Your thoughts about this plug-in or the reasoning behind it...

In view of the recent mono mixing thread started by Starise, something somewhat related.

While I was over at Brainworx's web site checking out all the cool M/S technology, I stumbled upon this cool plug-in called Spreadshred.




Very basically, what it does is allow you to spread out/widen the sound above a certain frequency, keeping your lower frequencies and punch centered but letting you to push the higher frequencies out a bit (or way too much if you like to ruin things.) I'm usually not too inclined to wideners, but the principle behind this seems like there may be something desirable there.

It's designed mainly for doubled guitar parts (regular stereo guitar could work) - just route them to a stereo bus, and put Spreadshred on it and, uh, spread. Of course it has some other features, like a mono button, a correlation meter, an "intelligent EQ"  - the shred knob - (not really a necessity but my guess is that it might help w/ certain amp sims which can be a bit too bright at times) and a few other things. 

I'm wondering if anyone here resorts to such tricks when mixing and how you'd do it, short of using this plug-in. All the methods I can begin to think of seem to involve jumping through a few hoops, splitting the signal and such. 

I'm still demoing it, but as I said, the principle behind looks interesting and it's a mere $99. Thoughts?

CM magazine reviewed it some time ago.

[link=http://www.musicradar.com/gear/all/computers-software/plug-in-fx/bx_shredspread-332530/review]http://www.musicradar.com...edspread-332530/review[/link]

Rain,
  Hey dude!  Yep you can do that with Ozone too.  I have been using it on several of my tracks in mastering though I don't use Ozone to do the mastering for the most part as I feel plenty of other tools do it better.  I do put it in my chain and have all the other modules off except the stereo imaging.  Generally I keep it broken into 4 bands (you can also adjust the crossover points).  I don't spread it much because it can get wierd sounding quick.  Maybe .1 to .2 for the Highs, high mids, and low mid bands to taste.  If you want you can pull them negative and get them to dead center to, I have done this on the lows before but don't really do that anymore either.  I have found that panning the kick 4-6% left and the bass opposite that can give them both some breathing room to shine individually.  Pulling them both to center for me ruins that effect so I leave them alone.
Just my 2 cents.  Something else fun to screw with but I don't think it would ruin my tracks if I didn't include it either.

what it does is allow you to spread out/widen the sound above a certain frequency, keeping your lower frequencies and punch centered

Sounds like plain ol' Mid/Side processing to me.


Good to hear things are going so well for you that 99 bucks is mere pocket change! (Better convert that to rubles to be sure.)


Yes, Ozone can do that. Try splitting into 3 bands with crossovers at 1.5K and 6K, set the middle band's widening to 0.5, the high band to 0.7 and the delay values to -6ms and +6ms respectively. These are my usual starting points when I use the effect on a full mix (which I don't do often). For guitar you might want to slide the crossover frequencies to the left a bit.


If you have M/S-enabled EQ and/or compressors you can also get widening effects the same way, but still preserve mono compatibility. I routinely use Pro-Q and Pro-C this way. Both of them are capable of handling M and S independently.

+1 all.

Channel tools does it too.

The reason I don't use Ozone, Brainwx, or Channel tools is that I keep the lows tunnel'd center (kick, bass, and vocs)

... and I pan everything else drastically left and right ... and/or Haas them.

(My mixes though are busy compared to most)

Hi Rain,

I'd say pass on it bro. I have it here and though it's cool, I have other things that do a better job with more control. To be honest, this little baby here will give you more control as far as the actual coupling of mono and stereo...as well as the split.

http://www.voxengo.com/product/msed/

And it's free. :) Sometimes when we spread things out, we lose our center and well, when you lose that, the instrument you are working with can sound too separated. For example, let's say we are using a HAAS effect on a guitar. One of the sides of that HAAS will always hit your ears a little faster than the other and it will appear to be louder. A fix for this is to add a plug like the MSED and add some center to it. Not much or you lose the cool thing the HAAS does, but sometimes it's nice to even out what you have going on while maintaining that spread.

For example, if you have heard any of the new Van Halen recently released, Eddie uses the HAAS effect all over that album. Most times it's one guitar playing. However, at times you hear some center going on and it doesn't sound as "favored" so to speak as the conventional HAAS method. Meaning, with a regular HAAS effect, it favors the shortest delay time. Ed's new sound has that, but it's just not spread left and right...it has parts of it that actually sweep across the entire stereo field which makes it sound tighter, yet still big and HAAS oriented.

When you do the HAAS effect, you baiscally get this: (the ((( ))) stands for the size of the sound)

Left Pan((guitar sound))------------Center Pan=nothing-----------((guitar sound))Right Pan

When we add in a little center to that using the MSED plug, you get something like this if done correctly:

Left Pan|((((((((guitar sound)))))))) Center=(((some guitar sound))) ((((((((guitar sound))))))))|Right Pan

Hopefully you've inderstood my little poor attempt at an illustration. LOL! What I'm trying to say is, with the MSED you don't get as much L/R if you use it right and you pick up a little in the center so you gain a little more sound. It's not so spread with nothing in the middle. When you add a little middle you give it some "goirth" as I say in NJ. LOL! (girth=thickness)

The cool thing about the BW plug is the Shred option. It literally warms up the sound a bit, but you could do that with an eq if you needed to. It accentuates 550 Hz. Try it sometime. Add in an eq with a Q of about 4.0 and mess with the gain...and then mess with the shred knob. So they aren't doing anything too fancy there to fool me. :)

The spread thing it does just sounds like a common stereo imager to me. The Sonitus Phase can do the same thing really. Record a mono guitar track...put the BW plug on the track...mess with the spread knob. It won't do anything you'll notice. The reason being, it plays off of the stereo effects that are used. Now add a reverb or a chorus to the sound. Then mess with the spread. Use the Stereo Spread plug in Logic now...you'll hear/see it does the exact same thing. Kill the stereo effects and these spreaders become useless and somewhat phasey. So in reality, you already have what this BW plug can do brother. No need in my opinion. :)

Now, their other plugs like this freakin' thing http://www.brainworx-music.de/en/plugins/bx_digital_v2?PHPSESSID=o7sqnsppmuprfjs5pn6ibsvtd7 total sickness with way more options to mess with. I have their entire suite of plugs and they are quickly becoming some of my faves. They live up to their name though...because each time I mess with one of their plugs, it definitely "Worx my Brain"! :)

-Danny

I've been using a technique that relates to the topic thread for a long time now. When I mix a trio, I almost always separate the bass guitar lows from the bass guitar mids/highs. I keep the lows dead center to use all of the square inches of the listener's woofers, but pan the mids/highs opposite of the guitar to give a feel of balance. When you close your eyes and point to the guitar and bass guitar, the bass seems clearly in one spot despite the separated frequencies. I would probably use this hf widening tool on a guitar that was playing rhythm, and make sure I kept all the other sounds clearly in their places, so the listener can have fun with the sound, and be able to notice it as something different and unusual in the mix. If it's used on too many things, I think the freshness will get lost and it will be harder to tell the instruments apart. And, all that said, it's art - there might be some mushy, blended sound that works for some reason - maybe if it created some intended emotion in the listener...

I'm gonna experiment with notdeafyet's technique. Mixing a power trio is always a challenge - to me, anyway - because the bass, kick and snare all go down the middle. I'm always looking for tricks to add width to those kinds of mixes, such as subtle ping-pong delay on the snare and spreading the upper frequencies from cymbals to the sides. I've never tried any such tricks with bass, though.