I have a problem, when I duplicate my vocal tracks and pan one to the left and other to the right then add a delay it sounds like a robot on car radios and my phone. But when I put headphones/earphones in it sounds like it supposed to. How do I make it sound the same on all devices?

 

Boz Sidewidener is my favorite plugin to do this. Less phase issues than anything else I've tried. Others more experienced than I can detail how it does this (Haas effect, delays, etc.)

 

was there a free version of this?

 

Boz Digital : Width Knob
https://www.bozdigitallabs.com/product/width-knob/
Great Tool but Read this : (from the link above )

 

Ive posted a vox trick I used to use for this (mixing hiphop/pop vox) using just one mono vox (hiphop), or 2 that were tuned and timed together tightly but still mono (pop).
Read this
https://audiosex.pro/threads/how-to-hear-your-voice-sepearately.27856/#post-229475
Also note. Try changing the order of the 2 plugs. Put the CLA vocals in front and see what sounds better for your application.

 

There was a CM version. Pretty sure that was free.

 

Delay is mono incompatible due to frequency cancellations. Phone speaker is usually mono derived from L+R..

Those are stereo.

You can't. But look for mono compat here

 

When you duplicate a mono voice and pan those out, it will still be mono (and the exact same sound). You are just duplicating and counterpanning the same sound outwards. Same thing.

When you add delay to one side (2-40ms) you are creating The Haas Effect. It's quite effective in headphones, as it contain the most important psychoacoustic feature as when we locate sounds (one sound reaches one side/ear a few milliseconds before the other side/ear). If you look into HRTF, it will also add filtering (absorbtion of hair, clothes, resonance of head, etc), to further make it seem "real", as we hear it.

However, when summed to mono (probably if your car sound system is somehow in mono) The Haas Effect will automatically create comb filtering. Maybe that combing is what you are describing as "robot".

Simply check to see if your car stereo is stereo or mono. Fix it if it's in mono.

Your phone is automatically mono, as it only has one speaker (stereo to mono summed), so it will be combey.

If you want to read up on the essential issue, then google "mono compatibility" when producing, mixing and mastering.

 

Last edited: May 27, 2017

duplicate is not a good idea, even if they panned hard L and R they will still be mono. overdub is the trick. also, as mono is sonically stronger signal than stereo, why would you want a stereo vocal? put it in the middle and add a stereo FX AUX channel and send it through, that way the mono will nicely spread. so yeah, never use duplicate to widen things. been there done that

 

yea I noticed because I used a stereo widener and it still sounded the same, I guess the best way is to use two microphones or try to re-record perfectly lol

A stereo vocal sound cooler to me, instead of being in the middle it's spaced out and stuff haha.

 

Instead try double-tracking and pan those out (and adjust levels to taste).

 

I just read all the comments but didn't find my answer about the technic I'm searching :

I'm trying to reverse a stereo sample, mixed by a hit mixer, in order to understand which technic/plugin did he employed for having this good stereo result : https://clyp.it/k20xozbs

And here is the Mono signal to begin with : https://clyp.it/ftwtlctn

I'm still trying to reproduce this stereo signal, but I still don't succeed. The widen technic doesn't work, I think it's really about double/triple tracking (1 for left 1 for right and maybe the mono stays on the middle), and then I don't know. The closest result was to pan left one copy and right the second copy, put on both a small delay. But as you can hear the original sample, the stereo signal seems dry, and is more powerful than the mono signal... Could you help me ? both of samples are downloadable

Here is a screenshot of the original sample :

It shows a negative polarity (but not -1, only -0.5).

 

Is the original (M+S) the first link?

Is it M/S technique? One mono vocal in M/center and a doubletracked vocal with left (or right) side phase inverted?

It's usually just doubletracking and counterpanning.

 

The first link is the original sample. The second link is just a bounce of the mono signal. I don't think it's a M/S technic, I'm pretty sure it's about make 1 or 2 copies of the mono signal then doing something with them. The closest is to have that with side phase inverted and panned hard left right + keeping the mono signal on the middle (so 1 mono center, 2 left right polarity). But we are still far from the result :/

 

Why would you do that in the first place?? It's not how it's supposed to be done. You just put a mono vocal into a mono>stereo plugin [delay in this case] and that's it. Keep it mono for as long as it's possible. Vocal>EQ>comp>limiter and then add stereo aux delay and reverb, for example. It will sound better that way anyway and it'll be easier to mix with. Remember that all consoles have mono channels which are then mixed into stereo. The common practice, when mixing classically [the best IMHO], is to have almost all channels recorded in mono and then *you create the stereo mix* from those mono channels.

Unfortunately, with DAWs like Reaper you lose the sense of importance of mono tracks as everything becomes stereo automatically when you load a mono sample or a track. In a console you can have a mono sound with a mono effect panned within the stereo field where you like it. That's why I say "with a console you create your own stereo image". The mono tracks in a classical console mix are also the most important ones.

Mono: kick, snare, bass, lead vocal, lead guitar.

Stereo: rhythm guitars, back vocals, hi-hats and/or overheads, pads, fx and "general groovy sounds"

Vocal tracks can be stereo, but it's much trickier to do a really great mix with a stereo lead vocal. Stereo is used for background sounds for a reason: it makes sounds more dull and it fills the mixing space more. Just look at what should be mono and what should be stereo in a good classical console mix. Makes sense?

Cheers!

 

Or triple tracking? and keep the one in the middle the loudest

 

Agree!! I do that ALL THE TIME with my vocals.
Lead vocal comp centered and the double-tracked counter-hardpanned.

 

Forget copy-pasting. Stereo is done by using the pan knobs first and foremost. Use them. Don't tell me it's stupid and everyone uses stereo wideners set to 500% width these days. Just take one thing 100% left, another one 100% right and it will sound way wider than if you slapped a stereo widener on the whole thing. Another thing is delays and reverb. Don't use too much reverb, use delay whenever possible - it's cleaner and takes less space in your mix. Ping-pong delays are your friend. Filter them so the repeats are only in the 600 Hz - 4 kHz range and set the feedback just enough for them to fill out the space. Keep the mix relatively low. Add a delay afterwards.

The thing all the people who've just came around and watched a couple of tutorials do is they think everything has to be wide and loud. It's not like that. When everything is wide and loud, nothing is. If you want your track to sound wide, you don't put Ozone with stereo widener set to max. You pan your drums center, add percussion spread all over the place, then a mono bassline but complemented by some thin but very wide pads, possibly with lots of delay. Contrast is key.

If it's a melodic part of some sort, consider doubling it with a different sound playing the same melody. Hard pan them (100% L, 100% R) afterwards and see how you're doing. Try the opposite reverb trick (things playing on the right have reverb on the left and vice versa).

TL;DR: Stereo is not an afterthought that mastering/plugins/tricks magically achieve, you have to compose your song to be wide.

 

If we are talking about widening Vocals, we have to know what the source material is, before we start talking about which method to apply!

Because Stereo as a physical phenomenon is either a level difference between the right and left channel or a slight time difference between the left and right channel – or a combination of both. Now the level difference can be achieved easily with a pan knob, the rest not so easy.

Now, if you don't have various vocal takes you can indeed duplicate the original 2 times and pan them left and right. But without offsetting them a few milliseconds (Haas effect) as well as slightly pitch shifting the copies by a few cents up and down, you won't get the desired effect – in fact it will remain mono. And as soon as you apply those effects you have to balance the volume of the L and R tracks to the Center Vocal to keep the Stereo Image between 0 to +1 on the phase correlation meter in order to not have phase cancellations and keep the signal mono compatible. Now you can do all that manually or get a Plugin like SoundToys Microshift or Waves Doubler or ADT (artificial double tracking) to do all this for you without having to duplicate your audio tracks.

But if you have multiple takes of a vocal performance, you can just use hard Panning (LRC) and it will be fine and wide. Because the Vocals naturally have slight offsets in pitch and timing, so they naturually will create that wide(r) stereo image you desire without running into technical problems.

 

A negative Polarity is okay for an individual element of a Song at a specific point in time as long as the overall correlation of the song stays within 0 to +1. Now in this example you need to create a stereo file from the mono source and invert the phase of one channel before you apply the widening effects. I think there's also a small room reverb on the sides and some EQ-in involved as well.