Sylvan


I am really interested in M/S now. I did try tracking with an M/S technique a while back, but I was not happy with the results. I think I probably was doing something wrong. I admitt that I am not well versed in this regard.

I used a KSM44 in figure 8
Then a SDC.

The 44 was perpendicular to the SDC, and the SDC was pointed at the source.

I think I cloned the SDC track, panned to opposite sides and flipped the phase on one side. But my image became scewed and not centered. So I abandoned it alltogether.

Someone please point out my mistakes and guide me in proper M/S micing tecniques. I would like to do M/S from the source (micing).

Perhaps I should discuss this in the Techniques forum.

Thanks,
-Charles

Jonbouy

John


Some of the modules in PC have side chaining.

And this has precisely what to do with M/S processing?

I've only ever used it as a 'mastering' tool on a stereo wave. What are the advantages at track level that don't exist on the final mix?

mike_mccue



"Any acoustical instrument that benefits from lots of room sound but is essentially monophonic in nature."

Yes, the impression of the overall mix of the primary instrument and it's interaction with the room is stereophonic when the M/S is matrixed to a L/R mix.

more mids than sides = more of a monophonic effect
more sides than mids = more of a stereophonic effect

It's probably not all that useful to record in M/S if your not fond of getting some natural room tone.

If you've rarely heard a nice natural room tone recorded, you will probably enjoy learning how natural M/S (or X/Y) can sound when applied to point source sound subjects.

Please correct or elaborate if neccessary.

best regards,
mike

southpaw3473


I tried to follow Mike's examples above but I am still not sure of this.  If I want to use M/S processing during mixing where do I send the tracks?  Do I send them to the sub Master bus?   For some reason I can't quite get my head around this. Could you guys elaborate a bit more on your routing? Thanks.  I'm very interested in exploring this in more depth.   

cliffsp8


Great thread!

Don't forget that Vintage Channel VC64 can also do M/S processing.

Right click on the routings display and select mid-side setup. This gives common noise gate and de-esser followed by separate EQ and compressor for each of mid and side, and allows for frequency dependent widening/focussing etc as has been discussed above.

Might not be FabFilter standard but is already there in CW's toolbox.

cliffsp8


Great thread!

Don't forget that Vintage Channel VC64 can also do M/S processing.

Right click on the routings display and select mid-side setup. This gives common noise gate and de-esser followed by separate EQ and compressor for each of mid and side, and allows for frequency dependent widening/focussing etc as has been discussed above.

Might not be FabFilter standard but is already there in CW's toolbox.

Since you're hard panning each send to discreetly control the M/S aspects, what changes those results (the two send busses) from being hard panned L/R into actual M/S?

mike_mccue


The encode matrix is entirely different than the decode matrix.

Don't take the L/R literally for each example. For some it is literally left and right but for other scenarios it's just 2 tracks.

You can always take any pair of tracks and force them through a M/S decoder... but they only sound like M/S if one track was mid content and the the other track was side content.

When you decode from M/S to L/R you are right to think about L = left and R = Right.

But in the encode process the terms L/R are just a convenience because that's what we commonly call the 2 sides of a "stereo" track lane even if we are using that lane to run dual mono in sync.


One thing that may not have been highlighted is that recording M/S is different from extracting and encoding M/S.

A lot of the plugins are taking stereo content as L/R tracks and extracting the mid and side out of it. That is a lot different than simply streaming a M/S source.

So, the point is, the plugin extracts the mid and side from a stereo track, then places it in a two track stream as M/S.

The plugins with built in M/S processing do this before the effect is processed on the two discrete tracks. After the effect is processed the M/S stream is decoded back to L/R.

It is a subtle difference compared to taking the 2 raw mid and side signals straight from the mics.

I only point it out because it seems that if you don't keep track of which process is being spoken of that it might get confusing.


best regards,
mike

bitflipper

Since you're hard panning each send to discreetly control the M/S aspects, what changes those results (the two send busses) from being hard panned L/R into actual M/S?

You're not panning the sends. Each send is identical. The magic happens at the bus, where one instance of MSED allows only the the Mid component through and the other instance allows only the Side component through. 


The same information is still there. But one bus contains only sound that was common to both left and right channels while the other contains only sound that was different between left and right. 


Your data, at this point, is formatted the same way audio is encoded onto a vinyl record. When you play a vinyl record, the turntable reconstructs the M/S-encoded information back into stereo. You'll be doing the same thing in your project, using the Channel Tools plugin on the master bus. At the end of the process, all your track pans will be as you intended.