spreading a mono source to L - R

[amiracam]

so let's say I have recorded a single mic-ed acoustic guitar but I want to get that out of the way and I don't want to hear just on hard left or hard right, it would not be balanced for the song in context. Currently I'm using a Waves Spread plugin to do just that but recently I bumped into a thread here where the gist was that stereo imaging manipulations can cause phase problems, i.e. they seem shunned.

 

So I wonder what do most do in practice ? just double the track and pan one hard left , other hard right ? Assume you don't have the option to re-record a second track ?

 

Is this a better option than using a Spreader and why ? no phase issues ?

 

If to Spread , I also tried the Logic Spreader to equally satisfactory although different sonic effect, the Waves seems more tweak able.

 

So far it seems to be working pretty well.

[triplets]

I would double the track and delay the copy with logic sample delay by a slight amount. Use your ears.

Pan them L and R.

That way it's like two performances.

[ElMariachi78]

Hi,

 

2 alternatives to using stereo spread for a mono track:

 

1).

"Re-mic" your guitar recording: Record your original guitar track through your monitors with a different condenser mic.

Pan one track hard left the other hard right. Send those tracks to a stereo bus/aux channelstrip and compress,EQ add Reverb ,Delay,Chorus etc.

 

2).

Artificial Double Tracking (ADT): Copy your guitar track to a new track.Delay the new track up to 40 ms and add a little modulation (tape mod or chorus/flanger).

Pan original hard left ,new track hard right. Send tracks to stereo bus/aux channelstrip and process like mentioned in 1).

 

Hope that helps 8)

[amiracam]

thanks for the feedback

 

it seems that these "spreaders" are effectively sending a frequency cutoff filtered copies to left and right, where one can control how hard the copies are panned, so effective but I don't have the creative possibilties as pointed out by you all

[angelonyc]

I'd try rerecording the 2nd track same as the first, the subtle timeing, often adds a nice quality, Izotope has a fairly decent imager.. Never cared a lot for Logic's imager, but it might suit your need.. another trick would be use Logics Sample Delay.. you can shift either side forever or backward in time. Or copy mono guitar to 2nd track, with slight delay, and some chorus modulation..

[stardustmedia]

Copy the track, put a delay on the copy, where the delay is set to around 10-40ms and the delay time is modulated randomly by a LFO just slightly, 100% wet. This will give you timing differences. Finally maybe also put a Pitchshifter around +- 3 to 20 cents