How can I stereo-ize my sound without causing phasing issues

[Alexthegr81]

Hi guys!

First time posting here! literally made my account today. I first want to say I been on and off this forum quite a bit and love all the info I get from here, its some truly grade A stuff.

So A little bit about me:I work on computers for a living but as a hobby I've been producing electro and dubstep(some orchestral) on and off(mostly off) for about 4 years and I mostly do it for leisure and for fun. I really focus more on my mixes than i do actually completing a song, as I'm really indifferent to who listens to it, so as you can guess a lot of the stuff I post are incomplete songs or samples on freesound.org.

I'd like to make more professional sounding music, and besides the obvious problems of incomplete songs ive been having more recent issues with phasing.

I have been trying the Melda Production plugins because they are SUPER badass, one of them is a Stereo Expander. It has controls to set widening amount(0-100), hi-pass, low-pass, delay, and delay depth. I set to only widen 7.7khz and up with 3 ms delay@100% depth. It sounds great on my studio computer but on my laptop it sounds horribly phasey out of control and the high end sounds super messed up.

For example, this song has obvious phasing issues on my laptop:
Soundcloud

My question is if there's a way i can keep that stereo separation without having mega phase problems because honestly i feel like it adds a lot of excitement to the top end without ruining the botom end of the song, so I'd REALLY like to keep it, but if i have to is there a plugin that can magically do what I want it to? Thanks guys.

Also, a link to my freesound account for samples and stuff that I occasionally make when i got free time:

http://www.freesound.org/people/alexthegr81/sounds/

I'll probably end up putting both soundcloud and freesound in my sig eventually but anyway thanks for any input and cheers!

[nowaysj]

Hey, welcome to the forum. Bigups to you for making an account and participating.

Some thoughts:

I distrust anyone whose name suggests how great they are. Just instant warning sign for me.

Definitely go with SoundCloud. They won. They're in the process of losing their crown, but for now, and the foreseeable future, they are the best, by far.

Are you using this stereo widener across your whole mix? If so, I'd suggest not doing that. While you are writing/mixing, you can/should be creating the whole sound stage, building a structure that is compelling. The shape of your mix is important, and there is no objective shape that is the best. People have preferences, so in some respects there is a dominant form, but fuck that. It gets old.

But what you should be doing is using/addressing your whole stereo field as you are making the song. So you have sounds that are right down the pipe, dead center. Sub sounds, bass sounds, core grove elements. And then you probably want mono sounds panned. Just individual elements spread out in the stereo field. Your mix will already be widening by this point. Then, imo, you want some sounds that are wide, just big sounds, that get fucked with in some way (stereo wideners/chorus) to make them big and wide. And here, you have the ability to eq or just play those sounds in the appropriate octave so the right freqs are being spread out.

Then when you put all these pieces together. You get your solid foundation, all your little point sources creating a wide space, and then your stereo rich super wide sounds to stretch out across the whole mix. The point is each sound has its own place/purpose. It drives the beat in some way, it carries the melody in some way, it occupies the space in some way. Sounds are doing all those things.

And the other point is that the whole mix is not being smeared around.

Best of luck dude.

-nowaysjthebestthereeverwas

[Alexthegr81]

Thanks for the quick reply man, First I wanna say: yeah I know the names a bit overboard, its just something i never changed because I was donned the name when my father first made my email account about 12 years back(yeah..i'm that lazy to change it..). Was named after Alex the great who ruled Greece(was also gay and died of std's). Don't be fooled by it, I'm just a lowly peasant trying to learn things, and contribute at the same time!

Really appreciate the advice about using panned out elements. I was using a stereo widener across the master. But I will try to work on each element separately. I feel like though when i do that my mix kinda gets really messy fast. I'll try to work on it though!

[fragments]

Or drop the stereo widener for now and try panning elements and creating a stereo field through your mixing and arrangement. 99% these "one knob" solutions to problems don't really work out that well. Personally, I only use stereo wideners on a few elements and those elements never play at the same time.

You are on the right path here. You've noticed things you do ruin your mix. The key now is not to bullheadly keep trying the same thing that ruins your mix over and over again, but to find a new solution.

[test_recordings]

Reverb makes mono sounds sound stereo

[ftwgmorm]

Waves Doubler for life. Tip: it includes a two band equalizer, make sure to cut down the lows. You don't want to steroize them. (is that a word?)

[KRONIKAL]

Waves Doubler for life. Tip: it includes a two band equalizer, make sure to cut down the lows. You don't want to steroize them. (is that a word?)

Waves doubler is great but i would use it as an alternative for a chorus maybe on vocals
For stereo imaging is way better the S1 stereo imager that as the name suggest gives you the possibility to set up the stereo content

[ftwgmorm]

Waves Doubler for life. Tip: it includes a two band equalizer, make sure to cut down the lows. You don't want to steroize them. (is that a word?)

Waves doubler is great but i would use it as an alternative for a chorus maybe on vocals
For stereo imaging is way better the S1 stereo imager that as the name suggest gives you the possibility to set up the stereo content

S1 Stereo Imager works on your already existing stereo image, while doubler generates it.

[Add9]

I don't think I can put it any better than nowaysj did. If you use stereo imaging on your master I think you should use it very sparingly. Most of the stereo should be achieved at the mixing stage IMO. S1 can be useful but I wouldn't push it further than about 110%... sometimes even that's too much. Waves doubler is nice on individual sounds like leads or basses but I've never tried it on the master.

But yeah since stereo sounds are pretty much by definition those in which the left channel is different from the right, you can't ever have stereo without some amount of phase issues.

A few more ideas to throw out there:

- Mid/Side EQing. Again, use very sparingly if on the master, but a little bit can help widen things up. The stereo spread of individual sounds can often be improved by cutting the mid band somewhere in the mid range of the frequency spectrum, but as always A/B it to make sure it sounds better.

- Convolve your sound with a binaural impulse response. Not the master of course, but maybe an instrument track or two. It's like panning on steroids.

[ChrisPlatow]

Upstereo is a vst for that. Sometimes its helpful. Sometimes it trashes a sound or adds a hollow feel to the middle of the stereo image. You can also use a delay, mr bill has a good youtube video on this. Basically you just get a delay that can control the right side the left side and the middle of the stereo field. Turn off the delay for the middle. Turn the delay for R and L to milliseconds. And spread the times slightly. I usually do one side at about 10-15 ms and the other side to 1-5 ms. This causes a sort of 'illusion' that we percieve as being wider. Get an oscilloscope vst, theres lots of free ones if you look around. Thatll help you determine if theres any phase issues your ears are missing

[kaili]

you dont need plugins to make a sound wider though
say you want just your lead or whatever to sound really wide you can just double track it, pan one track 50% to left and one to the right 50% and then basically delay one of the tracks a few milliseconds ahead
might have to tweak settings a bit to get the amount of stereo you want and avoid phasing but it works really well on some sounds

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

Also using chorus can be a good way to spread a (single) sound. Although it kinda smears the sound across the stereo field so u have to be careful not to mud up ur mix by using it on loads of things at once. If I use a stereo imager its to keep the low end mono rather than to spread anything

[Alexthegr81]

Holy cow the amount of responses is amazing! I know I now got plenty of stuff to try tonight! Thanks so much for the responses guys. Oscilliscope? not sure what that is but dling one right now. Is it a good idea to put a chorus on a sound thats already reverbed? thanks guys

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

If it sounds good?

[nowaysj]

For whatever reason, I tend to chorus first, as an insert effect, then send out to a reverb. So sound -> chorus -> reverb, but that is just the way I tend to do it. Maybe years ago I found out this is best, I can't remember.

Alex, what daw are you in, flstudio has a few stereo tools?

This is pretty beasty:

https://www.image-line.com/support/FLHe ... Shaper.htm

As well, each channel on the mixer can be widened or narrowed. I do use this. If you do do this, be careful because fl uses a weird pan law, so your sound will get louder when it goes wide outside. Dropping by 3db, I think, fixes this. I just rebalance by ear.

[nowaysj]

Taken from the SNH.



Check this for how he uses the stereo field. The sound stage. It is an integral element of the song. This song is really really minimal. Stereo and width is a major element.

[Alexthegr81]

Yes I do use FL studio, have that plugin but i barely ever use it, perhaps its worth giving a look at for stereo effects. I'll test out chorus then reverb to see if the effect is desireable

[Libra]

Yeah there are a few ways to achieve a wider stereo feild, one way which you mentioned you did with the melda plugin (great suite btw) is that it's goig to 'stereoize' by delaying one of the l or r channels in ms. Another way to add widness and avoid phasing would to use a mid/side eq to eq the sides of the mix higher giving you more stereo information. There's also a free plugin by brainworx that simply controls the mid/side balance. I use it on myaster output to check my mix at the end of making a song. Give it a go

[_Agu_]

1. Copy your sound

2. Pan other left and another right (if u want u can make a third copy and keep it in the middle).

3. Detune/Channel delay

1b. Assign lfo with fast rate to pan knob for some tiny movement

1c. Ping Pong Delay

1d. M/S or L/R eq

1e. After using any of these, highpass side signal at 200-700Hz

1f. Go ask KOAN Sound (it feels like they make even the 100-200Hz region from their reeses stereo sometimes and it still sounds good)

1g. The cake is a lie

1h. Chorus

1i. pan individual harmonics by layering panned sine waves on the top of the original sound (this can be fucked up easily if there's any latency between the original sound and added harmonic)

1j. reverb

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

1i. pan individual harmonics by layering panned sine waves on the top of the original sound (this can be fucked up easily if there's any latency between the original sound and added harmonic)

Why?