Sound widening without losing mono compatibility

F

FreddyB

New member
So this has been a pain in the butt for me for a really long time, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. I was always looking for a way to give my mixes that professional sound of the tracks you hear on the radio. I came to figure out that working on your stereo field and widening the sound of your overall mix can make a world of difference. I spent some time trying to figure out the best way to do this, and after a while I found out simply delaying the L or R side of a sound (Haas effect) works best for me. It also sounded to me this is the closest I could get to mimicking those really wide synths you hear in professional EDM songs. I started mixing my songs like this, widening most of the sounds I threw in my mix (I used FL Studio's native plugin Stereo Enhancer). It ended up sounding great and really wide, but when I listened to the mix in mono, the phase was all messed up and a lot of the sounds were kind of distorted. No need for explaining this to me, I did a little research and I understand now how using the Haas effect can cause phase issues.

I was just wondering, is there any way to make any sound as wide as possible (as wide as you can get it using the Haas-effect) without messing up the sound in mono? I know there is at least one way, because when I play those professional songs in mono, they still sound good and completely clean, even when they sound extremely wide in stereo. So how do the producers of those tracks get their track to sound so wide in stereo and at the same time sound so good in mono? Also, is it 'safe' to widen (almost) every instrument/sound in your mix? I feel this is the only way I can really get my mix to sound as big and wide as possible, and yes, I do know you're not supposed to widen kickdrums, snares, bass, vocals, etc.. I'm far from a professional producer, but this much I do know, so no need to explain that kind of basic stuff to me. Don't bother dropping the "just pan everything left and right" suggestion either, because for the mixes I make, that just doesn't work. I've tried it many times and it came out sounding horrible every time. I just need tips on making individual synths and sounds wider without losing mono compatibility.
 
FreddyB said:
So this has been a pain in the butt for me for a really long time, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. I was always looking for a way to give my mixes that professional sound of the tracks you hear on the radio. I came to figure out that working on your stereo field and widening the sound of your overall mix can make a world of difference. I spent some time trying to figure out the best way to do this, and after a while I found out simply delaying the L or R side of a sound (Haas effect) works best for me. It also sounded to me this is the closest I could get to mimicking those really wide synths you hear in professional EDM songs. I started mixing my songs like this, widening most of the sounds I threw in my mix (I used FL Studio's native plugin Stereo Enhancer). It ended up sounding great and really wide, but when I listened to the mix in mono, the phase was all messed up and a lot of the sounds were kind of distorted. No need for explaining this to me, I did a little research and I understand now how using the Haas effect can cause phase issues.

I was just wondering, is there any way to make any sound as wide as possible (as wide as you can get it using the Haas-effect) without messing up the sound in mono? I know there is at least one way, because when I play those professional songs in mono, they still sound good and completely clean, even when they sound extremely wide in stereo. So how do the producers of those tracks get their track to sound so wide in stereo and at the same time sound so good in mono? Also, is it 'safe' to widen (almost) every instrument/sound in your mix? I feel this is the only way I can really get my mix to sound as big and wide as possible, and yes, I do know you're not supposed to widen kickdrums, snares, bass, vocals, etc.. I'm far from a professional producer, but this much I do know, so no need to explain that kind of basic stuff to me. Don't bother dropping the "just pan everything left and right" suggestion either, because for the mixes I make, that just doesn't work. I've tried it many times and it came out sounding horrible every time. I just need tips on making individual synths and sounds wider without losing mono compatibility.
Click to expand...

First of all, a great stereo mix is born in production and recording. If when mixing and mastering you end up with really bad mono compatibility thereafter, you and/or your gear are doing a number of things you should not do. So that is in my view the first thing to be aware of that by default if you just do some simple normal mixing and mastering moves on a high quality stereo recording you should at that point not have a messed up mono compatibility.

Secondly, if you work ITB you need to be aware of what happens in the time dimension, the more delay compensation you have, the more scooped it will get (because it's not 100% accurate). Some DAWs like Cubase for instance don't even report how much they delay compensate, which means that you can easily push your mix way beyond what is OK in terms of phase and time/rhythm smoothness.

Third of all, achieving a really great stereo image is about applying really great monitoring. (technique, room, speakers, cans)
When you set/tune the stereo image, you can do so on loud monitoring volume. Loud monitoring volume tends to reduce gain, quiet monitoring volume tends to add gain. So this means that if you have been mixing on too loud volume and your ears are tired, you are going to automatically gradually narrow down the stereo image and work with the frequencies in a way that is counter-productive relative to the stereo image.

And then when it comes to the work with the actual stereo image, this is to the most extent set earlier than mixing by choosing what frequencies each sound source should have relative to each other and on each speaker. So before all of your mixing moves you can have a recording that is either great in stereo or poor. A poor recording includes that it is way too narrow and that you are going to have to do some very hard stereo widening work during mixing and mastering to make it sound good. That is where the mono compatibility is lost. Therefore by mixing stuff that is ready for mixing you have automatically avoided some of this issue.

But then during mixing and mastering, chances are you not working efficiently with the stereo field. You might for instance not do a proper work on the separation of tracks in how you impact the frequencies on the tracks and groups so that whatever quality of the stereo image you had available before you started mixing, is now gradually reduced by wrong gain/pan/fx/routing moves. So when you gain stage and you notice it does not sound as good as the track you reference, you think you need to apply tons of more processing on top. That's actually not what you need to do. You have at this point not an optimal set of frequencies on each speaker and on the speakers combined anymore, that's the issue and that is what you should be working on at that point. You primarily need higher resonance and resonance potential on individual tracks, groups of tracks and the mix and then you have to distribute those frequencies across the stereo image to maintain that in the stereo context.

All in all, widening the mix should not be a process of compensating for loss of signal, it should be icing on the cake. And that is when you are hence not ending up with a mono compatibility issue.

Finally, don't forget the importance of air.

To some degree, a great stereo image is what you have left when you have been focusing on the right things throughout the music creation process. I know that might seem not so useful, but it is a fact that many engineers are focusing too much on trying to artificially add the sweet effects of resonance rather than creating the resonance itself. First and foremost you need resonance and you need potential of it, when you have that technically captured the rest is not that important because the listeners will be attached to a great song delivered as a great master. So a low resonance and -potential master with a great stereo image and a great mono compatibility (rarely the case), will lose against one with a high resonance and -potential master with a poor stereo image and a poor mono compatibility (rarely the case). So first thing first.
 
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I was just wondering, is there any way to make any sound as wide as possible (as wide as you can get it using the Haas-effect) without messing up the sound in mono?
Click to expand...

No. The two things are physically contradictory at their extremes. You have to balance them.

Generally though you could try using 3 signals instead of 2. Keep one in the middle and keep it relatively loud. That will help.
 
No. The two things are physically contradictory at their extremes. You have to balance them.

Generally though you could try using 3 signals instead of 2. Keep one in the middle and keep it relatively loud. That will help.
Click to expand...

So how would you process the Left and Right channel? I tried doing stuff like different EQ'ing on each channel and adding different types of reverb on each side, but it usually just ends up sounding like I slightly panned the instrument to the left or right. I want to keep both sides sounding the same, but I just want both of them to be "on the edges" of the stereo spectrum. There's tons of stereo widening VSTs out there, with a Width-knob in it, but widening my sounds like this, usually messes up the balance between the Mid-channel and Side-channel, causing it to sound all blurry.
 
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First of all, a great stereo mix is born in production and recording. If when mixing and mastering you end up with really bad mono compatibility thereafter, you and/or your gear are doing a number of things you should not do. So that is in my view the first thing to be aware of that by default if you just do some simple normal mixing and mastering moves on a high quality stereo recording you should at that point not have a messed up mono compatibility.

Secondly, if you work ITB you need to be aware of what happens in the time dimension, the more delay compensation you have, the more scooped it will get (because it's not 100% accurate). Some DAWs like Cubase for instance don't even report how much they delay compensate, which means that you can easily push your mix way beyond what is OK in terms of phase and time/rhythm smoothness.

Third of all, achieving a really great stereo image is about applying really great monitoring. (technique, room, speakers, cans)
When you set/tune the stereo image, you can do so on loud monitoring volume. Loud monitoring volume tends to reduce gain, quiet monitoring volume tends to add gain. So this means that if you have been mixing on too loud volume and your ears are tired, you are going to automatically gradually narrow down the stereo image and work with the frequencies in a way that is counter-productive relative to the stereo image.

And then when it comes to the work with the actual stereo image, this is to the most extent set earlier than mixing by choosing what frequencies each sound source should have relative to each other and on each speaker. So before all of your mixing moves you can have a recording that is either great in stereo or poor. A poor recording includes that it is way too narrow and that you are going to have to do some very hard stereo widening work during mixing and mastering to make it sound good. That is where the mono compatibility is lost. Therefore by mixing stuff that is ready for mixing you have automatically avoided some of this issue.

But then during mixing and mastering, chances are you not working efficiently with the stereo field. You might for instance not do a proper work on the separation of tracks in how you impact the frequencies on the tracks and groups so that whatever quality of the stereo image you had available before you started mixing, is now gradually reduced by wrong gain/pan/fx/routing moves. So when you gain stage and you notice it does not sound as good as the track you reference, you think you need to apply tons of more processing on top. That's actually not what you need to do. You have at this point not an optimal set of frequencies on each speaker and on the speakers combined anymore, that's the issue and that is what you should be working on at that point. You primarily need higher resonance and resonance potential on individual tracks, groups of tracks and the mix and then you have to distribute those frequencies across the stereo image to maintain that in the stereo context.

All in all, widening the mix should not be a process of compensating for loss of signal, it should be icing on the cake. And that is when you are hence not ending up with a mono compatibility issue.

Finally, don't forget the importance of air.

To some degree, a great stereo image is what you have left when you have been focusing on the right things throughout the music creation process. I know that might seem not so useful, but it is a fact that many engineers are focusing too much on trying to artificially add the sweet effects of resonance rather than creating the resonance itself. First and foremost you need resonance and you need potential of it, when you have that technically captured the rest is not that important because the listeners will be attached to a great song delivered as a great master. So a low resonance and -potential master with a great stereo image and a great mono compatibility (rarely the case), will lose against one with a high resonance and -potential master with a poor stereo image and a poor mono compatibility (rarely the case). So first thing first.
Click to expand...

I know what's messing up my stereo mix. I described the problem in my own post. I wasn't asking what's causing the lack of mono compatibility, I was asking how I can widen individual tracks (and therefore the stereo field of the entire mix) without losing mono compatibility. I have no problems with mono signals when mixing. I can make a great stereo mix, which sounds amazing in both stereo and mono, the only thing I need to know is how I apply the "icing to the cake" without tipping over the entire cake. That final step is literally the only thing causing mixing issues, so I usually do save stereo widening for the very last step in the mixing process, after I'm done mixing the entire track. Like I said, I used to take the sounds that sounded the narrowest and I would apply Haas-effect to give it a little dimension, but at that point it would start causing phase issues when played in mono. I'm simply looking for an alternative method for the final step in a mixing process that's working just fine for me.
 
FreddyB said:
the only thing I need to know is how I apply the "icing to the cake" without tipping over the entire cake.
Click to expand...

It should be as easy as widening the pan faders of the master bus, gain staging and similar options, if your mix is falling apart then you have too much phase based stereo widening inside of the mix, too little raw stereo qualities and too little air. It is your panning that is the overall issue in your case combined with the frequencies those panners are gaining. Already in the recording process you should have the icing on the cake, what is downgrading your stereo image is really due to what I wrote. A great stereo image comes from a great signal. You cannot make chicken salad out of chicken shit. I know that sounds too simple, but it really is this simple, that is why the production and recording processes are so critical for a great final master and why the mixing engineer in this case has so much responsibility to say no to a recording that is not ready for mixing. The way to ensure your recording has the icing on the cake when it comes to the stereo image, is by performing proper A/B and combining that with high quality monitoring.
 
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FreddyB said:
So how would you process the Left and Right channel? I tried doing stuff like different EQ'ing on each channel and adding different types of reverb on each side, but it usually just ends up sounding like I slightly panned the instrument to the left or right. I want to keep both sides sounding the same, but I just want both of them to be "on the edges" of the stereo spectrum. There's tons of stereo widening VSTs out there, with a Width-knob in it, but widening my sounds like this, usually messes up the balance between the Mid-channel and Side-channel, causing it to sound all blurry.
Click to expand...

I think you shouldn't stress too much about widening as a distinct step.

There are things you can do that subtly change the wideness of an individual sound... the key word being subtly.

The overall stereo wideness of a track comes from the combination of everything in that track. Some things are left, some right, some narrow, some wide. It's a combination of lots of small, subtle steps and adjustments. I suspect this will give you results that you prefer over stereo wideners because you aren't using a single wide-band effect. Note that reverb, echo, chorus, flangers, phasers, eq, compression, distortion can all alter stereo image but do so in completely different ways.
 
Already in the recording process you should have the icing on the cake
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And yet mics are mono, as is most recording... and I can make a stereo track without ever recording anything.

More generic, non-specific advice dressed up as dark art.
 
MarcDHall said:
And yet mics are mono, as is most recording... and I can make a stereo track without ever recording anything.

More generic, non-specific advice dressed up as dark art.
Click to expand...

No dark art or conspiracy in this case, well sort of because pro recording engineers don't go around sharing freely knowledge of this kind, so from the perspective of a home recording engineer like you Marc it definitely fits that category.

But really it's not that much of a deal, pros want to save time (and money) by forcing as much as possible of the quality to be created (and validated) as early as possible and that also includes the work of producing a recording with great stereo qualities.

Maybe you don't understand the value of this kind of knowledge I am sharing right now, but one day you maybe will.
 
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Most recordings are mono.

Most recordings are mono.

Most recordings are mono.

Drums... recorded in mono and panned afterwords. Guitars... recorded in mono and panned afterwords. Amps..mono. Singers... recorded in mono and panned afterwords. Often double tracked from multiple mono.

There is no stereo image in these things unless the mics are at a distance in which case they are room mics picking up reverb not a dry signal. Stereo recordings are usually only for large scale performance additional mics, like orchestras for movies. Pianos are recorded in stereo because they're big.

The overall stereo image is usually a post process. You are, again, shilling expensive gear and offering no substantive insight.


When are you going to share some of your pro level mixing?
 
MarcDHall said:
Most recordings are mono.

Most recordings are mono.

Most recordings are mono.

Drums... recorded in mono and panned afterwords. Guitars... recorded in mono and panned afterwords. Amps..mono. Singers... recorded in mono and panned afterwords. Often double tracked from multiple mono.

There is no stereo image in these things unless the mics are at a distance in which case they are room mics picking up reverb not a dry signal. Stereo recordings are usually only for large scale performance additional mics, like orchestras for movies. Pianos are recorded in stereo because they're big.

The overall stereo image is usually a post process. You are, again, shilling expensive gear and offering no substantive insight.


When are you going to share some of your pro level mixing?
Click to expand...

This time I don't know where to start. :p But let's start it this way. Achieving a great sounding stereo recording is not the process of achieving a great sounding stereo recording in mixing, whether the individual sound sources are stereo captured or not. To achieve a great stereo image you need the right frequencies on each speaker and if those have never been captured and optimized during the recording process, then suddenly it becomes the mixing engineer's task to correct the mistakes of the recording engineer and on top of that in a much more limited context. That is not a pro workflow.
 
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