To really impart a sense of emotion and power to listeners, width needs to change along with the arc of the song. Whether you widen with panning, doubles, or stereo enhancement plug-ins, it’s not enough to leave the settings you choose in one place for the entire mix. In rock, lead vocals, kicks, and snares tend to stay in the center, while guitars, keys, and backgrounds are pushed off to the sides. Pop and rap are all about the vocal, so drums are reigned in to make room for ad-libs and backgrounds. To improve danceability, EDM drums are often panned very wide. Stereo widening decisions also dictated by genre. If you need to create some space around the narrower signals, use EQ and proper gain matching instead. Sometimes the best mixes come from panning just a few instruments and leaving the rest narrow or in mono. Too much widening smears the stereo image and creates an unnatural, hollow sound. If every instrument in your mix is stretched as far as it can go with stereo plugins and effects, you won’t necessarily get mix width. Stereo enhancers are great, but they aren’t always the answer, so be sure to explore other options before reaching for an imaging plugin. Changing the pitch of one channel by just a few cents will enhance the stereo illusion.
If you want to widen a mono vocal, take advantage of the Haas Effect and use a stereo delay with different times on the left and right channel. Is your mix too dense? Try panning some instruments to the sides to open things up.
So quick and easy, in fact, that one may rely on these plugins even when there are better tools for the job. Placing a stereo enhancement plugin on an individual track or submix is a quick and easy way to widen a narrow signal. Relying Only On Stereo Enhancement Plugins To avoid the traps many mix engineers fall into when manipulating stereo field, here are five widening mistakes: 1. Stereo enhancement plugins can make vocals sound huge when the chorus hits, push synth pads to the edges of headphones, and add interest to rhythmic elements.īut widening without intent can lead to a disorienting mix that’s lost its character and detail.
#DO YOU NEED EXTRA PLUGINS WITH THE WAVES NX PLUGIN PROFESSIONAL#
Among the many things that set modern, professional mixes apart from amateur ones is a wide stereo field.