Faux Stereo technique

[qbert1]

Hello,

I was recording a choir concert recently and had to ditch my stereo pair due to buzzing. The only choice I had left was to go mono. It came out pretty good still but lacks width - obviously.

I'm experimenting with a fake MS technique I read about a while back. Send the mono signal to a stereo aux. Delay it by 20ms give or take. Flip the phase on one channel of the Aux and mix with the mono signal to taste. If used judiciously, is there any down side here I'm not aware of? Perhaps in a Dolby surround sound world theres a problem? Sure don't want to step in it if I can avoid it.

Does anyone know of any other faux stereo techniques that can be employed after the fact?

[A.David.MacKinnon]

You might end up in phase hell. Be sure to check it in mono.

[qbert1]

Actually that was one of the selling points in the article I read. Flipping the phase of half the delay stereo aux means it's 100% mono compatible. The hard left in-phase cancels out the hard right out-of-phase.

[Professor T]

play it over your monitors and record that in stereo. You could use that for a stereo reverb send or something.

[Dakota]

Actually that was one of the selling points in the article I read. Flipping the phase of half the delay stereo aux means it's 100% mono compatible. The hard left in-phase cancels out the hard right out-of-phase.

Yes, that one is mono compatible. Only down side is the stereo signal will seem to get a little less loud if collapsed to mono, to whatever degree you turn up that FX aux in the mix. A decent trade off, though.

Another classic is the equivalent and opposite notch/comb filters on L and R. Picture (an idealized) 31 band graphic EQ. Cut every other band on the left, cut the opposite bands on the right. It'll definitely stereo-ize the content. And to whatever degree the EQ is ideal, it'll be totally mono compatible. Results in the real world... well, if used moderately, it's cool.

And there is that orban stereo synthesizer 245 E or F. Does a static phase shifter thing similar to the above, equivalent boosts/cuts L/R that sum back to normal in mono. Lots of ways you could do variants on this with plugs. A multi-mono pair of hi res EQs.

[cgarges]

I'm experimenting with a fake MS technique I read about a while back. Send the mono signal to a stereo aux. Delay it by 20ms give or take.

That sounds like kind of a mess to me. I would imagine that sounding worse than mono, but I haven't tried it, so maybe there's something I'm missing.

I like Professor T's suggestion. If you use the mono source as your strong center image, you could create some kind of width by utilizing some type of added ambience. In a pinch, you could use a stereo reverb and it would probably work just fine, although if you had a good-sounding, largish room, the speaker playback thing could be really cool.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[qbert1]

[quote="cgarges"]
That sounds like kind of a mess to me. I would imagine that sounding worse than mono, but I haven't tried it, so maybe there's something I'm missing.
[/quote]

Gotta tell you that I'm lovin' the results with this "Fake MS" technique. We recorded in a very cool cathedral and this technique is bringing out the room very nicely without loosing the choir and instrumentalists. Try it if you ever get stuck like me.

I'm going to try some of the other ideas, too. Thanks for the suggestions. Keep them coming!

[cgarges]

Can you post the results?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[suppositron]

Can you post the results?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Yes. I'd like to hear this as well. I've tried it with guitar before and was never really that happy with it, but never with something like a choir with ambience.