Waves S1 trouble.

[Animal]

I recorded a drummer using the M/S technique and am trying to decode with the S1. I put the Mid mic on the left channel and the Side mic on the right channel of a stereo audio track, and I made the appropriate adjustments on the S1....BUT for some strange reason the Kick sounds like it coming mostly out of the left speaker...like the drum kit is off center. I don't have any of the S1 parameters set off center and the micing with done perfectly on center. Any ideas?

[Plectrum]

Record a proper mid/side stereo and be cheery.

Simply use a cardioid mic and a figure 8 mic (bi-directional)

track one = the cardioid
track two = Figure 8
Track 3 = copy of the figure 8 but inverted.

tada,. you done

[Kewl]

The S1 Imager/Shuffler has a button for toggling between LR and MS input signal: if you feed a MS pickup into the S1, be sure to select "MS".

– Kewl

[MissHiss]

It sounds like you've fed the S1 a Left/Right mix and simply clicked the input switch to M/S. That won't work -- what you're probably hearing is the M/S signal. You need to feed the S1 an M/S matrix.

You actually need to run two plug-ins on the track. The track should first go through the Waves S1 M/S matrix. This is a simple plug which has no controls. It converts L/R into an M/S matrix. Then it goes through the S1 Shuffler with the input button clicked to M/S. It will be decoded back into L/R when it gets through the Shuffler (as long as you have the M/S button clicked).

BTW, you can put an EQ (or any plug-in really) between the matrix plug and the S1 and do interesting things. Once the signal passes through the Matrix, what is normally the Left channel now is your Middle channel; what is normally the Right channel is now the Sides. This allows you to EQ the middle and sides differently -- something impossible when the signal is in L/R form. A popular technique is to boost the highs a bit on the sides while boosting the lows a bit on the middle.

[Animal]

It sounds like you've fed the S1 a Left/Right mix and simply clicked the input switch to M/S. That won't work -- what you're probably hearing is the M/S signal. You need to feed the S1 an M/S matrix.

You actually need to run two plug-ins on the track. The track should first go through the Waves S1 M/S matrix. This is a simple plug which has no controls. It converts L/R into an M/S matrix. Then it goes through the S1 Shuffler with the input button clicked to M/S. It will be decoded back into L/R when it gets through the Shuffler (as long as you have the M/S button clicked).

BTW, you can put an EQ (or any plug-in really) between the matrix plug and the S1 and do interesting things. Once the signal passes through the Matrix, what is normally the Left channel now is your Middle channel; what is normally the Right channel is now the Sides. This allows you to EQ the middle and sides differently -- something impossible when the signal is in L/R form. A popular technique is to boost the highs a bit on the sides while boosting the lows a bit on the middle.

Ah-ha! The studio owner at the studio we're mixing at couldn't even tell me how to make it work...and it's HIS plug-in! Sheesh. In fact, he was mystified by the whole concept....but that's another story.

So, that's great. do I have to set the output to M-S also or is that just for metering?

And am I right to put the Mid track on the left and the Side track on the right of my stereo track?

Thanks so much for your help!

[Chris Cavell]

that's not quite the right idea animal...toward the bottom left of the S1 is a button...click it to change it to m/s mode from l/r mode, and it takes care of the matrixing for you without needing an additional plugin

this button changes it from a dual matrix (in l/r mode) to a single matrix (in m/s mode).

If you're feeding it l/r program material, leave it in l/r mode...if you're feeding it m/s, switch it to m/s mode.

[MissHiss]

Chris is right -- if you're just trying to widen the signal you don't need the matrix because you can go into the S1 with regular L/R encoding.

I'm very much in the habit, however, of processing the signal as an M/S mix before going into the S1, simply because only using the S1 will widen the signal at the expense of compromising the center. The mix loses punch. So I apply EQ and, often, compression, using different parameters for the middle and sides.

If I'm trying to make the mix "bigger," I find the S1 by itself does not do the job. There's a pretty substantial difference between "bigger" and "wider." Anyway, if you're going to EQ and/or compress the middle and sides differently, then you do need to run the L/R signal through the M/S matrix first before any of the other plugs.

I should have mentioned that. Sorry.

[SimpleNatureSpirit]

I too have read that the right way to use the S1 is to set it up as follows:

M/S
(other stuff)
S1 (in M/S mode)

I think that I read this in one of the Waves tips articles.

[SimpleNatureSpirit]

From www.emusician.com, July '04

M-S FOR THE REST OF US


M-S is an abbreviation for the mid-side microphone recording technique. A cardioid microphone is used for the M (middle) signal and pointed toward the center of the performers, while a figure-eight microphone is used for the S (side) signal. The figure-eight mic is oriented 90 degrees from the cardioid, facing the left/right axes of the performers. Even if you don't do M-S recording (and I encourage you to look into it), you can use M-S processing to separate an already mixed stereo signal into its mid and side components for independent processing. This technique would be useful, for example, with a mix in which the lead vocal is in the center and a bit buried, whereas the guitars and drums are more on the sides and already bright enough.

The Waves S1 plug-ins provide the conversion back and forth between an M-S signal and the normal stereo signals. The conversion to M-S format is done by the S1 MS Matrix plug-in, and the conversion back to stereo is done by the S1 Imager plug-in. Any stereo processing that you sandwich between those plug-ins will affect the mid and side signals separately, with the mid signal processed as the left channel and the side signal as the right. In the aforementioned example, you might place a stereo EQ, such as the Q10, between the S1 plug-ins to EQ the vocal separately from the other parts.

After setting up the chain of plug-ins, make sure that the S1 Imager's input is set to M-input-S mode, that both polarities are set to +, and that channel swapping is not active. The top of Fig. 5 shows left-channel settings for Q2 (the two-band version of Q10) that might be used to brighten up a centered vocal. The bottom of Fig. 5 shows a slight low-end boost that adds a little width to the low end of the side signal. Remember to turn Q2's Link mode off, so you can apply separate EQ settings to each channel.

It's also a good idea to turn down the input gain on one channel of the EQ at a time, so you can home in on the way the mid and side signals are being affected. But, you should always do the final check and adjustments in the context of full stereo.

[Chris Cavell]

SNS,

You only need to do that if you're going to apply "(other stuff)" while in m/s config. If you aren't going to do any widening whatsoever with the S1, just use another m/s matrix and save some cpu power over the S1.

The most common form of "(other stuff)" in the intermediate step is noise reduction (whose artifacts depending on the application do not correlate b/w the two channels and are therefore often reduced/softened by the second matrix). M/S processing relies on the phase correlation of the two channels, so if you apply "(other stuff)" between the two matrices, be very aware of non-uniform phase versus frequency response at various settings of compressors and eq's.