Hey guys,
please have a listen to this Set from Hardwell:

Minutes: 21 , 29,

Many Sets from Hardwell sounds so ultra good and clean.
When i listen to them at my cheap Car Speakers, im very pleased.

The Space/reverb makes it so comfortable to hear for me.
I also think, that the Mid, Bass, MONO and Kick area is still very healthy and punchy.


So i´m thinking, if they´re doing some Mid/Side Processing for the Mixes before Uploading.
So maybe, they Mix the Music Output from the DJ Decks with the recorded Noise from the crowd and then process them Mid/Side.

i also want to make some similar processing with some of my tracks, because i LOVE this sound.
It´s exactly like i want to hear them in my car.

Actually i tried to play around with Studio Rack and his Mid Side Functions and got some good results.
But not nearly like this Quality from Hardwell.

Would be cool, when you have some Starter Ideas for me
Thank you very much

 

For clean recordings like this from a festival or club mix, the audio is usually directly straight from the mixer or main soundboard. Crowd noise is probably picked up by microphones and recorded separately, also from the sound reinforcement soundboard. They mix these together later in post before uploading to YouTube or whatever they plan to do with it.

There are a bunch of plugins which can collapse the low end to mono, and it is pretty common to set that to 100hz. Sonalsksis Stereo Tools was an older favorite of mine, but many of the PA Brainworx mixing plugins have that feature. Now, I would be more likely to use Tone Projects Basslane Pro for it. For the wide information you are getting, you could do the imaging with Ozone of course. But you could also do it with Pro-Q4 like I mentioned in another thread you were asking about mid/side for EDM in, iirc. (or any of the numerous plugins available with those features).

The plugins I am mentioning could be any of the similar plugins which all do the same things. But this should give you a good general idea of where to start.

It would work if you put one instance on each of the two "stems"; mono low end with the instance on the dj mix, and another instance on the crowd channel to push it out to the mid/side. Sum them together and you are ~90% there already. You might need to do that same thing with the Ozone/Basslane Pro. He'd very likely use his own plugin, so that probably depends on who did the work.

 

Last edited: Jul 23, 2025

There's a few mid/side vst's out there to try... Here's one free to try
https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2024/09/09/feenstaubtx-released/
& also for wider mixes look at https://polyversemusic.com/products/wider/

 

Related question, what kind of mic can I use to get a crowd audio? If I use a recorder (zoom) and put it on the stage I will just get the sound from the PA because it's so loud, won't I?

 

Thank you very much for the feedback and thank you clone for remembering my older thread about MS. It was about DimeMS and Studio Rack and I will answer there later.

I had the time to test them today

I had Basslane several years ago. Normal older version and almost forgot this tool.
It was very good.
Thank you for the recommendation

 

THIS,--- THIS THIS THIS WAS THE ANSWER ---) The Key to his sound. OMG
I tried it now and put it on multiple Tracks like Kick, Bass Group, Percussions, Synths and finally on the Master.
In the short time i just used the Presets ---) They´re PURE Gold.
You can really get the typical hardwell Sound.
There is a Hardwell Kick Preset inside, which changes everything for me and my sound. i love it.
Other presets i used were from Luca Pretolesi, which are also pure Gold.

So my Master chain including the last puzzle piece:
God Particle - Space Control (Superwide Master) - Waves Studio Rack (Multiband Split) with "oneknob Wetter" - Limiter
the oneknob Wetter has exactly that "live Set" sound i wanted.

i´m really happy and lucky.
Thats the first time i got a result, i really like and love and which sounds like in the Video.

Space Control is a Gamechanger for me and a Must Buy in a upcoming sale.

I have to thank you all very much

 

Last edited: Jul 23, 2025

Agreed its really something else. I'll grab it next sale as well. I have plenty of spatial plugins, but that one is just next level. Glad i could help and that you found a solution that works for you!

 

Some great widening techniques (in addition to the mighty SPACECONTROL):

-inverting EQ bands for left and right channels (e.g. Polyverse Wider, Logic Stereo Spread, or you could just manually use Pro-Q 4)

-Haas effect (must know what you're doing to implement this correctly, see Dan Worrall's tutorials on the FabFilter Youtube channel)

-iZotope Ozone 11 Imager has not 1 but TWO great artificial widening techniques (inside a single plugin): Haas and Velvet Decorrelation. The latter is my favorite as it's extremely mono-compatible but still yields great results

-Parallel processing? Widen it ;) Like jaycen Joshua said, we don't want a tiny little pencil line on the goniometer we want that thick and wide except on the super low frequencies. The more you learn about phase differences in stereo, the more you can break rules.

 

TC Finalizer hardware or software plugin and you could use stereo widener in the software

 

There are no "one plugin game changers", ever. You just happen to like "soundgoodizer plugins" on your master bus. Which is fine, but you also want to be able to do the same things manually if necessary; and for more deliberate control. They all can do a few things you want, but *everything* they do is normally baked into the cake so to speak. That's why I am even reluctant using something like Basslane Pro. Sometimes you want fast and immediate, and sometimes you want something more controlled in some way. Plugins like that are for musicians and producers who need to bang preliminary mixes out quickly and with predictable results. Try changing out The God Particle on a track with Musik Hack Master Plan and you will immediately see what I'm talking about. There are quite a few plugins which are like them. The God Particle happens to be one of them which is very good at it. I will often stick it on my master bus in front of my limiter, while I am still working on the actual content of the track; just to check where everything is headed and what it will sound sort of like when I do the mix. They just added an A/B feature to it for that specific purpose, where people were just clicking the disable button.

Somewhere on Space Control GUI, it even shows it was made in coordination with Luca Pretolisi. Acustica Diamond is another which showed up on sister site that is nice for all these same purposes, except the imaging. He did a MyMixlab video specifically about Fabfilter Pro-Q4 for mid-side processing you should check out, it's short but worth a watch.

 

Thanks again for the Detailed feedback
I will have a look at these and your mentioned techniques. For the long way, learning is better than "Magical Plugins" that's true

 

There's not a "one plugin to create width and depth". It comes down to multiple techiques during production and mixing, that all work together to make it easier for the brain to dissect the audio landscape. Haas, stereo delays, stereo reverb, stacking/doubletracking and counterpanning, multiband-panning, chorus, reamping, M/S multband saturation, binaural/HRTF, ambisonic, etc etc.
Yes, M/S plugins can enhance the width that is already there (in the Sides channel) - but usually at the cost of collapsing when you sum the mix to mono (i.e.,bad mono-compatibility).

Crowds are usually captured with directional super-cardioid mics which cancel out much of what is going on right behind them (the PA). Look for super-cardioid mics. The wide space between mics (say three mics as LCR) as well as the ambience quality of outdoor events also contribute to create (more) width at a live event recording, just like reamping dry recordings in a big room (pun intended).

 

Last edited: Jul 24, 2025

Sounds like a Dyson hoover to me. And a bass drum.