What does it mean if an element in a mix is in the "side" AND "mid" channels

armansrsa

New member
What does it mean if an element in a mix is in the "side" AND "mid" channels

I am learning about panning and checking a mix trying to understand the panning being used in a particular song. The Verse of the song has a guitar that appears to be almost completely right panned with only a bit of signal coming through on the left channel. However in the chorus the guitar on the left comes in and the guitar can be heard both on left and right channels. I am not sure if the guitar in the chorus is the same guitar just panned centre now or if it is a double tracked guitar which is something I was hoping to figure out in my experiment.

Now the part where I get confused is the following. In my DAW, where I imported this song to reference, I open a plugin on the track by Voxengo which allows me to audition Mid and Side channels independently and when I try to listen to the "mid" channel the guitar is still there, but ALSO, when I listen to the "sides" channel the guitar is also there. If the guitar was centre panned in the chorus then it should dissapear when the side channel is being auditioned and if the guitar is double tracked or recorded in stereo, most of it would dissapear as the signals would be almost identical so how is it possible the the guitar is perfectly audible in both mid and side channels? Especially on the side channel the guitar is perfectly audible with no cancellation whatsoever.

I will attach a clip with a few bars before the chorus and once the chorus kicks in so you guys can have a listen and help me out in trying to understand what is going on in the mix

thank you!
 

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I am learning about panning and checking a mix trying to understand the panning being used in a particular song. The Verse of the song has a guitar that appears to be almost completely right panned with only a bit of signal coming through on the left channel. However in the chorus the guitar on the left comes in and the guitar can be heard both on left and right channels. I am not sure if the guitar in the chorus is the same guitar just panned centre now or if it is a double tracked guitar which is something I was hoping to figure out in my experiment.

Most likely the song has a sngle guitar on the right during the verse, and a double tracked second guitar fills out the chorus.

Now the part where I get confused is the following. In my DAW, where I imported this song to reference, I open a plugin on the track by Voxengo which allows me to audition Mid and Side channels independently and when I try to listen to the "mid" channel the guitar is still there, but ALSO, when I listen to the "sides" channel the guitar is also there. If the guitar was centre panned in the chorus then it should dissapear when the side channel is being auditioned and if the guitar is double tracked or recorded in stereo, most of it would dissapear as the signals would be almost identical so how is it possible the the guitar is perfectly audible in both mid and side channels? Especially on the side channel the guitar is perfectly audible with no cancellation whatsoever.

I don't think the MS plugin is going to help you understand what is going on with a pre-recorded stereo track. You may need to read up on what MS recording is.
 
The M/S feature on these things is to decode the matrixed mid and side. It has no other function and can make stereo conventional tracks sound really odd which might be an effect, but not normal.

I don't quite see what you are thinking? Is there something wrong with something moving position during the song? It's quite a common trick to takes something in the middle, and then suddenly move it left and right to create hole in the middle, that you fill up with something new. I have to say I find movement quite annoying, but if it works, it's fine. When it doesn't it makes me cringe.
 
Yeah the mid signal is actually both sides mixed together, so hearing both guitars in that tells you nothing. The side signal is the difference between the two sides, so the fact that you hear them there tells you that it is not the exact same thing on both sides, so probably two guitars. There is no good way to hear only those things which are actually the same on both sides. You have to infer that from what is missing in the sides signal.
 
Most likely the song has a sngle guitar on the right during the verse, and a double tracked second guitar fills out the chorus.



I don't think the MS plugin is going to help you understand what is going on with a pre-recorded stereo track. You may need to read up on what MS recording is.

Have you ever double tracked an acoustic guitar and listened to the "side" channel? The side channel is the difference between the L & R channels so what you would be left with is a very small uncorrelated signal. however, if you listen to the "side" channel on the track I uploaded you can hear the acoustic guitar perfectly as if it was a mono sound source. How is it possible that the guitar does not cancel some of itself out with the guitar on the right channel?
 
What I am thinking is,

1) If you have the same guitar track in both L & R speakers (panned in the middle that is) then by listening to the "sides" of the stereo recording you would be left with nothing
2) If you have a stereo recording (whether you double tracked or multi mike recorded the guitar) by listening to the "sides" you would hear only the difference which would be very minimal since it is the same guitar part

HOWEVER, in the recording when listening to the "sides" the guitar part is AS audible on the sides as it is in one of the L or R channels.
 
so the fact that you hear them there tells you that it is not the exact same thing on both sides, so probably two guitars.

if they are two guitars they are very similar so they are either tightly recorded double tracked guitars or stereo recorded guitars in which case SOME PHASE cancellation should occur by subtracting the L and R channel, yet this is NOT the case, please listen to the side channel in the recording when the chorus kicks in, the guitar sounds like a perfect mono acoustic guitar recording with no cancellation at all.
 
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