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Suggestions On Panning Pads Away From Center

Suntower

Established Member
Hi,

I'm looking for suggestions on making pads/strings fill out the extreme left and right with a lot of separation but have a complete -hole- in the center. I hear this on records and wonder how it's generally done.

When I try to do this, I often end up with a 'wash' across the whole spectrum that gets 'big mono'.

So... what's the trick?

TIA,

---JC
 

mattdean

Member
Waves Shuffler is nice for that. They have a parameter for the center \"distance\" sp you can get that hole you are looking for. Use it VERY sparingly though. Too much can create havoc in a surround system and can mess up your stereo image big time, but used right it can be a wonderful tool.
 

saemskin

Established Member
?
pitch shifting has nothing to do with it, and delaying between channels will help offset the phase, but he didnt ask for a delay. This is basic stuff guys..

The proper way to do this with no plugins is to take said channel, copy it, pan the first instance hard left, and the second hard right. Pick one to reverse the polarity on and you will be left with a stereo image like this:



as you can see there is a \"hole\" in the stereo image.
 

cAPSLOCK

Active Member
That technique will make the track disappear when the track is played mono.

Certainly left and right channels that are entirely out of phase is an interesting and extreme way to achieve separation, it may not be appropriate for many applications.

The other suggestions are much less nuclear and will go a long way to getting the hole he wants.

cAPS
 

Akis

Sadly, left this world before his time.
Moderator
cAPSLOCK said:
That technique will make the track disappear when the track is played mono.
Bingo! Some delay between the left and right channels will probably give good results and, if done carefully, no cancellation problems when summed in mono.
 

polygen

Active Member
saemskin said:
?
pitch shifting has nothing to do with it, and delaying between channels will help offset the phase, but he didnt ask for a delay. This is basic stuff guys..
excuse me but i think it's utterly rude to imply that i don't know the basic stuff. i've got around sixty records to my my name so i guess i know what i'm talking about, thank you. as capslock correctly stated your technique is not mono compatible, so it's not suitable for music made for airplay (and when used with material that contains signal components under around 50-80 hz may cause problems when cutting to vinyl, too). HOWEVER flipping the phase on one channel can give good results if you delay and pitch-shift the channels seperately too, as then the signals will be different enough to not loose too much when summed to mono.

most things you hear on i.e. big-name RnB / hiphop / pop records will usually run through your typical eventide patch which applies different delays and pitch-shifts to left and right. so i guess the guys who do the eventide presets didn't do their homework either? ;)

cheers,
denis
 

saemskin

Established Member
I guess I dont understand mono then. Because what you guys are saying makes no sense to me. In terms of a spectrum analyzer my mono synths give a signal that is a spike straight up the center. You are talking about a stereo spread inside of a mono signal? In my eyes such a thing doesn't exist. It can't?

Also, why would one want to sum an entire track to mono?
 

cAPSLOCK

Active Member
saemskin said:
Also, why would one want to sum an entire track to mono?
For a low bitrate mp3
For use in a flash animation
When heard over some televisions
When heard over some radios
When played over most house PA systems
When played on stereos that are set up wrong.

There are also implications when dealing with X.1 surround systems.

A track played 100% out of phase on opposite channels will cancel out in mono. Try it by hitting the mono button on your board or DAW.

cAPS
 

polygen

Active Member
an entire track can get summed to mono in a variety of situations; when a stereo is signal is played back on a cheap mono kitchen radio, older tv sets, cheap PA systems. this won't happen often as by now a lot if not the majority of people in industrialised countries will use stereo systems, but it happens; so if your production is targeted at being played back on radio/tv, it's important to keep a mix \"mono compatible\", meaning that there is no or very little change in the volume balance between elements of the mix when summed to mono ( = your mix still sounds somewhat like it was meant to). If you have a lot of stuff in your mix that contains out-of-phase information that's not very likely to be the case, and if you phase-reverse a signal that was mono on one channel and pan a non-inverted copy to the other channel it will actually cancel out completely and not be there at all in a mono sum. so (depending on the track of course) your main harmony element (pad playing chord) might DISAPPEAR in mono, possibly killing off the tune....not a good plan IMHO :)

when cutting stuff to vinyl all audio under 50-80 hz needs to be mono (if i remember correctly because the needle of the cutting machine would otherwise cut the groove so deep that neighbouring grooves interfere with eachother (or the needle may also get damaged) ). so the bass is summed to mono if there is any out-of-phase signal present in that frequency range....which may adversely affect the balane of your mix.
 

saemskin

Established Member
ok. so I was reading a magazine article and a mix engineer stated he always tests phase on every individual track before he does anything else, then makes the necessary adjustments. Is this what you are explaining here? A stereo field summing to mono peoperly by everything being in a coherent phase, so theorhetically it doesnt matter whether mono/stereo?
Then, is that necessary in a digital environment? How would something ITB fall out of phase? If it did, how do I fix it?
Also, what you are saying earlier about pitch shifting and delaying L/R sides different from one another. Would that not create an entirely different sound when those two \"panned\" waveforms sum to mono?

Does anyone have a purely mathematical evaluation of this so I can get a clearer picture of it in my head?

and I didnt mean to sound like an arsehole earlier *shrug*
 

Ericcc

Active Member
Now the correct technique : 8) JK ffs

- The synth, pas or string has to be made mono and panned hard (or less hard) to left.
- Use a simple delay and pan the delayed signal hard right and set volume to taste. Most times a slight pitch change to this signal is done as well.

This should leave you with a big enough hole in the middle.
 

entoine

Member
did you try the roland dimension D ?
I've tried it on moog leads and pads and it enlarge the sound without being perceived as a chorus effect . Maybe is it that you are trying to achieve..??
I've tried it too on a digeridoo track and it seems obvious Dimension D has been used on digeridoo tracks from jamiroquai. I am wrong?? :?
 

rush909

New Member
I use a simple Free VST plug from MDA called MDA stereo... and it does just that make a mono signal stereo... and is tweakable enough that you can create subtle or strong stereo widening... to my ears it sounds like it's delaying/shifting the same sound to the L/R speakers... free, and should give you that \"hole in the middle\" sound!

r.
 

Eric Dahlberg

Purveyor of musical dreams fullfilled.
The nice thing about using a delay is it's easy to understand what's happening with it, you're not depending on some stereoization voodoo that could create all kinds of other problems in the end that you can't even see coming. Take a simple stereo delay (e.g. the Cubase Double Delay), pan 50ms delay hard to one side & 70ms delay hard to the other with zero feedback, & slowly mix that in with the original signal until you have the spread you want (usually only around 10% or so in my case). You can then widen or narrow the spread depending on how far apart the two delays are. See that? Simple & easy to understand so you're never guessing as to what's actually happening.

btw, I personally like a LITTLE mono incompatibility when you're talking about pads, et al, as it helps keep them from mucking up the mix when you don't have stereo to provide separation. It's a tool when used right.
 
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