do you guys use stereo widening on your tracks or do you just do everything inside the mix?

i DO NOT use wideners or so but i thought maybe i should?

 

As long as the material does not get out of phase you can increase the stereo image.
But one has to be careful with transient rich instruments.

 

is there a way to check the wide, if it is too much o too few, in mono? Sometimes i have 1 only speaker but people say "check in mono if there are any phase issues", i mean.. i can't hear any difference widening the side id i'm in mono... ? What you suggest?

 

Get vectorscope, correlometer plugins. Use those with stereo speakers, make note of how much width you find most pleasing.
Use the same plugins on mono speakers and keep values within the confines you previously determined.

 

Thank you! But often even if correlometer (the 30 bands type too) shows that everything is ok, when i go stereo the mid is "masked" from the sides… is this possible?

 

ive been doing it for years. before it was even a thing. i used to put S1 imager on my mixbus and then ozone 5 came out with the imager and started putting both. i produce in headphones so ive always been able to properly hear what it did to my productions and it just always helped with them. it got to the point where a song wouldnt feel right unless compression and imaging were on my mixbus. i do not use it on my tracks however unless i have a sample or i wanna widen a piano. other than that its reserved specifically for the entire mixbus.

 

okay. but does it make it sound better and more professional if you use stereo imagining and widening? is it necesary?

 

the point of it is to create space and depth for your song. analog tools naturally do this(and even then songs are so wide now that engineers still add imagining in the mix) a lot more goes into the idea of sounding "professional" than just that. If you do everything on a laptop, id consider is necessary. but do what you want.

 

9 times out of 10 i find myself using stereo imagers to archieve clarity and definition on a mix. Widening some elements, merging some to mono, panning, swaping stereo channels, and even cancelling a little bit of the phase of some things with haas for making elements have cohesion and placement on my mix. For me it's more important than making the mix wider for the sake of it or using imagers for gimmick. Stereo fxs are not cool without a context, just my two cents.

 

I use a mono-maker feature in a plugin like Sonalksis Stereo Tools (or other) to mono everything under 100hz. If you are making some kind of Bass Music, it's a large amount of the track fixed vs your correlation meter, about as easy as it gets. I like Insight2 also, because you can insert a Relay instance on your individual channels with them all reporting back to the mothership.

This guy suggests mixing and panning in Mono right away to setup your rough mix balance. Generally I will put a Gain utility plugin in Logic and use its Convert to Mono, and you can just click it on and off very easily. https://www.audio-issues.com/music-mixing/panning-mono/

 

May i ask what styles, n Genres you find yourself writing??

e;g Take Dnb "Mono" Most EDM, Mono, However will have widening applied to certain elements

"Ive always believed in working semi mono"

My personal opinion is to do your sound design Bordeline Mono,. Definatley have the bass Frequencies mono,d And other elements then widen parts accordingly

So Should you be Narrowing your signal>? "Answer is YES"!!!

It will be a while until you dial the process in but you will find that you achieve a far tighter mix alot easier than doing things alternatley

Voxengo's MSED, Or Plugin Alliance, Mono maker, Or my Personal favourite, Nugen Audios widening tool

Mono makers a damn good tool provided you dial in the HP and tone etc

Natrually anything true stereo will not translate in a club playback setting

To be clear im suggesting using something liie MSED Or similar Per Track, Not on the master alone

 

Last edited: Jun 13, 2024

it really depends on what you're going for.
I'd say for modern mixes it is necessary. For old school mixes, not necessary.

what are you going for?
is it classic rock? is it a 2024 summer hit? or is it something in between?
you decide.

 

A common theme I've seen is to widen the stereo for the chorus and keep the verses narrower. It makes the chorus shine, as it should (IMO).

 

what a terrible question,
one of main purposes for stereo widening is more spatial separation, of course you want to use it in a mix on individual instruments, not just on final master track