Why did the FabFilter-L create stereo?

I hope this isn't a dumb question. Sorry.

I have a live session mixed. Everything is dead center, except a guitar stereo bus using a Channel Tools Increased Width plugin.
I put the FabFilter-L on the stereo bus. As I boosted the gain, I'd get a proportional stereo spread (maybe phase shift?). The more gain, the more the spread. The spread gets overwhelming and unusable quickly.

I tired 3 different limiters and this anomaly only occurred on the FabFilter.
Of course, I understand that if I have some spread in the mix, the limiter will accentuate that, but I can't find the source (nothing is panned, nothing is recorded in stereo). I also bypassed the Channel Tools plugin, with the same result.
There's' only 1 overhead, no room mic. This was my 1st time playing with the FF-L, did I miss something. I looked everywhere for some type of pan. Am I creating a phase issue?

Thanks,
-j
 
It's probably compressing the sum and difference channels independently. If there's a lot of energy in the center then that will get compressed more than the panned stuff as you push the gain. Just a guess.

[Edit] I know you didn't pan things manually, but a stereo generation tool will create panned information.
 
Boulder, I read your edit. Can you explain? By "stereo generation tool", do you mean my Channel Tools Increasded Width plugin, or am I generating stereo elsewhere?
I bypassed the plugin but with no change in the result. Is the FF-L generating stereo?
Why is this only happening with the FF-L limiter, not the Boost 11 or Noize Labs Limiter?
 
I would probably have to know more about the Increased Width plugin and the limiter to really know what's going on.

If the plugin generates any kind of stereo effect, that effect can be affected by a mid-side process. If that's the case and the limiter does some mid-side processing then it could explain the results you got.
 
I don't know the plug in either but if it generates a stereo output it will usually have to be taken OFF the track rather that just bypassed to return the track to mono for most DAWs.
 
Ok, I didn't get a change to test it, but I can believe bypassing the plugin may not be enough, maybe removing it would solve the problem.
That does not explain why this "anomaly" only occurred on the FF-L, not 2 other limiters. Why would FabFilter-L accentuate this issue and not 2 other limiters? I've heard great things about the FF-L, but I'm afraid I'm missing something.
 
Some plugins come in both "Mono to Stereo" and Mono and Stereo . if you mean to keep a track mono its usually easiest to just use a mono plug in though I understand in some DAWs there are different ways to handle plugins. I like to use the limiter separately on a master out with no added mid/side or dynamic mult frequency processing. Put all the other stuff on an aux 2 bus then feed that to the master with limiter/dither only. Plus if it does have some sort MS handler as part of it the output can be unexpected if you don't plan ahead. I am not really sure why it would cause a problem with only one Mfg limiter though.
 
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