 2019)

I used the dearVR MICRO plugin to create binaural mixes for Darkscapes. MICRO is a 360° binaural panner with room reverb simulation and two HRTF sets. (Reality, 2022)

[DEARVR MICRO Binaural Panner Plugin]

I used automation on the elevation parameter to give the impression that the origin of the sound is moving vertically in relation to the listener. Likewise, I automated the azimuth parameter to automate the sound localisation to appear from anywhere in a circle around the listener, as the graphical user interface of dearVR MICRO demonstrates. The combination of the elevation and azimuth parameter produce a virtual 3D 360-degree sphere around the listener within which sounds can be localised. (Ting et al, 2021)

As well as enhancing the sound localisation and audio immersion, the automation of these parameters enhances the movement and energy in the mixes.

[DEARVR MICRO Azimuth Automation]