Hey-

Wondering what some of your techniques are for adding stereo width to your track in the mastering process. Every time I complete a track... I play it in my car.. and i think.. "Need to be WIDERRR". I try M/S stuff, "creative" L/R EQing, Ive tried a few plugins, but they always seem to make a "Flakey" sound.

1. Do you have a favorite Stereo width Plugins you like that gives good results?
2. Got any tricks up your sleeve in the MS/LR/panning realm you could share?

This is mainly on the Stereo Buss. I make very busy, noisy, dark, fast D'n'B.. Once I have a mix where I like it and it sounds good on my main monitors, computer speakers, headphones, in my car...wifes car...phone..earbuds...etc... I always YEARN for just a LITTLE MORE WIDDERRR... and going back into the individual tracks to create width usually throws off the entire mix and I have to remix...You know how it goes.

But maybe its just me never satisfied with my own work..

 

i put everything under 150hz in mono and for stereo witdh i use these technic ;)

 

I don't like tools with just one knob to make things wider, but prefer more control with iZotope Ozone 9 Imager > multiband processing. But tbh, although you don't like to go back to individual channels, real widening still starts with the original sounds and the right choice of effects > delay, reverb, modulation, panning etc. So maybe it's an idea to find a sweet spot between both methods to end up with the best possible result.

 

Sonalkis - StereoTools (Stereo Imaging) VST [www.sonalksis.com/stereotools.html]

StereoTools is a complete stereo imaging, metering and manipulation tool. The plug-in provides comprehensive signal metering and monitoring displays in order to enable precision image processing during the mastering stage. One of the most neglected areas of stereo mastering, in terms of available products, is professional grade stereo imaging tools.

StereoTools is a relatively simple but highly effective tool that encapsulates the complete range of standard stereo manipulation functions, including phase reversing, channel flipping, M/S decoding, balance, pan and width filtering. It combines these with detailed visual feedback of frequency, phase and positioning information, to ensure that every detail of the stereo field can be minutely analysed.

 

SSL Fusion hardware!

 

This is cheating! Should be illegal!

 

sounds horrible

my big break thru was that mixing always means putting things in perspective
if you want to widen you gotta ask yourself widen what? in relation to what?
maybe reduce the thing you want more mono and just widen the rest a bit?

 

for a quick bounce to check out a track for the car, headphones, I think the stock Logic Stereo Spread plugin works fine. It's in the Imaging plugins menu.

 

Each has their own mixing style and I don't think there is only one way to get to the point. I believe that a stereo imager plugin on the buss messes up with the phase, weakening the final master. I prefer to create the stereo image by working on the individual channels.

 

I hear you. I try to do that when mixing.. Just may be the style of music I make.. Not much room and everything is already so crowded.

So let me get your opinions.. Where in this track would you create that sense of space.. The fullness in the sides..

https://u.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZRvuFVZwoHHCalQjIRNs7pcROf7nbBPG2Hk

I think the player reduces quality quite a bit.. You may have to hit the download link in the top right.

There are a shit ton of kicks under the bass line at 180bpm 16th notes.. I guess im having trouble with opening up the wideness with so much distortion.. And I can't really feel a sense of layered space.. Maybe a genre thing.

 

is this in Ableton? Xfer records has free Dimensions Expander. I forgot if it was decent. I just redownloaded it and installed, checked. For a little tiny bit of width mixed back in to the input signal; I'm not sure I would expect it to do some great amount of harm to a bounce.

There is another one by Infected Mushroom I was using for a little while. Basically the same thing.

www.xferrecords.com/freeware. The Logic Stereo Spread is way better, but it is free.

 

Last edited: Apr 25, 2022

Studio one, but I do own Serum so I'll download the FX and give it a shot.

 

it's one of the freebies. you should grab OTT from them also. it is also a pretty great plugin for free. if all you need it for is like "demo" types of exports, I think it will cover it. I'd take the advice of fixing it at track level; but sometimes you are listening to check something else; song structure, or whatever. Where you slap a Waves S1 on it and call it a wrap.

 

Last edited: Apr 25, 2022

@fleschdnb
You are pushing to the limit, in some moments even beyond the limit. This pic shows what happens to the stereo image of the song:
Green: mid
Red: side
(When red mountains are bigger than the green ones you are in trouble)



I would say that this mix definitely has problems
1. Bass cannot hit in the chest with such an enhanced stereo image
2. the track dies when playing it mono
3. Big phase problems make you seasick when listened through headphones

The song is really good, I love it: why do you feel the need to go that far with stereo spread?

 

Well, good question. The wideness in the bass is unintentional. But when I try to mono the bass, the bass falls apart. It's frustrating. ThankS for showing me that and taking the time to analyze it. It's really a mess. Haha. I use the same Analyser and have never even used that MS mode. You just showed me something I'll use forever.

Man

 

When I was a kid we were so poor that we had to record a lot of our instruments on one channel, in mono, and then we'd hard pan them to make our mix wide. And we liked it, dammit! Get off my lawn

 

Kick/snare & bass should be mono under at least 120hz, especially in drum'n bass (and everything made for club/festival system). But it's better to that that during the mixing stage, or even the production stage (you can have a template with some preloaded eq or whatever tool you'll use for that). If you can only work on a fully mixed track, then you can use mid/side EQ, to add some side on some part, but be very gentle, it can easily ruin a mix, and sometime, even if the wider mix seems to sound good on your car or studio monitor, it can be really shitty on a big system.

Another trick is to add a little reverb on the master, very gentle (on a send bus), not something you can clearly hear, but more something you miss when muted. Be carefull there, be really gentle, use some referencea and take some break if it's a long session. Reverb sound nice and it can be really easy to over do it and drown your mix.

Also, in some situation, if you got too much stereo on your track, it can really ruin your punch and energy. You can also make thing sound wider by choosing some element to be more stereo and other to be completly mono, that way the one who need stereo got more space to live in the side of your track. Also contrast can be a good thing, like making stuff less wide, even mono for some time (like on a buildup) and make it back to the full stereo on the part you want to accentuate (like the drop), this technique make an impression of wideness without making stuff wider (you can do the same with volume automation for loudness trick, those automation can be done in the master process)

 

youre spot on for all the wrong reasons. s1 doesnt mess up the phase i.e.

 

everything he said related to contrast is the million dollar solution

 

so there is a plugin that doesn't mess up with the phase but still making things wider ? impressive