Hey guys,

I'm into the world of mastering audio for about 2 1/2 years now. I master my own music, do it for some friends and for a german drum & bass label, quite succesful I guess. One thing that is bothering me lately is the point of the mastering chain where stereo widening should be applied. I know very well that there is not a fix rule for such things, but I would like to know some other producers takes on that topic.

What interests me the most is, wether you should apply the widening before the compression or afterwards. Most of the time I did it before compression, but recently I re-thought that, because everything that you do before compression gets basically multiplied cause of the compression, especially such subtle processes.

Let me hear your opinion on this.

 

Are you speaking specifically of a project you mixed before the mastering stage? Imo almost everything regarding a mix should be done pre master stage. only thing that should really be happening during the mastering stage is corrective measures towards eq and dynamics to make a song sound optimal on just about any listening device.

 

Simon V. Do I win?

 

Well some mixes I mastered in the past had a very thight stereo spread an it's possible to enhance the whole mix's stereo image with something like the Nugen Stereoizer. But, better before the compression or after? Thats my main question here.

 

I think it should be before. DRC can narrow the image, and widening the image can introduce new peaks. In Izotope Ozone 5 Maximizer you can control the stereo link.

You can widen with nugen steroizer. If you're using it, I suggest turning off ITD (which is delay, delay can introduce phasing artefacts when you mono down)

Really, if you're widening, apply it pre-master, as if you're widening on the master, you're affecting EVERYTHING. M/S Widening typically reduces the punch of everything center (bass, vocals, etc) if you're applying it to the master bus and you probably don't want that.

 

Solid point man. So probably splitting the signal in mid and side and only widening the sides would be the best way to do it on a whole track. For my own music I do all that stereo stuff in the mixing stage, but sometimes I'm getting tuff from my clients that needs some widening and as it comes as a single wav file there is no way in doing it for individual elements.

 

Blue cat mb7. Multiband and or M/S with your fav widener/s

 

Depending on the song, it might be better to create a wider image by panning certain instruments in the song. From what I've experienced, most mixes are tight due to everything being dead center. Also a lot of stereoenhancers I've used seem plastic as if they're taking energy and momentum away from the song.

 

For me it depends on the song how is mixed sometimes I spread it as wide as I can get it by looking at the phase correlation meter as long as it is in phase it's good then of course checking in mono to see if anything is lost

 

I tent to stay away from wideners, Generaly a ultra short stereo delay with a pingpong/rev is far more versatile.

also instead of mid side eq try some left right eq-ing, making slight changes on each side and maybe automate them

 

I have used Mathew Lanes DrMS before to good Effect to achieve wideness without destroying my mix.
This is a very powerful plugin, and was just available on the sister site.

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

 

Last edited: Dec 31, 2015

DrMS works with Haas effect! Its not the right choice for mastering. Usually, if i have to do stereo processing i use MS technic and do that after all other processing is done, because if you do it before the compressor, you destroy your stereo processing. But use is subtile. I do mastering since 15 years now, and i hardly use compressors, and if i do, i use it subtile and mostly parallel, and in the last stage the MS/Stereo processing. But use it before the limiter to prevent clipping. Don't use the Limiter to gain loudness. You'd destroy the stereo processing, mostly. And avoid any processing which uses haas effect for stereo effects. This is only mixing.

 

You don't use any limiter for loudness maximization in your mastering process??? It's the first time i read that.
Please,which are all the different fx process do you use and in which order,when you do a mastering?

 

just use AAMS lol i know im not the only one who uses it, the software can get you professional results fast if you generate and use the right preset, but this can also take time. mastering without a dedicated mastering studio is i have to say impossible, and if you master in your bedroom or house (even with so called treatment) id like to hear the results (i know i wont like it). Real pros have big budget $100,000+ room and they use powerfull reference A B ing snapshot graph software for comparing etc..

 

Thanks for all the great input guys. Much appreciated. Are there any good plugins that can split a mix into mid/side signal?

 

I use reel-2-reel tape, sometimes Oxford Inflator or a compressor with special settings in parallel to gain loudness. It keeps the sound transparent and dynamic. Gaining loudness with a limiter destroys the sound and the transients

 

Waves has a MS Splitter (S1 MS Matrix Splitter) ... just insert before and after the MS processing... nothing to configure...

 

We have a dedicated Mastering Studio and the room is not $100.000... its 1.000.000+

 

And how would I set this up in FL Studio for example? I route my stereofile to mixer channel 1 i.e. and then put the splitter on, but how can I decide which signal I want to process? And after that another splitter will bring it back to a normal stereo sound?

 

if you are given stems you have a much higher degree of flexibility over mastering for stereo wideness, as obviously you can stereo the elements you want, but i would be super careful of widening a single premastered file (a 24bit 48kHz -6db wav as an example) because you can really screw up on sharp drum transients sound with a lot of super short high end energy (snares and hats to be precise). And also using stereoizers can mess up the precision in the field with fast moving hits such as D&B or cause unwanted evenness. The stereoness should be kinda even, and tbh the producer should be keeping tips on their monoing tbh when producing, especially when these tunes get played on P.A's, the mono field is obviously important because of how PA's are split up. I would actually try some solutions and ask djs for feedback when they get to play them on pa's to see how well the post processing you have applied responds on the lows. To me personally stereo widening should only be done on multitrack stems, and only by small amounts, being super careful of the low end. Also as a producer i am super attentative for stereo elements especially in dnb given the pacing of the tracks, so producers might not want even more reinforced sterofield.