question: seperate track mastering

ace516

ace516

New member
hello everyone :o

i have a question.
I'm mastering some tracks (rock/ska band).. i applied effects (eq/reverb/stereo widening) but i noticed that the end result was really muddy in the parts with distortioned guitar.

i went back to the mix and tried to see what my problem was.. and i find that stereo widening leaks a hard panned guitar to its opposite side a bit, causing this muddiness (i even started believing that the guitars were bounced in mono!! thats what i was hearining).

so my approach to fixing this is bouncing every instrument excluding the guitars down to one track, then bouncing the guitars to another stereo track.

i then i applied the vst effects to the first bounced track, and then to the second (guitars) track EXCEPT stereo widening. then i bounced these two tracks down to one stereo track.

my question is simple..
is this a practical method?
does anyone have experience with such problem?
any technical/theoretical problems with my approach?
thanx all :)
 
Ask yourself, do you even need the stereo widening? If its mixed well and is already quite 'wide' (which I'm guessing it is from the hard-panned guitars), then the answer is probably no.

So there's your solution :)
 
ace516 said:
so my approach to fixing this is bouncing every instrument excluding the guitars down to one track,
Click to expand...

So, you want everything mono except the guitars???:confused::confused::confused:

Because that's exactly what you're doing.

Secondly, like mattr said, you don't need stereo widening if you tracked and mixed properly. I don't even know why that worthless plug-in even exists.
 
Secondly, like mattr said, you don't need stereo widening if you tracked and mixed properly. I don't even know why that worthless plug-in even exists.
Click to expand...

cuase some daws have a shrunkin stereo feild to begin with like protools
and if you widen the spread on the master you have more room to create space and distance from the instruments in the track
 
...but you can't get any wider than hard left and hard right.

And I call bollocks on some DAW's not having wide stereo fields...if that's the case, don't use ProTools.
 
ace516 said:
but i noticed that the end result was really muddy in the parts with distortioned guitar.
Click to expand...


that might be the key.

Next time you track distorted guitars, turn your gain down.
Say my gain for live playing is set to around 8, turn it back to about 6. Maybe 6.5.
Also, try cutting out some lows. Say around 80 to 100.
See if it helps with a bit more clarity.

Luck man........Kel
 
RAMI said:
So, you want everything mono except the guitars???:confused::confused::confused:

Because that's exactly what you're doing.

Secondly, like mattr said, you don't need stereo widening if you tracked and mixed properly. I don't even know why that worthless plug-in even exists.
Click to expand...

i mean, bounce to one stereo track.
and yeah, pro tools was used to track and mix.
 
doulos24 said:
cuase some daws have a shrunkin stereo feild to begin with like protools
Click to expand...
Wow, so my panning hard-right will be more right that your panning hard-right? My DAW automatically introduces psycoacoustic delays and reverbs to let you pan 600% right. Its so far right that it crosses space/time and comes all the way back round to the left :D Eat that you shrunken Protools.



...in all seriousness; pan laws may differ, but the actual stereo spread and seperation of something comes down to the way its mixed.
 
my experience with "widening" plugs is that the effect doesn't translate well to systems other than the computer (i.e. cd, mp3 players, etc.) I'm with mattr if the mix is right widening isn't needed
 
ok guys.
I found myself asking "WHY am i even using a stereo widener in the mix".
so thanks a lot for making me doubt myself!!! (really)

im thinking why am I even using one?
and I could not come up with a good reason.

anyone have any articles on this subject?
... i'm really thinking about discarding this technique in the mastering stage and making use of it while mixing. :eek:
 
ace516 said:
ok guys.
I found myself asking "WHY am i even using a stereo widener in the mix".
so thanks a lot for making me doubt myself!!! (really)

im thinking why am I even using one?
and I could not come up with a good reason.

anyone have any articles on this subject?
... i'm really thinking about discarding this technique in the mastering stage and making use of it while mixing. :eek:
Click to expand...

i found one!!
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan07/articles/pcmusician_0107.htm
 
You need to learn to read and use a phase correlation meter so you can see why your ears are telling you what they are telling you and why a wall of Gibson/Mesa-style distortion double- or quadruple-tracked and panned hard to each side is one of the least likely candidates for a source likely to work well with a widener.

Oh, and mattr is absolutely right; regardless of the pan laws for which any DAW is configured, hard to one side is hard to one side. Period. The pan laws only affect amplitude aorund and at center pan.

G.
 
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