MS remastering tools & techniques ??

[kylen]

Hi Folks,
Are any of youse guys remastering stereo mixes - this is called homerecording.com so I've found that a large degree of threads deal with recording and mixing and mastering of the tracks at hand.

I'm remastering some old mixes from tape and tearing out the mid-side components for seperate NR, EQ & compression then gluing them back together to rebuild the Left-Right stereo field. I've only done a few songs this way so far and am getting the feeling of greater control in certain cases.

I got this idea most recently from a guy over on audiomasters forum talking about the m/s feature of Endorphin. Also Bob Katz 'Mastering Audio' book deals with mid-side or mono-stereo components of a stereo mix and mastering thereof - page 149, hehe. Also certain equipment like Manley, Joe Meek, Q3 EQ and even M-Audio are appearing with m/s encoders and decoders for that type of adjustment so there's some manuals I've read describing this too.

Anybody doing this here that want to yack about it ? At this point I can describe it as the difference between making adjustments to the left and right channels that will affect the mono or center of the stereo field - or alternately breaking the mid (mono) and side (stereo) components out of the stereo mix (ms encoding) and adjusting them directly then recombining them (ms decoding to stereo).

Now I have 4 pieces of the stereo mix to work with - left, right, mid, side. 100% more potential of contol.

In my case I'm using it for repair and remastering - I don't know if you folks need this over here since you usually have the full mix to alter if you need to.

What about it - anybody doing this ?

 

[masteringhouse]

Yep, I'm currently working on a project adding just a small amount of M-S processing. I only do this as a last resort though for "constipated" mixes.

Personally I hate the sound of introducing out of phase material, it makes things sound weaker and thinner. But in some instances it's better than the alternative. If you can't get a remix.

 

[ryanlikestorock]

Is the idea here to extract a small sample of the track, invert the signal (out of phase) and mix it back in to create a pseudo-stereo effect?

Or, am I missing many pieces of the puzzle?

 

[kylen]

Well - I can just say what I'm doing with it - I'm still learning and trying to understand what it does and how it does it. Making the m/s mastering adjustments I'm referring to is different than adjusting the stereo field width or balance but that is certainly something I include after the fact since I'm monitoring it anyway.

What I'm doing is simply rebalancing EQ and dynamics and reverb (I'll throw that in also - if needed) but instead of the mix having the conventional stereo field composed of left and right and the imaginary middle - the m/s encoded mix has one track which contains mid information (formerly the left track) and one track which contains side information (formerly the right track). It doesn't make much sense to me if I listen to it without a decoder.

I'm sure I'm not qualified to explain this at this point since I'm just getting into it - that's why I was looking for folks who are doing this already so I could yack about it and get my brain around it some more. But...

Here's a couple of notes I jotted down for an article I was composing, assuming I get a better understanding on the topic...

Excerpts from 'MS Repair and Remastering' by kylen, hehe

Overview:
Much control can be asserted over an already mastered stereo mix by converting to it’s mid (mono) and side (stereo) components, processing them individually, and converting back to stereo (LR) format.

Breaking down a professionally mastered mix in this fashion, listening and looking at a spectrograph reveals that the mono (mid) component of the mix includes most of the bass and obviously the mono mix while the stereo (side) component contains much of the high as well as the phase relative stereo information.

MS EQ matching with CurveEQ:
I used curve matching quite a bit early on to understand and learn stereo (LR) EQing of a full mix during mastering. Now I'm learning MS EQing the same way. I’ll break out the MS components (using mda Image or Cool Edit Pro Channel Mixer) of professionally mastered songs that I like and study how the mid and sides are EQ’d – I’m sure I’ll use CurveEQ and do 12 or 20 point matches using spectrumatch to learn quicker. Then after a bit I’ll be able to do it independently by ear.

Encoding MS (via encoder):
M = L + R
S = L - R

Decoding MS (via decoder):
Left = M + S
Right = M – S (invert S in other words)

Per Bob Katz – manual decoding in any mixer:
Feed M to chan1, S to chan2, pan both left
Feed M to chan3, S to chan4, pan both right, invert chan 4

Here's a couple of processing chains to help explain what I'm doing a bit better:

Typical processing chain to convert a stereo mix to ms format:
Cool Edit Pro example: Channel Mixer (LR to Mid-Side preset)
The preset formula is:
(Mid) New Left Chan = 50% Left + 50% Right
(Side)New Right Chan = 50% Left + -50% Right (actually inverted 180 degrees)

...do processing to the mid and/or side channels as desired...
(note: monitor the actual stereo mix by putting a m/s decoder across the master buss)

Typical processing chain to convert a MS Tracks to Stereo:
Cool Edit Pro example: Channel Mixer (Mid-Side to LR preset) --> c_SuperStereo
The preset formula is:
New Left Chan = 100% Left + 100% Right
New Right Chan = 100% Left - 100% Right (meaning inverted 180 degrees)

Anyway - this is long enough already but the basic tools are MS Encoder, MS Decoder, Stereo Field Adjuster...

So here's the part I wanted to discuss, hehe - my basic tool set is :
MS Encoder/Decoder - Cool Edit Pro, mda Image, MS Tools (www.smartelectronix.com/~mdsp/ms.php)
Stereo Field Adjustment - c_SuperStereo unfortunately this one has lost the developer so if someone knows of a comparable one I'd love to know...PSP StereoMix Analyzer

What tools do you guys use if you are using m/s encoders & decoders to drill into a stereo mix ?