Seems like a plethora of methods of stereo-izing things makes them artificially sound louder. This ends up being a bit of a pain in the ass when I collapse a mix to mono to make sure everything's in order and some sound that was loud in the stereo mix just sinks into oblivion.

I considered that some of the stereo-ness of it is some sort of phase offset that causes negative phase interference/phase cancellation when it's collapsed, but I'm almost certain this isn't it because it happens across so many methods of stereo spreading. Not just the shitty width knob on Ableton Utility or a standard imager, but stuff like unison, the variety of effects in StereoSavage, sometimes even chorus effects.


So, what gives?

 

I think it has something to do with the sound already being in stereo. So when you widen it in the stereo field you're only increasing the levels of said sound on the sides. I'm just totally guessing here fyi..lol.

 

One factor

The other factor, you're p.much right since some methods of stereoization/expansion actually increase the volume of the side signal.

 

Last edited: Apr 6, 2017

There's a third factor: Human perception. Try this: Make a simple pseudo stereo by phase shifting the same sound, pan them hard left and right. Set them to half volume (in dB that is approx. -10 dBFS). Copy the original source to another track, mono straight from the center and at 0 dBFS. Although the tracks are now equal in volume, you will perceive the stereo track as louder.

 

@tulamide Although I agree with you (perception is the key word here) I was a bit confused by your -10db example. If you sum up equal tracks you only get 3db extra for each track.This also happens I concerts etc when they have for example an array of 10 speakers summing up to 90db, if we add one more array of 10 speakers, we will not have 180db.

Unless I misunderstood your example.

 

Whats up bro. This one can be tricky inside the box according to 3 main things.. the global pan law set in the DAW, the initial stereo phase of the source audio, and whether the plugin applied implements a pan law of it's own. Unfortunately these specs all have to be known if you want to do the math manually to add a good deal of width without changing the perceived loudness. A -3dB pan law is most typical in the DAW, and if using a neutral stereo widener the perceived loudness will increase on the sides.. however the actual rms pressure on the speakers will stay the same. If you don't want to get into all the math, phase rotation, and how much to boost or cut afterwards.. a plugin like AOM Factory's Stereo Imager D with the auto gain turned on will rid you of the headache.

 

To be honest I am not quite sure to which bases we refer. 3 dB is doubling the sound intensity, 6 dB is doubling the sound pressure and 10 dB is doubling the loudness. I might have been wrong, since I only recalled it from my mind, but I thought loudness would be the correct base here. Since that is the psychoaccoustic level, I am probably wrong to use that as a base, because then the perception of both tracks would be equal.

I use the sengpiel page a lot, here's about the topic: http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-levelchange.htm

 

Some good answers here. much appreciated.

Really don't feel like going down the thread and Liking everyone's post. Know that I appreciate you guys sharing your knowledge and insights. Cheers.

 

I personally use the Brainworx plugins for adding stereo width/boosting the side/difference component and it doesn't cause any sketchy phase cancelation issues like pitch and modulation/time based types do. So long as you don't put an effect after it that would mess with the mono/summed part of the signal (modulation/time based effects) your good to go.

The free one is bx_solo v2:

The entry method commercial one is bx_control v2, A tool I usually have on every channel of a multi-track project/session
(Along with Bootsty/Variety Of Sound/Herbert.L.Goldberg's preFIX and Voxengo's PHA-979, These three plug-ins with a high-pass
filter depending on the what the mic's are capturing, I'm able to eliminate phase issues with the PHA-979 if I've already
deployed the Little Lab IBP boxes, Clean up practically anything else with preFIX so noise isn't an issue, Easily record using a
Mid/Side configuration and then simply leave them in place for mix down when the mono-maker and stereo-width sections are
best deployed/engaged for battle ;+) :

The one which gets the most use and is what I originally bought a license of when it came out is bx_digital v3, A fantastic
easy to use mid/side EQ with de-essing capabilities along with the mono-maker and stereo-width which are on the bx_Control
plugin, Also keep in mind how rapid it is to solo any signal in any form with the bx_control's in place solo buttons. The EQ is
a genuine alrounder that works well with anything:

They also do a plugin which can genuinely take a mono signal and turn it into a stereo signal which is also fully compatible folded down to mono/summed in bx_StereoMaker, I'm not aware of any other plugin(s) which can do this and not in a pseudo-stereo manner. It looks in keeping with the rest of their plugins for a nice uniform look and workflow:

and more details in case it is appealing/anyone wants to check it out further:
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/bx_stereomaker.html

I believe everything has been covered as to the various why you are having problems and as always the good people here always
explain everything really well and/or provide linkage, So I shall not rehash what's already been said.

FWIW I tend to mostly use the stereo-width rather conservatively, On buses/aux inputs/returns oppose to on individual elements.
Same with used the bx_Digital EQ or other EQ with built-in Mid/Side encoding and decoding for high-pass filtering the side/difference
as too much, too often can be detrimental. I find the stereo-width really great on after reverbs to give them a vastness as well as
high-pass filtering the sides/difference then raising it in some frequencies to bring out more detail plus collapse the lows to mono/sum
which will net you some headroom, It's also very useful/effective after a compressor that is really smashing a sub mix of say a drum kit
for example or even the entire mix adding some width, high-pass filtering the side/difference and collapsing down the lows to mono.

I'm not a Brainworx or Plugin Alliance shill, I simply have found them to be really good tools which have paid for themselves and as
mentioned along with a few others, Have made multi-tracking with 24 (sometimes more if counting triggers or it's a really good sounding space that is worth capturing as well) mic's on a drum kit. Before having access to these plugins and DAWs that are capable of doing the kind of heavy lifting without additional DSP cards, With a fairly decent console (AMEK usually) and only a trio of Little Labs IBP boxes and four Drawmer DS-201's in the old rack for noise issues going to analogue tape and ADAT, It'd take hours to setup a big drum kit and have it ready
to actually start doing some proper takes with. It is just fantastic how much things have improved. Yeah I know the flaws inherent to analogue tape is often very much desired but with Nebula, u-he's Satin, FabFilter Saturn, UAD2 and Waves amongst others offer all the good
parts without the maintenance headaches, Then if a person still wants the real thing but not all the hassle Endless Analog's CLASP is the way to go, It's expensive for sure but if a person starts to weigh one up against a top notch machine, noise reduction if the machine is without, Having to store every reel of tape, Labelled properly and also regularly buy new analogue tape along with maintaining your machine along with being competent at editing and splicing together the tape which is kind of an art form in of itself the price of the Endless Analog CLASP begins to sound much more reasonable! Neve's portico tape emulating processor is pretty good and Crane Song's Phoenix/Phoenix II is very, very good to my ears, Shame there are no plans on Dave Hill's part to release a non-Pro Tools format version of the plugin, I also think that the HEAT algorithm which Digidesign/AVID did is really quite decent also but of course it's PT only and not a plug-in as such rather an add-on.

All the best to all as always, Apologize for going on a little OT nostalgia trip out loud, It was just going through my scrambled mush of a brain.
Cheers

Dean

 

excellent informative and directed response!