S1 Imager and 'widening' plugins...how do they work?

[aasteveo]

There's a few plugins out there that claim to 'widen' the stereo image, but I don't really understand how they work. For instance, the S1 Imager from Waves is a widener, and the website says very little about how it works:
http://www.waves.com/Content.aspx?id=275

Another is the Waves 'Center'. Another is the SPL Vitalizer. (If you know of more, let me know.)

I can hear what they do, but I don't technically understand it. Someone told me that if you have a mono signal that is panned hard left and right 100%, it's technically the same as panning it mono in the center. I guess I still don't fully understand how the panning works. Especially since the newer versions of Pro Tools you can change the pan law from 2.5db to 6db if you want. What does that do when you change the pan depth? Do things get 'wider'?

[WernerF]

They all mess with the relative phase between the left and right channels. Avoid them like the plague and achieve your wideness with your mixing skills.

[nst7]

Pan law does not make things wider. Here is a good explanation of it for you:

http://www.harmonycentral.com/docs/DOC-1106


As for widening plugins, they should only be used as a last resort, very subtly, unless you deliberately want an "effected" type sound, as they can start to sound strange very quickly if you use them too strongly.

Mostly they are a repair tool.

They might be used as a last resort by a mastering engineer if he is working on something that has already been mixed (and can't be changed in the mix) and the mixer had not panned things out very effectively to make a nice stereo balance. Using one of these plugins he could try to widen things out a bit.

Another situation would be if he receives a mix that had been mixed on a system that wasn't calibrated correctly and the balance of things is skewed toward the left or the right (for example, if the mixer had his left monitor speaker louder than the right, and was unaware of it, so he mixed the whole thing thinking everything was in balance, and it wasn't). Using this plugin, the mastering guy could re-balance things to be even again.

But as Werner mentioned, ideally you should just try to get your mix as good as possible using traditional techniques.

But sometimes people use these for weird effects also. You may want to download the demo and mess with it.

[JFreak]

Widening tools mess with phase, if you want tech explanation. Dig it up, and you'll understand. Those should be used as a last resort, it's no proper substitute to good mixing skills...

[DC2light]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Widening tools mess with phase, if you want tech explanation. Dig it up, and you'll understand. Those should be used as a last resort, it's no proper substitute to good mixing skills...

It has nothing to do with mixing skill substitution, it's just another tool to be used and or abused. Not all of them mess with phase either btw.

[Hanswurstlsepp]

Originally Posted by aasteveo

There's a few plugins ......
Another is the Waves 'Center'. Another is the SPL Vitalizer. (If you know of more, let me know.) ....

Brainworx StereoMaker

https://plugin-alliance.com/en/plugi...ereomaker.html

Just check if your Mix (esp. the tracks treated with a 'widening PlugIn') is still mono compatible. Might be that it sounds wonderful in stereo, but when listened in mono you won't here your widened tracks anymore or they might be too low

[jasonthurley]

You can do this yourself...

Take a mono track.. Duplicate it... Pan one left and one right (it still sounds mono)Then set your nudge value to 5-10ms and select one of the 2 tracks only... start to nudge it back in time and you will start to hear the tracks get wider until you reach what is the maximum amount of delay before the one side starts to fall behind....

Yes it creates phase shifting/frequency nodes and anti nodes as this is how your ears decipher the separation.

This is essentially what the plug ins are doing with some other algorithmic coding...

[Mixgeneral]

First of all, S1 and similar pluggins only work on stereo tracks, never on mono, you can make stereo from mono by following procedure of duplicating a track and sliding it a bit up to 30ms. I know i'm not answering your question but a good way to widen sounds is to eq left and right a bit differently.

[Rich Breen]

Originally Posted by jasonthurley

You can do this yourself...

Take a mono track.. Duplicate it... Pan one left and one right (it still sounds mono)Then set your nudge value to 5-10ms and select one of the 2 tracks only... start to nudge it back in time and you will start to hear the tracks get wider until you reach what is the maximum amount of delay before the one side starts to fall behind....

Yes it creates phase shifting/frequency nodes and anti nodes as this is how your ears decipher the separation.

This is essentially what the plug ins are doing with some other algorithmic coding...

If you duplicate and offset you'll have serious mono-compatibility issues. Most of the plugs that create a fake stereo from mono (Waves PS22, Stereomaker, etc...) do so with either minimal, or no impact on mono-compatibility by creating complementary EQ for L and R which cancel each other out when summed to mono. The stereo-widening programs (S1, stereo tool, etc...) do their work by changing the ratio between L+R and L-R (i.e. M/S). Waves' Center is a completely different beast which attempts to use DSP intelligence to distinguish between program which are truly centered, and program elements that are panned hard left or right (an M/S algorithm cannot really do that).

HTH,
rich