Hey guys, Eric Tarr here for theproaudiofiles.com. In this video I’ll be demonstrating how
to process the stereo image of your mix to tighten up the low end and make your overall
mix larger than life.
So far in this project I’ve been using the iZotope Ozone 5 plugin to enhance my mix,
clean it up and control the dynamic range. Here’s what I’ve got so far.
[song being mastered]
The
stereo image is something that’s a very important part of a great mix. However when
you’re working on the mastering stage, the stereo is something that’s very to screw
up. Especially with things like compressors and limiters that can change the stereo image
in a bad way. So you should always use them very carefully and intentionally. However, you
can change the stereo width of your mix in a good way, especially at specific frequency
regions that can take a good mix and make a great mix. So let’s look at the plugin.
I’m gonna go ahead a turn on — switch to the module — and turn on here. This is
a multiband processor, just like the dynamics and the harmonic exciter, so you can change
the stereo width of different frequency regions. Up here you’ll notice the visualizations,
this is the energy that’s happening at different frequency regions. I can also switch over
then to this view, that’s gonna provide the stereo spectrum, and you can see how wide
the stereo image is in each one of these regions. And so we’ll look at this, it’s a great
one I think to see really what’s going on. You can also watch the correlation trace,
this is gonna tell you if you’re two channels — your left and your right — are out of
phase which can be a problem, especially with mono compatibility. So you always want to
watch this. Another great visualization. So I’ll work with this one to begin with.
Right off the bat I know one important thing that I always recommend for pop/rock music
is you really want your low frequency to be tight and in the center. These are things
like your kick drum and your bass guitar which are almost always panned to the center. So
you don’t want those being very wide. you don’t want them going to the left channel
and right channel differently. You want them to be exactly the same. So it’s almost always
my recommendation to make this much narrower. So when I play it back.
[song being mastered]
You can sound really funny or really loose if you make it wider here. Strange things
can be happening. Tightening it up right in the center, sounds much better. So that’s
just another trick you can use to really tighten up the low end and lock it in. After that
it’s just a matter of trying out what you think sounds good and what you think sounds
better. So again this low-mid frequency region is where a lot of my vocals and my melodic
instruments are living. Up here I have more of the cymbals and harmonics of different
instruments. And the high frequencies, that’s really the brightness and the brilliance of
the track. So it’s really a matter of figuring out, well, for instance do I want my vocals
to be wide.
You know, this is even something that could be automated during the verse I tighten up
the center of the low-mids, and during the chorus I brought it out. However my reverbs,
do I want my reverbs to sound extra wide on the vocals or do I want them to sound narrower.
That sort of thing. Depends on whether I want to widen or narrow it.
Then you have things like the cymbals and high-mids. Do I want the cymbals to be extra
wide? You know, that’s a typical thing, you want your drums to be, you know, larger
than life. This is a great area to widen it out. And then the high frequencies it might
be the case that depending on what energy and what instruments are living up there, you
might want to widen it, you might want to narrow it.
So I’ll try out some of these things and see what I can figure out.
[song + stereo imaging]
So what I’ve been able to do here, especially using this upper-mid frequency region, is
it’s really just gonna make the mix open more up. Let it breathe a little bit more.
It has more space for different instruments now in the stereo field and that sort of thing.
I don’t want to get too crazy down here in the low-mids because that’s where my
vocals are and I don’t want the vocals to sound anywhere like but directly in the center.
So I’m very careful with that one. But i get more creative here with the higher ones
and I like what that’s doing. It just seems like it’s opening up the whole stereo field,
just providing a little bit more interest, more space for different instruments to fit
in with each other. So I’ll play it back and show you what it’s doing again here.
[song + stereo imager]
So without doing anything too crazy, I think what I’ve done it been able to really enhance
my mix and open it up and make more space for the different instruments. And that’s
all there is really to it. It’s just a matter of trying it out, experimenting, you know,
this module is very simple. Easy to use. And there’s nothing with wrong your mix figuring
out what works and what doesn’t work. Trying out different things and experiments. So,
stay tuned for the next video where I’ll discuss how to use EQ to balance the frequency
spectrum of your mix.