Need help mastering this song

[har-bal]

Thanks so much Earle.

I feel a little stupid that I wasn't able to work out the process completely on my own. I am eternally grateful that you took the time to post the detailed instructions that you did.

Now... Time to give it a try!

Cheers!

I tried it on your track and the sound was fabulous. The vocals really came to life.

You can also accomplish this task completely in cubase or Nuendo. As long as you have a program that can phase reverse and flip your stereo track you are in good shape.

Earle

[Mister]

Earle wrote

The LR Thingy

About the resulting file (that is after mixing the original file and its channel swapped/polarity inversed counterpart), is this a different result than a difference signal ie: the "L - R" signal in a Mid-Side encoding (with the Mid component removed, of course)?

Mister

[HarBal]

By mid/side encoding your are refering to mpeg compression strategies, correct?

Mid = (L+R)/2
Side=L-R

Well the resulting stereo track is the same as the side component in mid/side encoding, except that the left channel has R-L and the right channel has L-R.

Paavo.

[zumbido]

Earle,

This " The LR Thingy " is very cool. I just recently tried it on a vocal trio (tenor, alto, soprano) with piano. It really does move the sound out in front of the speakers.

Have you had any concerns if a track, affected this way, is played back in mono?

[HarBal]

Zumbido,

Theoretically it should have no affect on a track played back as mono. That is because the bit your adding (the difference track) is anti-phase left and right. So when you sum the left and right channels together the difference track will cancel out, just as if you had never added it in the first place.

I guess it could be concerning that it doesn't sound very 3d but when is mono 3d like!

Cheers,


Paavo.

[har-bal]

Earle,

This " The LR Thingy " is very cool. I just recently tried it on a vocal trio (tenor, alto, soprano) with piano. It really does move the sound out in front of the speakers.

Have you had any concerns if a track, affected this way, is played back in mono?

Zumbido

Paavo is correct.

It has no negative affect on the track when played back in mono. It is a fantastic technique and when done correctly actually brings the vocals out on top of you and the music seems to just go around you.
I did it for a few clients and they went absolutely bananas
Earle

[zumbido]

This effect is great!

I should've experimented before I posted about any potential mono problems - there aren't any.

As Paavo said, it's ONLY the 'L R Thingy' that is affected, in fact it just dissappears. So there for any problems that show up when monitoring in mono are due to the original stereo track. I always listen to my mixes in mono to check.

I used this effect on a vocal trio with piano and liked it very much. I then tried it on a full-band (pop-rock) and didn't like it.

Next I'll try this effect, within a mix, that is ONLY on the vocals. It should bring them right out and sit them on your lap. Should be especially fantastic if the track has a hottie doing the singing.

[tcatzere]

All you want is the reverb tail of the impulse response convolved with the difference signal. If you can't figure out whether it does let you suppress feedthrough you should be able to get the same effect by feeding the difference signal through the reverb and subtracting the difference signal from the reverb output. Note also that you must have a stereo reverb effect and if it has a crossover impulse response from L ot R and visa versa it must be different from the L to L, R to R case. If it isn't everything will cancel (because left and right are the same but anti-phase) and you'll get nothing on the output.

Paavo.

Paavo,

How did you accomplish this in Audition? Or better yet, Paavo (although I'm a little reluctant to ask), could you provide the entire step-by-step procedure for this whole L-R thing using Adobe Audition (similar to what Earle did for Sound Forge and Nuendo)? Thanks so much.

Tom

[HarBal]

Ok. I'll go through this again and compile a list of instructions for Audition and post it later on today (I don't have Audition on my internet acces machine). As I recall it was a bit convoluted so hopefully it won't take me too long to re-figure it out.

Cheers,


Paavo.

[har-bal]

All you want is the reverb tail of the impulse response convolved with the difference signal. If you can't figure out whether it does let you suppress feedthrough you should be able to get the same effect by feeding the difference signal through the reverb and subtracting the difference signal from the reverb output. Note also that you must have a stereo reverb effect and if it has a crossover impulse response from L ot R and visa versa it must be different from the L to L, R to R case. If it isn't everything will cancel (because left and right are the same but anti-phase) and you'll get nothing on the output.

Paavo.

Paavo,

How did you accomplish this in Audition? Or better yet, Paavo (although I'm a little reluctant to ask), could you provide the entire step-by-step procedure for this whole L-R thing using Adobe Audition (similar to what Earle did for Sound Forge and Nuendo)? Thanks so much.

Tom

Tom

Let us review the steps:

This is done AFTER Har-Bal

1. Start any multitrack editor and open to blank stereo tracks.

2. Import yoursong.wav into each of the tracks (Both tracks should be exactly the same)

3. Lets just work on Track 1

4.We need to "stereo flip" and "reverse phase" this track.

5. You should not need to adjust the volume for this track although sometimes it may be necessary.

6. Export both tracks together as "Stereo Interleaved"

7. Remove the wave file from track 1 and import the newly formed file you had just created.

8. Now you should be adjusting the volume for the first track so that the sound together from track 1 and 2 appears to be coming from outside your speakers.

9. When you are satisfied with the results, export the track as "Stereo Interleaved" and you are done

Cheers

Earle

[tcatzere]

Earle,

Thanks for the guidelines. I had originally addressed this request to Paavo because I knew he used Adobe Audition, and I was hoping that he might be able to outline the specific "tools" and "procedures" to accomplish all of this with Audition. Nonetheless, I really appreciate your input.

Tom

[HarBal]

Ok Tom,

Just re-did it again and here is the Audition how too:

1)In Multitrack view right click on track 1, select "Insert / Wave from from" and select the track your processing.

2) Click on FX for track 1, select "Amplitude / Channel Mixer" click the "add" button, click the "properties" button, check both "Invert" check boxes and then set the sliders to the following:

New left channel 100% R 0% L
New Right channel 100% L 0% R

3) Right click on track 2, select "Insert / Wave from from" and select the track your processing.

4) select "File/Save mixdown as..." . This is your stereo difference track. Lets call it diff.wav.

5) Start a new mutlitrack session, right click on track 1, select "Insert / Wave from from" and select the track your processing. Right click on track 2, select "Insert / Wave from from" and select the diff.wav file just created.

Play the track back and adjust the level of track 2 to taste. Do not exceed 0dB on the slider. I'd suggest trying a level of around -6 to -8dB. You should end up with a stereo image that is wider and more lushious. If not you can add the other step that I talked about in the original response which is to add reverb to the diff.wav track but note that you'll have to use a full stereo reverb because a mono reverb will give you zero output cos L and R tracks are anti-phase.

For those wondering, this is not an original idea of mine. It actually dates back to whoever invented the "stereo wide" trick used in amplifiers and boom boxes from the 70-80's era. Yuo don't see it very often now though. Stereo wide is just the above process with the slider set to 0dB. Having the slider gives you control on how much extra width and ambience you might want.

Cheers,


Paavo.

[tcatzere]

Paavo,

Thank you so very much! I really appreciate your taking the time to prepare and provide this.

In looking at Step 2, I was wondering if the same thing could be accomplished in the "Edit" view by simply going to "Effects" -> "Channel Mixer" -- then selecting the preset "Swap Channels?" -- or maybe it should be "Invert?" Frankly, I'm not sure if we're supposed to be "swapping" or "inverting" (or both) -- or if they're essentially the same ( I would appreciate your clarification on this.) Either way, once that's done, you could do a "Save As" to create a new file. Then, at that point, the file to be processed and the newly created file could be inserted into track 1 and track 2 respectively in the Multitrack view to continue the process as you've indicated. Let me know what you think.

Also, as mentioned above, I would like your comments on the difference between "inverting" and "swpping channels" -- and which should be used.

Thanks again, Paavo.

Tom

[HarBal]

Yes, you could create the swapped and inverted file in the edit view and save ti if you wish, though that would require an extra step as far as I can see. That is why I did it as an amplitude effect in multi-track view.

You have to do both channel swapping and inverting. If you only do one or the other then it wont result in a stereo difference track. You need to do the inversion on the L-R swapped track to get the correct phasing when mixing back together. If it is wrong then your stereo image won't widen. From my understanding of the effect, it widens the image because you have an anti-phase component of L in R and visa versa. The phase anomally between the same components in eahc speaker pushes the image wider and the brain interprets the sound as coming from the side that is loudest. You can do a similar thing with a single track in a multitrack recording just by panning the track hard left and then adding a small amount of the inverse of that track to right. The result is a sound that should sound "lefter than left".

Cheers,


Paavo.

[tcatzere]

You have to do both channel swapping and inverting. If you only do one or the other then it wont result in a stereo difference track. You need to do the inversion on the L-R swapped track to get the correct phasing when mixing back together.

Paavo.

Paavo,

Regarding the inversion . . . does this mean that you "invert" only one of the channels -- and not both channels?

Tom