Widening...

OK.. I'm relatively new to the recording side of all of this.. and one of the things I am curious to know how others use it, is stereo widening... I downloaded Flux's free stereo plug in and love it.. I like to take the drums and bass and send to an Aux, as I do for reverb, etc.. and put the stereo plug on it, and flip the phase 90 degrees and then mix a little of it in to fill out the foundation of a song.... Ideas? suggestions? How do you use it? Peace!

Just my 2 cents but would not use it except as an effect. Any time you mess with the phase of something as important as drums and bass, you risk the quality of the final master. Go easy with the widener and always check your mix in mono before you let it out of the studio.

Noob = soon to be pro if he keeps learning. Idiot = Noob who thinks he already knows everything (also called a teenager.)

I suppose the best to use it is what sounds right to you works. Not very helpful I know. Sorry about that. All it does is essentially delay and attenuate one channel by a small amount. It plays with our psycho-acoustic perception. As a sound arrives from the side must pass through the head to the other ear. The head is about the same width as a complete wave cycle at 1.6 kHz. so all frequencies below this are delayed slightly (to create a different phase relationship) whilst all frequencies above it are attenuated (as they would have completed one wave cycle). This gives the illusion that the sound is coming more from our side rather than striaght ahead. To much processing and the ears do not hear one sound arriving from the side but two sounds, one in each ear (due to to much delay). This can be to much and would sound wierd!! You can create your own with a sample delay and a basic filter. Not sure how this helps you use it correctly though! Just play and listen, when it sounds good, print it! A:)

Look into the mid side effect - in some cases I have found it a great method when used on a stereo master to apply effects on or whatever seems right........

M/S: Try this

MUCHO! thanks to everyone.. Learning is cool.. especially from this side of things... (I've sat behind a drum kit for a long time). Special thanks to Albee.. I would never have thought to check anything in mono... I did and found that in one thing I had done, when I went to mono, the guitar and vox cancelled each other out.. LOL (glad they're just my demos). Now I listen to everything in mono from time to time and whenever I think I am finished just to be sure. I have to say that this little nugget has helped improve my mixes a fair bit. Peace!

Interesting tid bit here, alot of the big consoles and especially broadcast consoles will have a really crappy cheap mono speaker built into the console. This is again especially true for radio broadcast studios, as many older cars will only have one crummy speaker up in the dashboard. So the goal was to make sure you could have your track sound good even out of one speaker. I know you are talking about a wider signal, but many times, it can be very important to make sure you have a good mono signal. best of luck D