No, you don't.
I don't have Pro-Q to match it. But I made a preset for ProMB. Based on your screenshot, it should be something like this.
Put it into Plugin Doctor and match the curves and timing.

 

wrong files.

 

That's reserved for admonitions.

 

As your friend I feel forced to tell your noblesse status is starting to get into your head

 

Agreed, nonetheless, reported.

 

acustica audio's snow emulated it. I don't know how close it is to hardware, but it sounds interesting

 

Strange, I uploaded my file but it shows your files. Maybe it's the archive name. I'll upload it again tomorrow.

 

this is what it is all about, I never takes responsibility for how one would understand what I've said. Afterall the hardest part being in this music business is always "dealing with mediocrity". One will always think they know everything about everything until they don't if that day ever comes, especially when others is asking question. Instead of trying to understand the question and what's going on at the first place. I also tend to stay away (oh god I tried) from those that needs to open their mind (and suggesting others too) saying an average music is blowing their mind, when in fact more than half of the population of music maker can tell between good and bad music without discriminating genres within 10 seconds without ever needing to use brain power at all while totally aware that it's not something that can be solved easily like that. It just tell how far their taste has developed. Everything revolves around that.

 

Hello Stevie, I have been using FabFilter Pro-Q3 for a while to create a stereo field, but I didn't like the result. It sounds out of phase, so what I do to achieve a stereo field that I like is to add a tool called 'Splitter' in Studio One. This tool divides the incoming signal on the track by frequency or channels. Once I obtain the split signals A and B, I play with the stereo. Both A and B can be stereo signals, so I can apply a panning VST to A and another panning VST to B, and play around with them. Alternatively, I can assign A to the left side and B to the right side, or the last option would be to divide A and B by frequency. However, the most interesting option is in Studio One because you can keep adding inputs, I can't recall if it's 4 or 5 (for me, that's too much), but I have tried with 3 and it keeps subdividing according to the VSTs you use, such as EQ, reverb, etc. It gives a good and interesting stereo result.

 

I'm not a native English speaker, so sorry for the poor explanation.

The general perception is that the highs contain the stereo image, but in reality the low information also contains the important stereo image.
Your preset hits both of them with dynamic EQ, so that the midrange is heard first, and then the rest of the band is delayed, so that the stereo is perceived as expanded by the illusion.

 

There is no such animal in Logic, but give Blue Cat MB-7 Mixer a look/try for the same type of approach to your description. (less complicated maybe. up to 7 bands)
sorry if OT.

 

Good observation. That's the general idea. Finally someone that really understand what he's talking about
Pushing down the highs and low will make them come out later in time, it's like moving them back in time but without all those fancy unwanted phase shift or potential comb filtering artifacts. This is why this technique is recommended by a lot of professionals and I want to really learn them.

Now I get it with what you meant earlier with Reverb ducking (the side-chaining thing you mentioned), I didn't notice that at all at first but yes, you are right, it's similar. I'm more interested about making things that perceived (or appear) wider with strong center power with added depth of field in the center, than signal that actually wider all the time. Do you have any idea to improve it ?

the out of phase stuff, did you do it on the masterbus or individual tracks ?
anyway, I know about the Splitter in S1 and it is the reason why I moved my mixing template from Cubase to S1 solely because of that Splitter tool. What you have suggested is good and I get your point, I do that kind of stuff with delays and reverb sometimes for guitar, opposite reverb panning and such.

I'm currently want to learn this "new" (at least to me) EQ techniques for stereo imaging as I've been hearing about them being recommended non-stop in a lot in podcast, interview etc by a lot of good engineers I like. Hardware Master Bus processors already starting to implement this type of processing and I figure Rupert Neve already did it on his Portico 5014. Yet nobody is talking, teaching about them, let alone a good tutorial about it, it's non-existance.



I admit the presets I've created is not perfect and needs a lot of improvement as I am still learning about it, that's why I created the whole thread. Trying to perfect the EQ preset while learning how to solely use the EQ techniques for stereo enhancement. As for now I'm not there yet and only use them on individual track because It didn't really sound good for stereo bus especially a dense mix. For stereo bus, a full mix, I believe making them wider would be too much, it's more like making them "appear wider" " appear deeper" with added depth, just perception but didn't change too much of the mid and side content of the original song, most importantly only using EQ technique. For my preset using the foundation based on the Neve unit, I think I kinda get the idea of how the Depth of Field work using EQ, how to make the center image front to back perception clearer but right now it is still with a lot of unwanted artifact. Try it again and focus on that part and you'll get what I'm trying to say. As I said, it's not perfect yet but I know I'm on the right track. Gotta admit, "making things wider" is getting boring after 15 years so I want something new.

This is another example of how newer plugins starting to use it, from the manual of Brainworx Masterdesk Pro.



I believe the "Automated EQ" system is dynamic EQ but too bad we'll never know what it really does because Plugin Doctor is incapable of decrypting it.

 

Last edited: Jun 24, 2023

Just to clarify about "phase problem" like someone had brought up, here's the phase response of the preset at 200%. I don't recommend using it at more than 100%, 80% is already too much for me.

Spoiler: zzz

of course I get pissed when one said the downside is phase problem, get it ?

Not sure this look like a problem at all as your everyday EQ moves would do 10 times this amount. I wonder if a better result could be achieved with flattening the phase response all together as I intentionally leave some so the mid and side phase create some interaction. Also curious if this is not what is really going on, I mean PD could be lying, I don't know for sure.

I couldn't find anything useful on Leapwing CenterOne as @triggerflipper suggested, the plugin probably use different technique for Stereo Enhancement but I found out about this other plugin by them, the StageOne and thought just to share here about how this plugin does its "Depth". I only use the Depth slider, is that reverb ?

Phase :


Frequency :


Also found similar behavior for Variety of Sound ThrillseekerXTCmkII MOJO function.

 

Last edited: Jun 24, 2023

I said unpredictability in phase relations between Mid and Side is the problem, not phase response. My initial comment is like second in the topic and anyone can go and read exactly what's written there. And I said it's the biggest problem with the approach and still it's not even a big one. And I only talked about it because he himself asked in general what can go wrong.
And he's not even measuring it correctly (he has two channels affected very differently and dynamics on top of that and he looks at linear analysis of the whole stereo output), but if that's how dude takes neutral remarks I don't want to know how he takes criticism.
Also I did answer his essential question too, even tho my answer is "I don't get it, not my style, but I don't see any problems". And I have no freaking idea where the rest comes from. Not even sure it's written in English, can somebody confirm?
It's clearly personal, and he's still continuing the drama, while I never did anything to this person to deserve that, or at least nothing I can think of. Guess he really doesn't like Dan Worrall's music? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Okay, to start, you know more than me, do you know how to measure with the plugin Doctor? I think that's the one. The phase. I never dedicated myself to learning that, mostly I use my ears, and when it sounds strange, I just dismiss it. I mean, you listen to what you've equalized on one side, but you know it doesn't convince you, in that case, I dismiss it. What you're trying to do is something that I always try to do as well, especially with mono sounds, like an acoustic guitar that I want to sound stereo, and that's where it gets complicated for me. You asked me if I've used it on the bus, and no, only on individual tracks, and with a small amount, 30% or 50% at most, but it already starts to sound strange. I've tried many VSTs to do this and I have the same problem with all of them when it comes to separating frequencies in stereo. With the electric guitar, this is easier for me because I do exactly what you mentioned, I create channels with the splitter, so in one channel (for example), I have the electric guitar with distortion without effects, and the other channel with distortion and reverb or delay, which creates a more realistic stereo image. But I use different cabinets in A and B to make them distinguishable. But when it comes to creating stereo with the acoustic guitar, it's always a problem for me. The hardware you shared looks interesting, I'm one of those people who think that no VST surpasses hardware, the realism that hardware provides is unique to me, maybe it's just suggestion, I don't know, but if I could, I would have all hardware, I think it's more efficient. So, I wouldn't doubt that hardware could naturally create a realistic stereo field based on equalization. On the other hand, I don't know if you've tried the Plugin Alliance SPL Vitalizer MK2-T, although it doesn't do what you want to achieve, it creates quite an interesting stereo image. Tomorrow or in these days, I will try the FabFilter with your presets on a bus to see what results I get. Thanks for the tips.

 

@Stevie Dude @justwannadownload Guys, don't fight, you are both wise individuals. I haven't talked much with either of you, but I know that both of you have extensive knowledge. Instead of fighting, why don't you listen to each other and learn from one another? I can't say what is true or not because I understand very little about phase and analysis. But I always read your discussions, and both of you are knowledgeable people. Instead of arguing about who knows more, you could combine your knowledge and create something much more beneficial, from which we could all learn (those of us who know little or nothing).

 

I can't agree more with Rick's comment.
So please guys, stop this sterile flight.
This a technical thread and there's no place for personal attacks or insults.

 

I am not a mixing major so I can't speak professionally.
I just like to add something dynamic to a pure side image.
Just writing out a side image with a short decay relative to the kick and shifting it a bit can be interesting.
(Though it does require some tweaking with the imager and EQ, and some distortion to add some character.)
Serban Ghenea has been reigning at the top for a long time.
I think it's because he is very good at using stereo width to create grooves.

 

CenterOne's main purpose isn't stereo enhancement, but its rather unique (afaik) way of splitting the signal into L/C/R channels, combined with the possibility of getting multiple outs with post-fx inserts (super easy in Bitwig) allows for a different kind of stereo manipulation that doesn't have some of the pitfalls and annoyances that come with M/S.

Like I said, it's not impossible to obtain similar results with tons of routing/patching (or at least I did so once for a very specific case), but CenterOne makes the workflow super easy.

Tbh though, I mostly use it for sound design purposes rather than mastering.

Tb even more h, the only reason I wrote that comment was because I'm a huge fan of yours (especially Serum, I mean how beautiful is that green saw wave image on the init screen??) and wanted to get your attention, and hoping you could convince Deadmau5 to play at my circumcision ceremony.

From the IR snapshot it looks like some sort of very short, static reverb with a bunch of irregular delay taps :



I've zoomed in quite a lot, as you can see from the loudness units on the left. As for time, to give you an idea, the first spike happens at 46.6 ms, which is the plugin's latency. It also adds what seems to be pre-ringing, but at such low volumes I don't think it matters (although when you crank the other two parameters to 100 it gets considerably worse) :

 

Last edited: Jun 24, 2023

A little off-topic, but aside of CenterOne, the same or similar thing is done by Raising Jake Studios True Mid/Side (it's called that way but it's a L/C/R split) and, um, Audacity With an open-source algorithm
The exact plugin is "Vocal Reduction and Isolation", the processing is anything but "analyze" (which, well, analyzes) and "...: to mono" options (which are all a simple channel invert). Due to specifics of Audacity it's not a realtime processing, however.