Panning Beyond The Speakers - Is There A Good Plug-in?

A.David.MacKinnon · Post by **A.David.MacKinnon** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 10:43 am

I'm looking for something to make a mix seem extra, extra, extra wide. I've been able to get 90% of the way there with panning, delays and ambiance but I'd like to have some elements of the mix appear as if they're coming from boyond the L/R boundry of the speakers.
I haven't had much luck finding a decent plug-in for this. I'm demoing the PSP Stereo Enhancer and it's not bad but it seems a little too complicated for my needs.
Does anyone have a plug-in that they like for this? I'm running Pro Tools 7.4 on an Intel Mac.

woodhenge · Post by **woodhenge** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 4:44 pm

The Izotope Ozone plugin has a multi-band (!) stereo enhancer that's pretty cool. I've used it here and there with great results.

dave watkins · Post by **dave watkins** » Thu Aug 20, 2009 8:04 pm

+1 on ozone, and its a super flexible plug for a hell of a lot of other purposes as well. good on both buses and channels.

i will also use izotope trash to do some crazy stereo field manipulation as well. good for doubling a source and panning it hard left and right without actually doubling a source and panning it hard left and right if you catch my drift. not a replacement for that technique by any means, but definitely a tighter more obvious effect. i turn off every parameter except for the "box modeling" section and then i pick "none" as my box model and just adjust the spread and separation controls to taste to make some massive width happen. you might have to be careful with it though, if you are concerned with your mixes collapsing to mono well.

A.David.MacKinnon · Post by **A.David.MacKinnon** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 4:28 am

I'm really just trying to get a couple of elements outside of the speakers for a little extra sparkle/ear candy. It's nothing hugely important to the mix so mono compatability isn't that big a deal.

dave watkins · Post by **dave watkins** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 5:53 am

yeah i'm with you on that. just figured i mention it since some people are actually quite concerned about that kind of thing

both those plug ins are freely downloadable and operate fully functional for 10 days so they are worth trying out, if nothing else is quite doing it for you.

Dakota · Post by **Dakota** » Fri Aug 21, 2009 10:20 am

junkshop wrote:I'm looking for something to make a mix seem extra, extra, extra wide. I've been able to get 90% of the way there with panning, delays and ambiance but I'd like to have some elements of the mix appear as if they're coming from boyond the L/R boundry of the speakers.
I haven't had much luck finding a decent plug-in for this. I'm demoing the PSP Stereo Enhancer and it's not bad but it seems a little too complicated for my needs.
Does anyone have a plug-in that they like for this? I'm running Pro Tools 7.4 on an Intel Mac.

Luckily, it's pretty simple. Create a stereo aux track and insert a trim plug on it. Flip the polarity on both left and right on the trim plug. Flip the panning of the aux track, L to 100% right, R to 100% left.

Create a stereo buss to send to that. Whatever gets sent there will have its left/right information pushed out wider than the speaker edges. The louder the aux track is (up to the point of being as loud as the original), the more intense the effect.

In very gentle doses, it's mono compatible with a slight drop in volume of tracks treated that way when collapsed to mono, but no timbre changes. Used at the same volume as the original, those tracks will completely disappear in mono.

Extra sprinkles: also insert a stereo delay on the same aux. 100% wet. No feedback. Delay times *less than* 1ms get you Haas effects, which is what you want for stereo wide. L and R delay times can be different. Modulation is also good.

A compressor or expander also on this aux will make the stereo extra width dynamically change based on the loudness and percussiveness of the original part.

Check for uncorrected plug in latency, which will mess up the effect.

Bro Shark · Post by **Bro Shark** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 3:57 pm

Dakota wrote:Flip the polarity on both left and right on the trim plug. Flip the panning of the aux track, L to 100% right, R to 100% left.

Didn't we just do two U-turns, aka a 360?

Dakota · Post by **Dakota** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 7:10 pm

tarblackvomit wrote:
Dakota wrote:Flip the polarity on both left and right on the trim plug. Flip the panning of the aux track, L to 100% right, R to 100% left.
Didn't we just do two U-turns, aka a 360?

Nope. Polarity and panning are two different issues. Both of them get "flipped" for this. 180. What you end up with is a polarity inverted and stereo-opposite version of the original information sent to it. Mixed in gently with the original, it widens the panning to seem outside the speakers. Just try it, it's what a lot of the apparently fancy and mysterious stereo enhancer plugs do anyway.

Keep in mind, other than very slight use of this - it's not mono-compatible.

Dakota · Post by **Dakota** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 7:32 pm

I'm thinking maybe the above description sounds complicated.

Easy way to do this for individual tracks:

Make new stereo track. Copy a duplicate of the stereo track you want widened into it. Audio suite it with any plug that can flip the polarity and the panning. Check to make sure it lines up exactly with the original (I never trust audio suite to keep a processed track exactly where it was in time).

Play both the original and flipped tracks together, the flipped track between 6 to 24 db less loud than the original. Bingo, it's extra wide.

To add Haas effects to this, nudge the flipped track slightly later. Less than 1 millisecond though.

Spindrift · Post by **Spindrift** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 8:05 pm

This plugin is free and has stereo width control.

http://www.brainworx-music.de/index.php ... =2&lang=en

a.

cjogo · Post by **cjogo** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 8:52 pm

External --THe DEQ 2496 has great parameters for stereo width ~!

Shane Michael Rose · Post by **Shane Michael Rose** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 10:16 pm

lets talk about what the opposite is of wide.

less punch?

joninc · Post by **joninc** » Wed Sep 09, 2009 12:28 pm

the opposite? how about collapsed? narrow? mono?

that narrowness is something i have been fighting with lately in my own way too. i think i initially really liked hearing things mixed really symmetrically on both sides - doubled or stereo files panned wide apart. it's a full sound for sure. but in the past year or two, i am more and more moving away from that style of mixing as it also can have the effect of feeling more mono and center focussed. (because each side can be a mirror of the other)

when i listen to a lot of music i like - there are often different things unique to each side happening which creates a greater sense of space and depth and width - giving elements a distinct place to exist in the stereo field. it can be trickier to balance and require more work but it's more satisfying in the end.

i'm sure for a lot of you this is just a totally "DUH" moment but for some reason wide panning/doubling/symmetry it's an easy trap to fall into. (i also "learned" it from my first mentor/example in recording/mixing. "overheads/stereo tracked acoustic guitar/piano should be panned hard right and left"

sorry if that is OT - it's just been on my mind a lot lately.

more OT - i have tried a bunch of plugs - most seem quite subtle or have weird artifacts but check out the bedbugs "widebug" - also the RECUE (bootsy's plugins) plug is cool too. these are freeware vst's.

rpmsongs · Post by **rpmsongs** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:52 pm

I did this with phase. i don't remember how exactly, but, i ended up automating the phase (or something like that as it was 6 years ago) but, it was just some sparkle in a dead part of a song and it actually isn't widened, it is something you can pin point where it is as it goes behind you. think about it mathematically and you'll figure it out. we only have 2 ears, 2 speakers, and all that space behind you. fill it in, go nuts

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