Always check in mono?!

mjbphotos

mjbphotos

Moderator
Never had an issue before but on 3 of my newer songs, I used a 'mid/side decoder' plugin on the acoustic guitar recorded with 1 mic. Only when it was a single acoustic that I had panned to the center, loved how it gave it depth. OOPS! The guitar literally fell out of the mix. Obviously the m/s splits the signal L/R and inverts the phase on 1 side.
Is there any trick/plug in (standard Reaper plugins) I can do that will give it the same effect without the phase issue? I duplicated the track, inverted the phase on the 2nd, panned one left and 1 right, and it was just mono again.
 
No one does M/S plugs like Brainworx.

You should try the Brainworx bx_stereomaker at Plugin Alliance: Brainworx bx_stereomaker - Plugin Alliance

You can collapse the stereo to mono...nothing drops out. They also have a lot of other plugs that use M/S...and it doesn't fall apart.
There's not a lot on sale now...but they do run pretty good sales, and once you have an account, they give out voucher regularly.
In the meantime...you can download any of their plugs for 2 weeks to try before you buy...full versions, no weird limitations.
 
mjbphotos said:
I used a 'mid/side decoder' plugin on the acoustic guitar recorded with 1 mic.
Click to expand...

I don't get it. You can't do m/s with one mic. Is that a mid/side simulator? Or maybe the decoder plugin is supposed to do the m/s processing for you. You know, copy the figure 8 track, invert the phase on one of them, then mix both back in with the center track. In which case, you need two mics, one being a figure-8.
 
Chili said:
I don't get it. You can't do m/s with one mic. Is that a mid/side simulator? Or maybe the decoder plugin is supposed to do the m/s processing for you. You know, copy the figure 8 track, invert the phase on one of them, then mix both back in with the center track. In which case, you need two mics, one being a figure-8.
Click to expand...

I assume that's what its supposed to do, with the regular mic on the left side of a stereo track and the figure-8 on the right side. I was just playing around and liked the effect on a single mic guitar, just didnt' know what it was doing.
 
miroslav said:
No one does M/S plugs like Brainworx.

You should try the Brainworx bx_stereomaker at Plugin Alliance: Brainworx bx_stereomaker - Plugin Alliance

You can collapse the stereo to mono...nothing drops out. They also have a lot of other plugs that use M/S...and it doesn't fall apart.
There's not a lot on sale now...but they do run pretty good sales, and once you have an account, they give out voucher regularly.
In the meantime...you can download any of their plugs for 2 weeks to try before you buy...full versions, no weird limitations.
Click to expand...

Ouch - $129!
 
mjbphotos said:
I assume that's what its supposed to do, with the regular mic on the left side of a stereo track and the figure-8 on the right side. I was just playing around and liked the effect on a single mic guitar, just didnt' know what it was doing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, mid-side decoding is relying on being fed the right input - A figure 8 and cardioid center.

If you fed it a single mono input channel as side I guess it would put that same signal out L+R but with opposite polarity which, when panned wide, is going to sound about as wide as can be,
but when panned centre or summed is going to 100% cancel out.

Something like Waves S1 should achieve a similar effect but claims to be highly mono-compatible.
I've never tested that claim but I do have the plugin, if you'd like me to run something through it for you?
 
In addition to what others have said about the need for two mics in mid/side, one of the advantages of that technique is that it holds up in mono.
 
I honestly think you'd do better to just add some stereo reverb. Even a real subtle touch can make a huge difference. Maybe try to find a decent M/S impulse? Is that a thing? Put that in ReaVerb and then run it though the decoder.

PS - Have you listened to that "widened" track on headphones? It should feel like your brain is being sucked out through your ears. Like completely inside out.
 
Try the Sidewidener by Joey Sturgis..Very interesting. And mono compatible. You won't us it everywhere but where you do use can be special.
 
ashcat_lt said:
PS - Have you listened to that "widened" track on headphones? It should feel like your brain is being sucked out through your ears. Like completely inside out.
Click to expand...

I liked that effect! ;)

I ended up putting the JS 'Stereo Enhancer' on it, doesn't really do much, but everything else I had just messed with the phase.
 
mjbphotos said:
Never had an issue before but on 3 of my newer songs, I used a 'mid/side decoder' plugin on the acoustic guitar recorded with 1 mic. Only when it was a single acoustic that I had panned to the center, loved how it gave it depth. OOPS! The guitar literally fell out of the mix. Obviously the m/s splits the signal L/R and inverts the phase on 1 side.
Is there any trick/plug in (standard Reaper plugins) I can do that will give it the same effect without the phase issue? I duplicated the track, inverted the phase on the 2nd, panned one left and 1 right, and it was just mono again.
Click to expand...

yes,
always check in mono!

i use ARC2 correction for my room monitors, which does combined left/right correction and Stereo, Mono or Side for quick reference checks......
plus my daw studio one pro can fold to mono
all good tools
 
My Big Knob does it for the monitor speakers, and of course Reaper has a 'mono' button on the master track in projects.
 
I went ahead and did a mono check for my current project. The levels were very different, and the guitar tone changed considerably. For the hell of it, I remixed it completely in mono, just to see how it'd sound. I couldn't get it sounding very decent, especially with the 3 pairs of guitars near the end of the song, and I was constantly adjusting OH level (which seemed extremely quiet in mono, and needed around 5db gain added just to even sense that the OH's were there).

I printed that mono mix in stereo, took it in the car, and it really wasn't that bad. The compression was more obvious in the stereo car version of the mono mix, as I had a hard time gauging compression in mono. Seemed I could really crank it before I noticed much of an effect.

I do forget to check it in mono frequently, though I don't think I'll be doing another mix 100% this way (it was just for the hell of it anyway, to see what it would sound like), but I will def refer to it occasionally. Anyone here able to comment on perception of these various issues I came across - like why OH's and cymbals are different or compression harder to judge? Could just be me and that I'm not picking it up well enough in stereo to begin with, but it really seemed that mono pointed these things out much more. Any thoughts on that?
 
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