![\"5](\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Wider-Stereo.jpg\" "\\"Wider-Stereo\\"")
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At some point, nearly every mixer has experienced this:<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mix sounds great, but this mix by (Bob Clearmountain, George Massenburg, Joe Barresi, etc.) sounds so much wider\u2026 How do they do that?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Aside from the highly classified mixer voodoo magic that they still<\/em> swear isn\u2019t real, there are a number of techniques you can employ to get a little more width out of your mix.<\/p>\n I already know what you’re about to say: \u201cBut I pan my parts hard left and right, and it still doesn\u2019t sound wide enough.\u201d I struggled with this for a long time myself, but trust me, panning is listed first because it\u2019s the first step toward a wide mix.<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve got things hard-panned, you\u2019re already halfway there. One trick to making this work is contrast<\/strong>; if everything<\/em> is hard-panned, there\u2019s no point of reference for what is narrow or wide.<\/p>\n EXAMPLE<\/strong>: In a rock or metal mix, it\u2019s fairly common to find extremely wide guitars. What many folks don\u2019t notice is that the drums are not always quite as wide.<\/p>\n A pretty standard template for me is:\u00a0guitars panned hard, drum overheads panned at about 50%, and if applicable, the drum room track at about 60-75%.\u00a0<\/strong>This makes for a full stereo field and helps isolate the parts, creating a very wide image of the guitars while still having good stereo separation for the drums. It also helps prevent distorted electric guitars from eating up all that gorgeous drum ambiance you worked so hard to track perfectly.<\/p>\n Contrary to the above, I\u2019ve heard a lot of folks swear by what\u2019s known as \u201cLCR Mixing<\/strong>,\u201d or Left-Center-Right mixing, where – you guessed it – everything is either panned, hard left, center, or hard right.<\/p>\n I personally\u00a0<\/em>am not a major advocate of LCR Mixing, but I highly encourage everyone to try it out. It might work for one song or one style, but not another. If nothing else, it\u2019s an excellent starting point in helping you quickly decide the rough stereo placement of each mix element .<\/p>\n And of course, never forget about automation<\/strong>–the most important part of any mix, in my opinion. Try panning a stereo track to about 80% width, and then at an appropriate point in the song, bump it up to 100%. I guarantee this will add apparent width to your mix.<\/p>\n This goes back to contrast — you\u2019re listening to the song and at its widest point, it\u2019s at 80% width. Your ears believe that everything is as wide as it can be. Suddenly, everything gets wider and the apparent stereo width seems enormous! I\u2019m not saying go crazy and use this trick all the time, but try it out and hear the effect for yourself.<\/p>\n Sometimes EQ can help you make your mix sound wider. And you\u2019re probably thinking, \u201chow is adjusting frequency content going to expand stereo width?\u201d Well, technically it\u2019s not…<\/p>\n It\u2019s a psychoacoustical phenomenon that causes a bit of separation of the parts, making their perceived width much greater. That\u2019s right, it\u2019s not real. But we can fool our ears into thinking we\u2019re actually adding width<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what to do: take a look at your left guitar track<\/strong> and find a place in the midrange where you might like to boost. Let\u2019s say just for example\u2019s sake, that we\u2019ll add 2dB at 600Hz<\/strong>. Now we\u2019re going to find another frequency and cut it: -2dB at 2.8kH<\/strong>z (again, just for example).<\/p>\n Now, go to your right guitar track<\/strong> and do the opposite: -2dB at 600Hz; +2dB at 2.8kHz<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Be careful — I wouldn\u2019t add or subtract any more than about 2 or 3 dB here lest altering or totally destroying the tone (trust me, the guitar player will hear it and reveal his or her darker side very quickly). Make an adjustment that\u2019s just enough and you\u2019ll trick the listener into hearing an expanded stereo width.<\/p>\n This is how you get a mix to sound like it\u2019s actually wider than the speakers themselves<\/strong>. It became ubiquitous in the 80s, but much like gated reverb, it\u2019s used more tastefully in modern mixes.<\/p>\n First, a word of warning: this can completely dismantle the mono compatibility of your mix — proceed with caution<\/strong>!<\/p>\n The technique is quite simple, and is another one of those psychoacoustical tricks (come on, you didn\u2019t think you could actually get your mix to be wider than the speakers themselves\u2026 did you?).<\/p>\n Insert a stereo delay plugin on your stereo track or bus (IMPORTANT<\/strong>: make sure the delay plugin has independent controls for the left and right sides) and set the mix to 100%<\/strong>. You could also use the Channel Tools plugin, which has this sort of functionality built in. Just add a few milliseconds of delay to one side of your stereo track or bus<\/strong>, and you\u2019ll hear quite a difference right away.<\/p>\n Of course, there\u2019s always the question of how much is enough. Here are some tips:<\/p>\n Does it sound like one side is playing before the other? Too much. You\u2019ll definitely want it below 20-25ms, or it\u2019ll start actually sounding like, well, a delay.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n More delay time will not always make it wider. The effect is caused by the phase relationship between the two sides, so you may find a sweet spot with hardly any delay at all.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Collapse the track\/bus to mono. Does it sound terrible? Try making it a little narrower.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Does the tone change too much? Move the delay time up or down a little bit and see if that helps.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Remember, phase can truly make or break your mix, so again, tread cautiously when applying this effect.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n There are a few different ways reverb can help increase the apparent stereo width of your mix.<\/p>\n The first way is quite simple: Applying reverb to an already-wide signal can make it sound even wider<\/strong>. This has to do with those phase relationships we were just talking about.<\/p>\n To take things a step further, try panning your reverb sends to the opposite side<\/strong> (Hard Left Audio w\/ Hard Right Send; Hard Right Audio w\/ Hard Left Send) to see if it makes any difference. If nothing else, it makes for a pretty cool creative effect.<\/p>\n The second way is also quite simple. What is reverb but a few thousand delay signals right after one another? What we\u2019ll do is apply reverb to only one\u00a0<\/em>side of the stereo track or bus.<\/p>\n What this is doing, in addition to the delay trick mentioned above, is making one side sound slightly more distant. It\u2019s ultimately creating a distinction between the left and right side (again, in your mind) that creates the illusion of greater width.<\/p>\n This is a bit of an advanced technique. There are plug-ins out there that will do all the thinking for you (The Hoser XT, for example) by allowing you the option to make separate adjustments for the individual \u201cmid\u201d and \u201csides\u201d channels.<\/p>\n However, there are a few ways to make this work, even without a \u201csmart\u201d plug-in… I\u2019ll keep this as simple as possible.<\/p>\n The best way to set yourself up for Mid\/Side processing is to use the Mid\/Side microphone configuration when recording<\/strong>. This is what I consider a true Mid\/Side configuration, and I feel it balances better, has better mono compatibility, and is more \u201ctrue to the source\u201d when it\u2019s being modified than its \u201cfabricated Mid\/Side configuration\u201d counterpart.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t know how to do Mid\/Side recording, I\u2019ve provided you some resources here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, as for converting a standard stereo track or bus to Mid\/Side tracks<\/strong>, you\u2019ll have to do a bit of extra work\u2026<\/p>\n Clone your stereo track or bus.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Collapse the original to mono with the interleave button. It should look like this: [mono interleave button]. This is now your \u201cMid\u201d track.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Insert a plugin like Channel Tools, or any comparable plugin, on the cloned track.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Flip the phase on the left side (or the right side; one may sound better than the other). This is now your \u201cSides\u201d track.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n What we can do from here is process these tracks individually. A good starting point would be to apply some fast compression to only the \u201cSides\u201d track, somewhat eliminating the dynamic peaks and valleys and making the sides seem louder, thereby increasing the apparent stereo width.<\/p>\n Similarly, you can add some upper-midrange frequencies to the \u201cSides\u201d track, increasing their presence, and\/or reduce the same frequency range in the \u201cMid\u201d track.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Try all these techniques and take note of the qualities that each impart. Remember, the more techniques you have in your arsenal, and the more practice and experience you have with each of them, the quicker you’ll be able to make creative production decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At some point, nearly every mixer has experienced this: \u201cMy mix sounds great, but this mix by (Bob Clearmountain, George Massenburg, Joe Barresi, etc.) sounds so much wider\u2026 How do they do that?\u201d Aside from the highly classified mixer voodoo magic that they still swear isn\u2019t real, there are a number of techniques you can … <\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
PANNING<\/h3>\n
![\"Widen](\"https:\/\/noelborthwick.com\/cakewalk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/SONARPLT_2016-02-10_12-26-35-e1455293904637.png\" "\\"Contrast")
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EQ<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nDelay<\/h3>\n
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Reverb<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nMid\/Side Processing<\/h3>\n
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