How to do manually mid-side mastering technique?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lord Target
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Lord Target

Lord Target

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Geez, I´ve been looking all over but I cant find a decent method to do this technique manually without counting on plugins that do the whole deal.

Does anyone master this art of duplicating track, splitting the stereo, inverting the phase and the whole crazy thing? :facepalm:

thanx folks
 
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You'd need a mid-side matrix of some sort. I believe SPL makes a relatively inexpensive one...

(EDIT) Yep -- Kurzinfo: Sound Performance Lab --- About $1600 in the US.

Dangerous has (had?) a mid-side box too... (EDIT) Yep - HAD. No more. That one was a little cheaper if I recall (maybe $1400 -- Just the transformer is around $700).

(EDIT again, as I see you're trying to do this ITB) Nothing wrong with using plugs though... Or if your software has a MS matrix -- Or yeah, you can dupe/invert etc. What exactly is the problem you're having?
 
Hi, actually I was not thinkinn to go that pro.

It´s just an issue of getting an instrumental track in stereo and having to add vocals on it.

I´ve heard with that techinique you can find a ´room´ for the voice, once the stereo track is taking control of the whole pan.

In few words, it´s about to improve a ´place´for vocals, doin´the whole splitting thing on the track, as I´ve poorly mentioned on my post
 
Lord Target said:
once the stereo track is taking control of the whole pan.
Click to expand...

I don't think I understand this. If the track is panned hard left and right, it is using both extremes (as far as speakers go). I'm assuming that's what you mean?
 
Lord Target said:
It´s just an issue of getting an instrumental track in stereo and having to add vocals on it.
Click to expand...

Then just record the instrument track in stereo....and then add vocals.
You seem to be hunting for something that you're not even sure of what it is or how to do it.....which means you will only complicate your life more.

If you want to turn an existing mono track into a stereo track.....the best plug for that is Brainworx Stereomaker, and they also happen to have quite a few great M/S mastering plugs.
 
*nevermind, I reread your second post and understand how this might actually be of benefit. The post above mine has an excellent tutorial on how to accomplish this...

[useless post below deleted]
 
bouldersoundguy said:
That article is not talking about making stereo out of mono. It is telling you how to access and manipulate the difference information and sum information in a stereo file independently.
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Correct. I explained wrongly at first. I was working like two hours trying all the things and my head was just spinning.
 
Lord Target said:
Correct. I explained wrongly at first. I was working like two hours trying all the things and my head was just spinning.
Click to expand...

Got it.

To make the difference ("side") channel you copy the stereo track, swap left and right, invert polarity (routinely mislabeled as "phase"), assign both to a submix bus. Process the difference channel on this bus.

To get the sum ("mid") channel you pan left and right to the center. Assign to a different submix bus and process as needed.

Mix both buses together to reconstitute the stereo.

The details vary in different DAWs, but mathematically it's all the same.
 
I often dissagree with Boulderrsound. But

bouldersoundguy said:
Got it.

To make the difference ("side") channel you copy the stereo track, swap left and right, invert polarity (routinely mislabeled as "phase"), assign both to a submix bus. Process the difference channel on this bus.

To get the sum ("mid") channel you pan left and right to the center. Assign to a different submix bus and process as needed.

Mix both buses together to reconstitute the stereo.

The details vary in different DAWs, but mathematically it's all the same.
Click to expand...

Try Voxengo MSED. Easy to use and can be used in line.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Does it let you process the mid and side channels independently with different plugins?
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It takes a stereo track (L/R) as input and its output has mid on one channel (like, the one that would be called L) and the side on the other. It's up to you to split these out to different plugs. It's pretty easy in Reaper with the pin connectors, but can be a bit more complex in other less flexible DAWs. You would then use another instance of MSED to decode it back to regular L/R stereo.

I'm afraid that bsg's description doesn't sound quite right. It might actually work, but it's more complicated than necessary. Both the M and S signals are derived simply from mixing the L and R together. The S signal just has one of them inverted before the mix.

It's important to realize that M/S only really works because of the cancellations that happen with all the signal inversion and mixing back together. If you take either of the two signals too far away from the other, they won't cancel correctly and things will get weird. It works best when you're doing only subtly different things between the M and S. If you get too whacky it gets unpredictable fast.
 
ashcat_lt said:
I'm afraid that bsg's description doesn't sound quite right. It might actually work, but it's more complicated than necessary.
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It's exactly what's happening inside a M-S plugin. And I've done it more than a couple of times.
 
IDK... Like I said, I'm sure it works, but it's not the way anybody I know actually does it. A true M/S signal is exactly two channels - Mid and Side - and the side information is created by mixing the L signal with an inverted version of the R signal or an inverted L signal with the regular R. I have never seen anybody try to make L/R into M/S the way you've described.

Decoding from M/S back to L/R involves making two copies of the S signal, panning them hard L and R, and inverting one (whichever was inverted in the encoding process), but it only actually works if there's an M signal to mix it back with.

I suppose there's no reason you can't do the encode and decode at the same time as you've described, except that then you need twice as many processors if you want to do something to the S material.
 
ashcat_lt said:
IDK... Like I said, I'm sure it works, but it's not the way anybody I know actually does it. A true M/S signal is exactly two channels - Mid and Side - and the side information is created by mixing the L signal with an inverted version of the R signal or an inverted L signal with the regular R. I have never seen anybody try to make L/R into M/S the way you've described.

Decoding from M/S back to L/R involves making two copies of the S signal, panning them hard L and R, and inverting one (whichever was inverted in the encoding process), but it only actually works if there's an M signal to mix it back with.

I suppose there's no reason you can't do the encode and decode at the same time as you've described, except that then you need twice as many processors if you want to do something to the S material.
Click to expand...

What I describe produces two copies of the side channel with opposite polarity so you don't have to copy it later. We're talking about some eq or dynamics, not heavy duty reverbs or sims, so using one more is inconsequential.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
What I describe produces two copies of the side channel with opposite polarity so you don't have to copy it later. We're talking about some eq or dynamics, not heavy duty reverbs or sims, so using one more is inconsequential.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. If you're doing it in hardware you don't have infinite instances of the gear you might want to use, and even if you do have that extra EQ or compressor channel, you don't always have a good way to match the settings between the two with any real precision. I've just never heard of anybody doing it quite like that. I don't know of any hardware or software encoder that gives three outputs like that. I see how it works, and might even work better for you, but it's not exactly typical.
 
Stereo: L + R *L = L+MID *R = R+MID

therefore MID: (L + MID) + (R + MID) = 2MID+L+R

therefore SIDE: (L + MID) + (-R + -MID (inverted polarity)) = L(+) + R(-)

Does it check, folks?
 
I'm curious to tinker with this a bit, as I have on occassion needed this flexibility with a stereo mix (found other ways to accomplish what I needed with the tracks).

Any trial versions of a M/S plugin anyone can recommend? [or is the point here - don't bother using a plugin?]
 
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