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Songwriter Forum => Recording => Topic started by: cowparsleyman on July 25, 2022, 04:19:14 PM

Title: Stereo wideners...
Post by: cowparsleyman on July 25, 2022, 04:19:14 PM
Just to let you know that the king of Stereo Width is SSL's Fusion Stereo Image, normally about £100, currently on offer at £69...which indeed is a good offer, however...

I've been trying other offerings in this field, along the way, such as the Fielder Stage plugin but the best value for money is a freebie, the Izotope Imager,  I compared all 3 last night and the Image sounds great, and highly recommended, just be aware that anything over the 45deg lines are potentially out of phase.

These things are great for getting width on mono sound sources like guitars and Vocals

Ensure your track is a Stereo btw, otherwise you won't hear the effect.

There are some really nifty other fx for doing spatial positioning, such as bx_stereomaker, and the presonus pan thing (can't remember the name of it), that's cool because it takes the stereo pan and moves the 2 positions as a paired space together, very neat. The Soundtoys MicroShift gives some great widening/thickening options.

Anyway thought this might help and save you some bucks.

Anyone else got any recommendations?


Title: Re: Stereo wideners...
Post by: shadowfax on July 30, 2022, 08:38:31 AM
And lets not forget the Haas effect if you want a bit of width... 8)
Title: Re: Stereo wideners...
Post by: Boydie on July 30, 2022, 10:20:24 AM
In my mastering I like to use a multi band widener where appropriate - with Ozone being my favourite

This provides the opportunity to “narrow” the lower frequencies to get the bass more down the middle to give a stronger foundation to the track, and then widen out the upper-mids and highs for a really nice stereo experience, especially on headphones

This approach isn’t suitable for every track, but is a great thing to play with
Title: Re: Stereo wideners...
Post by: shadowfax on July 31, 2022, 07:44:29 AM
Yeah, mid/side processing is a great advantages of digital... 8)
Title: Re: Stereo wideners...
Post by: PeteS on August 05, 2022, 12:02:14 PM
Logic Pro has it's own Stereo Spread plug in.  I've played around with it before but not kept it in any of my songs.  I've just downloaded the Izotope version and compared it.  Both work really well.  Izotope is probably a simpler interface but Stereo Spread has some useful presets to get you started.  I'll be looking at these in future.