bitflipper


Yes, I was mistaken. I misinterpreted the straight line in the vectorscope as meaning "mono". Which would have been correct, had the straight line been vertical rather than horizontal! Duh.

It did strike me as something like that.

I wasn't meaning to come across as cranky but what you were saying didn't add up against the L+R=Mid and L-R=Side equation.

Here's the recipe if you don't want to use a sledgehammer like Ozone to crack a simple nut.

1/ Create a blank project create one Audio Track for your stereo file.

2/ Route that track to a bus called 'Split', on this 'Split' bus insert an instance of MSED set it to Encode mode, pull the bus fader all the way down and set the output to 'None'.

3/ Create a send on this bus to a new bus which you can call 'Mid' pan the Send 100% left.  Create another Send to another new bus this time call it 'Side' pan the send 100% right and set both sends as pre-fade.

4/ Route both the 'Mid' and 'Side' outputs to yet another new bus called 'Merge'.  Put another instance of MSED in the FX bin on this bus again set to 'Decode' which will re-combine both signals.

From this template you can then import any stereo wav into the project and mute either the mid or side components, you can also perform any processing you like on the 'Mid' and 'Side' busses independently.

Just, make sure that the stereo interleave button is on throughout the signal chain otherwise the encoding/decoding won't work.

5 minutes to set up and you'll end up with a template to do your side listening (just mute the mid bus) or experiment with M/S processing techniques.

Thanks Jon, works like a charm!

"Jonbouy"
5 minutes to set up and you'll end up with a template to do your side listening (just mute the mid bus) or experiment with M/S processing techniques.

Ok hotshot, imma put that 5 minutes to the test. 

"Jonbouy"
Don't forget the mid equation is L+R which will result in 6db of gain.

Noticed the same here. I have to say that I am impressed with this method Jon. Have been analyzing some of Adele's tunes and it's quite revealing. A big thank you goes out to Bitflipper for bringing this up and Jon for the methodology on how to go about it. This is sweet... big time!

Yeah, if you are just listening then it's easy enough just to drop channel tools in the fx bin of the track and turn the mid-gain down.

The point of the template is so you can experiment once you've split the component parts.

Well I'm not hearing a major difference between the 2 methods, but have adjusted my template with MSED (which I already had). Soloing the "Side" buss is where there's a slight noticeable difference. Does this sound right?

It may also be a good opportunity to mention the famous "silent bus" warning and how to suppress it.

--> Preferences | Initialization file, add a variable called WarnSilentBuses and set it to 0.

alexoosthoek


Hope you learn from it

Anyway this thingy does a lot of good to my room-recordings!

Yep the excercise here really is to be able to split channel routings to access them indepenently before recombining.  There are many uses for doing it that don't involve mid-side also.

@Alegria

Make sure the first instance of MSED 'Split' is set to ENCODE mode, and the last one 'Merge' is set to DECODE.

MSED handles the gain internally so you don't have to worry about the gain changes at conversion time.

Yes I should have mentioned the WarnSilentBuses variable but I leave mine on set to warn so as I'm reminded that I'm using Silent buses deliberately or that I've created one without paying attention.

I did an experiment with MSED on a reverb bus and muting/lowering the Mid. My theory was that if reverbs spread reflections across the panorama, I could filter out all but those at the outer edges, taking the reverb out of the center. I imagined that it would clarify the vocal while adding a spacious effect.

Sounds good in theory. In practice, it just made the reverb sound thin. Might be worth further experimentation, though, altering the M/S balance on sub-busses for effect. If, for example, you wanted to remove all the kick drum from a stereo drum mix in order to replace it with a sampled kick.

bitflipper


I did an experiment with MSED on a reverb bus and muting/lowering the Mid. My theory was that if reverbs spread reflections across the panorama, I could filter out all but those at the outer edges, taking the reverb out of the center. I imagined that it would clarify the vocal while adding a spacious effect.

Sounds good in theory. In practice, it just made the reverb sound thin. Might be worth further experimentation, though, altering the M/S balance on sub-busses for effect. If, for example, you wanted to remove all the kick drum from a stereo drum mix in order to replace it with a sampled kick.

Trouble is I've found with increasing the ratio of 'Side' to 'Mid' (turning the mid down or increasing the side) is that the width will increase but at the expense of any depth, as you found.

It tends to work much better reducing the 'Side' component especially if you've got too much ambience from the room and want to bring more focus to the real action.  Adding to the side is a surefire way of wrecking mono compatibilty with very little effort.

Slight compression deviations between 'Mid' and 'Side' are worth playing with too as are eq say some LMF removal and some added air to the 'Side' and some more weight on the bottom of the 'Mid' portion for example.  Keep an eye on any added gain though so as not to disrupt the balance between the two elements.

If you are using any kind of spatial fx chorus, verbs etc. using the bus split method it's worth panning the mid hard left and the side hard right on the buses so as not to get any cross-talk between the two elements.

Those are just some guidlines I've found out by playing around but there are no limits to having fun.  And you shouldn't limit yourself to mixes either as you can get really creative with individual stereo instruments/sounds.

As a technique it's not a magic bullet by any means but it's another useful option for the toolbox, and the advantage of the split bus technique is that you get exactly the same control over your elements as you would if you'd used the Mid/Side micing technique and you can use all your favourite plugs instead of investing in a bunch of specialist M/S ones.

 Great stuff guys, thanks for sharing.