How to create "outdoor" space when mixing

[jrdmcdnld]

It seems that most reverbs are only good for creating indoor spaces. I'm interested in any techniques that can be used to put sounds off in the distance with an outdoors emphasis. Thanks in advance.

[Mr_Clifford]

Altiverb, with one of the outdoor IR's ???

(Haven't tried them personally yet).

[jrdmcdnld]

hhhmmmmm....convolution. Good idea!

Another thought I had was to add a track of recorded nature, things like wind in the trees or birds. That would set the scene - then mess with high rolloffs, volume and delays to push the sounds back in the mix.

[Jim]

Deconstruct exterior ambiance: mostly noise from wind, traffic, animal life, and humans, plus reflective slapback from hard surfaces like buildings, rock formations, cars. Probably the only places on earth where you'd encounter exterior silence would be far from civilization, animals and extreme weather... like in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during a lull, and wasteland locations.

Remove the noise, and you're left with reflections.

You could recreate slapback echoes from say a canyon perspective with the DP Echo effect. The harder the reflective surface, the less coloration will be applied to the reflection. The wider the canyon, the greater time delay between echoes.

The same would apply for a zone in the middle of a bunch of buildings, except that you'd likely encounter some added coloration from building materials like steel and wood. You'd also encounter coloration from resonators like cables, flexible sheets of metals, glass, plastic, etc.

If you're alone on the fifty yard line of an empty football stadium, the reflections would be diffused and complex. If the stadium was full, but the people were quiet, their clothing and skin would absorb a significant portion of the reflections.

If you're in the middle of a calm body of water, I don't believe that water would reflect sound back; the water likely absorbs and diffuses any sound energy that hits it. I'd guess that the sound in the middle of a quiet ocean would be that it has no sound. The only reflections you would hear would come from your dinghy.

It's common for manufacturer presets to include effects for "canyon" and "stadium." I'd suggest starting with them, and playing around with reflections and coloration until you get something you can use.

[mhschmieder]

It's funny, I just went through this myself yesterday! But I didn't login except to post one quickie in the DP forum, so didn't see this post.

I ended up choosing one of the forest convolutions -- the one with wide-open vs. between-the-trees. It did the job perfectly.

I have to rush off for something right now, but will be posting my revised mix at my MySpace Music page later tonight. It's a replacement for something I posted there a year ago which was at the time unmastered.

I don't want to be guilty of self-promotion, so send a PM if you want the link to my MySpace Music page.

[chrispick]

I think the best way to do this is to -- well, do it. Re-record the source off-mic. Feed the track out to a speaker, then mic the speaker from a distance. Works great.

[gregwhartley]

I think the best way to do this is to -- well, do it. Re-record the source off-mic. Feed the track out to a speaker, then mic the speaker from a distance. Works great.

Yes, this is good advice. You can never beat the real thing, even if the source is somewhat artificial. I recorded a drummer in a toilet once...

[audios]

If you don't have mega bucks for the Altiverb-6, try this.

http://magnus.smartelectronix.com/

The "Ambience" AU works pretty well in re-creating an outdoor feel and they have a number of pre-sets that work pretty well.

later