How is your Master Width set in the DAW?

[LazerBeakShiek]

Came across a parameter and am wondering what other people are using as a setting for width? I figure you have a right and a left. A sweep for right and left. What is width? And in my instance what is 0%?

i read what it said in the reaper manual. Still?

 

[PorterhouseMusic]

I'm pretty sure the "width" setting is for any track that has two channels - and is for controlling the separation of the two channels. Unless, of course, I've misunderstood.

100% is for total left/right separation. 0% is a total collapse to mono - the two channels are right on top of each other in the middle. And I assume "-100%" flips the two channels so that "right" is now fully left - and "left" is fully to the right.

Can anyone else more knowledgeable confirm this?

 

[Serendipity Records]

I'm pretty sure the "width" setting is for any track that has two channels - and is for controlling the separation of the two channels. Unless, of course, I've misunderstood.

100% is for total left/right separation. 0% is a total collapse to mono - the two channels are right on top of each other in the middle. And I assume "-100%" flips the two channels so that "right" is now fully left - and "left" is fully to the right.

Can anyone else more knowledgeable confirm this?

I’m pretty sure that this is not the case, because if by default width is at 0% and sounds stereo, then it’s a 0% modification. -100% would be collapse to mono, and +100% would mean a total removal of mono signal.

As a REAPER user, I could double-check... but perhaps @LazerBeakShiek you should be able to just hear what’s going on? Kinda like 1176 attack/release controls (which are counter-intuitive) – if you have a pair of ears handy...

 

[TalismanRich]

Porterhouse is correct. Having the width at 100% is normal L/R based on the pans of the channels coming into the master buss. Moving to 0% makes it a mono signal, and -100% swaps to R/L.

It's simple to test. Put in two different tracks, pan them hard left and right. Now go to the master and move the width control back and forth. You'll hear the signal move.

My default is 100% on the width control. The Pan setting tells you the setting of the pan control knob. If you have it set Left or Right of center it will show the %.

You can see it in this where I moved the Pan control left by over 50%. BTW, the two sliders above the pan and width controls are simply the level control and the pan knob settings. If you move the slider, you will see the control on the master move at the same time.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

Thanks Rich, that is exactly what I wanted.

64% L pan and width 100%.

Probably, some internal R/L balancing in the Reaper program, or something.

 

[Slouching Raymond]

64% L pan and width 100%.

Does that make sense though?
If 100%width is left on the left and right on the right, how can you then pan that 64%Left?
But, if you said the width was just 50%, you could then slide that spread around.
You might have the right signal coming just out of the right speaker, with the left signal being centred.

 

[TalismanRich]

Moving the pan knob doesn't affect the width control. It sets the relative level of the left and right channels. At 50%, the left channel might be 10dB higher than the right channel. That approximate level would stay constant through the width change. If you had a stereo track that just seemed to be too strong on one side, you can balance the levels via pan, and control the image width or even reverse it. Got a stereo piano that seems too wide, just reduce the width of the image. Say you have a stereo track of a piano that is too wide, and want it to remain slightly stereo. Choose that track, reduce the width by 30%. Then maybe pan that slightly to the left and the singer slightly to the right to represent a singer standing next to the piano player.

The Width control on a master track lets you do some of those goofy effects we had from the 70s. I threw this in to Reaper, automated the width control alone and made this little section. You can hear the guitar and bass go to one side then flip to the other. You can see the automation in the pic file. As it crosses the middle, it's mono.

 

[ashcat_lt]

There are two different pan modes which use width.

Default is stereo balance and the width control is “hidden” in that I/O window. In this mode, width works as described above and then the pan knob just (basically) turns down the channel you pan away from. So like width at 0 mixes both channels together and puts that mix on both channels and then pan 50% left turns down the right channel of that result.

There’s actual stereo pan modes which puts width on the MCP/TCP itself. In this mode, the interaction between width and mix is a little more complicated and I’m not sure I totally understand how it works, but I think it lets you sort of “rotate” the stereo image. Like on a wide stereo drum sound where the hat is all the way left, kick in the middle, and ride all the way right, you can pan it to where the hat is still all the way left, kick is half left, and the ride is in the middle.

Then there’s the dual pan mode which does away with width altogether and just lets you pan each of the input channels across the output channels independently.

 

[Steenamaroo]

Then there’s the dual pan mode which does away with width altogether and just lets you pan each of the input channels across the output channels independently.

Yeah, as far as I know width is the equivalent of turning separate L/R pan knobs at the same time, in opposite directions.

I'm coming from ProTools so the separate knobs is what I'm used to.

A good example might be vocal with a l/r ping-pong delay which I used a lot.
I'll have that -100/100 in lighter sections like verses but often narrow it in to -40/40 or -20/20 in a dense chorus, to make the vocal sound more focussed.
Perceived position doesn't change but the width does.

Pretty sure that's the equivalent of reducing width but leaving pan alone.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

Does that make sense though?

Nothing makes sense. I just keep rolling with it.

 

[Papanate]

Nothing makes sense. I just keep rolling with it.

Its interesting why Reaper folks would put that kind of control in there - I understand collapsing to mono - although rarely used these days it could come in handy - but reversing left and right? - can anyone tell me what that would be used for - except maybe troubleshooting?

 

[Steenamaroo]

It's not really additional control so much as a less common way of presenting it.
You can take a stereo track in ProTools, for example, and pan the left knob to the right and the right knob to the left.

Can't recall ever needing to reverse something but I suppose it could happen if your L+R mics were plugged in to 2+1 instead of 1+2 by mistake or something,
or a last minute switch from spaced to X/Y...
I could imaging that coming up with A/V from time to time.

I've certainly automated panning reverse, and back, as an effect before.

 

[PorterhouseMusic]

Yep - along with the other 687,249 bells and whistles that come with your DAW - this is number 687,250. Just one more thing to confuse us and send us to a forum to ask about.

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

There is no standard setting then. Like, i think that placing the 'slider in the center of the range' would be a neutral setting. Others have since chimed in otherwise, and 100% is default. It just is.

 

[TalismanRich]

Standard setting is 100%. It's only important for stereo tracks. Mono tracks have no width.

Center on the width is not "neutral". It will make everything mono. That's not what you want unless you're cutting 45s in the 1950s!
Set at 100%. That will put a full 100% L/R width.

100% = Full left to right field
0% = Mono
-100% = reverse field. Left is right and right is left.

 

[ashcat_lt]

Your source input or media item might be single channel mono, but there’s still (at least) two channels on the track. There are things you can do at the item level and/or in the FX chain which can create stereo before it gets to the width control.

 

[Maya Clars]

This is interesting, what will happen if you make the width as 10%? Will the output signal be more towards mono? I suppose that width in here might be referencing to "how much of a signal goes to the R and L sides", so by tweaking the width you can decide it, also, is this setting on every track or just on the master bus?

 

[Steenamaroo]

This is interesting, what will happen if you make the width as 10%? Will the output signal be more towards mono?

Yes,
If you imagine having separate pan controls for left and right, as you would in ProTools or in Repear's dual pan mode,
imagine having the master set at L = -50 and R = 50...half as wide as possible.

Increasing width would be equivalent to -60 and 60, -70 and 70, -80 and 80, etc.
Changing pan, moving it farther left, for example, would be equivalent to -60 and 40, -70 and 30, -80 and 20.

Changing width the centre point remains the same.
Changing pan the centre point moves but width remains the same.

Seems unnecessarily complicated to me but maybe that's intuitive to others?

 

[Maya Clars]

Yes,
If you imagine having separate pan controls for left and right, as you would in ProTools or in Repear's dual pan mode,
imagine having the master set at L = -50 and R = 50...half as wide as possible.

Increasing width would be equivalent to -60 and 60, -70 and 70, -80 and 80, etc.
Changing pan, moving it farther left, for example, would be equivalent to -60 and 40, -70 and 30, -80 and 20.

Changing width the centre point remains the same.
Changing pan the centre point moves but width remains the same.

Seems unnecessarily complicated to me but maybe that's intuitive to others?

Hey Steenamaroo! Great message, yeah, the ears are really important, at the end of the day - we just have to listen to the changes with our ears and make it intuitive

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Standard setting is 100%. It's only important for stereo tracks. Mono tracks have no width.

Center on the width is not "neutral". It will make everything mono. That's not what you want unless you're cutting 45s in the 1950s!
Set at 100%. That will put a full 100% L/R width.

100% = Full left to right field
0% = Mono
-100% = reverse field. Left is right and right is left.

I only stumbled across this setting a few months ago and this is now my favorite Reaper panning trick.

Something I like to do when I have a supporting track that is both 1) reasonably prominent, and 2) not even close to balanced in the stereo field (for example, an intro to a song where there's a left-panned clean arpeggio at the start before the band kicks in) is create a send to a second track, and add a 100% wet reverb or delay on that track so you have your arpeggio part to the left, but a bit of an echo of that part over on the right, so it doesn't feel like there's such a "hole" in your stereo spectrum. Done right it's subtle and you won't notice it really, but you will notice it when you take it away. Default Reaper behavior is to preserve pan in the send, so to do this you also have to modify the send to happen pre-pan, so when you then pan the receive track to the other side, it doesn't just basically mute the audio.

But, what if you wanted to do this with a couple tracks, all panned to different points? Create a receive track, send to it as normal post-pan... but flip your pan law from 100 to -100. Then, boom! If you have one guitar panned 65% left and another guitar panned 35% right, your echoes will occur 65% right and 35% left. If you wanted a tighter spread on the echoes, flipping it to -50 would place them about 33% and 17% R and L, respectively.

It's such a simple, cool feature. I've used it a ton since discovering it.