waves PS22 (stereo widening)

[kavsrave]

ive read up alot about stereo widening and alot of the places have suggested getting waves ps22. which then went and got only to find out that it doesn't work on my computer and DAW. can anyone suggest any different plugins or techniques that they use to widen their sounds. Mainly for synths and basses etc.

it would be much appreciated if anyone could help

cheers

[sinkmusic]

you're willing to put 500$ into a widening plugin ?:-o
Stay away from the Waves, and give Quikquak Upstereo a try.
And there are som many free ones around.

[bduffy]

Funny: that's the one plugin that stayed TDM-only. Don't know why, not like it's the be-all and end-all, but I wish they'd port it over to Native, looks kind cool to me.

If you like Waves, there's Waves Doubler, which can be gotten cheap with Musicians Bundle (along with some other great essentials!). Best VST doubler, IMHO.

Otherwise, for widening tracks, I usually use mda stereo; free, light, sounds great and doesn't mess up the phase.

[kavsrave]

na thankfully i had a friend who made the mistake for me. thanks for replying, im gonna give all of those a try. whats your views on bass widening or do u prefer to keep it in mono?[/quote]

[kavsrave]

also would you use these on your master bus

[bduffy]

Bass widening? I usually send the bass to a chorus if I want to "widen" it. Best practice is to split the signal so you have your low frequencies safely in mono and send the higher frequencies to the chorus. This gives you full control over the sound and any phase issues. But for the record, I usually keep the bass mono. Depends on the song, really.

And I, personally, do not use a stereo widener on the master bus; I see no need for this. If you want the mix wider, pan your tracks more or use some delays or reverbs for greater "space"; if you need it narrower, then pan your tracks less. For a 2-channel mix, I see it as something I'd use during mastering. For instance, if one track is less "wide" than the others, or it's too wide and phasey. But some people like to throw a ton of junk on the 2-bus. To each their own.

[isi]

also would you use these on your master bus

No, let that to a mastering engineer. And I keep bass mono, but I guess it depends on the kind of music you're making and the medium you want to release it on.

[virmalised]

Hello!:)

Kinda new here and probably too late to ask but, I will do it anyway. Finally i see that people are talking about PS22 stereomaker. I have been trying to find some information about this plugin for a long time. I know on waves site there are some info but this is so "dry" - no audio examples!!!

So can somebody please post a sample of some audio clip that has been treated with this plugin? I am very curious how it works.

[annode]

Most VSTi are stereo,that's safe to say.Their stereo field is already spread and when you layer them together,they all mainly sit in the same already expanded stereo field.(most instruments use ping-pong or a doubler delay to spread the field.)

Thinking along these lines, I suggest using a common stereo spread vst to "collape" certain instruments/sounds closer to mono.
Doing this virtually widens the sense of stereo since you now have an actual divided range from mono to full stereo.

Hope i'm making sense here.

UPDATE: I also thought to add...in your DAW you can use your channel pan to collape your field down to where you want..say mono for this example.
Then "send" that signal to an effect channel with a png pong or doubling delay "inserted" into it for example.

Now detach the two channels so the signal still sends to the FX channel in stereo, even though it is now a mono channel and also, the VSTi channel fader can be pulled down without the "send" sig being disturbed.
If you do this you can create a mono signal instrument as your primary signal and a stereo delay as your secondary signal.

[RunBeerRun]

Good ol friends with Waves threads.