Stereo spread

[Iscariot13]

Ok, bit of a thorny one.

 

I've heard of a technique to get a nice stereo spread on your mix. It involves getting a pair of split mono audio files on two separate tracks, panning one hard left, the other hard right. You also bus out the signals to two separate buses, but pan one mono track hard left and the other hard right the opposite way (ie, send the hard panned LEFT track to a hard panned RIGHT bus and vice versa.) On the bus channels, put a gain plug- in on each and INVERT THE PHASE. Now gradually mix in the two mono bus tracks with the main two tracks.

 

This is supposed to create a stereo mix that seems to extend beyond the field of the speakers.

 

But I can't get it to work that way. I just get phase cancellation halfway, then a rise in amplitude.

 

What am I doing wrong?

[David Nahmani]

All those tricks are not recommended, especially on a whole mix. Playing with phase is like playing with fire. To get some sort of extended stereo effect you have to be willing to denature the sound (comb filtering) and give up on mono compatibility (phase cancellation), meaning your mix will never sound good on the radio (a lot of car radios still switch to mono in poor reception areas).

 

So basically, I would recommend caution when using those effects.

 

But you can simply use the 'Direction Mixer' and widen the base, or also experiment with the Stereo Spread plug-in.

[Iscariot13]

Hi David; long time to speak! Hope all is well. I'll check out the stereo spread functionn in Logic; I'll see what I can do anyhow!

 

Thanks for the advice.

 

Iscar.