How to Build a Soundstage

You have two speakers and a flat file. So how do you make a mix sound like a real three-dimensional space?

In Episode 17 of KNOBS, Simon Moro and Terry Hart take on the soundstage: the art of placing sounds in a believable room that lives in front of, between and beyond your speakers. Their tell for an amateur mix is simple, if you can hear the left and right speakers as speakers, the soundstage has failed.

They work through all three dimensions. Front to back, using pre-delay, brightness and reverb so a sound feels close or far, because low frequencies travel further, which is why you only hear the bass from the club down the street. Left to right with pan and a touch of ambience. And top to bottom, where lows ground a mix and highs lift it. Then width, which they argue is really about dimension and relationships: you need a mono anchor, like the drums or a narrow verse, before a wide chorus can feel wide at all.

Plus the traps: the hollow centre from hard-panned guitars, mono translation, and a very entertaining case against stereo wideners.

Whether your mixes sound flat, narrow or just a bit small, this will change how you hear space.

Topics covered:

What the soundstage actually is. Front to back: pre-delay, brightness, reverb. Why distance rolls off the highs. Left to right and jumping out of the speakers. Height: lows ground, highs lift. Width as relationship and the mono anchor. It's dimension, not width. The hollow centre and mono translation. Why stereo wideners wreck a mix.