Hello there, firstly thank you all in this forum for alot of helpful articles. Secondly, I have a question in terms of stereo image and vectorscopes. It is propably realy awkward question, propably most of you guys know about this. Just to note, I am making EDM music and this is EDM song.

So, to the question, simply put, look into this picture ->
and tell me how did they reach that "top" and "bottom" (which is marked with red squares) of this stereo image.

I literaly dont understand it. I know that you can(and should) make some things more mono(vocals, leads ) other more stereo etc...i know about panning and stereo imaging (using waves stereo tools, fl studio stereo enhancer, ozone imager...)I know about delays and haash effect, but none of that can achieve this.

My thought was that you can do this with reverb, therefore that bottom/top is kinda in the "back" , so we could call that depth or height of stereo image, but I suppose am wrong. I know you can achieve it with distortions, I mean some kind of... I was able to replicate it in spire, by literaly using 9 voices of saw waves, detuned, put distortion on 100% wet and I got it, but I dont realy have idea what I am doing.

Next thing is when i rolled off(low cut) the low frequencies, it started to dissapear, which is kinda weird to me, because its stereo image, what frequencies it uses shouldnt matter I guess :D . So here are couple questions I am looking for:

1.) How do you achieve it? Is it simply just a good sound design(in synths itself, paning etc), or are there mixing vsts to achieve that?

2.) How is that called? Is it called depth of stereo image or what?

3.) How do you make it even? It looks evenly loud from bottom to top(similiar to first one)

4.) Why does it dissapear when i cut off low frequencies?

You dont have to write long novel , just pointing me at the right direction(tutorials, guides...) would be helpful alot.

Thanks alot.

P.S : I know that song should sound good, rather than look good, but still...

P.S2: That picture is Brooks remix of Martin Garrix - scared to be lonely

P.S3: This is stereo imager from f.lux, its free vst.

 

TL;DR: They did it by turning up the volume.

Longhand: A vectroscope is an oscilloscope displaying a Lissajous curve of L & R channels.

 

hey homes, you have to give a rich harmonic foundation with tape,tube, and transistor preamps tape machines, analog consoles (plugins)
next you use a variety of reverbs and delays but have their output about -18 db quieter than your signal, it puts a lovely depth in your tracks then use stereo width say "waves impusher stereo width knob 25% something like that look at your stereo meter each step of the way and then at end you can fine tune the adjustments.

 

stereo info is the difference between the right and left channel, if the same signal is sent to both ones then u gonna get the mono signal


(I know the picture is beautiful :D)

u can merge both left/right together but the result usually is crappy, better to put/route one of the channel to both ones

 

Last edited: Nov 10, 2017

oops wrong video, but useful , the good one:

 

found a much better than my shitty picture

 

and this was the most useful for me

 

you have to create a rich bed of harmonics combined with a rich bed of ambience ( even though both the harmonics and ambinece are sat in the quiet part of the sound.you dont have it overtly loud.

 

Lambchop
using ambience without rich bed of harmonics, will only get you halfway there in terms of rich stereo depth. try it.

 

btw, have u tried the new magic of iZotope

is it a useful one ?

 

a straight line going from top to bottom but with no width is mono

its about harmonics and ambience

yes distortions are harmonics that is part of it

this is becuase the lower frequencyes take up 80 percent of a signal power the highs take up lot less power of the signal, frequencies DO matter

yes good sound design, good engineering good harmonics and ambience

ambience, stereo image

building rich harmonics, mixing your tracks well ,great ambience information

becuase low frequencies are the majority of the audio signal's energy , high frequencies are 15percent or so f the signal's energy

flux is good one

 

Heatbeat maxed out this topic

love it, with headphone only

 

Never set out to create a rich bed of ̶l̶e̶t̶t̶u̶c̶e̶ harmonics. OP asked "tell me how did they reach that "top" and "bottom" (which is marked with red squares) of this stereo image." I answered: By turning up the volume.
Even posted a < 1 min screencap in which I turn up the volume to reach that pinnacle sonic goodness, amongst other things.

Whazzat? That certain je ne sais quoi? Eye of newt? toe of frog?
One thing's certain -- it doesn't figure in stereo imaging, (though even Wikipedos can't come up with a sourced, concise explanation of what stereo imaging is)


Edit: Please don't take offense, I just think explanations should err on the side of simplicity, like explaining what it is OP is looking at, and what it means.

 

Last edited: Nov 10, 2017

The image shows the dominant portion of that signal is mono.. nothing fancy, that's it. You said you rolled off some low frequencies and the mono signal started to diminish.. and that shows you the strength of the mono signal is in the lower freq ranges which is most typical. The heavier the mono portion, the closer it'll appear to being up the middle, or "in phase". If you use a mid-side EQ and roll off only the sides, the line will get straighter up as you go. If you roll off only the mids, the line will get wider as you go until it becomes a sideways line from L-R.

 

Last edited: Nov 10, 2017

Depth and width during production, sound design and mixing. Don't forget M/S processing (EQ, compression, saturation, limiting) in the mastering, where you process both Mid and Sides differently to make the sum/whole alot more optimized.

Too much sides will result in a poor/thin mono mix (bad mono-compatibility). Too much Mid/mono will result in a flatter sound image, percieved as having less loudness.
The square-ish blimps in the phase correlation meter is usually loudness by limiting/clipping.

 

Soo, thanks everybody who responded, i am kinda starting to understand(well, not realy :D )

So I made this short video, WARNING IT CAN GET LOUD->

Timeline:

0-22 - So, first you can see I put limiter and than adjust the input gain. Afterwards you can see in stereo tool, how does the sound shapes. Thats what I was kinda looking for. It goes to that corners :D ->basicly thats distortion

22 - 46 - I have low cuted with EQ, BEFORE the limiter, again you can see how it behaves

46 - end - I swaped the EQ AFTER the limiter, and it behavied diferently. It had the low cut there already, realy low one, but still had. I played with HQ button(its the oversampling), but that doesnt realy matter.

So, basicly what that limiter does, is that it creates harmonic distortion. So when i started to cut the low frequencies, that shape started to disapear from upper and down corner. So, for me logicly that means upper and downer corner are representing the low frequencies and the middle represent higher frequencies. And that stereo tool is trying to make it analyze, so we can make the sound evenly loud in every frequencies + it has the stereo information? So am I right, or am i completely retarded? :D I am so confused :D

 

please don't take offense, I just think explanations should explain the way things ACTUALLY work.
however simple or complex reality may be.( if the reality of situation is simple give simple. if the reality of situation is complex give complex.)
explaining the way things actually are (the reality of a situation ,context) is much more valuable than some compartmentalization. the man seeking simplicity where it don''t actually exist will leave variables of reality out, which leads to mistakes in thinking about that situation, context.

in the specific context related to achieving a extra wide stereo mage ,
you are dealing with the space or ambience that a sound is in ( room or a space
)along with the harmonic richness.
these 2 variables effect the difference between the right and left side of speakers, allowing maximum stereo width.

1.harmonic information. using analog tools whether virtual plugins or real, adds harmonics to the signal, it effects the transients by making a fat sound a louder perception of sound and natural compresses . it embeds a richness in harmonics ( think a guitar amp cranked)

2. once you have that rich harmonics , when you then add reverbs and delays to create a place for the music to exist in ( even though your making these reverbs and delays -18db to -22db quieter than normal signal)) you give much more 3d aspect , much more stereo information.

3. the last step is to add stereo width from gear to widen that 3d stereo depth. ( it has to use the information we just built up with harmonics and ambience)
you can now increase your stereo depth by %25 to %33 percent making the final music holographic and lively and organic.


stereo meter
a straight thin line means mono signal it is exactly same left and right side.
the line spreads out wider when you get stereo information ( right side has onw info, left side has own info)
depending on stereo meter the line will spread in certain areas based on frequency response.
however you want your track or main mix to have its stereo width from lower mids up.
the lowest frequencies eat up the signals energy, your mix will distort faster ( in bad way)and be quieter the more stereo you have from 0hz to 100hz.

 

Last edited: Nov 10, 2017

The reality & context are this: He still doesn't understand what it is he's looking at. He literally doesn't understand what the squiggly line on the vectorscope is telling him. After everything that was posted. Quote:
"So, for me logicly that means upper and downer corner are representing the low frequencies and the middle represent higher frequencies."

Lol, did you bother listening to OP's vid? What ambiance? Look:

Yeah, it's certainly rich in harmonics, it's a square wave chewing on razor blades. The stereo component (L-R) is basically noise.

Now tell me more about ambiance, the reality of the situation, rooms and space and "analog tools" :D