Who uses stereo enhancement in their mastering?

I like to widen the mid range *only*. Varies according to the song, but somewhere between about 750hz anywhere up to 2k. Can really aid clarity in a pretty transparent way. Low end I keep as close to mono as possible, and high end I tend to leave however it is in the mix. I use Ozone for this. Very easy to break the frequency range into bands and tweak each band differently.
 
Ideally, mind you, I'm not a mastering engineer, and I always advise bands I'm working with to get a real mastering engineer to do it if they can. But I've got into the habit of delivering a master at least good enough for indie band soundcloud / bandcamp purposes, in case they don't have the budget for that. I also always deliver the pre-mastered file. For anything with a budget against it, I just do the pre-master.
 
So my advice is not worth much more than any keen amateur, in mastering terms, really. Have yourself a pinch of salt with it.

Listen to Jeff and Bit; they speak wisdom.

Be good to your mastering engineer; don't make him or her fix what you did wrong. That's a waste of their talent. Do everything right, and let them put a cherry on top of it.
 

It can be surprising how few things in your mix you might actually want wide. Find out what it (they) is (are) and work on that (them) only.  Leave most other stuff where it is.
 
That is if you can work on your mix of course.  If mastering only and you don't have that ability then well widening may not be such a good thing after all. I have rarely heard widening a whole mix sound much good. (It does depend on the music of course)
 
Craig wouldn't another way to reduce vocals panned centre might be to convert a mix to M/S and maybe EQ the M component such that frequencies within a certain range (vocal range) only get lowered once the M/S signal is put back to stereo. I am sure there is a better way to do it rather than widening the image. Only just some ideas of course.

People are so afraid to pan these days.  While there are certain rules in contemporary recording, such as bass, kick and lead vocal dead center (unless we're recording something like bluegrass, but that's another conversation), if you want a guitar part wide out, pan it there.  If your recordings are simple arrangements with too few instruments to balance the overall sound, double tracking a single guitar part and putting each take left and right can add a nice expansive feeling too, whilst maintaining overall balance.
 
The only thing I would sometimes like to widen or narrow post recording is stereo overheads on the drums.  But there are things that can be done there too.  I have recently switched to using M/S for the overhead arrangement, so width is only a dial away, with no phasing issues when narrowing.
 
And if you haven't gone pan-happy in a while, give it a go - at least you won't need to spray contact cleaner in Sonar's pan pots :)
 
 

Jeff Evans
 
Craig wouldn't another way to reduce vocals panned centre might be to convert a mix to M/S and maybe EQ the M component such that frequencies within a certain range (vocal range) only get lowered once the M/S signal is put back to stereo. I am sure there is a better way to do it rather than widening the image. Only just some ideas of course.

My understanding is that most wideners use a variation on M/S processing anyway, so if a widener can do the job with one control (and considerable amounts of luck), so much the better. I usually ask for three mixes if possible, one unaltered, one with vocal up, and one with vocal down, which of course solves the problem right there. I haven't gone to asking for stems yet but am seriously considering asking for a mix with no vocals and the vocals on a separate track. But then they have all these comped bits and pieces floating around so that becomes difficult...
 
When it comes to "salvage jobs," I don't think there are very many good solutions...only "less bad" ones. I'm sure you know what I mean

Anderton
I haven't gone to asking for stems yet but am seriously considering asking for a mix with no vocals and the vocals on a separate track. But then they have all these comped bits and pieces floating around so that becomes difficult...
 

Tangent, but man, this kind of thing is becoming a bugbear of mine; what is so hard about "just export the mix as seperate mono tracks", which I need often for remix jobs.

In about a dozen remix jobs for signed artists with the material coming from at least the assistant engineer, I've had precisely one give me what I asked for. The worst thing you get is around 5 gb of god-knows-what, all in stereo files, all exported from different time positions, so you have to work out how to line it up yourself. Seriously.

I picked up the free widener plug called Sheppi Spacial Enhancer some time back. I believe Bitflipper posted that link many years back. http://dallashodgson.info/articles/OpenAmbienceProject/
 
However, the folks up top are correct. If you use a widener plug to "widen the mix" you WILL be sacrificing the quality of the mix. I have used the SSE plug in the master bus and yeah, it sounds cool in the studio, BUT..... set there while the music is in playback with SSE turned off. Everything is nicely defined.... plenty of kick and punch in the music, nice full sound. Click to turn on the SSE and much of that drive disappears in the process.
 
It is much better to use panning and doubling to get the width in the mix.  I often record my acoustic guitar 2x and simply pan the tracks 80% to 100% opposite each other. The slight differences between the 2 tracks gives a nice wide stereo field to the mix and everything else can pretty much stay really close to centered. Since the guitars are both playing nearly the same thing you don't end up with the weird 100% panned feeling. I also tend to pan my BGV wide as well, with this adding width to the vocal track harmony parts.....and they are at a low volume level so again you don't get that distinct feeling of extreme panning.
 
If you want the lead vocal (mono track) to have a fat, wide sound..... I record an identical vocal track for the lead 3 times. I pay attention to the singer's annunciation, timing, and groove and make sure the 3 tracks are as close to perfect with each other as is possible. Words, phrasing, etc...start and end together and in between as well..... One track goes up the middle at lead track volume and the other 2 are 80% or so panned opposite each other and way down in the mix somewhere around -16 to -20 db normally. ..... to the point that you can't really hear them clearly unless you solo the vocal bus.
 
If you have proper panning and good technique in the mix, the widener plugs are not needed.
 
Having said all that.... I do use the SSE from time to time for it's overall ambient sound.