Hi!
It's easy to widen a pad or other synth with stereo imaging plugins, but this way we often simply send a portion of the signal to the "out-of-phase" region, which degrades the mono compatibility of the sound.

What are your favorite techniques for making a given instrument sound very spacious and wide but preserving mono-compatibility at the same time?

Let this post be a collection of techniques for widening a sound without sacrificing mono compatibility (can be with examples of what instruments it's good for)

Do you recommend using e.g. 2 mono reverbs, panning them left and right, and delaying e.g. the left mono reverb by a few milliseconds?


Let's discuss
Cheers,

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...rXsk7rfD-94yuL6LiwQ0QCzOYn2wlDLZhNhz6/pubhtml

 

anyone else wanting to share his/her thoughts?

 

disregard mono...

 

You mean compatible with summing into mono, or for single channel to stand on its own (L or R)?

 

You can pan anywhere between L and R and still remain mono compatible, its when you use phase difference to create an image beyond the L-R boundary, that causes signal cancellation when summing to mono. That's it. There's no way out of it.

 

maat has a plugin to treat phase... can't remember the name... found it...
it's called RSPhaseShifter... check inphaase from waves... keep in mind that these tools are used at mixing stage... it's there you must work... also widening at limits when mixing you get problems when mastering... keep everything related to each other and don't add too much stereo image on just one instrument... even professional mixed tracks has phase issues... one must limit them as much as possible before mastering... stereo image can be a hard pain in the arse or a game changer for the final sound of every track...

good luck

 

Last edited: Feb 27, 2018

One of the best for have total control( in my case of course) is use a buss(for parallel widening)with a mid eq inserted( high pass the mid around 350/500, depends) then a widening plug( i love in this case Vitamin with you get very interesanting results, experimenting here is the trick) and sometimes close the chain with a compressor. I love the xtreme but controlled space there

 

very simple. do panning the way you want then convert it as mono by putting an simple utility plugin.

this is the technique

 

Last edited: Feb 27, 2018

i like music in stereo. dont like it in mono.

especially when my headphonejack JACKSUP and gives me all mono signal and i dont notice untill at get to that point where i realize its in freaking MONO!!!

 

100% guaranteed solution.. Do a mono and a stereo mix you lazy bum lol!!

 

The only way to be really mono compatible is to create two separate tracks.
It will be wide and never cancel in mono, because source is different.
This trick is used for guitar double tracking or quad tracking.

Everything else is just searching for what you can accept ;)

Any time base effect will fluctuate (phaser, flanger, chorus...), it doesn't respect signal on every possible source. I hate modulated metal guitars :D So 80's ;)
Pure delay : create combfiltering
pitch shift : it should work ok, but with some degradation
...

You can use layering, too : take a bass line, split it (frequencies or instruments), mono the low part, stereo the high part (chorus).

 

One way to create width but maintaining mono compatibility is to layer/stack sounds and counter-pan them. This also depends on type of sound/source (some are prefered centered while others benifit from being wide).

Mono-reverbs is a psychoacoustic simulation of reverbed sound that comes from greater distance (depth), compared to wide and spatial reverbs that emulates closer sound sources (and thus have more phasing issues).
One way to maintain mono-compatibility is to counter-pan the mono reverb to the dry sound source.

Haas can be applied to mono sources, but will introduce comb filtering in mono (getting more evident and climbing further down the frequency spectrum the longer delay that is used, from 1ms to 40ms).

 

What's wrong with merely using a sidechain eq? Then you control the stereo field and the mono source independently!

 

Control the Following:
Transients, Pan, Volume, Delay, Reverb, Tubes & Tape.. Sorry for cutting short but, it's better Short & Sweet.

Phaser, Tremolo, Haas, & etc, is just sweeten effects, after the fact imo

 

How do you make your track sound wide and spacious? Stick it up your Haas.