MID SIDE Tecniques for Mastering

[invisibl]

Can someone please describe a mid side setup technique for mastering stereo tracks within PT .

TIA

[Mark Haliday]

"mid side setup" ???
do you mean mid size ?

Favorite tools for mastering (tracking and mixing is another story) in decreasing order
Apart from Aphex and Waves De-esser, all of the following TDM plugins are 48 bit double precision. I also use the Hi-res 24 bit dithered mixer plugin

Sweetening EQ : Sony Oxford, Waves Renaissance EQ, McDSP Filter bank. I have yet to get used to the Waves Masters in this category
Surgical EQ : Waves masters bundle, Sony Oxford
Compression : Waves Renaissance, TC MasterX, McDSP MC2000, McDSP Compressor bank
Bass enhancement : Waves Renaissance Bass
De-esser : Waves de-esser
Aural excitment [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] : Aphex aural exciter
"Trough the roof" leveler : L2
Dithering : L2, POW, TcMasterX5 (has its own dither) your choice

I dither in 24 bits with L2 with moderate shaping and then copy to my CD mastering software on PC in 24 bits. Occasional level tweaking and final dithering to 16 bit on the 24 bit files is done there with UV22 process. (I keep the undithered 24 bit files just in case a new modified CD master is required.)

One thing to look for : on ordinary tracks in PT, inserts are pre-fader. If you intend to use the fader at all, then you should create a master track and put your dithering plugin on it (L1, L2, POW, TC multiband etc.), in particular if you are dithering to 16 bit in PT. Only the master fader has post-fader slots.

[Alécio Costa]

Mark, I think our friend wants something like the S1- stereo imager .

Take a look at the S1 which is inside Waves TDm bundle, so you can set the width of your stereo.

Take a look at the prosound web page. Brad Blackwood explains this technique in one of the posts!

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[mikefradis]

I think Invisibl is talking about mastering techniques that involve separate processing of mid and side channels.
When mastering an LP I produced, Greg Calbi of Sterling Sound, recently used a special setup of Avalon EQs that were wired to separately process Mid and Side.
I'd love to know more about this, as it did wonders to some material, especially when needing to enhance percussion that was panned left/right in the mix, without affecting the vocal.

Izhar Ashdot

[Disco_Doctor]

It's pretty easy to do this.

Say you've got a 2 channel stereo mix on a stereo audio track.

Put a Waves S1 MS Matrix on the first insert.
Set the input on the plugin to L/R, and the output to M/S.

Put your favorite EQ - I prefer Filterbank E6 for this kind of thing, on the second insert. With the E6 example, put the EQ in "dual" mode so the left and right aren't linked.

On the 3rd insert, put a Waves S1-48 Shuffler. Set the input to M/S. Leave the "Width" and "Shuffle" set to the default 1.0 for now.

Now, open the Filterbank E6, and hit play. Remember to have the EQ in "dual" mode.

Now pull down the left channel input gain on the EQ. You'll hear the center of the mix disappear. Put it back to 0dB. Pull down the right channel. You'll hear the sides of the mix disappear. Now put it back to 0db. That's the easy example. The cool part is when you independently EQ the middle and sides. Remember - left is mid, right is sides.

It's a great technique for fixing things in mastering. It's also quite useful if you're importing samples that need manipulation, like pulling out the center or independently EQ'ing the center. You can turn a drum loop into a room sound, or remove the room from a drum submix. Lots of good uses!

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