Widening a stereo pad sound?

[dangermouse]

Flux Stereotool works also good for this. And it's free.
In addition to the widening function you can experiment with putting one side out of phase or delay one side by a few ms.
If it's still not wide/deep enough, try combinations with chorus, reverb, autopan.
What I'm sometimes doing in cubase, is duplicating the track, delay it by about 10 ms and pitch shift it by a few cents. These are all built-in functions in cubase and it's sounding better than using a plugin.

[daz.diamond]

My approach to this problem would be to duplicate the pad first and make the original track MONO, panned center and cut everything up to about 500Hz, so it doesn't interfere with your low sounds. After doing so, I would take the second track which I would make MONO as well, after that I would send it to a Stereo Chorus/Delay/Reverb Buss and return the effects in Stereo, adjusting the LEFT and RIGHT in the stereo field according to taste and allowing more control and width.

so you'd make a stereo sound wider by making it mono first ?

its a waste of the original stereo sound - sure you can make something wide using various false stereo techniques after that, but is it wise to ditch the original stereo altogether ?

just a thought ...

[MWSOS]

I particularly like the Waves S1 Stereo Imager for widening sounds where necessary, but the NuGen Audio Stereoizer and PSP Stereo Enhancer are also very good and extremely versatile.

However, at the risk of hi-jacking this thread, I seem to spend far more time narrowing pad sounds than I ever do widening them, because in my music they so often dominate the mix at their normal width

Many stereo pads are almost 'big' enough to be mini-tracks in their own right!


Martin

[sinkmusic]

Thr33some lets you widen a sound in a multi-band fashion, and lets you choose between two widening techniques (mid/side or delay-based).

[himalaya]

and different Reverb parameters, you can also try widening the reverb itself.

This is a simple but effective solution. In my experience, if the reverb plugin has a 'width' parameter, set it at its maximum setting. This will instantly add a nice stereo spread which is not overpowering.

[arielgraff]

My approach to this problem would be to duplicate the pad first and make the original track MONO, panned center and cut everything up to about 500Hz, so it doesn't interfere with your low sounds. After doing so, I would take the second track which I would make MONO as well, after that I would send it to a Stereo Chorus/Delay/Reverb Buss and return the effects in Stereo, adjusting the LEFT and RIGHT in the stereo field according to taste and allowing more control and width.

so you'd make a stereo sound wider by making it mono first ?

its a waste of the original stereo sound - sure you can make something wide using various false stereo techniques after that, but is it wise to ditch the original stereo altogether ?

just a thought ...

Good point daz.diamond.

The main reason why I suggest this technique is because Ableton doesn't really offer a Dual Stereo Panner and I also like to design my own Stereo images with reverbs and delays.

[rodgetkfp]

Can't suggest a free one for that. But if you want the best quality, check out the nugen audio plugin.

And watch the goniometer.



Greetings,

Rodge

[matt42]

My entry for the DC allows frequency dependant adjustment of the mid/side channels as well as simultaneous left/right adjustments. It also features a phase correlation meter, so you can check how wide you're signal is.

Click here or on my sig to check it out

[eduardo_b]

JUST panning it left and right will make it sound dead centre again.

Will it?

Yes, but it always comes as a surprise because we don't think of left and right as being in the center.

[dark_virus]

Really good replies on this thread. Stereo image is always a good discussion. And there's always a new plugin on this matter.

[quintosardo]

The best solution to get a huge wide pad for free is being sure to have a dead centre signal in the arrangement (another instrument) while the stereo pad is playing.
Stereo width is relative, a dead centre signal sets the origin for pad's width for your ear.

[P.T.]

Play it twice and pan them.

This will also open up thee center of the stereo field for the main elements.

[yojig]

Whats the best way to widen a pad sound which is already in stereo.

Good way to wide up a pad is to use good delay with ability to modulate pitch of delay.

I think one of the good sounding synths for pads is Native Instruments FM8 because of its Chorus/Delay module. It is like 4 wide delay lines in one with pitch drifting feature (mod depth and speed). Diffusion parameter is good for softening sharp edges of volume envelope.

FM8 is not the only solution. You can take almost any good delay plugin with stereo paning, pitch drifting, great Uhbik-D for example.

[michat]

The simplest ways are

-reverb

-chorus/flanger/phaser with a l/r phase in modulation

-original pad to left and delayed to right (or vice versa)

-different eq peaks on left and right

or something I do very often on mono sounds, but is some kind of modulation:
(and you need two instances of that sound)

pad finetune -1 to -10 left
pad finetune +1 to +10 right

or vice versa

You can also try a combination of all this. Just try to fit your needs.
The pitching and panning thing is also good if you have mono drum sounds.
But you need the pitching to be more than a few cents.

[Paulwilliams]

Thats wats up