What frequencies do you boost to make the sound wider?

[GFunk]

Did I hear somewhere that 800 Hz was a good place to start?
Also if you prefer to use substractive eqing, what frequencies would you reduce to make it sound wider?

[valerian_777]

Not really but maybe you want to check this: http://www.presonus.com/community/learn ... s-and-tips

[arkmabat]

Vitamin lets you control stereo widths for various bands:

http://www.waves.com/plugins/vitamin

[lfm]

Frequencies below 250 Hz or so have no directional information at all to our ears/brains. that's why bass is isually panned in the middle, it serves no purpose to pan it.

So any frequency above that will have directional info, where it's coming from, wide/narrow etc depending on phase/time differences.

But just boosting/cutting does not make tracks wider.

Waves S1 also change stereo image, appart from mentioned vitamin. But so do reverbs.

But there is always a danger in using them since if you mono your track, it might start to sound funny or boxy etc. So use sparingly.

I would look at reverbs, even a small room reverb create ambience that will make it sound wider and deeper too.

But if you want wide and upfront(in your face), look at stereo imaging plugin.

[Hermetech Mastering]

A slight wide, high shelving boost around 15kHz on the difference channel can sometimes work wonders.

[GFunk]

Thanks for your reply's so far.

I could have sworn I saw on Pensado's Place that he mentioned something about 800 Hz and he even had some kind of special name for this frequency. I don't particularly want to go through all the episodes again just to find out what he called it, so I was just wondering if anyone else knew anything about this.

Or am I just going slightly mad......?

[valerian_777]

Thanks for your reply's so far.

I could have sworn I saw on Pensado's Place that he mentioned something about 800 Hz and he even had some kind of special name for this frequency. I don't particularly want to go through all the episodes again just to find out what he called it, so I was just wondering if anyone else knew anything about this.

Or am I just going slightly mad......?

No not mad!

If you mean he said "800hz Chris Lord Alge Frequency" check this episode @ 19:30 min:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LUWjr-gpaU

[Halma]

I am curious but why do some of you people think that a boost in a certain frequency region has an effect on the stereo field?

Your stuff will only become louder. Hermetech & lfm gave the only logic answers until now in mentioning that you need "different" kind of information on each channel. It does not matter if the difference is in the frequency domain (L & R EQing slightly different) or time domain (one channel has a light offset aka HAAS effect).

But if you boost only global nothing will change your "wideness".

Btw. a mix with a "wide" stereo field often has some pretty tight centre. It´s about the difference between "sounds that are completely deadcentre mono" and "sounds that surround the deadcentre mono stuff".

You can build up your stereo image from scratch in using only mono sounds (I recommend it actually). Clever panning and level management are your best friend.

Frequencies below 250 Hz or so have no directional information at all to our ears/brains. that's why bass is isually panned in the middle, it serves no purpose to pan it.
...

I would go even further (from all my experiments & research on reverbs) and say that most sounds contain "no real directional (R&L) information" below 1kHz. But don´t dismiss it. That region contains lot of depth that you need in conjunction with the upper frequencies to get a balanced stereo perception. So in some way it does contain directional information. But more about "back and forth" than "left & right".

Bass is not usually panned in the middle because of this (a lot of recordings don´t have the bass as an instrument deadcentre mono) but because most modern dance music relies on either a Kickdrum with some low end (eg "four-to-the-floor" stuff) or the Bassline with sub (like DNB stuff) as the key element which drives the track.

And keeping the most important stuff mono has one very important advantage: no matter what´s your position in the club or at home, if you are using speakers or headphone or if you are sitting in front of your computer - your deadcentre mono positioned stuff will always sound the same: clear & powerful.

And just in case some of you guys have forgotton it: mono nowadays usually means "same sound is coming from the left & right channel at the same time". We don´t have three speakers with a dedicated centre one for this in a stereo setup. That´s a psychoacoustic illusion. Like a wide stereo field.

Regards
Sebastian

[Halma]

Just wanna add that if you meant with "wide" that "your sound appears to sound more open" then this makes totally sense now. But then it is more a generic question about how certain frequencies in a sound do mask others and therefore give you the impression of a "more muddy sound". But for that I would use a combination of an eq and a compressor.

Regards
Sebastian

[GFunk]

Thanks valerian_777, you saved me a lot of time there.

And also thanks halma for your detailed reply. I was just thinking that if all frequencies below 250 Hz have no directional information then is there a frequency range that our ears are most sensitive to directional information.

Bass is not usually panned in the middle

^^^
Wow!! I've always left my bass center.

If we move onto m/s eqing then what frequencies would you boost on the side to make the sound wider?