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Author Topic: Stereo Width  (Read 45440 times)

Voia

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Re: Stereo Width
« Reply #15 on: January 06, 2016, 04:03:57 pm »
wideness is great- it's a really good tool to keep things in your high/low mids from fighting each other.


my favorite plugin to use for widening is Flux Stereotool - it's free!

just make sure to test your mix in Mono as well - you can do this with a Utility on your master with the width set to 0 and toggle the plugin on and off to test.
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inqblot

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Re: Stereo Width
« Reply #16 on: January 06, 2016, 06:16:29 pm »
Matthew Lane's DrMS is one of the most creative plugins I've found for focusing or widening your stereo field. The embedded video on its page gives a great overview on what it's capable of:

http://www.mathewlane.com/DrMS.html

Great thread, everyone, keep the recommendations coming.
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Konac

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Re: Stereo Width
« Reply #17 on: January 06, 2016, 06:40:22 pm »
Quote from: Volant on January 06, 2016, 06:12:03 am
In my opinion, you shouldn't split sounds too much as it can often mess with the dynamics, so I can't recommend using too many multiband plugins. Instead, try to think about what needs to be wide and what doesnt, keep it simple. In most cases it's enough to just make the whole sound either mono or stereo. And remember, it's not the overall width that makes something sound wide, it's the contrast between mid and side. My rule of thumb is to keep everything that has to sound precise (low basses region and drums, lead vocals) more mono, I leave the stereo space for sounds that require it to work (pads, chords or sometimes background vocals).

This is something I think many people overlook when it comes to multiband stereo processing.  Multiband stereo processing is something that should be used only to make slight balanced changes to a sound or else it could easily ruin the stereo characteristics of the original sound.  Instead, I recommend carefully choosing which sounds you want to be widened entirely.  Most of the time, you'll end up widening sounds that are mostly focused around high frequency content, meaning you won't end up with over widened low frequency content anyway.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2016, 06:48:36 pm by Konac »
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JamesSweeneyy

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Re: Stereo Width
« Reply #18 on: January 06, 2016, 11:52:22 pm »
Quote from: jaefit on January 06, 2016, 02:57:54 am
Ooohh, follow up question: What are your favorite methods for stereo widening in Ableton?

I like to get the simple delay, turn the wet/dry all the way up, switch from sync to link & have one of the sides at 0 & the other between 1 & 20m/s... makes shit sound super wide
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øko

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Re: Stereo Width
« Reply #19 on: January 07, 2016, 07:51:37 am »
Quote from: JamesSweeneyy on January 06, 2016, 11:52:22 pm
Quote from: jaefit on January 06, 2016, 02:57:54 am
Ooohh, follow up question: What are your favorite methods for stereo widening in Ableton?

I like to get the simple delay, turn the wet/dry all the way up, switch from sync to link & have one of the sides at 0 & the other between 1 & 20m/s... makes shit sound super wide

My go-to for adding width in the mix, and its an effect that collapses to mono nicely  ;)
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kavanaka256

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Re: Stereo Width
« Reply #20 on: January 07, 2016, 03:01:41 pm »
Leads and main patches don't necessarily have to be wide but layering them with other leads and panning them can give you some nice width. Panning and delay always give your track a nice stereo image. Like everyone else said everything below 150 Hz should be mono. Basically the higher the frequency of an instrument, the more you can pan it. As for mono compatibility you should always A/B a sound you pick in mono.
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Stax

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Re: Stereo Width
« Reply #21 on: January 07, 2016, 04:00:55 pm »
I found layering helps maybe it can help with you. Layer those leads, those claps, those snares, hi hates. Layer what i mean is get a left side a right side and a middle. Like make two or three instances of so "stereo track' do some panning. Buss them and then process. This literally gives you an actual stereo image that you fully control. In the buss be subtle with Eq, chorus, delay and distortion. Im pretty sure most Daws come with some sort of stereo widening. No need to run and buy a lexicon......yet. Also you can make an "Izotope ozone stereo Imager". Its just a mulitband imager, just splits the frequencies. Eq does the same thing.

Even with the bass the low frequencies can be cut off, pan one to the left one to the right. THEN put a mono sub bass for support. You have a complete thick baseline that is mono and stereo.

Hey but this is opposite day so remember to do the opposite of that.
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museumoftechno

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Re: Stereo Width
« Reply #22 on: January 08, 2016, 01:59:26 pm »
There's a plugin by a guy called Aliex Hilton - the A1 Audio A1StereoControl. It has a "Safe Bass" feature, so you can say "Anything under XXX Hz must be in mono", and a "Make everything mono" button, and a "stereo width" control. Drop it on your master out and you can mono your mix very easily to check that what you're doing is stereo compatible.

Some plugins are stereo compatible, some aren't. I think (not 100% sure) Massive's Dimension Expander (and Xfer Recordings Dimension Expander) are designed to add stereo width, but be mono compatible. Meanwhile, be careful of doubling plugins that use the Haas effect to make a mono sound stereo (sending delayed signals to the extreme left and right) because if you collapse the results to mono, you might have accidentally comb filtered your music. Waves Shuffler... I think that works by panning different frequency bands left & right, and I think that's mono compatible.

Basically, if I'm artificially widening a sound, I try to remember to use A1StereoControl to check my mix after I've added the effect, to make sure I haven't messed it up significantly.
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