Fun Audio Twick!

[Styxx]

I post this in the Tips, Tutorial, and The Ladies Rest Room. So?
Some of you seasoned well experienced people probably know this one but what the hey what the woe what the hee.
After you are finished with a mix and have rendered your midi file to audio, copy the completed version to another track making an exact duplicate. Off set one track by a millisecond or a millipede if you have one handy. Now take one track and pan it all the way to the right and the other all the way to the left. Sit back and listen to the levels and adjust to accordingly.
Try extracting and audio from a CD and work with it in the same way. Like I first stated some of you may know this as old hat. I was having fun with it and thought I would share. To me it gives sort of a wide ambient "live" sound. I'm nuts right? Or, your nuts? Or everyone's nuts?

[Stephanie Pray]

I'll have to try that Thanks Styxx

[SeanHannifin]

I was doing this just the other day! It was addicting and I wasted a lot time . . . But it's fun!

[Jan Morgenstern]

Hi,

After you are finished with a mix and have rendered your midi file to audio, copy the completed version to another track making an exact duplicate. Off set one track by a millisecond or a millipede if you have one handy. Now take one track and pan it all the way to the right and the other all the way to the left. Sit back and listen to the levels and adjust to accordingly.

While this is undoubtedly fun to listen to, I strongly advise against really using this technique when doing a mix. You'll will create all sorts of phase problems between your channels which will not only result in distortion of the panorama, but also weird comb filter effects that heavily depend on the type and placement of the listener's speakers. Also, it's a sure-fire way to make your stuff mono-incompatible - try to listen to your mix in mono after this and you'll most likely hear a very weird, radical change of the frequency characteristics of your mix.

OTOH, If you're just out for the psychedelics, try that on headphones, then invert one of the channels instead of delaying it. If you ever happened to wonder how it might feel to get one's brain sucked out of the ears, this might come pretty close.

Cheers,
jan

[EricWatkins]

Thanks for bringing this up Styxx. I think this is pretty much what an imager plugin will do to. A lot of times I will use the imager as a master effect to polish a mix and widen it out. There are several free ones out there. You might try at kvraudio.com. This technique was mentioned by Jeff Rona (Film Composer) as a something he has done in his own mixes. You might also try it with just certain tracks in a mix such as violins and violas and keeping lower frequency instruments more centered. Good Luck you waskiwy wabbit.

[Jan Morgenstern]

I think this is pretty much what an imager plugin will do to.

Not quite - there are several ways to enhance the stereo image of an existing recording, and phase differences between channels are usually the biggest problem, so a simple delay line won't cut it. And besides, it messes with the panorama - since the ear (or more specific, the brain) uses time differences in order to locate sounds, the balance would seemingly drift to the right side if the left signal is slightly delayed, even if the volume is the same on both speakers.
The easiest way of enhancing the stereo image is adding the phase-inverted left signal to the right signal and vice versa. Most of the "stereo enhancers" in cheap effects processors and standard DAW plug-ins do this. Obviously, this technique is not mono compatible aswell, so there are more sophisticated solutions in dedicated processors such as Waves S1.

Cheers,
jan

[Styxx]

Jan, All that and including eighth notes! Realistically, I never use any mix other than mono for theatre unless we use surround for effects. Panorama issues and placement are taken care of by our sound engineer. This little trick is just something I played with and thought would share. Thanks for the professional input!

[thesoundsmith]

It's also a common trick to get a solo rock guitar to sound huge. But just the solo track, not the whole mix. Then try phase inversion, see which way works best. Been doing this since multitracks were invented...